The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 12 – Part 8

The heroes in the hall had all been focused on Zhu Ziliu and Huo Du. But the moment the girl in white entered, every person there involuntarily turned to look at her. Her face was pale, as though touched by illness. Even with the candlelight glowing like sunset clouds, her face showed not the slightest trace of colour, yet this only made her appear more elegant, more transcendent, her beauty beyond compare. People often use the phrase “beautiful as a celestial immortal” to describe a woman’s beauty, but what exactly a celestial immortal’s beauty looks like, no one really knows. Yet at the sight of this girl, the words “beautiful as a celestial immortal” welled up unbidden in every heart. She seemed to be enveloped in a thin haze of smoke and mist, half-real and half-illusory. She was surely no creature of the mortal world.

The moment Yang Guo saw her, a wild joy seized him. It felt as though his chest had been struck with tremendous force by a great iron hammer. He sprang from his corner and threw his arms around her, crying out, “Gugu! Gugu!”

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The girl was none other than Xiaolongnü.

After parting from Yang Guo, she had wandered in the wilderness for a time, then dived back through the underwater passage into the ancient tomb’s stone chamber. Before the age of eighteen, she had lived in the ancient tomb with a heart as still as water, undisturbed by the slightest ripple. But after meeting Yang Guo and going through all that had happened, to return to her old state, untroubled by any concern, was utterly impossible. Whenever she sat in meditation on the Cold Jade Bed,¹ she would remember that Yang Guo had once slept on this very bed. Sitting at the table to eat, she would recall that she had once shared her meals with Yang Guo. She could not practise for more than a few moments before restlessness seized her heart and she could not continue.

More than a month passed this way. At last, she could bear it no longer. She resolved to go find Yang Guo. But what she would do once she found him, of that, she had no idea. She had heard Li Mochou’s provocative words and knew that Yang Guo’s heart had changed. In that moment, she had turned and left in grief. But after a few days, she thought, If his heart has changed, let it change. I cannot leave him, no matter what.

She descended the mountain. Everything she saw was new and strange. And how could she possibly know the roads? Whenever she met someone, she would ask, “Have you seen Yang Guo?” When she was hungry, she would take other people’s food and eat it, not knowing she was supposed to pay. Along the way, she caused no end of amusing incidents. But others, seeing her innocent beauty, could not help indulging her. No one gave her trouble.

One day, by chance, she overheard two burly men talking at an inn. They said that all the famous heroes and gallants of the realm were heading to Lu Manor at Dasheng Pass² for the Hero Assembly. She thought Yang Guo might be there too, so she asked for directions and made her way to Lu Manor.

Aside from Hao Datong, Zhen Zhibing, and Zhao Zhijing, none of the two thousand people in the great hall knew who Xiaolongnü was. They saw only that she was beautiful beyond imagining, and each person felt a peculiar stirring in their hearts. Sun Bu’er knew of her but had never met her. Zhen Zhibing’s face turned deathly pale, his body trembling. Zhao Zhijing watched him from the corner of his eye with a faint sneer. Guo Jing and Huang Rong saw how excessively intimate Yang Guo was with her and were greatly astonished.

Xiaolongnü said, “Guoer, you really are here. I have found you at last.”

Yang Guo’s tears streamed down. Choking, he said, “You… you will not abandon me again?”

Xiaolongnü shook her head. “I do not know.”

Yang Guo said, “Wherever you go from now on, I will go with you. Even if you kill me, I will not be parted from you.”

Xiaolongnü was overjoyed. “Wonderful!”

A thousand people packed the great hall, yet the two of them spoke as though no one else existed. Xiaolongnü held Yang Guo’s hand, sorrow and joy mingling in her heart. Though he still called her “Gugu”, he clung to her tightly, his passion blazing like fire. His feelings for her ran deep. He was nothing like the faithless, heartless betrayer her shijie³ had described, ready to abandon her. She was deeply comforted.

Huo Du, seeing Xiaolongnü’s appearance, felt a stir in his heart, but he did not recognise her as the girl to whom he had once proposed marriage on Mount Zhongnan. Seeing Yang Guo in his ragged clothes, yet so intimate with her, disgust welled up in him. “We are about to compete in martial arts,” he said. “Clear some space, will you?”

Yang Guo had no mind to answer him. He led Xiaolongnü by the hand to the side and sat down with her on the stone plinth of a hall pillar. His heart felt as though it would burst with joy. His left arm held her tightly around the shoulders, as if afraid she might suddenly leave again.

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Huo Du turned to Zhu Ziliu and said, “Since you will not use a weapon, let us decide this with fists and feet.”

Zhu Ziliu said, “Not so. Our Chinese nation is a land of ritual and righteousness. A gentleman debates with the brush, befriends with the brush. I have a brush but no blade, what need have I for a weapon?”

Huo Du said, “In that case, watch this!” He flicked open his fan and swept it toward Zhu Ziliu.

