The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 10

Young martial heroes.

Yelü Qi¹ said, “Third Sister, watch carefully. I will strike her Biru² acupoint, she will be forced to retreat at an angle. Then I will move to seize her Jugu³ acupoint, and she will have no choice but to raise her blade and counter-slash. If I move quickly enough, I can disarm her.” The black-clad girl snapped, “Pei! It won’t be that easy.”

Yelü Qi said, “It will.” As he spoke, his right palm shot toward her Biru acupoint. The strike came at a crooked, off-centre angle, yet it sealed every avenue of retreat around her, leaving only a single gap to her rear left. To evade the strike, the girl had no choice but to retreat two steps at that angle. Yelü Qi nodded, then reached out exactly as he had said, aiming for her Jugu acupoint. The girl kept telling herself, Whatever you do, do not raise your blade to counter-slash. But the situation demanded it, raising the blade for a counter-slash was the only move that simultaneously neutralised his attack and launched one of her own. In the heat of the moment, unable to think further, she raised her blade and slashed.

Yelü Qi said, “Exactly!” Everyone assumed he would reach out to seize her weapon, but instead his right hand withdrew, meeting his left, and both hands disappeared into his sleeves. The girl’s blade cut through empty air. She stared, momentarily stunned, at his hands tucked inside his sleeves. Then Yelü Qi’s right hand shot out, two fingers clamping the spine of her blade. With a flick, he lifted it from her grip.

The crowd stood dumbstruck by this display of skill. A long silence, then a thunderous roar of applause. The black-clad girl’s face fell, and she stood motionless. Everyone thought, The Second Young Master did not strike to capture you, he is clearly letting you walk free. Why do you still stand here?

Yelü Qi withdrew with measured steps and said to Yelü Yan,⁴ “She no longer has her weapon. Try her again. Be bold, but watch her palms and her kicks.” Yelü Yan stepped forward and said, “Wanyan Ping,⁵ we have spared you time and again, yet you hound us relentlessly. After all this, have you still not given up?”

Wanyan Ping did not answer. She stood with her head lowered, lost in thought. Yelü Yan said, “If you are determined to settle this with me, let us fight openly and be done with it!” She charged forward and threw two punches at Wanyan Ping’s face. Wanyan Ping leapt back to evade and said mournfully, “Return my blade.” Yelü Yan paused, thinking, My brother disarmed you precisely so we could fight on equal terms. Why do you demand your weapon back? She said, “Very well,” took the willow-leaf blade from her brother, and tossed it to Wanyan Ping. A guard reversed his own single-edged blade and offered it, saying, “Third Miss, use a weapon yourself.” Yelü Yan said, “No need.” But on second thought, she reconsidered: I cannot beat her bare-handed. We shall contest with blades. She took the blade and made two practice cuts through the air, it was slightly heavier than she preferred, but it would serve.

Wanyan Ping’s face was deathly pale. Blade in her left hand, she pointed at Yelü Chucai⁶ with her right and said, “Yelü Chucai, you aided the Mongols and brought about the deaths of my father and mother. I cannot avenge them in this life. Let us settle our accounts in the world below.” Before she had even finished speaking, she swept the blade horizontally toward her own throat.

Yang Guo,⁷ watching her, saw the desolation in her eyes as she spoke these words. His heart gave a violent lurch. A pain shot through his chest. He cried out, “Gugu!”⁸

In that same instant, Wanyan Ping had already begun to cut her own throat. Yelü Qi surged forward two steps, his right hand extending, again, two fingers seized her willow-leaf blade and pulled it away. In the same fluid motion, he sealed an acupoint on her arm. “Why seek a senseless end,” he said, “when all is well?”

The self-slashing of the blade and the two-fingered disarmament, both had happened in the span of a single breath. By the time the onlookers had registered what they saw, the blade was already back in Yelü Qi’s hands.

A chorus of horrified cries rose from the room, and no one paid any attention to Yang Guo’s cry of “Gugu.” But Lu Wushuang,⁹ standing beside him, heard it clearly. She asked in a low voice, “Who are you calling? Is she your gugu?” Yang Guo hurriedly said, “No, no! Not her.” What had happened was this: he had seen in Wanyan Ping’s eyes a look of fathomless grief and utter despair, a look of one who had renounced all attachment to the world, exactly the same expression that had been in Xiaolongnü’s¹⁰ eyes when she parted from him forever. Seeing it so suddenly, he had lost himself entirely, as if in a dream, not knowing where he stood.

