The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 12 – Part 2

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Yang Guo had been snubbed, and it left him feeling thoroughly out of place. What am I doing wedged between the three of them? He turned and began walking slowly away. The Wu brothers treat this girl as though she were a celestial immortal, terrified she will not marry them. But the truth is, if you actually married her and had to spend every day keeping company with such a spoiled, wilful woman, the bitterness would far outweigh the pleasure. Heh. How ridiculous.

Guo Fu had run a fair distance, assuming Yang Guo would come chasing after her to apologise. She stopped to wait, and there was no sign of him. He does not know lightness skill, she thought. Of course he cannot catch up. She retraced her steps and found him walking in the opposite direction. Puzzled, she ran up to him. “Why did you not come?”

Yang Guo said, “Miss Guo, please tell your father and mother that I am leaving.”

Guo Fu was startled. “Why would you leave, out of the blue?”

Yang Guo gave a faint smile. “No reason. I never came here for any particular purpose. Since I have been here, it is time to go.”

Guo Fu had always loved excitement. Though in her heart she looked down on Yang Guo completely, she found that listening to his banter had a fresh flavour quite different from talking with the Wu brothers. She desperately wanted him to stay. “Brother Yang, we have not seen each other for so long. I have so many things to ask you. Besides, tonight they are holding the Hero Assembly. Heroes from every school and sect will be gathering. How can you miss it?”

Yang Guo laughed. “I am no hero. If I attended, would I not make all those great heroes laugh?”

Guo Fu said, “That is true.” She thought for a moment. “Well, there are plenty of people at Lu Manor who do not know martial arts either. You can just drink and eat with the accountants and stewards.”

Yang Guo’s anger flared. So that is how it is. You see me as a lowly, third-rate nobody. But he showed not a trace of irritation on his face. He smiled and said, “That would be fine.”

He had been ready to walk away and be done with it, but now his resolve hardened. He would stay and do something to vent his spleen.

Guo Fu had been spoiled since childhood and understood nothing of human feelings. Her words had not been meant as an insult, but without knowing it, she had given deep offence. Seeing that Yang Guo had changed his mind, she smiled and said, “Hurry, then. If we are late and my mother gets there first, we will not be able to spy on anything.” She ran ahead with rapid steps. Yang Guo followed, gasping for breath, his feet landing heavily, the picture of clumsy ineptitude.

At last they drew near the place where Huang Rong customarily taught Lu Youjiao the staff technique. The Wu brothers had already climbed into the treetops and were peering in every direction. Guo Fu leapt onto a branch and reached down to pull Yang Guo up. Yang Guo grasped her small hand, soft and warm as silk, and his heart rippled. But he immediately reminded himself: Even if you were ten times more beautiful, you could not compare to one half of my Gugu.¹

Guo Fu whispered, “Has my mother not arrived yet?”

Wu Xiuwen pointed west and said quietly, “Elder Lu is over there waving a staff around. Our teacher’s wife and teacher have stepped away to talk.”

Guo Fu feared only one person in the world: her father. Hearing that he had come too, she felt a little uneasy. But seeing Lu Youjiao holding a bamboo staff, pointing east, circling west, with nothing remarkable about it, she whispered, “Is this the Dog-Beating Staff Technique?”

Wu Dunru said, “Most likely.”

Guo Fu watched a few more moves. They seemed stiff and dull. She could see no profundity in them. “Elder Lu still has not learned it. There is nothing interesting to see. Let us go.”

But Yang Guo saw that the staff technique Elder Lu was performing matched, move for move, what Hong Qigong² had taught him on the summit of Mount Hua.³ He sneered inwardly. A little girl who understands nothing, yet she dares to speak with such authority.

The Wu brothers obeyed Guo Fu’s every word. Hearing that she wanted to leave, they were about to jump down when footsteps sounded beneath the tree. Guo Jing and Huang Rong approached, walking side by side.

Guo Jing was saying, “Fu’er’s lifelong happiness is naturally not something to treat lightly. But Guoer⁴ is still young. Mischief and foolery are inevitable at his age. The trouble he caused at Quanzhen, it seems it was not entirely his fault.”

Huang Rong said, “I do not care in the least about the mischief he caused at Quanzhen. You feel bound by the generations of friendship between the Guo and Yang families, and rightly so. But this boy Yang Guo is cunning beyond his years. The more I look at him, the more he reminds me of his father. How can I feel easy about betrothing Fu’er to him?”

Yang Guo, Guo Fu, and the Wu brothers were all thunderstruck by these words. They knew that the Guo and Yang families shared some connection, but they had no idea how deep the ties between the previous generation ran, and they could never have imagined that Guo Jing intended to betroth his daughter to Yang Guo. These words bore directly on each of their fates. All four held their breath and listened intently, four hearts pounding wildly.

Guo Jing said, “Brother Yang Kang⁵ had the misfortune to fall into the Jin imperial palace and fell in with evil men. That is why he met such a tragic end, his very corpse left incomplete. If he had been raised from childhood by Uncle Yang Tiexin,⁶ it would never have come to this.”

Huang Rong sighed. After a moment, she said softly, “That is true.”

Yang Guo had never known the truth of his origins. He only knew that his father had died young, killed by another’s hand, but how he had died, who his enemy was, even his own mother had refused to speak of it. Now, hearing Guo Jing speak of his father, saying he had “fallen into the imperial palace and fallen in with evil men”, that his “corpse was left incomplete”, it struck him like a thunderbolt. His whole body trembled. His face turned ashen grey. Guo Fu glanced sideways at him. Seeing his expression, she was frightened, afraid he might suddenly tumble from the tree and die on the spot.