Zhu Ziliu leaned sideways and stepped, swaying his head. His left palm swept lightly in front of his body while the writing brush in his right hand streaked directly toward Huo Du’s face. Huo Du ducked aside, but seeing his opponent’s light, peculiar body movements and strange techniques, he dared not seize the initiative. First, he would observe what school of martial arts this man used, then formulate a response.

Zhu Ziliu said, “My brush sweeps aside a thousand armies. You had best be careful.” The brush tip thrust forward with lightning speed.

Though Huo Du had learned his martial arts in Mongolia, the Golden Wheel National Preceptor’s knowledge was vast and deep as a lake or sea. He knew every famous martial art of the Central Plains without exception. When Huo Du began his training, he had already resolved to go to the Central Plains and establish his name, so the Golden Wheel National Preceptor had analysed the signature moves of every renowned school of the Central Plains with him, one by one. But today, facing Zhu Ziliu, he found that not only was his opponent’s weapon bizarre, his moves were utterly unprecedented, beyond anything he had ever heard of. The brush tip traced horizontal and diagonal strokes through the air, as though writing characters. Yet wherever the tip pointed, it was always aimed at a vital acupoint on the human body.

The Dali Duan clan had originally come from Wuwei Commandery in Liangzhou.⁴ When they gained their kingdom and took the imperial title in Dali, their ancestors had been of the Xianbei Tuoba people,⁵ but over the generations they had intermarried extensively with the Han and absorbed Chinese culture. They had long since become indistinguishable from Han people and considered themselves Han. Chinese civilisation and culture spread throughout the southern frontier. Zhu Ziliu was the foremost calligrapher south of heaven. Though he had taken up martial arts, he had never abandoned his literary pursuits. Later, as his martial arts grew increasingly refined, he achieved a breakthrough through cross-fertilisation, fusing the Yiyang Finger with the art of calligraphy. This style of martial art was his own original creation. No matter how strong an opponent’s martial arts might be, if he lacked a foundation in literary studies, he would find it nearly impossible to defend against this art, literature within martial arts, martial arts within literature, both reaching the highest realms of mastery.

Fortunately for Huo Du, he had studied the classics and learned poetry under a Han Confucian scholar in his youth. He could just barely hold his own. He watched the opponent’s brush weave and sway, pressure-point striking within calligraphy, calligraphy within pressure-point striking. Each stroke was like silver hooks and iron whorls, fierce and piercing, yet within the majesty lay an elegant, scholarly refinement.

Guo Jing, who knew nothing of literature, watched in silent wonder. But Huang Rong, inheriting her father’s tradition, was accomplished in both literary and martial arts. Seeing Zhu Ziliu’s wondrous martial art, she could not help but be deeply impressed.

Guo Fu walked to her mother’s side and asked, “Mother, what is he doing, scribbling with that brush?”

Huang Rong was completely absorbed in watching the fight. She answered absently, “The Fang Xuanling Stele.”⁶

Guo Fu was baffled. “What Fang Xuanling Stele?”

Huang Rong was enjoying herself too much to reply.

The Fang Xuanling Stele was a stele inscription written by the great Tang⁷ minister Chu Suiliang,⁸ a masterpiece of regular script.⁹ Earlier critics had described Chu’s calligraphy as “a celestial maiden scattering flowers”, robust yet graceful, every stroke alive with poise, each character poised in midair, fully exploiting the subtleties of lift and press, release and restraint. Zhu Ziliu’s “Yiyang Calligraphy Finger”¹⁰ used the brush in place of the finger, and every move was as rigorously disciplined as a character in regular script, not a single stroke careless. Though Huo Du did not understand the profound mysteries of the Yiyang Finger, he had at least once copied out the Fang Xuanling Stele as a model. He could roughly anticipate that after a horizontal stroke, a vertical stroke would follow, and he defended himself in orderly fashion, showing no sign of defeat.

Seeing that Huo Du recognised this style of calligraphy, Zhu Ziliu cried out in approval, “Careful! Here comes the cursive script!”¹¹

Suddenly, he snatched off his cap and flung it to the ground. His long sleeves flew as he dashed and darted in a frenzy, his moves abandoning all conventional structure. He seemed mad, drunk, possessed, his brushwork unrestrained, his strokes like dragons and serpents coiling through the air.

Guo Fu laughed in alarm. “Mother, has he gone mad?”

Huang Rong said, “Mm. Three more cups of wine, and his brushwork would be even finer.” She lifted the wine pot and poured three cups. “Brother Zhu,” she called, “drink three cups to spur your spirits!” She held the cup in her left hand and flicked it with the middle finger of her right. The wine cup flew through the air, perfectly steady. Zhu Ziliu thrust out his brush, forcing Huo Du back a step, caught the cup, and drained it in one gulp. Huang Rong flicked the second cup, then the third, in quick succession.

