The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 7

A martial contest to find a husband

The Six Eccentrics of Jiangnan and Guo Jing set off each day at dawn and stopped each night, heading southeast, and after many days on the road they had left the great grasslands behind.

That day they were not far from Zhangjiakou.¹ Guo Jing was setting foot in the Central Land for the first time, and everything he saw was new to him. His heart was light. He clamped his legs to the horse’s flanks and gave her her head, the wind roaring past his ears, houses and trees streaming away behind him, until the little red horse had run in one breath all the way to the Black Water River. Only then did he stop at a roadside eating-house to rest the horse and wait for his shifus.

After so long and hard a run, a great deal of sweat had seeped out around the little red horse’s shoulder blades. Guo Jing felt a pang of pity, took his sweat-cloth and wiped her down, and as he drew his hand back he started violently. The cloth was smeared all over with crimson blood. He wiped her right shoulder again, and that too was covered in fresh blood.

He was so frightened he almost wept. He reproached himself for running her so hard without sparing her strength. He had very likely ruined this splendid horse with his own hands. He threw his arms round her neck and kept comforting her, but the horse was as lively and vigorous as ever, without the least sign of injury.

Guo Jing longed for Third Shifu Han Baoju to hurry up and come and treat his beloved horse. He kept craning his neck to look back along the road, when he heard the lilting, pleasant chime of camel-bells. Four camels came racing down the highway, two of them snow-white all over. Each camel carried a man dressed in white, and as the four came near the eating-house their riders reined in. The felt saddle-pads were all finely embroidered and gorgeous to look at.

Guo Jing had spent his whole life on the grasslands, where white camels were rare, and he had never seen beasts so richly decked out. He craned his neck and stared. The four riders were all twenty-two or twenty-three years old, fine-browed and bright-eyed, every one of them a handsome young man of a kind seldom seen beyond the frontier. They leapt down from the camels and walked into the eating-house, all of them light and quick on their feet. Guo Jing saw that the four wore identical white robes, each with a costly fox-fur turned out at the neck, and he stared at them in a daze. One of the men in white, embarrassed by his gaze, flushed and lowered his head. Another glared at Guo Jing and snapped, “Gawping fool, what are you looking at?”

Guo Jing started and hastily turned his head away. He heard the four talk in low voices for a while, then all burst out giggling, and faintly he caught one of them saying with a laugh, “Congratulations, congratulations, this silly boy has taken a fancy to you!” It sounded like a woman’s voice.

Guo Jing knew they were laughing at him, and his ears burned with shame. He was still trying to decide whether to get up and go when Han Baoju came galloping up on the Wind-Chasing Yellow. Guo Jing hurried to meet him and told him about the blood on the red horse’s shoulder. Han Baoju said in surprise, “Is that so?” He went to the red horse, wiped her shoulder a few times, held his hand up to the sunlight to look, and roared with laughter. “This isn’t blood, it’s sweat!”

Guo Jing gaped. “Sweat? Red sweat?”

Han Baoju said, “Jing-er, this is a sweat-blood horse,² and a very precious one.”

Hearing that his beloved horse was not hurt after all, Guo Jing was overjoyed. “Third Shifu, how can a horse’s sweat be just like blood?”

Han Baoju said, “I once heard our late shifu say that in Dayuan, in the Western Regions, there is a breed of Heavenly Horse whose sweat runs crimson as blood at the shoulder, whose flanks seem to have wings, and which can cover a thousand li³ in a day. But that was only ever a legend. Nobody has seen one, and I never really believed it myself. Who would have thought you’d end up with one?”

As they were talking, Ke Zhen’e and the others rode up. Zhu Cong, who was steeped in books, wagged his head and declaimed, “It is all written down plainly in the Records of the Grand Historian⁴ and the Book of Han.⁵ When Zhang Qian,⁶ Marquis of Bowang, went as envoy to the Western Regions, he saw sweat-blood horses at the city of Ershi in Dayuan, and on his return he reported them to Emperor Wu of Han. The Emperor was filled with longing. He sent envoys with a thousand jin⁷ of gold and a golden horse cast as large as a real one, to carry them to Dayuan and beg one sweat-blood horse in exchange. The King of Dayuan said, ‘The Heavenly Horses of Ershi are the national treasure of Dayuan. They cannot be given to the Han.’ The Han envoy, who saw himself as the emissary of the Celestial Empire, flew into a rage at once, spoke insolently before the King’s court and smashed the golden horse. Seeing the Han envoy’s insolence, the King of Dayuan had him beheaded and seized both the gold and the golden horse.”

Guo Jing let out a startled “Ah” and, seeing Zhu Cong raise his bowl to drink his tea, asked eagerly, “What happened next?” The four men in white had been drawn in too, and sat with their ears cocked to Zhu Cong’s tale of the treasured horses.

Zhu Cong took a sip of tea and said, “Third Brother, you’re a famous breeder of horses. Do you know where these treasured horses come from?”

Han Baoju said, “I once heard our late shifu say they are bred from a tame horse and a wild one.”

Zhu Cong said, “Quite right. The histories say that near the city of Ershi there is a high mountain where wild horses live, running and leaping as if they flew, and no one can catch them. The people of Dayuan hit on a clever plan. On spring nights they turned mares of five colours loose at the foot of the mountain. The wild horses mated with the mares, and the foals they bore were sweat-blood horses. Jing-er, this little red horse of yours may well have come ten thousand li from Dayuan.”

Han Xiaoying wanted to hear the rest of the story. She asked, “When Emperor Wu of Han couldn’t get the treasured horses, surely he didn’t just give up?”

Zhu Cong said, “Give up? Not he. He sent out tens of thousands of troops under the great general Li Guangli⁸ to take the horses from the city of Ershi in Dayuan, and to make sure of success he ennobled Li Guangli as General of Ershi. But from Chang’an to Dayuan, once you go west out of Jiayu Pass, there is nothing but desert all the way, with no grain and no water. The soldiers died along the road and lay piled on one another, and before they ever reached Dayuan the army was down to three men in ten. Li Guangli’s troops were worn out and his horses spent. He lost his first battle and fell back to Dunhuang to ask the Emperor for reinforcements. Emperor Wu flew into a rage and sent an envoy to stand guard at Yumen Pass with a jian, under an edict that any officer or soldier of the expedition who dared to come back through the pass would be beheaded. Li Guangli could go neither forward nor back, and had no choice but to stay at Dunhuang.”

Just then they heard the lilt of camel-bells again, and four more riders came up on camels, one of them another white one. They dismounted and came into the eating-house. Guo Jing saw that these four too were handsome youths in white robes, with sable furs round their necks, and he was more amazed than ever. The four sat down at a table with the first four and ordered food.

Zhu Cong went on with the tale. “Emperor Wu thought, I have failed to get the treasured horses and lost tens of thousands of soldiers into the bargain. Won’t the foreign kingdoms look down on me, the Son of Heaven of Great Han? So he called up the frontier cavalry in force, more than two hundred thousand men in all, with cattle, horses and fodder beyond counting. Still afraid his forces might not be enough, he decreed that every criminal, petty clerk, live-in son-in-law and merchant in the land must join the campaign, until the whole empire was in an uproar. He even made two famous horse-masters high officials, one Colonel of Horse-Driving and the other Colonel of Horse-Holding, to wait for the fall of Dayuan and choose the finest horses. Sixth Brother, the Han honoured farmers and despised merchants. If you’d been born in Emperor Wu’s day you’d have been out of luck, while Third Brother here could have been made Colonel of Horse-Driving or Colonel of Horse-Holding, ha ha!”

Han Xiaoying asked, “And what crime had the live-in sons-in-law committed?”

Zhu Cong said, “In the Han dynasty, these so-called live-in sons-in-law were men too poor to make a living, who sold themselves into a household as servants, and some were taken in as sons-in-law. Pressing them into a distant campaign was simply bullying the poor. Li Guangli led his great army against the city of Dayuan and besieged it for more than forty days, killing countless Dayuan soldiers. The nobles of Dayuan took fright, killed their king and surrendered, offering up the treasured horses. Li Guangli returned to the capital in triumph, and the Emperor was overjoyed. He made him Marquis of Haixi and rewarded every one of his officers. For the sake of those few sweat-blood horses, who knows how many people died across the empire and how much wealth was squandered? On that day Emperor Wu gave a great banquet for his ministers and composed a Song of the Heavenly Horse, which ran,

‘The Supreme One sends tribute, the Heavenly Horse comes down, Crimson sweat runs, foam the colour of ochre, He gallops at ease, ten thousand li he outruns, What on earth can match him? The dragon, his comrade!’

“The poem means that only the dragons of Heaven are fit to be friends with such a horse.”

As the eight in white listened to the tale, they kept turning to look at the little red horse outside the door, their faces full of envious longing.

Zhu Cong said, “Little did anyone realise that all the speed and vigour of the Heavenly Horses of Dayuan came from the wild horses. Emperor Wu of Han spent the might of his whole empire to get a few sweat-blood horses, but without the wild horses of the mountain beyond Ershi to mate with them, after a few generations the line grew ordinary, and their sweat ran red no more.”

His tale told, the seven of them chatted as they set about their noodles.

The eight in white were murmuring among themselves. Ke Zhen’e’s hearing was uncommonly sharp, and though the two tables sat well apart he heard every word clearly. One said, “If we’re going to do it, we do it now. Once he’s on that horse, how will we ever catch him?” Another said, “There are a lot of people here, and he has friends with him.” A third said, “If they dare get in our way, we kill them all.”

Ke Zhen’e was startled and thought, How can these eight women be so vicious? He gave no sign of it and went on noisily slurping his noodles.

One voice said, “We’ll present this treasured horse to the Young Master. If he rides it to the capital he’ll cut an even grander figure, and the likes of the Ginseng Old Eccentric and Venerable Lingzhi won’t get a chance to show off.”

Ke Zhen’e had heard of Venerable Lingzhi⁹ and knew him to be a famous figure of the Mudra Order of Qinghai, renowned throughout the southwest for his Five-Finger Secret Blade. The Ginseng Old Eccentric was a celebrated master of the martial arts from Liaodong, beyond the passes.

Another said, “Once our Young Master of White Camel Mountain¹⁰ arrives, sweat-blood horse or no sweat-blood horse, nobody else will get the chance to show off.”

Another said, “Naturally. Wherever our Young Master goes, he stands out like a crane among chickens. He needn’t lift a finger. He simply towers over the crowd.”

Another said, “These last few days on the road we’ve run into a lot of underworld types, all of them men of Peng Lianhu,¹¹ the Butcher of a Thousand Hands. They must be heading for the gathering in the capital too. If they get a sight of this fine horse, what chance will we have?”

Ke Zhen’e’s heart gave a jolt. He knew Peng Lianhu for a savage bandit of Hebei and Hedong, with a great many underlings and a fearsome name. The man was vicious and killed men as freely as a reaper cuts hemp, which was how he came by the name Butcher of a Thousand Hands. He thought, What are such formidable chiefs gathering in the Central Capital for? And who are these eight women?

He heard them talk it over in low voices for a while and decide to ride out of the town first, wait on the road and seize Guo Jing’s horse there. But after that the eight women chattered on about nothing but romance, how the Young Master liked you best, how the Young Master must be thinking of you this very minute. Ke Zhen’e frowned in irritation, but the words kept drifting into his ears and he could not help hearing them.

One woman said, “When we give this sweat-blood horse to the Young Master, what reward do you suppose he’ll give us?”

Another laughed. “He’ll want you to keep him company a few more nights!”

The first pouted in mock protest and got up to tussle with her, and all eight dissolved into giggles.

Another said, “Don’t get carried away, all of you, or we’ll give ourselves away. Those people don’t look like easy marks.”

Another said softly, “That woman wears a jian, so she must know martial arts, and she’s very pretty. If she were ten years younger, I’d be amazed if the Young Master didn’t fall sick with longing the moment he saw her.”

Ke Zhen’e knew she meant Han Xiaoying, and anger rose in him. He thought, This Young Master, whoever he is, must be a nasty piece of work. He heard the eight women finish their noodles, hurry onto their camels and ride away.

Ke Zhen’e waited until they were far away, then said, “Jing-er, what did you make of those eight women’s skill?”

Guo Jing said in surprise, “Women?”

Ke Zhen’e said, “Well?”

Zhu Cong said, “They were dressed as men, and you didn’t notice, Jing-er?”

Ke Zhen’e said, “Does anyone here know of White Camel Mountain?”

Zhu Cong and the rest said they had never heard of it. Ke Zhen’e told them what he had overheard. That these reckless women should dare to break ground on Mount Tai itself struck them all as a great joke.

Han Xiaoying said, “Two of them had high noses and green eyes. They weren’t from the Central Land at all.”

Han Baoju said, “That’s right. Camels as pure white as those are only found in the Western Regions.”

Ke Zhen’e said, “Stealing a horse is a small thing, but they said a great many formidable characters are gathering at Daxing Prefecture¹² in the Central Capital. There must be some great scheme behind it, very likely aimed against the Great Song, and it could mean death for untold numbers of our Han people. Now that we’ve stumbled on it, we can’t simply ignore it.”

