The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 11 – Part 3

To his astonishment, the thrust met almost no resistance. The two men’s internal energies, transmitted through the tree trunk, dissipated the moment his own neili met them. A spent arrow cannot pierce even thin silk from Lu.¹ The Northern Beggar and Western Venom, for all their supremacy in the jianghu, had drained each other over many days until both were at the very limit of their strength. Rebounded by Yang Guo’s neili, they collapsed simultaneously to the ground, breathing out more than they breathed in, unable to move. Yang Guo cried out in alarm, “Papa! Elder Hong! Are you all right?” Both men laboured for breath and gave no answer.

Yang Guo wanted to carry them into the cave to rest, but Hong Qigong shook his head weakly. Only then did Yang Guo realise how gravely they were injured, they could not be moved. That night he slept between them, afraid they would rise in the middle of the night and start fighting again. But in truth, neither man could even circulate his neili to heal himself, how could they possibly fight? The next morning, Yang Guo saw both men barely breathing, even weaker than the day before. Panic seized him. He dug up yams, roasted them, and helped the two men eat. Not until the third day did they show a slight return of vitality. Yang Guo carried them into the cave and laid them on opposite sides, with himself in the middle as a barrier.

The following day, the two men rose and sat facing each other. Ouyang Feng said, “Our internal energies are evenly matched. We cannot compete that way any longer. But when it comes to martial techniques, you are ultimately no match for me.” Hong Qigong shook his head. “Not necessarily, not necessarily. If I were to use the Dog-Beating Staff Technique, the treasured art of the Beggars’ Guild, even without an ounce of neili behind it, you would not be able to counter it. Let us not fight to the death, let us only compete in technique. Winning or losing does not matter.” Ouyang Feng said, “Very well. No neili. Only technique.”

Hong Qigong had a sudden inspiration. He beckoned Yang Guo over and whispered in his ear, “I am the former chief of the Beggars’ Guild, do you know that?” Yang Guo nodded. Back in the Chongyang Palace of Quanzhen, he had heard the senior disciples discussing the great figures of the age. They all said that the former Beggars’ Guild chief, the Nine-Fingered Divine Beggar Hong Qigong, possessed martial arts that crowned the age and a heart of pure courage, a true hero among heroes. Hong Qigong continued, “I am going to teach you a set of martial arts now. This art has always been passed only to the chief of the Beggars’ Guild, never to outsiders. But at this moment I lack the strength to perform it myself. I need you to demonstrate it for your sworn father to see.”

Yang Guo said, “Since Elder’s art is not to be passed to outsiders, it would be improper for this junior to learn it. My sworn father’s mind has not yet recovered, Elder, you need not take him too seriously.” Hong Qigong shook his head. “You will only learn the forms, not the essential principles of force application. In actual combat, it would be completely useless. I am not asking you to fight your sworn father, you only need to pose a few stances, and he will understand at a glance. So it cannot really be said that I am teaching you the art.” Yang Guo thought, If this martial art truly is the Beggars’ Guild’s treasured inheritance, my sworn father may not be able to counter it. Why should I help you defeat my sworn father? He kept making excuses, saying he dared not learn the Beggars’ Guild’s secret transmission.

Hong Qigong saw through his thoughts. He raised his voice: “Stinking Toad, your foster son here knows you cannot match my Dog-Beating Staff Technique, so he refuses to demonstrate the stances for you.” Ouyang Feng flew into a rage and shouted, “Boy, I still have many miraculous martial arts I have not yet used. What is there to fear? Show me at once!” Both men kept pressing him. Yang Guo had no choice but to go to Hong Qigong’s side.

Hong Qigong told him to pick up a branch and carefully explained the first move of the Dog-Beating Staff Technique, “Striking Two Dogs with One Staff.”² Yang Guo mastered it immediately and performed it as instructed.

Ouyang Feng saw how wondrous the staff technique was and could not immediately think of a counter. After pondering at length, he described a staff technique to Yang Guo, who performed it as directed. Hong Qigong smiled faintly, praised it with a “Good!”, then taught another staff technique.

The two men contested in this roundabout manner, expending great mental effort, until evening. They had only worked through a dozen or so moves, yet Yang Guo was already drenched in sweat. The next morning they resumed. Three full days passed before all thirty-six stances of the staff technique were covered. Though the staff technique had only thirty-six stances, the subtle variations within them were inexhaustibly profound. As they progressed, Ouyang Feng took longer and longer to think, but the counter-moves he produced were masterpieces in their own right, balancing offence and defence, fierce in power. Even Hong Qigong could not help but admire them.

