The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 22 – Part 9

Hearing this, Li Mochou could not help but laugh. She had remained unmarried and chaste all her life, spending her days amid swords and blades. The business of raising an infant was something she knew absolutely nothing about. She said thoughtfully, “But where do we find milk? Would it work to feed her rice?” Yang Guo said, “Look, does she have any teeth?” Li Mochou peered into the baby’s mouth and shook her head. “Not even half of one.” Yang Guo said, “Let us find a village and look for a woman who is nursing. We can have her feed the baby until she is full. Would that not be good?” Li Mochou was delighted. “You truly are full of schemes.”

The two climbed a hill and looked around. In the distance, to the west, a wisp of cooking smoke rose from a mountain hollow. Both were swift of foot, and in moments, they had reached a small hamlet. The area around Xiangyang had been ravaged by war for years. The villages and market towns along the main roads had all been reduced to barren waste by Mongol hooves. Only in these remote, desolate valleys did a few mountain folk still gather.

Li Mochou went from door to door, pushing each one open to look inside. At the fourth farmhouse, she found a young woman nursing a child just over a year old. Li Mochou was overjoyed. She snatched the child from the woman’s arms and tossed it onto the brick bed, then thrust the baby girl into her embrace. “The baby is hungry,” she said. “Feed her until she is full.”

The young woman’s son landed on the bed, flailing his arms and legs, howling at the top of his lungs. The mother’s heart ached for her child, and she hurriedly reached out to pick him up. Yang Guo, seeing the woman’s chest exposed, immediately turned his back. But he heard Li Mochou shout, “I told you to feed my baby! Did you not hear me? Who told you to pick up your own son?” A heavy thud followed. Yang Guo jumped in fright and turned back. The farmer’s child had been hurled against the foot of the wall, his head covered in blood. Whether he was dead or alive, Yang Guo could not tell. The young woman was stricken with grief and panic. She set down Guo Jing’s daughter and threw herself onto her own son, weeping and screaming. Li Mochou was furious. Her whisk rose, poised to strike down on the young woman’s back.

Yang Guo hurriedly raised his sword to block it. Is there any woman in the world more overbearing than this? he thought. Aloud, he said, “Li shibo, if you beat her to death, a corpse produces no milk.” Li Mochou said angrily, “I am doing this for your child’s sake, and you interfere!” Yang Guo thought, This is clearly not my child, yet you keep insisting it is. But if it were truly mine, how could you say I am meddling? With an appeasing smile, he said, “The baby is starving. Feeding her is the priority.” He reached toward the brick bed to pick up the infant. Li Mochou raised her whisk and blocked his hand. “You dare try to take the child?” she shouted. Yang Guo stepped back and laughed. “All right, all right! I will not touch her.”

Li Mochou lifted the baby girl and was about to place her back in the young woman’s arms when she turned around and found the woman had vanished. While the two of them had been arguing, the woman had slipped out the back door with her son. Li Mochou’s fury erupted. She burst out the door and saw the young woman running for her life, baby clutched to her chest. Li Mochou snorted, leaped into the air, and brought her whisk down on the woman’s head. The wind of the blow passed, and mother and child both collapsed, their skulls shattered, dead where they fell. Li Mochou searched for another nursing woman, but there were only men in the village. Her rage swelled. She killed a few more people at random, then went to the kitchen, took a firebrand, and set the thatched farmhouses ablaze. She lit several fires in quick succession, then strode swiftly out of the village.

Yang Guo watched her murderous rampage and sighed to himself. He followed at a distance, neither too close nor too far. The two walked through the wilderness for several dozen li. The baby cried until she was exhausted, then fell into a deep sleep in Li Mochou’s arms.

As they walked, Li Mochou suddenly stopped with a soft exclamation. Before them, two spotted leopard cubs were tumbling and playing. She stepped forward, intending to kick the cubs aside, when suddenly, from the underbrush beside them, came a thunderous roar. A blur of motion, a great golden leopard had sprung out at her. Startled, she leaped diagonally to the left. The leopard immediately turned and pounced again, raising a paw to strike. Li Mochou raised her whisk and, with a whoosh, struck the leopard squarely between the eyes. The beast howled in agony, its ferocity redoubled. It bared a mouthful of gleaming white fangs, crouched low to the ground, and fixed its pair of jade-green eyes on its enemy, waiting for an opening to strike.

Li Mochou flicked her left hand. Two silver needles shot out like lightning, aimed at the leopard’s eyes. Yang Guo shouted, “Wait!” He swung his longsword, knocking the needles aside. At that very moment, the leopard had already sprung, soaring over a zhang into the air before plunging down. Yang Guo leaped up as well, first using his sword to deflect two more of Li Mochou’s silver needles, then driving his right fist, bang!, into the back of the leopard’s neck, just above the spine. The leopard roared in pain. It landed, then immediately sprang at Yang Guo again. Yang Guo sidestepped and struck out with his left palm, putting fifty percent of his neili into the blow. The leopard was sent tumbling backward in a somersault.

Li Mochou was puzzled. Her two silver needles could have killed the leopard in an instant. Why had he saved the beast, only to spend so much effort fighting it hand to hand? She watched as he struck again and again, left palm, right palm, battering the leopard until it fell and scrambled up, scrambled up and fell, utterly battered and wretched. Yet every blow avoided the leopard’s vital points. The beast’s roars grew fainter and fainter. After taking more than a dozen palm strikes, the leopard could endure no more. It turned and fled up the hillside. Yang Guo had anticipated this and had planned to grab its tail and drag it back. But the leopard’s spirit was utterly broken, its tail drooped, clamped between its hind legs. Yang Guo’s grab met only empty air. He was about to use his qinggong to chase it down when he saw the leopard, several zhang away, turn back with a mournful growl, calling its two cubs to flee. A thought struck Yang Guo. He reached out with both hands and seized the two cubs by the scruff of their necks, lifting them high.