Quan Jinfa said, “But the day of the contest at Jiaxing is close. We can’t let complications spring up and hold us back.”

The six of them wavered for a long while, all feeling caught between the two.

Nan Xiren said suddenly, “Jing-er goes first!”

Han Xiaoying said, “Fourth Brother means Jing-er should go on to Jiaxing alone, and we’ll follow once we’ve got to the bottom of this?”

Nan Xiren nodded.

Zhu Cong said, “Right. It’s time Jing-er went out on the road alone and toughened up a little.”

Hearing that he was to part from his shifus, Guo Jing could not bear to leave them and hesitated, giving no answer.

Ke Zhen’e said sharply, “A great big lad like you, and still carrying on like a little child.”

Han Xiaoying comforted him, saying, “You go on ahead and wait for us. In less than a month we’ll be there too.”

Zhu Cong said, “We’ve never told you the details of our agreement for the contest at Jiaxing. In short, by midday on the twenty-fourth of the third month you must be at the Drunken Immortal Wineshop¹³ in Jiaxing Prefecture. Even if the sky falls in, you must not fail to keep that appointment.”

Guo Jing agreed.

Ke Zhen’e said, “If those eight women try to take your horse, there’s no need to fight them. Your horse is fast, and they won’t catch you. You have important business on hand, so don’t go sprouting side-issues.”

Han Baoju said, “If these women really do dare to make mischief, the Seven Eccentrics of Jiangnan will never let them get away with it.”

Zhang Asheng had been dead for more than ten years, yet whenever the six spoke of their doings they still called themselves the Seven Eccentrics of Jiangnan, never leaving their brother out of the count.

Zhu Cong said, “Heaven knows what sort of hill this White Camel Mountain is, but they seem to carry a good deal of weight. Best keep out of their way and not get tangled up with them.”

Guo Jing said, “Yes.”

Guo Jing then took his leave of his six shifus. A few days earlier the Six Eccentrics had watched him take on the Four Ghosts of the Yellow River¹⁴ single-handed and put what they had taught him to good use. They were letting him travel alone for two reasons. For one thing, the bold men of the jianghu¹⁵ were flocking to the Central Capital, the matter might well be serious, and they could not rest easy if they ignored it. For another, it would send him out into the jianghu alone to gain the kind of experience no shifu can teach.

At the parting each of them added a few words of advice. Nan Xiren, as always when they took turns to speak, came last, and he said only four words. “Can’t win, run!”

He knew how stubborn Guo Jing was by nature, a boy who would rather die than give in. If he came up against a real master and simply slugged it out to the bitter end, it would cost him his life. So Nan Xiren had given him this four-word maxim, which held a great deal of meaning.

Zhu Cong explained it at length. “There is no end to the martial arts. Beyond every mountain there is another mountain, above every man another man. However great your skill, you can never be without an equal under heaven. A real man knows when to bend and when to stand straight. If you truly find yourself in danger, swallow your anger for the moment, and once you’ve perfected your skill, come back and win back the ground you lost. This is what they mean by while the green hills stand, you’ll never want for firewood, and it isn’t cowardice. And if your enemies outnumber you, all the more reason not to throw yourself in on hot blood and courage alone. Remember what your Fourth Shifu said!”

Guo Jing nodded his promise, kowtowed to his six shifus, mounted and rode south. For more than ten years he had been with his six shifus morning and night, and now that they were parting, the tears ran down his face as he rode. He thought of his mother left alone on the grasslands. Genghis Khan and Tolui and the others would look after her, and she would want for neither food nor clothing, but she would be lonely all the same, and a fresh wave of sorrow came over him.

He had ridden more than ten li when the ground rose steeply. High mountains hemmed in the road on either side, with jagged, outlandish rocks. Guo Jing was out in the world on his own for the first time, and the sight of so forbidding a place filled him with secret alarm. His hand on the hilt of his jian, he peered intently ahead, thinking, If Third Shifu saw me in such a flap, he’d call me a good-for-nothing.

The road grew narrower and narrower. He rounded a fold in the hills and suddenly saw a blur of white ahead. It was four of the women in white, dressed as men, sitting on their camels across the road.

Guo Jing’s heart gave a thump. He reined in a long way off and called out, “Excuse me, please, let me through, let me through.”

The four women roared with laughter. One of them said, laughing, “What are you scared of, young fellow? Come on over, we won’t eat you.”

Guo Jing’s face burned. He had no idea what to do. Should he try to talk them round nicely, or charge through and fight?

Another woman laughed. “That’s not a bad horse you have. Come, let me have a look at it.” From her tone she might have been talking to a small child.

Guo Jing was angry. To his right the mountain rose like a wall, and to his left a gorge dropped away out of sight, wreathed in mist, its depth beyond guessing. His courage failed him. He thought, Eldest Shifu said I needn’t fight. If I charge straight through, they’ll have to get out of the way.

He lifted the reins and clamped his legs, and the red horse shot forward like an arrow. Guo Jing drew his jian and shouted at the top of his voice, “Horse coming, get out of the way! If anyone gets knocked down into the gorge, it’s none of my doing!”

The horse was very fast, and in the blink of an eye she was upon the four women. One of them leapt from her camel’s back and sprang at the horse, reaching to seize the red horse’s bridle. The red horse gave a long whinny, suddenly sprang into the air and sailed clean over the four camels. Up in the air Guo Jing felt as though he were riding the clouds, and when they came down he was behind the four women.

The leap astonished not only the four women but Guo Jing himself.

He heard a woman shriek in anger and looked round to see two gleaming hidden weapons flying at his face. He was new to the jianghu and, mindful of his shifus’ warnings, careful in everything. Afraid the weapons might be poisoned, he dared not catch them barehanded. He snatched off his leather cap, twisted round and scooped them out of the air, catching both inside it. From a distance he heard two of the women cry out together in praise, “Nicely done.”

Guo Jing looked down and saw that the hidden weapons in his cap were two silver shuttles. Their points were so sharp they had pierced the cap’s lining, and the edges along both sides were keen as razors. Anyone they struck would surely die. He thought angrily, There’s no feud between us. You’ve only taken a fancy to my horse, and for that you’d take a man’s life! He put the silver shuttles away in his pouch and, afraid the other four women in white might be lying in wait ahead, galloped on hard. In less than a shichen¹⁶ he had covered seventy or eighty li, and to his relief he saw nothing of the other four. They had most likely been waiting in ambush beside the road, but his horse had shot past too fast for them to stop him.

He rested for a while, then mounted again. Before dark he reached Zhangjiakou. By his reckoning he was now three days’ journey ahead of the women in white. They could never catch him now.

Zhangjiakou lay on the great road between north and south, the market where the furs and hides of the lands beyond the frontier were bought and sold, crowded with people and busy with trade. Guo Jing led the red horse along by the bridle, gazing this way and that. He had never been in so large a town, and everything he saw was new to him. He came to a big wineshop and, being hungry, tethered his horse to the post at the door, went in and sat down. He ordered a plate of beef and two jin of flatbread and set to with great mouthfuls.

He had a tremendous appetite and ate in the Mongol way, grabbing up beef and bread by the fistful and stuffing it into his mouth. He was eating with gusto when a racket broke out at the shop door. Worried about his horse, he hurried out, but the red horse was munching her fodder, perfectly safe. Two of the shop’s men, though, were bawling at a thin, ragged boy.

The boy was perhaps fifteen or sixteen. A battered leather cap, black with grime, sat askew on his head, and his face and hands were so smeared with coal dust that his real features could no longer be made out. He held a steamed bun in his hand and was grinning, showing two rows of fine, snow-white teeth that sparkled and looked utterly out of keeping with the rest of him. His eyes were jet black and full of life.

One of the men shouted, “What’s your game? Clear off, won’t you?”

The boy said, “All right, I’ll go, then.” He had only just turned away when the other man shouted, “Put that bun down.”

The boy did as he was told and put the bun down, but the white bun now bore several grimy black handprints and could never be sold. One of the men flew into a rage and threw a punch at him. The boy ducked under it.

Guo Jing thought the boy looked pitiable and knew he must be starving. He hurried over to stop the man, saying, “No rough stuff, I’ll pay for the bun!” He picked it up and handed it to the boy.

The boy took the bun and said, “This bun is badly made. Here, poor little thing, you have it!” He tossed it to a mangy little dog at the door, and the dog pounced on it and wolfed it down.

One of the men sighed. “What a waste, what a waste, a best white-flour meat bun fed to a dog.”

Guo Jing was taken aback too. He had supposed the boy was starving and had snatched the bun for that reason, yet he had thrown it to a dog.

Guo Jing went back to his seat and ate. The boy followed in and stood tilting his head, watching him. Guo Jing, ill at ease under the scrutiny, said, “Why don’t you come and eat too?”

The boy laughed. “Yes, let’s. I’m bored stiff on my own, and I was just looking for company.” He spoke with a strong Jiangnan accent.

Guo Jing’s mother came from Lin’an in Zhejiang, and the Six Eccentrics of Jiangnan were all from round about Jiaxing, so he had been used to the Jiangnan accent since he was small. To hear the boy speak in the accent of his own home pleased him greatly. The boy came and sat down at the table, and Guo Jing told the serving boy to bring more food. Seeing how filthy and poor the boy looked, the serving boy was most put out, and it took a great deal of calling before he sauntered over with bowls and plates.

The boy flared up. “You think I’m poor, do you, and not fit to eat your shop’s food? I dare say if you brought out your very best wine and dishes, they still wouldn’t be to my taste.”

The serving boy said coldly, “Is that so? If Your Honour can order it, we can always cook it. The only worry is that once it’s eaten there’ll be nobody to settle the bill.”

The boy said to Guo Jing, “Will you foot the bill, however much I eat?”

Guo Jing said, “Of course, of course.” He turned to the serving boy. “Quick, cut a jin of beef and half a jin of lamb’s liver.” He thought beef and lamb’s liver the finest delicacies under heaven. He asked the boy, speaking in the Jiangnan dialect himself, “Will you drink some wine?”

The boy said, “No hurry for the meat. Let’s have fruit first. Hey, boy, to start with bring us four dried fruits, four fresh fruits, two salt-and-sour pickles and four candied fruits.”

The serving boy started, never having expected such big talk from him, and sneered, “What does Your Lordship require by way of fruit?”

The boy said, “In a poor place like this, in a little wineshop, I don’t suppose you can produce anything really good. So let’s say the four dried fruits are lychees, longans, steamed dates and ginkgo nuts. For the fresh fruits, pick whatever’s in season. For the pickles I want spiced cherries and shredded-ginger plums, if you can get them here. And the candied fruits? Rose kumquats, spiced grapes, frosted peach strips and pear-flesh good-fellows.” He said all this in an imitation of northern speech that was none too pure.

Hearing him talk like a man who knew his business, the serving boy could not help dropping his contempt.

The boy went on, “For dishes to go with the wine, you won’t have fresh fish or shrimp here. Hm, just bring us eight passable dishes, then.”

The serving boy asked, “And what would Your Honours like?”

The boy said, “Oh dear, it’s no good unless I spell it out. The eight wine-dishes are flower-steamed quail, stir-fried duck feet, chicken-tongue soup, deer tripe stuffed with conpoy, mandarin-duck fried beef tendon, chrysanthemum rabbit shreds, quick-fried river-deer leg, and gold-and-silver trotters in ginger and vinegar. I’m only choosing what you can make here. We’ll do without anything really choice.”

The serving boy listened with his mouth hanging open. When the boy had finished he said, “Those eight dishes won’t come cheap. The duck feet and the chicken-tongue soup alone will take dozens of chickens and ducks.”

The boy pointed at Guo Jing. “My friend here is footing the bill. Think he can’t afford it?”

The serving boy saw that the black sable Guo Jing was wearing was very costly, and thought, Even if you can’t pay, stripping that black sable off you will more than cover it. He agreed and asked, “Will that be enough?”

The boy said, “Add twelve dishes to go with the rice and eight kinds of pastry, and that should about do it.”

The serving boy dared not ask the names of the dishes, afraid that he would order things nobody could buy, and told the kitchen to choose the very best. He asked the boy, “What wine will Your Honours have? We have ten-year-aged Bamboo Leaf Green Fenjiu.¹⁷ Shall I bring two hornfuls?”

The boy said, “All right, we’ll make do with that!”

Before long the fruits and candied fruits came to the table one by one. Guo Jing tasted every one, and each was a delicacy he had never eaten before.

The boy talked away grandly, all about the sights and customs of the south, and Guo Jing, hearing how elegantly he spoke and how widely he had read, was thoroughly captivated. His Second Shifu was a learned scholar, but Guo Jing had given all his effort to the martial arts and had picked up only a little rough reading and writing from Zhu Cong in his spare time, of which there had been very little. Listening now, he thought the boy’s learning no less than his Second Shifu’s, and he marvelled in secret, thinking, I took him for a penniless beggar-boy, and yet he’s so learned. The people of the Central Land really are very different from those beyond the frontier.

After another half-shichen, wine and dishes covered two tables pushed together. The boy had a poor head for wine and only picked a few mouthfuls from the plainer dishes. Suddenly he called the serving boy over and berated him. “This conpoy of yours is five-year-old stale stock. You expect to charge money for that?”

