The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 10 – Part 9

Dawn was approaching. Hong Qigong was now buried in a mound of snow, with only a raised shape on the ground to show a human form beneath. Yang Guo felt no fatigue. All around him was darkness and silence. Suddenly, from the northeastern side of the mountain, he heard the crunching of footsteps in the snow. He focused his gaze and saw five black silhouettes racing toward him, their movements swift, the light of blades glinting on their backs. Yang Guo’s heart stirred. Most likely these are the Five Ugly Men of Sichuan the venerable elder mentioned. He quickly concealed himself behind a large boulder.

Before long, the five men had reached the boulder. One of them gave a startled cry: “The old beggar’s wine gourd!” Another said in a trembling voice, “He… he is on Mount Hua?” Alarm showed on all five faces. They huddled together and conferred in whispers. Then, suddenly, all five scattered at once and bolted down the mountain. The path on the peak was narrow. One man had run only a few steps when his foot came down on Hong Qigong’s body. Feeling the softness beneath his foot, he let out an Ah! of shock. The other four stopped and gathered around. They brushed aside the snow and saw Hong Qigong lying on the ground, seemingly long dead. The five were overjoyed. They reached out to feel his breath, there was none. His body was icy cold. The five cheered and danced with wild abandon, more delighted than if they had discovered a priceless treasure.

One of them said, “This old beggar followed us the whole way, making our lives utter misery. So he died here after all.” Another said, “Hong Qigong, that old scoundrel, had formidable martial arts. How could he just die like this?” A third said, “No matter how good your martial arts, can you escape death? Think about it, how old is the old scoundrel?” Another said, “He’s not that old. With his profound neili, he shouldn’t have died so soon.” The fifth said, “Heaven be praised that King Yama¹ has seized him. Otherwise, he would have been hard to deal with.” The first speaker said, “Come, let us all hack the old scoundrel a few times to vent our anger! Let the Nine-Fingered Divine Beggar Hong Qigong have been a hero without equal, in the end, he has been chopped into seventeen or twenty-eight pieces by the Five Heroes of Sichuan.”

Yang Guo thought, So this senior is Hong Qigong. No wonder his martial arts are so extraordinary. He had heard Xiaolongnü speak in passing of Hong Qigong’s name and his ultimate techniques such as the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing,² but even Lin Chaoying had not known much about Hong Qigong’s appearance or temperament, so Xiaolongnü naturally knew even less. Yang Guo held Jade Bee Needles ready in his hand, thinking that he could not fight all five at once. He would have to wait for an opportunity to launch his hidden weapons secretly, if he could wound two or three, the rest would be manageable. But then he heard the man say they would hack Hong Qigong to vent their anger. Fearing they would harm him, he did not wait to launch his hidden weapons. With a great roar, he sprang out from behind the boulder. He had no weapon, so he snatched up two dead branches and launched a flurry of swift moves, stabbing at all five men simultaneously. These five strikes were extraordinarily fast, but unfortunately, his battle cry had given the Five Ugly Men warning, otherwise, one or two of them would certainly have been hit. Even so, the five were thrown into considerable disarray, scrambling and dodging just to evade.

The five turned around. Seeing only a ragged youth holding two dead branches, their terror evaporated by eight or nine parts. The First Ugly Man barked, “Stinking brat! Are you a little beggar from the Beggars’ Guild? Your old beggar ancestor has gone to the Western Paradise! Kneel and kowtow to your five grandfathers!”

Yang Guo, having observed the evasive techniques the five had just used, had already roughly gauged the depth of their martial arts. All five wielded thick-backed broadswords. They had clearly studied under the same master. Their skill levels varied, but their styles were identical. In single combat, Yang Guo was confident he could beat any of them, but if all five attacked together, he could not hold them off. Hearing the First Ugly Man order him to kowtow, he said, “Yes, yes. This humble one will kowtow to the five masters.” He stepped forward and prostrated himself. This kneeling bow, the move “Forward Respect, Backward Crouch”³, was the very technique Grandma Sun⁴ had once used against the Quanzhen Daoist Zhang Zhiguang,⁵ when she had suddenly hurled a porcelain bottle and nearly blinded him. Now, following “Forward Respect, Backward Crouch,” Yang Guo flowed into “Pushing Open the Window to Gaze at the Moon,”⁶ sweeping both dead branches outward simultaneously, left and right.

On his left was the Fifth Ugly Man, on his right the Third. This move “Pushing Open the Window to Gaze at the Moon” was extremely vicious. The Third Ugly Man, whose skill was higher, hastily raised his blade to block, the dead branch struck his blade’s spine, jarring his hand until it went numb, the broadsword nearly flying from his grip. But the Fifth Ugly Man was struck squarely across the shin. With a kala, though the bone did not break, the pain was so intense he could not stand. The remaining four flew into a rage. Four blades came hacking down, hu hu hu hu. Yang Guo’s body technique was agile. He dodged east and west, and the four could not touch him for the moment. After a while, the Fifth Ugly Man hobbled back into the fray, mad with fury, fighting like a man possessed.

