The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 11 – Part 7

Yang Guo tipped back a little, meaning to dodge. But with skill like Huang Rong’s, once she struck, how could she let him slip away? Her palm was already coming down on his skull. In his alarm Yang Guo threw up a hand to block, but his mind was racing, and his right hand stirred and then dropped again. A man like Guo Jing, great in martial skill but slow of wit, would have struck out before his mind had grasped a thing. But Yang Guo saw things very quickly, and at once he thought, Auntie Guo is testing my skill. If I block this palm, I’ll be admitting I lied. Yet he could see that Huang Rong’s move was a truly deadly killing stroke. If she was not merely pretending to test him and he did not block, would he not be throwing his life away for nothing? In that instant, quick as a lightning flash or a spark from flint, his stubborn, savage, headstrong nature flared up. If I die, I die! he told himself. His martial arts were not yet the equal of Huang Rong’s, but parrying this palm would not have been hard for him. Yet he chose to run the risk of death, and let his hands hang still.

It was indeed a test of his skill. Her palm reached the top of his head, but she put no force into it. She saw only alarm on his face. He had neither raised a hand to parry nor secretly summoned his neigong to guard his vital points. Plainly he knew no martial arts at all. She smiled faintly. “It was for your own good that I didn’t teach you martial arts,” she said. “The Quanzhen Daoists must have felt the same as I did.” She went back to her seat and said quietly to Guo Jing, “He really hasn’t learned any Quanzhen martial arts.”

The words were scarcely out of her mouth when she cried inwardly, Oh no, that’s wrong! The little devil nearly fooled me. She remembered how on Peach Blossom Island Yang Guo had used the Toad Skill¹ to injure Wu Xiuwen, so he had had some grounding in martial arts even then. Even if he had made no progress at all these past few years, when her palm came down on his head just now he would have parried it, whatever happened. Oh, you boy, you boy, she thought, you’re too clever by half. If you’d blocked me in a panic, you might actually have fooled me. Pretending to know nothing at all is what gave you away. She did not say so, but thought she would wait and see what tricks he played and decide then. She glanced at Zhao Zhijing, then at Yang Guo, and only smiled.

Zhao Zhijing saw that Huang Rong had tried one move and Yang Guo had not fought back, and he took it that Huang Rong had been fooled, which made him look all the more in the wrong. His fury blazed sky-high. “This little beast is full of tricks,” he said loudly. “Guild Chief Huang, if you can’t catch him out, let me try.” He went up to Yang Guo and pointed at his nose. “Little beast, do you really know no martial arts? If you don’t meet my move, this Daoist’s hand will show you no mercy. Live or die, you’ll see for yourself.” He knew that Yang Guo’s skill was in fact greater than his own, but if he struck to kill, he would force the boy to show his true colours. If the boy still kept up the pretence, then he would simply kill him with one blow. At worst he would fall out with Guo Jing and his wife and take a heavy punishment from the Order Leader and his own shifu. Fury truly rose in his heart, and wickedness sprang from his gall. You’re sure Guild Chief Huang won’t take your life, he thought, so you’re bold enough to play the fool this convincingly. Under my hand, will you dare to keep it up? He swept his sleeve, ready to strike.

“Wait!” cried Guo Jing, and afraid Zhao Zhijing would take Yang Guo’s life, he moved to step in. Huang Rong tugged at his sleeve. “Leave it,” she said quietly. She knew Zhao Zhijing was beside himself with rage and would strike hard. Yang Guo could not gamble on luck. He would have to fight back, and then the truth would be out. Guo Jing had no idea of all these twists and turns. He was uneasy, but his wife had never been wrong in her judgement of anything, so he said no more. He only took one step forward, so that if it came to real danger, he could still step in to save the boy.

Zhao Zhijing turned to Sun Buer and Zhen Zhibing. “Sun shishu, Zhen shidi, this little beast is pretending he knows no martial arts, and I have no choice but to test him. If he holds out to the end and I kill him with one palm, I ask you to bear witness for me before my shibo² the Head of the Order, Qiu shibo and my own shifu.”

