The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 1 – Part 2

The strange visitor ground his teeth. “Cry, then, cry! Why won’t you cry? Hmph, you were just the same ten years ago. I forbade you to marry him. You said you couldn’t bear to leave me, yet you had to go with him all the same. You said you were grateful for all I’d done for you, that leaving me grieved you sorely. Bah! Lies, every word. If you were truly sad, why won’t you cry?”

He glared at Cheng Ying. She had long since gone white as a sheet with fright, yet still the tears would not fall. He shook her hard. Cheng Ying bit her lip and kept telling herself, I won’t cry! I won’t cry!

The strange visitor said, “Hmph, you won’t shed a single tear for me, not even one drop. What use is there in my living?”

Abruptly he let her go, bent his knees, crouched low and drove his head against a gravestone beside him. There was a thud, and he dropped senseless to the ground.

Lu Wushuang cried, “Cousin, run.”

She grabbed Cheng Ying’s hand and turned to flee. Cheng Ying had gone only a few steps when she saw the blood welling from the stranger’s head, and she could not bear it. “Old uncle mustn’t knock himself dead,” she said. “Let’s go and look at him.”

Lu Wushuang said, “If he’s dead, won’t he turn into a ghost?”

Cheng Ying started. She was afraid he would turn into a ghost, and afraid too that he would suddenly come round, grab her again and babble more of his strange, mad talk. But his face was covered in blood and he looked so pitiful that she reassured herself, Old uncle isn’t a ghost. I’m not afraid. He won’t grab me again.

Step by step, she slowly approached and called, “Old uncle, does it hurt?”

The stranger groaned but gave no answer. Bolder now, Cheng Ying took out her handkerchief and pressed it to the wound. But he had struck the stone with savage force, and the gash in his head was terrible: in a moment the handkerchief was soaked through. She pressed down hard with her left hand, and after a while the blood stopped flowing.

The strange visitor opened his eyes a crack. Seeing Cheng Ying sitting beside him, he sighed. “What did you save me for? Better to let me die and be done with it.”

Cheng Ying was happy to see him awake. Softly she asked, “Does your head hurt?”

The strange visitor shook his head. Mournfully he said, “My head doesn’t hurt. My heart hurts.”

Puzzled, Cheng Ying thought, How can his head be split open like that and not hurt, but his heart hurts instead?

But she did not press the question. She untied her sash and bandaged his wound.

The strange visitor sighed, then rose to his feet. “You will never consent to see me again, will you? Are we to part like this, then? Won’t you shed even a single tear for me?”

Cheng Ying heard the grief in his words, and saw that for all the blood that streaked his ugly face and made it so frightening, his eyes were full of pleading. Her heart ached in spite of herself, and two streams of tears burst from her eyes.

When the strange visitor saw her tears, his expression was at once joyful and anguished. With a loud wail, he burst into tears himself.

Cheng Ying, seeing how heartbroken his weeping was, found her own tears falling like pearls from a broken string, rolling down her cheeks. Gently she reached out both hands and wrapped them around his neck.

Lu Wushuang watched the two of them inexplicably embracing and weeping, and a surge of mirth rose from the depths of her heart. Unable to contain herself any longer, she threw back her head and laughed loudly.

Hearing her laughter, the strange visitor looked up at the sky and sighed. “Yes, you said with your own lips that you would never leave me, but once you grew older, you forgot all the words you once spoke. All you remember now is that new acquaintance, that pretty-faced boy. How merrily you laugh!”

He lowered his head and studied Cheng Ying closely. “Yes, yes, you are Ayuan, my little Ayuan. I won’t let you go. I won’t let you run off with that pretty-faced brute.”

And he held Cheng Ying tightly in his arms.

Seeing his agitation, Lu Wushuang did not dare laugh anymore.

The strange visitor said, “Ayuan, I’ve found you. Let’s go home. From now on, you will stay with your father forever.”

Cheng Ying said, “Old uncle, my father died long ago.”

The strange visitor said, “I know, I know. I am your sworn father. Don’t you recognise me?”

Cheng Ying shook her head slightly. “I don’t have a sworn father.”

