The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 17

Deep in Heartless Valley

Yang Guo¹ woke the next morning and stepped out of the stone hut. In last night’s darkness he had seen little. Now he found the grass and trees all around so green they seemed to drip, and the flowers spread like brocade. The whole way here had been lovely country, but this was beauty of a rarer order. He wandered on at random. By the path stood two or three cranes, white deer moved in herds, and there were squirrels and young rabbits, none of which shied at the sight of a man.

Two bends further on, the girl in green was picking flowers by the wayside. Seeing him come, she called a greeting. “You are up early, sir. Please, have some breakfast.” With that she picked two flowers from the tree and handed them to him.

Yang Guo took the flowers, wondering to himself, Can flowers really be eaten? But the girl was plucking off the petals one by one and putting them in her mouth, so he followed her example and ate a few. They were fragrant and sweet on the tongue, sweet as honey, with a faint, heady breath of wine, and he was just feeling his heart and spirit lift when, after a few chews, a bitter, astringent taste came through. He wanted to spit it out, yet could not quite bring himself to. He wanted to swallow it, yet it would hardly go down. Looking closely at the tree, he saw its branches and leaves covered in tiny thorns, while the petals were of a colour lovely beyond compare, like a rose but more fragrant, like a camellia but more vivid. “What flower is this?” he asked. “I have never seen it before.” “It is called the passion flower,”² said the girl. “They say there is little of it in the world. Did you like the taste?”

“Very sweet at first, but bitter after,” said Yang Guo. “This is called the passion flower? An unusual name.” He reached out to pick another. “Careful!” said the girl. “The tree has thorns. Don’t touch them!” Yang Guo kept clear of the sharp thorns on the branches and placed his hand with great care, but more small thorns were hidden on the backs of the flowers, and he pricked his finger all the same. “This valley is called the Passionless Valley,”³ said the girl, “and yet so many passion flowers grow in it.” “Why is it called the Passionless Valley?” asked Yang Guo. “It is truly… truly an uncommon name.” The girl shook her head. “I do not know what it means either. The name has come down from our ancestors. Perhaps Father knows where it comes from.”

“Passion can never be cut off,” said Yang Guo. “The valley is called Passionless because someone wanted to cut love away. But passion comes with life. Wherever there are people, there is passion, and that is why the Passionless Valley, of all places, is full of passion flowers.” The girl rested her chin on her hand and thought for a moment. “That is a wonderful explanation,” she said. “How are you so clever?” Her admiration was entirely sincere. Yang Guo smiled. “Perhaps I have it wrong.” The girl clapped her hands. “You must be right, you must be right. It could not be better put.”

The two of them walked side by side, talking. Waves of fragrance drifted to Yang Guo, and white rabbits and fawns bounded back and forth beside the path, utterly charming. His heart felt light and open beyond words, and quite naturally his thoughts turned to Xiaolongnü.⁴ If the one walking beside me were my aunt, I would gladly live here for ever and never leave the valley again.⁵ The thought had barely formed when the prick on his finger flared with sudden pain. The wound was tiny, yet the pain was savage, as if someone had suddenly struck him in the chest with a great iron hammer. He could not help crying out, “Ah!”, and he quickly put the finger in his mouth and sucked it.

The girl said coolly, “You were thinking of the one you love, weren’t you?” Yang Guo blushed at having his secret guessed. “Eh? How did you know?” he asked in surprise. “If you are pricked by a passion flower thorn,” said the girl, “you must not let your thoughts turn to love for twelve shichen,⁶⁷ or the pain will be past bearing.” Yang Guo was astonished. “Can there really be such a strange thing under heaven?” “My father says that love is just like this,” said the girl. “Sweet in the mouth and bitter in the aftertaste, and covered all over in thorns. However careful you are, you cannot help being hurt by it. Most likely people gave the flower its name because it has these qualities.” The day before, Yang Guo had agreed to help her deal with Zhou Botong,⁸ and she had taken a liking to him, so she spoke to him in a friendly way, though she could not quite shake off a certain coldness.

“Then why must one not… not… think of love for twelve shichen?” asked Yang Guo. “Father says the passion flower’s thorns are poisonous,” said the girl. “Whenever a person’s thoughts turn to love and desire, not only does the blood run faster, but something, nobody knows what, is produced in it. The poison from the thorns does a person no harm ordinarily, but the moment it meets this something in the blood, the pain is past bearing.” Yang Guo thought there was some sense in this, and half believed it, half doubted it.

The two strolled on to the sunny side of the mountain. The sun shone full there and the ground was warm, so the passion flowers had bloomed early and were already in fruit. The fruits were green or red, some mottled with both, and covered in fine fuzz, just like caterpillars. “How lovely the passion flower is,” said Yang Guo, “and how ugly its fruit.” “The fruit cannot be eaten,” said the girl. “Some are sour, some are hot, and some stink so foully they turn the stomach.” Yang Guo smiled. “Are there none as sweet as honey?”

