The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 2 – Part 2

Wu Santong watched her dart back and forth, advancing and retreating several times in the blink of an eye. Secretly impressed, he put all his strength into swinging the tree trunk, keeping her at bay beyond a zhang. But the moment he showed the slightest opening, Li Mochou would close in like a flash of lightning. Had it not been for the power of his Yiyang Finger, he would have been defeated long ago. Even so, the tree trunk was heavy, and as he continued to swing it, he gradually began to tire. Li Mochou pressed ever closer. Suddenly, a blur of yellow, she had leapt onto the tip of the chestnut tree that Wu Santong held in his hands! Brandishing her whisk, she struck down from above. Wu Santong was horrified. He reversed the trunk and drove its tip violently towards the ground. Li Mochou laughed, a silvery, tinkling laugh, and came charging straight at him along the trunk. Wu Santong twisted aside, extended his arm, and thrust a finger at her. Her slender waist swayed, and she had already retreated to the tip of the trunk. Over the next several dozen moves, no matter how Wu Santong shook, smashed, swept, or pounded, she remained stuck to the chestnut tree as if glued there, riding the vibrations of the trunk to seek openings for her attacks.

This made things even more difficult for Wu Santong. Though her body was not heavy, it still added several dozen jin¹ of weight to the trunk. What was more, standing on the tree, she was beyond the reach of his strikes, yet she could attack him freely, she held an invincible position. Wu Santong could see himself slipping into disadvantage. He knew that if he made the slightest mistake, his own death would be a small matter, every soul in that kiln, young and old, would perish at her hands. Summoning all his strength, he swung the trunk faster and faster, hoping that the violent spinning motion would fling her off.

They fought for a while longer. Then he heard Ke Zhen’e shouting from behind him: “Fu’er,² you’ve come too! Quick, tell the condors to bite this wicked woman!” A girl’s voice followed, calling out commands. Two white shapes plummeted from the sky, a pair of great condors, splitting left and right to attack Li Mochou from both sides. Guo Fu had arrived with the twin condors.

Li Mochou saw how fierce the condors’ assault was. She somersaulted off the chestnut tree, hooking her left foot around the trunk. The twin condors’ strike missed. They beat their wings and soared upward. The girl’s voice whistled a few more commands. The condors dove a second time, their four steel-hook iron claws tearing towards the base of the tree. Li Mochou had heard that Guo Jing³ and Huang Rong⁴ of Peach Blossom Island⁵ kept a pair of great condors, creatures of considerable intelligence. Seeing the condors now coordinating their attacks, she was not particularly worried about the birds themselves, but she feared that if Guo Jing and his wife were nearby, she would be in serious trouble. She dodged several times, then, pa!, her whisk struck the female condor’s left wing. The bird screeched in pain, and several long white feathers drifted down from the sky.

Guo Fu saw her condor injured and shouted, “Don’t be afraid, Condor! Bite this wicked woman!” Li Mochou glanced at her, the girl’s skin was like jade snow, her brows and eyes like a painting. Her heart stirred. I’ve heard that Madam Guo is the most beautiful woman among the heroes of the present age. I wonder how she compares to me? Could this child be her daughter?

Her thoughts wandered, and her hand slowed for a moment. Wu Santong, seeing that even with the twin condors’ help he still could not defeat her, grew frantic. He channelled strength into both arms and suddenly hurled the tree, himself and all, into the air, flinging her skyward. Li Mochou had never imagined he would use such a bizarre move. Her feet lost contact with the trunk, and she was thrown several zhang high. The twin condors saw her airborne and beat their wings, swooping in to peck at her.

Had Li Mochou been on solid ground, the twin condors could not have touched her. But now she hung in midair with nothing to push against, how could she contend with flying beasts? In her desperation, she swung her whisk to protect her head and face, and with a flick of her long sleeve, three Bingpo Silver Needles⁶ shot out in rapid succession. Two were aimed at the condors. The third flew straight at Wu Santong’s chest. The twin condors beat their wings frantically to gain altitude, but the silver needles were incredibly fast, chi, chi, one grazed the male condor’s claw, slicing through the skin.

