The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 30 – Part 3

Great Master Yideng asked, “Child, how were you injured, and how did you find your way here? Take your time and tell Uncle all about it.” Huang Rong dried her tears and told him how she had mistaken Qiu Qianren for Qiu Qianzhang,¹ and how she had taken the full push of both his palms. When Yideng heard the name of Iron Palm Qiu Qianren, his brows drew together slightly, but he was soon listening again, calm and composed. Throughout her account, Huang Rong watched his expression closely. He had knitted his brows only a little, but it did not escape her. When she came to the black marsh in the forest and how she had met Yinggu,² who had directed her to seek an audience here, Yideng’s countenance darkened once more for a fleeting moment, as though some grievous memory had surfaced. Huang Rong fell silent.

After a pause, Yideng sighed and asked, “And then?”

Huang Rong went on to tell of all the obstacles the fisherman, woodcutter, farmer and scholar had put in their way. The woodcutter had let them come up easily, and she praised him warmly, but against the other three she laid complaint after complaint, with plenty of spice added, until the scholar and the farmer looked angrier than ever. Several times Guo Jing broke in, “Rong-er, don’t make things up. Uncle wasn’t that fierce!” But she was playing the spoilt child before Yideng and blowing everything up, so that as the two disciples behind him listened, their faces went red and then pale by turns. With their shifu present, they dared not say a word.

Great Master Yideng nodded repeatedly. “Tsk. Is that any way to treat guests from afar? These boys of mine have been very rude to their friends. Later I shall have them apologise to you both.”

Huang Rong shot a glance at the scholar and the farmer, looking extremely pleased with herself. She kept talking without pause, going on until she described how they had entered the temple gate. “Then I showed that painting to you, and you told me to come in. Only then did they stop barring the way.”

Yideng asked in surprise, “What painting?”

“The one with the hawk and the dove and the cutting of flesh.”

“Who did you give it to?”

Before Huang Rong could answer, the scholar drew it from his robe and held it out with both hands. “I have it here. Shifu was still in meditation just now, so I have not yet presented it to you.”

Yideng reached out and took it. He smiled at Huang Rong. “You see. If you hadn’t told me, I’d never have seen it.” Slowly he unfolded the painting, and with a single glance understood its meaning. He laughed. “So someone feared I might refuse to save you, and sent this picture to provoke me. Do they take this old monk so lightly?”

Huang Rong turned her head and saw the scholar and the farmer looking anxious and concerned. Deeply puzzled, she thought, Why do they look as if their shifu’s promise to heal me will cost them their very lives? Is the medicine some priceless elixir they cannot bear to part with?

She turned back and saw Yideng studying the painting closely. He held it up to the sunlight to examine the paper, flicked it lightly with his finger, and his expression grew doubtful. He said to Huang Rong, “Did Yinggu paint this?”

“Yes.”

Yideng pondered for a long while, then asked again, “Did you see her paint it with your own eyes?”

Huang Rong suspected there was something amiss. She recalled the scene and said, “When Yinggu was writing, she had her back to us. I saw her brush moving, but I did not actually see her paint the picture.”

Yideng said, “You said there were two cloth pouches as well. Let me see the letters inside them.”

Guo Jing took them out. Yideng examined them and his expression changed. He murmured, “So it is.”

He handed all three letters to Huang Rong. “Brother Yao is a master of calligraphy and painting. Your family learning runs deep, and you must know how to judge such things. Look at these three letters and tell me what differs between them.”

Huang Rong took them and looked. “Two of these letters are on ordinary jade-plate paper,³ but the painting is on old cocoon paper, which has always been very rare.”

Yideng nodded. “I am no expert in painting and calligraphy. How would you judge the skill in this picture?”

Huang Rong studied it carefully, then smiled. “Uncle still pretends to be a layman! You already saw this wasn’t painted by Yinggu, didn’t you?”

Yideng’s expression shifted slightly. “So it truly wasn’t her work? I was merely reasoning from the circumstances, not seeing it in the painting itself.”

Huang Rong took his arm. “Look, Uncle. The writing on these two letters is soft and delicate, but the brushwork of the painting is lean and hard as can be. Hm, this picture was painted by a man. Yes, it is certainly a man’s hand. Whoever he is, he has no training in painting at all, and knows nothing of composition or how to draw feathers, yet the brush-force is deep and powerful, right through to the back of the paper… And the ink is very old indeed. I daresay it’s older than I am.”

