The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 34 – Part 1

Drastic changes on the island

Guo Jing said in a low voice, “Rong-er, what else do you want?”

Huang Rong replied, “What else do I want? I want for nothing now!” Her delicate brows rose slightly as she cried, “If I asked for anything more, Heaven itself would not tolerate me.” She lifted her long sleeves and began to dance beneath the flowering trees. As she turned her head her golden circlet flashed in the sun, and as she raised her arms her white robes streamed on the wind. Faster and faster she danced, sweeping her sleeves against the flowering trees beside her until the petals tumbled down, red, white, yellow and purple, and whirled about her like so many butterflies. She danced on a while, then all at once sprang up into a tree and leapt from it to another, the footwork of Carefree Wandering¹ and the Peach Blossom Falling Petals Palm² threaded through her dance. Her joy, plainly, was boundless.

Guo Jing thought, Mother used to tell me stories of an immortal mountain in the Eastern Sea, with many immortal maidens on its peaks. Could there be any mountain in this world more beautiful than Peach Blossom Island, any maiden fairer than Rong-er?

Huang Rong was dancing at full tilt when she gave a low cry of surprise and leapt down from the tree. She beckoned to Guo Jing and ran towards the woods. Afraid of losing his way, Guo Jing kept close on her heels, not daring to fall even half a step behind. Huang Rong wound through the trees for some distance before stopping suddenly and pointing at a bulging yellow heap on the ground ahead. “What’s that?”

Guo Jing hurried forward and saw a yellow horse lying on the ground. He ran up to look and knew it at once for Wind-Chasing Yellow,³ the mount of his Third Shifu, Han Baoju.⁴ He laid a hand on its belly and found it cold. It had been dead for some time. The horse had gone with Han Baoju far into the desert all those years ago, and Guo Jing had known it since childhood. It was like an old friend to him, and to come upon it suddenly lying dead here grieved him deeply. He thought, Though this horse was long in the tooth, it was extraordinary in spirit and mettle. All these years it has galloped north and south, its stride as light and strong as ever, without the slightest sign of age. How could it have collapsed and died here? Third Shifu will be devastated.

When he looked more carefully, he saw that the yellow horse had not simply lain down to die. Its four legs were curled beneath it, crumpled in a heap. Guo Jing started, remembering how Huang Yaoshi had killed Princess Huazheng’s mount with a single palm strike, and that horse too had died in just such a posture. Putting strength into his left arm, he slid it under the horse’s neck and heaved it up, then ran his right hand down the dead animal’s forelegs. Sure enough, both leg bones were snapped. He let go and felt along the spine. The backbone was broken there too. His alarm and bewilderment grew. He hastily turned the horse over and examined it closely, but there was not a wound anywhere on it. He sat down heavily on the ground and thought, Who killed this horse? And where has Third Shifu gone? The manner of the horse’s death pointed to but one person on Peach Blossom Island capable of such ferocity: Huang Yaoshi himself.

Huang Rong watched Guo Jing examine the horse in silence. Only now did she say softly, “Don’t fret. We’ll look into it carefully and get to the bottom of this.” She pushed aside the flowering branches and kept her eyes on the ground as she walked slowly forward. Guo Jing saw footprints in the damp earth and cared nothing now for losing his way. He darted ahead of Huang Rong and followed the tracks at a run.

The footprints appeared and vanished as the path twisted and shifted. More than once Guo Jing took a wrong turn, but each time Huang Rong, searching carefully, found the trail again in the grass or beside the rocks. Where the prints vanished altogether, she found marks gouged by weapons in the tree trunks beside the path. They pursued the trail for several li⁵ before coming to a low stand of flowering shrubs, among which a grave was visible. Huang Rong dashed forward and flung herself beside it.

Guo Jing had seen this grave on his first visit to Peach Blossom Island and knew it was where Huang Rong’s late mother lay buried. The tombstone had toppled to the ground. He set it upright at once, and there, sure enough, was the line carved on it: The Tomb Where the Fragrance of the Lady of Peach Blossom Island, née Feng, Lies Buried.