Guo Jing and Huang Rong had their backs to the great tree. They sat side by side on a rock. Guo Jing gently stroked the back of Huang Rong’s hand and said tenderly, “Ever since you conceived this second child, your health has been declining. You must hand over all the Beggars’ Guild’s affairs to Lu Youjiao as quickly as possible and rest properly.”

Guo Fu was overjoyed. So Mother is with child. I will have a little brother. How wonderful! Why did Mother not tell me?

Huang Rong said, “I have never truly worried much about the Beggars’ Guild’s affairs. It is Fu’er’s future that I cannot set my mind at ease about.”

Guo Jing said, “Since Quanzhen refuses to accept Guoer, I will teach him myself. I can see he is extremely intelligent. I will pass on all my martial arts to him. That way, I will not have failed the bond of brotherhood I swore with his father.”

Yang Guo heard the deep affection in Guo Jing’s words, and he was so moved that tears nearly fell.

Huang Rong sighed. “What I fear is that his cleverness will be his own undoing. That is why I only taught him to read, not martial arts. I hoped he would grow into a good man who understands righteousness, upright and honourable. Even if he never learned a single stroke of martial arts, we could still give him Fu’er’s hand with a peaceful heart.”

Guo Jing said, “Your intentions were good. But Fu’er has such a temperament, and such martial skills. To bind her for life to a weak, bookish scholar, would that not be unfair to her? Do you think she would respect Guoer? The way I see it, such a marriage could hardly be harmonious.”

Huang Rong laughed. “Have you no shame? So our own marriage is harmonious only because your martial arts surpass mine? Hero Guo, come, come, let us have a match.”

Guo Jing laughed. “Very well, Chief Huang. Name your terms.”

A soft pa sounded as Huang Rong gave Guo Jing a light pat on the shoulder.

After a pause, Huang Rong said, “Ah, this matter is truly difficult. Even if we set Guoer aside for now, what of the Wu brothers? Which do you think is better, the elder, or the younger?”

Naturally, the hearts of Guo Fu and the Wu brothers began pounding furiously. Yang Guo, though the matter did not concern him, was also eager to hear Guo Jing’s assessment of the two.

Guo Jing gave an “Mm.” A long silence followed. At last he said, “Small matters reveal nothing. Only when a man faces something great does his true character show.” His voice softened. “Fu’er is still young. Waiting a few years will not hurt. Perhaps by then everything will have arranged itself, and we parents will not need to worry at all. When you teach Elder Lu the staff technique, do not exhaust yourself. These past few days, I have felt your breathing is not smooth. It worries me. I will go find Guoer and talk with him.” He rose and walked back the way he had come.

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Huang Rong remained seated on the rock, calming her breathing for a while, then called Lu Youjiao over to demonstrate the staff technique. By now, Lu Youjiao had learned all thirty-six stances of the Dog-Beating Staff Technique, but he still had not grasped the key to their application. Huang Rong patiently explained each stance in detail.

The moves of the Dog-Beating Staff Technique were profound indeed, but the essential principles and formulae were even more wondrous. Otherwise, how could a mere green bamboo staff have become the Beggars’ Guild’s most treasured heirloom? How could someone with martial arts as formidable as Ouyang Feng⁷ have had to rack his brains in agony just to dismantle a single move? Huang Rong had already spent nearly a month teaching Lu Youjiao the forms. Now she repeated the formulae and transformation principles several times, instructing him to commit them firmly to memory. As for achieving full integration and mastery, that depended on each person’s natural gifts and powers of comprehension. It was not something a teacher could impart.

Guo Fu and the Wu brothers understood nothing of the staff technique. All they heard was droning about the “Block” formula this and the “Entwine” formula that, how the eighteenth variation transformed into the nineteenth, and how the nineteenth evolved into the twentieth. Several times they nearly slipped down from the tree, but they feared Huang Rong would discover them. They could only hope she would finish reciting the formulae quickly and leave with Lu Youjiao.

But Huang Rong had planned to transfer the chief’s position to Lu Youjiao before the Hero Assembly began. She had scheduled this time to complete the transmission of all the staff technique’s formulae. If he could not grasp them, she could always teach him more later, but according to the clan’s rules, he had to have formally learned the Dog-Beating Staff Technique before assuming the chief’s office. For this reason, she spoke for nearly a shichen⁸ without finishing. And Lu Youjiao, whose natural gifts were limited and whose memory had declined in recent years, how could he possibly retain so much at once? Huang Rong went over it again and again, but he still could not remember it all.

Huang Rong had been accustomed to dealing with slow learners ever since she met Guo Jing at the age of fifteen. Lu Youjiao’s poor memory did not trouble her. The real hardship lay in the clan’s rules: the formulae and principles had to be transmitted orally and could never be committed to writing. If she could have written them down for him to study at his leisure, it would have saved a great deal of effort.

Footnotes

1. 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. ↩

2. 洪七公 – Hóng Qīgōng. Literally Hong the Seventh Lord; the numeral seven marks seniority among sworn brothers. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 华山 – Huáshān. One of China’s Five Sacred Mountains, site of martial arts competitions. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 过儿 – Guò’ér. Affectionate diminutive of Yang Guo’s name, with the diminutive suffix -er indicating affection or familiarity. ↩

5. 杨康 – Yáng Kāng. His name meaning “health” or “peace”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 杨铁心 – Yáng Tiěxīn. His name meaning “iron heart”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 欧阳锋 – Ōuyáng Fēng. His name meaning “blade” or “cutting edge”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 时辰 – shíchen. Traditional Chinese double hour; one twelfth of a day, equal to two modern hours. ↩