The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 29 – Part 6

Guo Jing dug his feet in and used the Thousand-Jin Drop¹ to plant himself firmly on the rock. He stood unmoving, held his breath and stilled his breathing, then reached beneath the great stone where the strange fish had fled and heaved upward with all his might. The boulder rocked ever so slightly. His heart leapt for joy, and with a move from the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing² called “Or Leap in the Abyss”,³ he thrust both palms violently upward. The water roared, and the enormous rock actually lifted. He changed moves with extraordinary speed. The moment the boulder rose, he drove sideways with “Dragon Appears in the Field”,⁴ and the great stone, assailed by the force of the water and the force of his palms combined, scraped past him and tumbled, rumbling and crashing, into the deep pool below. The sound reverberated through the valley, booming and echoing for a long, long time.

Holding his hands high, a golden salamander⁵ gripped in each, he came step by step up out of the waterfall.

Day and night the cascade had hammered down, and over the long years it had cut a channel in the rock some twenty feet deep. Seeing Guo Jing standing at the bottom of the trench, where he could never jump clear, the fisherman lowered an iron oar for him to grip so that he could haul him up. But Guo Jing held the strange fish in his hands and feared that if he loosened his grasp even for a moment they would slip away and escape. On the riverbed he gathered his concentration, drew up his breath and pushed off with his right foot, and his body shot suddenly up out of the waterfall. His left foot braced against the lip of the channel, and borrowing the momentum he sprang clear onto the bank.

Huang Rong had not imagined his neili had advanced so far. She watched him stand firm beneath the water, lift the boulder, hold his breath and catch the fish, treating the tremendous force of the cascade as though it were nothing. She was astonished and overjoyed. In truth, Guo Jing had risked his life to save Huang Rong, and now that he was back on shore and turned to see the waterfall thundering away, spray flying in all directions, he felt his eyes swim and his heart pound. He could hardly believe that he had truly possessed the courage to plunge in. The fisherman was more amazed and admiring still. He knew that unless a man’s breath control, qinggong and external skills had all reached the highest level, far from catching fish, he would have been swept by the waterfall into the deep pool below the moment he entered the water.

The two golden salamanders writhed and struggled in Guo Jing’s palms, crying wa-wa like infants. Guo Jing laughed, “No wonder they’re called baby fish. They really do cry like little children.” He held them out to the fisherman.

The fisherman’s face lit up with delight. He set down his iron oar and was about to take them when he checked himself and drew his hand back. “Throw them back in the water. I can’t accept them.”

Guo Jing was puzzled. “Why?”

The fisherman said, “Even if I take the golden salamanders, I still cannot lead you to see my shifu. To accept a favour and offer nothing in return, would that not make me a laughing-stock to the heroes of the world?”

Guo Jing was taken aback. He said gravely, “If you are set on not taking us, Uncle, you must have good reason. How could I presume to press you? A pair of fish is hardly a favour worth speaking of. Please, Uncle, take them!” He held the fish out to the fisherman. The man took them, but his expression showed that he was far from easy about it.

Guo Jing turned to Huang Rong. “Rong-er, the saying goes that life and death are decreed by fate, and the span of years is beyond reckoning. If your injury truly cannot be healed, then on the road to the underworld your Jing gege will still carry you on his back. And that will be that. Let’s go!” His mind was made up, and he spoke with iron finality. Having spoken his heart, he felt a lightness. How Huang Rong lived or died no longer troubled him so much. They would live together or die together, that was all.

Huang Rong heard the sincerity in his words and could not help her eyes reddening. But she already had a plan in mind. She said to the fisherman, “Uncle, since you will not show us the way, so be it. But there is one thing I do not understand. If you will not tell me, I shall never close my eyes in death.”

The fisherman asked, “What is it?”

Huang Rong said, “This mountain is smooth as a mirror, with no path up. If you were willing to take us to the summit, what method would you use?”

The fisherman thought, Without my help they could never get up the mountain in the end, so there is no harm in telling them. He said, “It is difficult, yet it can also be very easy. The water rounds the bend of the mountain to the right and is no longer a waterfall but a rushing torrent. I sit in this iron boat and work the iron oars, and drive it upstream against the current. One trip carries one person, two trips carry two.”

