The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 11 – Part 6

Guo Fu and the Wu brothers were drinking at another table. At first none of them had known Yang Guo, and only when her parents recognised him did they remember the old playmate of their childhood on Peach Blossom Island. They had been apart a long time, and nothing changes as fast as a young person’s looks. Even a few months apart can make a difference, let alone several years, and on top of that Yang Guo had made himself look poor and down and out on purpose and was mixed in among several hundred people, so naturally Guo Fu had not known him. Seeing him come back, she felt her heart stir. She remembered how they had fought and squabbled on Peach Blossom Island, and wondered whether he still bore her a grudge for it. Seeing him in such a wretched state, a world apart from the handsome, dashing Wu brothers, she felt a faint stirring of pity. “Father sent him to the Quanzhen Order to learn martial arts,” she said in a low voice to Wu Dunru. “I wonder how he compares with us now?” Before Wu Dunru could answer, Wu Xiuwen cut in, “Shifu’s martial arts are unmatched under heaven. How could he compare with us?” Guo Fu nodded. “His foundation was poor before. I don’t suppose he’s made much progress. But how did he end up in such a sorry state?” “Those old Daoists were glaring at him as if they wanted to swallow him whole,” said Wu Xiuwen. “The boy has a foul temper. He must have got himself into some big trouble again.”

The three of them whispered together for a while. When they heard Guo Jing invite Hao Datong and the others to the study for a talk, and say he would punish Yang Guo severely, Guo Fu’s curiosity was roused. “Quick,” she said, “let’s get to the study first and hide, and hear what they say.” Wu Dunru was afraid his shifu would scold him and did not dare agree. But Wu Xiuwen cried his approval again and again and was already ahead of Guo Fu. Guo Fu stamped her right foot, a flash of anger on her face, and said to Wu Dunru, “You never listen to me.” Seeing her like that, pouting prettily with laughter in her eyes, Wu Dunru felt his heart leap, and he could refuse her no longer. He hurried after her at once.

The three had just hidden themselves behind the bookshelf when Guo Jing and Huang Rong entered the study with Hao Datong, Sun Buer, Zhen Zhibing, and Zhao Zhijing. Hosts and guests took their seats. Yang Guo followed them in and stood to one side.

“Guoer, you sit down too!” said Guo Jing. Yang Guo shook his head. “I won’t sit.” Facing six masters of the wulin, bold as he was, he could not help feeling uneasy.

Guo Jing had always treated Yang Guo like his own nephew, and he held the Seven Zis of Quanzhen in the deepest respect. He thought there was no need to ask who was right and who was wrong: the junior was bound to be at fault. So he put on a stern face and said to Yang Guo, “Such insolence, child, daring to disrespect your shifu. Kneel at once and kowtow to your two Grand Shishus,¹ your shifu² and your shishu,³ and beg their pardon.” In those days the bonds between sovereign and subject, father and son, shifu and disciple were of the utmost weight. As the saying went, when the sovereign wants his subject dead, the subject dares not live; when the father wants his son gone, the son dares not stay. And in the wulin the order of rank between shifu and disciple allowed not the slightest slip. A rebuke like this was in truth out of pity for the lonely boy, and its tone was as gentle as it could possibly be. Anyone else would long since have been cursing him for a little beast and a little bastard and raining fists and rods about his head and face.

Zhao Zhijing sprang to his feet with a cold laugh. “How would I dare presume to be Master Yang’s shizun? Guo daxia, spare me your mockery. Our Quanzhen Order has done nothing to offend you, Guo daxia. Why humiliate us to our faces? Elder Master Yang, this little Daoist kowtows to you, venerable sir, and begs your pardon. Put it down to my blind eyes, that I did not know a hero and a brave man when I saw one…”

Seeing his expression change so sharply and his anger mount with every word, Guo Jing and Huang Rong were both utterly baffled. When a disciple did wrong, they thought, it was common enough for his shifu to scold him, beat him or punish him, so why such an unseemly outburst? Huang Rong guessed that whatever Yang Guo had done must be something quite out of the ordinary. Seeing Guo Jing struck dumb by the outburst, she said slowly, “We are truly sorry to have caused you trouble, Zhao shixiong. But there is no need for anger. Please sit down and tell us exactly how the child offended his shifu.”

