The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 22 – Part 4

Guo Jing’s face changed a little, and he caught Huang Rong by the hand to pull her behind him. “Jing gege,” Huang Rong said quietly, “which matters more, Xiangyang or our love? Your body or mine?”

Guo Jing let go of her hand. “You’re right,” he said. “The country comes first!” Huang Rong took out her bamboo staff and stood barring the doorway. She was thinking that Xiaolongnü had not yet passed on to Yang Guo what she had told her a little while ago. Would he strike out at the enemy, or take advantage of their danger to avenge his private wrong and win the antidote at one stroke? The boy’s temper was fickle, and whether he was good or bad no one could tell. If he really turned his weapon against them, all would be lost. So although she stood guarding the door with her staff levelled, her eyes were on Yang Guo.

Those few brief words between Guo Jing and his wife struck Yang Guo’s ears like a thunderclap from the heavens. He had resolved to help Guo Jing only because the man’s great humanity and righteousness had moved him. It was still no more than the notion of dying to repay one who understood him. But now, hearing the words “the country comes first”, he remembered what Guo Jing had said outside Xiangyang a few days before, “For the country, for the people: that is xia at its greatest,” and “Bend to the task with all one’s strength, and stop only at death.”¹ All at once a light broke in on him. He saw how deep the love and loyalty between husband and wife ran, yet when danger came, they put the country first in everything. And he himself? Never for a moment had he forgotten his father’s wrong and his private grudge, never for a moment his love for Xiaolongnü. When had he spared a single thought for the great affairs of the country, or for the sufferings of the common people under heaven? Beside them, how utterly mean he was.

In that instant the lessons Huang Rong had taught him as a boy on Peach Blossom Island, sayings like “die to fulfil humaneness; give up life to choose righteousness”,² came back to him with startling clarity. He was so ashamed he wished the earth would swallow him, and yet his spirit soared. With a mighty enemy upon them and life and death hanging by a thread, a host of thoughts he had never once had, never once heeded, suddenly became clear to him through and through. As his heart rose, his whole body seemed to grow taller. His face shone, and he seemed another man.

Many thoughts had passed through his mind, but it had all taken only an instant. Huang Rong saw his face go from bewilderment to shame, and from agitation to calm resolve, without knowing what he was thinking. Then she heard him say in a low voice, “Don’t worry!” With a clear, ringing cry he drew the Junzi Jian³ and sprang to the doorway.

State Preceptor Jinlun⁴ stood at the edge of the roof with a wheel in each hand. “Brother Yang,” he said with a smile, “you lurch east and totter west, chop and change from morning to night, and now you’re a turncoat of a petty man. And how does that taste? Very fine, I’m sure?”

Once, words like that would have thrown Yang Guo into a rage. But now his thoughts ran clear and his mind was calm. He said to himself, You’re right. Only today has my mind become firm. From now on, whether I live to a hundred or have only one more shichen⁵ to live, I’ll never change sides again. Aloud he laughed. “State Preceptor, you’re quite right. Some demon must have got into me, for I actually helped Guo Jing escape back here. The moment he reached Xiangyang he went to ground, and I can’t find him anywhere. I’ve been kicking myself ever since. Do you know where he is?” As he spoke he leapt up onto the roof and stood a few feet in front of him.

The State Preceptor eyed him sidelong, thinking, This boy is full of tricks. Who knows whether he means it? “And if you found him,” he said with a smile, “what then?” “I’d lift my hand and give him one stroke of the jian,” said Yang Guo. “Hmph. You’d dare kill him?” “Who said anything about killing him?” The State Preceptor stared. “Then whom would you kill?”

There was a hiss, and the Junzi Jian came stabbing at his left flank with a blast of wind behind it. “You, of course!” laughed Yang Guo. He had thrust in the middle of a laugh and a jest. The move itself was savage, and it was a surprise attack at close quarters besides. Had the State Preceptor’s martial skill been a little less, no better than Nimoxing’s or Xiaoxiangzi’s, that one stroke would have finished him. As it was, he changed his move in a flash, and in the nick of time drove force into his left arm and swept it outward to knock the blade aside. But the Junzi Jian was keen beyond measure, and its edge still opened a long gash in his arm, nearly an inch deep, and the blood streamed down.