Huang Rong said, “Ah, so that is how it is. Farewell!” She rose to her feet, leaned on Guo Jing, and turned to go. Guo Jing cupped his fists and said nothing more. The fisherman, seeing the two of them descending the mountain, was afraid the golden salamanders would escape. He called out his thanks and ran to his thatched hut to stow them safely.

Huang Rong said, “Quick, grab the iron boat and the oars, round the headland and take to the water!”

Guo Jing started. “This… this isn’t quite proper, is it?”

Huang Rong said, “Fine. If you want to be a junzi, then be a junzi!”

He thought, Which matters more, saving Rong-er or being an upright junzi? In a single instant the question flashed through his mind again and again, and for a moment he could not decide. But Huang Rong was already hurrying on up the slope, and there was no time left to weigh it. Hardly knowing what he did, he lifted the iron boat, dashed round the headland, cried “Up!” and hurled it with all his strength into the stream above the waterfall.

The moment the iron boat left his hands, he snatched up the iron oar, tucked it under his left arm, and cradled Huang Rong in his right. The iron boat was already sweeping towards them with the current. At the same instant he heard the whistle of a hidden weapon behind his ear. He ducked to let it pass, then leapt forward, and the two of them landed in the boat together. One of the weapons struck Huang Rong in the middle of the back, but was deflected by the Soft Hedgehog Armour⁶ wrapped inside her pack.

The roar of the water filled the air. The fisherman was bellowing in fury, though what he was shouting they could not make out. The current was carrying the iron boat towards the lip of the rock, and if it were swept over the edge, the sheer drop would dash them to pieces. Guo Jing swung out the oar in his left hand and heaved, and at once the boat moved several feet upstream. He put Huang Rong down, seized the oar again, and pulled once more. The boat clawed another few feet upstream.

The fisherman stood by the water, pointing and cursing. Through the wind and the roar they caught snatches of “Stinking little wench!” and “Worthless slut!” Huang Rong giggled. “He still thinks you’re a good man. He’s cursing only me.”

Guo Jing was wholly absorbed in rowing and did not hear a word she said. He bent his back to the oar, fighting the torrent. The iron boat rode with its nose up, breasting the waves. Though the current here was not as violent as the waterfall, it was still fierce. Guo Jing rowed until his face was red and his breath came short. More than once he nearly lost ground and was swept backwards. Then, when the flow eased a little, he grasped a new way of using the oar. Employing the mind-method of Ambidextrous Self-Combat,⁷ he made each hand work the move “Divine Dragon Sweeps Its Tail.”⁸ Every stroke carried the full, overwhelming force of the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing, the palm-power running straight through to the tip of the oar. Left stroke, “Divine Dragon Sweeps Its Tail.” Right stroke, “Divine Dragon Sweeps Its Tail.” The iron boat surged forward as though it were drifting with the current.

Huang Rong cried admiringly, “Even that wretched fisherman couldn’t row this fast!”

They travelled on, past two more rapids. The stream bent, and the scene before them was like a painting. A clear stream babbled gently, winding its way upward. The stream lengthened, and though the current still ran down, it was no longer urgent. The waterway was some ten feet wide, with weeping willows dipping on either side, and between the green willows countless peach trees. In spring, when the blossoms were out, it must be a brocade of colour, dazzling in its splendour. Though there were no peach flowers now, white blossoms grew in thick clusters along the water’s edge, their fragrance rich and heady. Jing and Rong felt their hearts expand and their spirits lighten. They had not imagined that atop so high a mountain there lay another world entirely. The stream was green as jade and so deep they could not see the bottom. Guo Jing gripped the top of the oar-handle and let the iron shaft hang vertically, meaning to sound the depth of the stream. Suddenly a great force struck from below. He had not been expecting it, and the oar nearly wrenched from his grasp. A submerged current was surging downwards. He steadied both oars and resumed rowing, and found he no longer needed so much effort.

The iron boat drifted slowly forward. Among the green willows, birds sang. Huang Rong sighed. “If my injury does not heal, I would be content to be buried right here and go no further.”

Guo Jing was about to speak words of comfort when the iron boat slid suddenly into a mountain cave. The fragrance inside was even thicker, and the current ran swift again. A continuous hissing filled their ears.

