The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 35 – Part 3

Guo Jing cried, “Shifu!”

Ke Zhen’e said, “First take Old Xia Hong¹ somewhere safe to recover from his wounds, then come and find me at Ke Family Village.”²

Guo Jing answered, “Yes!”

Huang Yaoshi caught a feathered arrow out of the air and walked to where Ke Zhen’e stood. “If you had not saved my life today,” he said, “I would not have stooped to tell you plainly…”

Ke Zhen’e did not let him finish. He spat a thick mouthful of phlegm straight at Huang Yaoshi’s face and cursed, “After today, I will have no face to meet my six brothers in death!”

Amid the clamour, Huang Yaoshi had leaned close to speak, the two of them less than a foot apart. The phlegm came out of nowhere, utterly unexpected. Huang Yaoshi turned his head, but half of it caught his cheek.

Huang Yaoshi flew into a rage and raised his palm.

Guo Jing saw the move and was horrified. He dashed forward, thinking, If that palm comes down, how will my eldest shifu survive it? He was more than ten paces from the pair of them, and he could see he would never reach them in time.

Yet in the dim light he saw Huang Yaoshi’s raised hand slowly sink.

Huang Yaoshi laughed aloud. “Who do you take me for? I am Huang Yaoshi. How could I stoop to the level of a man like you?” He wiped the phlegm from his face with his sleeve, then turned to Huang Rong. “Rong-er, let’s go!”

These words filled Guo Jing with deep misgiving, though misgiving of what, he could not have said. He had only a dim sense that something was utterly wrong, and all at once it was as if a thick fog had risen before his eyes once more.

Suddenly a great roar of shouting went up, and a band of government troops came charging in. The Six Zis of Quanzhen drew their long jians and plunged into the fray.

Huang Yaoshi disdained to fight mere soldiers. He turned and took Hong Qigong by the arm. “Seventh Brother, let us two old brothers go on ahead and have a few cups, and talk afterwards.”

Hong Qigong, who found this entirely to his liking, laughed. “Splendid, splendid!”

In moments the two had vanished into the darkness.

Guo Jing moved to help Ke Zhen’e, but a detachment of soldiers had already reached them. Unwilling to take more lives than necessary, he pushed the men away with outstretched arms. In the chaos he could hear Qiu Chuji and the others shouting as they fought. Mixed in with the government troops were the Jin soldiers Wanyan Honglie had brought, and also men of the Iron Palm Keep under Qiu Qianren. They were uncommonly fierce, and for the moment they could not be driven off. Guo Jing, fearing his eldest shifu would be harmed in the melee, cried out, “Eldest Shifu, Eldest Shifu, where are you?”

But the din of battle was one great confusion, and no answer ever came from Ke Zhen’e.

After Huang Rong had taken the bamboo staff from Ke Zhen’e, she had stayed at his side. She had watched him spit at her father, watched the quarrel flare again, and thought, Now that things have come to this, a lifetime of beautiful dreams has shattered into pieces.

When the soldiers charged, she simply leaned against a tree and stood alone in silence. Squadrons of horsemen galloped past her, yet she seemed neither to hear nor see them, lost in a vacant stare. Then she heard someone cry out “Ow”, and it was Ke Zhen’e’s voice.

She looked toward the sound and saw him fallen by the roadside. An officer was raising a long dao to strike at his back. Ke Zhen’e rolled aside, sat up, and threw a punch backwards that knocked the officer senseless. He straightened to rise, but collapsed again.

Huang Rong ran over and saw that an arrow had struck his leg. She seized his arm to pull him up. Ke Zhen’e wrenched free, but one foot was already lame, and the other, hit by the arrow, had gone soft and useless. He swayed, lurched forward, and nearly fell again.

Huang Rong reached out and grabbed the scruff of his neck. “What are you playing the hero and brave man for?” she sneered. With a light flick of her left hand she used the Orchid Acupoint-Tracing Hand³ to brush the Jianzhen acupoint⁴ on his right shoulder. Only then did she release his collar and seize his left arm.

Ke Zhen’e tried to struggle, but half his body was numb and he could not move. He could only let her support him, muttering curses under his breath.

Huang Rong guided him ten-odd paces to shelter behind a large tree. She meant to catch her breath a moment before going on, but the soldiers suddenly spotted them, and more than a dozen feathered arrows came whistling at them. Huang Rong sprang in front of him, whirling the bamboo staff to guard her head and face. The arrows all struck her Soft Hedgehog Armour.⁵

Ke Zhen’e, hearing the arrow strikes, knew she was using her body to shield him. His heart softened, and he said quietly, “Never mind me. Save yourself!”

