The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 18 – Part 9
Translation by Jenxi Seow
He waited and waited, but there was still no sign of Lü’e. The longer Yang Guo waited, the more anxious he grew. At first he guessed there must be someone in the pill room, so that she could not get at the medicine for the moment. But as time dragged on he thought, Even if she couldn’t get the medicine, she would surely have come to tell me. It looks as if things have gone badly. She has run a terrible risk for me. How can I not try to save her? So he pushed the door open a crack and peered out. All was quiet outside, with no one in sight, and he slipped out at once, though he had no idea where Lü’e might be.
He was still at a loss when he heard footsteps round a corner. He shrank quickly back out of sight and saw two green-robed disciples coming side by side, each holding a thorned rod, plainly instruments of punishment. Yang Guo was furious, Aunt would rather die than yield, and this shameless Valley Master means to torture her into giving in! Treading softly, he followed the two disciples. They noticed nothing, and wound their way along several long corridors to a stone chamber. “Reporting to the Valley Master,” they announced in clear voices, “the thorned rods are here.” They pushed the door open and went in.
Yang Guo’s heart was thumping. He saw a window on the east side of the chamber, crept up beneath it and put his eye to it. Xiaolongnü, to his surprise, was not in the room. Instead Lü’e stood with bowed head before her father, who sat in the middle, while two green-robed disciples with long jians stood guard on either side of her.
The Valley Master took a thorned rod. “E’er,” he said coldly, “you are my own flesh and blood. Why on earth have you betrayed me?” Lü’e hung her head and said nothing. “You’ve taken a fancy to that Yang boy,” said the Valley Master. “Did you think I wouldn’t know? I said I would let him go. Why must you be so impatient? Tomorrow your father will speak to him and promise you to him in marriage. How would that be?” Yang Guo knew well enough that Gongsun Lü’e had strong feelings for him, but to hear it said outright still set his heart leaping.
Gongsun Lü’e kept her head bowed and said nothing. After a moment she suddenly looked up. “Father,” she said clearly, “your whole mind is on your own wedding just now. How could you spare a thought for your daughter?” The Valley Master grunted and made no answer. “Yes,” Lü’e went on, “I admire Young Master Yang for his upright character, loyal and true. But I know that in his heart there is no one but Miss Long. The reason I rescued him was… was only that I could not bear to see what you were doing, Father, and nothing else.” Yang Guo was deeply stirred, This scoundrel of a Valley Master is perverse and wilful, yet the daughter he fathered is so good and so just.
The Valley Master’s face was blank, without a trace of anger. “So by your account,” he said evenly, “I am not upright, and I am neither loyal nor true?” “How would I dare speak of you so, Father?” said Lü’e. “Only… only…” “Only what?” said the Valley Master. “Young Master Yang has the thousand needles and ten thousand thorns of the passion flowers1 in him,” said Lü’e. “How can he bear such pain? Father, in your great kindness and virtue, let him go.” The Valley Master laughed coldly. “Tomorrow I will cure him and let him go, as a matter of course. What call have you to meddle?”
Lü’e tilted her head and pondered, as if weighing whether certain words should be said or not. At last a look of resolve came over her face. “Father, I owe you the great debt of my birth and upbringing, and Young Master Yang is a stranger I have only just met. Why would I turn round and help him? If you really meant to cure him and release him tomorrow, why would I have run the risk of coming into the pill room?” “Then why did you come?” the Valley Master demanded harshly. “Because I knew you meant him no good,” said Gongsun Lü’e. “Once you had forced Miss Long to marry you, you were going to kill Young Master Yang with some poisonous scheme and put an end to her hopes. When you were struck by the poisoned needles and wanted the antidote, you promised to let them leave the valley unhindered, and you broke your word. And just now, when you fought them with jians, it was plainly they who spared you. Everyone saw it…”
The Valley Master’s long brows shot up at once. “Hmph,” he said coldly. “Truly, I have reared a tiger to my own ruin. I raised you to this age, and never thought you would turn and bite me today. Hand it over!” He held out his hand. “What do you want, Father?” said Lü’e. “Still pretending? The Passion-Cutting Pill that cures the passion flower poison, of course.”2 “I didn’t take it,” said Lü’e. The Valley Master rose to his feet. “Then where has it gone?”
