The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 31 – Part 4

It was the hour of you,¹ and the sun was sinking slowly behind the mountain. The mountain wind blew cool and strong, setting the rows of palms before the meditation court swaying and the withered leaves of the spent lotuses rustling in the pond. The last of the sunset shone from behind the peak and threw its shadow across the ground like some enormous monstrous man lying on his side.

The fisherman, the woodcutter, the farmer and the scholar sat cross-legged on the ground at the end of the stone beam, their eyes wide, staring ahead, each of them uneasy at heart. They waited a long time. The sky slowly darkened. A few crows cawed hoarsely and flew one after another down into the valley below, where a white mist was rising, yet still no one appeared round the bend of the cliff at the far end of the stone beam.

The fisherman thought, If only Consort Liu has had a sudden change of heart, seen that none of this can be laid at Shifu’s door, and reined in at the cliff’s edge, never to come at all. The woodcutter thought, This Consort Liu is sly and clever. She must be up to some trick. The farmer, the most impatient of them, thought, The sooner she comes, the sooner it’s settled. Disaster or blessing, good or bad, at least we’ll know where we stand. Saying she’ll come and then not coming, it’s enough to drive a man mad. But the scholar thought, The later she comes, the more dangerous it is, and the harder this will be to end well. He was a man of many stratagems who had held office in Dali for years and seen every great battle and crisis, yet now he was so agitated, his thoughts surging this way and that, that he could not come up with a single idea. All around was pitch black, and from far off came the faint hoot of owls. A sudden chill ran down his back, and he thought, Can it be that Shifu truly cannot escape this ordeal, and must die at this woman’s hands?

He had got no further when the woodcutter gave a low cry, his voice shaking. “She’s coming!” They looked up and saw a dark figure flying towards them along the stone beam, skimming lightly over the gaps as though it cost no effort at all. The four were astounded at how far her martial arts had come on. As the figure drew nearer, they rose to their feet and took up places on either side. In a flash it had crossed the stone beam. She was dressed all in black, and her face could just be made out. It was Consort Liu, whom Emperor Duan² had once loved so dearly. The four knelt and kowtowed. “Your servants greet the Imperial Consort.”

Yinggu snorted and swept a sidelong glare across their four faces. “Imperial Consort? What Imperial Consort? Consort Liu died long ago. I am Yinggu. Well, well, the Grand Chancellor, the Grand General, the Admiral of the Fleet and the Commander of the Imperial Guard, all here together. I thought His Majesty had truly seen through the world and shaved his head as a monk, but it seems he has only hidden himself away in these deep mountains to go on playing the peaceful, contented emperor.” Her words dripped venom, and the four shivered to hear them.

The scholar said, “His Majesty is long past what he was. If the Imperial Consort saw him now, she would not even know him.” Yinggu gave a cold laugh. “Imperial Consort this, Imperial Consort that, are you mocking me? And kneeling there bolt upright, do you mean to bow me into my grave?” The fisherman, the woodcutter, the farmer and the scholar exchanged a glance and rose to their feet. “These humble servants pay you their respects.” Yinggu waved a hand. “His Majesty told you to stop me, didn’t he? Why all this empty ceremony? If you mean to fight, fight, and be quick about it. You, sovereign and ministers alike, have done harm to who knows how many common folk. Why put on a show for a woman like me?”

The scholar said, “Our sovereign loved his people as his own children. He was generous and merciful, and to this day there is not a subject in Dali who does not sing his praises. Far from ever harming an innocent soul in all his life, he often showed mercy beyond the law even to those guilty of grave crimes. Does the Imperial Consort not know it?” Yinggu flushed and said sharply, “You dare to talk back to me?” The scholar said, “Your minister would not dare.” Yinggu said, “You call yourself my minister, but is there any respect for your sovereign in your heart? I want to see Duan Zhixing.³ Will you let me pass or not?”

