The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 31 – Part 1

The mandarin duck brocade handkerchief¹

Great Master Yideng² sighed softly and said, “In truth, the root of the disaster lay in myself. I was the petty sovereign of Dali,³ and though I did not keep three thousand women in my inner palace like the Son of Heaven in the Central Plains, my consorts and concubines were numerous enough, and that was a sin indeed. I had always been devoted to the martial arts and kept little company with women. Even the empress I saw only once in several days, and the other noble consorts and palace ladies I rarely visited at all.” Here he turned to his four disciples and said, “You never knew the full story behind this. Today you shall understand it.”

Huang Rong thought, So they really didn’t know. At least they weren’t lying to me.

She heard Great Master Yideng go on, “My consorts would watch me practise my martial arts day after day. Some found it amusing and pestered me to teach them, so I would show them a move or two, as it came, that they might grow strong and live long by practising. Among them was a consort surnamed Liu,⁴ who possessed an uncommonly quick mind. She grasped whatever I taught her the moment I taught it, and understood whatever I pointed out at a word. Rarer still in one so young, she practised hard all day long, and her martial arts came on a great deal.

“As fate would have it, trouble was bound to come. One day she was training in the garden when my shixiong⁵ Zhou Botong⁶ came upon her. No man alive loved the martial arts more than my shixiong, and he was as artless as a child, with no notion of the proprieties between men and women. Seeing Consort Liu training so keenly, he stepped straight up and crossed hands with her. My shixiong had been taught in person by his shige,⁷ Wang the Perfected One.⁸ How could Consort Liu ever have been a match for him…”

Huang Rong said softly, “Oh dear. He never knows how hard he hits. He must have hurt Consort Liu, then?”

Great Master Yideng said, “No, she was not hurt. In a move or two he had sealed her acupoints with dianxue⁹ and laid her on the ground, and then he asked her whether she owned herself beaten. Naturally Consort Liu did. My shixiong released her acupoints, very pleased with himself, and at once launched into a grand discourse on the secrets of dianxue. Now Consort Liu had been begging me to teach her dianxue, but think: how could I pass so profound an art to the women of my inner palace? My shixiong’s talk was exactly what she wanted to hear, and she at once asked him, with all due respect, to teach her.”

Huang Rong said, “Oh, the Old Wild Child must have been terribly pleased with himself.”

Great Master Yideng said, “You know my shixiong Zhou?”

Huang Rong laughed. “We are old friends. He lived on Peach Blossom Island¹⁰ for more than ten years and never set foot off it.”

Great Master Yideng said, “How could a man of his temper bear to stay put?”

Huang Rong laughed. “My father kept him locked up. He only released him recently.”

Great Master Yideng nodded. “That explains it. Is my shixiong Zhou in good health?”

Huang Rong said, “His health is fine. He just gets madder the older he gets, and has no sense of decorum at all.” She pointed at Guo Jing and pursed her lips in a smile. “The Old Wild Child went and swore brotherhood with him. They’re sworn brothers.”

Great Master Yideng could not help smiling. He went on, “Except between father and daughter, mother and son, or husband and wife, dianxue has always been taught by men only to men and by women only to women…”

Huang Rong said, “Why?”

Great Master Yideng said, “Men and women must not touch in giving and receiving,¹¹ you see. Think about it. Unless every acupoint on the body is found and struck one by one, how could such an art be passed on?”

Huang Rong said, “But you struck every acupoint on my body, didn’t you?”

The fisherman and the farmer, annoyed that she kept butting in with idle chatter that had nothing to do with anything, both shot her a look. Huang Rong rolled her eyes back at the pair of them and said, “What? Am I not allowed to ask?”

Great Master Yideng smiled. “You may, you may. You are a little girl, and badly hurt besides. That is another matter.”

Huang Rong said, “Very well, suppose I grant you that. What happened next?”

Great Master Yideng said, “After that, one taught and the other learned. My shixiong Zhou was hot-blooded, and Consort Liu was in the bloom of her youth. Skin touched skin, and as the days went by feeling grew between them, until at last it came to a pass beyond mending…”

Huang Rong was about to ask. Her lips moved, but in the end she held her tongue. She heard Great Master Yideng go on, “Someone came and told me of it. I was angry, but for Wang the Perfected One’s sake I pretended not to know. But in the end Wang the Perfected One himself discovered the affair. I expect my shixiong Zhou was too straightforward by nature to conceal it well…”

Huang Rong could hold back no longer. “What was it? How did it come to a pass beyond mending?”

For a moment Great Master Yideng struggled for the words. After a little hesitation he said, “They were not husband and wife, yet they had come together as husband and wife.”

Huang Rong said, “Ah, I know. The Old Wild Child and Consort Liu had a son.”