Yideng sighed and pointed to a sutra on a bamboo table, gesturing for the scholar to bring it. The scholar fetched it and placed it in his shifu’s hands. Huang Rong saw three lines on the yellow label of the cover: Treatise on Great Adornment, composed by the Bodhisattva Ashvaghosha,⁴ translated by the Tripitaka Master Kumarajiva⁵ of Kucha in the Western Regions. She thought, If he starts lecturing me on sutras, I haven’t the first idea.

Yideng opened the sutra at random and laid the painting beside it. “Look.”

Huang Rong gave a low cry. “The paper is the same.”

Yideng nodded.

Guo Jing did not understand and asked in a low voice, “What do you mean, the paper is the same?”

“Compare them carefully. Isn’t the paper of this sutra exactly the same as the paper of the painting?”

Guo Jing looked closely and saw that indeed the sutra’s paper was coarse and thick, streaked with fine yellow threads, just like the painting. “They really are the same. So what?”

Huang Rong did not answer but looked to Yideng for the explanation.

Great Master Yideng said, “This sutra was brought from the Western Regions by my shidi⁶ and given to me.”

Since they had begun speaking with Yideng, neither Guo Jing nor Huang Rong had paid much attention to the Sindhu monk.⁷ Now both turned to look at him. He sat cross-legged on a rush cushion, seeming not to hear any of their conversation.

Yideng went on, “This sutra was written on paper from the Western Regions. This painting is also on paper from the Western Regions. Have you heard of White Camel Mountain in the Western Regions?”

Huang Rong cried in alarm, “The Western Venom, Ouyang Feng?”

Yideng nodded slowly. “Indeed. This painting was drawn by Ouyang Feng.”

At these words, both Guo Jing and Huang Rong were stunned and could not speak for a moment.

Yideng smiled faintly. “Layman Ouyang has been plotting long and looking far ahead indeed.”

Huang Rong said, “Uncle, I didn’t know this painting was by that Old Venom.⁸ The man certainly bears no good intent.”

Yideng smiled. “To set such store by one copy of the Nine Yin Manual.⁹”

“Is this painting connected to the Nine Yin Manual?”

Yideng saw that in her excitement and shock her cheeks had flushed. She was in truth utterly spent, holding herself up only by forcing her neili¹⁰ to sustain her. He reached out and steadied her right arm. “We shall speak of that later. First we must tend to your injuries.” He supported her and walked slowly towards a side room. As they neared the door, the scholar and the farmer suddenly exchanged a glance, darted ahead and knelt together in the doorway. “Shifu, let us treat the young lady.”

Yideng shook his head. “Is your neili equal to it? Can you heal her?”

“We will do our best.”

Yideng’s expression darkened. “A human life is at stake. Is that something to try your hand at lightly?”

The scholar said, “These two were sent here at a villain’s bidding, and they mean no good. Shifu, compassionate as you are, you must not fall into a villain’s poisonous trap.”

Yideng sighed. “What have I taught you all these years? Take this painting and look at it properly.” He handed it to him.

The farmer kowtowed. “This painting was drawn by the Western Venom. Shifu, it is Ouyang Feng’s vicious scheme.” He was frantic, tears streaming down his face.

Guo Jing and Huang Rong were both utterly bewildered, and thought, Why should healing an injury matter so much?

Yideng said softly, “Rise, rise. Do not make our guests uneasy.” His tone was gentle, but his words left no room for argument. The two disciples knew further entreaty was pointless and rose with downcast heads.

Yideng supported Huang Rong into the side room and beckoned Guo Jing. “You come too.” Guo Jing followed inside. Yideng let down a bamboo curtain that had been rolled above the door, lit a stick of incense, and placed it in a censer on the bamboo table.

The room was bare save for the table and three rush cushions on the floor. Yideng told Huang Rong to sit on the middle cushion, then settled himself cross-legged on the cushion beside her. He glanced at the bamboo curtain and said to Guo Jing, “Guard the door. Let no one in, even if they are my own disciples.”

Guo Jing assented.

Yideng closed his eyes, then suddenly opened them again. “If they try to force their way in, you may use force. Your shimei’s life is at stake. This matters, it matters greatly.”

Guo Jing said, “Yes!” More puzzled than ever, he thought, Your disciples hold you in such awe. How would they dare defy you and force their way in?

Yideng turned to Huang Rong. “Relax every part of your body. No matter what pain or strange sensation you feel, you must on no account circulate your neili to resist it.”

Huang Rong laughed. “I shall simply pretend I am already dead.”

Yideng smiled. “What a clever girl you are.”

He closed his eyes and lowered his brows, entering meditation and circulating his neili. When the incense stick had burned down an inch or so, he leapt up abruptly, his left palm pressed to his chest, his right hand extending the index finger, and slowly pressed it towards the Baihui acupoint¹¹ at the crown of her head. Huang Rong’s whole body twitched involuntarily. She felt a wave of heat pour down from the top of her skull.