The shopkeeper heard him and hurried over with an ingratiating smile. “What a discerning tongue you have, sir. We’re truly sorry. We don’t stock conpoy. We got it from the Changqing Tower, the biggest wineshop in town. There’s nothing fresh to be had anywhere in Zhangjiakou.”

The boy waved him away and turned back to talk with Guo Jing. Hearing that he was from Mongolia, he asked about the grasslands. Guo Jing, mindful of his shifus’ instructions not to give away who he was, talked only of the fun of shooting hares with a pellet-bow, shooting eagles, racing horses and trapping wolves. The boy listened with relish, and whenever Guo Jing came to the parts he was proudest of, he clapped and laughed in spite of himself, as artless as a child.

Guo Jing had spent his whole life in the desert. Though he was close to his two young friends Tolui and Huazheng, Temüjin was fond of his youngest son and Tolui was often at his father’s side, with little leisure for play. Huazheng had a fiery temper, and Guo Jing would not give way to her too much. They often played together, but they were forever quarrelling, and though they soon made up again they never really got on. Now, eating and talking with this boy, he somehow felt a happiness he had never known in his life. They spoke in the Jiangnan dialect, which made it feel all the more intimate. He was by nature tongue-tied and slow of speech, and usually only answered when pressed, so that Han Xiaoying often teased him that he had caught Nan Xiren’s habit of treasuring words like gold and was Fourth Shifu’s true disciple. But now the words came pouring out of him, and he told the boy every foolish, silly thing he had ever done, holding back only his martial training and anything to do with Temüjin. Carried away, he seized the boy’s left hand. As he held it, he felt the palm warm and soft, smooth as though boneless, and was startled.

The boy gave a soft laugh and lowered his head. Guo Jing saw that though his face was still black with coal dust, the skin at the back of his neck was as white and smooth as cream, fairer than snow. He thought it a little odd, but paid it no mind.

The boy gently freed his hand. “We’ve been talking so long, the food’s gone cold and so has the rice!”

Guo Jing said, “Yes. Cold food tastes good too.”

The boy shook his head.

Guo Jing said, “Shall I have them heat it up, then?”

The boy said, “No. Reheated food isn’t good.” He called the serving boy and ordered him to clear away all the dozens of cold dishes and start again with fresh ingredients. The shopkeeper, the cooks and the serving boys all marvelled, but business was business, and they did everything he asked. By Mongol custom a host gave his guest everything he had. Besides, this was the first money Guo Jing had ever spent in his life, and he had no notion at all of what silver was worth. Yet even if he had known, he was so delighted with the boy’s company that he would not have given a thought to spending ten times as much.

When the new dishes were set out, the boy ate only a few chopsticks and said he was full. The serving boy cursed Guo Jing in his heart, thinking, You simpleton, that brat’s taken you for a ride.

When the bill came, it totalled nineteen liang, seven qian, and four fen.¹⁸ Guo Jing took out an ingot of gold and sent the serving boy to the silver shop to change it and settle the bill.

They left the shop. A north wind struck their faces. The boy seemed to feel the cold and drew his neck in. “I’ve put you to a great deal of trouble. Goodbye, then.”

Seeing how thinly he was dressed, Guo Jing could not bear it. He took off his sable and draped it round the boy’s shoulders. “Brother, we’ve only just met, yet I feel I’ve known you for years. Please wear this when you go.” He still had eight ingots of gold left. He took out four and put them in the pocket of the sable.

The boy did not even thank him. He threw the sable round himself and drifted away.

He had gone some dozens of paces when he looked back and saw Guo Jing still standing in the long street with the red horse by the bridle, gazing after him as though in a trance. Knowing that Guo Jing could not bear to part like this, the boy beckoned to him.

Guo Jing hurried over. “Is there anything else you need, worthy brother?”

The boy smiled faintly. “I still haven’t asked your honourable name, brother.”

Guo Jing laughed. “So you haven’t. I clean forgot. My surname is Guo and my name is Jing. And you, Brother?”

The boy said, “My surname is Huang, and my name is the single character Rong.”

Guo Jing said, “Where are you bound? If you’re going back south, why don’t we travel together?”

Huang Rong shook his head. “I’m not going back south.” Then he said suddenly, “Big Brother, I’m hungry again.”

Guo Jing was still full, but he had no wish to part from this friend he had just made. He said gladly, “Good, then I’ll keep you company, Brother, for some more food and wine.”

This time Huang Rong took him to the Changqing Tower, the biggest wineshop in Zhangjiakou, its furnishings all modelled on the great wineshops of Bianliang, the old capital of the Great Song. Huang Rong ordered only four plates of dainty pastries and a pot of Longjing tea, and the two of them talked again of everything under the sun. Longjing was the famous tea of Guo Jing’s own homeland, the finest in the world, but he knew nothing of such things. He chewed the leaves and found them thin and tasteless.

When Guo Jing told him that he kept two white eagles, Huang Rong was full of envy. “I was just wondering where to go next. In that case, tomorrow I’ll go to Mongolia and catch a couple of white eaglets to play with.”

Guo Jing said, “They’re not easy to come by.”

Huang Rong said, “How did you come by them, then?”

Guo Jing had no answer and could only smile. He thought of the bitter cold of Mongolia and its savage north wind, and how slight the boy was, and doubted he could stand it. He asked, “Where is your home? Why aren’t you going back?”

Huang Rong’s eyes reddened. “Father doesn’t want me any more.”

Guo Jing said, “Why ever not?”

Huang Rong said, “Father was keeping someone locked up and wouldn’t let him go. I thought the man looked pitiable, cooped up alone and bored to tears, so I took him good food and wine and kept him company with talk. Father was angry and scolded me, so I slipped away in the night.”

Guo Jing said, “I expect your father’s missing you by now. What about your mother?”

Huang Rong said, “She died long ago. I’ve never had a mother.”

Guo Jing said, “When you’ve had enough of playing about, go back home.”

The tears rolled down Huang Rong’s face. “Father doesn’t want me any more.”

Guo Jing said, “He wouldn’t do that.”

Huang Rong said, “Then why hasn’t he come looking for me?”

Guo Jing said, “Perhaps he has, but couldn’t find you.”

Huang Rong laughed through his tears. “That’s true enough. Then I’ll go back when I’ve had enough of playing about, but first I have to catch a couple of white eagles.”

They talked for a while about what they had seen and heard on their travels, and Guo Jing told him about the eight women in white, dressed as men, who had tried to take his horse. Huang Rong asked about the little red horse’s temper and her speed, and Guo Jing told him where she had come from and how fast she could run. Huang Rong listened with great envy and said, beaming, “Big Brother, I want to ask you for a treasure. Will you give it to me?”

Guo Jing said, “How could I not?”

Huang Rong said, “It’s your sweat-blood horse I’ve set my heart on.”

Guo Jing did not hesitate for a moment. “Very well, she’s yours, Brother.”

Huang Rong had only been joking. He thought that Guo Jing must love this horse, the kind that comes along once in a thousand years, as dearly as his own life, while the two of them were no more than strangers who had happened to meet. He had meant to see how this honest fellow would bring himself to say no. When Guo Jing agreed so freely, it took him completely by surprise. He was dumbfounded, and then so overcome with gratitude that he could not control himself. All at once he laid his head on the table and began to sob.

This astonished Guo Jing even more. He asked quickly, “Brother, what is it? Are you unwell?”

Huang Rong raised his head. His face was streaked with tears, but he was beaming with joy. Two trails of tears had run down his cheeks and washed away the coal dust, uncovering two lines of skin as white as jade. He laughed. “Big Brother, let’s go!”

Guo Jing paid the bill and went downstairs. He led the red horse over and told her, “I’ve given you to my good friend. You must do as you’re told and never lose your temper.” Holding her by the bridle and gently stroking her coat, he said, “Up you get, Brother!”

The red horse had never let anyone else ride her, but her wildness had much abated of late, and seeing how her master behaved, she put up no resistance. Huang Rong swung into the saddle. Guo Jing let go and gave her rump a gentle slap, and the little red horse was off and away, leaving the dust behind.

Only when Huang Rong and the horse had vanished round the corner did Guo Jing turn away. The light was failing. He took a room at an inn and was about to put out the lamp and lie down when he heard a tapping at the door. His heart leapt, for he thought it must be Huang Rong. “Is that you, Brother? Wonderful!”

A hoarse voice outside said, “It’s your old man! What’s so wonderful about that?”

Guo Jing was taken aback. He opened the door and saw by the candlelight five shadowy figures standing outside, and at the sight of them he caught his breath. Four of them carried dao, spear, whip and axe. They were the Four Ghosts of the Yellow River, whom he had fought so fiercely on top of the earthen hill. The fifth was a thin man of about forty with a greenish face, an exceedingly long one, and three great fleshy lumps swollen out of his forehead. He was extremely ugly to look at.

The thin, green-faced man gave a cold laugh, strode into the room and planted himself on the kang as though he owned it, then cocked his head and eyed Guo Jing askance. The candlelight fell on his lumps and cast three patches of shadow over his face.

Shen Qinggang the Soul-Severing Dao, one of the Four Ghosts, said with a sneer, “This is our shishu, the far-famed Three-Headed Dragon, Master Hou Tonghai.¹⁹ Kowtow to him, quick!”

Guo Jing saw that he was surrounded. The Four Ghosts alone were more than he could handle, let alone with their shishu as well, and by the look of him this man’s skill would be more formidable still. He clasped his fist and asked, “What can I do for you all?”

Hou Tonghai said, “Where are those shifus of yours?”

Guo Jing said, “My six shifus aren’t here.”

Hou Tonghai said, “Heh heh. Then I’ll let you live another half day. If I killed you now, people would say that I, the Three-Headed Dragon, bully the young. At noon tomorrow I’ll be waiting for you in the Black Pine Forest, ten li out in the western outskirts. Tell your six shifus to come along with you.” With that he stood up and, without waiting for Guo Jing’s answer, walked straight out of the room. Wu Qinglie the Life-Chasing Spear pulled the door shut behind him and, with a click, fastened it from outside.

Guo Jing blew out the candle and sat on the kang. On the window-paper he could see a shadow slowly moving to and fro. The enemy were plainly keeping guard outside the window. After a long while he heard a noise on the roof. Someone rapped a few times on the tiles with a weapon and barked, “Don’t even think of running, boy. Your grandpa’s on guard up here.”

Guo Jing knew there was no escape. He lay down on the kang and stared up at the roof, wondering how he could get away tomorrow, but before he had thought of half a good plan he had fallen asleep.

The next morning when he got up, the serving boy brought in washing water and noodles. Qian Qingjian stood behind him gripping his twin axes, watching like a tiger.

Guo Jing thought that his six shifus were still a long way off and could not possibly arrive in time to save him. Since he could not get away, a real man could at least die fighting. Fourth Shifu had taught him, “Can’t win, run!” But he had not even fought yet, and to take to his heels without a fight would not fit Fourth Shifu’s advice either. In truth, with Qian Qingjian alone keeping watch, running away would have been no great difficulty, and Qian Qingjian might not even have been able to beat him. It was only that his mind did not turn corners easily. Had Nan Xiren said simply, “Danger, run!”, he would very likely have bolted for his life, and Qian Qingjian could surely never have caught him. As for the Three-Headed Dragon Hou Tonghai, he took it for granted that the Six Eccentrics of Jiangnan must be close by and that men of their standing would never fail to keep an appointment, and he had not guarded at all against Guo Jing slipping away on his own.

Guo Jing sat on the kang and meditated as Ma Yu had taught him. Qian Qingjian waved his axes about in front of him, hacking and chopping at the empty air and yelling at the top of his voice, and found fault with the way Guo Jing sat, saying that practising like that would surely bring on qi deviation.²⁰ Guo Jing of course paid him no attention.

When the sun was nearly at its height he rose and said to Qian Qingjian, “Let’s go!” He paid for his room and board, and the two of them walked side by side. Ten li to the west, sure enough, they came to a great pine forest whose boughs blotted out the sky. It was so dark and gloomy inside that one could not see more than a few dozen paces. Qian Qingjian left Guo Jing and hurried on into the trees.

Guo Jing unwound the soft whip from his waist, drew a breath and gathered his wits, and went forward step by step, afraid the enemy might strike from hiding. He followed the path through the forest for a li or so and still saw no sign of them. The wood was utterly still, with only the occasional cry of a bird, and the further he went the more frightened he grew. A thought struck him suddenly. Nobody’s watching me now, and the trees are so thick. Why don’t I hide? Hiding doesn’t count as running! He was about to slip into the undergrowth on his left when a voice high over his head bellowed in fury, “You little bastard, you swine, you son of a turtle!”

Guo Jing sprang three paces away and shook out his whip in an opening stance, ready for battle. When he looked up he was both astonished and amused. The Four Ghosts of the Yellow River were strung up high in four great trees, each with his hands and feet bound behind him, swinging to and fro in the air and struggling with all their might, with nothing to push against. At the sight of Guo Jing all four broke into even louder abuse.

Guo Jing laughed. “Playing on the swings up there, are you? Great fun, is it? Goodbye, goodbye, I must be off!” He took a few steps, then looked back and asked, “Who hung you up in the trees?”

