The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 12 – Part 2

Yang Guo had been snubbed, and he felt thoroughly foolish. He thought, What am I doing squeezed in among the three of them? He turned and walked slowly away, thinking, The Wu brothers treat this girl like a heavenly immortal, terrified she won’t marry them. If either of them actually got her, he’d spend every day keeping company with such a spoilt, high-handed woman, and there’d be far more grief in it than joy. Heh. It’s really quite funny.

Guo Fu ran on some way, certain that Yang Guo would come chasing after her to beg her pardon. But when she stopped and waited a while, there was no sign of him. Then it occurred to her, Of course, he doesn’t know any qinggong, so he can’t catch me up.¹ She hurried back the way she had come, only to find him walking off in the other direction. Thoroughly puzzled, she ran up to him. “Why didn’t you come?”

“Miss Guo,” said Yang Guo, “please tell your father and mother that I’ve gone.”

Guo Fu was startled. “Gone? Why, all of a sudden?”

Yang Guo gave a faint smile. “No reason. I didn’t come for any reason, and now that I’ve been, it’s time to go.”

Guo Fu had always loved a bit of excitement. In her heart she thought nothing of Yang Guo, but she found that listening to his banter had a freshness that talking with the Wu brothers lacked, and she wanted a hundred times over for him to stay. “Big Brother Yang, we haven’t seen each other for so long, and I’ve got so much to ask you. Besides, there’s the Hero Assembly tonight. Heroes and brave men from every house and school will be gathering. Don’t you want to see it?”

Yang Guo laughed. “I’m no hero. If I turned up, wouldn’t all those great heroes laugh at me?”

“That’s true enough,” said Guo Fu. She thought for a moment. “Anyway, there are lots of people at Lu Family Manor who don’t know martial arts. You can eat and drink with the accountants and stewards, that’ll do.”

At this Yang Guo was furious. He thought, So that’s it. You take me for some lowly nobody. But not a flicker of anger showed on his face. He smiled. “That would suit me very well.”

He had meant to walk away and have done with it, but now he steeled himself. He would stay, and do something to get his own back.

Guo Fu had been spoilt from childhood and knew nothing of the ways of the world. She had not meant her words as an insult, and had no idea she had given grave offence. Seeing that Yang Guo had changed his mind, she smiled. “Hurry up, then, or we’ll be late. If Mother gets there first, we won’t be able to spy on anything.” She set off ahead at a brisk pace, and Yang Guo followed, panting, his feet thudding down heavily, the very picture of clumsiness.

At long last they came near the place where Huang Rong usually taught Lu Youjiao the staff technique. The Wu brothers were already up in the treetop, peering about in every direction. Guo Fu sprang up onto a branch and reached down to pull Yang Guo up after her. As he gripped her small hand, soft and warm as silk floss, a thrill ran through him, but at once he thought, Even if you were ten times lovelier, you couldn’t come within half of my aunt.²

“Hasn’t Mother come yet?” Guo Fu whispered.

Wu Xiuwen pointed to the west. “Elder Lu’s over there, swinging his staff about,” he said under his breath. “Shimu³ and Shifu⁴ have gone off to talk.”

Guo Fu feared only one person in all the world, and that was her father. To hear that he had come too made her a little uneasy. But all she could see was Lu Youjiao with a bamboo staff, pointing it east, circling it west, with nothing remarkable about it at all. “Is that the Dog-Beating Staff Technique?” she whispered.

“Most likely,” said Wu Dunru.

Guo Fu watched a few more moves. They looked wooden and dull, with nothing subtle about them that she could see. “Elder Lu still hasn’t learnt it,” she said. “There’s nothing worth watching. Let’s go.”

But Yang Guo saw that the staff technique Elder Lu was performing matched exactly, move for move, what Hong Qigong⁵ had taught him on the summit of Mount Hua,⁶ and he laughed coldly to himself, A little girl who understands nothing, and yet she talks so big.

The Wu brothers did Guo Fu’s bidding in everything. Hearing that she wanted to go, they were about to jump down when they heard footsteps below the tree. Guo Jing and Huang Rong were coming towards them, side by side.

Guo Jing was saying, “Of course Fu’er’s marriage is not something to be taken lightly. But Guoer⁷ is still young, and boys will always get up to mischief. As for the trouble at Quanzhen, it seems it wasn’t all his fault.”

“I don’t care a bit about the mischief he made at Quanzhen,” said Huang Rong. “It’s only right that you should think of the friendship between the Guo and Yang families, which goes back generations. But that boy Yang Guo is far too sly. The more I see of him, the more he reminds me of his father. How can I feel easy about promising Fu’er to him?”

Yang Guo, Guo Fu and the Wu brothers were all thunderstruck. They knew there was some tie between the Guo and Yang families, but they had no idea how deep the bond between the generation before them ran, and never in their wildest dreams had they imagined that Guo Jing meant to betroth his daughter to Yang Guo. Every word bore directly on each of them, and all four held their breath and listened hard, four hearts pounding as one.

“Brother Yang Kang,”⁸ said Guo Jing, “had the misfortune to end up in a Jin prince’s palace and fell into bad company, and that is why he came to such a pitiful end, his body not even left whole. Had he been brought up from childhood by Uncle Yang Tiexin,⁹ it would never have come to that.”

Huang Rong sighed. After a while she said quietly, “That’s true enough.”

