The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 35 – Part 6

Huang Rong’s words were a transparent provocation. Ouyang Feng saw through it at once, yet his temper flared regardless. “Do you think people call me the Old Venom for nothing?” He struck his snake staff against the ground with a heavy thud and snarled, “It was the snake on this staff that bit him. Bit his tongue, so not a mark showed on his body, and he couldn’t get a word out.”

Ke Zhen’e felt hot blood surge straight into his brain and nearly swooned.

Huang Rong caught a faint rustling from behind the statue and hastily coughed several times to cover it. Then she went on slowly, “That time you killed every one of the Five Eccentrics of Jiangnan,¹ and Ke Zhen’e, who got away, has no eyes, so to this day he can’t even tell who did the killing.”

At these words Ke Zhen’e’s heart gave a lurch, and he thought, She’s saying this to wake me up, telling me not to do anything rash, or we’ll both lose our lives and die with the truth untold.

Then came Ouyang Feng’s dry laugh. “You think that stinking blind man could escape my palm? I let him go on purpose. That Nan Xiren saw me killing, so however well he hid, we had to find him and silence him, even if it took us a few days more. As for Blind Ke, there was no harm in sparing his life.”

Huang Rong said, “Ah, I see. You killed five and let Ke daxia mistake my father for the murderer, then let him spread the tale abroad so the heroes of the world would rise up against my father.”

Ouyang Feng laughed. “That wasn’t my idea, though. It was Kang-er who thought of it, wasn’t it?” Yang Kang gave another mumbled assent.

Huang Rong said, “Now that is what I call masterly planning. I’m impressed, truly impressed.”

Ouyang Feng said, “But we’ve wandered off the thread. How did you come to suspect me afterwards?”

Huang Rong said, “I reasoned like this. Qiu Qianren fought me in Jinghu North Circuit. He might have hurried on ahead and reached Peach Blossom Island before me, but outrunning the Red Horse² would have been beyond him. Then I thought how Nan Xiren had written only three strokes, a horizontal, a short vertical, and then a horizontal with a hook. They could be the start of the character for ‘east’, certainly, but why not the start of ‘west’? If not the Eastern Heretic, then surely the Western Venom. That much I had worked out on Peach Blossom Island already, but there were other details I could not fathom. How could you two have entered my mother’s tomb chamber? When you brought your nephew to court me, my father lent your nephew the master map of the island on the understanding that he would return it in three months. He never returned it. Who the map ended up with is not hard to guess now.”

Ouyang Feng sighed. “I thought we had left no seam for even a needle, yet we left this many traces after all. Nan Xiren must have sensed something amiss in our demeanour and deliberately lagged behind when we entered the tomb. The moment he saw me kill Quan Jinfa, he fled at once.”

Huang Rong said, “Nan the Fourth Xia didn’t talk much as a rule, but he was sharp as a tack. What I kept puzzling over was the little ‘ten’ character Han Xiaoying wrote on my mother’s jade coffin. What was she trying to write? Because I kept thinking this young prince’s martial arts were so feeble he could never have killed all five Eccentrics of Jiangnan in one stroke, it never occurred to me it was him.” Yang Kang snorted.

Huang Rong said, “That day I was left alone on Peach Blossom Island. I dozed and woke, woke and dozed, and still couldn’t fathom it. I dreamed of a great many people, and then I dreamed of Sister Mu, holding her contest of arms to find a husband in the Central Capital. I woke from the dream with a start and leapt up, and then I knew the murderer was this young prince!”

Yang Kang heard the sharp, trembling edge in her voice and broke out in a cold sweat despite himself. He forced a laugh. “Was it Mu Nianci who appeared to you in a dream, then?”

Huang Rong said, “Yes. If not for that dream, how would I ever have thought of you? What about that little jade shoe of yours?”

Yang Kang started, then said fiercely, “How do you know that? Did Mu Nianci tell you in a dream too?”

Huang Rong gave a cold smile. “Does that need telling? You two beat Zhu Cong to death and then put the jewels from my mother’s tomb into his arms, so that anyone who found him would think he had stolen the treasures for my father, who then killed him. A splendid scheme to plant the evidence on him. Only you forgot one thing: Zhu Cong’s nickname was the Swift-Handed Scholar.”³

Ouyang Feng’s curiosity was roused. “And what if it was the Swift-Handed Scholar?”

Huang Rong said, “Hmph. You knew about putting treasures on him, but you didn’t know someone was taking treasures off him.”