Sun Buer knew perfectly well why Yang Guo had rebelled against the Quanzhen Order. Seeing him now use his cunning to back Zhao Zhijing into a corner, so that the Quanzhen Order was plainly made to look in the wrong, and hearing him revile the Order with every other breath, she too hoped Zhao Zhijing would force him to show his true face. “A rebel who slanders his shifu and betrays his Order like this,” she said with a cold laugh, “should simply be killed.” She was an adept of the Way, of high attainment. How could she really urge anyone to break the precept against killing? What she meant by those words was to frighten Yang Guo out of keeping up his pretence.

With his shishu behind him, Zhao Zhijing grew bolder still. He lifted his right foot and kicked savagely at Yang Guo’s lower belly. This move, Tianshan Flying Crossing,³ had softness within its hardness and yin force stored within its yang force, and it was formidable indeed. But for all its power the kick was nothing deep. It was the very first lesson in Quanzhen martial arts, a plain, ordinary move that anyone with a little skill could break. Every Quanzhen disciple learned Tianshan Flying Crossing on his first day of martial training, and next Retreating Horse Stance,⁴ the move that evades it. One attack and one defence, it was the simplest drill there was. Zhao Zhijing used this move to make Guo Jing and Huang Rong see that, even if he had not taught the boy any deep martial arts, he could hardly have failed to teach him the very first lesson.

Yang Guo saw the flying kick coming but did not use Retreating Horse Stance. “Ow!” he cried, and let his left hand drop to cover his lower belly. Seeing that he dared neither to dodge nor to give way, Zhao Zhijing showed no more mercy and drove the kick straight in. When the tip of his foot was only four inches from Yang Guo’s belly, he suddenly saw in the lamplight that Yang Guo’s left thumb was cocked a little, aimed straight at the Dahuo⁵ acupoint on the inside of his own right ankle.

Had he kicked through with full force, his own acupoint would have been struck before his toes ever reached the boy’s body. It would not even be the boy reaching out to strike his acupoint. He would be delivering his acupoint to the boy’s fingertip himself. He was the finest fighter of the Quanzhen Order’s third generation, and in the moment of danger he changed his move at once, wrenching the kick off its line so that his right foot brushed past Yang Guo’s side. He had escaped the thumb, but he could not help lurching, and his face flushed scarlet.

Guo Jing and Huang Rong were both behind Yang Guo and could not see his fingers. They thought Zhao Zhijing had shown mercy and turned his kick aside at the last moment. But Sun Buer and Zhen Zhibing had seen clearly. Zhen Zhibing said nothing. Sun Buer sprang to her feet. “You young wretch,” she cried, “what cunning!”

Zhao Zhijing feinted with his left palm and brought his right slashing down at an angle at Yang Guo’s left cheek. This move, Purple Lightning Pierces the Clouds,⁶ was a superb, high-level stroke. Halfway through, the palm suddenly changed course. It seemed to be chopping at the left cheek, but the edge of the palm was meant to cut into the right side of the enemy’s neck. But Yang Guo had long since practised the Jade Maiden Heart Sutra⁷ until he knew it inside out, and that sutra was the great enemy of Quanzhen martial arts. For every formidable fist or palm technique of Wang Chongyang’s,⁸ Lin Chaoying⁹ had long ago devised a clever way to break it. Now, seeing the left palm feint, Yang Guo hurriedly threw his hands over his head as if terrified. But the index finger of his left hand was already lying in wait at the right side of his neck, screened by his right palm so that Zhao Zhijing could not see it. When the edge of the palm came chopping in, Yang Guo’s right hand tilted a little, and with a soft pop his left index finger struck the Houxi¹⁰ acupoint right in the middle of the edge of Zhao Zhijing’s palm.

