The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 39 – Part 6

Guo Jing and Huang Rong cried out together, “Shifu!” It was none other than the Nine-Fingered Divine Beggar,¹ Hong Qigong, who had arrived.

Qiu Qianren cursed, “Stinking beggar, so you’ve come to meddle too. The Sword Summit hasn’t even begun yet.”

Hong Qigong said, “I’ve come to root out a traitor. Who’s here for a Sword Summit with you?”

Qiu Qianren said, “Very well then, great hero, great xia, I’m the traitor, and you’re a perfectly good man who’s never done a bad thing in his life.”

Hong Qigong said, “Quite right. Old Beggar has killed two hundred and thirty-one people in his life, and every one of those two hundred and thirty-one was a villain. If they weren’t corrupt officials or local bullies, they were great traitors, monsters of wickedness, faithless, heartless wretches. Our Beggars’ Guild looked into every one of them, clear as day, with hard evidence. One man looked into it, then a second looked again, so that no one was ever wronged, and only then did Old Beggar kill him. Old Beggar loves his drink and his food, and he’s muddled about small things, but in all his life he has never wrongly killed a single good person. Qiu Qianren, you are number two hundred and thirty-two!”

These words rang with such stern righteousness that Qiu Qianren was cowed to hear them.

Hong Qigong continued, “Qiu Qianren, what a hero your shifu Shangguan Jiannan² was, the Chief of Iron Palm Keep before you. All his life he served his country loyally, a brave man true as iron. When you took over as Chief after him, you went and colluded with the Jin, conspiring with the enemy and betraying your country. When you die, what face will you have to meet your shifu? You’ve come up Mount Hua with your wild hopes of winning the title of greatest in martial arts under heaven. Never mind that your skill may not be enough to stand above all the rest. Even if you had no equal in the world, would the heroes under heaven bow to a traitor who sold out his country?”

These words left Qiu Qianren dazed and stupefied. The affairs of decades past came surging into his mind one by one. He recalled his shifu’s teachings of old, how he himself had taken over as Chief of Iron Palm Keep, how his shifu had instructed him in the Keep’s rules and last injunctions from his sickbed, earnestly admonishing him on how one ought to love one’s country and serve the people. “Iron Palm” had first meant a face of iron that knew no favour, a hand that struck down villains without mercy. He had not expected that as the years passed and his martial arts grew stronger, he would drift further and further from the Keep’s founding purpose of loyalty, righteousness, defending the country and resisting invasion. The deeper he sank, the more the Keep’s ranks had degraded. The loyal and righteous had withdrawn, while villains and evil men flocked together, until the fine Iron Palm Keep had become a cesspool of filth, a den of wickedness and wrongdoing. He raised his head and saw the bright moon hanging in the sky. He lowered it again and met Hong Qigong’s gaze, stern and commanding. In that moment his conscience stirred, and he realised that much of what he had done in life had offended Heaven and harmed the innocent. Cold sweat poured off him like rain, and he sighed, “Guild Chief Hong, your rebuke is just.” He turned and flung himself over the cliff.

Hong Qigong held his bamboo staff ready, expecting that in the extremity of shame the man might launch a sudden attack. His martial arts were formidable indeed, and such a strike would surely be a deadly technique. He never imagined the man would attempt to take his own life. He was still staring in astonishment when a grey shadow flashed beside him. Great Master Yideng had shifted to the cliff’s edge. He had been sitting cross-legged, and cross-legged he remained, but his left arm shot out, caught Qiu Qianren by the feet and hauled him bodily back.

“Sadhu, sadhu!³ The sea of suffering is boundless, but turn your head and the shore is there. If you truly repent your past errors, you may yet remake yourself. It is not too late.”

Qiu Qianren wept aloud and fell to his knees before Great Master Yideng. A thousand words and ten thousand sentiments crowded his heart, yet not one would pass his lips.

Yinggu saw that his back was turned to her, the perfect moment for revenge. She drew a sharp blade from her robe and drove it towards his back.

Zhou Botong cried, “Wait!” He thrust out a hand to block her wrist.

Yinggu was furious and snapped, “What are you doing?”

Ever since she had appeared, Zhou Botong had been trembling with dread. Now, with her shouting straight in his face, he cried, “Aiyo!” and turned and ran down the mountain.