Great Master Yideng said, “Alas, that was not so. They had known each other no more than ten days or so. How could they have had a child? When Wang the Perfected One found out, he tied my shixiong Zhou up and brought him before me for me to deal with. We who practise the martial arts set loyalty between friends above all and a woman’s charms at little. How could I let a woman come between me and a friend? I at once untied his bonds and had Consort Liu summoned, and commanded them to become man and wife. But my shixiong Zhou shouted and bawled that he had never known it was wrong, and now that he knew it was, he would not do it even if they cut his head off. Nothing would make him marry Consort Liu. Wang the Perfected One was furious. He sighed that if he had not long known the fellow for a simpleton who could not tell good from bad, he would have cut him down with one stroke of his jian for so gross a breach of the Order’s rules.”

Huang Rong stuck out her tongue and laughed. “The Old Wild Child had a narrow escape!”

Great Master Yideng went on, “At that I grew angry myself. I said, ‘Shixiong Zhou, I truly meant to give her up to you, and gladly. What other intention could I have? As the old saying goes, brothers are like hands and feet, wives are like clothes. What does one woman matter?’

Huang Rong broke in hotly, “Pah, pah, Uncle. You look down on women. What you just said is utter nonsense.”

The farmer could bear it no longer. He said loudly, “Will you stop interrupting or not?”

Huang Rong said, “He’s wrong, so of course I’m going to argue.”

To the fisherman, the woodcutter, the farmer and the scholar, Great Master Yideng was both sovereign and shifu.¹² Far from disputing half a word of what he said, they held it in their hearts as holy writ, and hearing Huang Rong run on so freely, they were shocked and angry both.

Great Master Yideng did not mind. He went on, “My shixiong Zhou merely shook his head at those words. I grew still more angry and said, ‘If you love her, why do you stubbornly refuse to have her? If you do not love her, why did you do such a thing? Dali may be a small kingdom, but shall I permit you to insult me at my own door?’

“My shixiong Zhou stood dumbstruck for a long while. Then all at once he dropped to his knees, knocked his head loudly on the floor several times, and said, ‘Emperor Duan, the fault is mine. If you want to kill me, I deserve it. I won’t lift a hand and I won’t run. Kill me now and be done with it!’

“I had never dreamt he would do such a thing. All I said was, ‘How could I kill you?’

“He said, ‘Then I’m off!’ He took a brocade handkerchief¹³ from his robe and held it out to Consort Liu. ‘This is yours.’

“Consort Liu gave a desolate smile and did not take it. My shixiong Zhou loosened his hand, and the brocade handkerchief fell at my feet.

“My shixiong Zhou struck himself hard across the face several times, until it ran with blood, kowtowed to me in farewell, and after that I never heard another word of him. Wang the Perfected One apologised to me again and again, and then he too left. I heard that not long after he cast off this mortal world.¹⁴ Wang the Perfected One’s heroism and chivalry were without peer in his age. Alas…”

Huang Rong said, “Wang the Perfected One’s martial arts may have been a tiny bit better than yours, but when it comes to heroism and chivalry, I don’t think he was any better than you, Shibo.¹⁵ The seven disciples he took are all very ordinary, really rather poor. I doubt they could match your four.”

Great Master Yideng said, “The Seven Zis of Quanzhen¹⁶ are famous throughout the land. They are very fine indeed!”

Huang Rong pouted. “Not at all! In martial arts and in character, the fisherman, woodcutter, farmer and scholar are stronger!” She asked again, “What happened to that brocade handkerchief?”

The four disciples were rather pleased to hear her praise them, but they thought it just like a girl to fuss over trifles such as handkerchiefs and clothes. Then they heard their shifu say, “Consort Liu stood there dazed, like one who had lost her soul, and the sight made me furious. I picked up the brocade handkerchief and saw woven on it a pair of mandarin ducks¹⁷ at play in the water. Ah, plainly this was the love token Consort Liu had given him. I gave a cold laugh. Beside the mandarin ducks was embroidered a short ci poem…”

Huang Rong asked eagerly, “Was it ‘Four shuttles ply, / mandarin ducks woven, about to take double flight’?”

The farmer barked, “Even we don’t know it. How do you? Always butting in with your nonsense!”

Great Master Yideng sighed. “It is indeed that poem. So you know it too?”

At this the four disciples looked at one another, aghast.

Guo Jing leapt to his feet and cried, “I remember now. That day on Peach Blossom Island, when Big Brother Zhou was bitten by a venomous snake, his mind was muddled, and he kept repeating that poem over and over. Yes, yes… ‘Four shuttles ply, mandarin ducks woven…’ and something something white before one grows old. Rong-er, what was the rest? I can’t remember.”

Huang Rong recited in a low voice, “Four shuttles ply, / mandarin ducks woven, about to take double flight. / Alas, before we grow old, our hair has already turned white. / Spring waves, green grass, / in the deep of the morning cold, / face to face, bathing in our red robes.”

Guo Jing slapped his thigh. “That’s it, word for word. Big Brother Zhou once said a man mustn’t look at beautiful women, because the moment he does he’ll do something wrong without even knowing it, offend a good friend, and make his shige angry. He also said one must absolutely never let a woman touch one’s acupoints, or terrible misfortune would follow. Rong-er, he even told me not to get close to you.”

