The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 22 – Part 6

“You… you…” Xiaolongnü cried in desperation. She had got out only those two words when there was a hiss, and the State Preceptor’s golden wheel slit the cloth at her left shoulder.

“If I did such a thing,” said Yang Guo, “how could I ever face Uncle Guo? How could I have the face to wield this jian?” As he spoke he raised the Junzi Jian.¹ Xiaolongnü knew nothing of his change of heart. All her heart and soul were set on one thing, curing the poison in his body, and when she heard him say that he must do right by the enemy who killed his father, and be a junzi² of virtue besides, she was utterly bewildered. With their thoughts at odds, their swordplay could answer each other even less. The State Preceptor seized his chance and stepped in, crooked his arm a little, and drove his elbow into Yang Guo’s left shoulder.

Half Yang Guo’s body went numb, and the baby slipped from his arms. They were fighting on the roof, and the moment she left his arms she went plunging toward the ground. Yang Guo and Xiaolongnü cried out together in horror and made to leap down and save her, but how could they be in time?

From the snatches of talk between the two of them, the State Preceptor had already gathered that the baby was the daughter of Guo Jing and Huang Rong. I may not be able to take Guo Jing, he thought, but if I carry off his daughter as a hostage and force him to submit, won’t that be a signal triumph? Seeing the danger, he swung his right hand, and the silver wheel flew out and slid in beneath the baby’s swaddling clothes.

The silver wheel bore the baby up five feet above the ground and sailed on, level and smooth. All three of them leapt down from the roof to seize it. Yang Guo was nearest. Seeing the wheel sinking lower and lower, soon to touch the ground, he pushed off with his right foot and went into a roll, meaning to put his body under the golden wheel and catch wheel and child together so that the baby would not come to the slightest harm. Suddenly an arm reached in from the side, seized the golden wheel and swept it away, baby and all. The newcomer turned at once and ran.

Yang Guo sprang to his feet, and the State Preceptor and Xiaolongnü came rushing up beside him. “It’s my shijie,”³ Xiaolongnü cried.

Yang Guo saw a pale yellow Daoist robe and a horsetail whisk in the right hand. Seen from behind, it was Li Mochou⁴ beyond a doubt. How she came to be in Xiangyang at such a moment he could not guess. She was perverse by nature and her hand was cruel beyond measure, he thought. If the little girl fell into her hands, what good could come of it? At once he gathered his breath and gave chase.

“Shijie, Shijie,” Xiaolongnü cried, “a great deal hangs on this baby. What do you want with her?” Li Mochou did not look round, but her answer came back from afar, “Every generation of our Ancient Tomb School has been maidens, and you’ve gone and had a child. Shameless!” “She’s not my child,” said Xiaolongnü. “Give her back to me.” She called out several times, and her breath slackened, and at once she fell more than a hundred feet behind. Seeing Li Mochou and the other two heading north, she set off after them.

By now troops were coming and going all over the city, with shouts and orders on every side, some directing the firefighting, some hunting for spies. Xiaolongnü heard and saw none of it. She had just reached the city wall when she saw Lu Youjiao⁵ leading a band of Beggars’ Guild men on patrol at the north gate, in case the enemy used the fires in the city to attack. The moment he saw her he asked anxiously, “Miss Long, are Guild Chief Huang and Guo daxia⁶ safe?” Xiaolongnü did not answer but asked instead, “Have you seen Young Master Yang and State Preceptor Jinlun? Have you seen a woman carrying a child?” Lu Youjiao pointed beyond the wall. “All three of them jumped down off the wall.”

Xiaolongnü was taken aback. The wall was so high, she thought, that however great one’s martial skill, a jump would break one’s arms and legs. How could all three have jumped? Then her eye fell on a Beggars’ Guild disciple leading Guo Jing’s Sweat-Blood Horse, grooming its coat, and her heart gave a jolt, Even if Guoer gets the baby back, how can he reach Passionless Valley in time without this horse? She darted forward and seized the reins, and turned to Lu Youjiao. “I have urgent business outside the city. I need this horse at once.”

Lu Youjiao could think of nothing but Huang Rong and Guo Jing. “Are Guild Chief Huang and Guo daxia safe?” he asked again. Xiaolongnü swung herself into the saddle. “They’re both safe. But the baby Guild Chief Huang has just given birth to has been snatched by that woman, and I must get her back.” Lu Youjiao started, and at once shouted the order to open the gate.

The gate was open only a few feet and the drawbridge was not yet down when Xiaolongnü galloped out of the city. The Sweat-Blood Horse was a steed of rare mettle. It thrust off with its hind legs and soared across the moat as if riding the clouds. The soldiers and officers on the wall cheered as one man.

Outside the city Xiaolongnü found two soldiers lying dead at the foot of the wall, smashed to a bloody pulp, and a warhorse beside them with its legs broken and its skull split. She gazed into the distance. There was nothing but blue-grey mountains and the vast, wild plain. How was she to know where the three had gone? Frantic and at her wits’ end, she patted the horse’s neck. “Horse, oh horse, I’m going to save your little mistress. Take me there, quick!” Whether the horse truly understood her or not, it threw up its head, gave a long neigh, and broke into a thundering gallop toward the north-east.