The State Preceptor had known Yang Guo was sly, but he had never expected him to strike at such a moment. To be wounded the instant he set foot in Xiangyang took the edge off him, and he was furious. The golden wheel in his right hand whirred twice in two quick attacks, while the silver wheel in his left came driving in at the same time. Yang Guo did not give an inch. The enemy made three moves, and he answered with three thrusts of his own. “In the Mongol camp you wounded me with your golden wheel,” he laughed, “and only now have I paid you back one stroke. There’s something odd about this jian of mine. Do you know what it is?” The State Preceptor kept pressing with the silver wheel, but could not help asking, “What’s odd about it?” “Whatever it is, you can’t blame me for it,” laughed Yang Guo. “Smooth talk, you shameless, cunning brat! What can’t I blame you for?” Yang Guo was enjoying himself hugely. “I got this jian in Passionless Valley. Gongsun Zhi⁶ is a master of poisons. If by some fluke the poison doesn’t kill you, go and settle the account with him.”

The State Preceptor was secretly alarmed. He had seen with his own eyes that this jian had indeed come from Passionless Valley. Had old Gongsun smeared poison on its edge? Doubt and dread gnawed at him, and his attacks slackened. In fact there was no poison on the jian at all. Yang Guo had remembered how Huang Rong scared Huodu with hot tea, and knowing his martial skill was no match for the State Preceptor’s, he had seized the chance to unsettle him with words. Seeing they had worked, he gave his whole mind to defence and struck back whenever he saw an opening, determined never to leave the man a moment’s respite to bind his wound. The wound in the State Preceptor’s left arm was not serious, but the blood would not stop, and even if the jian carried no poison, his strength was bound to ebb in time. The State Preceptor reckoned that, as things stood, speed was his ally, and he drove his twin wheels into a furious onslaught.

Yang Guo knew what he was about and wielded his long jian in an uncommonly tight defence. The force behind the twin wheels grew and grew. Suddenly the golden wheel struck upward and the silver wheel swept across, and Yang Guo, seeing he could not hold them, leapt away. The State Preceptor tore a strip from his robe to bind his wound, but at once Yang Guo came thrusting at him again. This happened several times over. Then the State Preceptor hit on a plan. As Yang Guo leapt away out of reach, he leapt back too, and hurled his silver wheel after him, so that Yang Guo had to fall back still further. With the gap between them widened, by the time Yang Guo came at him again he had used that fleeting moment to wind the strip of cloth round his left arm and bind the wound. He found, too, that the wound only hurt, with no numbness or itching. There seemed to be no poison on the jian after all, and his mind was eased.

Just then there came a fierce clash and clatter of weapons from the south-east. Yang Guo looked and saw Xiaolongnü, long jian flashing, fighting hard against Xiaoxiangzi and Nimoxing together. Yang Guo had wrested Xiaoxiangzi’s Mourning Staff from him in the Mongol battle lines and in his daze had flung it away who knew where. Now Xiaoxiangzi held another staff, just like the first, though whether it too held poison sand there was no telling. Yang Guo thought that Guo Jing and his wife were in the room below, and that if the State Preceptor found them there would be grave trouble. He must lead him as far away as he could. But he must do it without the slightest sign, or the ruse would backfire. “Don’t be alarmed, Aunt,” he shouted, “I’m coming to help!” A few bounds took him behind Nimoxing, and he thrust his jian at him.

The State Preceptor was enraged at having fallen to Yang Guo’s trick. But his main purpose here was to kill Guo Jing, and revenge for the cunning brat’s stroke could wait. “Guo daxia,⁷ Guo Jing,” he bellowed, “I have come to call. Why won’t you receive your guest?” He shouted several times, but no one answered. Only from the north-west came wave upon wave of shouting and fighting: his two disciples Da’erba⁸ and Huodu were beset upon Zhu Ziliu. He saw that between Yang Guo and Xiaolongnü on one side and Xiaoxiangzi and Nimoxing on the other there would be no quick victory. Below the roof the voices were growing thicker as the garrison’s soldiers and officers, hearing that someone had broken into the city, came hurrying from every side to catch the spies.

The State Preceptor thought that these soldiers could not come and go across the rooftops and could do nothing to him, but in numbers they would get in his way. He shouted again, “Guo Jing, ah, Guo Jing, so much for a lifetime’s fame. How have you turned today into a turtle pulling in its head?”

He shouted challenge after challenge to goad Guo Jing out, his abuse growing fouler and fouler, but there was still no sign of him. He thought, There are tens of thousands of households in Xiangyang. How am I to know where he’s hiding? If the man is content to swallow insults, once his wounds have healed he’ll be far harder to kill. After a moment’s thought a vicious plan came to him. He leapt down from the roof, found the woodpile in the back courtyard, took out his flint and steel and set it alight. Darting east and west, he started four or five fires before returning to the roof, thinking, Once the blaze takes hold, you’ll have to come out of the house, like it or not.

