The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 2 – Part 3

Just then the sound of something tearing through the air came again, and a small pebble flew hard at her back. Li Mochou heard the wind of it and knew how fierce it was. She swung her whisk round, and the steel handle lashed out and struck the pebble squarely. Pain stabbed through the web of her thumb, her palm burned, her whole body jarred, and the whisk all but flew out of her hand. She dared not linger. Snatching up Lu Wushuang, she sped off in her qinggong,¹ skimming over the ground like a gale, and in the blink of an eye she was gone without a trace.

Seeing her cousin carried off, Cheng Ying cried, “Cousin, cousin!” and ran after them. But Li Mochou was fleet of foot. How could Cheng Ying hope to catch her? The Jiangnan² water country was criss-crossed everywhere with rivers and lakes, and Cheng Ying had not run far when a little river barred her way and she could go no further. She ran along the bank, shouting, and suddenly saw a flicker of yellow on a little bridge to her left: someone was crossing over from the far bank. Cheng Ying had barely gaped before Li Mochou was standing in front of her, but she no longer had Lu Wushuang in her hands.

Cheng Ying was terrified to see her come back, but she plucked up her courage and asked, “Where is my cousin?” Li Mochou took in her fair, delicate skin and lovely features. “Looking the way you do,” she said coldly, “when you grow up you’ll either break other people’s hearts or have your own broken. Better to die young and spare the world a good deal of trouble.” Her whisk rose and swept down at the girl’s head, to smash her head and chest to pulp.

She had swung the whisk back behind her and was about to bring it forward when suddenly it pulled tight in her hand. Something had caught hold of its tail, and she could not swing it out. Badly startled, she turned to look, and in that instant she was lifted off the ground against her will, hauled upwards by a tremendous force. This was no ordinary shock. Going with the pull, she leapt high and backwards some ten feet before she came down, her left palm guarding her chest, and drove her whisk straight out with all her internal force behind it. But there was nothing in front of her at all. In the hundreds of fights, great and small, of her whole life, she had never met anything so uncanny, and a thought flashed through her mind like lightning, A demon? A ghost? She used the move “Primal Chaos Form”,³ whirling her whisk in a circle to guard everything within five feet of her, and only then did she turn round.

Beside Cheng Ying stood a tall, gaunt, strange man in a dark green robe. His face was blank and wooden. He looked like a living man, and he looked like a corpse. At the sight of him a revulsion she could not put into words rose in her heart, and before she knew it Li Mochou had backed away two steps. For the moment she truly could not think of any formidable figure in the wulin who looked like this. She was about to ask who he was when the man lowered his head and said to Cheng Ying, “Child, this woman is vicious. Go and hit her.” Cheng Ying would not dare. She looked up at him. “I don’t dare.” “What are you afraid of?” said the man. “Just hit her.” Still Cheng Ying did not dare. The man seized her by the back and threw her at Li Mochou.

Faced with something so far out of the ordinary, Li Mochou dared not answer it in an ordinary way. Striking with her whisk would surely be unwise, she judged, so she put out her left hand to catch the girl. But just as her hand was about to touch Cheng Ying’s waist, she heard a faint hiss. The crook of her arm suddenly went sore and weak, and she could not lift it. Cheng Ying crashed headfirst into her chest, swung her hand as she came, and with a crack, loud and clear, slapped Li Mochou across the face.

Li Mochou had never in her life been so humiliated. In her mad fury she cast all caution aside. She reversed her whisk and brought it slashing down at the top of Cheng Ying’s head, but a violent jolt shot through the web of her thumb, and the handle of her whisk flew up and almost out of her grasp. The man had flicked another small stone at it. Cheng Ying, meanwhile, was already standing steadily on the ground.