Qian Qingjian swore at him. “Damn your grandmother, dirty tricks and ambushes, you’re no brave man!”

Shen Qinggang shouted, “If you’ve got any guts, boy, let us down and we’ll settle it man to man. If the four of us rush you all at once, we won’t call ourselves heroes.”

Guo Jing was not clever, but nor was he a complete fool. He roared with laughter. “Let’s say you’ve won, then, and the winners can stay on the swings. No need for any man-to-man after that!”

Afraid the Three-Headed Dragon Hou Tonghai might turn up at any moment, he dared not linger, and ran out of the forest. Back in the town he changed some gold for silver, bought a good horse and set off south at once, turning it over in his mind all the way. Who could my secret rescuer be? The Four Ghosts of the Yellow River aren’t at all bad fighters, yet someone managed to hang them up in the trees. And that Three-Headed Dragon Hou Tonghai, a fiend if ever there was one, why was there no sign of him? The shifus say that once you’ve made an appointment with someone, you must keep it, however great the danger. Well, I’ve kept this one. If he didn’t come himself, he can’t blame me.

Nothing more happened on the road, and one day he came to Daxing Prefecture in the Central Capital. This was the capital of the Great Jin, called Yanjing in former times and the Southern Capital of the Liao before them, at that time the most splendid and prosperous city under heaven, finer even than Bianliang, the old capital of the Song, or Lin’an, the new. Guo Jing had grown up in the wilderness. How could he ever have seen such a sight?

Red towers and painted pavilions, embroidered doorways and vermilion gates, carved carriages crowding the kerbs and fine horses racing past. The tall counters of the great shops were laden with rare and curious wares, and in the teahouses and wineshops there was nothing to be seen but rich clothes and pearl-sewn shoes. Flowers brightened every road, and pipes and drums filled the air. Gold and kingfisher ornaments dazzled in the sun, and silks and gauzes trailed their fragrance. It all made this lad, who had never seen anything of the world, quite giddy. Of all the things he saw, nine in ten he could not have named.

He did not dare go into any of the wineshops that glittered with gold and jade, but picked a little eating-house, had his meal and wandered off along the main street. Suddenly he heard a hubbub of voices ahead, with cheer upon cheer ringing in his ears, and in the distance he saw a great crowd gathered round, watching he knew not what.

His curiosity roused, he squeezed into the crowd to look. In the middle was a large open space, and in the ground was planted a brocade banner, red flowers on a white ground, embroidered with four golden characters, Martial Contest to Win a Bride.²¹ Beneath the banner two people were in the thick of a fight with fists and feet, a girl in red and a big, tall man. Guo Jing saw that every move the girl made was disciplined and correct, plainly the work of no mean martial artist, while the man’s skill was ordinary. After a few exchanges the girl in red feigned an opening and left her upper guard exposed. The man was delighted and struck with Twin Dragons Leave the Cave, both fists whistling straight at her shoulders. With a slight turn of her body she slid clear and swept her left arm across, and with a thump it caught the man full in the back. Unable to check himself, he pitched headlong forward and went sprawling in the dust. He picked himself up, red with shame, and squeezed away into the crowd. The onlookers cheered again and again.

The girl smoothed back her hair and withdrew to the foot of the banner-pole. Looking at her, Guo Jing saw a girl of seventeen or eighteen, standing slim and graceful. Her face was weathered by the road, but her eyes were bright, her teeth white and her features lovely. The brocade banner fluttered in the north wind, casting her face alternately into light and shadow. To the left of the banner an iron spear was planted in the ground, and to the right two short halberds of fine iron.

He saw the girl say a few words in a low voice to a middle-aged man beside her. The man nodded and, turning to each side of the crowd in turn, bowed with clasped hands. “My name is Mu Yi,²² and I am from Shandong. We are passing through your honourable city seeking neither fame nor gain, but only to find a friend…” He gestured with his open hand towards the two weapons beneath the banner and went on, “…and a young acquaintance of former days. And since my daughter has come of age and is not yet promised to any family, and she once vowed that she cared nothing for a husband of wealth or rank, only for a brave man of outstanding martial prowess, I have made so bold as to hold this martial contest to find her a husband. Any man of about twenty, not yet married, who can beat my daughter by so much as one blow of fist or foot shall have her hand in marriage. If he should be from Shandong or the two Zhes, so much the better. My daughter and I have travelled from south to north through seven circuits,²³ but as the renowned heroes are all married already, and young heroes seldom deign to come forward, we have never yet found a good match.” He paused and clasped his fist. “Daxing Prefecture is a place of crouching tigers and hidden dragons, where masters and brave men must abound. My conduct is foolish, and I beg you all to bear with me.”

Guo Jing saw that this Mu Yi had a thick waist and broad shoulders, strongly built, but his back was slightly stooped, his temples streaked with white, his face seamed with wrinkles, and his expression deeply troubled. He wore a coarse cotton padded jacket, and both jacket and trousers were patched. The girl was much more smartly dressed.

Mu Yi finished his explanation and waited. A few loafers in the crowd cracked jokes and passed remarks on the girl’s looks, but no one dared come forward and fight. He looked up at the sky. Leaden clouds hung low and the north wind blew harder. He said to himself, “It will snow soon. Ah, the sky looked just like this that day…” He turned and pulled the banner-pole from the ground, about to roll up the brocade banner, when from east and west in the crowd two voices cried at once, “Wait!”

Two men leapt into the ring at the same moment.

The crowd took one look and roared with laughter.

The one who had come in from the east was a fat old man, his face covered in a bushy beard gone mostly grey, fifty at the very least. The one from the west was funnier still, a monk with a shaven head.

The fat man shouted at the crowd, “What are you laughing at? He’s holding a martial contest to find a husband for his daughter, and I’ve no wife yet. Why shouldn’t I compete?”

The monk said with a cheeky grin, “Grandad, even if you won, would you make a girl as pretty as a flower a widow the day she crossed your threshold?”

The fat man said furiously, “Then what are you doing here?”

The monk said, “With a wife as beautiful as that, I’d give up being a monk this instant.”

The crowd roared with laughter.

Anger showed in the girl’s face, and her willow-leaf brows shot up. She pulled off the cloak she had just put on and was about to step forward. Mu Yi held his daughter back and told her to be patient, then thrust the banner-pole back into the ground.

The monk and the fat man argued over who should fight first, trading words until the quarrel grew heated. The idlers looking on egged them on, laughing, “You two brothers have a bout first, and whoever wins goes on!”

The monk said, “All right, Grandad, let’s you and me have a little game!” With a whoosh he threw a punch. The fat man jerked his head aside and punched back.

Guo Jing saw that the monk was using Shaolin Arhat Fist²⁴ and the fat man Five Elements Fist,²⁵ both external techniques. The monk leapt high and dived low, his movements swift. The fat man’s fists were heavy and powerful, and old as he was, every blow carried weight.

In the thick of the fight the monk darted in close and, thump, thump, thump, hammered three punches into the fat man’s side. The fat man grunted three times but bore the pain without giving way, raised his right fist high and brought it down like a great hammer, square on the monk’s bald head. The monk could not take it and sat down hard on his backside. He was dazed for a moment, then suddenly whipped a monk’s dao from his robe and slashed at the fat man’s shin.

The crowd yelled. The fat man jumped out of the way, reached to his waist and pulled out an iron whip, so both men had been carrying hidden weapons. In a moment dao and whip were flying back and forth, clanging and clattering in a lively fight. The crowd shouted their approval while their feet kept backing away, for weapons have no eyes and they were afraid of being hurt by mistake.

Mu Yi walked up to them and said in a ringing voice, “Stop, both of you. This is the capital. You cannot go swinging daos and spears about here.”

The two were too deep in their fight to heed him. Mu Yi suddenly closed in on them, kicked the dao from the monk’s hand, and in the same movement caught the tip of the iron whip. One tug, one twist, and the fat man could not keep his grip and had to let go. Mu Yi flung the iron whip heavily to the ground. The monk and the fat man dared say no more, but retrieved their weapons and vanished into the crowd.

Amid the crowd’s roars of laughter came the jingle of harness bells, and a young nobleman came riding up at speed, surrounded by dozens of brawny servants.

The young nobleman saw the brocade banner with its Martial Contest to Win a Bride, looked the girl over a few times and smiled faintly. He dismounted, walked into the crowd and said to the girl, “Are you the young lady holding this martial contest?”

The girl blushed and turned her head away without answering.

Mu Yi stepped forward and clasped his fist. “My name is Mu. What can I do for you, Young Master?”

The nobleman said, “What are the rules of this contest?”

Mu Yi explained.

The nobleman said, “Then I’ll try.”

Guo Jing thought the young man handsome, some eighteen or nineteen, his brocade robe richly made. He thought, He and the girl would make a fine pair. Lucky the monk and the fat old man were no good just now, or else… or else…

Mu Yi clasped his fist with an ingratiating smile. “You’re making fun of us, Young Master.”

The nobleman said, “How so?”

Mu Yi said, “This lowly one and his daughter are rough jianghu folk. How would we dare cross hands with you, Young Master? Besides, this is no ordinary wager or trial of skill. We are seeking someone, and it concerns the great matter of my daughter’s whole life. I beg you to forgive us, Young Master.”

The nobleman glanced at the girl in red. “How many days have you been holding this contest?”

Mu Yi said, “We have travelled through seven circuits. It has been more than half a year.”

The nobleman said in surprise, “And no one has beaten the young lady? That I don’t believe.”

Mu Yi smiled faintly. “I imagine that those with skill enough are already married, or else think it beneath them to cross hands with my daughter.”

The nobleman said, “Come, come, come! Let me have a try.” He walked slowly into the centre.

Mu Yi saw how refined he looked and how fine and spirited his bearing was, and thought, If he were a boy from an ordinary family, he’d make a good match for my girl. But he’s a rich young lord, and this is the capital of the Jin. Even if his father and brothers hold no office at court, they’re sure to be people of wealth and power. If my girl beats him, there’s bound to be trouble afterwards, and if he wins, how can I marry her into a family like that? So he said, “My daughter and I are rough folk from the hills and the wilds. We would not dare to cross hands with you, Young Master. Let us take our leave.”

The nobleman laughed. “It’s a friendly bout, and we stop at the first touch. Don’t worry, I promise I won’t hurt your girl or cause her any pain.” He turned to the girl with a smile. “Young lady, if you can land just one blow on me, I’ll call it your victory. How about that?”

The girl said, “In a martial contest, victory and defeat must be decided fairly.”

Someone in the crowd shouted, “Get on with it. The sooner you fight, the sooner you marry and the sooner you have a fat baby!” Everyone laughed.

The girl frowned, silent in her anger. She slipped off her cloak and dropped the nobleman a slight curtsey. The nobleman returned the courtesy and said, smiling, “Young lady, please.”

Mu Yi thought, A pampered young lordling like this, how can he really know any martial arts? We’ll be rid of him as quickly as we can and leave the city at once, before there’s more trouble. He said, “Then please take off your long robe, Young Master.”

The nobleman smiled. “No need.”

The onlookers had seen the girl’s skill, and they thought that if he was so sure of himself he would soon have cause to regret it. Some said, “The Mus are jianghu folk. How would they dare offend a young lord of noble birth? They’ll be sure to let him down gently, without making him lose face.” Someone else said under his breath, “You think this is really a martial contest to find her a husband? He’s using his daughter’s good looks and her martial arts. Father and daughter are out to swindle people of their money. The Young Master is going to be out of pocket this time.” In those days it was common enough in the great cities for jianghu folk to perform feats for money or use a martial contest for a husband as a pretext, and ordinary people thought nothing of it.

The girl said, “Please, Young Master.”

The nobleman’s sleeve stirred lightly. His body turned right, but his left sleeve swept from behind his back towards the girl’s shoulder. The girl, seeing the quality of his first move, was slightly startled. She ducked forward and slipped under the sleeve. But the nobleman’s moves were astonishingly quick. She had barely come out from under the sleeve when his right sleeve came driving at her face with a rush of wind. She was caught between sleeve above and sleeve ahead, with no way past.

The girl stamped her left foot and shot backwards like an arrow leaving the bowstring, a quick and agile change of defence.

The nobleman called, “Good!” He stepped forward and, before her feet had touched the ground, flung his sleeve at her again. The girl twisted in mid-air and kicked out with her left foot, aiming straight at the bridge of his nose. It was attack as defence, and the nobleman had no choice but to leap away to the right. They landed at the same moment.

The nobleman’s three moves had been extraordinarily swift, and the girl’s three evasions no less nimble. Each was secretly impressed by the other, and they glanced at one another. The girl flushed and launched her attack.

At the height of the fight the nobleman was everywhere in the ring, his brocade robe shimmering, while the girl advanced and retreated, darting and dodging, until her red jacket and crimson skirt seemed to melt into a single red cloud.

Guo Jing watched, more and more amazed. He thought that these two were about his own age and had each already mastered such skill, which was rare indeed. He thought too that they were well matched in age and looks, and if they married, they could hold a “martial contest for a bride” like this whenever they had nothing better to do, which would be great fun. He was watching with his mouth wide open, thoroughly enjoying himself, when suddenly the girl caught hold of the nobleman’s long sleeve. After a brief tug-of-war there was a tearing sound, and half the sleeve came away. The girl leapt aside and flung the torn half into the air.

