The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 11 – Part 2

Ouyang Feng flipped upright and eyed Hong Qigong sidelong. The face seemed dimly familiar. “Hey,” he barked, “your martial arts are very good. What’s your name?” Hong Qigong heard this, saw the lost, bewildered look on his face, and knew that the madness which had struck him more than ten years before had never fully healed. “My name is Ouyang Feng,” he said. “What’s yours?” Ouyang Feng gave a start. He remembered Yang Guo telling him that “Ouyang Feng” was his own name, and he shook his head. “Wrong. I’m Ouyang Feng.” Hong Qigong roared with laughter. “Wrong! Your name is Stinking Toad.” The word “toad”¹ was very familiar to Ouyang Feng. It sounded somehow right, yet when he thought about it carefully, it was not.

He and Hong Qigong had been mortal enemies for decades, and the hatred was branded deep in his mind. He could not now have said why, but the mere sight of the man made him angry. Hong Qigong saw him standing there dazed, a murderous light suddenly showing in his eyes, and quietly put himself on guard. Sure enough, Ouyang Feng gave a great roar and flung himself at him savagely. Hong Qigong dared not take him lightly and opened at once with the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing. Their robes streaming in the north wind, their feet on frozen ice, the two of them threw every peerless skill of their lives into the fight on that ledge barely a foot wide. On one side yawned an abyss a hundred thousand feet deep. The slightest slip meant being dashed to pieces, and the danger was twice that of any fight on level ground.

Both men were older now, and their vigour had waned, but their martial cultivation had reached the pure perfection of a furnace at full heat. Their moves were subtle and profound, rich, steady and sure, and after barely a dozen exchanges each found himself admiring the other. “The old fellow is a tough one,” Ouyang Feng cried. Hong Qigong laughed. “The Stinking Toad is not bad himself.”

Yang Guo saw how treacherous the ground was and was terrified that Ouyang Feng would fall into the valley. Yet at times, when Hong Qigong was hard pressed, he found himself hoping, without quite knowing it, that the old man would come through safely too. Ouyang Feng was his sworn father, and the bond between them ran deep. But Hong Qigong was so generous and so bold, and the bearing of a daxia that he carried with him everywhere had won Yang Guo over at first sight. Cold and starving, Yang Guo had run a great risk to endure three days and three nights for Hong Qigong’s sake. In all that time not a word had passed between them, yet in Yang Guo’s heart it was as if they had already been through a thousand perils of life and death together.

After several dozen more exchanges, Yang Guo saw that time after time the two turned the deadliest moments safely aside, and he stopped fearing for either of them and gave himself to studying their martial arts. Of the Nine Yin Manual he knew only scraps and fragments, yet now and then he saw the moves they used chime with the Manual’s essential principles, while some that his sworn father used ran directly against them. He marvelled, and thought, One plain, ordinary sentence in the Manual, and it unfolds into all these variations.

They had fought well over a thousand moves, and still neither had come to the end of his martial arts. But they were old, and both were panting, their hearts pounding, their hands and feet slowing in spite of themselves. Yang Guo called out, “You two have been fighting half the day. You must be hungry. How about we all eat our fill and then carry on?” At the word “eat”, Hong Qigong at once sprang back, crying, “Splendid, splendid!” Yang Guo had long since noticed a big bamboo basket of cold food that the Five Ugly Men had brought and set to one side. He ran and fetched it and lifted the lid. Inside was everything: frozen chicken, frozen meat, white liquor and cold rice. Hong Qigong was delighted. He snatched a frozen chicken and tore into it in great hurried bites, crunching loudly.

Yang Guo took a piece of frozen meat and handed it to Ouyang Feng. “Papa,” he said softly, “where have you been all this time?” Ouyang Feng stared at him wide-eyed. “I’ve been looking for you.” Yang Guo’s chest ached. There is someone in this world, after all, who truly loves me, he thought. He took his arm and said, “Papa, you are Ouyang Feng. Esteemed Senior Hong here, Hong Qigong, is a good man. Don’t fight him any more.” Ouyang Feng pointed at Hong Qigong and said loudly, “He’s Hong Qigong. I’m Ouyang Feng.” He looked at Hong Qigong, then at Yang Guo, his eyes fixed and staring, racking his memory.

Yang Guo saw that Ouyang Feng ate something, then stood up and said to Hong Qigong, “Esteemed Senior Hong, he is my sworn father. Have pity on him. He is gravely ill and his mind is clouded, so please do not be hard on him.”

Hearing this, Hong Qigong nodded repeatedly. “Good lad,” he said. “So he is your sworn father.”