The girl glanced at him. “There are, but you cannot tell from the skin. Some of the very ugliest are sweet, yet the ugly ones are not always sweet either. You only know by tasting. Nine fruits in ten are bitter, so no one ever bothers to eat them.” Yang Guo thought, She speaks of passion flowers, but she seems to mean the love between a man and a woman. Is it that the taste of longing, sweet at first, must always turn bitter in the end? That when a man and a woman give their hearts to each other, their longing must torment them half to death? That in the end there is always more ugliness than beauty? Is it that my own aching love for Aunt will one day…

The instant he thought of Xiaolongnü, several stabs of pain shot through his finger again, and his right arm jerked violently. Only then did he know the girl had told him no more than the truth. Seeing him like this, the corners of her mouth twitched as if she wanted to laugh, but she held it back. The morning sun slanted across her face, and he saw how fine and clear her features were, her skin white with a flush of pink, lovely indeed. Yang Guo laughed. “I once heard a story about some king in ancient times who lit the beacon fires to make fools of his lords and threw away his whole fair realm, all to win one smile from a peerless beauty.⁹ So you see, a smile has always been hard to come by, now as in ancient times.” Teased like this, the girl could hold back no longer. She gave a little giggle and laughed outright at last.

With that laugh, most of the stiffness between them melted away at once. “All the world knows how rare a beauty’s smile is,” Yang Guo went on, “that one smile topples a city and a second topples a kingdom.¹⁰ But in truth there is one thing rarer still than a beauty’s smile.” The girl’s eyes widened. “What is that?” “Her name,” said Yang Guo. “To see a beauty’s face even once takes great good fortune. To see her smile sweetly, your ancestors must have stored up virtue, and you yourself must have cultivated your own through three lifetimes…” Before he had finished, the girl was giggling again. Yang Guo went on with a perfectly straight face, “As for hearing a beauty speak her own fair name, that takes eighteen generations of ancestors piling up hidden merit.”¹¹

“I am no beauty,” said the girl. “No one in this valley has ever said I was. Why must you make fun of me?” Yang Guo heaved a long sigh. “Ah, no wonder it is called the Passionless Valley. But if you ask me, it would be better to change the name.” “To what?” said the girl. “It ought to be called the Valley of the Blind.” “Why?” asked the girl, puzzled. “You are so lovely, and no one here praises you. Must they not all be blind, the people who live in this valley?”

The girl gave another sweet giggle. She was certainly a beauty, though nowhere near Xiaolongnü. Yet beside Cheng Ying’s¹² gentleness or Lu Wushuang’s¹³ pert charm she seemed to lose nothing, and weighing them in his mind, Yang Guo thought her pure refinement outshone Wanyan Ping.¹⁴ She was graceful and quite unworldly, with a clear, ethereal air all her own. It was true that no one had ever praised her looks. The arts her school practised were close to Chan meditation, and when its members met they were cold and expressionless. However lovely anyone privately thought her, no one would ever have dared to say so. Today she had suddenly met Yang Guo, quick and irrepressible by nature, and the more grave and self-contained he found her, the more he wanted to tease her out of that unfeeling manner that held everyone at arm’s length. She had already admired his insight when he explained the name of the Passionless Valley, and now, hearing him praise her so sincerely, she was more pleased still. “I am afraid you are the blind one,” she laughed, “taking a hideous fright for a beauty.”

Yang Guo kept a straight face. “I may be mistaken. But if this valley is to stay at peace, you really must not laugh.” “Why?” asked the girl, puzzled. “The ancients said one smile topples a man’s city and a second topples his kingdom. In fact they wrote the wrong word. It is not ‘kingdom’, it should be ‘valley’.”¹⁵ The girl bent a little at the waist, laughing. “Thank you. Please stop teasing me, won’t you?” Seeing her slender waist sway and her body tremble with laughter, Yang Guo felt his heart stir in spite of himself. The stirring would have mattered little, but at once another stab of pain shot through his fingertip.

Seeing him shake his finger again and again, the girl was a little put out. “I am talking to you,” she said crossly, “and you go off thinking about the one you love.” “You wrong me, you wrong me,” said Yang Guo. “It is for you my finger hurts, and now you blame me for it.” The girl flushed scarlet, and suddenly took to her heels.

The words were no sooner out than Yang Guo regretted them. My heart is set on Aunt alone, so why can’t I ever mend this unruly, wayward streak? Yang Guo, Yang Guo, you little wretch, stop talking such nonsense. In truth he had inherited a fair measure of his father’s flippant roguery. He meant no harm by it, but bantering with every girl he met, flirting a little and leaving her heart in a flutter, was something he delighted in.