Though Yang Guo was fighting Xiaoxiangzi and Nimoxing, his eyes kept going to the State Preceptor. Suddenly he saw him setting the house alight, with smoke and flame already rising to the north and south of Guo Jing’s quarters. His heart lurched, and Nimoxing’s iron serpent all but caught him across the chest. He sucked in his chest just in time to dodge it. He thought, Uncle Guo is badly hurt and Auntie Guo is near her time. If they stay inside once this fire takes hold, they’ll be trapped by the flames, and if they run out, they’ll meet that bald villain Jinlun head-on. Reckoning that Xiaolongnü, one against two great masters though she was, was in no danger for the moment, he thrust twice at Xiaoxiangzi, leapt down from the roof and plunged through smoke and flame in search of Guo Jing and his wife.

He found Huang Rong sitting by Guo Jing’s bed, with thick smoke billowing in at the window. Guo Jing had his eyes closed, circulating his neili. Huang Rong’s brows were slightly knit, but her face was calm, and when she saw Yang Guo come in she only gave a faint smile. Seeing them so untroubled, Yang Guo felt steadier, and in a flash a plan came to him. “I’ll draw the enemy off,” he said in a low voice. “Quick, help Uncle Guo somewhere safe to hide for now.” As he spoke he reached out, lifted the hat gently from Guo Jing’s head and leapt out of the window.

Huang Rong was taken aback, with no idea what trick he was playing. The smoke and flames were creeping closer. She put out a hand to help Guo Jing up. “Let’s go somewhere else.” But the moment she put out her strength, a violent pain seized her belly. She cried out in spite of herself and sat down again on the edge of the bed, cursing in her heart, You little imp, not a day early or late, but you must pick this very moment to be born. Do you mean to be the death of your father and mother? Her time was still some days off, but the shocks of these last few days had stirred the child and brought on the birth early.

The moment he was out of the window, Yang Guo saw soldiers shouting on every side, some carrying buckets to fight the fire, some shooting arrows at the rooftops, some waving weapons on the ground, stamping and cursing. He leapt up behind a common soldier in grey, sealed his acupoint, clapped Guo Jing’s hat on his head and slung him onto his back. Then, twirling his jian in glittering circles, he sprang up onto the roof.

By now Xiaoxiangzi and Nimoxing, two against one on Xiaolongnü, and Da’erba and Huodu, two against one on Zhu Ziliu, all had much the better of it. State Preceptor Jinlun had Guo Fu pinned between his two wheels, their keen edges flashing to and fro barely a few inches from her face, while he barked at her again and again to say where her parents were. Guo Fu’s hair was in wild disorder, and the tip of the long jian in her hand had been smashed off by the golden wheel, but she gritted her teeth and fought on furiously, as though she had not heard his questions. She was seething, If Big Wu and Little Wu hadn’t gone off to kill each other, what would the three of us together have to fear from this bald villain? The words burst out before she could stop them. “Very well, you two, go on fighting over me. Whichever of you wins, all you’ll find when you come back is my corpse!” The State Preceptor was puzzled. “What are you talking about? Where is Guo Jing?”

He was still waiting for Guo Fu’s answer when he saw Yang Guo fleeing north-west with a man on his back. The man lay utterly still: Guo Jing, it could only be. At once the State Preceptor left Guo Fu and set off after them. Xiaoxiangzi, Nimoxing, Da’erba and Huodu saw it too, and all dropped their opponents and raced after him. Zhu Ziliu lost no time either, but chased after them to help Yang Guo guard Guo Jing.

Footnotes

1. 鞠躬尽瘁，死而后已 – Jūgōng Jìncuì, Sǐ Ér Hòu Yǐ. Zhuge Liang’s most famous phrase, from his “Second Memorial on Sending Out the Troops.” It expresses the ideal of serving one’s cause with total commitment, regardless of outcome. ↩

2. 杀身成仁，舍生取义 – Shāshēn Chéngrén, Shěshēng Qǔyì. “Die to fulfil humaneness” and “give up life to choose righteousness”. Core Confucian concepts from the Analects and Mencius respectively. They represent the highest moral ideal: giving up one’s life when necessary to uphold moral principles. ↩

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

4. 金轮国师 – Jīnlún Guóshī. Literally Golden Wheel State Preceptor. The Mongol Empire’s State Preceptor, a Tibetan Buddhist master who wields golden and silver wheels as weapons. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 时辰 – shíchén. A traditional Chinese double-hour; the day was divided into twelve shichen, each lasting roughly two modern hours. ↩

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

7. 大侠 – dàxiá. Literally great xia. Honorific for a martial artist of great renown and chivalrous conduct. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 达尔巴 – Dá’ěrbā. State Preceptor Jinlun’s second disciple. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