The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 20

The greatest of xia¹

Yang Guo² had meant to keep out of this quarrel, but Gongsun Zhi’s³ savagery set his anger blazing, and he was about to step up and have it out with him when Xiaolongnü⁴ darted in ahead of him and raised Qiu Qianchi⁵ to her feet. She worked the Yuzhen acupoint at the back of Qiu Qianchi’s head a few times to check the bleeding,⁶ tore a strip from the front of her gown to bind the wound, then rounded on Gongsun Zhi. “Mister Gongsun, she is your first wife. Why do you treat her like this? If you already have a wife, why did you want to marry me? Even if I had married you, wouldn’t you one day treat me just as you treat her?”

Three questions, and every one went home. Gongsun Zhi stood open-mouthed, with nothing to say. Ma Guangzuo⁷ could not hold back a loud bellow of approval. Xiaoxiangzi said coldly, “The young lady is quite right.”

Gongsun Zhi’s infatuation with Xiaolongnü was real. Her questions had left him tongue-tied, yet he looked only awkward, not angry, and he answered humbly, in a low voice, “Sister Liu, how can you compare yourself with that vicious shrew? My only fear is that I cannot love you enough. If I bear you the least ill will, may Heaven strike me and Earth destroy me.” Xiaolongnü said coolly, “You have borne me more ill will than I can count! In all the world there is only one man I want to love me, and that is my Yang Lang.⁸ Love me a hundred times more, and you will only make me loathe you the more.” With that she went over and took Yang Guo’s hand.

Yang Guo was beside himself with indignation. Aunt⁹ treats me like this, and I have only days to live, and it’s all your doing, you cur. He pointed at Gongsun Zhi and shouted, “You say you bear my aunt no ill will? Hah. You threw me into a death trap and then tricked her into marrying you. Is that goodwill? She has the Passion Flower poison in her, and you knew full well there was no cure, yet you never told her. Is that goodwill?” Xiaolongnü started. “Is that true?” she asked, her voice shaking. “It doesn’t matter,” said Yang Guo. “You’ve already taken the antidote.” He smiled faintly, a smile both desolate and glad. I gave the antidote to you, he thought. I’m dying for you, and I do it willingly.

Gongsun Zhi looked at Qiu Qianchi, then at Xiaolongnü and Yang Guo, his eyes travelling round all three faces, and jealousy, desire, rage, regret, disappointment and shame churned and knotted together inside him. Ordinarily he was a man of great self-command, but now he seemed half mad. Suddenly he stooped, snatched his yin-yang pair of blades from beneath the red carpet and struck them together with a clang. “Good, good!” he roared. “Today we all die together!” No one had dreamed he would hide weapons under the very carpet where bride and groom were to make their wedding bows, and a startled cry went up from every side.

Xiaolongnü gave a cold laugh. “Guoer, I bitterly regret sparing a villain like this.” Steel rang, and she too drew a pair of jians from beneath her scarlet bridal gown: the Junzi Jian¹⁰ and the Shunü Jian.¹¹ She knew little of the ways of the world, but against anyone she hated she struck without the least mercy. When she avenged Granny Sun, she had left the Quanzhen Daoists of Chongyang Palace quaking with terror, and Guangningzi Hao Datong¹² had barely escaped with his life. Today Gongsun Zhi had kept her from being reunited with Yang Guo, and she had long since resolved to fight him to the death. That was why she had hidden the two jians beneath her wedding gown. As soon as Gongsun Zhi had cured Yang Guo, she would watch her chance and strike, and if she failed, she would cut her own throat sooner than lose her chastity in Passionless Valley.¹³

The wedding guests were dumbfounded to find that bride and groom had both come armed. Only the few with real discernment, State Preceptor Jinlun¹⁴ among them, had foreseen long before that this wedding was bound to end in bloodshed. Even they were greatly puzzled, though, that Qiu Qianchi had gone down at a single blow, so little in keeping with the deep neigong¹⁵ she had shown earlier.

Yang Guo took the Junzi Jian from Xiaolongnü’s hand. “Aunt,” he said, “today we kill this wretch and avenge me.” Xiaolongnü gave the Shunü Jian a shake. “Avenge you?” she said, puzzled. Yang Guo felt a secret pang, but he knew he could not tell her the truth. “This murdering villain has harmed a great many people,” was all he said. His long jian quivered and darted straight at Gongsun Zhi’s left flank. He knew how perilous this fight would be. The Passion Flower poison in Xiaolongnü had been cured, but in him it ran deep, and if the two of them joined jians in the Pure-Hearted Jade Maiden Swordplay,¹⁶ the first stir of true feeling would bring agony past bearing. So he kept his eyes fixed straight on the enemy and opened with the Quanzhen Swordplay,¹⁷ every move and every form executed with the strictest discipline. In the hands of old Daoists like Ma Yu or Qiu Chuji, this swordplay was steady and composed, heavy with antique simplicity. Wielded by Yang Guo, it had a young man’s borrowed gravity, and it moved a shade stiffly.