Mu Yi called, “Forgive us, Young Master.” He turned to his daughter. “Now let’s go!”

The nobleman’s face darkened. “The outcome has not been decided!” He seized the front of his robe and pulled it open, the jade buttons flying off in all directions. One of his servants stepped into the ring and helped him off with the long robe. Another picked up the jade buttons. Underneath, the nobleman wore a lake-green satin undergarment with an onion-green sash at his waist, setting off a face white as jade and lips red as though painted.

He flung his left palm upwards in a feint. This time he showed what he could really do. A fierce, biting gust of palm-wind set the girl’s sashes fluttering. Guo Jing, Mu Yi and the girl all started, and each of them thought, Who would have guessed that someone so refined-looking could have such ruthless skill!

Now the nobleman held back no longer. His palm-wind whistled as he warmed to the fight, and the girl could no longer get within three feet of him.

Guo Jing thought, He’s a fine fighter. The girl’s no match for him, so this marriage will come off. He was secretly glad for both of them. He thought too, My six shifus are always saying there are a great many martial masters in the Central Plains, and they’re quite right. His palm technique is marvellous and full of clever changes. If he fought me, I’m afraid I couldn’t beat him.

Mu Yi too had long since seen which of them was the stronger. He called, “Nian-er,²⁶ there’s no need to go on. The Young Master is much stronger than you.” He thought, The boy’s skill is formidable, so he’s no idle wastrel given to drink, women and gambling. I’ll ask about his family presently, and as long as they’re not Jin officials, I’ll agree to the match and my girl’s future will be settled. He called again and again for the two of them to stop.

But the two were locked in combat and could not easily disengage. The nobleman thought, I could hurt you now as easily as turning my hand over, but I can’t quite bring myself to. Suddenly his left palm changed to a grab, hooking out, and caught the girl’s left wrist. The girl struggled outward in alarm. The nobleman, following her momentum, sent her gently off balance so that she was about to fall backwards, and his right arm went round her and held her in his embrace. The crowd cheered and shouted, all in uproar.

The girl blushed scarlet. “Let me go, quick!” she begged under her breath.

The nobleman laughed. “Call me dear gege²⁷ and I’ll let you go!”

The girl hated his impudence and struggled hard, but he held her tight, and struggle as she might she could not break free.

Mu Yi hurried forward. “You’ve won, Young Master. Please let my daughter go!”

The nobleman gave a hearty laugh, but still he did not let her go.

The girl, desperate now, kicked at his temple to force him to let go. The nobleman’s right arm released her and came up to block, and with a hook of the wrist he caught the foot she had kicked with. His seizing skill was so sure that whatever he reached for was his, a wrist when he grabbed for a wrist, a foot when he grabbed for a foot. The girl, more desperate than ever, wrenched her foot back with all her strength, and her embroidered shoe with its red flowers came right off. But at least she had broken free of his arms. She sat down on the ground, hanging her head in shame and feeling her white cotton sock. The nobleman grinned and lifted the shoe to his nose as though to sniff it. The rogues in the crowd were not going to miss a chance like that, and shouted together, “How fragrant!”

Mu Yi said with a smile, “May I ask your honourable name?”

The nobleman laughed. “No need for that!” He turned and threw on his brocade robe, glanced at the girl in red, and tucked the embroidered shoe into his robe.

Just then the wind blew harder and flakes of snow came drifting down from the sky. Many of the idlers cried out, “It’s snowing, it’s snowing!”

Mu Yi said, “We are staying at the Gaosheng Inn on West Street. Let us go there and talk things over.”

The nobleman said, “Talk about what? It’s snowing, and I’m in a hurry to get home.”

Mu Yi was stunned, and his face changed. “You have beaten my daughter, and as I said beforehand, I will of course give her to you in marriage. How can the great matter of her whole life be treated carelessly?”

The nobleman laughed. “We were only playing about with fists and feet, and it was good fun too. As for taking a bride, ha ha, no thank you!”

Mu Yi went as white as snow with anger and for a moment could not speak. He pointed at the young man. “You… you’re…”

One of the nobleman’s attendants sneered, “Who do you think our Young Master is? How could he marry into a family of low-born riff-raff like you, strolling performers who tramp the jianghu? Go and dream your autumn daydreams!”

Mu Yi was furious. He lashed out with a backhanded blow that struck the attendant full on the left cheek with extraordinary force, and the man fainted on the spot. The nobleman did not take it up with him, but told his men to help the attendant to his feet and was about to mount.

Mu Yi said furiously, “So you came here on purpose to make fools of us?”

The nobleman said nothing, but put his left foot in the stirrup.

Mu Yi’s left hand turned over and seized the young man’s left arm. “Very well. My daughter could never have married a worthless rake like you anyway. Give back that shoe!”

The nobleman laughed. “She gave it to me of her own free will. What business is it of yours? We can forget the marriage, but I’m keeping my prize.” His arm traced a small circle, and summoning a little strength, he shook Mu Yi’s left hand loose.

Mu Yi was shaking all over with rage. “I’ll fight you to the death!” He leapt high and hurled himself forward, both fists driving at the nobleman’s temples in Bell and Drum Sound Together.

The nobleman leaned back to avoid the blow, stamped his left foot on the stirrup, and launched himself into the ring. “If I beat you, old man, you’ll stop forcing me to be your son-in-law, I take it?”

The onlookers were all incensed at the nobleman’s shameless conduct and the way he bullied people on the strength of his position, but apart from a few rogues and loafers who laughed, they kept their anger to themselves and said nothing.

Mu Yi said no more. He tightened his belt and, with Sea Swallow Skims the Waves, leapt up and hurtled at the nobleman. The nobleman knew how enraged he was and dared not take him lightly. He twisted his body and thrust his left palm out in Venomous Snake Seeks the Hole, striking at Mu Yi’s lower belly. Mu Yi dodged to the right and chopped his right palm down at his opponent’s Jianjing acupoint²⁸ on the shoulder.

The nobleman dipped his left shoulder to avoid the blow, and before his left palm had come back, his right palm shot out from beneath his own left arm in Steal the Clouds, Swap the Sun. His left arm above blocked his opponent’s view, and the palm from beneath it struck without warning, as treacherous and deadly as could be. Mu Yi dropped his left arm, and his elbow came down on the palm. His right fist swept across, and as the nobleman ducked under it, Mu Yi brought his palms together in Weihu Holds the Pestle and chopped fiercely at both his cheeks.

Whatever move the nobleman changed to now, he could not escape the blow. He hardened his heart. Both hands flew out as quick as lightning, and his ten fingers drove into the backs of Mu Yi’s two hands. Then he leapt back. The tips of his fingers were red with blood.

The crowd gasped. Mu Yi’s hands were bleeding freely, the blood dripping to the ground. The wound was clearly grave. The girl, furious and desperate, hurried to support her father and tore a strip from his garment to bind his wounds. Mu Yi pushed her gently aside and said angrily, “Get out of the way. This doesn’t end today until I’ve fought it out with him.”

The girl said, “Father, he’s vicious. Just bear it for today!”

The crowd had watched a happy occasion end with blood spilt on the spot, and they all exclaimed and sighed. Even the rogues and ruffians had pity in their faces, and some began to murmur quietly against the nobleman.

Faced with such an injustice, how could Guo Jing hold himself back? Seeing the nobleman wipe the blood from his fingers on the front of his robe and turn to mount again, he spread his arms, gently pushed aside the people in front of him and walked into the ring, calling, “Hey, it’s wrong of you to do this!”

The nobleman was taken aback, then laughed. “And what’d be right, then?” His followers saw how countrified Guo Jing looked and heard his thick southern accent, and when their young master mimicked his voice to mock him, they all roared with laughter.

Guo Jing stared, with no idea what they were laughing at, and said gravely, “You ought to marry this young lady.”

The nobleman cocked his head and said with a smile, “And what if I don’t?”

Guo Jing said, “If you don’t want to marry her, why did you enter the contest? Her banner says Martial Contest to Win a Bride, as plain as can be.”

The nobleman’s face darkened. “Poking your nose into other people’s business, boy. What are you after?”

Guo Jing said, “This young lady is good-looking and highly skilled. Why don’t you want her? Can’t you see she’s so angry her face has gone white?”

The nobleman said, “You muddle-headed boy, it’s a waste of breath talking to you.” He turned to go.

Guo Jing put out a hand to stop him. “Eh? Why are you leaving again?”

The nobleman said, “What of it?”

Guo Jing said, “Didn’t I just tell you to marry this young lady?”

The nobleman gave a loud, cold laugh and strode away.

Mu Yi saw that Guo Jing was a hot-blooded youth, generous and righteous, but from the way he had talked to the nobleman it was clear his heart was simple and he knew nothing of the world. Mu Yi came over to him and said, “Young Brother, pay him no heed. As long as I have breath left in me, this wrong shall be avenged.” Then he raised his voice and shouted, “Hey, leave us your name!”

The nobleman laughed. “I’ve told you I can’t call you father-in-law. What do you want my name for?”

Guo Jing was furious. He sprang over to him and shouted, “Then give this young lady back her shoe.”

The nobleman snapped, “What the hell has it got to do with you? Taken a fancy to the girl yourself, have you?”

Guo Jing shook his head. “No! Are you going to give it back or not?”

Without warning the nobleman’s left palm flew out as swift as the wind and slapped Guo Jing hard across the face. Guo Jing had never expected him to strike so suddenly, and as the palm came it did not occur to him to dodge or block. The slap caught him full on the face. Shocked and furious, he used the twisting lock of the Seizing Hand.²⁹ His left hand went up and to the right, his right hand down and to the left, the two hands crossing as they fell, and with one twist he had both the nobleman’s wrists by the pulse-gates.

The nobleman, as startled as he was furious, tried to wrench free and could not. He shouted, “You want to die?” and kicked at Guo Jing’s groin with his right foot.

Guo Jing flung his hands out with all his strength and hurled him back into the ring. The nobleman’s qinggong was excellent. It looked as though he must land on his shoulder, but just as he came down he braced the sole of his right foot against the ground and was standing upright. He shook off his brocade robe and shouted, “Sick of living, are you, you stinking brat? If you’ve got any guts, come over here and try your skill against this Young Master.”

Guo Jing shook his head. “Why should I fight you? If you won’t marry her, just give the shoe back.”

The crowd had taken it that Guo Jing had stepped in to right a wrong, and they were all keen to see what he could do. When he suddenly shrank from the fight, some of the rogues began to boo, shouting, “All talk and no fight, what sort of brave man is that?”

When Guo Jing caught his wrists and threw him like that, the nobleman had learnt that the boy’s martial prowess was no mean thing and his neili³⁰ powerful, and he was more than a little wary of him. Guo Jing’s unwillingness to fight suited him perfectly, but to be made to hand back the embroidered shoe in front of all those eyes was more than his pride could bear. He threw his brocade robe over his arm and turned away with a cold laugh. Guo Jing caught hold of the robe with his left hand. “Leaving, just like that?”

The nobleman suddenly resorted to a trick. He flung out his arm, and the brocade robe flew up and dropped over Guo Jing’s head. In the same instant both his palms struck out and slammed with all their force into Guo Jing’s chest and ribs. All at once Guo Jing’s eyes went dark, and at the same moment a blast of force came at his chest. He breathed out and drew his chest in, but too late. With a smack both palms landed on his ribs. Luckily he had spent two years training in the orthodox Daoist neigong under Danyangzi Ma Yu, and though the two blows sent pain through his chest to the bone, they could not do him real harm. In that moment of danger his feet flew out in Mandarin Duck Linked Kicks, left up as right came down, left down as right went up, and in a twinkling he had kicked nine times in a row. This was the life’s art of Han Baoju, the Divine Horse King, whose feet had felled countless brave men north and south. Guo Jing had not yet caught the true spirit of his Third Shifu’s kicking, and with the robe over his head he could see nothing, so he could only kick out wildly. Even so, the nobleman was hard put to it. He dodged the first seven kicks, but the last two he could not avoid. Thwack, thwack, they struck him on the left hip and the right.

Both of them leapt back. Guo Jing hastily shook the robe off his head, both astonished and angry. He thought, It was all agreed beforehand that this was a martial contest for a bride. He won, and yet he goes back on his word and won’t take the girl. And when I try to reason with him, he hits me first and then strikes to kill. If I hadn’t trained in neigong, wouldn’t those two blows have broken my ribs and shaken my insides to pieces? He was simple and honest by nature, and since childhood he had lived among rough, straightforward people, so he knew nothing at all of the wickedness of men. In recent years Zhu Cong, Quan Jinfa and the others had told him plenty about the vicious, cunning ways of the jianghu, but he had listened to them as he might to stories and forgotten them as soon as they were told. What he had not been through himself was hard to fix in his mind. Now, beyond his anger, he was simply bewildered. He truly could not believe that such things happened in the world.

