The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 37 – Part 2

When the three palm-strikes were done, Ouyang Feng was about to question him again about Huang Rong’s whereabouts when, from the corner of his eye, through a gap in the tent, he caught a figure flitting past outside, moving with extraordinary speed. A thought struck him. He tore open the tent flap and rushed out, but the figure was already gone. He turned back and said, “I will visit again within ten days. We shall see whether you spare me, or I spare you.” With that he laughed aloud, and in the blink of an eye his laughter was already over a hundred feet away.

The three Elders Lu, Jian, and Liang looked at one another in alarm. Each thought, Martial arts as high as this man’s are rare in this world. No wonder his name stands beside Guild Chief Hong’s in our age.

Guo Jing told the three elders why Ouyang Feng had come. Lu Youjiao said, “His claim that Guild Chief Huang is in our army is pure nonsense. If Guild Chief Huang were here, how could we not know? Besides…”

Guo Jing sat down, propped his chin on one hand, and said slowly, “And yet I think there is a good deal of sense in what he says. I often feel that Miss Huang is right beside me. Whenever I face some difficulty I cannot settle, she always gives me some brilliant idea. Only, however much I long for her, I never see her.” By now his eyes were brimming with tears.

Lu Youjiao tried to comfort him. “You need not distress yourself, sir. This parting is only for a while. One day you will be together again.”

Guo Jing said, “I wronged Miss Huang. I fear she will never be willing to see me again. What can I do to atone for it?”

The three elders Lu, Jian, and Liang looked at one another in silence.

Guo Jing continued, “Even if she will not speak to me, if she would only let me see her once, it would ease the ache of missing her a little.”

Elder Jian said, “You are tired, sir. Get some rest. Tomorrow we must work out a sound plan to keep Ouyang Feng from troubling you again.”

The next day the army marched west. That evening, after making camp, Lu Youjiao entered the tent and said, “Last year this lowly one came by a painting in Jiangnan. But what would a coarse, ignorant fellow like me make of a painting? Life in the army is lonely for you, sir. You can take your time over it.” With that he placed a scroll on the desk.

Guo Jing unrolled it and froze. On the paper was painted a maiden with flowers in her hair, seated at a cloth loom weaving silk. Her features were unmistakably Huang Rong’s, only her face was thinner, her brows were knitted and her eyes cast sidelong, and she looked worn and haggard.

Guo Jing stared at it for a long while. At the edge of the painting were inscribed two short poems. The first read:

Seven times the shuttle flies, Spring silkworms spin out all their life’s thread. Do not cut the figured silk in haste. Senselessly severed, the immortal phoenix and coloured feng, Made into two separate garments.

The second read:

Nine times the shuttle flies, Paired in flight, paired in leaf, and paired in bough. Since ancient times, the fickle-hearted know most parting. From beginning to end, the heart is wound and tied, Threaded through on a single strand.

These two poems were plainly modelled on Yinggu’s¹ Four Times the Shuttle Flies, yet in their painstaking care and hidden meaning, every line a double entendre, they seemed to surpass it. Guo Jing could not fully understand them, but plain lines such as Since ancient times, the fickle-hearted know most parting he could grasp. He pondered them for a long while, then thought, This painting must be Rong-er’s own hand. How did Elder Lu come by it? He raised his head to ask, but Lu Youjiao had already left the tent. Guo Jing at once ordered a guard to call him back. Lu Youjiao stuck firmly to his story: he had bought it at a bookshop in Jiangnan.

But even had Guo Jing been ten times more dull-witted than he was, he could see there must be some mystery here. Lu Youjiao was a rough, straightforward man. Why would he go buying paintings and calligraphy? Even if someone gave him one, he would have tossed it aside without a thought. And how could a painting bought at a Jiangnan bookshop depict Huang Rong? Yet since Lu Youjiao would not reveal the truth, there was nothing to be done.

As he was still pondering, Elder Jian entered the tent and said in a low voice, “I just saw a figure flicker at the northeast corner. In an instant it was gone. I fear that old thief Ouyang Feng may come raiding tonight.”

Guo Jing said, “Good. The four of us will join forces here and take him.”

Elder Jian said, “This lowly one has a plan, sir, if you would judge whether it will serve.”