Duan Zhixing was the secular name of Great Master Yideng.⁴ The four of them knew it, but had never dared to say it aloud, and hearing Yinggu call him bluntly by it, they were all aghast. The farmer, who had been Commander of the Imperial Guard to Emperor Duan at court, could hold himself in no longer. He shouted, “A sovereign for a day is honoured for life. How dare you speak so insolently?”

Yinggu let out a long peal of laughter and, without another word, pushed forward. The four each spread their arms to bar her way, thinking, Skilled as she is, the four of us together can surely hold her. We are disobeying Shifu today, but when things are this urgent, one must do what one must, and there is no help for it. But Yinggu neither pushed at them with her palms nor struck with her fists. She used her qinggong⁵ and rushed straight at them head on.

Seeing her rush at him, the woodcutter did not dare let his body touch hers. He swayed a little to one side and reached out to seize her shoulder. It was a very fast grab and a powerful one, but the moment his palm touched her shoulder it was like touching something uncommonly greasy and slippery, and he could not keep hold. At that very moment the farmer and the fisherman gave a great shout together and came at her from left and right.

Yinggu ducked her head and, like a water snake, slipped through under the fisherman’s arm. A faint fragrance had already reached the fisherman’s nose, like orchid and yet not orchid, like musk and yet not musk, and it threw him a little. Far from daring to close his arms on her, he flung them wide, afraid of touching her anywhere at all. The farmer cried angrily, “What’s the matter with you!” His ten fingers curled like hooks and drove at Yinggu’s waist. The woodcutter cried, “No rudeness!” The farmer paid no heed, and in an instant all ten fingertips had touched Yinggu’s waist, but somehow wherever they touched was oily and slick, and with one wriggle she had slid free.

With the Loach Skill⁶ she had worked out in the Black Marsh, Yinggu had got past three of them in a row, and she knew now that the four could not stop her. She struck back hard with her palm at the farmer. The scholar swung his arm round and jabbed a finger at an acupoint⁷ on her wrist. But Yinggu suddenly shot out her own forefinger, quick as lightning or a spark from flint, and her fingertip met his squarely in mid-air. At that moment every ounce of the scholar’s strength was gathered in his right forefinger. All at once the very centre of the fingertip went numb, a shock ran through him as if he had been struck by lightning, and with a cry of pain he went sprawling. The woodcutter and the fisherman bent quickly to help him. The farmer’s left fist shot straight out like an iron hammer at Yinggu.

The punch came with a rush of wind and astonishing force, yet Yinggu, seeing it come at her face, did not move aside. The farmer was alarmed. Sure that this blow would smash her skull and spatter her brains, he hurriedly pulled it, but his knuckles had already touched the tip of her nose. Yinggu tilted her head a fraction, and the fist slid off the tip of her nose and grazed past her cheek. Before the farmer could draw his left arm back, she had caught his wrist. He tried to wrench it free, there was a crack, and before he even felt the pain she had knocked his elbow out of joint with a backhand blow. The farmer gritted his teeth, ignored it, and jabbed his right forefinger at the crook of her arm.

The fisherman, the woodcutter, the farmer and the scholar had all learned their dianxue⁸ from Great Master Yideng himself. It was nowhere near the miraculous One Yang Finger⁹ of their shifu, but in the wulin¹⁰ it still counted as first-rate. Yet in Yinggu they had run into the one thing made to defeat it. Bent on avenging her son’s death, and knowing how formidable Great Master Yideng’s finger skills were, she had pondered long and hard over how to overcome them. She was a fine embroiderer, and from her needlework she hit upon an ingenious method. On the tip of her right forefinger she wore a little gold ring, from which projected a gold needle about a third of an inch long, tipped with a deadly poison. Her eyes were sharp and her hand steady, and after several years of hard practice she could jab at a fly passing in the air and run it clean through with the needle. Now, facing her enemies, she had already wounded the scholar’s forefinger with one prick. When she saw the farmer’s finger coming she gave a cold laugh, crooked her slender finger, set fingertip against fingertip, and the needle went into the very centre of his fingertip too.

