The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 19 – Part 2

By now the crocodile pool was in uproar, the pack busy tearing the dead crocodile to pieces among themselves, and for the moment none came up the rock. Yang Guo saw her staring blankly, lost in thought, and asked, “Did you happen to stumble on some secret of your father’s?” Lü’e shook her head. “No. Father is upright in his conduct and fair in his dealings, and everyone in the valley, high and low, holds him in great respect. What he did to you today was truly wrong, but he has never done anything so perverse before.” Yang Guo knew nothing of the past of Passionless Valley,¹ and could hardly guess on her behalf.

The crocodile pool lay deep under the earth and was as cold as an ice cave, and soaked as they were, the chill struck through to their bones. Yang Guo had trained his neigong² on the Cold Jade Bed³ and cared nothing for a little cold, but Lü’e was shivering without cease and huddled against him for warmth. Knowing she was cold, Yang Guo tightened his left arm a little and drew her close. He thought how this girl’s life hung by a thread, and how wretched and frightened she must be, and he wanted to say something funny to make her laugh. Seeing the crocodiles in the pool fighting over their meal, all huge jaws and sharp teeth, hideous and savage, he said with a laugh, “Miss Gongsun, if you and I both die today, what would you like to be born as in your next life? Whatever happens, I’d never come back as an ugly crocodile like these.”

Lü’e smiled faintly. “You should come back as a narcissus, then. Lovely and fragrant, and everyone who sees it loves it.” Yang Guo laughed. “Only someone like you is fit to be a narcissus. Me, I’d be a morning glory or else a cow-dung daisy.”⁴ Lü’e laughed. “And if King Yama⁵ wanted you to come back as a Passion Flower,⁶ would you?”

Yang Guo said nothing, his heart full of regret. With Aunt and me fighting side by side with the Pure-Hearted Jade Maiden Swordplay, that villain of a Valley Master was never a match for us. He was down on the ground, beaten and begging for mercy. We shouldn’t have gone soft and spared his life. And then the thought of going back to the ancient tomb filled us with such joy that the Passion Flower poison flared up. Ah, that was fate too, and there’s no more to be said. But how is Aunt now, I wonder? The moment he thought of Xiaolongnü, the wounds all over his body began to throb again.

Getting no answer, Lü’e knew she should never have mentioned the Passion Flower, and she hurried to change the subject. “Big Brother Yang, you can see the crocodiles, but it’s pitch black in front of my eyes. I can’t see a thing.” Yang Guo laughed. “Their honourable faces are ugly in the extreme. You’re better off not seeing them.” He patted her lightly on the shoulder to comfort her. When she was cold he had held her close only to stop her shivering, and though he had touched her smooth, soft skin, in the danger of the moment he had thought nothing of it. Now, a little calmer, he patted her shoulder and found it cool and silky under his hand, and only then did he remember that she had undressed in the Alchemy Chamber to show her father and had nothing on but her underclothes, so that her shoulders and arms were bare. Yang Guo started and quickly drew back his hand. Lü’e realised that since he could see in the dark, he had seen her half-naked state as plain as day, and she could not help crying, “Oh!” Without meaning to, she drew away from him a little.

Yang Guo moved a little further off, took off his long gown and draped it round her. As he took it off he thought not only of Xiaolongnü but of Cheng Ying,⁷ who had sewn this gown for him, and of Lu Wushuang,⁸ who had been willing to die in his place. He reproached himself that all his life he had been shown such kindness by lovely women, more than he could ever repay, and he could not hold back a long sigh.

Lü’e straightened her sleeves and tied on the sash. Suddenly she felt a small packet in the pocket of the gown. She took it out and handed it to him. “What’s this? Do you need it?” Yang Guo took it. It was heavy in his hand. “What is it?” he asked. Lü’e laughed. “It’s from your own pocket. Why ask me?” Yang Guo looked closely. It was a small bundle of coarse cloth he had never seen before. He opened it at once, and a light suddenly gleamed before his eyes. There were four things in the bundle. One was a little dagger whose hilt was set with a pearl the size of a longan stone,⁹ and it gave off a soft, glowing light that fell on Gongsun Lü’e’s pretty face. He thought, I’ve heard there’s a treasure in the world called a luminous pearl, which shines of itself in the dark. This is very likely one.

