The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 10 – Part 7

The horse moved with incredible speed. The sound of its hooves had barely reached them before it was already there, long-legged and tall-bodied, covered in a coat of deep red, magnificent beyond compare. Li Mochou and Yelü Qi were both startled. How can a horse be this fast? On its back rode a young woman in crimson, horse and rider together looked like a great blazing coal hurtling toward them, with only her snow-white face untouched by the redness. Seeing the twin eagles and the red horse, Yang Guo already knew the rider was Guo Jing and Huang Rong’s¹ daughter, Guo Fu.² She reined in her horse, and the red horse stopped instantly. In the midst of its headlong gallop, to halt so abruptly, neither rearing nor neighing, perfectly composed, was a marvel. Yelü Qi had grown up in Mongolia and had seen countless fine horses, but never such a specimen as this. He had no idea that this horse was the Ferghana blood-sweat steed Guo Jing had obtained in the Mongolian desert. It had been a little red horse then. Now its teeth showed its age, well past middle years by a horse’s reckoning. But a divine steed was, after all, different from ordinary horses, though its years were advanced, its sinews and bones remained strong, its legs still powerful, no less vigorous than in its prime.

Yang Guo had not seen Guo Fu for many years. Whenever he had thought of her, he always remembered her as that arrogant, wilful girl. He had never imagined she would have grown into such a beautiful young woman, her face like spring blossoms. After her hard ride, a faint sheen of sweat glistened on her brow, and her cheeks, set off by her crimson dress, seemed even more radiant. She watched the twin eagles for a moment, then glanced at Yelü Qi and the others. When her eyes swept over Yang Guo’s face, seeing him in Mongol attire, his masked features so bizarre, her fine brows drew together slightly, her expression one of distinct disdain.

Yang Guo had never gotten along with her since childhood. Seeing that she still despised him now at this reunion, his self-loathing and wounded pride only intensified. You look down on me, he thought. Do I need you to look up to me? Your father is a great hero of the age. Your mother is the chief of the Beggars’ Guild. Your grandfather is a grandmaster of martial arts. Every martial artist under heaven respects your Guo family. But what of my parents? My mother was a country woman. I have never even seen my father, and he died under mysterious circumstances… Heng. Of course I cannot compare with you. I was born to suffer, born to be insulted. If you insult me too, that is just one more person who looks down on me. Does this old man care? He stood to one side, nursing his secret grief, feeling that no one in the world valued him, that living was utterly meaningless. Only his master, Xiaolongnü, had ever been truly devoted to him, and now where had she gone? Would he ever, in this life, see her again?

While he was lost in sorrow, more hoofbeats sounded. Two more horses arrived, one green, one yellow, both fine breeds, but next to Guo Fu’s red horse they paled to insignificance. Each horse carried a young man in yellow robes.

Guo Fu called out, “Brothers Wu, we meet this evil woman again!” The riders were Wu Dunru³ and Wu Xiuwen.⁴ The moment they saw Li Mochou, the great enemy who had killed their mother, a face they had not forgotten for a single day in all these years, they leapt from their horses, drew their longswords, and attacked from left and right. Guo Fu cried, “I will join too!” She drew her treasured sword from beside her saddle, dismounted, and rushed forward to help.

Li Mochou saw her enemies multiplying, yet all of them so young. The two young men attacked with savage desperation, their eyes blazing, their sword techniques pure and orthodox, clearly also disciples of a distinguished school. Then the beautiful girl in red joined the assault. Her first thrust made the sword tip tremble faintly, dazzling to the eye. The diagonal stab seemed straightforward but concealed a deeply cunning follow-up. Though her power was shallow, her sword technique was exquisitely profound. Li Mochou’s heart chilled. “Are you Miss Guo of Peach Blossom Island?” she called.

Guo Fu laughed. “So you recognise me.” She unleashed two rapid thrusts, shua shua, both aimed at the vital points between chest and abdomen. Li Mochou raised her whisk to block. What an arrogant little girl, she thought. With your meagre skills, you dare show me disrespect? If not for fear of your parents, I would have finished off ten of you by now. She reversed her whisk, intending to seize the girl’s sword, when suddenly the wind whistled at both her flanks. Wu Dunru and Wu Xiuwen’s longswords thrust in simultaneously. The two brothers and Guo Fu had all been personally taught by Guo Jing. The three had trained together day and night on Peach Blossom Island, practising the same sword techniques. Their three blades coordinated with seamless precision, one advancing as another retreated, one rising as another fell. Though it was not a formal formation, with the three swords working in concert, each covering the others, their combined power was far from negligible.