The strange visitor gave a great shout and shoved her roughly away. “Ayuan, you won’t even acknowledge your sworn father?”

Cheng Ying said, “Old uncle, my name is Cheng Ying. I am not your Ayuan.”

The strange visitor muttered to himself, “You’re not Ayuan? Not my Ayuan?”

He stood dazed for a long moment, then said, “Yes, more than twenty years ago, Ayuan was just about your age. Now Ayuan has long since grown up. Grown up and no longer wants her father. In her heart, there is only that brute Lu Zhanyuan,¹ no one else.”

Lu Wushuang let out a gasp. “Lu Zhanyuan?”

The strange visitor stared at her. “You know Lu Zhanyuan, don’t you?”

Lu Wushuang gave a faint smile. “Of course I know him, he’s my uncle.”

The strange visitor’s face suddenly filled with savage ferocity. He seized Lu Wushuang by both arms. “He… he… where is that brute? Take me to him at once.”

Lu Wushuang was terrified, but she kept a smile on her face. In a trembling voice she said, “My uncle lives very close by. Do you really want to go find him? Hee hee!”

The strange visitor said, “Yes, yes! I’ve been searching Jiaxing for three whole days just to settle accounts with that brute. Little girl, take me there, and this old uncle won’t make trouble for you.”

His tone gradually softened, and he released her arms.

Lu Wushuang rubbed her left arm with her right hand. “You grabbed me so hard it hurts. I’ve suddenly forgotten where my uncle lives.”

The strange visitor’s eyebrows shot straight up and he was on the point of exploding, but then it struck him that bullying such a little girl was very wrong, and a smile spread across his ugly face. He reached into his robe. “It’s Grandpa’s fault, and Grandpa says sorry. Grandpa will give you some sweets.”

But his hand stayed in his robe and did not come out: plainly he could find no sweets there.

Lu Wushuang clapped her hands and laughed. “You haven’t got any sweets. You told a fib, and you’re not even ashamed. All right, I’ll tell you. My uncle lives over that way.”

She pointed towards two tall locust trees in the distance. “Just over there.”

The strange visitor stretched out his long arms, tucked the two girls under them again, and raced off towards the pair of locust trees. He charged straight ahead, and where a stream barred the way he simply leapt it. In moments the three of them were beside the trees. He set the girls down, and there beneath the locusts, stark before them, stood two graves side by side. One headstone bore the six characters “Tomb of Lord Lu Zhanyuan”, the other the seven characters “Tomb of Madam He of the Lu Family”. The grass by the graves stood knee-high: they had plainly been buried a long time.

The strange visitor stared blankly at the tombstones and murmured to himself, “That brute Lu Zhanyuan is dead? When did he die?”

Lu Wushuang said cheerfully, “He’s been dead for three years now.”

The strange visitor gave a cold laugh. “Good riddance, good riddance. It’s only a pity I couldn’t take his dog’s life with my own hands.”

He threw back his head and laughed wildly. The laughter carried far into the distance, but the sound was filled with grief and fury, with not a trace of joy.

By now, dusk was falling, and a faint haze had settled over the green willows and verdant grass. Lu Wushuang tugged at her cousin’s sleeve and whispered, “Let’s go back.”

The strange visitor said, “The pretty-faced boy is dead. What is Ayuan still doing here? I want to take her back to Dali.² Hey, little girl, take me to find your… your dead uncle’s wife.”

Lu Wushuang pointed at the tombstone. “Can’t you see? My aunt is dead too.”

The strange visitor leapt into the air with a thunderous roar. “Are you telling the truth? She… she’s dead too?”

Lu Wushuang’s face went white. In a trembling voice she said, “Father said so. After my uncle died, my aunt died too, right after. I don’t know, I don’t know. Don’t frighten me, I’m scared!”

The strange visitor beat his chest and wailed, “She’s dead? She’s dead? It can’t be. You haven’t even seen me yet. You can’t be dead. I told you, ten years from now, I would come to see you. How… how could you not wait for me?”