The two kicks threw the nobleman into a fury. His body swayed, and suddenly he was at Guo Jing’s side. His left palm whistled down at the top of Guo Jing’s head in Slanting Single Whip. Guo Jing raised his arm to block, and as their arms met he felt a sudden stab of pain in his chest. In his alarm he let the nobleman snatch the attack with several quick moves, and a hooking foot sent him sprawling to the ground. The nobleman’s servants all jeered, and some even clapped and cheered. The nobleman dusted off his hips and sneered, “You want to stand up for the wronged with skill as lame as a three-legged cat? Go home and get your shiniang to teach you for another twenty years!”

Guo Jing said nothing. He drew a breath and circulated it through his chest a few times, and the pain eased at once. Then he said, “I haven’t got a shiniang!”

The nobleman roared with laughter. “Then tell your shifu to hurry up and marry one!”

Guo Jing was about to say, “I have six shifus, and one of them is a woman,” but saw that the nobleman was about to walk out of the ring. There was no time to say it. He sprang forward with a shout of “Watch my fist!” and drove a punch from under his elbow at the back of the nobleman’s head. The nobleman ducked, and Guo Jing’s left fist hooked up from below at his cheek. The nobleman raised an arm and knocked it aside, and their two arms locked, each man bringing his strength to bear to force the other’s out. Guo Jing had the greater natural strength, the nobleman the greater martial prowess, and for a while they were deadlocked, neither able to gain the upper hand.

Guo Jing drew in a sharp breath and was about to put more strength into his arm when suddenly he felt his opponent’s arm go slack. His own force met nothing, and he pitched forward in spite of himself. He hastily planted his feet to steady himself, but an enemy palm was already at his back. Guo Jing turned and struck back to block, but he was off balance and his opponent was planted firm. The nobleman said, “Off you go!” and the force of his palm sent Guo Jing flying. Unable to keep his feet, he fell again, and this time on his face. He braced his left elbow hard against the ground and sprang up, turned half a circle in the air and swept his left leg at the nobleman’s chest.

Seeing how swiftly he had turned the move round, everyone in the crowd who knew anything of fighting called out in applause.

The nobleman turned his body to the left and used his palms one false and one true, one hand to distract and the other to attack. Guo Jing launched into the Tendon-Splitting Bone-Dislocating Hand,³¹ his hands flying, seizing tendons and twisting joints, every move aimed at the joints and acupoints of his opponent’s body. Then the nobleman’s palm technique changed, and he too was using the Tendon-Splitting Bone-Dislocating Hand. But Guo Jing’s version was the Swift-Handed Scholar Zhu Cong’s own creation, and its moves differed from those handed down by the famous masters of the Central Plains. The two styles were close in approach, yet their hand techniques and moves were quite different. After several exchanges one would reach out his forefinger and middle finger to seize the Yanglao acupoint behind the other’s wrist, and the other would turn his hand and hook back, clawing at the first one’s finger joints. Each was wary of the other, and neither dared commit a move fully, striking and at once withdrawing. They exchanged thirty or forty moves like this without either gaining the victory. Snowflakes were falling thickly, and a thin layer of snow had settled on the heads and shoulders of the crowd.

Unable to win after so long a fight, the nobleman suddenly feigned an opening and left his chest exposed. Guo Jing seized his chance and went straight in, his fingers jabbing at the Jiuwei acupoint on his opponent’s chest. Then a thought stirred in him. I have no feud with him. I can’t strike so cruel a blow! His fingers swerved a little and jabbed beside the acupoint. But the nobleman’s right arm suddenly shot through and swept both of Guo Jing’s arms to the outside, and his left fist thudded twice in quick succession into the small of Guo Jing’s back. Guo Jing hastily bent and drew in his body, striking back at the nobleman’s waist. The nobleman had reckoned on that move long before. His right hand hooked round and caught Guo Jing’s wrist, drew it out to the side with Lead the Sheep Away, and his right leg flicked against the front of Guo Jing’s right shin. Turning Guo Jing’s own force against him, he left him unable to keep his feet, and with a thud Guo Jing went down heavily yet again.

Mu Yi’s hands had been bandaged by his daughter. He stood beneath the banner watching the fight. Seeing Guo Jing fall three times in succession, clearly no match for the nobleman, he hurried forward to help him up. “Brother, let’s go. There’s no need to lower yourself to the level of such a low-bred scoundrel.”

But that last fall had left Guo Jing’s head spinning, and the side of his forehead had struck the ground and hurt badly. His anger blazed. He shook off Mu Yi’s hand and charged at the nobleman, fists and palms flying.

The nobleman had never expected that, beaten, the boy would not go but fight all the harder. He leapt back three paces and shouted, “Why won’t you admit you’re beaten?”

Guo Jing made no answer but rushed in again and went on fighting fiercely. The nobleman said, “If you keep pestering me like this, don’t blame me if I strike to kill!”

Guo Jing said, “Good! If you won’t give back the shoe, this will never be over between us.”

The nobleman laughed. “The girl isn’t even your own younger sister. Why are you so dead set on being my brother-in-law?” This was a northern way of cursing a man, and the rogues standing by all roared with laughter.

Guo Jing did not understand it at all. “I don’t even know her. Of course she isn’t my younger sister.”

Torn between fury and laughter, the nobleman snapped, “You simpleton, have at you!” Their hands met again, and round and round they went, fighting once more.

This time Guo Jing was on his guard, and though the nobleman tried trick after trick, Guo Jing fell for none of them. In martial prowess the nobleman really did have a slight edge, but Guo Jing fought on with a savage stubbornness, battling with all his might, and however many more punches and palm blows he took, he would not stop grappling with his opponent or give ground. He had fought like that as a small boy, before he ever learnt martial arts, in his scraps with Tusakha and the other children. His skill was far greater now, but his way of fighting still came from his nature, just as it had when he was little. Once his bull-headed temper was roused, Fourth Shifu’s four-word mantra, “Can’t win, run!”, was flung beyond the ninth heaven. In his heart there had always been a six-word mantra of his own, though he did not know it himself. “Can’t win? Then try harder.”

More and more spectators gathered at the commotion, until the square was packed solid. The wind and snow grew fiercer, but the crowd had a fine spectacle to watch and no one would leave.

Mu Yi had long roamed the jianghu, and he knew that if the fight went on like this it would be sure to bring the authorities down on them and end in serious trouble. But the boy had stepped in out of a sense of justice to right a wrong. How could he simply walk away and leave him? He stood at the side watching in great anxiety. Then, happening to glance over the crowd, he noticed that among the onlookers there were now several men of the wulin and bold jianghu types, some watching intently, others talking in low voices. He had been so absorbed in the duel between the two young men that he had not noticed when these newcomers arrived.

Mu Yi moved slowly over towards where the nobleman’s attendants were gathered and looked sidelong at them. Among the attendants stood three men of unusual appearance. One wore a great crimson kasaya and a pointed monk’s cap that gleamed with gold. He was a monk, and so enormously built that he stood a head and a half taller than everyone around him. The second was of middle height, his whole head of hair silver-white, but his face was as smooth and glowing as a child’s, without a single wrinkle. He truly had a boy’s face beneath white hair, and he was brimming with vigour. He wore a long gown of kudzu cloth, dressed neither as a Daoist nor as a layman. The third was short in body and limb, his eyes shot with red veins but flashing like lightning, his short moustache bristling upwards.

Mu Yi stared in secret astonishment. He heard one of the servants say, “Venerable One, why don’t you go down and get rid of that boy? If this goes on and the Young Prince suffers so much as a scratch, none of us followers will escape with our lives.”

Mu Yi was badly shaken and thought, So this young rogue is a Young Prince. If this fight goes on, it will end in disaster. These men must be experts from the prince’s household. The servants must have been afraid of trouble and fetched them to lend a hand. He saw the monk smile faintly without answering. The white-haired old man laughed. “Venerable Lingzhi is a great master of the Mudra Order of Qinghai. How could he lightly cross hands with a muddle-headed boy like that? It would only lower him.” He turned to the servant with a smile. “The worst the Prince will do is break your legs. He’s hardly going to take your lives, is he?”

The short man said, “The Young Prince’s skill is better than the boy’s. What are you afraid of?” He was small, but his voice boomed like a great bell. The moment he spoke, the people nearby jumped and turned to look, and when his lightning glare fell on them they hurriedly turned back and dared not look again.

The white-haired old man laughed. “The Young Prince has learnt all this skill. If he never showed it off in front of people, all those years of training through summer and winter would be wasted. If anyone goes up to help him, he’ll be sure to take it badly.”

The short man said, “Master Liang, what school would you say the Young Prince’s palm technique comes from?” This time he lowered his voice.

The white-haired old man chuckled. “Brother Peng, are you putting this old brother of yours to the test? The Young Prince’s palm technique soars and darts, all feints and changes. It’s truly not easy. If this old brother of yours hasn’t misjudged it, he must have learnt his martial arts from the Daoists of the Quanzhen Order.”

Mu Yi gave a start and thought, This low-bred youth is a Quanzhen disciple?

The short man said, “You’ve a sharp eye, Master Liang. I hear you’ve always lived at the foot of the Changbai Mountains, cultivating immortality and refining your elixirs, and seldom come to the Central Plains, and yet you can tell the schools and lineages of Central Plains martial arts at a glance. Your brother here is deeply impressed.”

The white-haired old man smiled. “Brother Peng, you’re making fun of me.”

The short man went on, “But the Daoists of the Quanzhen Order are forever working against our Great Jin. How would they come to teach the Young Prince martial arts? That’s strange.”

The white-haired old man laughed. “When the Sixth Prince stoops to make friends, is there anyone he can’t win over? Even a man of valour like you, Brother Peng, who rides as you please across Hebei and Hedong, has come to the prince’s household, haven’t you?”

The short man nodded.

The white-haired old man watched the two young men fighting in the ring. Guo Jing’s palm technique had changed again. His moves were slower now, but his guard was closed tight, and each time the Young Prince pressed an attack, his heavy, solid palms drove him back. The old man asked the short man, “And what school would you say the boy’s martial arts come from?”

The man hesitated a moment. “The boy’s skill is very mixed. It looks as though he wasn’t taught by a single shifu.”

Someone beside them put in, “Stockade Chief Peng is right. The boy is a disciple of the Seven Eccentrics of Jiangnan.”

Mu Yi looked at him and saw a thin, green-faced man with three fleshy lumps on his forehead. He thought, He called him Stockade Chief Peng. Can this short man really be Peng Lianhu, the Butcher of a Thousand Hands, the great bandit who kills without blinking? I haven’t heard the name of the Seven Eccentrics of Jiangnan in a long time. What are they doing up in the north? He was still puzzling over it when the thin, green-faced man suddenly roared, “You stinking brat, so you’re here?” With a clang he drew a short-handled, three-pronged steel fork from his back and leapt into the ring.

Guo Jing heard the noise behind him and looked round, and there, bobbing right in front of him, were three fleshy lumps. It was the Three-Headed Dragon Hou Tonghai, shishu of the Four Ghosts of the Yellow River, rushing in. Guo Jing was startled. He was not quick-witted, and for a moment he did not know what to do. In that instant of inattention his shoulder took a punch from the Young Prince. He struck back at once, and the two were locked in combat again.

The crowd, seeing Hou Tonghai leap into the ring with a weapon drawn, assumed he was joining one side, and cried out in protest at the unfairness. Mu Yi had seen him talking with Stockade Chief Peng and the others and knew he must be one of the Young Prince’s household. He crossed his palms and moved a few steps forward. The moment the man went for Guo Jing, he would take him on himself. The enemy were many and strong, but driven to this pass he had no choice but to fight it out.

But Hou Tonghai did not charge at Guo Jing. He pushed straight through the crowd on the other side. A thin, ragged boy, his face black with coal dust, saw him coming and cried, “Oh no!” He turned and fled. Hou Tonghai sprinted after him, and four men behind him joined the chase.

One glance told Guo Jing that the boy Hou Tonghai was chasing was his new friend Huang Rong, and behind them came the Four Ghosts of the Yellow River, weapons in hand, murder in their faces. In his anxiety he took a kick on the leg from the Young Prince. He leapt out of the ring and called, “Hold on! I’m going out for a moment. We’ll carry on fighting when I get back.”

The Young Prince had been battered by Guo Jing’s desperate fighting and had long since lost his taste for the bout. He wanted nothing more than to be rid of him. This was exactly what he wanted to hear, and he sneered, “As long as you admit you’ve lost!”

Guo Jing, his mind full of Huang Rong’s safety, was about to go after him and help when he heard a flap-flap-flap. Huang Rong came running back, shuffling along in his trodden-down shoes and laughing merrily, while behind him Hou Tonghai cursed without stopping and jabbed his steel fork at his back, thrust after thrust. But Huang Rong was very nimble, and the fork always fell just short. The fork’s three prongs gleamed in the sunlight, and three steel rings threaded on its shaft clashed against one another with a jangling clatter as it shook. Huang Rong darted this way and that through the crowd and in a moment had wriggled out at the other side.