The girl had run several dozen feet when she stopped short beneath a passion flower tree and stood there with her head bowed, lost in thought. After a while she turned and smiled. “If a hideous fright told you her name, it would surely mean your ancestors for eighteen generations had done so much evil that their descendant must pay for it.” Yang Guo went up to her, laughing. “You do love to turn things on their head. My ancestors for eighteen generations did so many good deeds that, now it comes down to me, good must surely be rewarded with good.” These words were still praising her beauty. She blushed faintly and said in a low voice, “Then I will tell you. But you must not tell anyone else, and still less call me by it in front of others.” Yang Guo stuck out his tongue. “Take liberties with a beauty, and risk my line dying out?”¹⁶

The girl gave another sweet smile. “My father’s double surname is Gongsun…”¹⁷ Even now she would not simply say her name, but had to come at it by a roundabout way. Yang Guo broke in. “But I wonder what your surname might be, Miss?” The girl pursed her lips in a smile. “That I could not say. My father gave his only daughter a name, and the name he gave her was Lü’e.”¹⁸ “Just as I thought,” said Yang Guo admiringly. “The name is as lovely as the girl.”

Having told Yang Guo her name, Gongsun Lü’e felt a little closer to him. “Father will be asking to see you presently,” she said. “You must not smile at me.” “And if I do?” asked Yang Guo. Gongsun Lü’e sighed. “Ah, if he knew I had smiled at you, and told you my name, I really do not know how he would punish me.” “I never heard of so stern a father,” said Yang Guo, “that his daughter may not even smile at someone. A daughter lovely as a flower and fair as jade, and he does not cherish her?”

Footnotes

1. 杨过 – Yáng Guò. His name meaning “fault or transgression”; his courtesy name Gaizhi means “to correct it”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 情花 – Qínghuā. Flower of the Passionless Valley whose thorns poison those who entertain thoughts of love. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 绝情谷 – Juéqíng Gǔ. Hidden valley ruled by Gongsun Zhi, known for its deadly Passion Flowers and the Passionless Divine Palm technique. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 小龙女 – Xiǎolóngnǚ. Literally little dragon maiden. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 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. ↩

6. 时辰 – shíchén. Traditional Chinese unit of time equal to two hours; the day was divided into twelve shichen. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 十二个时辰 – Twelve shichen. Shí’èr ge shíchén. Full day in traditional Chinese timekeeping. One shíchén equals two modern hours, so twelve shíchén is twenty-four hours. ↩

8. 周伯通 – Zhōu Bótōng. His name meaning “elder who understands all”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 烧烽火戏弄诸侯 – Beacon fires to toy with feudal lords. Reference to King You of Zhou (周幽王), who repeatedly lit beacon fires to summon his feudal lords with false alarms of invasion, solely to amuse his favourite consort Bao Si, who never smiled. When real invaders came, no lords responded, and the Western Zhou dynasty fell. ↩

10. 一笑倾城，再笑倾国 – One smile topples a city, a second smile topples a kingdom. Yī xiào qīng chéng, zài xiào qīng guó. Idiom describing a woman of devastating beauty. Originates from the Book of Han, describing the Han dynasty consort Li Furen. ↩

11. 祖宗十八代广积阴功 – Eighteen generations of ancestors building hidden merit. Hyperbolic expression meaning extraordinary accumulated good karma across many generations. In Chinese folk belief, hidden merit (yīngōng, 阴功) refers to good deeds done in secret, which bring blessings to one’s descendants. ↩

12. 程英 – Chéng Yīng. Her name meaning “heroine” or “outstanding”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 陆无双 – Lù Wúshuāng. Her name meaning “peerless” or “without equal”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 完颜萍 – Wányán Píng. Her name meaning “duckweed”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 倾国 vs 倾谷 – The wrong character – ‘kingdom’ should be ‘valley’. Pun by Yang Guo. Idiom is 倾国倾城 (qīng guó qīng chéng), where 国 (guó) means “kingdom.” Yang Guo substitutes the near-homophone 谷 (gǔ), meaning “valley,” teasingly suggesting that Gongsun Lü’e’s smile could topple the Passionless Valley itself. ↩

16. 不怕绝子绝孙么 – Afraid of having my line cut off. Bù pà juézǐ juésūn ma. Literally “not afraid of cutting off sons and grandsons.” A colloquial curse. Yang Guo is teasing that offending a beauty would bring such a curse upon him. ↩

17. 公孙止 – Gōngsūn Zhǐ. His name meaning “to cease” or “to stop”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

18. 公孙绿萼 – Gōngsūn Lǜ’è. Her name meaning “green calyx”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