The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 16 – Part 3

Yang Guo paid them no heed. He tightened his grip a little, his face twisted into the look of a fiend, and he said through gritted teeth, “I am Brother Yang’s vengeful ghost. I died in torment, do you know that?” “I know,” said Shagu. “After you died, the crows ate your flesh. Caw! Caw! Caw!” She was mimicking the cry of a crow.

Yang Guo’s heart was wrung as if by a knife. He had known only that his father died a violent death, not that his body had lain unburied, left for the crows to peck at. “Who killed me?” he cried. “Tell me, tell me.” Shagu’s voice was hoarse. “You went and hit Aunt¹ yourself, and Aunt had poison needles on her, and so you died.” “Who is Aunt?” Yang Guo shouted. Shagu was so throttled she could barely breathe and was on the point of fainting. “Aunt is Aunt,” she said faintly. “What is Aunt’s surname?” said Yang Guo. “What is her name?” “I… I… I don’t know,” said Shagu. “Let me go!”

Seeing how desperate things had become, Lu Wushuang tugged at Yang Guo’s arm. But Yang Guo was like a madman now. He flung her off with every ounce of his strength, and Lu Wushuang had no hope of resisting it. She was hurled straight back and hit the wall with a thud that hurt badly. Cheng Ying had always known Yang Guo as gentle and easy-going, and to see him now like a maddened tiger frightened her so much that her arms and legs went weak.

Yang Guo thought, If I don’t get the name of my father’s killer out of her today, I’ll cough up blood and die on the spot. Over and over he asked, “Is Aunt surnamed Qu? Is she surnamed Mei?” He reasoned that since Shagu herself was surnamed Qu, her aunt was most likely a Qu as well, and perhaps it was Mei Chaofeng. Shagu struggled with all her strength. She had trained far longer than Yang Guo, but her martial arts were no match for his, and with the acupoints at her wrist locked she could only croak in desperation. “Go to Aunt for your life,” she said. “Don’t… don’t come after me.” “Where is Aunt?” said Yang Guo. “Grandpa and me, we came out!” said Shagu. “She and her man, they’re on the island.”

At these words a chill ran straight down Yang Guo’s spine. “What does Aunt call your grandpa?” he asked, his voice shaking. “She calls him Daddy, of course,” said Shagu. “What else would she call him?” Yang Guo’s face went the colour of earth. Still afraid he might be mistaken, he pressed her once more. “Aunt’s man is called Guo Jing,² isn’t he?” “I don’t know,” said Shagu. “Aunt just calls him ‘Jing gege, Jing gege!’” She was copying the way Huang Rong³ called Guo Jing. Then she kicked out wildly with both feet and suddenly screamed like a pig at the slaughter, “Help, help! Gh… gh… ghost.”

How could Yang Guo have the slightest doubt now? All the loneliness of his childhood and all the bullying he had suffered came flooding into his heart at once. He thought, If Father hadn’t been murdered, Mother would never have been worn down by grief and hardship and died so young, and I would never have suffered all this. He thought too, On Peach Blossom Island, Guo Jing and his wife were never at ease with me. They were always a little too polite, a little guarded, never the way they were with the Wu brothers, saying whatever they pleased to them and scolding them whenever they liked. At the time I only felt it was awkward. How was I to know it was because they had killed my father and had a guilty conscience? That was why they wouldn’t teach me martial arts and sent me off to the Quanzhen Order to be tormented. Shock and fury burst in him together, and his arms and legs went weak. With a great cry Shagu sprang up from the bed.

Cheng Ying went to Yang Guo’s side and said softly, “Our silly elder sister has always been simple, you know that. Since she was hurt, she makes even less sense than before. All of it needs to be thought through slowly and carefully.” But in her heart she too firmly believed that what Shagu said was true, and she knew such comfort was no use. It was only that she could not bear the grief and fury written all over Yang Guo’s face.