Yelü Chucai spoke slowly. “Miss Wanyan, you have attempted to assassinate me three times now. I am the Grand Chancellor of the Great Mongol Empire. I destroyed your Great Jin Empire and brought about the deaths of your parents. But tell me, do you know who destroyed my ancestors?”

Wanyan Ping shook her head slightly. “I do not.”

Yelü Chucai said, “The name Yelü is the royal surname of the Great Liao Empire. The Great Liao was destroyed by your Jin Empire. Of us descendants of the Yelü clan of the Great Liao, your Wanyan clan slaughtered all but a handful. I swore revenge from childhood, and so I aided the Mongol Khan in destroying your Jin Empire. Ah, hatred begetting hatred, when will it ever end?” As he spoke these last words, he lifted his gaze to the window, thinking how, for the sake of a few families contending for the imperial throne, great cities had been reduced to ruins, and for ten thousand li,¹¹ corpses were piled like mountains and blood flowed like rivers.

Wanyan Ping was speechless. She bared her startlingly white teeth and bit down on her upper lip. With a heng, she said to Yelü Qi, “Three times I have failed to take my revenge. I blame only my own lack of skill. So be it. But if I wish to die, what business is it of yours?”

Yelü Qi said, “If the young lady will only promise to seek no further vengeance, you may leave this very moment.” Wanyan Ping gave another heng and glared at him. Yelü Qi reversed the willow-leaf blade and tapped her waist lightly several times with the hilt, releasing her sealed acupoints. Then he handed the blade back to her.

Wanyan Ping hesitated, caught between taking it and leaving it. After a moment’s indecision, she finally accepted it. “Young Master Yelü,” she said, “time and again you have shown me mercy and treated me with courtesy. Do you think I do not know this? But the hatred between my Wanyan family and your Yelü family is deeper than the sea. No matter how noble your generosity, the blood debt of my parents must be repaid.”

Yelü Qi thought, This woman will not let go. Her martial arts are not weak, and I cannot stand guard at my father’s side every moment. If anything should happen, what then? Perhaps I can use words to corner her, so that she can only come looking for me. He spoke in a clear voice: “Miss Wanyan, your determination to avenge your parents is admirable. But the debts of the older generation should be settled by the older generation themselves. We of the younger generation have our own grievances. If you wish to settle the blood debt between our families, come settle it with me alone. Should you target my father again, I will find myself in an extremely difficult position the next time we meet.”

Wanyan Ping said, “Heng. My martial arts are far beneath yours. How can I seek revenge against you? Enough, enough.” She covered her face and turned to leave.

Yelü Qi knew that once she walked out, she would surely attempt suicide again. Determined to save her life, he gave a cold laugh. “Heh heh. The women of the Wanyan clan have no spine.”

Wanyan Ping spun around. “What do you mean, no spine?”

Yelü Qi laughed coldly. “My martial arts surpass yours, true enough. But what is so remarkable about that? It is only because I had the guidance of an enlightened master, not because I possess any extraordinary natural talent. The Iron Palm¹² skill that you have learned is, in itself, a formidable martial art. It is only that the master who taught you did not master it fully, and your time of practice has been brief. That you are temporarily outmatched is only natural. If you apply yourself to seeking a better teacher, do you truly believe you cannot find one?”

Wanyan Ping had been seething with resentment, but hearing these words, she could not help nodding to herself.

Yelü Qi continued, “Every time I have crossed hands with you, I have used only my right hand. This is not arrogance or rudeness on my part. It is simply that my left hand is too powerful, and if I use it, I tend to injure people. Let us agree on this: once you have found a worthy teacher, you may come find me at any time. If you can force me to use my left hand, I will stretch out my neck for your blade without the slightest complaint.” He knew that Wanyan Ping’s skill was far, far below his own, even with the guidance of a master, she could never surpass his single-handed ability. He reasoned that a person’s desire for suicide is only a momentary surge of despair. If she focused her mind on seeking a teacher and training, after a period of time, the thought of suicide would naturally fade.