By evening of that day, Hong Qigong had explained the sixth variation of the thirty-sixth stance, “No Dogs Under Heaven.”³ This was the ultimate technique within the ultimate stance of the Dog-Beating Staff Technique. When this move was deployed, staves filled every direction, and wherever the force reached, even dozens of vicious dogs would be struck dead at once, hence the name “No Dogs Under Heaven.” The technique’s exquisite mastery had reached the absolute pinnacle of martial attainment. Ouyang Feng was, naturally, unable to find a counter. That night he tossed and turned, agonising until dawn.

The next morning, before Yang Guo had even risen, he suddenly heard Ouyang Feng shouting, “I have it! I have it! Boy, use this staff technique to defeat him!” His voice was both excited and urgent. Hearing something strange in his cry, Yang Guo looked at him, and was horrified by what he saw.

Ouyang Feng, though old, had such profound neili that his hair and beard had only been faintly touched with grey. But this night, from the intensity of his mental exertion, his beard and eyebrows had turned completely white overnight, as though he had aged more than ten years in a single night. Yang Guo’s heart ached. He wanted to beg Hong Qigong to stop the contest, but Ouyang Feng urged him on relentlessly. He could only follow his sworn father’s instructions. This move was extraordinarily complex. Ouyang Feng had to explain it repeatedly before Yang Guo grasped it, and then he performed it as directed.

The moment Hong Qigong saw it, his expression changed dramatically. Then he burst out in loud praise. Ouyang Feng said, “I pondered for so long before I could return a move. In the end, the Dog-Beating Staff Technique is the superior art!” Suddenly, with a great ha cry, he thrust out his palm with all his might. Hong Qigong met it with his own palm, and they plunged once more into a contest of neili.

As Hong Qigong pushed out his force, he suddenly felt the immense power he had sent forth begin to reverse direction, turning back to attack himself. Shocked, he then sensed that Ouyang Feng’s force was not pressing its advantage, it too was slowly reversing, turning back to attack its source. Almost in unison, both men cried out: “Eh! Strange beyond belief! Stinking Toad, what trick are you playing?” / “Old Beggar, why are you hitting yourself? No need to be so polite!”

Hong Qigong understood in a flash. The Nine Yin Manual neili that the two of them practised, though one followed the orthodox path and the other the reverse, both adhered to the fundamental principle of the Book of Changes:⁴ “When things reach an extreme, they reverse.” When extreme yin reaches its limit, it transforms into incipient yang, when extreme yang reaches its peak, it becomes incipient yin. The two men had brought the Manual’s arts to their fullest expression. Hong Qigong’s orthodox practice was gradually turning reverse, while Ouyang Feng’s reverse practice was gradually turning orthodox. They pushed their energies a few more times, and the two streams of neili merged into one, blending like milk and water. No longer opposed, they harmonised and interpenetrated, mutually soothing, exactly like the taiji⁵ diagram, where yin and yang encircle and embrace each other in perfect circular flow.

Both men felt an indescribable comfort suffuse their entire bodies. First came a bone-penetrating cold, but as the other’s neili flowed in, it was like basking in spring sunshine, like immersing oneself in warm water. Every meridian, every limb, every joint, all felt incomparably wonderful. Then, in an instant, searing heat enveloped them as though they had been thrown into a furnace. When the other’s neili surged in, the burning vanished, replaced by total, refreshing coolness.

The two men laughed uproariously. “Good, good, good!” they both cried. “No more fighting!”

Hong Qigong leapt to his feet and bellowed, “Old Poison, Ouyang Feng! The two of us, travelling different roads, have arrived at the same destination. In the end, we have become ‘good brothers’!” He threw himself forward and embraced Ouyang Feng tightly. Yang Guo was horrified, thinking he meant to harm his sworn father. He rushed to pull at Hong Qigong’s back, but the embrace was too tight, he could not budge him.

Ouyang Feng, his spirit spent and his strength exhausted, experienced a sudden flash of terminal lucidity. His mind became as clear as a polished mirror. The events of decades past appeared before him one by one, vivid as could be. He too laughed heartily.

The two white-haired old men embraced, laughing with all their might. They laughed for a while, the sound growing softer and softer, and then, suddenly, the laughter stopped. Neither man moved again.

