The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 5 – Part 4

This took Zhang Zhiguang completely by surprise. In the instant that he stood there dumbfounded, Granny Sun had already bent low and bowed her head, and suddenly there was a flash of cold light and a missile came flying straight at him. Zhang Zhiguang cried out and twisted hastily aside, but the thing came too fast. With a crack it struck him at the corner of his left eye and shattered, and his forehead was covered in blood. Granny Sun had slipped the empty porcelain bottle that had held the jade bee honey out of her robe and, with no warning at all, flung it with a throwing technique unique to her School. Her School’s martial arts had been created by a woman, and its moves and methods were soft and yin through and through, full of endless changes, and this move, Crouch First, Bow After, was more unfathomable still. It was only an empty porcelain bottle, but flung so suddenly at such close range, it caught Zhang Zhiguang unawares, and he could not get out of its way.

When the Daoists saw Zhang Zhiguang’s face covered in blood, they cried out together in alarm and fury and drew their weapons, and in an instant the courtyard was dazzling with the glitter of steel. Granny Sun stood with her back to the corner, a faint cold smile on her lips. She knew this day could have no good end, but she was hard by nature, and age had only made her fiercer. How could she give in? She turned to Yang Guo. “Child, are you afraid?” Yang Guo had been looking at those long jians and thinking, If Uncle Guo were here, I wouldn’t care how many stinking Daoists there were. But with only Granny Sun’s skill, we’ll never fight our way out. When she asked him, he answered in a clear voice, “Granny, just let them kill me. This has nothing to do with you. Go, quickly.”

Hearing the boy speak so stoutly, and thinking of her even now, Granny Sun loved him all the more. “Granny will die here with you,” she said loudly, “and the stinking Daoists can have what they want.” Then all at once she gave a great shout. “Take that!” She sprang forward, arms outstretched, seized two Daoists by the wrists, and with a twist and a wrench she had snatched away two long jians. This bare-handed blade-snatching was strange in the extreme: it looked like a crude grab, yet it was wonderfully deft. The two Daoists had not been ready for it at all, and in the blink of an eye the weapons were gone from their hands.

Granny Sun gave one of the long jians to Yang Guo. “Child, do you dare take on the stinking Daoists?” “Of course I’m not afraid,” said Yang Guo. “It’s only a pity there’s no one else here.” “What do you mean, no one else?” said Granny Sun. “The Quanzhen Order’s fame towers over the world,” Yang Guo said loudly. “Wouldn’t it be a pity if there were no one else here to spread the word of such heroic deeds as bullying an orphan and an old woman?” Listening to Granny Sun bandy words with Zhang Zhiguang just now, he had grasped what mattered here. His voice rang out clear and crisp, but it was unmistakably a child’s.

At these words more than half the Daoists felt ashamed of themselves. For so many to join forces against one old woman and one small boy, they thought, was truly a victory without honour. “I’ll go and tell our shibo,¹ the Head of the Order,²” someone said in a low voice, “and hear what he wants done.” Ma Yu³ was at that time cultivating in seclusion in a little hut more than ten li⁴ away behind the mountain, and he had handed all the Order’s affairs to Hao Datong. The one who had spoken was a disciple of Tan Chuduan.⁵ He felt that things had gone too far: the good name of the Quanzhen Order was at stake, and only the Head of the Order himself could deal with it.

Zhang Zhiguang’s face had been cut in more than ten places by the flying shards of porcelain, and blood had run down over his left eye. In his alarm and fury he did not stop to look closely, and believed the missile had blinded his left eye. Their shibo, the Head of the Order, was gentle and kind by nature, he thought, and was sure to order the prisoners released, and then he would have lost his eye for nothing. At once he shouted, “First we take this vicious old hag, then we ask Shibo to pass judgement on her. Shidi,⁶ all of you, close in together and take them.”

The Big Dipper Formation⁷ drew tighter and tighter, and it looked as though Granny Sun could do nothing but let herself be bound. But when the seven Daoists had pressed to within three paces of her, she whirled her long jian and held them off so closely that they could not gain a single step more. Had Zhang Zhiguang been directing the formation, he could have changed it and pressed the attack, but he feared the missile might have been poisoned, and that if he joined the fight his blood would run faster and the poison take hold the sooner. So he stood to one side with his left eye screwed shut, shouting orders. With him out of the fight, the formation lost much of its power.