Yinggu said, “Where do you think you’re going?” And she came after him.

Zhou Botong yelled, “I’ve got a bellyache. I need to take a shit.”

Yinggu checked for an instant, then paid him no mind and kept running after him.

Zhou Botong was alarmed and cried, “Aiyo, this is bad. My trousers are full of shit, it stinks something terrible, don’t come near.”

Yinggu had searched for him for twenty years. She thought, If I let him escape this time, I’ll never find him again. She paid no heed to whether his excuse was true or false and ran after him without stopping.

Zhou Botong was terrified out of his wits. His cry about needing to take a shit had been a ruse, meant to frighten her into keeping her distance so he could slip away. He had not expected that in his panic, with a great yell, he would truly lose control of both bowels and bladder.

Guo Jing and Huang Rong watched that pair of tormenting lovers run further and further off, rounding the cliff one after the other, and could not help laughing. They turned back to see Great Master Yideng speaking in low tones beside Qiu Qianren’s ear, while Qiu Qianren nodded without cease. After a long while Great Master Yideng rose to his feet and said, “Let us go!”

Guo Jing and Huang Rong stepped forward to pay their respects, then nodded in greeting to the four disciples, the Fisherman, the Woodcutter, the Farmer and the Scholar.

Great Master Yideng stroked the tops of their heads, smiling, his face full of kindness, and he said to Hong Qigong, “Seventh Brother, my old friend is well and more heroic than ever, and he has taken two fine disciples besides. Truly a cause for celebration.”

Hong Qigong bowed and said, “I trust the Great Master is in good health. Many thanks for saving my disciple’s life.”

Great Master Yideng smiled and said, “The mountains are high and the waters run long. We shall meet again.” He pressed his palms together in farewell and turned to leave.

Hong Qigong called, “The Sword Summit is tomorrow. Why are you leaving, Great Master?”

Great Master Yideng turned and said with a smile, “This old monk is an idle man, outside the world. How would I dare vie with the heroes under heaven for first place? I came here today to untangle a knot of enmity and sin twenty years old, and I am glad the work is done. Seventh Brother, among the men of valour of this age, who is greater than you? Why humble yourself?” He pressed his palms together once more, then took Qiu Qianren by the hand and went straight down the mountain.

The four disciples from Dali bowed low to Hong Qigong together, then followed their shifu away.

As the Scholar passed Huang Rong, he saw the flush upon her cheeks and the joy in her brows, and recited with a smile, “On the low wet ground grows the chu, how luxuriant its branches!”⁴

Huang Rong, knowing he was teasing her, recited in reply, “The fowls roost in their shelter, the sun is sinking.”⁵

The Scholar laughed aloud and took his leave with a bow.

Guo Jing, utterly bewildered, asked, “Rong-er, is that some more Sanskrit?”

Huang Rong laughed. “No, those are lines from the Classic of Poetry.”

Hearing that they had been trading verses, Guo Jing pressed no further. Huang Rong gazed at him with a smile, thinking, That Minister Zhu is clever indeed. He guessed what was in my heart. The two lines he quoted continue, “I rejoice in your innocence, I rejoice in your unmarried state, I rejoice in your home yet unestablished.” They come from a love-song of a maiden admiring an unmarried man. Applied to Jing gege, they fit quite well, saying that this reckless, foolish boy hasn’t yet taken a wife or started a family, and I am very happy about it. At this thought she suddenly gave a soft cry. “Aiyo! That’s not right.”

Guo Jing asked quickly, “What’s wrong?”

Huang Rong smiled and said, “The two lines I quoted are followed by ‘The sheep and oxen come down, the sheep and oxen return to the fold.’ It says it’s getting late and the sheep and oxen are coming down the slope to their folds and pens. I meant it to call Minister Zhu a beast, but it calls Yideng shibo one as well! That’s the height of rudeness.”