Ouyang Feng did not understand. “Taking what off him?”

Huang Rong said, “Zhu Cong’s martial arts may not have matched yours, but before he died he worked a trick with those swift hands of his and took something from this young prince, clenched it in his fist, and you two never noticed a thing. If it hadn’t been for that object, I would never have dreamed the young prince had deigned to visit Peach Blossom Island.”

Ouyang Feng laughed. “Now that is an interesting business. The Swift-Handed Scholar was formidable indeed. Though his life was gone, he still left a message behind. What he took must have been that little jade shoe.”

Huang Rong said, “Exactly. I had seen all the treasures in my mother’s tomb since I was a child, but I had never set eyes on that jade shoe. Yet Zhu Cong held it tight even in death, so there had to be a reason. On the front of the sole was the character for ‘match’, and on the back was ‘seek’. I couldn’t make out what they meant for the longest time. Then that night I dreamed of Sister Mu performing on a street in the Central Capital, under a brocade banner that read ‘Martial Contest to Seek a Spouse’, and suddenly I saw it, and the whole thing came clear.”

Ouyang Feng laughed. “So those two characters on the sole of the shoe have such a romantic story behind them. Ha ha, ha ha!” He laughed with delight, while Ke Zhen’e, listening, grew angrier with every word, though he had not yet fully grasped how Huang Rong had seen through it all. Huang Rong, guessing he could not follow, seemed to be speaking to Ouyang Feng but was really explaining it to him. “That day, when Sister Mu held her contest of arms to find a husband in the Central Capital, the young prince went into the ring and showed off his skills. I happened to be there watching the fun too. Towards the end, the young prince snatched the pair of embroidered shoes off Sister Mu’s feet. He won the contest, but as for the marriage, well, that led to a great deal of complication.”

It was because of that martial contest that so much trouble arose in days to come. Liang Ziweng, Sha Tongtian and the rest witnessed it with their own eyes, and from it came Wanyan Honglie’s loss of his wife, Yang Kang’s meeting with his own birth father, and all that followed. Everyone who heard it felt a stir of feeling.

Huang Rong said, “Once I had thought of that, everything else was plain as day. The young prince and Sister Mu pledged themselves to each other in secret afterwards, and what better love token than a pair of carved jade shoes? I suppose they each kept one. This one had the characters ‘match’ and ‘seek’ on it, and the other must have had ‘martial’ and ‘spouse.’ Am I right, Young Prince?” Yang Kang did not answer.

Huang Rong went on, “With that knot untied, the rest was plain. Han Baoju was killed by the Nine Yin White Bone Claw.⁴ The only people in the world who practised that art were the Twin Evils of Dark Wind,⁵ and they had both been dead for years. Others assumed that the Twin Evils’ shifu must have been equally skilled in it, never knowing that my father had never practised a single technique from the Nine Yin Manual, while the Iron Corpse Mei Chaofeng⁶ had taken a gifted disciple before she died. Han Xiaoying saw with her own eyes in the tomb chamber that the young prince used the Nine Yin White Bone Claw to kill her cousin Han Baoju. In utter horror she turned her jian on herself there and then, but before she died, she dipped the fingers of her left hand in blood and began to write the young prince’s name on my mother’s coffin lid. She couldn’t finish before she died. The little ‘ten’ character she wrote was the opening stroke of ‘Yang,’ of course. Who would have thought that muddle-headed boy Guo Jing would insist it was ‘Huang’?” At this she could not help falling sad.

Ouyang Feng burst into loud, long laughter. “That little ‘ten’ character on the coffin lid. I saw it and meant to wipe it away, but Kang-er was quicker on the draw. He said, ‘Isn’t that the first stroke of “Huang”?’ I thought he was right, and left the blood mark where it was. Ha ha! No wonder that boy Guo Jing was ready to fight your father to the death outside the Misty Rain Pavilion.”

Huang Rong sighed. “Your scheme was masterly, and in his grief and rage that muddle-headed boy could tell right from wrong even less. I thought at first you had forced the mute servants on the island to lead you in, but it turned out to be Silly Girl⁷ who showed you the way. The young prince must have promised to take her back to Niu Family Village, and she was so delighted she did whatever you told her. Though even without Silly Girl to guide you, the young prince had the master map of the island and could come and go as he pleased. I imagine the two of you hid inside my mother’s tomb and told Silly Girl to claim my father had invited the Six Eccentrics of Jiangnan there. With Uncle Ouyang barring the door of the tomb, how could the Six Eccentrics of Jiangnan ever escape his deadly hands? It was catching the turtle in the jar.”