Li Mochou knew she would get nothing out of today. If she did not get away quickly, her very life would be in danger. She gave a soft laugh, turned and ran. A few steps on, she swept both sleeves backwards again and again, there was a flicker of silver light, and more than ten Soul-Freezing Silver Needles⁴ shot at the strange man in the green robe. She did not turn her body or look back as she loosed them, yet every needle was aimed at a vital point. The man was caught off guard. He had never expected her skill with hidden weapons to be so insidious and deadly, and he flung himself backwards in a desperate leap. Fast as the needles came, his leap was faster. There was a light tinkling and chiming, and the needles all fell to the ground. Li Mochou had known full well she could not hit him. Those dozen-odd needles were only meant to drive him back. The moment she heard the wind of his leap, she flicked her sleeve again, and a single silver needle shot straight at Cheng Ying. She knew this one could not miss. Afraid the green-robed man would come after her, she did not even look back to check, but put on speed, raced across the bridge and vanished into the mulberry grove.

“Oh no!” cried the green-robed man. He rushed forward and picked Cheng Ying up. A long silver needle was lodged in her shoulder. His face changed colour. After a moment’s thought he lifted her in his arms and strode swiftly away westwards.

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Ke Zhen’e and the others, seeing that Li Mochou had carried off Lu Wushuang after all, were all filled with dread. “I’ll go and have a look,” said the ragged boy. “What’s there to look at?” said Guo Fu. “That wicked woman will kill you with one kick.” The boy laughed. “You’ll kick me dead? I doubt it.” With that he set off at a run the way Li Mochou had gone. “Idiot!” said Guo Fu. “I didn’t say I was going to kick you.” She did not realise that the boy had twisted her words round to call her the “wicked woman”.

The boy ran for a while, and then he heard Cheng Ying’s voice in the distance, calling, “Cousin, cousin!” He followed the sound. When he had run several hundred feet, he judged by the direction of the voice that he must have reached the spot where Cheng Ying had called out, but there was no sign of either girl anywhere around.

He turned his head and saw more than a dozen silver needles glittering on the ground, their shafts engraved with patterns and very finely made. He stooped and picked them up one by one, gathering them in his left palm. Then he noticed a large centipede lying dead beside the needles, belly up. This struck him as interesting, and when he bent closer he saw that a good many ants had died there too, while a few paces away plenty more were still crawling about. He took a silver needle and poked at a few of them. The ants went round in a few circles, then flipped over and lay stiff and dead. He tried it on several more small insects, with the same result every time.

The boy was delighted, and thought, These silver needles would be perfect for catching mosquitoes and flies. But then his left hand suddenly went numb and would not quite do as it was told, and it came to him with a jolt, The needles are poisoned! Holding them in my hand, isn’t that dangerous? He hurriedly opened his hand and threw the needles down. Both his palms had already turned black, the left one as black as ink. Frightened, he rubbed his hands hard against his thighs, but he could feel the numbness creeping slowly up his left arm, and within moments it had reached his elbow. As a small child he had once been bitten by a venomous snake and nearly died, and the flesh around the bite had gone numb just like this. He knew how dangerous it was, and with a wail he burst into tears.

Suddenly a voice behind him said, “Little one, now you know what trouble is, eh?” It was harsh and grating, as if it had burrowed up out of the ground. The boy whirled round and got a fright. A man stood before him upside down, propped off the ground on a block of wood in each hand, head down and feet up, legs together and pointing at the sky. The boy backed away several steps. “You… who are you?” he cried.

The man pushed off the ground with both hands, and his body shot up in a three-foot leap and landed in front of the boy. “Who… who am I?” he said. “If I knew who I was, I’d be all right.” The boy was more frightened than ever and ran for it. Behind him came a loud thock, thock, thock. He looked back and was scared out of his wits. The man was using his hands as feet, slapping the hardwood blocks on the ground and walking upside down, and he was terribly fast. He was no more than a few feet behind him.

The boy ran faster still, running for his life. Suddenly, with a whoosh, the man vaulted over his head and landed in front of him. “Mama!” the boy screamed, and turned to flee. But whichever way he ran, the strange man always sprang up with a whoosh and landed in front of him. He had two good legs and still could not outrun a man who walked on his hands. He changed direction several times, but the strange man closed in closer and closer. He put out a hand to push him off, but his arm was numb and no longer obeyed him. Drenched in sweat and at his wits’ end, he felt his legs give way, and he sat down hard on the ground.

