The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 2 – Part 8

Ouyang Feng dared not let go. He held fast to the other man’s chest and reached with his left hand to twist at his waist, and suddenly his hand met something hard. He snatched it out. It was a sharp knife: the Butchering Ox Knife,¹ the weapon Zhang Asheng² had always used. For all its name, it had never been meant for butchering oxen. The knife could cut gold and sever jade, sharp beyond compare. Zhang Asheng had died at the hands of Chen Xuanfeng³ in the Mongolian desert, and Ke Zhen’e, cherishing the memory of his sworn brother, carried the knife on him and never parted from it for a moment. Grappling at close quarters, Ouyang Feng had pulled it out. He curled his left arm round and raised the knife to drive it into his enemy’s flank. At that very moment Ke Zhen’e let go of his staff and swung his right fist, and with a heavy thud the blow sent Ouyang Feng tumbling head over heels. Stars burst before his eyes, and in his daze he flung the knife at his enemy. Ke Zhen’e heard it coming through the air and swayed aside. There was a loud clang, and the bell hummed on and on: the knife had struck the iron bell in the hall. Ouyang Feng’s throw had little force behind it. The blade struck the bell, glanced off and drove into the wooden post of the bell frame beside it, and there it quivered without stopping.

Yang Guo had been standing by the bell, and the knife flew so close past his face that it all but caught his cheek. His heart pounded with fright, and he scrambled up the bell frame as fast as his hands and feet would take him. Ouyang Feng quietly got to his feet, circled round behind the bell and held his breath. The bell was still ringing, and for the moment Ke Zhen’e could not make out where his breathing came from. He cocked his head, straining to pick out the sound. In the faint candlelight of the great hall, Yang Guo saw him standing there with his hair wild, leaning on his staff and listening, and saw what the whole thing turned on. He pulled out the Butchering Ox Knife and knocked its handle against the bell, and the clang drowned out both men’s breathing.

Hearing the bell, Ke Zhen’e lunged forward and swept his staff across. Ouyang Feng dodged aside, and the staff hit the iron bell with a mighty clang, truly deafening. Yang Guo felt a faint ache deep in his eardrums. Ke Zhen’e’s blood was up. He beat the bell again and again with his staff, each stroke ringing out before the last had died, louder and louder. Ouyang Feng thought, If he keeps hammering like this, Guo Jing may be hurt, but Huang Rong will likely come to help. Under cover of the deafening bell he lightened his steps, meaning to slip out through the rear hall. But Ke Zhen’e’s hearing was keen beyond belief. Even amid the great booming of the bell he could still pick out other faint sounds. He heard Ouyang Feng’s footsteps moving, pretended not to notice, and went on beating the bell wildly. He waited until Ouyang Feng had gone several paces and was well clear of the bell, then suddenly sprang forward and brought his staff down at the top of his head.

Ouyang Feng might have lost his strength, but in his life he had come through more storms and high seas than he could count. How could he not know every feint and trick of a fight? The moment he saw Ke Zhen’e’s right shoulder lift slightly, he knew what the man meant to do, and before the staff could swing out he had already fled back behind the bell. Since his grave injury every step had been hard for him, yet now, with life and death hanging by a hair, he drew from decades of deep neili a force that even he did not know he had. Ke Zhen’e was furious. “Even if I can’t beat you to death, I’ll wear you to death,” he shouted, and circled the bell after him.

Yang Guo watched the two of them circling the iron bell. If this went on much longer, his sworn father was sure to run out of strength. Seeing how desperate things were, he suddenly hit upon a plan. Clinging to the bell frame, he waved his arms wildly, making big signs. Ouyang Feng, his whole mind on dodging his pursuer, did not see them. Only after two more circuits did he catch Yang Guo’s shadow cast on the ground, signalling him to go. For a moment he did not grasp what the boy meant, but he thought, If he’s telling me to go, he must have a reason. He took the risk and ran for the outside.

Ke Zhen’e stopped dead to work out which way his enemy had gone. Yang Guo pulled off his two shoes and threw them towards the rear hall, and they landed on the floor with two slaps. Ke Zhen’e was astonished. He had plainly heard Ouyang Feng heading for the main door, so how could there be sounds from the rear hall? In the instant he hesitated, Yang Guo raised the Butchering Ox Knife and hacked with all his strength at the crossbeam of the frame from which the iron bell hung. The beam was very thick and Yang Guo’s strength small. Sharp as the knife was, how could a few quick chops cut through it? But the iron bell was enormously heavy, and with several notches hacked into it one after another, the beam could no longer bear its weight. With a run of splintering cracks it snapped, and the great iron bell came hurtling straight down at the crown of Ke Zhen’e’s head, a fierce gust of wind with it.

Ke Zhen’e had already heard a strange sound start up overhead and was wondering what it could be when the great bell came down on him. There was no time to get clear. In that desperate instant he stood his staff straight up, and with a tremendous clang the rim of the bell came down on it. That one moment’s check let him roll out from under the bell. Then came a crack, a thud, a thud and a boom, one after another, as the great bell struck the staff and rolled over, slamming hard into Ke Zhen’e’s leg and flinging him out through the temple gate. He turned several somersaults and landed with his nose pouring blood and a great gash at the corner of his brow. Unable to see, Ke Zhen’e had no idea how this disaster had come about. Afraid there might be some other uncanny enemy in the hall, he scrambled up and limped away.