“With my pitiful bit of stinking footwork,” Zhao Zhijing said loudly, “how could I, Zhao Zhijing, dare to be anybody’s shifu? The brave men of the world would laugh their teeth out. Wouldn’t that be making a fool of me?”

Huang Rong’s fine brows drew together a little, and she was displeased. She had never been on close terms with the Quanzhen Order. Years ago the Seven Zis of Quanzhen had laid the Big Dipper Formation round her father, Huang Yaoshi, and Qiu Chuji⁴ had insisted on betrothing Mu Nianci⁵ to Guo Jing. Both had upset her greatly. It was all long past and she no longer held it against them, but for Zhao Zhijing to shout at her like this and answer back so rudely was really going too far.

Hao Datong and Sun Buer could understand why Zhao Zhijing was angry, but such ranting and raving was no way for a man who had left the world to behave. “Zhijing,” said Sun Buer, “explain the matter properly to Guo daxia and Guild Chief Huang. What sort of behaviour is this, losing your temper like that? What Way is it that we followers of the Way are cultivating?” Woman though she was, Sun Buer was stern by nature, and all the juniors held her in awe. At these few calm words from her, Zhao Zhijing dared not shout any more. “Yes, Shishu, yes,” he said over and over, and went back to his seat.

“Guoer,” said Guo Jing, “see how well your shifu behaves towards his elders. Why can’t you follow his example?” Zhao Zhijing was about to say again, “I’m not his shifu,” but he glanced at Sun Buer and forced the words back.

“He is not my shifu!” Yang Guo said loudly.

At these words, Guo Jing and Huang Rong were not the only ones shocked. Guo Fu and the Wu brothers, listening behind the bookshelves, were astonished too. In the wulin the bond between shifu and disciple was a strict and solemn thing. As the saying goes, “A teacher for a day is a father for life.” Guo Jing had been raised from childhood by the Seven Freaks of Jiangnan⁶ and taught martial arts by Hong Qigong, and he owed his teachers a deep debt. Since he was small he had believed that honouring one’s teacher was a law of heaven and earth. How could Yang Guo dare to disown his shifu openly and say such wicked, undutiful things? He sprang to his feet and pointed at Yang Guo. “You… you… what did you say?” he said, his voice shaking. He was clumsy with words and did not know how to curse, but his face had gone livid, and he was beside himself with rage.

Huang Rong had rarely seen him so angry. She said softly, “Jing gege, this child’s nature was never good. He is not worth your anger.”

Yang Guo had been afraid, but now, seeing even Uncle Guo, who had always loved him, speak to him so harshly, he hardened his heart. Nothing is worse than death, he thought. Even if you all join hands and beat me to death, so what? “My nature isn’t good, it’s true,” he said clearly. “But I never begged you to teach me martial arts. You are all people of great standing in the wulin. Why use tricks to harm a boy with no father and no mother?” As he said the words “no father and no mother”, he felt for his own lot and his eyes reddened a little, but at once he bit his lower lip. If I die today, he told himself, I won’t shed half a tear.

“Your Auntie Guo and your shifu… out of kindness… out of kindness taught you martial arts,” Guo Jing said angrily, “all for the sake of my friendship with your late father. Who has been using… using any tricks? Who… who… has been harming… harming you?” He was never good with words, and in his fury he stammered even worse.

Seeing him so agitated, Yang Guo spoke even more slowly. “Uncle Guo has treated me very well. I will never forget that.”

“Auntie Guo has wronged you, of course,” Huang Rong said slowly. “If you want to bear a grudge all your life, that’s up to you.”