As the saying goes, “The ten fingers are joined to the heart.” The tip of the forefinger belongs to the Hand Yang Brightness Large Intestine Meridian, and the gold needle went straight into the Shangyang acupoint.¹¹ The farmer, seeking to snatch victory from defeat, had put all his strength into that thrust, while Yinggu used no force at all. She merely set the gold needle in exactly the right place at exactly the right moment. She did not stab his fingertip with the needle. She let him drive his own fingertip onto it. As it went in, the farmer gave a tiger’s roar and pitched to the ground.

Yinggu laughed coldly. “A fine Commander you are!” With that she darted on towards the meditation court. The fisherman shouted, “Imperial Consort, please stay.” Yinggu stopped and turned with a cold laugh. “And what will you do?” By now she had reached the lotus pond, which was joined to the temple only by a little stone bridge. Yinggu stood at the end of the bridge and glared. It was night, and there was barely light enough to make out a face, but standing face to face with her the fisherman felt two beams of cold light stab straight at him, and a chill gripped his heart so that he dared not move against her. Yinggu said coldly, “The Grand Chancellor and the Commander have both been struck by my Seven Lethal Needles.¹² No one under heaven can save them. Do you want to die too?” With that, without waiting for his answer, she turned and walked slowly on, never once looking back, caring nothing whether he attacked her from behind.

The little stone bridge was only twenty-odd paces long. As she neared the end, someone suddenly stepped out of the darkness, cupped his fists¹³ and said, “Greetings, Senior.”

Yinggu was startled. She thought, He appeared out of nowhere without a sound, and I never sensed him? If he had struck at me in secret, I would be dead or wounded by now. She looked hard and saw a tall, broad-shouldered young man with thick brows and big eyes. It was Guo Jing, whom she herself had directed up the mountain. She asked, “Is the little girl’s injury healed?” Guo Jing bowed. “Thank you for your guidance, Senior. Great Master Yideng has healed my shimei’s¹⁴ wound.” Yinggu snorted. “Then why hasn’t she come to thank me herself?” She kept walking as she spoke, straight ahead.

Guo Jing stood at the end of the bridge, and seeing her walk straight at him he said quickly, “Please turn back, Senior!” Yinggu paid him no attention. Turning her body slightly, she brought her Loach Skill into play and slid swiftly past him. Guo Jing had crossed hands with her before, in the thatched hut in the Black Marsh, but he had never expected her to slip by so easily, or her body to be so slippery. In his urgency he swept his left arm round behind him and whipped it back, a strange and subtle move from the Void Clarity Fist¹⁵ that Zhou Botong¹⁶ had taught him. Yinggu had already slid past him, when suddenly a gust of fist force, soft yet tenacious, struck her full in the face and forced her back. But she had come here to go forward and never back, and fierce as Guo Jing’s fist was, she summoned her courage and charged straight on. Guo Jing cried, “Careful!” and felt a woman’s soft, warm body throw itself into his arms. In his alarm he let Yinggu hook his foot, and the two of them fell together towards the lotus pond.

While they were still in the air, Yinggu’s left hand went in under Guo Jing’s right armpit and round his back to seize his left shoulder. Her middle finger curled to hook at his throat while her thumb and forefinger pinched down hard. This was the Front Throat-Sealing Choke from the Small Seizing Hand,¹⁷ and if the pinch landed, the windpipe was shut and the breath stopped at once, the deadliest of holds. Falling at a slant and feeling his shoulder seized, Guo Jing knew he was in trouble. He crooked his right arm at once and clamped it towards Yinggu’s neck. This too was a choke from the Small Seizing Hand, called the Rear Neck-Clamp Choke. Yinggu knew his arm was far stronger than hers, and though she had struck first, she could not meet him strength against strength. She let go of his shoulder and jabbed with her fingers instead. Guo Jing’s left arm knocked her wrist aside.