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Yang Guo and the State Preceptor, it turned out, had chased Li Mochou right up onto the city wall, each thinking that the wall was so high she would have no way of escape and could be cut off there. But the moment Li Mochou reached the top, she seized a soldier and flung him over the edge, and leapt down after him. Just before the soldier hit the ground she touched her left foot to his back, and that broke the force of her fall. She sprang forward and alighted as lightly as a feather, without so much as jolting the baby in her arms. The soldier’s neck and bones were broken, and he was dead without a groan.

The State Preceptor swore to himself, What a fearsome woman! He did exactly as she had done, flinging a soldier off the wall and leaping down after him.

Yang Guo could not bring himself to use another man as a stepping stone. But there was no time to lose, and an idea came to him. He shoved a warhorse off the top of the wall with his palms, leapt onto its back before it hit the ground, and while the horse was smashed to pieces, he sprang clear unhurt and ran on after the State Preceptor. In the great battle in the Mongol camp the day before, the State Preceptor’s wheel had cut him in two places. The wounds were not serious, but he had lost a great deal of blood and his body was weak, and today he had fought hard for hours again, so that he was truly at the end of his strength. But he thought how Guo Jing’s baby daughter would fare ill whether she fell into Li Mochou’s hands or the State Preceptor’s, and though he felt his heart pounding harder and harder, he pressed on in pursuit, jian in hand.

All three were swift runners. But Li Mochou had a baby in her arms, and the State Preceptor, with a jian wound in his arm and no way of telling whether the jian had been poisoned, kept fearing the poison would break out in the wound and dared not put out his strength. So none of them ran as fast as usual. After several li⁷ Xiangyang lay far behind, yet the three were still strung out more than a hundred feet apart. The State Preceptor could not catch Li Mochou, and Yang Guo could not catch the State Preceptor.

Li Mochou ran on a while longer. Ahead the ground rose and fell in hills, and a few li further on lay the mountains. She quickened her pace, for once she was among the valleys it would be easy to hide and get away. She had heard Xiaolongnü say this was not her child, but seeing Yang Guo chase it so desperately she concluded that it must be the bastard of Yang Guo and Xiaolongnü, beyond a doubt. With the baby in her hands, Xiaolongnü would have to trade her their school’s secret Jade Maiden Heart Sutra⁸ for it. Last time, in the Ancient Tomb, Xiaolongnü had thrown a book into an empty coffin. When Xiaolongnü had gone, Li Mochou took it out of the coffin, only to find it was a common Daoist text, the Cantong Qi.⁹ The disappointment had only made her hungrier than ever for her shifu’s Jade Maiden Heart Sutra.

The three of them climbed higher and higher, through dense woods on every side and over rough mountain paths. The State Preceptor thought that if he did not cut her off soon, she might hide in some thicket or secret gorge, and then she would be hard to find. He had never crossed hands with Li Mochou, but her qinggong showed him she was a formidable foe. Two of his five wheels were already gone, and he had not meant to throw any more. But time was pressing, and he could hesitate no longer. “You there, woman!” he bellowed. “Put down the child and I’ll spare your life. If you won’t listen, don’t blame the great monk for being merciless.” Li Mochou gave a tinkling, coquettish laugh, and her feet went faster still. The State Preceptor swung his right arm, the wind roared, and the golden wheel flew at her back in a streak of golden rainbow.

Li Mochou heard how fiercely the wheel was coming and dared not ignore it. She had to turn and swing her horsetail whisk to brush it aside. But then she saw the wheel spinning furiously, its golden glare stinging her eyes, and knew that if her whisk touched it, it would be cut through. She twisted aside and leapt clear of its full force. The State Preceptor took two quick steps and let fly the copper wheel, which this time flew outward first and then swung back in to strike. Still Li Mochou dared not meet it head-on. She stepped back three paces and bent her slender waist, and slipped clear by the highest art of qinggong. But with his advance and her retreat, she was now no more than thirty feet from him. He caught the golden wheel in his left hand, took a few quick strides, and brought the lead wheel in his right hand smashing down at her left shoulder.

Li Mochou slashed her whisk on a slant, and its strands sprayed at his eyes like ten thousand golden needles. The State Preceptor flung the lead wheel upward to beat off the stroke and caught the copper wheel in his right hand as it flew back. His hands crossed, and gold struck copper with a clang that echoed on and on among the hills. Now the golden wheel was in his right hand and the copper wheel in his left, and as the two wheels changed places, killing moves came at her from both together. Meeting so great a foe, Li Mochou’s spirits rose. She had never dreamed that this tall, gaunt monk, as strong as he was, could be quicker still. She brought into play everything she had learned in her life and fought back with all her might.