“The more you run about,” said the strange man, “the faster the poison works through your body.” Inspiration struck the boy. He dropped to his knees and cried, “Please, Grandpa, save my life.” The strange man shook his head. “Hard to save, hard to save!” “You’re so very skilled,” said the boy, “you’re sure to be able to save me.” The flattery pleased the strange man enormously. He smiled a little. “How do you know I’m skilled?” The boy heard his tone soften and sensed a way out. “You run that fast even upside down,” he said quickly. “There’s not a second man under heaven who can match you.” He had tossed off the compliment without thinking, but “not a second man under heaven who can match you” struck the strange man right in the heart. He roared with laughter till the treetops shook. “Turn upside down,” he cried, “and let me have a look at you.”

The boy thought, Fair enough. I’m the right way up and he’s upside down, so we really can’t see each other properly. If he won’t stand the right way up, I’ll have to stand on my head. He turned himself over and planted his head on the ground, propping himself up firmly with his right hand, which still had some feeling in it. The strange man looked him over closely for a moment, frowning and pondering.

Now that the boy was upside down, he too could see the strange man’s face clearly. He had a high nose and deep-set eyes, and his face was covered with short, grizzled whiskers, like silver and iron. The boy heard him mutter to himself too, jabbering strange gibberish that grated on the ear. Afraid the man would not save him, the boy pleaded, “Good Grandpa, please save me.” The strange man saw that the boy had fine, handsome features, and he felt a certain fondness for him. “All right,” he said. “Saving you is not hard, but you must promise me one thing.” “Whatever you say, I’ll do it,” said the boy. “Grandpa, what do you want me to promise?” The strange man bared his teeth in a grin. “That is exactly what I want you to promise. Whatever I say, you must do it.” The boy hesitated, thinking, Do whatever he says? Even if he tells me to play the dog and eat dung?

The strange man saw him hesitate and grew angry. “Fine, go and die, then!” He drew in his hands and thrust them out again, and his body flew up and landed several feet to one side. Afraid he would leave, the boy hurried to go after him and plead again. But he could not walk on his hands as the man did, so he flipped upright, ran a few steps and called out, “Grandpa, I promise. Whatever you say, I’ll do it.” The strange man turned round. “Good,” he said. “Swear a solemn oath.” By now the numbness in the boy’s left arm had spread to his shoulder, and he was more frightened by the moment. He had no choice but to swear: “If Grandpa saves my life and takes the poison out of my body, I will do as he says. If I don’t, may the poison come back into my body.” He thought, From now on I’ll never touch those silver needles again, so how could the poison come back? But I wonder if this strange man will count an oath like that?

When he stole a sidelong look at him, though, the man’s face was bright with pleasure, plainly well satisfied, and the boy rejoiced inwardly, The old so-and-so believes me. The strange man nodded. Suddenly he flipped himself the right way up, took hold of the boy’s arm and kneaded it a few times. “Good, good,” he said. “You’re a good child.” Under his kneading the boy felt the numbness in his arm ease at once. “Grandpa, do it some more!” he cried. The strange man frowned. “Don’t call me Grandpa. Call me Papa!” “My papa died long ago,” said the boy. “I haven’t got a papa.” “The very first thing I tell you,” the strange man barked, “and you won’t do it. What use is a son like you?”

Footnotes

1. 轻功 – qīnggōng. Literally lightness skill. Martial art of body lightness; practitioners leap great heights and move with extraordinary speed. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 江南 – Jiāngnán. Prosperous region south of Yangtze River, continued from LOCH era. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 混元式 – Hùnyuán Shì. Primal Chaos Form, a defensive martial arts technique that creates a protective circle around the practitioner, drawing on the concept of primordial chaos as an undifferentiated, all-encompassing state. ↩

4. 冰魄银针 – Bīngpò Yínzhēn. Literally ice-soul silver needle. Li Mochou’s signature poisoned hidden weapon. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