The three fighters and two eagles surrounded Li Mochou in the centre of a whirling melee. In terms of their true skill, given enough time, Li Mochou would eventually find an opening to wound one of them, and the other two would then be unable to defend themselves. But she saw that the enemy had numbers on their side. If they all rushed her at once, she would be hard-pressed. And if she provoked Guo Jing and his wife into joining the fight, she would certainly come out the worse. She swept her whisk back and laughed. “Little children, behold the Scarlet Serpent Immortal’s monkey-taming technique!” She launched six rapid attacks, hu hu hu, each aimed at a vital point, forcing Guo Fu and the Wu brothers into frantic leaps and dodges that truly made them look somewhat like monkeys. Li Mochou balanced on her left foot and, with a silvery laugh, spun in a complete circle. “Lingbo,” she called, “let us go!” Master and disciple fled toward the northwest.

Guo Fu shouted, “She fears us! After her!” Sword raised, she gave chase. The Wu brothers deployed their lightness skill and followed. Li Mochou swept her whisk behind her with casual grace, her feet raising not a speck of dust as she drifted away with the lightness of a stroll. Hong Lingbo, however, sprinted at full speed. Guo Fu and the Wu brothers used every ounce of their strength, yet the distance between them and the master-disciple pair only grew. Only the two great eagles, faster than Li Mochou, continued to dive and strike. Wu Dunru, seeing that revenge was hopeless today, whistled to call the eagles back.

Yelü Qi and the others, fearing the three might come to harm, had followed to provide support. Seeing Guo Fu and the others returning, they stepped forward to exchange greetings. They were all young at heart, and within a few words, they were getting along famously. Yelü Qi suddenly remembered and called out, “Where is Brother Yang?”

Wanyan Ping said, “He left on his own. I asked him where he was going, and he ignored me.” She lowered her head.

Yelü Qi ran up a small hill and scanned in all directions. He saw the green-robed young woman and Lu Wushuang walking side by side in the distance, already far away, but of Yang Guo, there was not the slightest trace. Yelü Qi felt a bewildering sense of loss. He had met Yang Guo for the first time today and had fought alongside him against a common enemy. Though their time together had been brief, they had faced death together several times, their lives hanging by a thread, coordinating attacks, covering each other, rescuing one another. This was a bond forged in battle. To see him leave so abruptly, without a word of farewell, felt like losing a close friend of many years.

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Yang Guo, seeing the Wu brothers arrive and join Guo Fu in attacking Li Mochou, the three of them so close and coordinated, their sword techniques so exquisite, driving Li Mochou away in just a few moves, had misunderstood the situation. He did not know that Li Mochou had retreated only out of fear of Guo Jing and his wife. He assumed the three’s sword techniques contained some hidden, overwhelmingly powerful neili that had forced her to flee. Years ago, when Guo Jing had escorted him to Mount Zhongnan⁵ to study, Guo Jing had displayed awesome martial prowess, defeating countless Quanzhen Daoists. The loftiness of that skill had left a deep imprint on Yang Guo’s young mind. He believed that disciples trained by Guo Jing would naturally possess skill ten times greater than his own. With this preconception fixed in his mind, even when Guo Fu and the others performed an ordinary sword move, he assumed it must contain profound hidden depths. The more he watched, the more indignant he became. He remembered how, as a child on Peach Blossom Island, the Wu brothers had beaten him twice while Guo Fu stood by shouting, “Good! Hit him harder!” He remembered how Huang Rong had deliberately refused to teach him martial arts. Guo Jing’s martial arts were so magnificent, yet he had not been willing to pass them on, instead sending Yang Guo to the Chongyang Palace to suffer under a pack of villainous Daoists. A bellyful of resentment surged to his chest.

What Yang Guo did not know was that after Guo Jing had sent him to Mount Zhongnan to study, he had often worried about him in his heart. He would bring up the subject with Huang Rong, wondering how Yang Guo’s martial progress was coming along. On Peach Blossom Island, with time stretching long and idle, he frequently felt the urge to accompany Huang Rong to Mount Zhongnan to visit Yang Guo. But Huang Rong could never forget how Yang Guo’s father, Yang Kang,⁶ had used poison to murder the Five Freaks of Jiangnan,⁷ causing Guo Jing to regard her and her father as enemies. She also saw that Yang Guo was cunning and restless by nature, and she did not wish to see much of him. “Jing gege,” she would say, “if we go to the Quanzhen Order to see Yang Guo, I fear those old Daoists will take it the wrong way, thinking we suspect them of not teaching seriously and want to inspect their work ourselves.” Guo Jing shook his head. “Daoist Ma, Daoist Qiu, Daoist Wang, they have always treated me with the greatest warmth. They would never take it the wrong way.” Huang Rong said, “The senior generation certainly wouldn’t. But the last time you single-handedly defeated over ten of their Big Dipper Formations, the Quanzhen Order lost enormous face. Among the third-generation disciples and below, not everyone will be free of resentment, surely?” Guo Jing pondered this carefully and felt his wife’s words were very reasonable. If he saw Yang Guo, he could not avoid testing his martial arts, and upon testing, he feared someone in the Chongyang Palace might truly take offence. After that, the matter was never raised again. Yang Guo, though he knew Guo Jing had treated him decently, had no idea of these sentiments.