The Daoists fought on and on without taking her, and grew more and more fretful. Suddenly Granny Sun gave a shout, threw down her long jian and darted three steps forward. She slipped out between the Daoists’ flashing steel, seized a young Daoist by the front of his robe and hoisted him up. “You mangy Daoists,” she cried, “are you letting us through or not?” While the Daoists stood stunned, someone darted out from behind them and laid a hand on Granny Sun’s wrist. Before she had even seen the newcomer’s face, her wrist went numb, and the young Daoist was snatched clean out of her grip. Next moment a blast of air struck her face as the newcomer swung a palm straight at her. Granny Sun hurriedly brought her own palm up to block. Their palms met with a smack, and Granny Sun fell back a step.

The newcomer too gave a little ground, but no more than a foot, and the second palm followed without the least pause. Granny Sun answered with a blow of her own, their palms clashed, and again she fell back a step. The newcomer stepped in half a pace and struck a third time. Each blow came faster than the last, and they drove Granny Sun back three steps one after another, without a moment’s grace even to look her opponent in the face. At the fourth, her back was to the wall and there was nowhere left to go. The newcomer’s right palm shot out and met hers, palm to palm. “Granny,” said a clear voice, “leave the antidote and the boy, if you please!”

Granny Sun looked up and saw white beard, white brows and a face flushed with purple. It was Hao Datong, who had driven off the jade bees with his poisonous smoke earlier that day. After three exchanges of palms she already knew that his neili⁸ was deep, far beyond her own, and if he put his full strength into his palm she would never withstand it. But she was hard by nature and would sooner die than yield. “If you want the boy,” she shouted, “you’ll have to kill this old woman first.” Hao Datong knew how deep her ties ran with his late shifu, and he had no wish to hurt her. He held back the strength in his palm and said, “We’ve been neighbours for decades, you and I. Why spoil the peace between us over a little boy?” Granny Sun gave a cold laugh. “I came here meaning well, to bring you medicine. Ask your own disciples whether that’s a lie.” Hao Datong turned his head to ask, and in that instant Granny Sun’s foot flew out and kicked at his lower body.

The kick came out of nowhere. Her body did not move, her skirt did not stir, and by the time Hao Datong knew of it, the point of her toe was already at his belly. It was too late to step back. In his peril he had no time to think. He put all his strength into his palm and, with a grunt, thrust Granny Sun away. That thrust carried the neili of the Quanzhen School’s highest arts, cultivated over decades. There was a crack, and a great patch of plaster came crashing down from the wall along with bricks and tiles. Granny Sun spat out a great mouthful of blood, slowly sat down and slumped on the ground.

Yang Guo was horrified. He threw himself across her, crying, “If you want to kill someone, kill me. Nobody is to hurt Granny.” Granny Sun opened her eyes and smiled faintly. “Child, let’s die together, you and I.” Yang Guo spread his arms over her, his back to Hao Datong and the rest, with no thought at all for his own safety.

Hao Datong had struck hard with that palm, and seeing that he had injured her, he was already sorely regretting it. He wanted to look at Granny Sun’s injuries and give her medicine for them, but Yang Guo was covering her and he could not see. “Yang Guo,” he said gently, “move aside and let me look at Granny.” Yang Guo was not going to trust him. He held Granny Sun tightly in both arms. Hao Datong said it again several times, and when Yang Guo paid no attention, he grew impatient and reached out to pull at his arm. “You stinking Daoist, you thieving Daoist,” Yang Guo bawled at the top of his voice. “Kill me, then. I won’t let you hurt my granny.”

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Just as the uproar was at its height, a cold voice spoke behind them. “Bullying a small child and an old woman. What kind of heroes and brave men are you?” The voice was clear, cold and stern, and Hao Datong’s heart gave a jolt. He turned and saw an exceedingly beautiful girl standing at the door of the Great Hall, dressed in white like snow, a chill in her eyes that struck to the bone. Once the bell of Chongyang Palace had sounded, Daoists had been posted thick for more than ten li around, layer upon layer, keeping an uncommonly close watch, yet this girl had walked straight in without a single one of them raising the alarm. How she had slipped into the temple so silently, no one could say. “Who are you, Miss?” Hao Datong asked. “What brings you here?”