Lü’e gave a sudden little shriek. “Oh!” She reached into the bundle, took out a small jadeite bottle and cried, “This is the Passion-Cutting Pill.”¹⁰ Yang Guo was startled and overjoyed. “The pill that cures the Passion Flower’s poison?”

Lü’e shook the bottle and felt something inside. “Yes,” she said joyfully. “I searched the Alchemy Chamber for ages and couldn’t find it, and you had it all along? How did you get it? Why haven’t you taken it? You didn’t know it was the Passion-Cutting Pill, did you?” In her delight the questions tumbled out one after another, without giving Yang Guo a moment to answer. Yang Guo scratched his head. “I had no idea at all. How this… this bottle of pills got into my pocket, I can’t think. Strange indeed, most strange.”

By the soft light of the luminous pearl on the dagger’s hilt, Lü’e too could make out the things close by. Besides the dagger and the jadeite bottle with the Passion-Cutting Pill, the bundle held a piece of sheepskin seven or eight inches square and half a stalk of lingzhi.¹¹ A thought came to her. “This half stalk of lingzhi is the one Old Urchin broke off.” “Old Urchin?” said Yang Guo. “Yes,” said Lü’e. “This lingzhi was growing in a white jade pot in the Lingzhi Chamber. Old Urchin ran riot through all four chambers, the Library, the Jian Chamber, the Alchemy Chamber and the Lingzhi Chamber, wrecking books, stealing jians, kicking over furnaces and breaking off the lingzhi. That was all his handiwork.”¹² Light dawned on Yang Guo. “That’s it, that’s it,” he cried. “What is it?” Lü’e asked quickly.

Yang Guo said, “Elder Zhou put this bundle on me.” He knew by now that Zhou Botong¹³ had in fact been helping him on the quiet, and so he had changed “Old Urchin” to “Elder Zhou”. Lü’e had worked most of it out too. “So he gave it to you.” “No,” said Yang Guo. “That elder of the wulin¹⁴ plays his way through the world, and what he does no ghost or god could foresee. When he took my human-skin mask and my big shears I had no idea, and when he slipped this bundle into my pocket I never felt a thing. Ah, I haven’t half his skill.”¹⁵ Lü’e nodded. “That’s it. Father said he had stolen something vital from the valley and had to be stopped at all costs, and he… he stripped off his clothes in front of everyone, and there was nothing hidden on him.” Yang Guo laughed. “He stripped himself stark naked and fooled even the Valley Master, and all the while the bundle was already in my pocket.”

Lü’e drew the green jade stopper from the jadeite bottle, cupped her left palm and gently tipped the bottle, and out into her palm came a pill as square as a die, deep black, with a rank smell that stung the nose. Pills are nearly always round so that they can be swallowed, and lozenges may be long and flat, but a square pill like this Yang Guo had never seen. He took it from her palm and studied it closely. Lü’e shook the bottle a few times, then turned it upside down and tapped it against her palm. “That’s all, just the one. Eat it quickly, and don’t drop it in the pool, or that would be a disaster.”

Yang Guo was about to put the pill in his mouth when he heard her say “just the one” and stopped short. “Only one? Doesn’t your father have any more?” “It’s precious precisely because there’s only one,” said Lü’e. “Otherwise why would Father be so furious?” Yang Guo was horrified. His voice shook. “Then my aunt has the Passion Flower poison all through her body too. What can your father do to save her?”

Lü’e sighed. “I once heard my eldest shixiong¹⁶ say that the valley used to have plenty of Passion-Cutting Pills, but somehow only one was left. And the pill is terribly hard to make, because there’s no gathering all the rare ingredients. That’s why he kept warning us all to guard against the Passion Flower’s poison. A little prick heals by itself in a few days and is nothing to worry about, but once the poison goes deep, it puts the Valley Master in a hard position, because one pill can cure only one person.” Yang Guo cried out in dismay again and again. “Then why hasn’t your father come to rescue you yet?”