Wu Santong was looking up when he caught a flash of silver. He threw himself to the ground and rolled aside, but the needle still pierced his left calf. He scrambled up, but his left leg would no longer obey him. His left knee buckled. He forced his neili into motion, trying to prop himself up, but the numbness had already spread through his entire leg. He pitched forward and collapsed. His hands pushed against the ground a few times, and then he lay still, unmoving.

Guo Fu shouted, “Condors! Condors! Come back!” But the twin condors had fled far away and did not turn back. Li Mochou laughed. “Little sister, is your surname Guo, by any chance?” Guo Fu saw that she was beautiful and seemed kindly, she did not appear to be a “wicked woman” at all. “Yes,” she said, “my surname is Guo. What’s yours?” Li Mochou smiled. “Come, let me take you to play.” She stepped forward slowly, reaching for the girl’s hand. Ke Zhen’e thrust his iron staff against the ground and shot out of the kiln, planting himself in front of Guo Fu. “Fu’er, get back inside!” he shouted. Li Mochou laughed. “Afraid I’ll eat her?”

Just then, a boy in ragged clothes came hopping and skipping along, a rooster clutched in his left hand, singing a rustic ditty. Seeing the crowd before the kiln, he called out, “Hey! What are you doing at my house?” He walked up to where Li Mochou and Guo Fu stood, cocked his head to look at them both, and grinned. “Tsk, tsk, the big beauty is so lovely, and the little beauty is quite pretty too. Have you two young ladies come looking for me? A fellow named Yang doesn’t have beautiful lady friends like you.” His face wore a roguish smirk, and his words were slick and flippant.

Guo Fu pursed her lips in anger. “Little beggar, who’s looking for you?” The boy laughed. “If you’re not looking for me, why are you at my house?” He pointed at the kiln, so this ruined kiln was indeed his home. Guo Fu said, “Hmph! Who’d want to come to a filthy place like this?”

Madam Wu, seeing her husband lying on the ground with no sign of life, was beside herself with worry. She rushed out of the kiln and bent over him, crying, “Third Brother, what’s wrong?” Wu Santong grunted. His back heaved a few times, but he could not rise. Guo Fu gazed into the distance but could not see the condors. “Condors! Condors! Come back!” she shouted.

Li Mochou thought to herself, The longer this drags on, the worse it gets. I’d better finish this before Guo Jing and his wife arrive. She smiled faintly and headed straight for the kiln. Madam Wu spun around to block her, brandishing her sword. “Don’t come in!” she cried. Li Mochou laughed. “This is that Young Brother’s residence, what business is it of yours?” Her left palm pressed directly towards the sword’s edge. Just as her palm was about to meet the blade, she tilted it slightly, and three fingers pushed against the flat of the sword. The blade reversed towards Madam Wu’s forehead, shua!, slicing her forehead open. “My apologies,” Li Mochou said with a smile. She tucked her whisk into her collar, ducked into the kiln, and seized Cheng Ying and Lu Wushuang, one in each hand. Without even turning around, she tapped her left foot lightly and sprang backward out of the kiln. In the midst of this flurry, she even found time to kick Ke Zhen’e’s iron staff out of his hands.

The ragged boy saw her wound Madam Wu and abduct the two girls. A strong sense of injustice rose within him. Hearing Cheng Ying and Lu Wushuang cry out in terror, he leapt up and threw his arms around Li Mochou. “Hey, big beauty!” he shouted. “You come to my house, hurt people, and snatch people away without so much as a word to the landlord, that’s just rude! Put them down!”