The girl gave him a hard look and, without answering, went to Granny Sun’s side. Yang Guo raised his head. “Aunt Long,” he said brokenly, “this wicked Daoist… has… has killed Granny!” The girl in white was Xiaolongnü. When Granny Sun took Yang Guo out of the tomb, entered the temple and fought, Xiaolongnü had followed behind and seen it all clearly. She had supposed that Hao Datong would not go so far as to kill, so she had never shown herself. But things had fallen out beyond her control, and Granny Sun had been badly hurt before Xiaolongnü could save her. She had seen how Yang Guo had risked his life to protect Granny Sun, and seeing his eyes brimming with tears, she nodded. “Everyone has to die. It’s nothing so very much.”

Granny Sun had brought her up from a little girl, and they had been no different from mother and daughter. But for eighteen years Xiaolongnü had lived a life like still water without a ripple, and with the neigong she had practised since childhood, she had trained every trace of joy, anger, sorrow and pleasure out of her heart. Seeing Granny Sun so badly hurt that she could not recover, she could not help grieving, but the grief flickered through her heart and was gone, and her face showed nothing.

When Hao Datong heard Yang Guo call her “Aunt Long”, he knew that the beautiful girl before him was Xiaolongnü, who had driven away Prince Huodu,⁹ and he was more astonished than ever. Prince Huodu’s defeat and flight had been the talk of the jianghu for months, and though Xiaolongnü had never set foot off Mount Zhongnan,¹⁰ her name already rang loud in the wulin.

Xiaolongnü slowly turned her head and looked into the Daoists’ faces one by one. Except for Hao Datong, whose neigong was deep and whose mind was steady, every Daoist there felt his heart lurch at the sight of those eyes, clear as autumn water and cold as black ice.

Xiaolongnü bent to look at Granny Sun. “Granny, what’s the matter?” Granny Sun sighed. “Miss, in all my life I’ve never asked you for anything. When I did ask, if you wouldn’t agree, you never did.” Xiaolongnü’s fine brows knitted a little. “And what do you want to ask me now?” Granny Sun nodded and pointed at Yang Guo, but for a moment she could not speak. “You want me to look after him?” said Xiaolongnü. Granny Sun forced out a breath. “I’m asking you to look after him all his life, and never let anyone do him the least wrong. Will you promise?” Xiaolongnü hesitated. “Look after him all his life?” “Miss,” Granny Sun said harshly, “if this old woman weren’t dying, I’d look after you all your life too. When you were little, eating and bathing, sleeping and piddling, wasn’t it… wasn’t it this old woman who saw to every bit of it? And you… you… you, what have you ever given me in return?” Xiaolongnü bit her lower lip. “Very well. I promise.” A faint smile appeared on Granny Sun’s ugly face. Her eyes rested on Yang Guo as if she had something to say, but she could not catch her breath.

Footnotes

1. 师伯 – shībó. Senior lineage uncle. Shixiong or shijie of one’s shifu. Shī means teacher. Bó means father’s elder brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 掌教 – zhǎngjiào. Head of the Order; the office of the leader of a religious order such as Quanzhen. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 马钰 – Mǎ Yù. His name meaning “precious jade”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

5. 谭处端 – Tán Chǔduān. One of the Seven Zis of Quanzhen, known by his Daoist name Changzhenzi. He was killed by Ouyang Feng in The Legend of the Condor Heroes. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 师弟 – shīdì. Male junior. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Dì means younger brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 天罡北斗阵 – Tiāngāng Běidǒu Zhèn. Quanzhen battle formation based on the Northern Dipper. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 内力 – nèilì. Literally internal force. Kinetic manifestation of cultivated qi; generates tangible effects such as deflecting weapons or scaling walls. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 霍都王子 – Huòdū Wángzǐ. Literally Prince Huo Du; a Mongol princely title. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 终南山 – Zhōngnán Shān. Sacred Daoist mountain housing both Quanzhen Order and Ancient Tomb School. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