Yang Guo was struck with terror. “Papa! Elder Hong!” he called out repeatedly. No one answered. He reached out and pulled at Hong Qigong’s arm, the old man toppled over. He was dead. Shocked beyond measure, Yang Guo bent to look at Ouyang Feng and found that he too had stopped breathing. Though their laughter had ceased, smiles still lingered on their faces. From the valley below, the echo of their great laughter still faintly reverberated.

The Northern Beggar and Western Venom, for decades they had fought bitterly, neither able to overcome the other. Who could have imagined that they would pass away together on the summit of Mount Hua? A lifetime of hatred and entanglement, and in their final moments, they embraced in laughter. Decades of deepest enmity, dissolved in a single laugh.

In that instant, Yang Guo was overcome by shock and grief. He lost all sense of direction. He thought of how Hong Qigong had feigned death for three days and three nights, could it be that both old men were feigning death again? But the sight before him did not seem like it. Perhaps, he thought, after being dead for a while, they will come back to life. With martial arts as high as theirs, and their bodies not yet decayed, they cannot simply be dead. Perhaps they are competing again, to see who can feign death longer.

He kept vigil beside their bodies for seven days and seven nights. With each passing day, his hope diminished a little. Only when he saw their faces change colour and dark spots appear did he know that they were truly dead. He wept bitterly, then dug two graves side by side near the cave and buried the two extraordinary masters of the jianghu. Hong Qigong’s wine gourd, and the staff and club they had used in their contest, were buried with them. The footprints they had trampled in the snow during their fierce battle had now frozen into solid ice. The footprints remained, but the bodies had returned to the yellow earth. Yang Guo stepped into those footprints and remembered the scenes of those days. Grief washed over him anew. He thought of how two men whose martial arts had astonished the age had, in the end, needed a despised and worthless boy like himself to bury them. What was glory? What was prestige? Nothing but a grand dream.

He was filled with admiration for the wondrous martial arts of the two old masters. After burying them, he reviewed their countless ingenious techniques and miraculous skills, practising them one by one. He stayed in the rock cave for more than twenty additional days, committing every one of their brilliant martial arts to memory and verifying each move until it was correct. Their profound inner arts, however, he could not learn by imitation, and he had to let that go. He kowtowed eight times before their graves with the utmost reverence, then took his leave. Though my sworn father was formidable, he thought, in the end he was one step behind Elder Hong. That final move of the Dog-Beating Staff Technique, ‘No Dogs Under Heaven’, was incomparably exquisite. My sworn father had to agonise an entire night before he could devise a counter. And though his counter was also wonderfully ingenious, in a real fight, who would give him the leisure to ponder and deliberate? He would have lost on the spot. He sighed for a while, then found a path and descended the mountain.

After coming down from the mountain, he let his feet carry him where they would. The world is vast and boundless, he thought. I am alone. I may drift wherever the four seas take me, and when my years are spent, I will lie down wherever I happen to be and die. When he had climbed the mountain, he had been filled with bitterness at the contempt the world showed him. Coming down, he felt that worldly affairs were no more than drifting clouds. Whether others valued him or despised him, what did it matter to him now? At his young age, he had already become cynical and world-weary, detached from all concerns. Even his bone-deep longing for Xiaolongnü seemed to have faded a little.

Footnotes

1. Lu silk (鲁缟). Reference to the saying “a spent arrow cannot pierce even thin Lu silk” (强弩之末不能穿鲁缟), from the Records of the Grand Historian. Lu was a state famed for its fine white silk. Proverb means that even the most powerful force, once exhausted, becomes impotent. ↩

2. 棒打双犬 – Bàng Dǎ Shuāng Quǎn. Literally staff strikes two dogs. First stance of the Dog-Beating Staff Technique. ↩

3. 天下无狗 – Tiānxià Wú Gǒu. Literally no dogs under heaven. Ultimate stance of the Dog-Beating Staff Technique. ↩

4. Book of Changes (易经). Yijing or I Ching, one of the Five Classics of Chinese philosophy. Its core principle is that all phenomena are in constant flux, and that extremes inevitably reverse — when yin reaches its limit, it transforms into yang, and vice versa. This principle underlies the highest levels of neili cultivation in Jin Yong’s martial arts universe. ↩

5. Taiji (太极). Supreme Ultimate, the fundamental principle of Chinese cosmology. Represented by the famous taijitu diagram (☯), it depicts yin and yang in dynamic, circular interdependence. Here, the merging of Hong Qigong’s orthodox and Ouyang Feng’s reverse Nine Yin Manual energy into a harmonious whole mirrors the taiji principle at its deepest level. ↩