When Hou Tonghai came close, the onlookers all burst out laughing in spite of themselves. On each of his cheeks was a black five-fingered handprint, and plainly the skinny boy had slapped him. Hou Tonghai pushed and shoved his way through the crowd, but by the time he had squeezed out, Huang Rong was already far away. They saw him stop a long way off and wait, giggling and beckoning all the while. Hou Tonghai bellowed with rage, “If I don’t skin you and pull your bones apart, you stinking brat, I swear I, the Three-Headed Dragon, am no man!” He levelled his steel fork and rushed after him.

Huang Rong waited until he was only a few paces off before taking to his heels again. The onlookers thought it all great fun. Guo Jing saw three men come panting up from the other side. They were the Ghosts of the Yellow River, only three of them, without the Mourning Gate Axe, Qian Qingjian.

Watching how Huang Rong moved, Guo Jing was both astonished and delighted. So my worthy brother is a master of martial arts. That day in the Black Pine Forest at Zhangjiakou, the one who drew Hou Tonghai away and hung the Four Ghosts of the Yellow River up in the trees, of course it was him, and he did it to help me.

Meanwhile Stockade Chief Peng and the rest were secretly astonished. Venerable Lingzhi thought, You Ginseng Old Eccentric, what a big wind you were blowing just now, saying that for all your years at the foot of the Changbai Mountains you could tell the schools and lineages of Central Plains martial arts at a glance. He said, “Ginseng Immortal, the little beggar moves very nimbly. What school is he from? Brother Hou seems to have had the worst of it from him!”

The old man with the boy’s face and white hair was named Liang Ziweng.³² He was the founding master of a school of Changbai Mountains martial arts, and since childhood he had taken wild mountain ginseng and all manner of rare medicines, so that he kept his youthful looks and his martial arts were strange and singular. Men called him the Ginseng Old Eccentric. The name was always split in two. To his face people called him Ginseng Immortal, and behind his back everyone who was not a disciple of his school called him the Old Eccentric. He could not make out where the little beggar came from and only shook his head slightly. After a while he said, “When I was beyond the passes I often heard that the Dragon King of Devil’s Gate was a tremendous master. How can his shidi be so useless that he can’t even beat a child?”

The short man was indeed Peng Lianhu. He frowned at this and said nothing. He and Sha Tongtian, the Dragon King of Devil’s Gate, had long been good friends and each other’s backing, and had joined hands in a great deal of business that needed no capital. He knew that the Three-Headed Dragon Hou Tonghai was no weakling, and that he should make such a fool of himself today was a mystery to him.

With all this commotion from Huang Rong and Hou Tonghai, Guo Jing and the Young Prince had stopped fighting for the moment. The Young Prince had fought hard for the better part of a shichen, and though he had thrown Guo Jing six or seven times, held the clear advantage and at last made his opponent think better of it and back off, he had taken a good many punches and kicks himself. His arms and legs were weak with exhaustion and he was drenched in sweat, mopping his face again and again with the silk kerchief from his waist.

Mu Yi had already rolled up the Martial Contest to Win a Bride banner. He held Guo Jing’s hand, thanking him again and again and asking whether he was hurt, and was about to take him away from this troublesome place as quickly as he could, when suddenly came the flap-flap-flap of trodden-down shoes and the jangling clatter of the three-pronged fork, and back came Huang Rong and Hou Tonghai, one fleeing and the other chasing. Huang Rong was waving two strips of cloth in his hand, and when they looked at Hou Tonghai they saw that two pieces had been torn from the front of his robe, baring his hairy chest. A little later Wu Qinglie and Ma Qingxiong came panting up, one levelling a spear and the other gripping a whip. This time the Soul-Severing Dao Shen Qinggang was missing as well. Presumably Huang Rong had played some trick on him too and left him knocked down somewhere.

By now Huang Rong and Hou Tonghai had run out of sight again. The onlookers were all as puzzled as they were amused.

Suddenly from the west came shouts to clear the way. A dozen or more soldiers and burly servants, rattan canes in hand, were lashing out to either side to drive the idlers off. The people scrambled aside to make way, and round the corner came a great sedan chair of red woollen cloth embroidered in gold, carried by six strong men.

The Young Prince’s retainers cried, “The Princess Consort has arrived!”

The Young Prince frowned and swore. “Busybodies. Who went and told the Princess Consort?”

The retainers dared not answer. When the embroidered chair reached the edge of the contest ground, they crowded forward to attend. The chair stopped, and from inside came a woman’s voice, very soft and gentle. “How did you come to be fighting? In weather like this, with the snow coming down, and you not even wearing your long robe. You’ll catch cold!”

Hearing that voice from afar, Mu Yi stood as though struck by a thunderbolt. His ears rang, and for a moment he was lost to everything, his heart pounding wildly. How can that voice sound so like hers? Then his spirits sank. This is the Princess Consort of the Great Jin. I’ve pined for my wife until I’ve lost my wits. What foolish fancies. Yet he could not help himself, and he slowly drew near the chair. A slender white hand came out of the chair holding a handkerchief and wiped the sweat and grime from the Young Prince’s face, and the voice said a few low words he could not catch. The Young Prince looked abashed and said sheepishly, “Ma, I was only having fun. I’m perfectly all right.”

The Princess Consort said, “Put your clothes on quickly, and we’ll go home together, the two of us.”

Mu Yi was shaken once more. How can there be two people in the world who sound so alike? He watched the snow-white hand draw back into the chair. A heavy winter curtain hung in front of it, embroidered in gold thread with a few peonies. He stared hard, but how could his eyes pierce that glittering curtain of gold and green?

One of the Young Prince’s attendants went up to Guo Jing, picked up the Young Prince’s brocade robe and cursed him. “You little beast, look what you’ve done to this robe!” A soldier who had come with the Princess Consort raised his cane and lashed down at Guo Jing’s head. Guo Jing dodged, hooked the man’s wrist, swept out his left foot, and the soldier fell flat. Guo Jing seized the cane and lashed him three times across the back. “Who told you to go around beating people?”

Many among the crowd had been struck by the soldiers’ canes earlier. Seeing Guo Jing give them a taste of their own medicine, they were silently delighted. The remaining dozen soldiers cursed and charged to rescue their comrade. Guo Jing seized them two at a time and hurled them out.

The Young Prince was furious. “Still running wild, are you?” He caught the two soldiers Guo Jing had thrown, set them on the ground, and charged. His left foot kicked at Guo Jing’s belly. Guo Jing sidestepped and countered, and the two locked up again.

The Princess Consort called out again and again for him to stop, but the Young Prince seemed not the least afraid of his mother and rather inclined to presume on her doting. He called over his shoulder, “Ma, watch me! This country bumpkin is causing trouble in the capital. If I don’t teach him a lesson, he won’t even know what his own father’s surname is.”

They traded dozens of moves. The Young Prince was showing off, determined to display his skill in front of his mother, his body flitting this way and that and his palm-work quick and nimble. Sure enough, Guo Jing could not hold him off. He took another punch, then fell twice in a row.

Mu Yi was no longer watching the fight. His eyes were fixed on the sedan chair. He saw one corner of the embroidered curtain lift slightly, showing a pair of lovely eyes and a few wisps of hair at the temple. The eyes were full of tender concern as they watched the Young Prince fighting Guo Jing. Mu Yi gazed at those eyes and stood rooted to the ground like a figure of clay or wood, unable to move.

Guo Jing, though losing move after move, fought on with growing ferocity. The Young Prince struck to kill again and again, wanting only to hurt him so badly he could fight no more. But Guo Jing was tough and thick-skinned and had trained in a superior neigong, and a few punches meant nothing to him. The Young Prince’s moves were clever, but his neili was limited by his years, and his fists and feet carried no truly vicious force, so for the moment he could not do Guo Jing any real harm.

The Young Prince curled his ten fingers into claws and jabbed again and again, clawing at his opponent with the same vicious technique that had wounded Mu Yi. Guo Jing answered with the Tendon-Splitting Bone-Dislocating Hand and was able to hold him at bay.

They had been fighting a while when Huang Rong and Hou Tonghai came running past again, one fleeing and one chasing. This time Hou Tonghai had a big straw tag stuck in his hair. A straw tag was the sign that something was for sale, so stuck in his hair it meant he was selling his head. Of course Huang Rong had played this trick on him, yet he had no idea of it and simply ran on as fast as his legs would carry him. The two Ghosts of the Yellow River behind him had vanished as well, presumably both knocked down somewhere by Huang Rong. Liang Ziweng and the others were all mystified and could not fathom who this skinny boy might be. Hou Tonghai was running fast, yet he could never catch up with the ragged child.

Peng Lianhu said suddenly, “Could this boy be from the Beggars’ Guild?”

The Beggars’ Guild³³ was the greatest guild in the jianghu in those days, and its members were all beggars.

Liang Ziweng’s facial muscles twitched, but he did not answer.

In the ring the two youths’ fists whooshed and their palms flickered, each attacking as fast as he could. Suddenly Guo Jing took a palm to his left arm. A moment later the Young Prince’s right leg was kicked. They fought on, growing ever closer, until they could feel each other’s breath. The spectators who knew nothing of martial arts watched in fascination, dazzled. Even the practised hands who knew the art felt the fight growing more and more dangerous. The least slip by either of them would mean death or, at the very least, grave injury. Peng Lianhu and Liang Ziweng each held hidden weapons ready, to rescue the Young Prince should he be in danger. They had watched the two fight long enough to see that for all Guo Jing’s fierceness his skill was nothing out of the ordinary, and they could surely stop him in time if it came to the crunch.

Guo Jing’s blood was up. He had been born and raised on the steppe, and wind and sand, ice and snow, war and slaughter had hardened him into someone tough and unyielding. The Young Prince, after all, had been pampered all his life, and in this kind of savage, head-on fighting, though his skill was a little the greater, he was beginning to tire. When Guo Jing’s left palm chopped at him, he dodged and countered with his right fist. Just as the fist was about to land, Guo Jing flicked his right hand hard against the Young Prince’s right elbow and stepped in close, thrusting his left arm in under the Young Prince’s right armpit and hooking his left hand up behind, while his right hand went for his opponent’s throat. The Young Prince had never expected so bold an attack. His left palm flipped over and caught Guo Jing’s wrist, and the five fingers of his right hand seized the back of Guo Jing’s collar. Chest to chest, each summoned his strength, the one trying to throttle his opponent, the other to wrench his enemy’s wrist apart. The situation was desperate, and in a moment the fight would be decided.

The crowd gasped. Half the Princess Consort’s face, visible beyond the embroidered curtain, went white as paper. Mu Yi’s daughter, who had been sitting on the ground, leapt to her feet, her face full of alarm.

The Young Prince suddenly changed his move. His right hand let go, and his palm shot out as fast as lightning. There was a loud smack as it struck Guo Jing hard across the face. Guo Jing’s head spun, tears streaming from his left eye. He gave a sudden great shout, seized the Young Prince by the robe-front, lifted him bodily, and hurled him to the ground with all his strength. This move was neither the Tendon-Splitting Bone-Dislocating Hand nor any seizing or close-in striking. It was wrestling, the art the Mongols were best at, which Guo Jing had learnt from Mongol warriors on the great grasslands.

The Young Prince’s martial prowess was indeed remarkable. The instant he touched the ground he lunged out, arms wrapping around Guo Jing’s legs, and both men fell together, the Young Prince on top. He immediately let go and sprang up, snatching a long spear from a soldier. He thrust it at Guo Jing’s belly. Guo Jing rolled away desperately. The Young Prince stabbed three times in quick succession, swish, swish, swish, his spear-work perfectly fluent.

Guo Jing was badly frightened. Trapped by the spear-techniques, unable to rise, he could only lie on his back and use the barehanded weapon-seizing art to try to grab the spear. Every attempt failed. The Young Prince shook the spear-shaft, the red tassel whipping wildly, the spear-tip humming and tracing a great red circle in the air.

The Princess Consort called out, “My child, don’t take his life. You’ve won, and that’s enough!”

But the Young Prince was determined to pin Guo Jing to the ground with a single thrust. He did not hear his mother’s words.

The glare dazzled Guo Jing’s eyes. The gleaming spear-point was only a few inches from his nose. In desperation he flung out his arm and knocked the shaft aside by main force, turned a backward somersault and, catching hold of Mu Yi’s Martial Contest to Win a Bride banner as he went, swung the banner-pole across and thrust it straight out in Part the Clouds to See the Sun. Then he straightened up and swept his arm wide, and with a whoosh the banner flew out at the Young Prince’s face.

The Young Prince stepped aside at a slant. As his spear came up there was a round blur of red, and a point of cold light at the spear-tip darted at Guo Jing. Guo Jing swung the banner and knocked it aside.

Now they had taken up weapons. Guo Jing was using the Demon-Subduing Staff Technique³⁴ taught him by his Eldest Shifu, the Flying Bat Ke Zhen’e. The banner-pole was long and heavy and awkward in his hands, but the staff technique’s changes were subtle and profound. Ke Zhen’e had laboured to perfect it for use against the Iron Corpse Mei Chaofeng, and it held moves within moves and changes hidden inside changes, as strange and tricky as could be. The Young Prince did not know the technique. He thrust his spear in, and the banner-pole suddenly flipped up from below. Had he not dodged well, the pole would have caught him in the belly, and he had no choice but to fall back on defence for the moment.

