Mandarin Duck Blades – Part 7

“Who are you?” one demanded.

The other asked, “Why are you using hidden weapons?”

Questions flew rapidly.

“Have you seen my child?”

“Did you see a young girl pass by?”

“Was the young girl carrying a child?”

Within moments, each person had asked seven or eight questions. Even if Zhou Weixin had ten mouths, he could not answer them all. The couple was Lin Yulong¹ and Ren Feiyan.² Lin Yulong shouted at his wife, “Shut up, let me question him.”

Ren Feiyan retorted, “Why should I? You shut up, I’ll do the asking.”

The two begun arguing. Zhou Weixin, with two daos at his neck, feared that either of them might press down in a fit of rage, and head and body would go separate ways. As the jianghu saying goes, “You take your well-trodden path, I’ll go my challenging route.”

Then, he thought, As the jianghu saying goes, ‘A clever man doesn’t fight against the odds, and a smiling face invites no harm.’

So, he forced a smile and said, “No need to be anxious, let me get up and then we can talk.” Lin Yulong bellowed, “Why should we let you up?”

Ren Feiyan noticed his right hand gripping his bundle tightly, as if it contained something very valuable, and shouted, “What’s that?”

Ever since Zhou Weixin received the pair of Mandarin Duck Blades³ from the Governor-General,⁴ he had not forgotten the words “Mandarin Duck Blades” for a moment. His obsession was so intense that he even muttered the name in his sleep. Presently, with a steel dao pressed against his neck and the situation critical, Ren Feiyan’s insistent questions gave him no time to think. He blurted out instinctively, “Mandarin Duck Blades!”

Lin and Ren were both shocked when they heard this. Their left hands shot out in unison to grabbing at the bundle on Zhou Weixin’s back. Zhou Weixin regretted it as soon as he spoke. In his desperate panic, a thought flashed through his mind, As the jianghu saying goes, ‘When a desperate man fights, ten thousand men cannot stop him.’ And they are just two. No, only one man—the other is a woman.

Ignoring the cold dao at his neck, he lunged forward in an attempt to roll away. However, the couple exerted their strength at the same time, yanking him up along with the bundle. Zhou Weixin had secured the precious dao to his back with a thin iron chain. Despite pulling with all their might, Lin and Ren were unable to break the chain.

The three of them became entangled in a struggle. Zhou Weixin swung fist backward, landing a solid punch on Lin Yulong’s face with a loud thud. Ren Feiyan flipped her dao and brought the hilt down hard on the back of Zhou Weixin’s neck. She asked, “Brother Long, are you in pain?”

Lin Yulong angrily replied, “Do you even need to ask? Of course it hurts.”

Ren Feiyan retorted furiously, “Ha! I was asking out of concern. Was that wrong?”

The two started bickering again while they kept trying to seize the bundle.

Suddenly, a person emerged from the bushes, calling out, “Do you want the child?”

Lin and Ren looked up to see Xiao Zhonghui holding up their son high in both hands. Overjoyed, they immediately reached out to take him. Xiao Zhonghui handed over the child with her right hand, and swiftly slashed the bundle on Zhou Weixin’s back with the short dao in her left hand. With a quick movement, she reached in and drew a dao from the bundle with her right hand. The dark metal gleamed, exuding a chilling aura.

With a casual flick, it proved to be an excellent dao, severing the iron chains as though they were threads. Xiao Zhonghui grabbed the bundle, leapt onto Zhou Weixin’s mount, and rode off. She executed these moves with remarkable speed and precision, like a falcon swooping down on a rabbit.

She pulled the reins and shouted, “Go!”

But the horse’s hooves seemed firmly rooted to the ground and did not move. Xiao Zhonghui lifted her leg to kick the horse’s belly, but both her knees went numb suddenly. She cried out silently, “Not good!”

Just as she was about to leap off the horse, it was already too late. Someone struck her acupoints, leaving her frozen atop the horse, unable to move at all.

A figure emerged from under the horse’s belly. It was the old blind man. Somehow, he had managed to escape from the skirmish with the escort team and had caught up to hide under the horse. With a swift motion, he snatched the pair of Mandarin Duck Blades from Xiao Zhonghui’s hands.

Ren Feiyan quickly placed her child on the ground and drew her dao to engage him. Lin Yulong followed and flanked him. The blind man raised the unsheathed long Mandarin Duck Blade to parry, and with two sharp clangs, both Lin and Ren’s dao were broken at once. The couple stood dumbfounded for a moment. Before they could react, they felt a numbness in their waist acupoints. Their major acupoints had been struck, rendering them immobile.