Guo Jing paid no mind to these trifling witticisms. He was thinking of the way Hong Qigong had rebuked Qiu Qianren just now, and at those few words the doubts that had tormented him these past days came untangled. Suddenly he saw it, and he thought, Shifu said he killed two hundred and thirty-one people, but every one of those two hundred and thirty-one was a villain. So long as not a single good person was wrongly killed, one’s conscience is clear. And what awesome majesty Shifu had when he denounced Qiu Qianren. Qiu Qianren’s martial arts may be no worse than Shifu’s, but because evil cannot prevail over right, his spirit failed him before anything else. If I devote my martial arts to justice and good deeds, why must I cast them aside and forget them? This reasoning was in truth plain and straightforward. Qiu Chuji had told him as much before. But he had never put much faith in Qiu Chuji, and after going west with Genghis Khan on campaign, after witnessing the butchery, the cruelty of war, the suffering of the common people, and his own mother’s death beneath the blade, he had come to loathe war and slaughter. This was what had driven his bitter wrestling with these questions. He had always revered Hong Qigong, and his shifu’s words and deeds now did far more than all Qiu Chuji’s talk. After this turning one way and back again, his resolve to do good was firmer still.

Guo Jing and Huang Rong stepped forward to greet their shifu, and they told one another all that had passed since their parting. It turned out that Hong Qigong had accompanied Huang Yaoshi to Peach Blossom Island to recuperate. The place was utterly secluded, and with Huang Yaoshi, a master of the highest order, standing guard, he had used the supreme neigong recorded in the Nine Yin Manual’s general precepts to unblock his meridians. After half a year his internal injuries were healed, and after another half year his skill was fully restored. Huang Yaoshi, missing his daughter, had set out north as soon as Hong Qigong’s injuries mended to search for her. Hong Qigong had in fact left the island later. A few days before, he had run into Lu Youjiao,⁶ and thus already knew the general outline of what had befallen Guo Jing and Huang Rong.

The three of them talked for a while. Then Guo Jing said, “Shifu, rest a while. Dawn is near, and the Sword Summit will demand much of your strength.”

Hong Qigong laughed. “The older I get, the keener I am to win. When I think that I’m soon to cross hands with the Eastern Heretic and the Western Venom, I’m actually on edge, which is laughable, when you come to think of it. Rong-er, your father’s martial arts have come on a long way these last years. Tell me, when we fight presently, who will be the stronger, your father or your shifu?”

Huang Rong said, “You and my father have always been too close to call. Now that you know the divine skill of the Nine Yin, how can my father possibly be a match for you? When I see him presently, I’ll tell him not to bother fighting at all. Better to go home to Peach Blossom Island early, and have done with it.”

Hong Qigong detected something odd in her tone, and after a moment’s thought understood her intention. He laughed heartily and said, “No need to talk in circles with me. The divine skill of the Nine Yin belongs to you two. Even if you hadn’t provoked me, Old Beggar wouldn’t have the shameless face to use it. When I fight Old Heretic Huang, I’ll use only my own old martial arts.”

Huang Rong had been waiting for exactly those words. She smiled and said, “Shifu, if you lose to my father, don’t be upset. I’ll cook a hundred dishes for you. Some are new recipes I’ve thought up recently, so you’ll be happy whether you win or lose.”

Hong Qigong gulped back the water in his mouth and snorted. “What a wicked little heart you have, girl. First you goad me, then you bribe me, you sly little minx, and all you care about is your father winning.”

Huang Rong smiled, and before she could reply, Hong Qigong suddenly rose to his feet, pointing behind Huang Rong and shouting, “Old Venom, you’re here bright and early!”

Guo Jing and Huang Rong leapt to their feet at once and stood beside Hong Qigong. They turned to see Ouyang Feng’s tall figure standing there. He had approached so silently that neither of them had sensed him, and both were greatly startled.

Footnotes

1. 九指神丐 — Jiǔzhǐ Shéngài. Literally nine-fingered divine beggar. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 上官剑南 — Shàngguān Jiànnán. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 善哉 — shànzāi. A Buddhist exclamation of approval, the Chinese rendering of Sanskrit sādhu, “it is good”. ↩

4. 隰有苌楚，猗傩其枝 — xí yǒu cháng chǔ, ē nuó qí zhī. From the Classic of Poetry: on the low wet ground grows the chu plant, how luxuriant its branches. ↩

5. 鸡栖于埘，日之夕矣 — jī qī yú shí, rì zhī xī yǐ. From the Classic of Poetry, literally the fowls roost in their shelter, the sun is sinking. The lines come from 君子于役, in which a wife longs for her husband’s return at dusk. ↩

6. 鲁有脚 — Lǔ Yǒujiǎo. His name meaning “has feet”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