The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 19 – Part 6

A faint smile appeared suddenly on Qiu Qianchi’s face. “It was neither a big thing nor a small one. The fault was all my second brother’s, for being so stiff and proper. Second Brother had become Guild Chief, and the eight characters ‘Iron Palm Floats on Water Qiu Qianren’ rang loud through the jianghu, while the name of Eldest Brother, Qiu Qianzhang, meant little to anyone who heard it. When Eldest Brother went travelling, for convenience he would sometimes borrow Second Brother’s name. They looked alike and were own brothers, so what great harm was there in borrowing a name? But Second Brother couldn’t let it go. He was forever nagging about it and saying Eldest Brother was swaggering about and swindling people. Eldest Brother was good-tempered, and when Second Brother scolded him he would always smile and apologise. One time Second Brother railed at him so savagely that he left him no face at all. I couldn’t help putting in a word in Eldest Brother’s defence and taking the thing on myself, and so brother and sister had a terrible quarrel. In my rage I left Iron Palm Peak, and I never went back.

“I roamed the jianghu alone, east and west. Once, chasing down a bandit, I happened into this Passionless Valley, and as some debt from a past life would have it, I met Gongsun Zhi, this… this villain… this villain, and the two of us married. I was a few years older than him and far stronger in martial arts. After we married, not only did I teach him everything I knew, holding nothing back, but his food and drink, his comfort in heat and cold, what was there I didn’t see to, so that he never had to give a thing a moment’s thought? His family’s martial arts, his Self-Sealing Acupoint method and his Fishing Net Formation and his Yin-Yang Reversed Blades, were clever enough, clever enough, but full of flaws, and it was I who racked my brains to mend them one by one.¹ Once, when a powerful enemy attacked, if I hadn’t driven them off at the risk of my life, this Passionless Valley would have been destroyed long ago. Who could have known that the damned wretch had the heart of a wolf and the lungs of a cur, and would repay kindness with enmity? Once his wings had grown he never stopped to think where his skill had come from, or who had saved his life when he was in danger.” With that she broke into a torrent of abuse, coarse and foul, and the longer she cursed the fiercer it grew.

Lü’e’s face burned. She felt that for her mother to revile her husband like this in front of Yang Guo was a great loss of dignity, and she kept saying, “Mama, Mama!” but how could she stop her? Yang Guo, on the other hand, listened with relish. Every venomous curse seemed to him to speak his own mind, as if the two of them were of one heart and purpose. He loathed Gongsun Zhi too, and hearing her curse so roundly he could not resist chipping in a few words of his own, adding fuel and spice just where it was wanted, which greatly heightened Qiu Qianchi’s zest. Had it not been for sparing Lü’e’s feelings, he would have broken into curses just as she did.

Qiu Qianchi cursed until her words ran dry, until her abuse held nothing new and even the old was repeated over and over, and only then was she forced to stop. She went on, “That year I was carrying you. A woman with child is bound to be a little short-tempered, and who would have thought it, he went on flattering me to my face just as before, while in secret he had taken up with a low servant girl in the valley. After I’d had you he was still sneaking about with that slut, and I never knew a thing. I even thought that now we had a lovely daughter, fair as snow and jade, he was treating me better than ever. Those two dogs kept me in the dark for several years, until quite by chance I overheard the dog of a villain and the slut planning to fly away together, far off, and leave Passionless Valley for ever.

“I hid behind a big tree and heard the damned wretch say how he feared my martial skill, so they must go as far as they could, and how I kept him on so tight a rein that he hadn’t a scrap of freedom, and that only with that slut did he know the joy of being alive. All along I had believed he loved me with his whole heart. When I heard that I was so furious I nearly fainted, and I longed to rush out and kill that shameless pair of dogs on the spot, one palm apiece. But heartless as he was, I still remembered all our years as man and wife. I thought the butcher had been a good man at heart, and that it must be the slut’s sweet talk and her vixen’s wiles that had bewitched him. So I swallowed my rage and stayed behind the tree to listen. I heard the two of them plan it all out in detail. In two days’ time I was to go into my meditation room to train, and for seven days and seven nights I wouldn’t set foot outside, and they could slip away then, so that by the time I found out seven days would have passed and I could never catch them. My flesh crawled to hear it. I thought, Heaven has truly taken pity on me and let me learn of this beforehand. Otherwise, with seven days’ start, where would I ever find them?” At this her teeth ground together audibly, and she seethed with hatred.

Lü’e said, “What was the young maid called? Was she very pretty?”

