The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 16 – Part 7

Zhou Botong was overjoyed. He clapped his hands and got to his feet, then suddenly his face fell and he sat down again. “Oh, no good,” he said. “I have to go to Xiangyang.” Yang Guo said, “What’s so much fun about Xiangyang? Better not go.” Zhou Botong said, “Brother Guo left me a letter at the Lu Family Manor saying the great Mongol army is coming south and is sure to attack Xiangyang. He’s taking the men of valour of the Central Plains there to help, and he wants me to come and lend a hand too. I’ve been looking for him all along the way without finding him, so I’ll just have to chase after him to Xiangyang.”

Kublai and State Preceptor Jinlun exchanged a glance, and both thought, So the martial men of the Central Plains are flocking to Xiangyang to help defend the city.

Just then a monk came in through the tent door. He was about forty, with the refined looks of a Confucian, and his manner and bearing were all those of a scholar. He went to Kublai’s side, and the two of them exchanged a few whispered words. This monk was a Han whose Dharma name was Zicong, and he was Kublai’s chief adviser. His lay name was Liu Kan, and he was also known as Liu Bingzhong. As a young man he had been a clerk in a county office before leaving home to become a monk. He was deeply learned and shrewd and careful in judging affairs, and Kublai trusted him greatly. The guards had reported to him that some extraordinary person had arrived in the prince’s tent, and he had come in at once.

Zhou Botong patted his belly. “Monk, move over a bit. I’m talking to my young brother here. Hey, Young Brother, what’s your name?” “My surname is Yang and my name is Guo,” said Yang Guo. “Who is your shifu?” said Zhou Botong. Yang Guo said, “My shifu is a woman. She’s as beautiful as she is skilled in martial arts, and she won’t let anyone speak her name.”

Zhou Botong shivered. What woman under heaven, he thought, was so marvellously beautiful and so skilled in martial arts besides, if not his old flame Yinggu?¹ He dared not ask any more. He stood up and flapped his sleeves to beat the dust from his clothes, and at once the whole tent was full of flying dust. Zicong could not help sneezing twice. Zhou Botong was tickled and flapped his sleeves all the harder. Then suddenly he laughed aloud. “I’m off!” His left hand flicked, and the four broken spearheads shot at Xiaoxiangzi, Nimoxing, Yin Kexi and Ma Guangzuo. Whistling as they split the air, the four spearheads flew with astonishing speed, and with so little distance to cover they were before the four men’s eyes in an instant.

Xiaoxiangzi and the others started. Seeing there was no time to dodge, each could only put out his inner force to catch his spearhead. But the four hands reached out and all four closed on empty air. With a loud thunk, the four spearheads drove into the earth before the four men. The force of the throw had been released and recalled in the same breath, so that just as the spearheads reached the four men, they suddenly swerved and plunged into the ground. Ma Guangzuo, being a simple soul, only found it funny and roared with laughter. “White Beard,” he shouted, “you’re full of tricks.” But Xiaoxiangzi and the other two were badly shaken and could not help changing colour. Each of them thought that when he missed that catch and the spearhead swerved, his life had in truth been in the other man’s hands. Had the spearhead not turned down into the earth but driven into his belly instead, with all the savage force of that throw behind it, what chance would he have had of living?

Having made fools of the four of them, Zhou Botong was hugely pleased with himself and could not stop laughing. When he reached the tent door, a childish whim suddenly seized him. He chopped at the tent pole with his palm, the pole snapped with a crack, and the great oxhide tent came tumbling down, covering Kublai, State Preceptor Jinlun, Yang Guo and all the rest. Zhou Botong was overjoyed. He leapt onto the tent and ran back and forth over it, trampling every one of them underneath. From inside the tent State Preceptor Jinlun struck out with his palm and caught him squarely on the sole of the foot. Zhou Botong felt a tremendous force surge up at him that he could not withstand, and he went head over heels off the tent. “What fun, what fun!” he cried, and off he went without a backward glance.

By the time the State Preceptor and the others had shielded Kublai and crawled out, and the guards had all pitched in to set up a new pole and raise the tent again, Zhou Botong was long gone. The State Preceptor, Xiaoxiangzi and the others all begged Kublai’s pardon, ashamed that they had guarded him so poorly and let His Highness be disturbed. Kublai did not mind in the least. On the contrary, he could not stop praising Zhou Botong’s skill and said what a pity it was that such an extraordinary man could not be drawn into his service. The State Preceptor and the others all looked abashed.