Huo Du saw the two of them serving wine to each other in the middle of a fight, as though he did not even exist. He tried to knock the cups away with his fan, but Huang Rong timed her flicks to match the rhythm of Zhu Ziliu’s brushwork, always sending the cup through an opening, beyond Huo Du’s reach.

Zhu Ziliu drained the three cups in a row and called out, “Many thanks! What fine Divine Finger Flick¹² skill!”

Huang Rong laughed. “What keen-edged ‘Autobiography’!”¹³

Zhu Ziliu smiled. All my life I have prided myself on my intelligence, yet I always fall a step short of this young woman. A unique art that I spent more than ten bitter years perfecting, she sees through it at a single glance.

What he was now writing was the Tang dynasty calligrapher Zhang Xu’s¹⁴ “Autobiography.” Zhang Xu was known as the “Sage of Cursive Script”¹⁵, the supreme master of the cursive hand. Du Fu’s¹⁶ poem “Song of the Eight Immortal Drinkers”¹⁷ says: “Three cups, and Zhang Xu’s cursive sage is born. Cap doffed, head bared before princes and dukes. Brush sweeping paper like clouds and smoke.” By urging him to drink three cups, Huang Rong had, first, perfectly matched the persona of this particular martial style. Second, let the wine sharpen the edge of his brushwork, and third, further humbled Huo Du’s fighting spirit.

Zhu Ziliu had now written his way to the character dao¹⁸ in the phrase “the porter struggles for the path”,¹⁹ and the final upward hook of that stroke swept across Huo Du’s robe. Amid the heroes’ roaring laughter, Huo Du stumbled backward.

Footnotes

1. 寒玉床 – Hán Yù Chuáng. Bed carved from rare deep-cold jade found by Lin Chaoying. Training on it greatly accelerates neili cultivation by forcing the practitioner to circulate qi constantly to resist the cold. ↩

2. 大胜关 – Dàshèng Guān. Strategic pass between Henan and Hubei; site of Lu Manor and the Hero Assembly. ↩

3. 师姊 – shījiě. Female senior. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Jiě means older sister. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. Liangzhou (凉州). Ancient commandery in present-day Gansu, the ancestral homeland of the Dali Duan clan. ↩

5. Xianbei (鲜卑). Ancient nomadic people of the steppes. Tuoba clan of the Xianbei founded the Northern Wei dynasty and were ancestors of the Dali Duan imperial clan. ↩

6. Fang Xuanling Stele (房玄龄碑). Famous Tang dynasty stele inscription by the master calligrapher Chu Suiliang, renowned as a masterpiece of regular script. ↩

7. Tang Dynasty (唐朝). China’s golden age (618–907), a period of extraordinary cultural and artistic achievement including the peak of calligraphy. ↩

8. Chu Suiliang (褚遂良). One of the Four Great Calligraphers of the early Tang dynasty, known for his elegant, flowing regular script. His style was described as “a celestial maiden scattering flowers”. ↩

9. Regular Script (楷书). Standard, most formal style of Chinese calligraphy, where each stroke is clearly written and characters are perfectly proportioned. ↩

10. Yiyang Calligraphy Finger (一阳书指). Zhu Ziliu’s original fusion of the Yiyang Finger with calligraphy, creating a martial art where each stroke writes characters while striking acupoints. ↩

11. Cursive Script (草书). Highly abbreviated, flowing style of Chinese calligraphy where characters are written with swift, connected strokes. Most expressive and individualistic of the major scripts. ↩

12. Divine Finger Flick (弹指神通). Huang Yaoshi’s signature technique, passed to Huang Rong. Flick of the finger releases devastating force; can also be used to propel small objects with precision. ↩

13. Autobiography (自言帖). Famous piece of cursive calligraphy by the Tang dynasty “Sage of Cursive Script”, Zhang Xu. ↩

14. Zhang Xu (张旭). “Sage of Cursive Script” of the Tang dynasty, one of the Eight Immortal Drinkers celebrated by Du Fu. Known for his wild, unrestrained cursive calligraphy, often performed while drunk. ↩

15. Sage of Cursive Script (草圣). Title bestowed on Zhang Xu, recognising him as the supreme master of cursive calligraphy. ↩

16. Du Fu (杜甫). One of China’s greatest poets, of the Tang dynasty. His poem “Song of the Eight Immortal Drinkers” celebrates eight famous drinkers, including Zhang Xu. ↩

17. Song of the Eight Immortal Drinkers (饮中八仙歌). Du Fu’s famous poem celebrating eight legendary drinkers of the Tang dynasty, including Li Bai and Zhang Xu. ↩

18. Dao (道). “Path” or “Way”, a character with deep philosophical significance in Taoism. In the “Autobiography”, it appears in the phrase “the porter struggles for the path”. ↩

19. Porter Struggles for the Path (担夫争道). Famous passage in Zhang Xu’s “Autobiography”, referring to an anecdote where Zhang Xu gained insight into calligraphy from watching a porter navigate a narrow path. ↩