Having come this far, Yang Guo decided to speak his mind in full. “Auntie Guo didn’t treat me well,” he said, “but she didn’t wrong me either. You said you would teach me martial arts, but really you taught me to read. Did you ever teach me one scrap of martial skill?” At this Guo Jing thought, So Ronger never taught him martial arts. Yang Guo went on, “But reading is a good thing too. At least I learned a few more characters, and heard you tell a great many stories of the ancients, and I still want to thank you for that. But these old Daoists…” He pointed at Hao Datong and Zhao Zhijing and said with hatred, “One day I will have my revenge for that sea of blood.”

Guo Jing was appalled. “Wh… what?” he asked quickly. “What sea of blood… wh… what are you talking about?”

“This Daoist surnamed Zhao calls himself my shifu,” said Yang Guo. “If he had only taught me not a scrap of martial arts, I could have let it pass. But he set a whole crowd of young Daoists on me to beat me. You two, Uncle Guo and Auntie Guo, never taught me martial arts, and the Quanzhen Order wouldn’t teach me either, so of course all I could do was take the beatings. And then there’s this one surnamed Hao. He saw an old granny who was kind to me, and he beat her to death. You stinking Daoist Hao, is that true or false? You beat an unarmed old woman of sixty or seventy until she vomited blood and died. Is your Quanzhen Order a proper order that plays the xia and upholds the right, or an evil cult that does murder and kills the old and the weak? Hao Datong, let’s go to the great hall right now and ask the heroes of the realm to judge. Do you dare? If you don’t, you’re a devil of a Daoist and a villain, and your whole Quanzhen Order from top to bottom is a pack of shameless scoundrels!” At the thought of how Grandma Sun⁷ had died for his sake he gnashed his teeth, and he flung himself at Hao Datong to fight him to the death.

Hao Datong was an eminent adept of the Quanzhen Order. In both Daoist learning and martial arts he had reached a very high level, and in the principles of the Book of Changes no one in the Order surpassed him. But one slip of his hand had killed Grandma Sun by mistake, and for years he had been gloomy over it, the great regret of his life. The Seven Zis of Quanzhen had killed many men in their lives, but all of them were villains. They had never harmed the innocent. Now, hearing Yang Guo denounce him before everyone, his face went grey as death, and the scene of that day, when one blow of his palm had sent Grandma Sun spewing blood, rose before his eyes as clear as ever. He carried no weapon himself. He reached out with his left hand and drew the long jian from Zhao Zhijing’s waist.

Everyone thought he meant to run Yang Guo through, and Guo Jing stepped forward to protect him. But Hao Datong turned the jian round and held the hilt out to Yang Guo. “You are right,” he said. “I killed the wrong person. Take your revenge for Grandma Sun. I will not lift a hand.” Everyone was astonished. Afraid Yang Guo would take the jian and hurt someone, Guo Jing cried, “Guoer, mind your manners.”

Yang Guo knew that with Guo Jing and Huang Rong there, he could never take his revenge. “You know very well that Uncle Guo will never let me lay a hand on you,” he said clearly, “so you put on this great show of generosity. If you really wanted me to kill you, why didn’t you hand me the jian somewhere with no one about? Hao Datong, you shameless murderer, you devil of a Daoist, you villain, I will have my revenge for this blood sooner or later. You killed Grandma Sun. Isn’t your Quanzhen Order a band of great villains who use their strength to murder orphans and widows, women and children? You might as well kill me too, and shut my mouth for good.”

Hao Datong was a senior of the wulin, yet a few words from this youth had stung him so that he had no answer. He stood with the long jian in his hand, unable to hold it out, unable to draw it back. Then he sent force into his hand and gave it a shake, and with a crack the jian broke in two. He threw the broken jian to the ground and heaved a long sigh. “Enough, enough!” he said, and strode out of the study. Guo Jing wanted to keep him, but he went without looking back.

Guo Jing looked at Yang Guo, then at Sun Buer and the others, and thought that the boy did not seem to be lying. After a long while he said, “Why didn’t your shifus in the Quanzhen Order teach you martial skill? What have you been doing these past few years?” As he asked, his voice was much gentler.