The mother leopard’s love for her young was fierce. Seeing her cubs captured, she forgot her own safety and lunged at Yang Guo again. Yang Guo tossed the two cubs toward Li Mochou, shouting, “Catch them! And do not kill them!” His body rose with his voice, leaping even higher than the leopard, the very essence of the “Sky-soaring Azure” technique. He calculated his descent from midair and landed perfectly astride the leopard’s back. He seized its ears and forced its head down with all his strength. The leopard struggled with all its might, but with its vital points controlled, its great jaws were buried in the sand.

Yang Guo called out, “Li shibo, quickly, use tree bark to braid two ropes and bind its four legs!” Li Mochou snorted. “I have no time to play games with you,” she said, and turned to leave. Yang Guo said urgently, “Who is playing? This leopard has milk!” Li Mochou understood at once. Overjoyed, she laughed and said, “Trust you to think of that.” She immediately tore off a dozen strips of bark and hastily twisted them into several ropes. First, she bound the leopard’s great jaws tightly shut, then tied its front and hind legs separately.

Yang Guo brushed the dust from his clothes and stood up, smiling. The leopard, now utterly immobilised, had terror in its eyes. Yang Guo stroked its head and said, “We are only asking you to serve as a wet nurse for a little while. We will not harm your life.” Li Mochou cradled the baby and brought her to the leopard’s teat. The infant had long been ravenous. She opened her tiny mouth and began to nurse. The mother leopard had abundant milk, and in no time, the baby was full. Her eyes closed, and she drifted into sleep. Li Mochou and Yang Guo watched her nurse and fall asleep, their eyes never leaving her delicate, beautiful little face. As she slept, a faint smile appeared on her lips. The two of them felt a joy rise in their hearts and exchanged a smile.

That shared smile dissolved more than half the wariness they had felt toward each other. Li Mochou’s face was suffused with an expression of gentleness. Humming a soft tune, she patted the baby lightly and held her close. Yang Guo gathered some soft grass and made a little nest on a large rock under the shade of a tree. “Put her down here to sleep,” he said. Li Mochou immediately gestured for him to be quiet, afraid of waking the child. Yang Guo stuck out his tongue and made a funny face. Seeing the baby sleeping so peacefully, he could not help but let out a long breath. Turning, he saw the two leopard cubs snuggled against their mother, nursing.

All around them, the fragrance of flowers drifted on the air. A gentle breeze brushed against their clothes. The killing intent had dissolved entirely. Human and beast rested together in peace.

Yang Guo had endured countless upheavals over the past few days. Only now did he feel some small measure of calm in his heart. Yet beside him was a demoness who killed without blinking, and beside her, a savage beast. It was a strange scene indeed.

Li Mochou sat beside the sleeping baby, slowly waving her horsetail whisk to drive away the forest insects. This whisk had taken countless lives, the mere sight of it made the hearts of all in the jianghu tremble. Yet now, for the first time in her life, she was using it to perform an act of kindness. Yang Guo watched her gaze at the baby, her face sometimes smiling, sometimes sorrowful, now agitated, now serene. He could tell her heart was surging with thoughts, remembering the events of her life. Yang Guo did not know her history. He had only heard fragments from Cheng Ying¹ and Lu Wushuang². He imagined that for her to have become so ruthless and extreme, she must have endured some immense suffering. He had always hated and resented her, but now, unexpectedly, a faint sense of sympathy and pity stirred within him.

After a long while, Li Mochou raised her head. Her eyes met Yang Guo’s, and her heart gave a slight start. Softly, she said, “It will be dark soon. What shall we do tonight?” Yang Guo looked around. “We cannot very well take this great wet nurse with us on the road. Let us find a cave to shelter in for the night and decide tomorrow.” Li Mochou nodded.

Yang Guo searched around and found a cave that was barely large enough to hold them. He gathered some soft grass and made two beds inside, one large, one small. “Li shibo,” he said, “rest for a while. I will go find something to eat.” He went around the hillside to hunt for game. In less than half a shichen, he returned with three mountain hares and a dozen wild fruits. He loosened the rope around the leopard’s jaws and fed it one of the hares. Then he gathered dry grass and dead branches, built a fire, and roasted the remaining two hares to share with Li Mochou. “Li shibo,” he said, “sleep well. I will keep watch outside the cave.” He took out a long rope and strung it between two large trees, then lay suspended in the air upon it.

This was a technique for cultivating the Ancient Tomb School’s inner arts. Li Mochou saw it and thought nothing of it, it was familiar to her. Except for the times she travelled with her disciple Hong Lingbo³, she had spent her entire life alone, coming and going by herself. Tonight, with Yang Guo as her companion, he had attended to her comfort so thoroughly. It was utterly different from the nights she had spent alone in the wilderness. She could not help but sigh quietly to herself once more.

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Footnotes

1. 程英 – Chéng Yīng. Her name meaning “heroine” or “outstanding”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 陆无双 – Lù Wúshuāng. Her name meaning “peerless” or “without equal”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 洪凌波 – Hóng Língbō. Her name meaning “treading the waves”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