Huang Rong snorted. “I’m going to save you whether you like it or not, and you’re going to owe me for it. What can you do about that?”

They spoke as they moved, taking cover behind a low wall. The arrows stopped, but Ke Zhen’e was heavy, and Huang Rong was exhausted, her heart pounding and her breath coming short. She leaned against the wall to rest.

Ke Zhen’e sighed. “Very well, very well, very well. Between you and me, kindness and grudge are wiped out at a stroke. Go. From now on, Blind Ke is as good as dead.”

Huang Rong said coldly, “You’re plainly not dead, so why say you’re as good as dead? If you won’t come to me for revenge, then I’ll come to you.”

The bamboo staff darted out and back, striking both Weizhong acupoints⁶ at the bends of his knees. Ke Zhen’e had no warning, and his legs crumpled at once. He cursed himself silently for a fool, wondering what vicious torment the little demoness meant to inflict on him, and anxiety and rage boiled up in him together. Then he heard her light footsteps as she went out round the end of the wall.

By now the sounds of battle were fading. It seemed the Quanzhen zis had scattered this band of soldiers. As the voices receded, he could faintly hear Guo Jing shouting for his eldest shifu, the cries growing ever more distant. The boy must have gone the wrong way. Ke Zhen’e wanted to call out to him, but since his wound his breath was weak, and he doubted the boy would hear him.

After a while, all fell silent. In the distance cocks were crowing, one answering another.

Ke Zhen’e thought, This is the last time I shall ever hear a cock crow! Tomorrow the cocks all round Jiaxing will crow just the same, but I shall be dead at the little demoness’s hands and never hear them again.

As this thought crossed his mind, he heard footsteps. Three people were approaching. One step was light and quick, and it was Huang Rong’s. The other two trod heavily, dragging their feet.

Huang Rong said, “This is the Elder Master.⁷ Lift him up, quick.” She reached out and kneaded him in a few places, freeing his sealed acupoints.

Ke Zhen’e felt himself lifted by two men and laid across a litter of lashed bamboo poles. Then they started walking. He was greatly puzzled and wanted to ask what this meant, but then thought better of it. Why invite another of her snubs? As he hesitated, he heard a swish, and the man carrying the front cried out in pain. She must have struck him with her staff.

He heard her scold, “Faster. What are you moaning and groaning for? You soldiers are good for nothing but bullying ordinary folk. There isn’t a decent man among you!”

Then came another swish, and the man behind took a blow as well. That one did not dare cry out.

Ke Zhen’e thought, So she went and caught two soldiers to carry me. It took some wit to think of that.

By now the arrow wound in his leg hurt more and more, but afraid that Huang Rong would mock him, he set his teeth and made not a sound. He felt himself rising and falling, and knew they had taken to a rough, narrow path. After a while, twigs and leaves kept brushing his body and face. They must be passing through woods.

The two soldiers stumbled along, panting hard. He could hear Huang Rong lashing them with her bamboo staff without let-up, driving them on so that they strained every nerve to keep going, one foot high, one foot low.

When they had gone some thirty li⁸ or more, Ke Zhen’e reckoned it was the end of si⁹ and the beginning of wu. The heavy rain had long since stopped, and the sun had half-dried their wet clothes. Cicadas sang, dogs barked, and the distant singing of men and women in the fields answered one another. All was peace and quiet. Compared with the savage fighting at South Lake, it was as if they had entered another world.

The party came to a farmhouse and rested. Huang Rong bought two large pumpkins from the farmers, boiled them with rice, and set a bowl before Ke Zhen’e.

Ke Zhen’e said, “I’m not hungry.”

Huang Rong said, “Your leg hurts. Do you think I don’t know? Never mind hungry or not hungry. I mean to let you hurt a while longer before I treat it.”

Ke Zhen’e was furious. He snatched up the bowl of steaming pumpkin and flung it at her. He heard her give a cold laugh, then one of the soldiers yelled in pain. She must have dodged, and the pumpkin had splashed over the soldier.

Huang Rong scolded, “What are you yelling about? Elder Master Ke is treating you to pumpkin. Too good for it, are you? Eat it all up, quick.”

The soldier, terrified from her beatings and genuinely hungry, endured the scalding pain on his face, picked the pumpkin from the ground, and ate it piece by piece.