Guo Jing said, “What is that sound?”

Huang Rong shook her head. “I don’t know either.”

Suddenly all was bright. The iron boat had come out of the cave, and both of them cried out together, “Beautiful!” Beyond the cave lay an immense fountain. It rose over twenty feet, a spray of snow and splashing jade. Two great columns of water jetted straight up from holes in the rock, high into the air. The hissing came from the fountain itself. The stream ended here. This fountain, plainly, was the source of the stream and waterfall below.

Guo Jing helped Huang Rong ashore, hauled the iron boat up onto the rock, and placed the oars inside. He turned back. In the sunlight the water-columns threw up a blindingly brilliant rainbow. Before such a sight, even if they had a hundred words of praise, none seemed equal to it. They sat side by side on the rock, hand in hand, their minds clear and still. They gazed for a long while. Then, from behind the rainbow, a voice came singing.

The song was to the tune of Shanpoyang:⁹

“Cities and walls crumble, where are the heroes now? Cloud and dragon, how many times have they changed places? Think of rise and fall, and sorrow fills the breast. The Tang had barely risen when the Sui fell, the ways of the world shift like the turning of clouds. Swift, Heaven and Earth have erred! Slow, Heaven and Earth have erred!”

The Shanpoyang tune had circulated among the common people since the Tang and Song dynasties, sung everywhere. The melody was always the same, but the words were made anew by each singer. There were not hundreds but thousands of variants, though most were vulgar in their language. Hearing a song that lamented the rise and fall of the world with such depth of meaning, Huang Rong silently applauded it. She saw the singer step out from behind the rainbow. In his left hand he carried a bundle of pine firewood, and in his right, an axe. He was a woodcutter.

Huang Rong at once recalled the note from Yinggu:¹⁰ “To say you have come for healing is to break his gravest taboo. Before you reach his hall, you will first fall victim to the deadly hands of the Fisherman, the Woodcutter, the Farmer and the Scholar.” At the time she had not understood what those four words meant, but thinking on it now, the man who caught the golden salamanders was a fisherman, and here was a woodcutter. The Fisherman, Woodcutter, Farmer, and Scholar¹¹ must be four disciples or trusted followers of Emperor Duan. She began to worry, and thought, Getting past the fisherman was hard enough. This woodcutter’s song is no ordinary thing. He is plainly not easy to deal with. And the farmer and the scholar, what manner of men are they?

The woodcutter sang again:

“On Tianjin Bridge I lean on the rail and gaze afar, the kingly air of Chunling has all faded away. Trees grey, grey, water vast, vast. From the Cloud Terrace no general of restoration looks down, in a turn of the head, a thousand years pass to ruin. Merit, it does not last! Fame, it does not last!”

He drew slowly closer and glanced casually at Jing and Rong as though they were not there, then raised his axe and began to chop wood at the mountainside. Huang Rong saw that his face was bold and strong and his air fierce as a tiger’s, and every movement of his hands and feet had the commanding presence of a great general. Had he not been dressed in rough homespun and chopping wood in these mountains, she would have taken him for a commander whose battle cry could stir the winds and clouds. Something stirred in her mind, and she thought, The Southern Emperor, Emperor Duan, was emperor of the Dali Kingdom in Yunnan. Could this woodcutter be a fierce general from his court? Yet the words of his song are so full of melancholy. Why? She listened as he sang on:

“The peaks crowd together, the waves boil as if in rage, the mountains and the river guard the road to Tong Pass. I gaze towards the Western Capital, my heart unquiet. I grieve for the Qin and Han where once I passed, ten thousand palaces have all become dust. Rise, and the people suffer! Fall, and the people suffer!”

At those last two lines Huang Rong thought of her father, who often said, “Emperors and ministers, all of them, they are plagues upon the people. Dynasties rise and fall, and only the common folk pay the price!” She could not help crying out, “A fine song!”

The woodcutter turned, thrust his axe into his belt, and asked, “Fine? What is fine about it?”