Huang Rong saw that the tomb’s door stood open, and dimly sensed that something terrible had happened on the island. She did not enter immediately but circled the grave, noting that the grass to its left had been trampled flat and that the entrance bore the marks of weapons striking stone. She listened at the doorway for a long while, heard no sound from within, and only then bent to enter. Guo Jing, fearing for her safety, followed at her heels.

The stone walls of the tomb passage were shattered everywhere, plain evidence of a fierce battle. The pair grew ever more alarmed. They had gone several dozen feet when Huang Rong bent and picked something up. Dim as the passage was, they could just make out what it was: half of Quan Jinfa’s⁶ iron steelyard.⁷ It was cast of fine steel and as thick as a child’s arm, yet someone had snapped it in two by sheer force. Huang Rong and Guo Jing exchanged a glance, neither daring to speak. They knew that only a handful of people in the world could break such iron with bare hands, and on Peach Blossom Island there could be none but Huang Yaoshi. Huang Rong held the broken beam, her hands shaking uncontrollably.

Guo Jing took the broken steelyard from Huang Rong’s hand and thrust it into his belt, then bent to search for the other half. His heart was like fifteen buckets drawing water from a well, seven up and eight down.⁸ He half hoped to find it, half hoped not to. A few steps further on, the passage grew darker still. His hands groped along the ground, and he could no longer hold back the sobs that broke from him. Then his fingers brushed against something round and hard, the steelyard’s counterweight, which Quan Jinfa used as a flying hammer in combat.

Guo Jing tucked the weight into his robe and continued searching. All at once his hand met something icy, soft and clammy. It felt like a human face. He sprang up in horror, and his head struck the stone roof of the passage with a thud, but he felt no pain. He fumbled out his huozhezi⁹ and shook it alight. He had time for a single cry of anguish before the world spun round him and he dropped senseless to the ground.

The huozhezi still burned in his hand. By its light Huang Rong saw Quan Jinfa lying dead on the ground, his eyes wide open, the other half of the steelyard driven through his chest.

The truth could be concealed no longer. Huang Rong steadied herself, summoned her courage, and took the huozhezi from Guo Jing’s hand. She held it beneath his nose, and when the smoke rose he sneezed twice and roused slowly. He gazed blankly at Huang Rong, then got to his feet and went straight on inside.

The two of them entered the burial chamber. Everything in it was in disorder, and a corner had been smashed off the offering table. A man lay in the left-hand corner, a square scholar’s cap on his head, his shoes knocked off. From the back, it was unmistakably Zhu Cong.¹⁰

Guo Jing approached in silence and turned Zhu Cong’s body over. By the huozhezi’s light he saw that a smile still lingered at the corner of his mouth, though the body had long since grown cold. In that place, at that moment, the smile seemed at once uncanny and desolate. Guo Jing said in a low voice, “Second Shifu, this disciple Guo Jing is here!” He raised the body gently, and a tinkling cascade of jewels and gems fell from Zhu Cong’s robes, scattering across the floor.

Huang Rong picked up some of the jewels, glanced at them, and tossed them aside with a long sigh. “It was my father who placed these here as offerings for my mother.”

Guo Jing glared at her, his eyes looking as if they would spurt blood. His voice came low and thick. “You say… you say my Second Shifu came to steal jewels? You dare say my Second Shifu…”

Huang Rong did not flinch beneath that gaze. She stared back at him, her own eyes full of despair and sorrow.

Guo Jing went on, “My Second Shifu was a man of iron. How could he steal your father’s jewels? Still less would he… still less would he come to rob your mother’s tomb.” Yet as he looked at Huang Rong’s expression, his anger shifted to grief and hatred. The evidence lay before him: the jewels had indeed fallen from Zhu Cong’s robes. And yet, his Second Shifu was known as the Swift-Handed Scholar, able to take anything from anyone’s possession without the least effort. Could he truly have come to plunder this tomb? No, no. Second Shifu was an upright and honourable man. He had never been greedy for treasure, and apart from taking from enemies, he would never pilfer from others. He could not have stooped to such a vile act. There must be some other explanation. Grief and fury surged through him. His head swelled, his vision blackened and brightened by turns, and he clenched his hands until the joints cracked.