Ouyang Feng had watched it all from the side, and even he was a little startled. “A pity, a pity!” he kept saying, and then, “Good child, how clever!” Yang Guo climbed down from the bell frame. “That blind man won’t dare come back now,” he said happily. Ouyang Feng shook his head. “His hatred for me runs deeper than the sea. As long as he has a breath left in him, he will come back.” “Then let’s get away, quick,” said Yang Guo. Ouyang Feng shook his head again. “I’m too badly hurt. I can’t get far.” Now that the danger had passed for the moment, he felt as though every bone and limb in his body were about to come apart. He truly could not move a single step. “Then what do we do?” said Yang Guo anxiously. Ouyang Feng thought for a long moment. “There is a way,” he said. “Cut through the crossbeam of the other bell and bring it down over me.” “Then how will you get out?” said Yang Guo. “I’ll train under the bell for seven days,” said Ouyang Feng. “Once my primal strength is back, I can tip the bell up and come out on my own. In those seven days, even if that Ke the Blind comes back for revenge, with his paltry bit of skill he’ll never lift this great bell. As long as that slip of a girl Huang Rong doesn’t come, nobody is likely to see through the trick. If Huang Rong comes, then all is lost.”

Yang Guo thought it over and saw that there really was no other way. He made sure that Ouyang Feng could truly open the bell himself without anyone’s help, then asked, “You’ll have nothing to eat for seven days. Will you be all right?” “Go and find a basin or a bowl,” said Ouyang Feng, “fill it with clean water and put it beside me. There are still a good few steamed buns here. If I eat them slowly, I can hold out for seven days.”

Yang Guo went to the kitchen and found an earthenware bowl. He washed it, filled it with clean water and set it under the other great bell, the one still hanging high. Then he helped Ouyang Feng to sit squarely beneath it. “Child,” said Ouyang Feng, “go on and follow that fellow Guo. Some day I will surely come and find you.” Yang Guo promised. He climbed the bell frame and cut through the crossbeam, and the great iron bell dropped and shut Ouyang Feng in.

Yang Guo called “Papa” several times but heard no answer, and knew that inside the bell Ouyang Feng could hear nothing from outside. He was about to leave when a thought struck him. He went to the rear hall again, took another earthenware bowl and filled it with clean water. He set the bowl on the floor, then turned himself upside down, put his left hand in the bowl, and by the reverse-channel method Ouyang Feng had taught him forced some of the poisoned blood out of his hand. But the technique was terribly exhausting, and he had learned no more than its bare rudiments. He squeezed out only a dozen or so drops of black blood, and already his head was drenched in sweat. After resting a while, he tore down several cloth banners from in front of the god’s images and wound them around a divination-stick holder, dipped it in the bloody water in the bowl, and daubed it all over the bell. If Ke the Blind comes again, he thought, and tries to prise the bell open, the moment his palm touches it he’ll be poisoned for sure.

Then it occurred to him that his sworn father, shut inside the bell, must not suffocate in those seven days. So with the sharp knife he dug at the green bricks under the rim of the bell and hollowed out a hole in the ground the size of a fist, to let in air. As he dug, the knife struck a hard stone beneath the bricks and snapped clean in two. The Butchering Ox Knife was keen beyond compare, but its edge was thin, and with Yang Guo using it as an iron chisel, hacking and gouging anyhow, a treasured knife had been destroyed. He did not know how precious it was, and since it was not his anyway, he felt no regret. He tossed it carelessly aside, lay flat on the ground and called into the hole under the bell, “Papa, I’m going. Come and fetch me soon. I’ve dug a hole in the ground by the edge of the bell to let the air in. The outside of the bell is poisoned, so be careful when you come out.” Then he turned his head and put his ear to the hole, and heard Ouyang Feng’s faint voice. “Good child, I’m not afraid of poison. Poison is afraid of me. Take care of yourself. I’ll come for you, I promise.”

Yang Guo stood there silently for a long while, loath to leave. Only then did he run swiftly back to the house where they were lodging. He went over the wall with his heart in his mouth, afraid Ke Zhen’e would catch him. But when he got into the room he found Ke Zhen’e not yet back, which he had not expected at all.

Early next morning he suddenly heard someone pounding on the door with a stick, thud, thud, thud. Yang Guo jumped out of bed and opened it. There stood Ke Zhen’e, holding a wooden staff, his face ashen grey. The moment he stepped through the doorway he pitched forward and fell to the floor. Yang Guo saw that both his hands were black. He had gone looking for Ouyang Feng again after all, and had fallen victim at last to the poison Yang Guo had laid. Yang Guo was secretly delighted, but he put on a show of alarm. “Grandpa Ke, what’s the matter?” he cried.