Yang Guo looked round the chamber. Medicine bottles stood in rows on the table and in the cabinets, countless bunches of dried herbs hung in clusters on the walls, and three pill furnaces stood side by side at the west end. This, then, was the so-called pill room. From the look on the Valley Master’s face, Lü’e would not escape a heavy punishment today. He heard her say, “Father, I did come into the pill room in secret, and I did mean to take the Passion-Cutting Pill to save Young Master Yang. But I never found it. Otherwise how would you have caught me?”
“This store of medicines is a close secret,” said the Valley Master harshly. “Those outsiders have been in the hall all along and never left it for a single step. Yet the Passion-Cutting Pill has suddenly vanished. Did it grow legs and walk off by itself?” Lü’e fell to her knees, weeping. “Father, spare Young Master Yang’s life. Order him to leave the valley and never come back, and let that be enough.” The Valley Master laughed coldly. “If my own life were hanging by a thread, I doubt you would kneel and beg anyone for me with tears.” Lü’e made no answer, but only clasped his knees.
“You have taken the Passion-Cutting Pill, so how am I to save him?” said the Valley Master. “Very well. If you won’t own up, so be it. You will stay here for a day. You may have stolen my pill, but you can’t get it into that Yang boy’s mouth, so it’s all for nothing. In twelve shichen I’ll let you out!” He went towards the door. Gongsun Lü’e set her teeth and cried, “Father!”
“What more have you to say?” said the Valley Master. Lü’e pointed at the four disciples. “Send them out first.” “In my valley all hearts are as one,” said the Valley Master. “There is nothing that cannot be said before others.” Lü’e flushed scarlet, then went deathly pale. “Very well. You don’t believe me, so look and see whether I have the pill on me.” With that she took off her jacket and then began to undo her skirt. Valley Master Gongsun hastily waved the four disciples out, and the door was shut. In moments Lü’e had taken off her jacket and skirt and stood in nothing but her undergarments, and sure enough there was nothing hidden on her.
From outside the window Yang Guo saw her body all gleaming white, and his heart gave a jolt. He was a young man, and Lü’e was full-figured and lovely of face. At the sight his blood surged and desire stirred in him, and at once his whole body was racked with pain. Then it came to him, She is baring herself like this only to save my life. Yang Guo, Yang Guo, if you look once more, you are lower than a beast. He shut his eyes in haste, but in his confusion his forehead knocked lightly against the window lattice.
The knock made only the faintest sound, but Valley Master Gongsun had already caught it. He went over to the three pill furnaces, pushed the middle one aside, moved the east one into the middle and the west one to the east, then pushed the one that had stood in the middle over to the west. “Since that is how it is,” he said, “I’ll grant your wish and spare the brat’s life.” Lü’e was overjoyed. She threw herself down in a bow and said in a trembling voice, “Thank you, Father!”
The Valley Master went and sat in a chair against the wall. “You know the rules of my valley. What is the penalty for entering the pill room without leave?” Lü’e bowed her head. “Death.” The Valley Master sighed. “You may be my own daughter, but even you cannot break the rules of the valley. Go in peace!” He drew the black jian and raised it high in the air. “Ah, E’er,” he said gently, “if from now on you stop pleading for that Yang boy, I will spare you. I can spare only one of you. Is it to be you, or him?” “Spare him,” said Gongsun Lü’e in a low voice. “Good,” said the Valley Master. “My daughter is truly great in benevolence and righteousness, far better than her father.” He swung the jian down at the crown of her head.
Yang Guo was aghast. “Stop!” he shouted, and sprang in through the window. “It’s me you should kill!” His right foot touched the floor, and he was reaching out to seize Valley Master Gongsun’s wrist and stop the black jian coming down, when suddenly the floor gave beneath his foot, as though he had trodden on empty air. Yang Guo hastily drew up his zhenqi,3 hooked two fingers of his left hand against the floor, and shot upwards. The Valley Master gave his daughter a shove on the shoulders with both palms, and Lü’e, unable to stop herself, went reeling backwards straight into Yang Guo.
Yang Guo had leapt up and was just coming down when Gongsun Lü’e crashed into him, and at once the two of them dropped straight down together. There was nothing under their feet. It seemed they had fallen several hundred feet and still not touched bottom. Alarmed as he was, Yang Guo still thought of protecting Lü’e’s life, and in that desperate moment he held her up in both hands. All was black before his eyes, and he had no idea where they would land. A mountain of blades and a forest of swords? A jumble of jagged rocks and boulders? Before the thought was finished there was a great splash, and the two of them plunged into water and sank fast. Beneath the pill room, it turned out, lay a deep abyss.