Huang Rong said crossly, “Pah, that Old Wild Child. Next time I see him, just watch whether I don’t twist his ear!”

Suddenly she burst out laughing and said, “That day in Lin’an,¹⁸ I joked idly that he’d never find a wife, and the Old Wild Child flew into a temper for ages. So that was why.”

Guo Jing said, “When I heard Yinggu¹⁹ reciting this poem, it always seemed familiar, but I could never place it. Here, Rong-er, how did Yinggu know it?”

Huang Rong sighed. “Ah, Yinggu is Consort Liu.”

Among the four disciples, only the scholar had guessed the better part of it. The other three were astounded, and all of them turned to look at their shifu.

Great Master Yideng said in a low voice, “You are clever and quick, Miss, a true daughter of Brother Yao.²⁰ Consort Liu’s pet name was Ying.²¹ That day I threw the brocade handkerchief back to her, and after that I never summoned her again. I was wretched. I let the affairs of state go untended and passed my days in martial practice to take my mind off it…”

Huang Rong interrupted, “Shibo, the truth is you loved her very much in your heart. Did you know that? If you didn’t love her, you wouldn’t have been unhappy all the time.”

The four disciples, offended by her impertinence, cried out together, “Miss!”

Huang Rong said, “What? Have I said something wrong? Shibo, do you think I’m wrong?”

Great Master Yideng said, his face clouded with sorrow, “For more than half a year after that, I did not summon Consort Liu. Yet in my dreams I met her often. One night I woke from a dream in the small hours and could bear it no longer. I made up my mind to go and see her. Telling none of the palace maids or eunuchs, I stole to her chambers to see what she was doing. I had only just reached her roof when I heard a baby crying inside.

“Ah. The frost lay thick on the roof and the wind was bitter, yet I stood there in a daze for half the night and did not come down until dawn. From that I fell gravely ill.”

It struck Huang Rong as a strange thing indeed for an emperor to go leaping over the palace rooftops in the dead of night to visit his own consort. The four disciples, for their part, remembered that their shifu’s illness had not only come on fiercely but had dragged on for a long time. With martial arts like his, wind and cold should never have touched him, and even if he did fall ill, it should not have lasted so long. Only now did they understand that, heartbroken as he was then, he had given up on himself and had not used his neigong²² to fight the sickness off.

Huang Rong asked again, “Consort Liu bore you a son. Wasn’t that a fine thing? Why should you be unhappy, Shibo?”

Great Master Yideng said, “Silly child. The child was my shixiong Zhou’s.”

Huang Rong said, “But the Old Wild Child had long since left. Did he sneak back to meet her in secret?”

Great Master Yideng said, “No. Have you never heard that a child is carried ten months in the womb?”

Footnotes

1. 鸳鸯锦帕 — Yuānyāng jǐn pà. Chapter title. Mandarin ducks, which swim in pairs, stand for lovers. ↩

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

3. 大理国 — Dàlǐ Guó. Kingdom in southwest China, modern-day Yunnan, ruled by the Bai people of the Duan Clan from 937 to 1253 CE. See Wikipedia. ↩

4. 刘贵妃 — Liú Guìfēi. Literally Noble Consort Liu. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 师兄 — shīxiōng. Male senior. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Xiōng means older brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

7. 师哥 — shīgē. Male senior, the colloquial form of shixiong. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Gē means older brother. ↩

8. 王真人 — Wáng Zhēnrén. Literally Wang the Perfected One. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

10. 桃花岛 — Táohuā Dǎo. Huang Yaoshi’s island in the East China Sea. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 男女授受不亲 — nánnǚ shòushòu bù qīn. Literally men and women do not touch in giving and receiving. From the Mencius, which holds this the rule of propriety, but adds that when an elder brother’s wife is drowning, to give her one’s hand is expediency. ↩

12. 师父 — shīfù. Teacher responsible for technical instruction and moral guidance. Shī means teacher. Fù means father. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 锦帕 — jǐnpà. Literally brocade kerchief. A handkerchief of brocade. ↩

14. 撒手仙游 — sāshǒu xiānyóu. Literally to let go and wander as an immortal. A euphemism for the death of a Daoist. ↩

15. 师伯 — shībó. Senior lineage uncle. The shixiong or shijie of one’s shifu. Shī means teacher. Bó means father’s elder brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

16. 全真七子 — Quánzhēn Qīzǐ. Literally the seven zi of Quanzhen, zi being an honorific for a master. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

17. 鸳鸯 — yuānyāng. Mandarin ducks, always shown in pairs, an emblem of devoted love in Chinese culture. ↩

18. 临安 — Lín’ān. Capital of Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1276) known for its cultural refinement and West Lake scenery. Modern day Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. See Wikipedia. ↩

19. 瑛姑 — Yīnggū. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

20. 药兄 — Yào Xiōng. Literally Brother Yao. ↩

21. 瑛 — Yīng. Literally the lustre of jade. ↩

22. 内功 — nèigōng. Literally internal cultivation. The practice of developing neili through breathing and meditation. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