“When Uncle Guo went up Zhongnan Mountain and beat several hundred Daoists of the Chongyang Palace until they could not fight back,” said Yang Guo, “even if the Perfected Ones Ma, Liu, Qiu and Wang⁸ didn’t mind, do you think the others bore no grudge? They couldn’t bully you, Uncle Guo, but couldn’t they take it out on a little child like me? They’d have loved to beat me to death. How would they ever teach me martial arts? These past few years I’ve lived in darkness, never seeing the light of day. That I’m still alive today to see Uncle Guo, heaven must truly have its eyes open.” With these few light words he laid the whole cause of his revolt against the Quanzhen Order at Guo Jing’s door. And what he said about never seeing the light of day was not even a lie. Living in the Ancient Tomb,⁹ he really had not seen the sun. Hearing it, Guo Jing was filled with pity.

Zhao Zhijing saw that Guo Jing was nine parts in ten convinced, and he grew frantic. “You… you… little bastard, talking nonsense… you… hmph, our Quanzhen Order is open and aboveboard… that… that…” “You call me a little bastard?” Yang Guo shouted angrily. “You old bastard, lower than a pig or a dog! Say one honest word for once. Did you or did you not set your disciples on me to beat me?”

Guo Jing took everything Yang Guo said as true. But Huang Rong had been reading faces, and she saw Yang Guo’s eyes darting about and a look of sly quick wits all over his face. This child is a slippery one, she thought. There must be some trick in this. “So by your account,” she said, “you know no martial arts at all? All these years with the Quanzhen Order were wasted?” As she asked, she rose slowly to her feet. Then suddenly her arm shot out, and her palm came slapping straight down at the crown of his head.

The fingers of her hand were striking for the Baihui¹⁰ acupoint at the very top of his skull, the heel of her palm for the Shangxing¹¹ acupoint, an inch inside the hairline above his forehead. Both were vital points where a heavy blow meant instant death, past all saving. Guo Jing cried out in alarm, “Ronger!” But Huang Rong’s hand was extraordinarily quick. This was the Peach Blossom Falling Petals Palm¹² of her own family, which gives no warning at all: the hand moves, and the palm has landed. By the time Guo Jing thought to save the boy, it was too late.

Footnotes

1. 师叔祖 – shīshūzǔ. Literally teacher-uncle-ancestor. Grand Shishu: a shidi of one’s Grand Shifu. ↩

2. 师父 – shīfù. Teacher responsible for technical instruction and moral guidance. Shī means teacher. Fù means father. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 师叔 – shīshū. Junior lineage uncle. Shidi or shimei of one’s shifu. Shī means teacher. Shū means father’s younger brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 丘处机 – Qiū Chǔjī. His name meaning “dwelling in opportunity”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 穆念慈 – Mù Niàncí. Her name meaning “cherishing kindness”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 江南七怪 – Jiāngnán Qī Guài. Group of seven martial artists from Jiaxing who followed their own code of honour. They took a bet to find and train Guo Jing and spent years in the Mongolian steppes fulfilling the vow; their integrity and loyalty were legendary. ↩

7. 孙婆婆 – Sūn Pópo. Literally Granny Sun; pópo is a familiar term for an elderly woman. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 马刘丘王 – Mǎ Liú Qiū Wáng. Ma Yu, Liu Chuxuan, Qiu Chuji and Wang Chuyi, four of the Seven Zis of Quanzhen. ↩

9. 古墓 – Gǔmù. Underground tomb complex beneath Zhongnan Mountain, home of the Ancient Tomb School. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 百会 – Bǎihuì. “Hundred Convergences” acupoint at the crown of the head (GV-20). One of the most vital points in the body; a heavy strike here is invariably fatal. ↩

11. 上星 – Shàngxīng. “Upper Star” acupoint, located one inch within the hairline above the forehead (GV-23). Another lethal vital point, especially vulnerable to palm strikes. ↩

12. 桃华落英掌 – Táohuá Luòyīng Zhǎng. Literally peach blossoms and falling petals palm. A palm technique of Peach Blossom Island. ↩