At this, Ke Zhen’e did not know whether to be angry or to laugh. Half standing, half sitting against a bench, he felt deeply awkward. He thought of pulling out the arrow himself, but feared the blood would come gushing from the wound. She would certainly stand by and let him die, and most likely mock him into the bargain.

As he hesitated, he heard Huang Rong say, “Fetch a basin of clean water. Quick, quick!” The words were hardly out of her mouth when one of the soldiers got a sharp, crisp box on the ears.

Ke Zhen’e thought, If the little demoness keeps quiet, well and good, but the moment she opens her mouth, somebody always gets hurt.

Huang Rong continued, “Take this knife and cut away the clothes around Elder Master Ke’s arrow wound.” One of the soldiers did as he was told.

Huang Rong said, “Hey, Ke, if you’ve got any guts, don’t cry out. If your howling gets on this young lady’s nerves, I’ll just leave you to it.”

Ke Zhen’e snapped, “Who wants you to care? Clear off, as far as you can go.”

He had not finished speaking when a sudden surge of agony shot from the wound. She was clearly gripping the arrow shaft and pushing it deeper into the flesh. Startled and enraged, Ke Zhen’e lashed out with his fist. Another stab of agony shot through the wound, and there in his hand was a long arrow. Huang Rong had already pulled it out and pressed it into his palm.

He heard her say, “Move again and I’ll give you a great big slap!”

Ke Zhen’e knew she meant what she said. He was no match for the little demoness. If she killed him with one stroke of a knife, that at least would be clean and quick. But if he let her slap him a few times, he would suffer a fresh humiliation before he died. So he kept still, his face livid.

He heard a ripping sound as she tore off several strips of cloth and bound them tightly above and below the wound in his thigh to stop the bleeding. Then he felt a coldness at the wound and knew she was washing it with clean water.

Ke Zhen’e was bewildered. He wondered, If she means me harm, why is she saving me? And if she means none, hmph, hmph, what good could there ever be in the hearts of that demon father and daughter of Peach Blossom Island? She must have some other vicious scheme. Ah, people like that have a hundred tricks, and guessing what she is thinking is a thousand times hard.

Even as he turned this over, Huang Rong had already applied golden-wound salve¹⁰ to the injury and bandaged it neatly. The wound felt cool, and the pain eased by more than half. But his stomach was rumbling loudly with hunger.

Huang Rong sneered, “I thought you were only pretending, but you really are starving. Well, there’s nothing to eat now. All right, let’s go!” There were two cracks as she struck each soldier once on the head with her staff, and then she drove them on again with Ke Zhen’e on the litter.

Another thirty or forty li, and evening was falling. A great clamour of cawing filled the air. Hundreds upon hundreds of crows wheeled and cried overhead.

Ke Zhen’e, hearing the crows, knew they had reached the vicinity of the Iron Spear Temple.¹¹ The temple was dedicated to Wang Yanzhang,¹² a famous general of the Five Dynasties known to the world as Iron Spear Wang. Beside the temple stood a tall pagoda, and for generations the crows had nested atop it. The local villagers believed the crows of the Iron Spear Temple were divine soldiers and generals, and none dared harm them. As a result, the birds bred and multiplied, growing ever more numerous.

Huang Rong asked, “Hey, it’s getting dark. Where are we going to stay the night?”

Ke Zhen’e thought, If we beg a night’s lodging at a house, word may get out and bring the soldiers after us. “There’s an old temple not far ahead,” he said.

Huang Rong scolded, “What’s so interesting about crows? Never seen one before? Get moving!” This time there was no sound of the staff, yet the two soldiers cried out in pain again. Whether she had jabbed them with a finger or kicked them, he could not tell.

Before long they reached the Iron Spear Temple. Ke Zhen’e heard Huang Rong kick open the temple gate. A pungent smell of crow droppings and dust hit his nostrils. The temple seemed to have been long abandoned. He expected her to complain about the filth, but to his surprise she took no notice.

He heard her order the two soldiers to sweep the floor clean, then send them to the kitchen to boil water. He heard her softly singing a little tune, something about “mandarin ducks flying as a pair”, and something about “before age has come, hair turned white”.

After a while, the soldiers brought the hot water. Huang Rong first changed Ke Zhen’e’s wound dressing, and only then did she wash her own face and feet.

Ke Zhen’e lay on the ground, using a rush cushion as a pillow. Suddenly he heard her curse, “What are you looking at my feet for? Are my feet for the likes of you to stare at? I’ll gouge out both your eyeballs!”