Yang Guo also saw that Wanyan Ping, Lu Wushuang, the green-robed young woman, and Yelü Yan were all looking at him with strange expressions. He thought, Li Mochou slandered my Gugu with filthy words, and all of you believed her. You look down on me, so be it. But how dare you slight my Gugu? My face is ugly right now because I am furious at the Wu brothers and Guo Fu, furious at Uncle Guo and Aunt Guo. And you all think it is because I have done something shameful with my Gugu and feel guilty? Suddenly he broke into a sprint, not following any road, just charging wildly through the wilderness. His mind was in an abnormal state, he felt that the entire world was against him. He did not realise that, wearing a human-skin mask, even if his face had been full of jealousy and resentment, how could Wanyan Ping and the others have seen it? His features were strange. Naturally people found it odd. Li Mochou’s evil name filled the jianghu, she was a common enemy of all. Who would believe anything she said?

He had originally been travelling from northwest to southeast. Now, wanting to put as much distance as possible between himself and these people, he turned back toward the northwest. His mind was in chaos. He loathed the world of men. He tore off his mask and wandered aimlessly through the wild mountains and barren ridges. When hungry, he picked wild fruits and greens to fill his stomach. The further he went, the more he wandered. In less than a month, he had grown haggard and gaunt, his clothes in tatters. He came to a region of towering peaks. He did not know this was Mount Hua⁸. “the most precipitous of the Five Sacred Mountains under heaven.” He only saw that the mountain paths were steep and treacherous, and in his bitterness he resolved to climb to the highest peak.

His lightness skill was high, but Mount Hua was the most dangerous of all mountains, he could not simply ascend at will. By the time he had climbed halfway, the weather had turned abruptly cold. Leaden clouds pressed low, the north wind grew fierce, and then flakes of snow began drifting down from the sky. He wanted to torment himself as much as possible and did not seek shelter from the snow. The heavier the blizzard, the more he sought out the sheerest cliffs and most perilous precipices. By evening, the snow was falling harder than ever. The footing was treacherous, the path nearly impossible to discern. One misstep and he would plunge into a bottomless abyss, smashed to pieces. He did not care. Since Gugu had abandoned him, his life was not worth a copper coin. Life and death meant nothing to him. He continued upward, head held high.

After walking a while longer, he suddenly heard an extremely faint chi chi sound from behind, as though some wild animal were moving through the snow. Yang Guo spun around. A human silhouette flickered behind him and vanished into a valley.

Yang Guo was badly startled. He rushed over and peered into the valley. A person hung suspended in mid-air, hooked onto the rock face by three fingers alone. Yang Guo saw that this man supported his entire body with the strength of three fingers, poised above a bottomless chasm, his martial skill had truly reached an inconceivable level. Yang Guo bowed with the utmost respect and said, “Venerable Elder, please come up!”

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The man let out a great roaring laugh that shook the valley walls. With a press of his fingers, he vaulted up from the cliffside. Then suddenly he barked in a fierce voice, “Are you an accomplice of the Five Ugly Men of Sichuan⁹ or not? In the midst of a howling blizzard, in the dead of night, what are you doing skulking about here?”

Yang Guo, scolded so groundlessly, thought, In the midst of a howling blizzard, in the dead of night, what am I doing skulking about here? The question struck a nerve, and suddenly he burst into loud sobs. He thought of the misfortunes of his entire life, the contempt the world had always shown him, and how his most beloved Gugu, for no reason he could fathom, had blamed him and severed all ties, leaving him, most likely never to see her again in this life. He wept until the heavens themselves seemed steeped in sorrow. All the grievances, all the humiliations of his life, came flooding forth.

Footnotes

1. 黄蓉 – Huáng Róng. Her name meaning “lotus” or “hibiscus”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 郭芙 – Guō Fú. Her name meaning “lotus”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 武敦儒 – Wǔ Dūnrú. His name meaning “earnest scholar”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 武修文 – Wǔ Xiūwén. His name meaning “cultivate literature”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 终南山 – Zhōngnán Shān. Sacred Daoist mountain housing both Quanzhen Order and Ancient Tomb School. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 杨康 – Yáng Kāng. His name meaning “health” or “peace”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. Five Freaks of Jiangnan (江南五怪). Also known as the Seven Freaks of Jiangnan (before two deaths). Group of eccentric martial artists from the Jiangnan region who were Guo Jing’s first teachers. Yang Kang poisoned and killed five of them, framing Huang Yaoshi — an act that created a bitter rift between Guo Jing and Huang Rong. ↩

8. 华山 – Huáshān. One of China’s Five Sacred Mountains, site of martial arts competitions. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. Five Ugly Men of Sichuan (川边五丑). Five martial artists from the Sichuan border region, known for their villainy. “ugliness” in their name refers more to their evil conduct than their physical appearance. Hong Qigong has been tracking them to eliminate them all at once. ↩