He howled and leapt about like a mad tiger. Suddenly he lashed out with a sweeping kick, and with a crack the great locust tree on the right shook and swayed, its leaves rustling. Cheng Ying and Lu Wushuang, hand in hand, backed far away. How could they dare go near? They saw him throw his arms around the tree and shake it with all his strength, as if to tear it out of the ground. The tree was not especially thick, but how could anyone pull it up? He bellowed, “You promised with your own lips. Have you forgotten? You said you would see me one more time. How can you go back on a promise?”

As he shouted, his voice grew hoarse. He crouched, gathered his strength into both hands, and steam slowly rose from his head as from a steamer basket. The muscles of his arms bunched and knotted. Back bowed, he heaved, and roared, “Up!”

The tree would not come up. But with a tremendous crack it snapped clean in two. He stood a while in a daze, the broken half in his arms, and said softly, “Dead. Dead!”

Then he raised it and hurled it with all his might, and the half-tree flew far off like an umbrella opening in mid-air.

He stood motionless before the graves, murmuring, “Yes, Madam He of the Lu Family, that is Ayuan.”

His eyes blurred, and the two headstones turned into two figures. One was a girl with a flower between her fingers and a smile on her lips, her bright eyes glancing about; the other a youth, tall and straight as jade, carefree and debonair. The two stood shoulder to shoulder.

The strange visitor opened his eyes and cursed, “You lured away my darling daughter. I’ll finish you with one finger.”

He thrust out his right forefinger, lunged in, and jabbed hard at the youth’s chest. Pain shot through the finger as if it would snap: the jab had struck the headstone, and the youth’s figure had vanished.

The strange visitor flew into a rage. “Where do you think you’re running?”

His left palm struck out after it, then both palms in quick succession, with two sharp smacks, both landing on the stone. The angrier he grew, the fiercer his blows became, and after more than ten of them his palms were dripping blood.

Cheng Ying could not bear to watch. “Old uncle, stop hitting it. You’re hurting your own hands.”

The strange visitor laughed wildly. “It doesn’t hurt. I’m going to beat that brute Lu Zhanyuan to death.”

He was laughing uproariously when his laughter abruptly ceased. He stood frozen for a moment, then cried, “I must see your face, I must see your face.”

He thrust both hands forward with ferocious force, and his ten fingers plunged into the earth of the grave of Madam He of the Lu Family like a set of awls. When he pulled his arms back, he had scooped out two great chunks of grave soil. His two palms worked like iron spades, rising and falling, scooping up mound after mound of earth.

Cheng Ying and Lu Wushuang went white as ash with fright, and as one they turned and ran. The stranger was wholly intent on digging and never noticed. The two girls ran hard, round one bend after another, and only when there was no sign of him behind them did they breathe a little easier. They did not know the way and had to ask country folk as they went, and it was full dark before they came through the gate of Lu Family Manor.

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Lu Wushuang was shouting before she was through the door. “Something terrible’s happened, terrible! Father, Mother, come quick, that madman’s digging up Uncle and Aunt’s graves!” She ran headlong into the main hall and saw her father, Lu Liding,³ with his head tilted back, staring blankly at the wall.

Cheng Ying followed her into the hall. Following Lu Liding’s gaze, they saw imprinted on the wall three rows of palm prints: two at the top, two in the middle, and five at the bottom, nine in total. Each palm print was as crimson as fresh blood.

Lu Liding heard his daughter’s shouts and asked hurriedly, “What did you say?”

Lu Wushuang cried, “That madman’s digging up Uncle and Aunt’s graves.”

Lu Liding started in alarm and rose to his feet. “Nonsense!”

Cheng Ying said, “Uncle, it’s true.”

Footnotes

1. 陆展元 – Lù Zhǎnyuán. His name meaning “spreading the origin”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 大理 – Dàlǐ. Historical kingdom in present-day Yunnan Province (937–1253), contemporaneous with the Song dynasty. In the Condor Trilogy it is associated with the Duan imperial family and Great Master Yideng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 陆立鼎 – Lù Lìdǐng. His name meaning “establishing the tripod”, a metaphor for laying a stable foundation. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