Huang Rong was about to answer when she thought, He loves to sing. I’ll sing him a Shanpoyang in reply. She smiled faintly. She remembered the song the old man had sung the previous evening, and lowered her head and sang:

“Green hills my companion, white cloud my love, No dreams of purple robe or golden sash. A thatched hut, wild flowers bloom, What care I who rises or falls, who succeeds or fails? A mean lane, a basket, a gourd, and joy is here. Poor, my spirit stands like a mountain! Risen high, my will stands like a mountain!”

She had guessed that this woodcutter was a general who had retired with Emperor Duan, a man who had once held the military tallies and been glorious in his day. So the song she sang praised the joy of casting aside rank and fortune for a life among the mountains and forests. Clever as she was, she was no scholar. How could she compose so fine a verse in a few moments? What she did was take the old man’s song from the night before, whose last two lines had been “Morning, I face the green mountains! Evening, I face the green mountains!”, and change a few words to honour what the woodcutter had achieved in his days of wealth and rank. But her injury had left her short of breath, and her voice was rather faint.

As the saying goes, “A thousand things may fail, but flattery never does!” The little song pleased the woodcutter mightily. He saw that Jing and Rong had come up the stream in the iron boat with its iron oars, and supposed the fisherman below must have lent them. In his high good humour he asked no more questions. He pointed towards the mountainside. “Go on up, then!” They looked to where he pointed. A long vine, as thick as a man’s arm, ran up the face of the peak. Jing and Rong gazed up and saw that the upper half of the mountain was lost in cloud and mist. They could not tell how high the summit might be.

Of the songs the two had sung, Guo Jing had not understood half. He could not fathom why the woodcutter was letting them go up, and was afraid the man would change his mind again. He said loudly, “Many thanks, Uncle!” He hoisted Huang Rong onto his back, drew his golden dao, cut a length of the thinner green vine, and bound Huang Rong tightly to himself. Then he gripped the long vine with both hands, drew up his breath and began to climb. His arms worked alternately, and he ascended swiftly. In moments he was over a hundred feet above the ground. Faintly he could hear the woodcutter singing again, something about ”…Where now are the struggles of those days? Win, all turn to dust! Lose, all turn to dust!”

Huang Rong, lying on his back, laughed. “Jing gege, if you listen to him, we needn’t bother seeking a doctor at all.”

Guo Jing was bewildered. “What do you mean?”

Huang Rong said, “Everyone dies in the end. If they cure me, I turn to dust! If they don’t cure me, I turn to dust!”

Guo Jing said, “Bah, don’t listen to him.”

Huang Rong sang softly, “Alive, you carry me on your back! Dead, you carry me on your back!”

Guo Jing said loudly, “Right, alive or dead, I will always carry you!”

Huang Rong said, “Jing gege, since you say you’ll carry me on the road to the underworld too, I’m not so very afraid of dying any more!”

Footnotes

1. 千斤坠 — qiān jīn zhuì. Literally thousand-jin drop. A rooting technique that sinks the body’s weight so it cannot be moved or thrown. ↩

2. 降龙十八掌 — Xiánglóng Shíbā Zhǎng. Literally eighteen dragon-subduing palms. Hong Qigong’s palm technique. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 或跃在渊 — Huò Yuè Zài Yuān. Literally now leaping, now in the abyss, from the Qian hexagram of the Book of Changes. A move of the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 见龙在田 — Xiàn Lóng Zài Tián. Literally the dragon appears in the field. A move of the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing, named from a line of the Book of Changes. ↩

5. 金娃娃 — jīn wáwa. Literally golden baby. A golden giant salamander, which is called 娃娃鱼 (wáwayú), baby fish, because its cry sounds like a baby’s. ↩

6. 软猬甲 — Ruǎnwèijiǎ. A vest set with tiny barbs, proof against blades and fists, treasured on Peach Blossom Island. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 双手互搏 — Shuāngshǒu Hùbó. Fighting technique where both hands operate independently, allowing each hand to perform different techniques simultaneously. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 神龙摆尾 — Shénlóng Bǎi Wěi. Literally divine dragon swings its tail. A move of the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing. ↩

9. 山坡羊 — Shānpō Yáng. Literally goat on the hillside. A traditional song tune (qupai), popular from the Yuan dynasty onwards. ↩

10. 瑛姑 — Yīnggū. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 渔樵耕读 — Yú Qiáo Gēng Dú. Literally fisherman, woodcutter, farmer and scholar. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