Guo Jing said, “I am sure it is sound. Please speak.”

Elder Jian said, “The plan is simple enough. We dig a deep pit here, and station twenty soldiers outside the tent, each carrying a sandbag. If that old thief does not come, well and good. But if he comes back to pester you, sir, he will find a way in and no way out.”

Guo Jing was greatly pleased. Ouyang Feng had always been proud and never accounted others worth his notice. The stratagem was old, but against him it was perfect. At once the three elders directed the soldiers to dig a deep pit in the tent. The pit was covered with felt, and on the felt was set a light wooden chair. Twenty stout soldiers each carried sandbags and hid outside the tent. In the desert, marching armies often had to dig for water, so a pit in the tent attracted no suspicion.

When all was set, Guo Jing waited by candlelight. Yet that night Ouyang Feng did not come. The next day, after making camp, the three elders dug another trap in the tent. That night too, there was no sign of him.

By the evening of the fourth day, Guo Jing could hear the sounds of martial practice rising and falling through the camp, and his own thoughts were in turmoil. Suddenly he heard a sound outside the tent, light as a leaf falling to earth. Ouyang Feng gave a long, loud laugh, strode into the tent and sat straight down in the chair.

With a splintering crack he plunged into the pit, chair and all. The trap was seventy or eighty feet deep, its walls narrow and sheer. For all Ouyang Feng’s mastery, how could he leap straight out again once he had fallen? Twenty guards swarmed out from the sides of the tent, and forty great sandbags were swiftly thrown into the pit, all of them pressing down on Ouyang Feng.

Lu Youjiao laughed aloud and cried, “Guild Chief Huang foresees everything like a god…”

Elder Jian shot him a glare. Lu Youjiao checked himself at once.

Guo Jing asked quickly, “What Guild Chief Huang?”

Lu Youjiao said, “This lowly one let his tongue slip. I meant Guild Chief Hong. If Guild Chief Hong were here, he would surely be delighted.”

Guo Jing fixed his gaze on him and was about to ask further when suddenly the guards outside the tent raised a shout.

Guo Jing and the three elders hurried out. The soldiers were pointing at the ground, shouting and clamouring. Guo Jing pushed through the crowd and saw a mound of sand slowly rising, as though something beneath were forcing its way up. He understood at once, and thought, What skill Ouyang Feng has. He means to burrow his way up from under the ground. He issued orders on the spot. Several dozen riders mounted and rode over the mound, their horses trampling it down.

The riders and their mounts together were no small weight, and with the added force of their galloping, even Ouyang Feng’s mastery could not withstand it. The mound of sand slowly subsided, but then another mound began to rise elsewhere. Wherever the sand bulged up, the riders at once galloped over and trampled it down. Before long, no further mounds rose. They thought he must have given out and suffocated below.

Guo Jing ordered the riders to dismount and dig. It was already past the hour of Zi.² The guards held torches high and formed a circle, and a dozen soldiers with shovels dug down. At a depth of over ten feet, they found Ouyang Feng standing rigid in the sand. This spot was several dozen feet from the pit in the tent. The sand was certainly loose, but that he could dig his way through it underground with his bare hands, holding his breath, like a mole, showed neigong of a strength seldom seen or heard of. The soldiers were filled with both awe and admiration. They lifted him out and laid him on the ground.

Lu Youjiao found no breath at his nostrils, but felt his chest was still warm. He ordered iron chains brought to bind him, lest he prove unmanageable when he revived. Ouyang Feng had been crawling through the sand, his head always pressed down by the horsemen above, unable to break through. So he had feigned suffocation, meaning to make his escape once they brought him up. Now he breathed softly a few times, and seeing Lu Youjiao standing beside him loudly ordering chains, he sprang up with a sudden roar, seized Lu Youjiao’s right wrist at the pulse-gate, and locked it fast.