But Ouyang Feng suddenly leapt up. “Old Beggar,” he shouted, “we can’t settle it with fists and feet. Let’s try weapons.” Hearing himself called “Old Beggar”, Hong Qigong smiled faintly and shook his head. “No more. Call it your win.” “What’s all this ‘call it’?” said Ouyang Feng. “I have to kill you.” He reached back, snapped off a tree branch, stripped away its twigs and leaves to make a staff, and brought it down at Hong Qigong’s head. In years past his Serpent Staff² had ranged far and wide under heaven, terrible beyond compare. There were no snakes on this staff’s head, but even before it fell, the gale of its stroke left Yang Guo fighting for breath. Yang Guo leapt hastily out of the way. When he looked for Hong Qigong, the old man had picked up a branch from the ground to use as a short club, and the two were at it again. Hong Qigong’s Dog-Beating Staff Technique³ had no equal in the world, but he would not lightly bring it out. Beyond it he had a good many other fine staff techniques, and now he brought them out one after another.

This fight was another spectacle altogether from the contest of fists and feet before it. Out went the staff like a coiling spirit serpent; back came the club like a writhing divine dragon. Now a long rainbow arcing across the sky, now a shooting star chasing the moon. Yang Guo watched with his heart in his mouth, spellbound, as if drunk or dreaming.

Staff against club, they fought on until dusk, and still neither could win. Yang Guo saw how treacherous the ground was, the whole mountain slick with ice and snow, and neither of them was young. If they fought on, one of them might slip. He shouted at the top of his voice, urging them to stop. But Hong Qigong and Ouyang Feng had their blood up. Why would they stop? Then Yang Guo remembered how greedily Hong Qigong ate, and thought that something tasty might tempt them away. So he dug up a good many wild yams and cassava roots on the mountainside, lit a fire and roasted them until they smelled wonderful.

Hong Qigong caught the smell. “Stinking Toad,” he shouted, “I’m not fighting you any more. Eating comes first.” He ran to Yang Guo’s side, grabbed two yams and began to eat. They scalded his mouth until it hurt, but he kept mumbling his praise through them. Ouyang Feng came running after him and brought his wooden staff hacking down at his head. Hong Qigong did not dodge. He picked up a yam and tossed it to him. “Eat!” Ouyang Feng stood dumbfounded, caught it without thinking and ate, the savage fight of a moment ago clean forgotten.

That night the three of them slept in a cave in the rock. Yang Guo wanted to help his sworn father get his memory back, and spoke to him of all sorts of things from the past. Ouyang Feng only stared blankly and gave no answer. Sometimes he pounded his own head with his fist, straining to think, but he could find no thread at all, and it tormented him. Afraid this would only make him madder, Yang Guo coaxed him to sleep. Yang Guo himself tossed and turned and could not sleep. He went over the two men’s fist and palm techniques in his mind, and the more he thought, the more excited he grew, until he could not help getting up and quietly trying out the moves. The subtleties seemed endless. He practised half the night and slept only when he was utterly spent.

Early the next morning, before Yang Guo was awake, he heard the wind roaring outside the cave, mixed with shouts and the sounds of leaping. He rushed out and found Hong Qigong and Ouyang Feng locked in combat again, neither able to shake the other. He sighed. These two old fellows have gone back to their childhood, he thought. What is there to fight about? All he could do was sit to one side and watch. Every move and stance of Hong Qigong’s was orderly and clear, while Ouyang Feng’s moves were outlandish beyond belief and impossible to read. Again and again Hong Qigong gained the upper hand, only for Ouyang Feng to spring some bizarre move and pull level again. But for Ouyang Feng to win outright was just as impossible.

They fought by day and slept by night, four days on end, until both were drained in body and spirit and close to collapse. Still neither would yield half a move.

Tomorrow, whatever happens, I cannot let them fight again, Yang Guo thought. That night, once Ouyang Feng was asleep, he whispered to Hong Qigong, “Esteemed Senior, may I have a word with you outside the cave?” Hong Qigong followed him out. When they were more than a hundred feet from the cave, Yang Guo suddenly dropped to his knees and kowtowed again and again, without a word. For a moment Hong Qigong was taken aback. Then he understood. The boy was asking him to pity Ouyang Feng’s sickness, concede defeat and give way. He threw back his head and laughed. “So be it,” he said. Trailing his wooden club behind him, he set off down the mountain.

He had gone only a few dozen feet when he heard the rush of robes through the air. Ouyang Feng shot out of the cave and swept his staff across at him. “Old fellow,” he roared, “running away, are you?” Hong Qigong gave way for three moves and tried to break past him, but the wind of the staff hemmed him in on every side and he could not get free. Between masters, a hair’s breadth decides everything. Hong Qigong was minded to yield, so his attack lacked bite, and at once he was on the back foot and hard pressed, several times within a whisker of dying beneath that staff. He saw Ouyang Feng drive the staff in fast at his lower belly and knew the thrust carried a deadly follow-up he could not dodge, so he swung his club across to block. Suddenly a neili of savage keenness came pouring at him through the staff, and he started. You want to match neili with me? The thought had barely stirred when his opponent’s neili was already bearing down on him. There was nothing for it but to meet neili with neili, and he hastily summoned his power to resist.