Gongsun Zhi knew how deadly the two of them were with their jians joined. From the first move he unleashed the Yin-Yang Reversed Blades Art,¹⁸ black jian in his right hand, golden dao in his left, his moves savage beyond compare. Yang Guo’s Quanzhen Swordplay had been created long ago by Wang Chongyang.¹⁹ It lacked the enemy’s ferocity, but its variations were subtle and precise. Yang Guo held his ground without attacking and took three of his moves. Then, with a sharp cry, Xiaolongnü levelled the Shunü Jian and drove it at Gongsun Zhi’s back.

Gongsun Zhi was eaten up with hatred. This flower of a girl was my bride, and now she joins jians with another man against me. And then, That vicious hag turns up out of nowhere and lays the past bare. My authority is in the dust and my face is gone. Not only can I never force Sister Liu into marriage now, even my family’s hold on Passionless Valley is in danger. He trusted in his superb martial skill: whatever thorny trouble the day had brought, he would still settle it by force. Let him only beat Yang Guo, and he would carry Xiaolongnü off far away. He did not know she had already taken the antidote, the Passion Severing Pill. He believed she had only thirty-six days to live, and within those thirty-six days he would make her his wife. The darker his thoughts grew, the more ferocious his Reversed Blades Art became.

Xiaolongnü set the Jade Maiden Swordplay²⁰ in motion, waiting for the moment her heart would meet Yang Guo’s and the Pure-Hearted Swordplay would come into its full power. But his eyes never once turned her way. He simply plied his jian and fought on alone. Xiaolongnü found this very strange. “Guoer, why won’t you look at me?” she asked. As tenderness stirred in her, the flash of her jian suddenly reached further. At the sound of her voice Yang Guo’s heart lurched, and at once a violent pain seized his chest. His jian slowed a fraction, and with a rip the black jian slit his sleeve. Xiaolongnü cried out in alarm and struck three times, swish, swish, swish, to check Gongsun Zhi’s attack. “I can’t look at you,” said Yang Guo, “and I can’t listen to you either.” “Why?” Xiaolongnü asked, soft and tender. Afraid of being caught off guard again, Yang Guo answered roughly, “If you want me dead, go ahead and keep talking!” The moment anger rose in him, the pain stopped, and he took every one of the black jian’s moves upon himself.

Xiaolongnü did not understand why, but as his wife she must do as he wished. “Don’t be angry,” she said gently. “I won’t talk any more.” Then a thought struck her, Ah, my poison is cured, but he never took the antidote! He got hold of the cure, and instead of taking it himself he used it on me. Gratitude welled up in her, deep and strong, and with it a deep, aching tenderness. Her strength rose with her feeling, the Pure-Hearted Jade Maiden Swordplay surged to full power, and every move she sent out now covered every vital point on Yang Guo’s body. By rights, as she guarded Yang Guo, he should have been fending off the attacks aimed at her. But he dared not so much as glance aside, and so she was left with no guard at all, open to attack from every quarter.

Gongsun Zhi’s eye was razor-sharp, and within a few moves he had seen the weakness. But he would not harm a hair of Xiaolongnü’s head, so every cut of his dao and every thrust of his jian went savagely at Yang Guo. The attack came like breakers crashing on the shore; the defence stood like a rock unmoved. And with Xiaolongnü guarding him with all her might, Gongsun Zhi could make no headway against his enemy in several dozen moves.

By now Lü’e had come round, and she stood beside her mother watching the fight. Seeing Xiaolongnü guard Yang Guo with all her strength and no thought at all for her own safety, she could not help asking herself, If it were me, at a moment of life and death like this, could I forget myself to protect him? She sighed softly. I could surely treat him the way Miss Long does, she thought. But he would never, ever treat me that way.

Just then Qiu Qianchi cried hoarsely, “The false dao is no dao, the false jian is no jian!” Yang Guo and Xiaolongnü both started, unable to make out what she meant. Qiu Qianchi cried again, “The dao is a dao, the jian is a jian!”