Kublai said, “Our great Mongol army has attacked Xiangyang several times and never managed to take it. Now the men of valour of the Central Plains are gathering to defend the city, and this Zhou Botong is going to help them too. That makes it a thorny business. Have any of you a clever plan?” Yin Kexi said, “Strong as Zhou Botong’s martial arts may be, we are not necessarily any weaker. Let Your Highness attack the city as planned. Soldier against soldier, general against general: if the Central Plains has its heroes, the Western Regions has its able men too.” Kublai said, “True enough. But the Han books of war say, ‘He who wins in the temple reckoning before the battle has made many calculations. Many calculations bring victory; few bring defeat.’² Before the army advances, we must have the whole plan worked out.” Zicong said, “Your Highness’s view is most wise…”

Before he had finished, someone outside the tent shouted, “I’ve told you I’m not going, and I’m not going. Coax me or drag me, it’s no use at all.” It was Zhou Botong, yelling and bawling. Nobody knew why he had come back after leaving, or whom he was talking to. Their curiosity aroused, everyone wanted to go out and look. Kublai laughed. “Let’s all go and see. Heaven knows whom the Old Urchin is making mischief with now.”

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Everyone stepped out of the tent. Far off, Zhou Botong was standing on an open stretch of ground to the west. Four people stood at the south, the west, the north-west and the north, ringing him round in an arc but leaving the east open. Zhou Botong was waving his arms and shaking his fists. “Not going, not going!” he shouted. Yang Guo wondered, If he doesn’t want to go, who could make him? Why all this squabbling? He looked at the four. All wore the same green robes, of a strange, antique cut quite unlike the fashion of the day. The three men were all of middle years and wore tall hats. The one standing at the north-west was a young girl, a green silk sash at her waist fluttering in the wind.

The man standing to the north was saying, “We certainly mean you no trouble. But since you kicked over the elixir furnace, broke the lingzhi,³ tore up the Daoist books and set fire to the sword chamber, we have no choice but to ask you to come and explain yourself to our shifu in person. Otherwise our shifu will blame us, and we disciples cannot bear the blame.” Zhou Botong grinned impishly. “Just tell him some wild old man was passing by and made a mess without meaning to. Won’t that do?” The man said, “So you are quite determined not to come?” Zhou Botong shook his head.

The man pointed to the east. “Ah, good, good, here he comes.” Zhou Botong turned to look, but there was no one there. The man made a sign, and suddenly the four of them pulled open a great green fishing net and dropped it over Zhou Botong’s head. They handled it with consummate skill and in the strangest way imaginable, and for all Zhou Botong’s godlike martial arts, once the net was over him he was helpless. All anyone could hear was his yelling and squawking and calling on his mother and father, while the four of them carried the net this way and that round him and trussed him up tight. One of the men slung him over his shoulder, the other three guarding him on either side with jians in hand, and they raced away to the east.

Yang Guo had meant to do away with Zhou Botong in secret, but only to help his revenge, and the wicked thought had flashed through his mind and gone. He had no quarrel with the Old Urchin and found him as innocent as a child, so he had a mind to make friends with him instead. Seeing Zhou Botong taken, he thought, I must save him. He drew up his breath and gave chase, shouting, “Hey, hey! Where are you taking him? Let him go at once.”

Kublai gave a low instruction. “State Preceptor, this Mister Zhou is a man of real talent. It would be best to win him over, and not let him go and help hold Xiangyang and strengthen the other side.” “Yes,” the State Preceptor answered. “I will follow and see, and act as the moment allows.” Nimoxing and the others were eager to go too, and at once they hurried after him.

After running several li⁴ they caught up with Yang Guo and came to the bank of a stream. There they saw the four carry Zhou Botong aboard a boat, two of them take the oars, and row away upstream. “This old man is my friend,” Yang Guo shouted. “Let him go at once!” Everyone chased along the bank. After a li or so they saw a small boat in the stream and at once got into it. Ma Guangzuo, who was immensely strong, took the oars and rowed, and in no time they had gained several dozen feet. But the stream wound to and fro, and after a few bends the boat ahead suddenly vanished from sight.