Seeing that Yang Guo was still worked up and breathing hard, Cheng Ying stepped closer. “Big Brother Yang,” she said, “there’s something I want to say to you.” Yang Guo turned round and slowly steadied his breathing. “Please, go on,” he said. “Big Brother Yang,” said Cheng Ying, “no man can live under the same sky as his father’s killer. Of course you must have your revenge. I only want to give you one piece of advice.” “Cheng shijie,” said Yang Guo, “if you are kind enough to advise me, of course I will listen.” Cheng Ying’s face grew grave. “Big Brother Yang, this time we are not joking. I mean it in earnest.” Yang Guo wiped the faint smile from his face. “Little sister,” he said, “you have always been good to me. When I called you ‘shijie’ and ‘Aunt’ and all the rest, it was only in fun.” He seized the chance to make sure Cheng Ying did not misunderstand him, and said solemnly, “In my heart I truly think of you as my little sister! My feelings for you are sincere. My life I gave to my aunt long ago, and I can’t give it to you as well. In everything else, I will do just as you say.” “Big Brother Yang, thank you,” said Cheng Ying. She held out her right hand, palm up. Yang Guo struck her palm lightly with his own, then turned his hand palm up. Cheng Ying struck his palm lightly in her turn and turned her hand over, and Yang Guo patted her palm once more. This was what was called the three palm strikes, the Song people’s way of swearing an oath: once the palms had been struck three times, nothing said or promised could ever be taken back.

“That silly shijie of mine is very simple and honest,” said Cheng Ying. “She would never tell a lie. But her mind is clouded, and some things get terribly muddled in it. She may well have got this wrong. I’m not asking you to give up your revenge. I only ask that before you act, you think three times and remember what I’ve told you. Could you have the wrong enemy? And if you have the wrong man, what then? All I ask is that you promise me this: when the moment comes to strike, you will think it through clearly first. Once that blow is struck, there can be no taking it back.” “Little sister,” said Yang Guo, “you say this for my own good. It is advice worth its weight in gold and jade, and I will keep it in my heart and never go against it.”

“Big Brother Yang,” said Cheng Ying, “take good care of yourself. For a great matter like revenge, ten years is not too late. There’s no need to fight for it this very morning or evening. Wait ten more years, and your martial arts will have grown by ten years while your enemy will have aged by ten. If you can’t take your revenge this year, in ten years, in twenty, it will be easy! By then your enemy will be waning while you are waxing. We must make certain of success, certain of victory, and above all we must not have the wrong enemy. Beware of mistakes, and beware of haste.” Yang Guo nodded. “Right! Right! My little sister is so clever.” He held out his arms and gave her the lightest of embraces, barely touching her. Cheng Ying suddenly blushed scarlet, and her eyes were full of tenderness.

Yang Guo stood dazed for a long moment. Then, with a wave of his hand, he went out, swung himself onto his lean horse and clamped his legs tight. The horse shot forward, and in the blink of an eye it was several hundred feet away. He rode on at a headlong gallop and covered dozens of li in a little over a shichen.⁴ Suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his lips. He put up a hand to touch them, and it came away covered in blood. In his grief and fury he had clamped his lips so hard that he had bitten through both the upper and the lower. He thought, Auntie Guo was never good to me to begin with. If she suddenly turned kind lately, it was all a sham, and I can let that pass. But Uncle Guo, Uncle Guo… In his heart he had always revered Guo Jing beyond anyone. He had thought him a man of matchless virtue and martial arts, and sincere through and through in his treatment of Yang Guo himself. Only now did he learn how badly he had been deceived, and it seemed to him that this man was even more treacherous than Huang Rong.

When his thoughts reached the most painful point, he got down from his horse, sat in the middle of the high road, put his head in his hands and wept bitterly. He had never once laid eyes on his father, and even his mother had never said a word about him. But ever since he was a small boy he had dreamed, and in his small heart he had long since made his father perfect in every way, the finest man in all the world. And this man, a hero and a man of valour, had been done to death by Guo Jing and Huang Rong, and had died so wretched a death.

He had wept for a while when he heard hoofbeats. Four horses came galloping from the north, and on them rode Mongol warriors. The leader held a long spear, and spitted on its head was a baby of two or three, and he came on roaring with laughter. The baby was not quite dead and was still crying feebly. The four Mongol warriors were a little surprised to see Yang Guo sitting in the road weeping and wailing, but ragged Han youths like him were everywhere and they paid him no mind. “Out of the way, out of the way,” one of them shouted, and he thrust his spear at him.

Yang Guo was in no mood for it. He grabbed the spearhead and wrenched, pulling the warrior from his horse, and with the same movement he reversed the spear and swept it sideways. The man flew a good ten feet and fell dead, his skull smashed. Seeing such fearsome prowess, the other three gave a shout, wheeled their horses together and fled back the way they had come. There was a smack, and the baby landed in the road.