Lü’e saw at once what he meant. She watched him put the pill back in the bottle and gave a soft sigh. “Big Brother Yang, you’re so devoted to Miss Long, how can my father not be ashamed? All you’re hoping is that I’ll carry the Passion-Cutting Pill up with me to save Miss Long’s life.”

His thoughts guessed, Yang Guo smiled faintly. “I hope a kind-hearted girl like you can get safely out of this danger, and I hope to save my aunt’s life too. Even if I were cured of the Passion Flower poison, I’d die trapped in this crocodile pool anyway, so of course saving Aunt is what matters.” He thought, Aunt is lovely beyond compare, and Valley Master Gongsun wanting her for his wife is only human, you might say. When she refused him, he lured her into the Jian Chamber to kill her, and that was wicked enough. And now, knowing full well that the only Passion-Cutting Pill has been stolen, that the poison in Aunt’s body can’t be cured and she has no more than thirty-six days to live, he still means to force her to give herself to him. I dare say the crocodiles in this pool have better consciences than he does.

Lü’e knew that however hard she urged him to take the pill it would be no use, and she bitterly regretted telling him there was only one. “This lingzhi can’t cure poison,” she said, “but it does a great deal to strengthen the body. Eat it now.” “All right,” said Yang Guo. He split the half stalk of lingzhi in two, ate one piece himself and put the other to Lü’e’s lips. “Who knows when your father will come to let you out. Eat this to keep the cold off.” Seeing how attentive he was, Lü’e could not bear to refuse, and she opened her mouth and ate it.

The lingzhi had been growing for several hundred years. Not long after they had swallowed it, a delicious warmth spread through all their limbs and bones, their spirits rose, and their minds grew much sharper too. Lü’e said suddenly, “Old Urchin stole the Passion-Cutting Pill, so of course Father knew it long ago. When he said he would cure you, he was deceiving Miss Long, and when he forced me to hand over the pill, that was only an act as well.”

Yang Guo had long since seen this, but not wishing to add to her grief he had kept it to himself. Now that she had worked it out on her own, he said, “When your father lets you out, you must be careful in everything from now on. Best of all, find a way to leave the valley and see something of the world outside.” Lü’e sighed. “Ah, you don’t know what Father is like. Having pushed me into the crocodile pool, he will never change his mind and let me out. He was wary of me to begin with, and after this, how could he let me live? Big Brother Yang, won’t you even let me die here with you?”

Footnotes

1. 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. ↩

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

3. 寒玉床 – Hán Yù Chuáng. Bed carved from rare deep-cold jade found by Lin Chaoying. Training on it greatly accelerates neili cultivation by forcing the practitioner to circulate qi constantly to resist the cold. ↩

4. 喇叭花 / 牛屎菊 – Lǎbahuā / Niúshǐjú. Morning glory and, literally, “cow-dung daisy”: two lowly wayside flowers, set against the narcissus. ↩

5. 阎罗王 – Yánluó Wáng. King Yama, judge and ruler of the underworld in Chinese Buddhist and folk belief. ↩

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

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

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

9. 龙眼 – Lóngyǎn. Longan, literally “dragon eye”; a small round fruit whose stone is about the size of a marble. ↩

10. 绝情丹 – Juéqíng Dān. Antidote for passion-flower poison from the Passionless Valley. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

12. 老顽童 – lǎo wán tóng. Zhou Botong’s nickname, reflecting his playful, childlike nature. ↩

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

14. 武林 – wǔlín. Literally martial forest. Those who actually practise, teach or study martial arts. Wulin sits inside the jianghu and is narrower than it: every member of the wulin belongs to the jianghu, but a pedlar or physician of the jianghu who never trained is no part of the wulin. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 人皮面具 – Rénpí Miànjù. Human-skin mask; a disguise made to look like real skin, which transforms the wearer’s appearance completely. ↩

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