The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 17 – Part 2

At these words Gongsun Lü’e’s eyes reddened. “Father used to cherish me very much. But ever since Mother died, when I was six, he has grown stricter and stricter with me. Now he is marrying my new mother, and I do not know how he will treat me after that.” Two tears ran down as she spoke. “Your father will be happy once he’s married,” said Yang Guo, to comfort her. “He’s sure to treat you even better.” Lü’e shook her head. “I would rather he were harsher still than have him marry a new mother.”

Yang Guo had lost his parents young and did not really understand such feelings. Meaning to cheer her up, he said, “I’m sure your new mother isn’t half as pretty as you.” “There you are quite wrong,” Lü’e said quickly. “My new mother is a real beauty. Father has, for her sake… for her sake… Yesterday we caught that old man surnamed Zhou and brought him back, and if Father had not been so busy arranging the wedding, he would never have let the Old Urchin escape again.” Yang Guo was startled and delighted. “The Old Urchin has escaped again?” Lü’e’s fine brows knitted slightly. “Hasn’t he just?” Yang Guo had expected all along that, skilled as Zhou Botong was, the four disciples of the Passionless Valley would never hold him, fishing net or no.

They talked on for a while, and the morning sun climbed higher. Suddenly Lü’e started. “You must go back now,” she said. “Don’t let my shixiongs¹ see us talking together and tell my father.” Yang Guo felt a rush of pity for her plight. He took her hand in his left and patted the back of it gently with his right, to comfort her. Gratitude showed in Gongsun Lü’e’s eyes. She lowered her head, and suddenly her whole face was suffused with colour. Afraid that he would think of Xiaolongnü and set his finger throbbing again, Yang Guo hurried back to the stone hut where he was lodging.

Before he was even through the door, he heard Ma Guangzuo² yelling and grumbling. How could plain water and greens fill a man’s belly? And these petals, neither bitter nor sweet, were they meant for eating too? Wasn’t that murder for gain? Yin Kexi³ laughed. “Brother Ma, if you’ve any treasure on you, you’d better keep it well hidden. I fancy this Valley Master has designs on you.” Not realising he was being made fun of, Ma Guangzuo nodded hard in agreement. Yang Guo went in and saw several plates of passion flower petals heaped on the stone table, and everyone eating them with a pained face. When he thought that even that great monk, State Preceptor Jinlun, was suffering at the hands of the passion flower, he laughed to himself.

He picked up a cup of water and took a couple of sips. Footsteps sounded outside, and a man in green came in, cupped his hands and bowed. “The Valley Master invites the six honoured guests to meet him.”

The State Preceptor, Nimoxing⁴ and the rest were all grandmasters of their own schools. Wherever they went, their hosts came far out in person to welcome them, and even Kublai, Fourth Prince of the Great Mongol Empire, treated them with the greatest courtesy. Yet here, deep in this remote mountain valley, their host was treating them with such lordly rudeness. Every one of them was seething, and each thought, When we meet this damned Valley Master, we’ll teach him a lesson.

The six followed the man in green round towards the back of the mountain. When they had gone a li or so,⁵ they suddenly found before them a great bamboo grove, lush and green. Bamboo was very scarce in the north, and a grove this size rarer still. As the seven of them passed through the green bamboo, they caught wave after wave of faint fragrance, and at once all worldly cares fell away. Beyond the grove a pure scent came flooding over them, and before their eyes, as far as they could see, stretched nothing but narcissus. The ground was a shallow pool, no more than a foot deep, planted full of them. This too was a southern flower. How could it come to be growing on a mountaintop between the Pass and the Luo River?⁶ The State Preceptor thought, There must be hot springs or something of the sort under this peak, to make the ground so warm.

Wooden stakes stood in the pool every four or five feet. Their guide in green swayed lightly and went springing across from stake to stake, and the six did the same. Only Ma Guangzuo, heavy and clumsy and poor at qinggong, could not cover four or five feet in one stride, long as his stride was. After he had trodden several stakes flat, he gave up and simply waded across.

At the end of a path of bluestone flags they saw, far off on the shady side of the mountain, a huge stone house. As the seven drew near, they saw two boys in green standing before the door, horsetail whisks in hand. One went in to announce them. The other opened the door to the guests. Yang Guo wondered, Will the Valley Master come out to meet us? Before the thought had settled, an old man with a long beard and a green robe came out of the stone house.

The old man was extremely short, only four feet tall, with the five peaks of his face all jutting heavenward⁷ and features of a strange distinction. Strangest of all was a mass of beard that hung straight down until it almost touched the ground. He wore a robe of dark green cloth, tied at the waist with a green straw cord, and altogether looked most peculiar. Yang Guo thought, What an odd-looking creature this Valley Master is, and yet his daughter is so pretty. The old man bowed low to the six. “Honoured guests, what happiness that you have come. Please come in and take tea.” At the word “tea”, Ma Guangzuo frowned deeply. “Tea!” he bellowed. “Is there anywhere without tea? Why must we come all this way for it?” Not understanding what he meant, the long-bearded old man glanced at him and bowed the guests in.