Yang Guo picked him up. It was a Han child, plump and fair and very sweet. The spear had gone into his belly. He would not die at once, but nothing could save him now. His little mouth was going “ah, ah, ah”, as if he were still calling for his mama. Amid his own grief, pity welled up in Yang Guo, and holding the half-dead child he wept again. Seeing that the boy was in unbearable pain, he killed him with a gentle blow of his palm. Then he took the Mongol warrior’s spear and began digging a hole in the ground to bury him.

He had dug barely a dozen strokes when there was a sudden thunder of hooves, and amid the blare of horns a great body of Mongol troops came charging down on him. Holding the dead baby in his left arm and the long spear in his right, Yang Guo mounted. The lean horse was a warhorse of many campaigns, and at the sight of battle lines its spirit soared. With a long neigh it charged at the Mongols. Yang Guo’s spear rose and fell, and he speared three or four men from their saddles one after another. But the enemy kept pouring in beyond counting, so he wheeled his horse and fled into the wilds. Arrows came at his back like a swarm of locusts, and he swept them aside one by one with the spear. The lean horse was astonishingly fast, and in a moment it had left the pursuers behind, but still it did not stop, and went on flying across the wasteland.

A while later, seeing that night was coming on, Yang Guo reined in and gazed into the distance. All around, the long grass came up to his shins, strange rocks crowded in on him and the evening mist spread grey and boundless. All was hushed, without a human sound, and there was not so much as a crow or a sparrow.

He got down from his horse, still holding the dead baby. The child’s face looked as if he were still alive, but it was twisted in terrible pain. Yang Guo’s heart was heavy with sorrow. He thought, This child’s father and mother must have loved him as dearly as their own lives. The child is dead and feels nothing now, but his parents will be broken-hearted. With these savage, brutal Mongol soldiers sweeping south in force, who knows how many grown men and little children they will kill along the way? The more he thought, the harder it was to bear. He dug a hole beside a big tree and buried the child. Then Shagu’s words came back to him, and he thought, This child is dead, but at least he has me to bury him. My father ended in the crows’ beaks. Ah, since you killed him, what harm would it have done to put him in the earth? What a vicious heart! If I don’t avenge this, I, Yang Guo, swear I’m no man.

That night he slept up a big tree. The next morning he mounted and let the lean horse amble where it pleased among the wild hills and lonely ridges. One moment he thought of going back to the Ancient Tomb to see Xiaolongnü. The next he thought that whatever happened he must first kill Guo Jing and Huang Rong to avenge his father. When he was hungry, he picked wild fruit to fill his belly.

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On the fourth day he suddenly saw, in the distance, a man leaping high into the air to pick fruit from a wild fruit tree. His movements were light and nimble, and his martial arts were clearly no mean thing. Yang Guo rode closer and saw that it was State Preceptor Jinlun’s disciple, Da’erba.⁵ Each leap won him only a single fruit, and at last he lost patience. He swung his arm and struck the trunk a few times, and with a loud crack the tree snapped in the middle. He stripped it of every fruit and stuffed them all into the front of his robe.

Yang Guo thought, Can State Preceptor Jinlun be somewhere near? He had never had any real quarrel with the State Preceptor. Now that he was convinced Guo Jing and Huang Rong had killed his father, he even regretted having sided with them against the State Preceptor that day. He followed quietly behind Da’erba to see what was what. Da’erba strode along as if flying, heading straight into a fold of the hills. Yang Guo dismounted and followed on foot at a distance. He saw Da’erba turn into the depths of the woods and climb higher and higher, and so he followed him up a mountain peak.

Footnotes

1. 姑姑 – gūgu. Literally paternal aunt; a child’s word for a woman of her father’s generation. Yang Guo uses the same word to address Xiaolongnü, his shifu. ↩

2. 郭靖 – Guō Jìng. His name meaning “tranquillity” or “pacification”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 黄蓉 – Huáng Róng. Her name meaning “lotus” or “hibiscus”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 时辰 – shíchen. A traditional Chinese time unit; one twelfth of a day, equal to two modern hours. ↩

5. 达尔巴 – Dá’ěrbā. State Preceptor Jinlun’s second disciple. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