Ke Zhen’e heard her recount it as though she had been there herself. The scene of that day, trapped at the tomb while the slaughter went on within, he and Nan Xiren barely escaping with their lives, rose vividly before his mind once more. Huang Rong went on, “Uncle Ouyang picked up my father’s long robe on the shore and put it on. The tomb chamber was dark to begin with, and several of the Six Eccentrics were wounded at the very outset. That was why Nan Xiren told Ke Zhen’e with his own lips that the killer was my father. In his grief and fury he spoke only of my father and did not mention Yang Kang. In truth it was Uncle Ouyang who killed Zhu Cong and Quan Jinfa. It was the young prince who killed Han Baoju. Han Xiaoying took her own life. Ke Zhen’e and Nan Xiren were the ones who escaped the tomb. You deliberately let Ke Zhen’e go free. Nan Xiren escaped too, and hid for several days in some out-of-the-way place. Then after a few days, Uncle Ouyang and the young prince tracked him down and had a snake bite him to death.”

“After you killed them in the tomb, you went back to my father’s lodge and smashed the tables, chairs, doors and windows to splinters, to make it look as though my father and the Six Eccentrics had fought there. Uncle Ouyang, if you wanted to kill those six, they couldn’t have blocked a single move from you. If my father had wanted to kill them, he wouldn’t have needed a second move. There was no need to wreck the lodge so thoroughly. That was trying to cover things up only to make them more obvious, and I knew something was wrong the moment I saw it.”

Ouyang Feng sighed. “Little girl, you see into things like a god. It was chance that brought it all together, and the Six Eccentrics’ fate besides. When Kang-er and I set out for Peach Blossom Island, we didn’t know the Six Eccentrics were there.”

Huang Rong said, “True. The Six Eccentrics of Jiangnan may have a name in the jianghu, but it rests on nothing but their chivalry. When it comes to martial skill, how could they rate a glance from Uncle Ouyang? You two went to such elaborate trouble, so you must have had another scheme in mind.”

Ouyang Feng laughed. “You’re a clever, quick-witted girl. I don’t suppose it can be kept from you.”

Huang Rong said, “Let me guess. If I’m wrong, Uncle Ouyang, don’t take offence. When you first reached the island, you were hoping the Quanzhen zis and my father would fight until both sides were maimed, and then, like Bian Zhuang stabbing the tigers,⁸ you could wipe out the Quanzhen Order and Peach Blossom Island at one stroke. But you arrived too late. My father and the Quanzhen Daoists had already left the island. The young prince questioned Silly Girl and learned the Six Eccentrics were still there. So the two of you put your skills on show, killed five of the Eccentrics, made it look like my father’s doing, and slaughtered every mute servant on the island besides, destroying all trace so no witness remained. You were afraid Nan Xiren would tell the truth, so you hunted him down at any cost. When the matter came to light one day, how could Hong Qigong, Emperor Duan and the rest not turn on my father? The young prince was also afraid my father would return to Peach Blossom Island and destroy whatever evidence you had left behind, so he deliberately let Ke Zhen’e escape. The man is blind, but his tongue hasn’t rotted off. He can’t see the truth, but he can talk wild nonsense well enough.”

Ke Zhen’e heard all this and felt at once grief, rage and shame.

Ouyang Feng sighed. “I truly envy Old Heretic Huang for having such a fine daughter. The whole affair was tortuously complex, yet you have guessed it all plain as daylight, as though you had seen it with your own eyes. Little girl, you are truly clever indeed.”

Footnotes

1. 五怪 — wǔ guài. Literally five eccentrics. ↩

2. 小红马 — xiǎo hóng mǎ. The red horse Guo Jing tames on the steppe, a sweat-blood steed. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 妙手书生 — Miàoshǒu Shūshēng. Literally wondrous-handed scholar. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

5. 黑风双煞 — Hēifēng Shuāngshà. Literally twin evils of the dark wind. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 铁尸 — Tiě Shī. Literally iron corpse. ↩

7. 傻姑 — Shǎgū. Literally silly girl. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 卞庄刺虎 — Biàn Zhuāng cì hǔ. Literally Bian Zhuang stabs the tigers. Bian Zhuangzi waited while two tigers fought over their prey, then killed the wounded survivor and won the credit for two tigers at a single stroke. ↩