Nimoxing thought, I’m a short man, but this Valley Master is shorter still. Short you may be, but we’ll see whose martial skill is stronger. He pushed to the front, held out his hand and said with a laugh, “A pleasure, a pleasure.” He took the old man’s hand and at once bore down with his strength. Seeing the two clasp hands, the others each stepped back a few paces, for when two great masters match strength it is no trifling matter.

Nimoxing put two tenths of his strength into his grip at first, and found the other man neither striking back nor resisting. Faintly surprised, he added another two tenths, and felt as though he were gripping a length of hard wood. He added two tenths more. A faint green tinge flickered across the old man’s face, but his hand stayed stiff as wood. Nimoxing was astonished. He did not dare put out the last few tenths of his strength, afraid that just as he was exerting it to the full, the other might suddenly strike back and he would be unable to withstand it. With a hearty laugh, he let go.

State Preceptor Jinlun came second. Seeing how it had gone with Nimoxing, he knew Nimoxing had failed to take the old man’s measure. With the other side’s strength still unknown, he thought, there was no call for him to show his hand rashly, and so he simply put his palms together and walked in with great dignity. Xiaoxiangzi⁸ and Yin Kexi followed one after the other, and Ma Guangzuo came after them. Ma Guangzuo saw the old man’s long beard trailing on the ground, a most peculiar sight. He had eaten nothing all morning, and the few passion flowers had only made him hungrier, so that now the fires of hunger and anger flared up together. As he went through the door, he suddenly thrust out his great foot and stamped on the old man’s beard, pinning its tip beneath his sole. The old man’s face did not change. “Mind your step, honoured guest.” Ma Guangzuo planted his other foot on the beard too. “What of it?” The old man gave a slight shake of his head, and Ma Guangzuo lost his footing and went crashing over backwards. A giant like him falling was no small event. Yang Guo, at the back, darted two steps forward, caught him on the backside with his palm and, putting force into it, bounced the huge body in through the door. Ma Guangzuo planted his feet and steadied himself, then stood rubbing his backside with both hands in bewilderment, and turned to nod his thanks to Yang Guo.

The old man behaved as though he had seen nothing. He seated the six on the west side of the great hall and announced in a ringing voice, “The honoured guests are here. Will the Valley Master receive them?” Yang Guo and the others were all taken aback. So the little man isn’t the Valley Master.

Some ten men and women in green came out from the back hall and lined up in a row on the left, Gongsun Lü’e among them. After another moment a man came out from behind the screen, bowed to the six, and sat down casually in a chair on the east side. The long-bearded old man stood beside his chair with his hands at his sides. From the man’s bearing, he could only be the Valley Master.

He was some forty-five or forty-six years old, handsome of feature and easy and elegant in his movements, with a light growth of hair on his upper lip and chin. Merely coming out into the hall, bowing once and sitting down, he carried himself with a lofty grandeur. Only his face was sallow as wax, and for all the fineness of his features it looked withered and faintly sickly. As soon as he sat down, several boys in green brought tea. Everything in the great hall ran to green, but the Valley Master’s robe was of brand-new sapphire-blue satin, very striking amid all that green, and cut in a style unlike the fashion of the day.

The Valley Master swept back his sleeve and raised his tea bowl. “Honoured guests, please take tea.” Ma Guangzuo saw that the tea was stone cold, with two or three leaves floating on top, and it was plain how weak it must be. He burst out, “Host, you grudge us meat and you grudge us tea. No wonder you look so sickly.” The Valley Master’s face did not move a muscle. He took a sip of tea. “For several hundred years this valley has kept to a meatless diet.” “And what good does that do?” said Ma Guangzuo. “Does it make you live for ever?” “Ever since my forebear moved to this valley to live in seclusion, in the time of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang,”⁹ said the Valley Master, “his descendants have never dared break the vow to abstain from meat.”

State Preceptor Jinlun cupped his hands. “So your honoured family has lived here since the Tianbao years. Your house has enjoyed its blessings long indeed.” The Valley Master cupped his hands in return. “You flatter me.”

Xiaoxiangzi suddenly spoke up in a weird, strangled voice. “Then did your ancestor ever see Yang Guifei?”¹⁰ The voice was most peculiar. Nimoxing, Yin Kexi and the others were used to the way he talked, and they all felt something was wrong and turned to look at his face. One look gave them a worse fright. His face had changed completely. He had been born with the face of a corpse, but now it looked eerier still. The State Preceptor, Nimoxing and the rest were secretly wary, and each thought, So the man’s neigong¹¹ is so formidable that it can change even his face. Is he secretly gathering his power, ready to strike at once and teach this Valley Master a lesson? With that thought, each of them stood on guard.

The Valley Master replied, “The first of my family to settle here did indeed hold office at the court of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang. Later, seeing Yang Guozhong¹² throw the government into disorder, he withdrew in disgust to live in seclusion.” Xiaoxiangzi gave a gurgling laugh. “Then your ancestor must have drunk Yang Guifei’s foot-washing water.”