Yang Guo’s lightness skill far exceeded all five of theirs. If he had wanted to flee, it would not have been difficult. But he was worried about Hong Qigong, if he moved even a step away, the five would surely strike a fatal blow. Yet he could not defeat all five together, and in moments he was beset by danger after danger. He bent down and scooped up Hong Qigong in his arms, then wielded the dead branch in his right hand to force a path, sprinting over ten zhang away. The Five Ugly Men of Sichuan came charging after.

Yang Guo felt that Hong Qigong’s body in his arms was ice-cold. A dark dread crept over him. No matter how deeply he sleeps, he thought, he cannot possibly be impossible to wake. Could he really be dead? He called, “Elder!” Hong Qigong did not stir in the slightest, exactly like a corpse, except that he was not rigid. Yang Guo reached to feel his chest. The heart seemed to beat faintly, but there was no breath at all.

This brief pause allowed the First Ugly Man to catch up. He had seen that Yang Guo’s martial arts were formidable and, wary of his skill, did not dare close in alone. He waited until the Second and Fourth Ugly Men caught up, by then Yang Guo had already sprinted another well over ten zhang away. The Five Ugly Men of Sichuan watched him climb toward the summit. There was only one path up that peak, so they thought, Can you fly into the sky? They were in no particular hurry and advanced step by step.

The mountain path grew more treacherous the higher they went. Yang Guo rounded a bend and saw that ahead the path narrowed to the extreme, barely wide enough for one person to pass, and beside it, a bottomless abyss wreathed in cloud and mist, its depths invisible. He thought, I will make my stand here. He quickened his pace through the narrow passage, laid Hong Qigong beside a great boulder, and immediately turned back. The First Ugly Man had already reached the mouth of the narrow path. Yang Guo charged straight at him, shouting, “Ugly freak! Do you dare?”

The First Ugly Man truly feared that if Yang Guo collided with him, they would both tumble into the abyss. He hastily retreated. Yang Guo stood at the passage entrance. By now the morning sun had risen, and the snow had stopped. As far as the eye could see, the mountain was draped in jade and crystal, the sunlight glittering on the white snow with a beauty beyond compare.

Yang Guo pressed the human-skin mask onto his face. “Who is uglier,” he demanded, “you or me?” The features of the Five Ugly Men of Sichuan were certainly unsightly, but not bizarre beyond belief, the character “ugly” in their name referred more to their conduct. Now, seeing Yang Guo sweep his hands across his face and suddenly transform into a different appearance, sallow skin, expressionless features, like a corpse that had crawled out of a grave, the five stared at one another in utter horror.

Yang Guo slowly retreated to the narrowest point of the passage and assumed the “Kui Xing Kicking the Dipper” stance⁷, left foot planted, right foot kicking skyward, his body swaying gently in the dawn breeze. In that instant, a heroic spirit swelled in his chest. Even if a thousand troops and ten thousand horses charge at me, he thought, I will hold this pass alone.

The Five Ugly Men muttered among themselves: “Where did the Beggars’ Guild dig up such a strange youth?” Seeing how perilous the terrain was, they dared not charge the narrow passage. They huddled together to discuss: “We will hold this position. Take turns going down the mountain to fetch food. Within two days, we will have him starved and exhausted.” The four formed a line at the mouth of the pass while the Second Ugly Man went down the mountain to bring provisions.

And so the standoff began. Yang Guo dared not advance, and the four Ugly Men dared not approach.

Footnotes

1. King Yama (阎罗王). Judge and ruler of the underworld in Chinese Buddhist and folk mythology. Five Ugly Men invoke him here as the equivalent of Death itself. ↩

2. 降龙十八掌 – Xiánglóng Shíbā Zhǎng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. Forward Respect, Backward Crouch (前恭后踞). Deceptive combat technique where the practitioner begins with a respectful bow (appearing to surrender or show deference) before suddenly launching an attack from the crouched position. Name reflects the contrast between the obsequious front and the predatory rear. ↩

4. Grandma Sun (孙婆婆). Elderly caretaker of the Ancient Tomb who rescued Yang Guo when he fled the Quanzhen Order. She was killed by Hao Datong while protecting Yang Guo, and with her dying breath she entrusted him to Xiaolongnü’s care. ↩

5. 张志光 – Zhāng Zhìguāng. Quanzhen Daoist whom Grandma Sun attacked using the “Forward Respect, Backward Crouch” technique. He was nearly blinded when she threw a porcelain bottle at him. ↩

6. Pushing Open the Window to Gaze at the Moon (推窗望月). Combat technique involving a sudden two-handed sweeping attack. Name evokes the image of flinging open window shutters to look at the moon, suggesting a wide, outward-expanding motion. ↩

7. Kui Xing Kicking the Dipper Stance (魁星踢斗势). Martial stance named after Kui Xing, the Daoist god of examinations and literature, who is often depicted standing on one leg with the other kicking upward toward the Big Dipper constellation. In martial arts, it is a one-legged stance with the other leg raised, combining balance, readiness, and dramatic presence. ↩