Li Mochou had a girl in each hand and had not expected this boy to wrap his arms around her. She felt a pair of arms suddenly around her ribs, and her heart jolted. For some reason, her whole body went limp. She channelled force into her palms and gave a light flick, sending the two girls flying several feet away. Then she seized the boy by the back of his collar. She was not yet thirty and still a virgin. In the years of her bitter, obsessive love for Lu Zhanyuan, she had always maintained proper decorum. Over the past decade, many men in the jianghu had been stirred by her beauty, but the moment any of them showed the slightest hint of improper desire in their expression, they usually dropped dead on the spot beneath her Scarlet Serpent Divine Palm.⁷ Who could have imagined that today she would be embraced by this boy? The moment she grabbed him, her original intent had been to release palm force and instantly shatter his heart and lungs. But she recalled how he had just praised her beauty, his words had been sincere, and in her heart she had been somewhat pleased. Such words, spoken by a grown man, would only have earned her disgust, but coming from the mouth of a twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy, they revealed only his innocence. For a moment, her heart softened, and she could not bring herself to strike.

Suddenly, the shrill cries of condors rang through the air. The twin condors had flown back from the distance and were diving to attack once more. Li Mochou flicked her left sleeve, and two Bingpo Silver Needles shot upward. The condors had already suffered at the hands of these deadly projectiles and beat their wings to climb higher, but the needles were too swift, though the condors flew fast, the needles flew faster. The birds shrieked in terror. Li Mochou was just delighting in the thought that these hateful birds could not escape this time when she heard a sharp whistling sound, two small projectiles tore through the air with astonishing speed. She had barely registered the sound when the projectiles had already crossed the sky and knocked both silver needles to the ground.

The force of these projectiles was overwhelming, their power undeniable. Li Mochou was badly startled. She casually dropped the boy and leapt over to look, they were nothing more than two ordinary pebbles. The person who launched these stones possesses martial arts of unfathomable depth, she thought. I am no match for them. Better to avoid them for now. Her body followed her thought, her right palm shot out, striking towards Cheng Ying’s back. She intended to wound the two girls first, then plan her next move.

Just as her palm was about to touch Cheng Ying’s back, she caught a glimpse of the brocade handkerchief tied around the girl’s neck, white satin embroidered with red flowers and green leaves. It was the very token she had painstakingly embroidered all those years ago and given to her beloved. She froze. Her palm force withdrew in an instant. The tender feelings of bygone days rolled through her heart in waves. He never forgot me after all, she thought. He kept this handkerchief safe all this time. He begs me to spare his descendants, but should I spare them or not? For a moment she hesitated, unable to decide. She resolved to kill the other girl first. Her whisk flicked out, its silver strands striking towards Lu Wushuang’s back. In the glare of the sunlight, she saw that this girl, too, wore just such a handkerchief around her neck. Li Mochou let out a soft “Yi?” How can there be two handkerchiefs? One of them must be a fake. She changed her whisk from a strike to a coil, wrapping it around Lu Wushuang’s neck and pulling the girl backward towards her.

Footnotes

1. 斤 – jīn. Traditional Chinese unit of weight, approximately 500 grams or 1.1 pounds. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 郭芙 – Guō Fú. Her name meaning “lotus”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 郭靖 – Guō Jìng. His name meaning “tranquillity” or “pacification”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 黄蓉 – Huáng Róng. Her name meaning “lotus” or “hibiscus”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 桃花岛 – Táohuā Dǎo. Huang Yaoshi’s island stronghold, continued from LOCH era. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 冰魄银针 – Bīngpò Yínzhēn. Li Mochou’s signature hidden weapons, silver needles coated with a deadly poison. Name Soul-Freezing reflects both their cold appearance and their lethal effect. ↩

7. 赤练神掌 – Chìliàn Shénzhǎng. Li Mochou’s palm technique, infused with poison. Name links her palm strikes to her serpentine nickname, suggesting that her very touch is as deadly as a venomous snake’s bite. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