At this, every face in the great hall changed colour. It was nothing less than a challenge to the Valley Master, and in a moment it would come to blows. The State Preceptor and the others were all surprised. Xiaoxiangzi is the craftiest of men and always lets others bear the brunt. What makes him charge to the front so boldly today?

The Valley Master ignored him and gave a flick of the hand to the long-bearded old man standing behind him. “The Valley Master honours you as guests and treats you with courtesy,” the old man said loudly. “How dare you talk such nonsense?”

Xiaoxiangzi gave another gurgling laugh and said in his weird voice, “Your old ancestor can’t have helped drinking Yang Guifei’s foot-washing water. If he didn’t, I’ll cut off my head and give it to you.” Ma Guangzuo was most puzzled. “Brother Xiaoxiang, how do you know? Were you drinking it with him that day?” Xiaoxiangzi roared with laughter, and his voice changed again. “If drinking foot-washing water hadn’t turned his stomach, why would he never touch meat or fish?” Ma Guangzuo clapped his hands and roared with laughter. “That’s it, that’s it, that must be the reason.”

The State Preceptor and the others, however, frowned deeply. They all felt Xiaoxiangzi had gone too far. Every man’s diet was his own affair, so why make fun of it? Besides, the six of them had come deep into the valley uninvited, and their host was under no obligation to feed them well. And plainly these people were no pushovers, so even if it came to a trial of skill, they ought not to burn their bridges.

The long-bearded old man could hold himself back no longer. He walked out into the middle of the hall. “Mister Xiaoxiang, our valley has done nothing to offend you. But since you are set on a trial of skill, please step out.” “Good!” said Xiaoxiangzi. Still sitting in his chair, he leapt chair and all over the table in front of him and landed with a thump in the middle of the hall. “Long-beard old man, what’s your name?” he cried. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours, so if we fight it’ll be most unfair. That’s one disadvantage I really can’t afford.” The words made a sort of sense and yet none, and the long-bearded old man grew angrier still, but having seen how lightly and nimbly Xiaoxiangzi had flown through the air chair and all, a feat far out of the ordinary, he grew warier too. “Tell him,” said the Valley Master. “It does no harm.”

“Very well,” said the long-bearded old man. “My surname is Fan, my name Yiweng.¹³ Now please stand up and show me your moves.” “What weapon do you use?” asked Xiaoxiangzi. “Bring it out and let me see it first.” “You want to fight with weapons?” said Fan Yiweng. “That suits me too.” He stamped his right foot. “Fetch it!” Two boys in green ran into the inner rooms and came out with a dragon-headed steel staff on their shoulders, some eleven feet long. Yang Guo and the others were all startled. A weapon that long and heavy, how can a little man like that wield it?

Footnotes

1. 师兄 – shīxiōng. Male senior. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Xiōng means older brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 麻光佐 – Má Guāngzuǒ. His name meaning “bright assistance”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 尹克西 – Yǐn Kèxī. His name meaning “overcome the west”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 尼摩星 – Nímóxīng. Indian martial artist in Mongol service. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 里 – lǐ. Traditional Chinese unit of distance, approximately one-third of a mile or five hundred metres. ↩

6. 关洛之间 – Between the Pass and the Luo River. Guān Luò zhījiān. Refers to the region between Tong Pass (潼关) and the Luo River (洛水), roughly the area where Shaanxi and Henan provinces meet. Historically strategic region. ↩

7. 五岳朝天 – Five prominences reaching toward heaven. Wǔyuè cháotiān. Physiognomic term describing a face where the forehead, nose, chin, and both cheekbones are prominent and upward-tending, considered an unusual and striking appearance in Chinese face-reading tradition. ↩

8. 潇湘子 – Xiāoxiāng Zǐ. Literally Master of the Xiao and Xiang rivers. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 唐玄宗 – Táng Xuánzōng. Reigned 712—756 CE. His reign marked both the peak of Tang dynasty culture and the catastrophic An Lushan Rebellion. Tianbao (天宝) era (742—756) was the latter period of his reign, associated with his infatuation with Yang Guifei and the subsequent decline of the dynasty. ↩

10. 杨贵妃 – Yáng Guìfēi. Imperial Consort Yang (719–756 CE), one of the Four Great Beauties of ancient China. She was originally the wife of Emperor Xuanzong’s son before the emperor took her as his own consort. ↩

11. 内功 – nèigōng. Literally internal skill. Practice of developing neili through breathing, meditation and qi cultivation. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 杨国忠 – Yáng Guózhōng. (d. 756). Cousin of Yang Guifei who rose to become Chancellor of the Tang dynasty. His corruption and incompetence, combined with his rivalry with General An Lushan, helped trigger the catastrophic An Lushan Rebellion. ↩

13. 樊一翁 – Fán Yīwēng. His name meaning “Fan, the one old man”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