Hearing the shouts, Guo Jing and Huang Rong ran over to see, and were shocked to find Ke Zhen’e on the floor. Guo Jing could walk by now, but he had no strength, so Huang Rong helped Ke Zhen’e onto the bed. “Eldest shifu, what’s happened?” she asked. Ke Zhen’e shook his head and did not answer. Seeing the blackness in his palms, Huang Rong said bitterly, “That vile woman Li again. Jing gege, let me go and settle with her.” With that she tightened her belt and strode out.

“It wasn’t that woman,” said Ke Zhen’e in a low voice. Huang Rong stopped and turned round in surprise. “Oh? Then who was it?” Ke Zhen’e felt that he had not been able to deal even with a man who had no strength to truss a chicken, and had come back hurt instead, which was about as useless as a man could be. He was hard and proud by nature, and said not a single word about how he had come by his injury. Guo Jing and Huang Rong knew his temper. If he was willing to tell, he would come out with it himself. Otherwise, the more they asked, the angrier he would get. Luckily the poison had only got into his skin and was not very strong. It had merely knocked him out for a while, and after a Nine-Flower Jade Dew Pill⁴ he was none the worse.

Huang Rong weighed it up. With Guo Jing and Ke Zhen’e both hurt, and Li Mochou’s poisonous cunning impossible to gauge, the only perfectly safe course was first to take the two injured men and the two children to Peach Blossom Island, and come back later to settle accounts with her. That morning they rested half a day at the house, and in the afternoon hired a boat and travelled east. Yang Guo, seeing that Huang Rong was not going after Ouyang Feng, was secretly glad. And he thought, Papa is terribly afraid of Auntie Guo going after him. Can Auntie Guo, a soft, dainty beauty like her, really be more formidable than Ke the Blind?

They sailed for half a day. As evening came on, the boat moored at the bank and the boatman washed rice to cook supper. Guo Fu, seeing that Yang Guo was ignoring her, was both cross and bored. She leaned on the boat’s window and looked out, and suddenly saw two small children in the shade of the willows, weeping piteously. By the look of them they were none other than the brothers Wu Dunru and Wu Xiuwen. “Hey, what are you doing?” Guo Fu shouted. Wu Xiuwen looked round and saw it was Guo Fu. “We’re crying. Can’t you see?” he sobbed. “What for?” said Guo Fu. “Did your mother beat you?” “Our mother’s dead!” wept Wu Xiuwen.

“Who’s their mother?” asked Huang Rong. “They’re Uncle Wu and Auntie Wu’s sons,” said Guo Fu. Huang Rong had already learned that Wu Santong and his wife had helped hold off Li Mochou, and that Wu Santong was a disciple of their benefactor, Great Master Yideng. Startled, she leapt ashore.

There were the two children, clinging to their mother’s body and weeping piteously. Madam Wu’s whole face was black. She had been dead a long while. Huang Rong asked again where Wu Santong had gone. “Papa’s gone off, we don’t know where,” sobbed Wu Dunru. “Mama sucked the poison out of Papa’s wound,” said Wu Xiuwen. “She sucked out lots and lots of black blood. Papa got better, but Mama died. When Papa saw Mama was dead, his head went all muddled again. We called him, but he took no notice and just went away.” And he began crying again. Huang Rong thought, Madam Wu gave her life to save her husband. She was truly a woman of loyalty and valour. “You must be hungry,” she said. The two brothers nodded and nodded.

Huang Rong sighed. She told the boatman to bring them aboard to eat, then went into the town, bought a coffin and laid Madam Wu in it. It was too late to bury her that night. Only the next morning did they find a burial plot and inter the coffin. The Wu brothers threw themselves down before the grave and wept aloud.

“Ronger,” said Guo Jing, “these two children have lost both father and mother. Let’s take them to Peach Blossom Island. Looking after them will mean a lot more trouble for you, I’m afraid.” Huang Rong nodded her agreement. She calmed the Wu brothers, and they went aboard and sailed to the coast, where they hired a bigger vessel and set off east for Peach Blossom Island. Huang Yaoshi had long since left the island. Guo Jing and Huang Rong had settled there and no longer harmed anyone at random, so the boatmen round about no longer dreaded Peach Blossom Island as a dragon’s pool or a tiger’s den.

Footnotes

1. 屠牛刀 – Tú Niú Dāo. Butchering Ox Knife, Zhang Asheng’s signature weapon. Despite its humble name, it is a blade of exceptional quality, capable of cutting through metal and jade. ↩

2. 张阿生 – Zhāng Āshēng. Laughing Buddha, the fifth of the Seven Freaks of Jiangnan. He died in the Mongolian desert at the hands of Chen Xuanfeng while protecting Guo Jing. ↩

3. 陈玄风 – Chén Xuánfēng. Copper Corpse, a renegade disciple of Huang Yaoshi who, with his wife Mei Chaofeng, stole the Nine Yin Manual and became infamous for their brutal martial arts. ↩

4. 九花玉露丸 – Jiǔhuā Yùlù Wán. Nine-Flower Jade Dew Pill, a rare medicinal pill with healing properties. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