Lin Yulong (simplified: 林玉龙, traditional: 林玉龙, pinyin: Lín Yùlóng, jyutping: lam4 juk6 lung4) is a hot-tempered dao fighter married to Ren Feiyan. The two quarrel and fight constantly. Three years before the novella, an old monk taught them the Wedded Blades Style to bind them together, but they have never managed to use it as one; instead they teach it to Yuan Guannan and Xiao Zhonghui.
Biography
The quarrelling couple
Lin first appears running through a forest with his wife pelting him with slingshot shots, cursing her but never daring to strike back. He shoves past the Four Xias of Taiyue and keeps running, shouting back a challenge to three hundred rounds with dao.1 At the Fen’an Inn in Guanshui, the couple’s fight wakes the house. Lin leaps from the window with their infant son, and Xiao Zhonghui, taking him for a child-snatcher, chases him to a graveyard and wounds his left leg.2 Ren rushes to his aid, and the couple reveal that they are husband and wife; while Ren binds his leg, Xiao Zhonghui makes off with the child, and the pair trade blows over whose fault it was before giving chase. In a forest they unhorse Zhou Weixin and hold him at dao-point, demanding news of their son.3
When Zhou blurts out that he carries the Mandarin Duck Blades, Lin grabs for the bundle and takes a punch in the face. Zhuo Tianxiong shears through both their dao with the long blade and seals their acupoints.4 Frozen back to back, the couple bicker until they are spitting at each other. Yuan Guannan frees them with thrown stones, and they chase Xiao Zhonghui to the Purple Bamboo Convent.5
Teaching the style
Hiding from Zhuo, Lin blames his wife for their failure to master the Wedded Blades Style, and the couple tell its story: the old monk taught each of them a different half, which works only when both fight as one. They teach Yuan and Xiao Zhonghui its first twelve moves. When Zhuo returns, Lin opens with the first move, but Ren attacks with the second instead of guarding him, and Zhuo seals both their acupoints. Frozen, they call out the move names as the younger pair drive Zhuo off.6
At Xiao Banhe’s birthday, Lin and Ren present the long Yuan blade with Yuan Guannan, and in the back garden Lin teaches Yuan the remaining sixty moves. Through teaching, the couple go a whole day without a quarrel. Irritated by the Four Xias’ criticism, Lin asks what wedding gift they mean to give, and helps his wife send them hunting the Blue-Blood Golden Toad. When Yuan finds his mother, Lin is baffled, and tells his wife he would rather she were his sister.7 At the Zhongtiao Mountains, he crows that he was right all along that a couple who never quarrel must be strange, until Ren stuffs his mouth with venison.8
Martial arts abilities
Lin is the stronger of the couple, with ferocious dao work and occasional heavy blows from his left palm, though Ren’s bladework is the more cunning.2 He knows his half of the Wedded Blades Style and remembers every move well enough to teach it.6
Behind the scenes
Portrayals
- 1982 film Lovers’ Blades — Yuan De
See also
- Mandarin Duck Blades characters
- Ren Feiyan — His wife
- Wedded Blades Style — The martial art he taught to the protagonists
- Yuan Guannan — His disciple
- Xiao Zhonghui — His disciple
- Zhuo Tianxiong — His opponent
External links
- Lin Yulong (Chinese) on Baidu Baike