Once again it was Zhao Zhijing who delivered his own palm to Yang Guo’s finger to have the acupoint struck. Yang Guo had only read his opponent’s move in advance and put his finger in exactly the right place. With the acupoint in his palm struck, Zhao Zhijing’s arm went numb and weak at once. He knew he had been tricked, and in a mad rage he swept his left foot across. “Ow!” cried Yang Guo, crooking his left arm a little to set the point of his elbow a little over three inches above his left waist. Zhao Zhijing’s left foot arrived, and the Zhaohai¹¹ and Taixi¹² acupoints on his ankle struck squarely on the point of Yang Guo’s elbow, both at once. He had kicked in a great rage and with tremendous force, so the shock to his acupoints was severe too. His left leg went numb, and he fell to his knees.

Seeing her shizhi¹³ disgraced, Sun Buer reached out with her left arm and pulled him up, then patted his back a few times to free his acupoints.

Sun Buer had cultivated the Way for many years, but she was still hard and fierce by nature. She saw that Yang Guo’s skill was strange beyond words and seemed to be the very bane of her own school’s martial arts. What was more, he had beaten the finest fighter of the Quanzhen Order’s third generation hollow while seeming to know no martial arts at all, which was harder still, and she was not sure she could beat him herself. “We’re going!” she cried. Without a word of farewell to Guo Jing and Huang Rong, she flicked her sleeve, sprang out through the study window and went straight up onto the roof.

Zhen Zhibing, who had looked like a man who had lost his soul all along, wanted to explain the whole story to Guo Jing and Huang Rong, but Zhao Zhijing said angrily, “What more is there to say?” He tugged at his sleeve, and the two of them leapt out of the window one after the other and followed Sun Buer.

With eyes as sharp as theirs, Guo Jing and Huang Rong naturally knew that Zhao Zhijing’s acupoints had been struck. But Yang Guo had plainly not put out a hand or a finger. Could some other master be helping him in secret?

Guo Jing put his head out of the window at once and looked about, but there was no one there. He supposed that Zhao Zhijing, at the very moment of striking to kill, had suddenly been unable to bring himself to it, or had held back for fear of Guo Jing and his wife. Or perhaps, since Hao Datong had wrongly killed someone, the Quanzhen Order was afraid that Yang Guo would go to the great hall, spread the story and ask everyone to judge, and so Zhao Zhijing had pretended his acupoints were struck as an excuse to leave. Huang Rong, though, could see that Yang Guo must have played some trick. But for one thing, she had been behind him, and sharp as her eyes were, she could not see what his fingers and elbows were doing. For another, she did not know there was such a martial art in the world as the Jade Maiden Heart Sutra, able to read an opponent’s moves in advance and smother Quanzhen martial arts so completely they could not fight back. So for the moment she could not work it out. She did not, as Guo Jing did, measure others by the heart of a junzi, and seeing the four Quanzhen Daoists sweep out without taking their leave, a gross breach of courtesy, she could not help being angry.

She thought it over, and as she turned round, she saw the toes of Guo Fu’s dark green shoes showing beneath the bookshelves. “Fu’er,” she called at once, “what are you doing here?” Guo Fu came out giggling and pulled a face. “The Wu brothers and I were looking for books to read.” Huang Rong knew that none of the three had ever cared for books. How could they suddenly turn so studious today? One look at her daughter’s face told her they must have hidden there beforehand to eavesdrop. She was about to scold them when a disciple of the Beggars’ Guild came to report that guests had arrived from afar. Huang Rong gave Yang Guo a glance and went out with Guo Jing to receive them.

Guo Jing said to the Wu brothers, “Brother Yang was your childhood companion. Treat him well.”

The Wu brothers had never got on with Yang Guo, and now, seeing him so down and out, without half a scrap of martial arts to show for his years with the Quanzhen Order, and cursed by his shifu as a little beast and a little bastard, they looked down on him all the more. They called a manor servant and told him to look after Yang Guo and find him somewhere to sleep. Guo Fu, though, was very curious about Yang Guo. “Big Brother Yang,” she asked, “why doesn’t your shifu want you?”