Yang Guo had never known the truth about where he came from. He knew only that his father had died young, at another man’s hands, but how he had died and who his enemy was, not even his own mother would tell him. Now, hearing Guo Jing talk of his father, of “ending up in a prince’s palace and falling into bad company”, of a “body not even left whole”, he felt as if a thunderbolt had struck him. His whole body shook and his face went the grey of dead ashes. Guo Fu glanced at him sidelong and was frightened by the look of him. She was afraid he would suddenly fall out of the tree and die on the spot.

Guo Jing and Huang Rong sat down side by side on a rock, with their backs to the big tree. Guo Jing gently stroked the back of Huang Rong’s hand. “Ever since you’ve been carrying this second child, you haven’t been nearly as well as before,” he said tenderly. “Hand all the business of the Beggars’ Guild, great and small, over to Lu Youjiao as quickly as you can. You must rest and look after yourself.”

Guo Fu was overjoyed, and thought, So Mother’s having a baby. I’ll have a little brother, how lovely that would be. But why hasn’t Mother told me?

“I’ve never troubled myself much over the Beggars’ Guild in the first place,” said Huang Rong. “It’s Fu’er’s future I can’t stop worrying about.”

“Since Quanzhen won’t take Guoer,” said Guo Jing, “let me teach him myself, and teach him properly. I can see he’s extremely clever. One day I’ll pass on every bit of my skill to him, and then I won’t have failed the brotherhood I swore with his father.”

Hearing how much Guo Jing cared for him, Yang Guo was moved beyond words, and very nearly wept.

Huang Rong sighed. “It’s just that I’m afraid his cleverness will be his undoing. That’s why I only taught him to read and never taught him martial arts. I hoped he would grow into a good man, upright and honest, who understood what is right. Then even if he hadn’t a scrap of martial skill, we could give him Fu’er’s hand with a contented heart.”

“You meant it for the best,” said Guo Jing. “But with a temper like Fu’er’s, and martial arts like hers, to bind her for life to some feeble scholar, wouldn’t that be hard on her? Do you think she would respect Guoer? If you ask me, a couple like that would never get along.”

Huang Rong laughed. “Shame on you! So the only reason we get along is that your martial arts are better than mine? Guo daxia, come on, come on, let’s have a bout.”

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

There was a light smack as Huang Rong patted Guo Jing on the shoulder.

After a while Huang Rong said, “Oh, it’s a hard business, this. Even if we set Guoer aside for now, what are we to do about the Wu boys? Which do you think is better, Big Wu or Little Wu?”

Guo Fu’s heart and the Wu brothers’ hearts, naturally, began to thump wildly. Yang Guo had no stake in the matter, but even he was eager to hear what Guo Jing thought of the two.

Guo Jing said, “Mm,” and then said nothing for a long time. At last he spoke. “You can’t tell from small things. It is only when a man faces something great that his true character shows.” His voice softened. “Well, Fu’er is still young. It won’t be too late if we leave it a few years. Perhaps by then it will all have sorted itself out, and we parents won’t need to worry at all. When you teach Elder Lu the staff technique, don’t wear yourself out. These last few days I’ve felt your breathing isn’t right, and it worries me. I’ll go and find Guoer and have a talk with him.” With that he got up and went back the way he had come.

---

Huang Rong sat on the rock for a while, steadying her breathing, before she called Lu Youjiao over to show her the staff technique. By now Lu Youjiao had learnt all thirty-six stances of the Dog-Beating Staff Technique, but he had not yet grasped the secret of how to use them. Huang Rong patiently went through them one by one, explaining each in detail.

The moves of the Dog-Beating Staff Technique were profound enough, but its secret formulae and inner principles were more wondrous still. Otherwise, how could one little green bamboo staff have become the guardian treasure of the Beggars’ Guild? How could a man of Ouyang Feng’s¹⁰ formidable martial skill have had to rack his brains just to counter a single move of it? Huang Rong had spent the best part of a month teaching Lu Youjiao the moves. Now she recited the formulae and the principles of the variations several times over, telling him to fix them firmly in his memory. Whether he could make them his own and master them through and through depended on his gifts and understanding. That was not something any shifu could teach.

Guo Fu and the Wu brothers understood nothing of the staff technique, and they found it deadly dull to listen to: how the “Block” formula went like this and the “Entwine” formula went like that, how the eighteenth variation turned into the nineteenth and the nineteenth unfolded into the twentieth. Several times they were on the point of slipping down from the tree, but they were afraid Huang Rong would notice, and could only hope she would finish the formulae soon and go off with Lu Youjiao.

But Huang Rong meant to hand the position of Guild Chief to Lu Youjiao that day, before the Hero Assembly, and she had set aside this time to pass on every formula of the staff technique. If he could not grasp them yet, she could teach him slowly later on, but the Guild’s rules had to be kept: he must have learnt the Dog-Beating Staff Technique by the time he took office as Guild Chief. So she had talked for the best part of a shichen¹¹ and was still not done. And as luck would have it, Lu Youjiao was not gifted, and his memory had been failing in recent years. How could he take in so much all at once? Huang Rong went over it again and again, and still he could not remember it all.

Ever since she had met Guo Jing at the age of fifteen, Huang Rong had been used to dealing with slow learners, and Lu Youjiao’s poor memory did not exasperate her. The real trouble lay in the Guild’s rules, which said the formulae and principles must be passed on by word of mouth and never set down in writing. If only she could have written them out for him to learn at his leisure, it would have saved a great deal of effort.

Footnotes

1. 轻功 – qīnggōng. Literally lightness skill. Martial art of body lightness; practitioners leap great heights and move with extraordinary speed. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 姑姑 – gūgu. Literally paternal aunt, 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. ↩

3. 师母 – shīmǔ. The wife of one’s shifu. Shī means teacher. Mǔ means mother. ↩

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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