Yang Guo had now fought Gongsun Zhi twice, and all the while he had been puzzling over the secret of the Yin-Yang Reversed Blades Art. He had watched the man swing the light, airy black jian in hard hacks and chops, while the thick, heavy serrated golden dao darted and soared, moving entirely in the manner of a single jian, every move running exactly counter to the deepest principles of the martial arts. Had he used the dao as a jian and the jian as a dao from first to last, that would have been one thing. But in a flash he would turn it all on its head again: dao technique showing through the swordplay, the killing strokes of the jian lurking inside the dao cuts, endlessly shifting, impossible to pin down. Now, hearing Qiu Qianchi cry those sixteen words, he thought, Can it be that the jian moves in his dao and the dao moves in his jian are all sham? The black jian came chopping across at his shoulder, plainly a single-dao stroke, and in his mind he simply took it for a long jian. The Junzi Jian shot out, the two jians met with a clang, and each man fell back a step. Only then did he know that at bottom the black jian was still a jian, and its dao moves only a feint to dazzle the eye. Against an opponent a little less skilled, though, who answered them wrongly, those dao moves could still do harm.

Yang Guo’s first try had worked, and his heart leapt. He bent his mind at once to finding the flaws in his opponent’s dao and jian. His moves are scrambled, and clever with it, but the line of them can’t be pure. They had traded a few more moves when Qiu Qianchi suddenly called, “Attack his right leg. Attack his right leg.” Yang Guo saw the golden dao flickering, and Gongsun Zhi’s lower body seemed to offer no opening at all. But Qiu Qianchi, he reflected, had lost the strength of her hands and feet, not one jot of the martial learning stored in her breast, and since she had taught Gongsun Zhi his martial arts, she must know where they were strong and where weak. He did as she said and struck at his opponent’s right leg. Gongsun Zhi swept his dao across to parry. His right leg was safe, but that sideways sweep laid bare his left shoulder and left flank at once. Yang Guo did not wait for Qiu Qianchi to tell him: his long jian flashed, and it had already slit the clothing under Gongsun Zhi’s arm. Gongsun Zhi cursed and leapt back, glaring at Qiu Qianchi. “Old beggar hag, do you think I’ll spare you?” he roared, and he came at Yang Guo again with dao and jian.

Footnotes

1. 侠之大者 – Xiá zhī dà zhě. Chapter title. Lit. “Of xia, the great one.” From Guo Jing’s words: 为国为民，侠之大者, the greatest xia serves the nation and the people. ↩

2. 杨过 – Yáng Guò. His name meaning “fault or transgression”; his courtesy name Gaizhi means “to correct it”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 公孙止 – Gōngsūn Zhǐ. His name meaning “to cease” or “to stop”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 小龙女 – Xiǎolóngnǚ. Literally little dragon maiden. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 裘千尺 – Qiú Qiānchǐ. Gongsun Zhi’s wife and Qiu Qianren’s younger sister; known as Iron Palm Lotus. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 玉枕穴 – Yùzhěn Xué. “Jade Pillow” acupoint, located at the back of the head. In traditional Chinese medicine and martial arts, applying pressure here can stop bleeding and calm the mind. ↩

7. 马光佐 – Mǎ Guāngzuò. His name meaning “bright assistance”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 杨郎 – Yang Lang. “My Yang” or “Yang my husband.” An intimate form of address used by Xiaolongnü, expressing wifely affection. Suffix lang (郎) is a classical term of endearment for a husband or beloved. ↩

9. 姑姑 – gūgu. Literally paternal aunt, used here as a term of respectful address for a young woman of the older generation. Yang Guo uses this to address Xiaolongnü, his shifu. ↩

10. 君子剑 – Jūnzǐ Jiàn. One of a legendary pair of swords. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 淑女剑 – Shūnǚ Jiàn. Counterpart to the Junzi Jian. Shunü means a virtuous, refined lady, the feminine counterpart to the junzi ideal. ↩

12. 郝大通 – Hǎo Dàtōng. His name meaning “great penetration”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 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. ↩

14. 金轮国师 – Jīnlún Guóshī. Literally Golden Wheel State Preceptor. The Mongol Empire’s State Preceptor and a martial arts adept. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

16. 玉女素心剑法 – Yùnǚ Sùxīn Jiànfǎ. Paired sword technique of the Ancient Tomb School. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

17. 全真剑法 – Quánzhēn Jiànfǎ. Seven swords with seven forms, totalling forty-nine variations emphasising defence. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

19. 王重阳 – Wáng Chóngyáng. His name meaning “double yang”, the ninth day of the ninth lunar month. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

20. 玉女剑法 – Yùnǚ Jiànfǎ. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