Zhou Weixin, fierce like a crazed tiger, shouted, “Blind wretch! It’s you or me who lives!”

He snatched his iron whip from the ground and executed the move Sweeping Across an Army⁵ from the Eighteen Whips of Huyan,⁶ unleashing a horizontal strike at the blind man. To his surprise, the blind man did not dodge, but raised the long Mandarin Duck Blade and stabbed forward. The move was aimed neither at the iron whip nor at Zhou Weixin’s chest.

Instead, he thrusted it into the scabbard within the bundle. Then, he swung the dao sideways along with the scabbard. He wielded the dao and sheath as if they formed an iron whip, and the move he used was identical—Sweeping Across an Army from the Eighteen Whips of Huyan. The scabbard struck the iron whip in mid-air and Zhou Weixin’s sixteen-pound weapon stopped moving immediately and was unable to advance even a hair’s breadth. It was debatable whether mid-air counted as a ‘direction’, but his reputation as the Iron Whip that Quells All Directions appeared an empty boast.

As the dao and whip came into brief ringing contact, the blind man’s neili⁷ jolted the iron whip from his grip, sending it flying. The move Iron Whip Flying in One Direction split Zhou Weixin’s tiger’s mouth and left him with a bloodied palm. The blind man rolled his white eyes and sneered, “You haven’t learnt the last move of the Eighteen Whips of Huyan, have you?”

Zhou Weixin was shocked to the core.

Although the Eighteen Whips of Huyan was named such, only seventeen moves had been passed down. His shifu once said that the final move was called Breaking Ten Spears with One Whip.⁸ When the Northern Song⁹ general Huyan Zan¹⁰ was surrounded by enemies, he shattered ten spears with a single iron whip. This whip technique relied not on moves, but only on neili. Few could master it, and only his shibo¹¹ possessed such amazing cultivation.

Zhou Weixin had never met his shibo. He only knew he was an imperial guard in the Qing court, the leader of the Seven Greats of the Imperial Court. He had always resided within the depths of the Forbidden Palace and never ventured out. Hence, he never had the honour to meet him.

A thought struck him, and he asked with a trembling voice, “Is… is your esteemed surname Zhuo?”

The blind man replied, “Indeed.”

Surprised and overjoyed, Zhou Weixin prostrated himself on the ground and said, “Disciple Zhou Weixin pays his respects to Zhuo shibo.”

The blind old man smiled faintly and said, “It’s good that you still remember Zhuo Tianxiong.”¹²

Zhou Weixin¹³ replied, “When my shifu¹⁴ was alive, he often praised shibo’s¹¹ formidable prowess. I had never met shibo before and was very disrespectful earlier. As the jianghu¹⁵ saying goes, ‘Those fated will meet across a thousand miles, those not fated won’t meet even when they face each other.’ May I ask when shibo departed from Beijing?”

Zhuo Tianxiong smiled and said, “The Emperor sent me to receive you.”

Zhou Weixin felt both alarmed and delighted. He said, “If it weren’t for shibo’s timely assistance, I’m afraid this pair of Mandarin Duck Blades would have fallen into the hands of bandits.”

Zhuo Tianxiong said, “The Emperor’s foresight is prescient and anticipated trouble when this pair of dao are on their way to the capital. The moment you left Xi’an, I began following your escort team. What were you constantly muttering in your sleep at night?”

Zhou Weixin’s face flushed crimson as he stammered wordlessly. He thought to himself, Shibo has been trailing our escort team the whole way and even overheard my sleep-talking at night. Yet I didn’t notice at all. If it hadn’t been shibo but instead a master thief intent on seizing the precious dao, would I even be alive now? As the jianghu saying goes, ‘Planning is futile, our whole lives are predestined.’

Zhuo Tianxiong said, “Your companions are rather cowardly and have probably hidden themselves by now. Go and gather them. We’ll continue the journey together.”

Zhou Weixin responded with profuse agreement. Zhuo Tianxiong raised the pair of dao, giving them a light polish. He felt a chill run surge at face, and could not help but exclaim, “Excellent dao!”

Just as Zhou Weixin was about to step out of the grove, he suddenly heard someone to his left call out, “Hey, Zhuo fellow, you better unblock my acupoints. We’ll have a proper duel.”

Another female voice said, “You took advantage when we had our guard down and struck our acupoints. What kind of hero does that make you?”

Zhuo Tianxiong turned see Lin Yulong and Ren Feiyan each holding a broken dao, poised to strike. However, they were immobilised and could only cast fierce glares at him.

Zhuo Tianxiong flicked his finger against the short dao, and it rung out like a dragon’s cry that reverberating for a long while as he said, “No matter how many bandits you have, I’ll capture them. If one comes, I’ll capture one. If two come, I’ll seize both.”