For men of their attainment, a contest of neili leaves no room for giving way. In all their earlier contests each had been wary of the other’s strength and unsure of winning, and neither had ever dared risk such a thing. But Ouyang Feng, in his befuddled state, after days of fighting without a win, had suddenly attacked with neili.

More than ten years before, Hong Qigong had truly hated the Western Venom for his wickedness. But he was old now and his fire had cooled, and seeing the man mad, with Yang Guo pleading for him again and again, he really had no wish to kill him. He sank his qi⁴ to his dantian,⁵ kept wholly to defence and waited for his opponent’s neili to run dry. But Ouyang Feng’s neili came rolling in endlessly, like the waves of the Yangtze. One wave would pass and the next was already breaking over him, and far from showing any sign of slackening, it grew fiercer and fiercer. Hong Qigong trusted in the depth of his own neili, which had kept advancing over the decades. Even if he could not beat the Western Venom, by defending with all his strength he was sure he could not be beaten. Yet after several bouts, Ouyang Feng’s neili was only growing stronger. Hong Qigong remembered how, when they had matched strength through the Five Ugly Men of Sichuan, Ouyang Feng had driven force through his foot three times, each surge greater than the last. Thinking back now, it seemed the force of his first attack had not yet spent itself when the second arrived, and the second was still there when the third came up behind it. If Hong Qigong only defended and let him press on and on, force piled on force, storing up without end, in the end it would be more than he could withstand. The only way was to strike back through an opening and force Ouyang Feng to pull his power back to defend himself, so that it could not keep building. The moment the thought came, he drove his force back in a counter-attack, and both men shook from head to foot.

Watching them match neili, Yang Guo was sick with worry. If he struck Hong Qigong in the back, he could easily help his sworn father win. But there was Hong Qigong’s head of white hair, his awesome dignity with its warmth and kindness, his upright, fiery chivalry with its easy, carefree grace, and Yang Guo could not help being won over. Besides, the old man had already given way of his own free will at Yang Guo’s begging. How could he bear to harm him?

The two held their deadlock a while longer. Wisps of white vapour began to rise from the crown of Ouyang Feng’s head, thickening steadily until he steamed like a steamer basket. Hong Qigong was resisting with every ounce of his strength and could no longer think about whether he might take his opponent’s life. To save his own would be luck enough.

From first light they strove until the hour of Chen,⁶ and from the hour of Chen until noon. Hong Qigong felt his neili gradually running out, yet his opponent’s force still came pounding in like a raging tide. So Old Venom gets stronger the madder he gets, he cried inwardly. This old beggar’s life ends today. He was sure he would lose this contest, and the misery of it was that there was no way to back out. All he could do was hold on with everything he had. He did not know that Ouyang Feng too was spent, and holding on only with great difficulty.

Two more shichen⁷ went by and it was the hour of Shen.⁸ Yang Guo saw the colour of both men’s faces change dreadfully, and he thought that if they kept this up for even a short while longer, they would surely die together. If he stepped in to part them, his skill fell so far short of theirs that he would most likely fail to separate them and only throw his own life away. He hesitated a long time. Then he saw Ouyang Feng’s face turn ashen, his expression wretched, and Hong Qigong panting hoarsely, fighting for every breath, and he told himself, Whatever the risk, I have to save their lives. He broke off a tree trunk, went and sat cross-legged between the two men, gathered his power to shield his whole body, gritted his teeth and thrust the trunk in between staff and club to pry them apart.

Footnotes

1. 蛤蟆 – hámá. Literally toad. Hong Qigong’s old jibe for Ouyang Feng, 臭蛤蟆 “Stinking Toad”, mocks his Toad Skill (蛤蟆功). ↩

2. 蛇杖 – shézhàng. Literally serpent staff. Ouyang Feng’s weapon in The Legend of the Condor Heroes, a staff whose head held live venomous snakes. ↩

3. 打狗棒法 – Dǎgǒu Bàngfǎ. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 气 – qì. Literally breath or vital energy. Fundamental life force flowing through all living things, central to Chinese medicine and martial arts. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 丹田 – dāntián. Literally cinnabar field. Primary energy centre below the navel, where qi is stored and cultivated. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 辰时 – chénshí. The hour of Chen, fifth of the twelve shichen, from seven to nine in the morning. ↩

7. 时辰 – shíchén. Traditional Chinese unit of time equal to two hours; the day was divided into twelve shichen. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 申时 – shēnshí. The hour of Shen, ninth of the twelve shichen, from three to five in the afternoon. ↩