When Mu Yi first saw how the Young Prince moved and stepped as he wielded the spear, he was already a good deal surprised, and the longer he watched the more amazed he grew. Thrusting, stabbing, locking, seizing, circling, striking, sitting, springing, every move was the Yang Family Spear Technique.³⁵ This was the Yang family’s own art, always handed down to sons and never to daughters. Some still practised it in the Yang family’s old home behind the mountains in Hedong, but elsewhere it was seldom seen. Who would have thought it would turn up in the capital of the Great Jin? Yet though his spear-work was nimble and full of change, it was not the true orthodox Yang transmission. Some of it was close but not quite right, as though it had been learnt from the Yang family by stealth.

His daughter’s brows were deeply furrowed, as though she too were burdened with care. The spear-tip’s red tassel flashed, and the brocade banner danced along the long pole, whipping the snowflakes into frenzied spirals.

The Princess Consort, seeing her son drenched in sweat and knowing that every thrust now carried the risk of death, was frantic. She called again and again, “Stop, stop fighting!”

Hearing the Princess Consort, Peng Lianhu strode into the ring and flung out his left arm against the banner-pole. All at once Guo Jing felt a searing pain in the webs of both hands, and the pole flew from his grip. The wind caught the brocade banner in mid-air and spread it wide, cracking and flapping, and amid the whirling snow it unfurled its four golden characters, Martial Contest to Win a Bride.

Guo Jing was thunderstruck. Before he had even made out his attacker’s form or face, he heard a rush of air and the enemy’s blow was already at his face. In desperation he darted aside, but quick as he was, Peng Lianhu’s palm caught his arm. Guo Jing lost his footing and went down at once. Peng Lianhu smiled at the Young Prince. “Young Prince, I’ll settle him for you, so the boy won’t come pestering you again!”

His right hand drew back. He inhaled, his palm trembled twice, and then shot out with explosive force, aimed straight at the crown of Guo Jing’s head.

Guo Jing knew there was no hope for him. All he could do was thrust both arms up and circulate his neili to block. Venerable Lingzhi and the Ginseng Old Eccentric exchanged a glance. They knew that Guo Jing’s arms were as good as lost. When the palm of Peng Lianhu, the Butcher of a Thousand Hands, came down, the boy’s arms would surely break.

At that instant a voice cried from the crowd, “Wait!” A grey figure shot out, a strange weapon flicked through the air, and Peng Lianhu’s wrist was caught in its coils. Peng Lianhu summoned his strength and wrenched his right wrist back, and with a snap the newcomer’s weapon broke clean through. Peng Lianhu’s left palm struck at once. The stranger ducked, scooped Guo Jing up in his left arm, and leapt aside.

Only now did the crowd see him clearly. He was a middle-aged Daoist in a grey Daoist robe. In his hand was a fly-whisk with only the handle left, for its silk strands had been snapped off by Peng Lianhu and were still wound round his wrist.

The Daoist and Peng Lianhu gazed at each other. Though they had exchanged only a single move, each recognised the other as formidable. The Daoist said, “Would you be the far-famed Stockade Chief Peng? It is a great good fortune to make your acquaintance today.”

Peng Lianhu said, “You flatter me. May I ask your Daoist name, Daoist Elder?”³⁶

Several hundred pairs of eyes turned to the Daoist.

The Daoist made no answer. He stepped forward with his left foot and drew it back again, and there in the ground was a print sunk nearly a foot deep. Fresh snow had only just begun to fall, the accumulated powder less than half an inch, yet with a careless step he had pressed through snow and earth to leave so deep a mark. The power in his feet was truly astounding.

Peng Lianhu’s heart lurched. “Would Daoist Elder be Perfected One Wang, the Yuyangzi, whom men call the Iron-Footed Immortal?”

The Daoist said, “Stockade Chief Peng does me too much honour. This humble Daoist is indeed Wang Chuyi,³⁷ but the words ‘Perfected One’ I could never presume to accept.”

Peng Lianhu, Liang Ziweng, Venerable Lingzhi and the rest all knew Wang Chuyi to be a figure of great renown in the Quanzhen Order, second in fame only to Changchunzi Qiu Chuji. They had long heard of him but never seen him, and now they looked him over carefully. He had long eyebrows and fine eyes, three sparse tufts of black beard at his chin, white socks and grey shoes, and his robes were neat and clean. He seemed to be a Daoist who took care over his appearance. Had they not just seen his skill, they would never have believed that this was the Iron-Footed Immortal Yuyangzi, who had once stood on one foot at the edge of a gorge a hundred thousand feet deep and, with a single move, Wind Sways the Lotus Leaf, overawed the heroes of Hebei and Shandong.

Wang Chuyi smiled faintly and pointed at Guo Jing. “This humble Daoist has never met the young man before. But I watched him stand up bravely for what was right without a thought for himself, and I have the greatest respect for him. I make so bold as to ask Stockade Chief Peng to spare his life.”

Hearing him speak so courteously, Peng Lianhu thought that since a Quanzhen master had stepped in, he had little choice but to do him the favour. He clasped his fist. “Of course, of course!”

Wang Chuyi cupped his fists in thanks and turned round. His eyes flashed, and in an instant his face seemed to be covered in a layer of hard frost. He said sternly to the Young Prince, “What is your name? Who is your shifu?”

At the name of Wang Chuyi the Young Prince had grown uneasy and was thinking of slipping away as quickly as he could. Now, faced with that sudden stern question, he had no choice but to stand his ground and answer, “I am called Wanyan Kang. My shifu’s name I may not tell you.”

Wang Chuyi said, “Your shifu has a red mole on his left cheek, does he not?”

Wanyan Kang grinned and was about to make some flippant reply when Wang Chuyi’s gaze suddenly struck him like two flashes of lightning. With a jolt of alarm he swallowed the joke unspoken and nodded.

Wang Chuyi said, “I guessed long ago that you were a disciple of my shixiong Qiu. Hmph. Before your shifu taught you martial arts, what did he tell you?”

Wanyan Kang felt that things were going badly wrong, and in his alarm he thought, If Shifu ever hears about today, there’ll be terrible trouble. His mind turned quickly, and at once he said pleasantly and respectfully, “Since Daoist Elder knows my shifu, you must be a Senior. Please honour my humble home with a visit, and let this junior respectfully hear your teaching.”

Wang Chuyi snorted but did not yet reply.

Wanyan Kang turned to Guo Jing. “May I ask your honoured name?”

Guo Jing said, “I am called Guo Jing.”

Wanyan Kang bowed to Guo Jing and smiled. “Brother Guo and I had to fight before we could become acquainted. I have the greatest admiration for your martial prowess, Brother Guo. Will you come to my home with Daoist Elder, and let us be friends?”

Guo Jing pointed at Mu Yi and his daughter. “Then what about your marriage to this young lady?”

Wanyan Kang looked embarrassed. “That can be gone into at leisure.”

Mu Yi tugged at Guo Jing’s sleeve. “Young Brother Guo, let’s go. Don’t bother with him any more.”

Wanyan Kang bowed again to Wang Chuyi. “Daoist Elder, I will await you at my home. Just ask for Prince Zhao’s residence. In such bitter cold it is just the weather for sitting round the brazier to admire the snow, so do come and drink a few cups.”

He swung onto a horse one of his retainers led forward, shook the reins, and galloped straight into the crowd, heedless of whether the hooves trampled anyone. The spectators scattered.

This arrogant display only made Wang Chuyi angrier. He said to Guo Jing, “Young Brother, come with me.”

Guo Jing said, “I must wait for my good friend.”

He had barely said it when Huang Rong sprang up above the crowd and called with a laugh, “I’m all right. I’ll come and find you later.” With these two sentences said, he dropped down again. He was small, and once he dropped into the throng he was lost to sight at once.

But there was the Three-Headed Dragon Hou Tonghai, running up again from the distance, shaking his fork.

Guo Jing turned round, knelt at once in the snow and kowtowed his thanks to Wang Chuyi for saving his life. Wang Chuyi raised him with both hands, took his arm, and pushed through the crowd. They walked swiftly towards the outskirts, his feet barely seeming to touch the ground.

Author’s note 1: A critic in Hong Kong has claimed that there is no such thing as a white camel, so the white camels of The Legend of the Condor Heroes cannot stand. This critic took his own experience as the ground for his judgement, which is somewhat arbitrary. White camels are rarer, but they are seen from time to time, and the author has seen white camels, and ridden them, in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Turkey. The Qing Wenxian Tongkao says, “The Khalkha are a powerful state of the north-west, with three khans… In the third year of Chongde the three khans together sent envoys to court, and it was fixed that each should present eight white horses and one white camel, called ‘the Tribute of the Nine Whites’, and this became the yearly custom.” Camels have never been plentiful in the Central Plains, and few people there have seen one; so it has been since ancient times. A set phrase runs, “Little seen, much marvelled at: seeing a camel, he calls it ‘horse-back-swollen’.” When I was at junior middle school in Zhejiang, our Chinese teacher, Mr Si, picked out this phrase for the pupils to read aloud, and when my classmates and I came to the three words “horse-back-swollen” we laughed for a long time. I have never forgotten it. Mou Rong’s Treatise on Resolving Doubts says, “He who has seen little marvels at much; seeing a camel, he says it is a horse with a swollen back.”

Author’s note 2: The sweat-blood horse is said to survive to this day. In 2002 Uzbekistan presented China with a sweat-blood horse as a gesture of friendship.

Footnotes

1. 张家口 — Zhāngjiākǒu. A town in northern Hebei, a gateway between the grasslands and the lands within the Great Wall. ↩

2. 汗血宝马 — hànxuè bǎomǎ. A legendary breed of the Western Regions, said to sweat blood at the gallop. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

4. 史记 — Shǐjì. The Records of the Grand Historian, compiled by Sima Qian in the Western Han dynasty and covering two and a half millennia of Chinese history. See Wikipedia. ↩

5. 汉书 — Hànshū. The Book of Han, the history of the Western Han dynasty compiled by Ban Gu. ↩

6. 张骞 — Zhāng Qiān. Han dynasty diplomat and explorer (d. 114 BCE), the first Chinese envoy to reach the Western Regions. See Wikipedia. ↩

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

8. 李广利 — Lǐ Guǎnglì. A general of Emperor Wu of Han, made General of Ershi for his campaign against Dayuan in the Western Regions to win its horses. ↩

9. 灵智上人 — Língzhì Shàngrén. Literally the venerable of spiritual wisdom. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 白驼山 — Báituó Shān. Mountain within the Kunlun ranges in the Western Regions. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 彭连虎 — Péng Liánhǔ. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 大兴府 — Dàxīng Fǔ. Literally Daxing Prefecture. The Central Capital of the Jin, in modern Beijing. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 醉仙楼 — Zuìxiān Lóu. The Drunken Immortal Wineshop, on the shore of South Lake in Jiaxing. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 黄河四鬼 — Huánghé Sìguǐ. Literally four ghosts of the Yellow River. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 江湖 — jiānghú. Literally rivers and lakes. The world of martial artists, outside mainstream society. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

17. 汾酒 — fénjiǔ. A famous clear grain spirit of Shanxi. ↩

18. 两钱分 — liǎng qián fēn. Traditional units of weight for silver: a liang was ten qian, and a qian ten fen. ↩

19. 侯通海 — Hóu Tōnghǎi. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

20. 走火入魔 — zǒuhuǒrùmó. Literally fire running wild and entering the demonic. The breakdown that follows faulty neigong practice, when zhenqi runs amok in the meridians. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

21. 比武招亲 — bǐwǔ zhāoqīn. Literally a martial contest to invite a marriage. A public contest held to find a husband for a young woman. ↩

22. 穆易 — Mù Yì. See Wuxia Wiki (spoiler). ↩

23. 路 — lù. Circuit, an administrative division of the Song dynasty roughly equal to a province. ↩

24. 罗汉拳 — Luóhàn Quán. Literally arhat fist. A foundational Shaolin fist style. ↩

25. 五行拳 — Wǔxíng Quán. Literally five elements fist. An external fist style. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

26. 念儿 — Niàn’ér. Literally little Nian, with the affectionate diminutive 儿. ↩

27. 亲哥哥 — qīn gēge. Literally dear elder brother, an endearment rather than a statement of kinship. ↩

28. 肩井穴 — Jiānjǐng Xué. Literally shoulder well acupoint. An acupoint at the top of the shoulder. ↩

29. 擒拿手 — Qínná Shǒu. Literally seizing hand. A method of seizing and locking the opponent’s joints. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

31. 分筋错骨手 — Fēnjīn Cuògǔ Shǒu. A method of seizing the joints and wrenching them out of place. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

32. 梁子翁 — Liáng Zǐwēng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

33. 丐帮 — Gàibāng. Literally beggars’ guild. The largest band in the jianghu, with members throughout the realm. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

34. 降魔杖法 — Jiàngmó Zhàngfǎ. Literally demon-subduing staff method. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

35. 杨家枪法 — Yángjiā Qiāngfǎ. Literally Yang family spear method. The hereditary spear art of the Yang family of generals. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

36. 道长 — dàozhǎng. Literally Daoist elder. A respectful form of address for a Daoist priest. ↩

37. 王处一 — Wáng Chǔyī. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