Qiu Qianchi said, “Pah! Pretty, my backside! The little slut’s only gift was doing as she was told. Whatever Gongsun Zhi said, she said yes to, and her mouth was full of honeyed words, telling the butcher he was the best man alive and the great hero with the greatest skill. That was how she got the damned wretch besotted. Hmph, the slut was called Rou’er.² That Gongsun Zhi, whose ancestors for eighteen generations never earned a scrap of merit, with his paltry, stinking skill, is there one stance, one move of it I don’t know? Is that a great hero? He isn’t fit to be my eldest brother’s footman, and if he went to carry my second brother’s chamber pot, my second brother would kick him far away.”

Hearing this, Yang Guo could not help feeling a little pity for Gongsun Zhi. He thought, You must have kept him on a tight rein at every turn, made him do as you said in everything great and small, and looked down on him besides, until at last you drove him to rebel. Lü’e, afraid her mother would start cursing again without end, asked quickly, “Mama, what happened then?”

Qiu Qianchi said, “Mm. Those two dogs agreed to meet at that same spot at the hour of Chen³ on the third day and run away together, and in the two days between they would be doubly careful to give nothing away, so that I shouldn’t see through them. Then they said a great many more shameless things. The slut gazed at the damned wretch, all dazed and doting, as if he were nobler than the Emperor himself and more boundless in his powers than any immortal or bodhisattva, and the wretch preened himself and sang his own praises without end. Then they fell to hugging and clutching, kissing and fondling, and the shameless sight of it nearly killed me with rage on the spot. Early on the third day I pretended to sit in the meditation room training in stillness. Gongsun Zhi came to the window several times to peep at me, and the look on his face, ah, it was glee welling up from the bottom of his heart. The moment he left I set off with my qinggong to their meeting place. The shameless little slut was there waiting already. Without a word I seized her and threw her into the thicket of Passion Flowers…⁴” Yang Guo and Lü’e both cried out in spite of themselves.

Qiu Qianchi shot them a sideways look and went on, “A moment later Gongsun Zhi arrived, and when he saw Rou’er rolling and howling among the Passion Flowers, I needn’t tell you how he panicked. I leapt out from behind the trees, caught him by both wrists at the pulse and threw him into the Passion Flowers too. In this valley there had been handed down from generation to generation a pill that cured the Passion Flower poison, called the Passion-Cutting Pill. Gongsun Zhi struggled up, helped the slut to her feet, and the two of them ran to the Alchemy Chamber to cure themselves with the Passion-Cutting Pill. Haha, and what do you think he found?”

Lü’e said, “Mama… what did he find?” Yang Guo thought, You must have destroyed every last Passion-Cutting Pill. What else could it be?

Sure enough, Qiu Qianchi said, “Haha, what he found was this: on the table in the Alchemy Chamber stood a big bowl of water with several hundred Passion-Cutting Pills soaking in it, and beside the bowl was pasted a slip of paper with the words ‘Arsenic Water’ on it.⁵ Take the Passion-Cutting Pill and there was no escaping the arsenic. Leave it, and death would come all the same. The formula for the pill was a secret handed down from his ancestors, but the many rare ingredients were not to be had in a hurry, and a batch of the pills had to pass through spring dews and autumn frosts and was ready only after three years. So he ran to the meditation room, went down on both knees before me and begged me to spare their two lives. He knew that out of feeling for a husband I would never have destroyed every last Passion-Cutting Pill, that I must have kept some back. He slapped his own face again and again, swore oath upon oath, and said that if only I would spare their lives he would drive Rou’er out of the valley at once and never see her again, and never again dare to be untrue.

“Every time he pleaded, it was Rou’er this and Rou’er that, and it made me angrier and angrier. I took out one Passion-Cutting Pill and set it on the table. ‘There is only one Passion-Cutting Pill left,’ I said. ‘It can save only one life. You know yourself that half a pill each will do no good. Save her or save yourself, you decide.’ He snatched up the pill at once and hurried back to the Alchemy Chamber, and I followed after. By then the slut was in such agony she was more dead than alive, rolling about on the floor. Gongsun Zhi said, ‘Rou’er, go in peace. I’ll die with you.’ And he drew his long jian. Rou’er, seeing how deep his love and loyalty went, was full of gratitude, and she gasped out, ‘Yes, yes. We’ll be husband and wife in the world below.’ Gongsun Zhi drove the jian into her breast and killed her.

“I was watching from outside the window of the Alchemy Chamber, alarmed, afraid his next stroke would go across his own throat. But when he raised the jian, just as I was about to cry out and stop him, I saw him wipe it a few times on Rou’er’s body to clean off the blood and put it back in its scabbard. He turned to the window and said, ‘Sister Chi, I repent with all my heart. I’ve killed the slut with my own hand, so forgive me now.’ And he lifted his hand to his mouth and swallowed the Passion-Cutting Pill. I had never expected that, but to have the matter ended so seemed proof enough of his repentance, and I was well satisfied. Then he laid a feast in the room, poured my wine with great attention and begged my pardon. I gave him a thorough tongue-lashing, and he kept calling himself worthy of death, and swore hundreds of deadly oaths that he would never do such a thing again.”