Huang Rong said softly, “The day I saw the look on your Eldest Shifu’s face, I knew there could be no good ending between you and me. If you mean to kill me, then strike. My mother lies right here. Bury me beside her, and when it is done, leave the island at once. Do not let my father find you.”

Guo Jing did not answer. He paced back and forth with great strides, breathing hard.

She drew back the curtain behind the offering table, revealing her mother’s jade coffin. When she reached it, she gave a soft cry. Behind the coffin lay Han Baoju and Han Xiaoying, brother and sister, both dead.¹¹ Han Baoju was half-draped across the coffin, and in the centre of his forehead were five clear finger-holes. Han Xiaoying had cut her own throat with her jian. Her right hand still clutched the hilt. She must have known she could not prevail and chosen not to die as wretchedly as Han Baoju at the enemy’s hand. Her left hand rested on the lid of the jade coffin, and all five fingers were smeared with blood, whether from Han Baoju’s wounds or from her own throat, none could tell. On the white jade of the lid she had traced a tiny cross, like the character for “ten”, as if she had died before she could finish the word.

The jade coffin of Huang Rong’s mother was crafted from nanmu wood, with a large piece of white jade set into the upward face of the lid. The five bloodied fingers of Han Xiaoying’s left hand had drawn five streaks across it, and beside them the tiny cross. Against the gleaming white jade the congealed blood was at once vivid and horrifying.

Guo Jing cried out in a broken voice, “Seventh Shifu, you meant to write ‘Huang Yaoshi’. I understand. Whatever it takes, I will avenge you.”

Guo Jing walked over and lifted Han Baoju’s body, muttering to himself, “I saw Mei Chaofeng die with my own eyes.¹² In all the world, who else but your father could use the Nine Yin White Bone Claw?”¹³ He set Han Baoju’s body gently on the ground, then laid Han Xiaoying’s body straight. He walked towards the exit, and as he passed Huang Rong his eyes were blank, as if he did not see her at all.

Huang Rong felt a chill spread through her heart. She stood frozen for a long while, then suddenly everything went dark. The huozhezi had burned out. Though this tomb was familiar ground to her, it now held four corpses, and in the pitch blackness fear seized her. She fled out along the passage, tripped and nearly fell. Only when she was outside the tomb did she realise she had stumbled over Quan Jinfa’s body.

She saw the tombstone lying askew and set it straight. As she reached for the mechanism to close the tomb door, a thought struck her, After my father killed the four Eccentrics of Jiangnan, why would he leave the door open? He loved my mother deeply. Even if he were in great haste, he would never have left the tomb gaping. Doubts crowded her mind, and then another thought came, How could my father leave three men’s corpses in the tomb with my mother? That would be unthinkable. Can something have happened to my father as well? She pushed the tombstone three times to the right, then three times to the left, sealing the door. Then she hurried towards the living quarters.

Footnotes

1. 逍遥游 — Xiāoyáoyóu. Literally carefree wandering, after the first chapter of the Zhuangzi. A fist technique. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 桃华落英掌 — Táohuā Luòyīng Zhǎng. Palm technique with palm shadows like scattering peach blossoms. Originally called 落英神剑掌 (Falling Petals Divine Sword Palm) in earlier editions. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 追风黄 — Zhuīfēng Huáng. Han Baoju’s horse, named for its speed. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 韩宝驹 — Hán Bǎojū. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 里 — lǐ. A traditional unit of distance, about 500 metres or one-third of a mile. ↩

6. 全金发 — Quán Jīnfā. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 秤杆 — chènggān. The iron beam of a merchant’s steelyard, Quan Jinfa’s weapon. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 十五只吊桶打水，七上八落 — shíwǔ zhī diàotǒng dǎ shuǐ, qī shàng bā luò. Literally fifteen buckets drawing water, seven up and eight down. A saying for a mind in anxious turmoil. ↩

9. 火折子 — huǒzhézi. A tinder tube: rolled paper or fibre treated with saltpetre, kept smouldering in a tube and revived with a puff of breath. ↩

10. 朱聪 — Zhū Cōng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 韩小莹 — Hán Xiǎoyíng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 梅超风 — Méi Chāofēng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 九阴白骨爪 — Jiǔyīn Báigǔ Zhǎo. Literally nine yin white bone claw. A claw technique. ↩