The soldier was frightened out of his wits and kowtowed again and again, bang, bang, bang.

Huang Rong said, “Tell me, why were you staring at me washing my feet?”

The soldier dared not lie. Kowtowing, he said, “This humble servant deserves death. I saw your feet, Miss, so snowy white and soft… so lovely, and the toenails so red… like Guanyin Bodhisattva’s…”

Ke Zhen’e was startled and thought, The scoundrel is at death’s door and still full of lust! I wonder whether the little demoness will rip out his sinews or flay him alive.

To his surprise, Huang Rong laughed. “Have you ever seen Guanyin Bodhisattva’s feet, you fool?” There was a thump as she hooked him with her staff and sent him head over heels, and, remarkably, she let the matter drop.

The two soldiers fled to the back courtyard and did not dare emerge again.

Ke Zhen’e said nothing, waiting silently for whatever came next.

He heard Huang Rong walk all round the main hall. “Iron Spear Wang made the whole world tremble in his day,” she said, “yet in the end he was taken by his enemies and lost his head. So what was the good of playing the hero? What was all the talk of brave men worth? Hmm, I suppose this iron spear really is made of iron.”

As a boy, Ke Zhen’e used to come to this temple to play with Zhu Cong, Han Baoju, Nan Xiren, and Zhang Asheng. His eyes still worked then. Though they were children, they were all possessed of extraordinary strength, and they would take turns lifting the iron spear and swinging it about in play. Now, hearing Huang Rong’s words, he answered, “Of course it is made of iron. What else would it be?”

Huang Rong gave a noncommittal hum, reached out, and lifted the iron spear. “It must weigh a good thirty jin,”¹³ she said. “I lost your iron staff, and I can’t cast you a new one in a hurry. Tomorrow we part and go our separate ways. You’ll have no weapon to protect yourself, so use this spear as your iron staff for now.”

Without waiting for Ke Zhen’e to reply, she went to the courtyard, fetched a large stone, and with bangs and crashes beat the spearhead off the iron spear. Then she handed the shaft to him.

Since his elder brother’s death, Ke Zhen’e had been inseparable from his six sworn siblings. Now he had not a single kinsman left. Though he had been with Huang Rong for only a day, he found he was quite unwilling to part from her. When he heard her say “Tomorrow we part and go our separate ways”, he felt suddenly lost.

Dazed, he took the iron spear. It felt heavier than his usual iron staff, but it would serve. He thought, She’s given me a weapon. She really does mean me no harm, then.

He heard her say again, “This is Tianqi Shark-Gall Powder,¹⁴ compounded by my father. It will do your wound a great deal of good. You hate my father and me bitterly. Whether you use it is up to you!” With that, she handed him a packet of medicine.

Ke Zhen’e took it and slowly placed it inside his robe. He wanted to say something but found no words. He hoped she would speak again, but all she said was, “That’s enough. Go to sleep!”

Footnotes

1. 洪老侠 — Hóng Lǎo Xiá. Literally old xia Hong. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 柯家村 — Kējiā Cūn. Literally Ke family village. Ke Zhen’e’s home village. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 兰花拂穴手 — Lánhuā Fú Xuè Shǒu. Huang Rong’s hereditary art of brushing the acupoints with the fingers, prized for being fast, accurate, strange and clear. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 肩贞穴 — Jiānzhēn Xué. Literally shoulder steadfast point. An acupoint at the back of the shoulder joint. ↩

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

6. 委中穴 — Wěizhōng Xué. Literally bend-centre acupoint. An acupoint at the centre of the back of the knee. ↩

7. 大爷 — dàye. Literally great master. A respectful form of address for a man. ↩

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

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

10. 金创药 — jīnchuāng yào. Literally metal-wound medicine. A powder or paste for wounds dealt by blades, applied to staunch bleeding and promote healing. ↩

11. 铁枪庙 — Tiěqiāng Miào. A temple to Wang Yanzhang, the Iron Spear general of the Five Dynasties, its tower home to crows. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 王彦章 — Wáng Yànzhāng. General of the Later Liang (863—923) in the Five Dynasties period, called Iron Spear Wang for his prowess with the iron spear. He was captured and executed by the Later Tang. ↩

13. 斤 — jīn. A unit of weight, about 590 grams in the Song dynasty. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 田七鲨胆散 — Tiánqī Shādǎn Sǎn. A wound medicine compounded by Huang Yaoshi. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