Yang Guo thought, That’s where you were well and truly taken in! Lü’e’s tears were brimming. Qiu Qianchi said angrily, “What? Are you sorry for the slut?” Lü’e shook her head and said nothing. In truth she was grieving at her father’s heartlessness and cruelty.

Qiu Qianchi went on, “I drank two cups of wine, smiled a thin, cold smile, took another Passion-Cutting Pill from my bosom and set it on the table. ‘You were rather too quick to strike just now,’ I said, smiling. ‘I was only testing your heart. If you’d begged me a few more times, I’d have given you both pills and saved your beauty’s life. Wouldn’t that have been nice?’”

Lü’e asked quickly, “Mama, if he really had begged again then, would you have given him both pills?”

Qiu Qianchi pondered for a long while. “That I don’t know myself. At the time I had thought it might be better to save the slut and drive her out of the valley, and then Gongsun Zhi would be grateful to me and might mend his ways from then on, and never dare to misbehave again. But to save his own life he couldn’t kill his sweetheart fast enough, so he can’t blame me for it.

“Gongsun Zhi picked up the pill and looked at it for a long time. Then he raised his cup and smiled. ‘Sister Chi, why talk of things that are past? It was better to kill the girl, all clean and done with. Drink up.’ He did nothing but press wine on me, and with that weight lifted from my mind I was so happy that I drank myself into a dead stupor. When I came to, I was already here in this cavern, with the sinews of my hands and feet cut through, and the damned wretch hadn’t even the courage to see me face to face. Hmph, by now he thinks my very bones have long since turned to dust.”

When she had finished, a murderous light gleamed in her eyes and her face was terrible to see. Yang Guo and Lü’e both turned their heads away, not daring to meet her gaze. For a long, long while none of the three spoke.

Lü’e looked about her. There was nothing in the cavern but broken stones and leaves and tangled grass all over the ground. “Mama,” she said sadly, “you’ve lived in this cavern for more than ten years, and only on jujubes?” “Yes,” said Qiu Qianchi. “Did you think the damned wretch, may he die by a thousand cuts, would send me down a meal every day?” Lü’e put her arms round her and cried, “Mama!”

Yang Guo said, “Did Gongsun Zhi ever tell you whether this cavern had any other way out?” Qiu Qianchi laughed coldly. “In all the years I was his wife he never once told me there was such a cavern under the manor, or such a pool. If the cavern had another way out, the villain would never have left me here. As for the crocodiles, he most likely raised them afterwards. He was afraid I’d get out, after all.”

Yang Guo went all the way round the cavern and found, sure enough, no passage but the one they had come in by. He looked up at the hole that let in the light, and saw it was at least a thousand feet from the ground. Below the hole grew a big jujube tree, but it was no more than forty or fifty feet high: stack twenty jujube trees one on another and they would still not reach the top. He thought it over for a long while and was truly at a loss. “I’ll climb the tree and look,” he said. He sprang into the jujube tree and climbed to its top, and saw that the rock face higher up was rough and uneven, not slick like the lower part. Holding his breath, he leapt onto the rock face and climbed steadily upward, higher and higher, secretly rejoicing as he went. He turned and called down to Lü’e, “Miss Gongsun, if I can get out of the cave, I’ll let a rope down and pull you both up.”

He had climbed some six or seven hundred feet, his superb qinggong carrying him safely past one danger after another, when, seventy or eighty feet from the hole, the rock face grew not only wonderfully smooth, with nowhere left for hand or foot, but sloped inward as well. Only a gecko or a fly could have clung there without falling. Yang Guo studied the situation around him. The hole above was about ten feet across, more than wide enough to pass through, and a plan was already forming in his mind. He slid back down to the floor of the cavern. “We can get out!” he said. “But we need to twist a long rope.” He took out the dagger, cut bark from the jujube trees and began twisting it into rope. Gongsun Lü’e was overjoyed and helped beside him.

Footnotes

1. 阴阳倒乱刃法 – Yīnyáng Dàoluàn Rènfǎ. Gongsun Zhi’s signature technique. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 儿 – ér. Diminutive term of endearment, especially for a child or lover. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 辰时 – chénshí. The hour of Chen, roughly 7 to 9 am. The day was divided into twelve shichen, each named for one of the Earthly Branches. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

5. 砒霜水 – Pīshuāng Shuǐ. Arsenic water. Pishuang is arsenic trioxide, a deadly poison long known in China and used in tiny doses in traditional medicine. ↩