Yideng withdrew his finger at once. He did not move his body, yet his second finger had already struck the Houding acupoint,¹² an inch and a half behind Baihui, then Qiangjian, Naohu, Fengfu, Dazhui, Taodao, Shenzhu, Shendao and Lingtai, working his way down in sequence. By the time the incense stick had burned about halfway, he had pressed all thirty great acupoints of the Du Mai¹³ in order.

Guo Jing’s martial prowess and understanding were by now far beyond what they had once been. Standing to one side, he watched Yideng’s fingers move with easy grace, his arm withdrawing with a light and airy flourish. In pressing those thirty great acupoints, he had used thirty different techniques, each broad in scope and distinct in character. The Six Eccentrics of Jiangnan had never taught him such methods, nor were they recorded in the Acupoint-Sealing Chapter of the Nine Yin Manual. It was altogether beyond anything he had seen or heard, and he watched dazzled and dumbstruck, his mouth agape. He thought this must be the One Yang Finger¹⁴ that had made the Southern Emperor famous throughout the land. He assumed Yideng was simply displaying martial arts of the highest order. How could he guess that Yideng was spending the neili of a whole lifetime to open every one of Huang Rong’s extraordinary meridians?

When the Du Mai was done, Yideng sat down to rest. Guo Jing replaced the incense stick. Yideng sprang up again and began on the twenty-five great acupoints of the Ren Mai,¹⁵ this time using swift techniques. His arm trembled like a dragonfly dipping water, and before a single breath had passed, all the acupoints of the Ren Mai were done. Though the twenty-five strokes were swift as lightning, each finger landed without the slightest deviation. Guo Jing, lost in awe and wonder, thought, Ah, that such skill should exist under heaven!

When he came to the fourteen acupoints of the Yin Wei Mai,¹⁶ the methods changed again. Yideng moved with the stately stride of dragon and tiger, his bearing majestic and awesome. Though he wore a monk’s kasaya, in Guo Jing’s eyes he looked nothing like a monk who had taken refuge in the Triple Jewel. He was an emperor reigning over the myriad people. When the Yin Wei Mai was done, Yideng did not pause but went straight on to the thirty-two acupoints of the Yang Wei Mai.¹⁷ This time he pressed from a distance. He stood well over ten feet from Huang Rong, then in a flash closed in and struck the Fengchi acupoint at her neck. The moment his finger touched, he was already gone, swift beyond measure.

Footnotes

1. 裘千仞、裘千丈 — Qiú Qiānrèn, Qiú Qiānzhàng. Their names meaning “Thousand Ren” and “Thousand Zhang”, both measures of height. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 瑛姑 — Yīnggū. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 玉版纸 — yùbǎn zhǐ. Literally jade-plate paper. A fine paper named for its smooth, jade-like surface. ↩

4. 马鸣菩萨 — Mǎmíng Púsà. The Bodhisattva Ashvaghosha (c. 1st—2nd century CE), Buddhist philosopher and poet of ancient India. ↩

5. 鸠摩罗什 — Jiūmóluóshí. Kumarajiva (344—413), the great Buddhist translator from Kucha who rendered hundreds of sutras into Chinese. ↩

6. 师弟 — shīdì. Male junior. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Dì means younger brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 天竺僧人 — Tiānzhú sēngrén. Literally monk of Tianzhu, the old name for India. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 老毒物 — lǎo dúwù. Literally old venomous thing. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 九阴真经 — Jiǔyīn Zhēnjīng. Literally true scripture of the nine yin. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 内力 — nèilì. Literally internal force. The kinetic manifestation of cultivated qi. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 百会穴 — Bǎihuì xué. Literally hundred meetings. An acupoint at the crown of the head, where all the yang meridians converge. ↩

12. 后顶穴 — Hòudǐng xué. Literally rear vertex point. An acupoint on the crown of the head, behind Baihui. ↩

13. 督脉 — Dū Mài. Literally governing vessel. One of the eight extraordinary meridians, running up the spine and governing the yang meridians. ↩

14. 一阳指 — Yīyáng Zhǐ. The finger art of the Duan family of Dali. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 任脉 — Rèn Mài. The Ren Meridian, or Conception Vessel, one of the eight extraordinary meridians, running along the front midline of the body. ↩

16. 阴维脉 — Yīnwéi Mài. Literally yin linking channel. One of the Eight Extraordinary Meridians. ↩

17. 阳维脉 — Yángwéimài. Literally yang linking vessel. One of the eight extraordinary meridians. ↩