“Oh, there are plenty of reasons,” said Yang Guo. “I’m stupid and lazy and bad-tempered, and I don’t know how to make myself small and wait on my shifu’s family, running off to buy them riding whips and donkey whips and suchlike…”

The barb stung the Wu brothers, and both their faces changed. Wu Xiuwen was the first to lose his temper. “What did you say?” he shouted. “I said I’m useless,” said Yang Guo. “I couldn’t win my shifu’s favour.”

Guo Fu gave him a dazzling smile. “Your shifu is a Daoist. Does he have a daughter too?” When Yang Guo saw her smile, like a rose suddenly opening, bright and lovely, his heart stirred in spite of himself. He blushed a little and turned his head away. Guo Fu had long had the Wu brothers running round her in circles and thought nothing of it any more. But now, seeing the look on Yang Guo’s face, she knew he had been bowled over by her beauty, and she was secretly pleased.

Yang Guo looked towards the west wall, where a pair of couplet scrolls hung. The first line read: “As peach-blossom shadows fall, the divine sword flies.” The second: “As the green sea’s tide rises, I play the jade flute.”¹⁴ He had seen this couplet before, in the Sword-Testing Pavilion on Peach Blossom Island, and knew it was Huang Yaoshi’s work. But the scrolls here were signed: “Daubed in sickness by the Broken Man of the Five Lakes.”¹⁵ He was only a few years older than the three in front of him, but in experience and in spirit he seemed more than ten years older. Seeing the words “Broken Man of the Five Lakes”, he thought of how his own family were dead or gone, and how he drifted east and west, no better than a broken man himself. The pride he had felt a moment ago at sending Zhao Zhijing fleeing in disgrace vanished at once, and a bleak, desolate misery came over him. He hung his head, grieving in silence.

“Big Brother Yang,” Guo Fu said softly, “go and settle in now. I’ll come and talk to you again tomorrow.” “All right,” said Yang Guo flatly. He followed the manor servant out of the study, and faintly heard Guo Fu tearing into the Wu brothers. “If I like talking to him, what business is it of yours? If his martial arts are poor, I’ll ask Father to teach him myself.”

Footnotes

1. 蛤蟆功 – Hámá Gōng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 师伯 – shībó. Senior lineage uncle. Shixiong or shijie of one’s shifu. Shī means teacher. Bó means father’s elder brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 天山飞渡 – Tiānshān Fēidù. Literally flying across Tianshan. The first kick taught to Quanzhen disciples. ↩

4. 退马势 – Tuìmǎ Shì. Literally retreating horse stance. The Quanzhen move that evades Tianshan Flying Crossing. ↩

5. 大豁 – Dàhuō. An acupoint on the inner ankle. ↩

6. 紫电穿云 – Zǐdiàn Chuānyún. Literally purple lightning pierces the clouds. A Quanzhen palm technique. ↩

7. 玉女心经 – Yùnǚ Xīnjīng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 王重阳 – Wáng Chóngyáng. His name meaning “double yang”, the ninth day of the ninth lunar month. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 林朝英 – Lín Cháoyīng. Her name meaning “facing the hero” or “morning hero”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. Houxi (后溪). “Back Stream” acupoint on the palm edge (SI-3). Sealing this point causes numbness in the arm and hand. ↩

11. Zhaohai (照海). “Shining Sea” acupoint on the inner ankle (KI-6). ↩

12. Taixi (太溪). “Great Stream” acupoint on the inner ankle (KI-3). ↩

13. 师侄 – shīzhí. Lineage nephew or niece. Disciple of one’s shixiong, shijie, shidi, or shimei. Shī means teacher. Zhí means nephew or niece. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 桃华影落飞神剑，碧海潮生按玉箫 – Táohuá yǐng luò fēi shén jiàn, bìhǎi cháo shēng àn yùxiāo. A couplet composed by Huang Yaoshi of Peach Blossom Island. ↩

15. 五湖废人 – Wǔhú Fèirén. Literally the broken man of the Five Lakes, the name Lu Chengfeng signed himself by in The Legend of the Condor Heroes; the Five Lakes stand for Lake Tai. ↩