The change came so suddenly, a corpse springing back to life, that everyone was badly startled. But Guo Jing had already pressed his left palm against Ouyang Feng’s back, on the Taodao acupoint,³ and his right palm against his waist, on the Jizhong acupoint.⁴ Both were major acupoints along the back. Had Ouyang Feng not been crushed half-dead under the sand and utterly spent, how could they have been so easily struck? Startled, he sought to twist away and resist, but felt a faint numbness at the acupoints. He knew Guo Jing was holding back his force. If that palm-strength were released, his organs would shatter at once. And even now, his limbs were weak. Even had they not seized his vital points, he could never have matched Guo Jing hand-to-hand. He released Lu Youjiao’s wrist and stood still.

Guo Jing said, “Mister Ouyang, may I ask, did you see Miss Huang?”

Ouyang Feng said, “I caught a glimpse of her from the side. That is why I came looking for her.”

Guo Jing said, “You are certain you saw clearly?”

Ouyang Feng said bitterly, “If that little minx were not here, I doubt you could have thought up this trick with the pit on your own.”

Guo Jing stood dazed for a long moment. Then he said, “Go. I spare you this time.” His right palm pushed gently, and Ouyang Feng was sent flying over ten feet away. Guo Jing dared not release him outright, for fear he might strike back without warning.

Ouyang Feng turned and said coldly, “I never use a weapon against juniors in single combat. But since you have that little minx helping you from the shadows, full of cunning tricks, I must break that rule. Within ten days I will return with my snake staff. You have seen the venomous snakes atop it with your own eyes. Take care.” With that he drifted away.

Guo Jing watched his figure vanish in an instant into the darkness. A north wind passed, and at once he felt the cold. Thinking of the venom in Ouyang Feng’s snake staff and the mastery of his staff technique, he could not help but tremble with dread. He had learnt many weapons from the Six Eccentrics of Jiangnan, but none of it was martial art of the highest order. To face the venomous staff barehanded was out of the question, and of the weapons he did know, not one was he truly skilled with. For a time he was at a loss. He raised his head and looked at the sky. In the darkness, great flakes of snow were drifting down.

He returned to his tent. Before long the cold grew keener still. His guards lit a charcoal fire and led the war-horses into the tents for shelter. Most of the Beggars’ Guild people had brought no fur clothing. With the sudden bitter cold, they could only circulate their neili⁵ to hold it at bay. Guo Jing at once ordered the soldiers to slaughter sheep and take the hides. There was no time to tan them properly. They merely wiped away the blood and made the Guild people wrap the raw hides about themselves.

The next day was colder still. The snow on the ground had frozen into solid ice. The Khwarezmian army took advantage of the cold to attack, but Guo Jing had long prepared. He deployed the Dragon Flying Formation and won a great victory, then rode hard through the night, pursuing the enemy north across the snow.

An ancient poet wrote of the bitterness of the western campaign in the cold wind:

The general’s golden armour is not shed by night. At midnight the army marches, spear-shafts clashing, The wind’s edge is a knife, and faces feel the cut. Snow clings to the horses’ manes, their sweat rises in steam, The dappled and the linked-coin horses are soon sheathed in ice. In the tent, the ink for battle-orders congeals.

And again:

At the barbarian frontier the war-clouds mass to heaven. On the battlefield, white bones twine about the roots of grass. Over the Jian River the wind is fierce, the clouds spread wide, At the Sand Ford the stones freeze and the horses’ hooves tear away.

Guo Jing had long dwelt in the northern desert and was well accustomed to the cold, so he did not find it hard to bear. But he thought, If Rong-er really is with the army, how can she bear this, raised in Jiangnan as she was? His anxiety doubled. The next evening, after making camp, he did not disturb the officers and men but went quietly from tent to tent to search. Yet he searched every single tent, and nowhere was there any sign of Huang Rong.

He returned to the command tent and found Lu Youjiao directing soldiers as they dug a pit in the ground. Guo Jing said, “Ouyang Feng is cunning. He has been caught once. How could he take the bait a second time?”

Lu Youjiao said, “He will think we must be using some different scheme. Who would guess we would do the very same thing again? That is called making the empty real and the real empty, the empty and real intermingled, so that none can fathom it.”

Footnotes

1. 瑛姑 — Yīnggū. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

3. 陶道穴 — Táodào Xué. An acupoint on the Governing Vessel, on the upper back. ↩

4. 脊中穴 — Jǐzhōng Xué. Literally middle of the spine. An acupoint on the Governing Vessel, at the waist. ↩

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