They had traded only a few moves when Yang Guo came up. He stood a few dozen feet outside the fight, watching while he steadied his breathing and waited his chance to snatch the baby. The two fought faster and faster, and amid three flying wheels a single horsetail whisk rose and fell.

In martial skill and in neili alike the State Preceptor had the edge. Besides, Li Mochou had a baby in her arms, so by rights she should have been beaten inside a hundred moves. At first she had shielded the baby, afraid the State Preceptor’s keen wheels would hurt it. But each time a wheel came near the child, she saw, he would draw it back sharply, and after a moment’s thought she understood. This bald villain wants the child, so of course he won’t want to kill her. Ruthless as she was, she cared nothing for anyone else’s life. Now that she had seen through him, whenever he launched a killing move she could not easily parry, she simply held up the baby to block it. So far from being a burden, the baby had become a shield of enormous power. She had only to raise the baby, and however fierce and deadly his move, he would pull it back.

Several times the State Preceptor attacked with his wheels, and each time Li Mochou fended him off with the baby. Yang Guo watched in mounting alarm. If either of them put a fraction too much strength into a blow, what hope would the baby have? He was about to rush in and snatch her when he saw the golden wheel in the State Preceptor’s right hand suddenly swing back in from the outside, while the copper wheel in his left pushed straight out. The two wheels made a ring like an embrace, enclosing Li Mochou between his arms. A faint blush rose in Li Mochou’s cheeks, and she spat, cursing the bald villain to herself for a move so unfitting a monk’s solemn station. She swept her whisk back to knock the golden wheel aside and held the baby up before her breast with her left hand. But even as his arms closed about her, the State Preceptor had worked out his next move. He loosed the fingers of his left hand, and the copper wheel shot upward on a slant, straight at her face.

The wheel was barely a foot from her when it suddenly flew, and so fast and hard that it was all but impossible to ward off. But Li Mochou had ranged the jianghu all her life and fought hundreds of fights large and small, and she had far more experience of an enemy than the State Preceptor had. In that moment of danger she bent her body back, her feet rooted to the ground, while her whisk struck back at his shoulder. The State Preceptor jerked his right shoulder away, and the whisk swept past, though a few of its strands still brushed his shoulder. His left hand, now empty, chopped down in the same motion on Li Mochou’s left arm, and at once the arm went numb and weak. “Ah!” she cried softly, and leapt up, only to find her hand empty. The State Preceptor had snatched the baby.

The State Preceptor was still exulting when he heard a rush of wind beside him. Yang Guo had hurled himself in bodily and snatched the baby away. He rolled across the ground with his long jian weaving a net of light to guard his back, then sprang to his feet, and with the move “Pushing the Boat with the Current” his long jian held both enemies off. When he saw the baby fall into the State Preceptor’s hands, he had known that if he waited even a moment, getting her back would be a thousand times harder. So while the State Preceptor’s hold on her was still unsteady, he had flung himself in with “Sky-soaring Azure”,¹⁰ heedless of his life, and done it at one stroke. The baby had passed through all three pairs of hands in the blink of an eye.

Li Mochou knew this movement too, and seeing how nimbly he did it, she cried out in admiration, “Little Yang Guo, that was handsomely done!” The State Preceptor was furious. He struck his two wheels together with a sound like a dragon’s cry that rang on and on, and as his left sleeve swept out, the wheel in his right hand came driving at Yang Guo. Yang Guo feinted with his long jian and turned to run, but he heard a rush of wind behind him: Li Mochou had swept her whisk across his path. “Don’t go, Yang Guo!” she laughed. “Fight the great monk first, and then we’ll see.” The State Preceptor’s copper wheel was already less than a foot from him, and Yang Guo had no choice but to turn his jian back and parry.

Yang Guo and the State Preceptor had fought each other for days, and each knew the other’s strength and moves through and through. From the first stroke both fought speed against speed. Their figures flickered, three streaks of white light flew high and low, and in the blink of an eye they had traded more than twenty moves. Li Mochou was secretly astonished. How has this boy’s martial skill come so far in so few days? And how is this wicked monk so formidable?

Footnotes

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

2. 君子 – jūnzǐ. Literally noble man. Confucian ideal of the morally cultivated man. Often mistakenly translated as “gentleman”. See Wikipedia. ↩

3. 师姊 – shījiě. Female senior. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Jiě means older sister. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 李莫愁 – Lǐ Mòchóu. Her name meaning “do not sorrow”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 鲁有脚 – Lǔ Yǒujiǎo. His name meaning “having feet”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

7. 里 – lǐ. Traditional Chinese unit of distance, approximately 500 metres or a third of a mile. ↩

8. 玉女心经 – Yùnǚ Xīnjīng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 参同契 – Cān Tóng Qì. Fully the Zhouyi Can Tong Qi (周易参同契), “The Kinship of the Three in Accordance with the Book of Changes.” A foundational text of Daoist internal alchemy. ↩

10. 夭矫空碧 – Yāojiǎo Kōngbì. Qinggong technique from the Ancient Tomb School involving dramatic high leaps and swooping descents. ↩