The fall from the stone bridge into the pond lasted only an instant, but striking and recovering at lightning speed, each had already tried three moves on the other. This was grappling at close quarters, all of it the Small Seizing Hand at a speed beyond compare. Yinggu’s neili¹⁸ ran deep, but Guo Jing was strong and his moves were sound, and in those three moves neither could get the better of the other. With a splash, they landed in the pond together.

The mud in the pond was about three feet deep, and the water came up to their chests. Yinggu’s left hand dipped and scooped up a handful of mud, which she smeared at Guo Jing’s mouth. Guo Jing was taken aback and ducked his head out of the way. Yinggu had lived more than ten years in the Black Marsh, where mud lay everywhere, and from watching loaches wriggle through it she had worked out her Loach Skill. Even on dry land she was uncommonly slippery to fight, and in soft mud and loose sand she had every advantage of the ground. She had dragged Guo Jing into the pond because she knew his martial arts were better than hers, and unless she could put him in a tight spot, she would never get across the bridge. In the mud her jabbing fingers and striking palms were several times faster than on land, and now and then she scooped up great lumps of muck and smeared them at Guo Jing’s head and face.

With his feet sunk deep, and not daring to strike out hard for fear of hurting her, Guo Jing had parried only four or five moves before he was in a sorry plight. There was a whoosh, and a lump of stinking pond mud flew at his face. He jerked his head aside to dodge it, not knowing that Yinggu had thrown several at once. He avoided two, but the third hit him full in the face, plugging his mouth, nose and eyes. Long schooled by the Six Eccentrics of Jiangnan,¹⁹ he knew that if he were hit by a hidden weapon and floundered about trying to pull it out or look at the wound, the enemy would seize the chance to attack and finish him. With his breath stopped and his eyes unable to open, he pushed out three palm strikes in quick succession, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, to keep his enemy beyond five feet of him, and only then wiped the mud from his face with his left hand. When he opened his eyes, Yinggu had already leapt onto the stone bridge and was walking towards the meditation court.

Footnotes

1. 时辰 — shíchén. Traditional Chinese unit of time equal to two hours; the day was divided into twelve shichen. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 段皇爷 — Duàn Huángyé. Literally Imperial Lord Duan. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 段智兴 — Duàn Zhìxīng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 一灯大师 — Yīdēng Dàshī. Literally Great Master One Lamp. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 轻功 — qīnggōng. The martial art of body lightness. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 泥鳅功 — Níqiū Gōng. Unique martial art developed by Yinggu making her body slippery like a loach. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 穴道 — xuédào. Acupoints, the nodes along the body’s meridians through which qi flows. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 点穴 — diǎnxué. Literally touching the acupoints. The art of striking acupoints to seal or release the flow of qi through the meridians. ↩

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

10. 武林 — wǔlín. Literally martial forest. Those who actually practise, teach or study martial arts. The wulin sits inside the jianghu and is narrower than it: every member of the wulin belongs to the jianghu, but a pedlar or physician of the jianghu who never trained is no part of the wulin. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 商阳穴 — Shāngyáng Xué. An acupoint at the tip of the index finger, on the Large Intestine Meridian. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 七绝针 — Qījué Zhēn. Yinggu’s poisoned needles, for which, she says, there is no cure. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 拱手 — gǒngshǒu. A gesture of respect, the hands cupped together before the chest in greeting. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 师妹 — shīmèi. Female junior. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Mèi means younger sister. ↩

15. 空明拳 — Kōngmíng Quán. The softest fist art in the world, which Zhou Botong drew from the Daodejing. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

16. 周伯通 — Zhōu Bótōng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

17. 小擒拿手 — Xiǎo Qínná Shǒu. Literally small seizing hand. A close-quarters method of joint locks and holds. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

19. 江南六怪 — Jiāngnán Liù Guài. Literally six eccentrics of Jiangnan. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