Turning to Xiao Zhonghui,¹⁶ he said, “Young lady, you should also come with me to the capital to experience the dazzling world of the imperial city.”

Xiao Zhonghui grew frantic and cried out, “Release me quickly! If you don’t, I’ll make you regret it to no end.”

Zhuo Tianxiong gave a hearty laugh and said, “In that case, all the more I can’t let you go. Let’s see how you’ll make me regret to no end.”

Xiao Zhonghui was secretly trying to circulate her inner qi to force through her sealed acupoints on her legs. However, whenever her qi reached her waist, it rebounded upwards. The more anxious she was, the more her entire body felt numb and weak.

Soon, she was unable to muster even a sliver of her strength. Her pretty face flushed red and tears brimmed in her eyes, threatening to spill out at any moment.

Suddenly, they heard someone reciting in a loud voice from outside the grove, “The Son of Heaven values the brave and talented, let literature be your teacher. All other pursuits are inferior, only the pursuit of knowledge is supreme…”

As the ringing recitation continued, a person entered the grove. Xiao Zhonghui looked and saw it was Yuan Guannan,¹⁷ the young scholar she had met at the inn last night. Realising that one more person would witness her embarrassing predicament, she felt even more upset. In her distress, tears began rolling down her cheeks like pearls from a broken string.

Zhuo Tianxiong gripped the Mandarin Duck Blades and said sternly, “Yuan fellow, the dao are right here. If you have the skill, come and get them. You may fool others with your act, but don’t waste your time trying to deceive Zhuo Tianxiong.”

As he said that, he struck the twin dao together, producing a ringing sound that echoed through the treetops.

Yuan Guannan, holding a writing brush in his right hand and an ink box in his left, said, “I suddenly felt inspired to write a verse on a tree, but your shouting is disrupting my mood.”

Saying that, he looked around as if searching for a suitable place to write. Zhuo Tianxiong had already noticed that he possessed martial arts skills. Seeing the latter’s nonchalant attitude and fearing he possessed exceptional martial arts, he did not dare underestimate him. He sheathed the twin dao and handed them to Zhou Weixin, then he gripped his iron staff and barked, “If you want to write a poem, write it on this blind man’s robe!”

With that, he swung the iron staff at the back of Yuan Guannan’s head.

Footnotes

1. 林玉龙 — Lín Yùlóng. ↩

2. 任飞燕 — Rén Fēiyàn. Literally “Ren Flying Swallow”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 鸳鸯刀 — Yuānyāng dāo. Literally mandarin duck dao. Yuan and yang stand for the male and female mandarin ducks respectively, and are considered to be lifelong couples in traditional Chinese culture. Name means that the dao come in a pair. ↩

4. 总督 — Zǒngdū. During the Qing Dynasty, a governor general was an imperial official that supervised of provincial governors, administering several provinces. See Wikipedia. ↩

5. 横扫千军 — héngsǎo qiānjūn. Literally sweeping across a thousand-strong army. ↩

6. 呼延十八鞭 — Hūyán shíbā biān. Literally Huyan’s Eighteen Whips. Martial arts technique named after Huyan Zan, a military general in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty. See Wikipedia. ↩

7. 内力 — nèilì. Literally internal force. Kinetic manifestation of cultivated qi; generates tangible effects such as deflecting weapons or scaling walls. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 一鞭断十枪 — yī biān duàn shí qiāng. Literally one whip breaking ten spears. ↩

9. 北宋 — Běi Sòng. Period of the Song Dynasty that lasted from 960 to 1127 CE. See Wikipedia. ↩

10. 呼延赞 — Hūyán Zàn. Military general in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty. See Wikipedia. ↩

11. 师伯 — shībó. Senior lineage uncle. Shixiong or shijie of one’s shifu. Shī means teacher. Bó means father’s elder brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩ ↩²

12. 卓天雄 — Zhuó Tiānxióng. ↩

13. 周威信 — Zhōu Wēixìn. Literally “Zhou Prestige Trust” or “Authoritative Trust”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 师父 — shīfù. Teacher responsible for technical instruction and moral guidance. Shī means teacher. Fù means father. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 江湖 — jiānghú. Literally rivers and lakes. Itinerant world beyond settled society and official reach, holding not only martial artists but the trades that travel with them, including pedlars, physicians, fortune-tellers, entertainers, boatmen, beggars, outlaws and the like. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

16. 萧中慧 — Xiāo Zhōnghuì. ↩

17. 袁冠南 — Yuán Guānnán. ↩