Nimoxing sprang out of the boat onto the cliff and in a flash had climbed more than a hundred feet like an ape. He gazed all round and saw that the green-clad people’s boat had turned into a very narrow stream to the west. Its mouth was hidden behind a great thicket of trees, and but for looking down from a height, no one would ever have guessed that this deep valley held a hidden world of its own. He leapt back into the boat and pointed the way. Everyone hurriedly turned the boat round, rowed back the way they had come and pushed in through the thicket. The rock roof of the stream’s tunnel was no more than three feet above the water, and they had to lie flat in the bottom of the boat before it could pass. They rowed on a while. On either side the mountains rose sheer as walls, and when they looked up, only a thread of sky remained. The hills were green and the water clear, and the scene was hushed and lovely beyond words, yet all around there was not a sound, and something faintly menacing hung over it all. When they had rowed another three or four li, nine great rocks suddenly reared up before them in the middle of the stream like a screen, barring the boat’s way. There were narrow gaps between the rocks, just wide enough for the water to flow through.

Ma Guangzuo was the first to cry out. “Damn, damn, we can’t row this boat any further.” Xiaoxiangzi said in his sinister way, “You’ve the strength of an ox. Lift the boat over, then.” Ma Guangzuo said angrily, “I’m not that strong, unless you, you walking corpse, work some sorcery.”

Before the two of them began to squabble, State Preceptor Jinlun had already been turning it over, How did that little boat get past these nine stone screens? Hearing what they said, he spoke up. “No one could lift this boat by his own strength alone, whoever he is, but if the six of us join forces, it can be done. Brother Yang, Brother Yin and I will take one side, and Brother Ni, Brother Xiaoxiang and Brother Ma the other. What do you say we all heave together?”

Everyone agreed with one voice. Following his arrangement, the six took their places on either side, each finding a firm foothold on the rocks. Luckily the stream was very narrow, and standing on the two sides they could easily reach out and grip the boat’s gunwales. “Lift!” called the State Preceptor, and all six heaved at once. Of the six, only Yang Guo and Yin Kexi were the weaker. Each of the other four had the strength of several men, and Ma Guangzuo’s was nothing short of superhuman. With a sucking plop the little boat came out of the water and was over the screen of nine great rocks.

Everyone jumped back aboard and clapped and laughed together. These six had been scheming against one another and harboured no little hostility among themselves, but after pulling together like this they naturally grew a little closer.

Xiaoxiangzi said, “Our martial arts may be nothing much, but the six of us can still be counted among the first-rank masters of the wulin. For six of us together to lift a small boat is no great feat, after all. But…” Nimoxing broke in, “Four green clothes men and women, martial arts all muddly-headed, how they carry little boat over big rocks?” Five of the six had already been privately wondering the same thing. Only Ma Guangzuo was still puzzling over what “martial arts all muddly-headed” was supposed to mean. Nimoxing said, “Their boat small, their people… people… four people… also few. Four people can do… do this, their strength must be… be good.” Yin Kexi said, “The three men may be one thing, but that dainty girl of seventeen or eighteen could never have done it. There must be some contrivance in these rocks that we just can’t guess at for the moment.”

The State Preceptor smiled faintly. “You can’t judge a man by his looks. Take our Brother Yang here. He is so young, yet he carries martial arts of the very highest order. Had we not seen it with our own eyes, who would have believed it?” Yang Guo said modestly, “I’m a mere beginner and a latecomer. What is there to say about me? But since those four in green could truss up Zhou Botong and carry him off, they must have something out of the ordinary.” His words were humble, but in speaking them he was already calling Xiaoxiangzi and the other famous first-rank masters his brothers. They had all seen with their own eyes how he caught Zhou Botong’s flying plate on one finger, and none of them looked down on him any more. Finding sense in what he said, they all began to guess.

Of these six, Yang Guo was young, the State Preceptor had long been in Mongolia, Ma Guangzuo and Nimoxing had always lived in the Western Regions, and Xiaoxiangzi had trained alone in the wild hills and never mixed with outsiders. Only Yin Kexi knew a great deal about the schools, the people and the martial arts of the Central Plains wulin, yet even he could not call to mind the faintest clue to where these four in green had come from. As they talked, they reached the end of the stream. The six left the boat, went ashore and set off along a narrow path into the depths of the valley.

Footnotes

1. 瑛姑 – Yīnggū. Her name meaning “Jade Maiden”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 庙算 – Miào Suàn. Concept from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, referring to the strategic planning done in the ancestral temple before a military campaign. Kublai’s quotation demonstrates his deep study of Chinese military classics. ↩

3. 灵芝 – língzhī. Rare fungus prized in traditional Chinese medicine; specimens of a thousand years or more were believed to greatly increase neili. ↩

4. 里 – lǐ. Traditional Chinese unit of distance, approximately 500 metres or a third of a mile. ↩