Wanyan Ping thought, You are no immortal. If I train with bitter determination, can my two hands truly never defeat your one? She raised her blade and cut once through the empty air, then said in a grave voice, “Good! A gentleman’s word…”

“A swift horse’s whip!”¹³ Yelü Qi finished.

Wanyan Ping cast not a single glance back at the assembled company. She strode out with her head held high, though her face could not hide the desolation beneath.

The guards, seeing that the Second Young Master had let her go, naturally did not dare stop her. They came forward one by one to pay their respects to Yelü Chucai and withdrew from the chamber. Yelü Zhu¹⁴ marvelled at how the room had been turned upside down, yet Yang Guo had never once revealed himself. Yelü Yan said, “Second Brother, why did you let her go again?”

Yelü Qi said, “What else? Kill her?”

Yelü Yan pressed her lips together in a smile. “Letting her go, it’s never the right thing.”

“What do you mean?”

Yelü Yan laughed. “If you want her to be my sister-in-law, you shouldn’t have let her go.”

Yelü Qi’s expression turned stern. “Don’t talk nonsense.” Seeing that he was serious and fearing his anger, Yelü Yan dared not continue her teasing.

---

Outside the window, when Yang Guo heard Yelü Yan say the words “want her to be my sister-in-law,” a sudden, inexplicable pang of jealousy shot through his heart. He saw Wanyan Ping heading southeast and said to Lu Wushuang, “I am going to have a look.”

“Look at what?” Lu Wushuang asked.

Yang Guo did not answer. He deployed his lightness skill and gave chase.

Wanyan Ping’s martial arts were not particularly strong, but her lightness skill was quite accomplished. Yang Guo held his breath and chased her all the way beyond the town of Longju Fort¹⁵ before catching sight of her silhouette. He saw her drop into the courtyard of a house and push open the door. Yang Guo followed, leaping in after her and concealing himself beside the wall. After a long while, lamplight appeared in the western wing, followed by a long sigh. This single sigh seemed to contain a thousand grievances and ten thousand sorrows.

Footnotes

1. 耶律齐 – Yēlǜ Qí. His name meaning “equal” or “together”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 臂儒穴 – Bìrú Xué. Literally arm scholar. Acupoint on the arm used in combat point-striking; the name is a fictionalised form found in martial arts fiction. See Wikipedia. ↩

3. 巨骨穴 – Jùgǔ Xué. Literally great bone. Acupoint in the hollow of the shoulder on the large intestine meridian; striking it can numb the limb. See Wikipedia. ↩

4. 耶律燕 – Yēlǜ Yàn. Her name meaning “swallow”, the bird. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 完颜萍 – Wányán Píng. Her name meaning “duckweed”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 耶律楚材 – Yēlǜ Chǔcái. (1190–1244) Historical Khitan statesman who served as Grand Chancellor of the Mongol Empire. See Wikipedia. ↩

7. 杨过 – Yáng Guò. His name meaning “fault or transgression”; his courtesy name Gaizhi means “to correct it”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. Gugu (姑姑) — Literally “paternal aunt,” but used here as a term of respectful address for a young woman of the older generation. Yang Guo uses this to address Xiaolongnü, his shifu. ↩

9. 陆无双 – Lù Wúshuāng. Her name meaning “peerless” or “without equal”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 小龙女 – Xiǎolóngnǚ. Literally little dragon maiden. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 里 – lǐ. Traditional Chinese unit of distance, approximately 500 metres or a third of a mile. ↩

12. Iron Palm (铁掌). Powerful palm technique associated with the Iron Palm Gang. Style emphasises hardening the palms through conditioning and striking with devastating force. ↩

13. Gentleman’s word, a swift horse’s whip (君子一言，快马一鞭). Chinese proverb equivalent to “a gentleman’s word is his bond,” implying that once spoken, a promise is as irreversible as a whip-crack from a galloping horse. ↩

14. 耶律铸 – Yēlǜ Zhù. His name meaning “to cast or forge”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. Longju Fort (龙驹寨). Historical garrison town in present-day Shaanxi Province, situated on the strategic route between the Central Plains and the northwest. ↩