The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 6 – Part 2

Yang Guo clapped his hands. “So this stone tomb was forcibly taken from Wang Chongyang by Founding Grandmaster! If I had known that earlier, I would have been twice as happy living here.” Xiaolongnü said coolly, “So you weren’t very happy living here to begin with. You found it stuffy and unpleasant, didn’t you?” Yang Guo said, “No. As long as I’m with you, no matter where we are, I’m very happy.” Xiaolongnü smiled faintly, shook her head, and led him to a stone chamber. Yang Guo saw that this chamber was peculiarly shaped, narrow at the front and wide at the back, forming a trapezoid, with a semicircle on the eastern side and a triangle on the western side. He asked, “Gugu, why is this room built in such a strange shape?” Xiaolongnü said, “This was where Wang Chongyang delved into the study of martial arts. The narrow front was for practising palm techniques, the wide back for fist techniques, the eastern circle for studying the sword, and the western corner for cultivating neili.” Yang Guo walked back and forth through the chamber, feeling only that its mysteries were unfathomable.

Xiaolongnü pointed upward. “The essence of Wang Chongyang’s martial arts is all here.” Yang Guo looked up and saw that the stone ceiling was covered in carved patterns and symbols, all etched with sharp instruments, some deep, some shallow, with no discernible pattern. For a moment he could not grasp the mysteries within.

Xiaolongnü walked to the eastern side and pushed several times at the base of the semicircular arc. A large stone slowly shifted aside, revealing a door opening. Holding a candle, she led Yang Guo inside. Within was another chamber, but one that was symmetrical to the first in every respect and yet reversed in every way, wide at the front and narrow at the back, with a circle on the west and an angle on the east. Yang Guo looked up and saw that this ceiling too was covered in countless symbols and diagrammatic formulae.

Xiaolongnü said, “These are the secrets of Founding Grandmaster’s martial arts. She won the ancient tomb through cunning. In terms of true skill, she was indeed not Wang Chongyang’s equal. After she moved into the ancient tomb, she first thoroughly comprehended the martial arts Wang Chongyang had left behind, then devoted herself to deep contemplation and created ingenious methods to counter each of his techniques. They are all carved here.” Yang Guo said delightedly, “This is wonderful. No matter how skilled Qiu Chuji, Hao Datong, and the others are, they can never surpass Wang Chongyang. Once you learn Founding Grandmaster’s martial arts, you will naturally defeat those stinking Daoists.” Xiaolongnü said, “That is true enough. Unfortunately, there is no one to assist me.” Yang Guo said boldly, “I will assist you.” Xiaolongnü shot him a sidelong glance. “Unfortunately, your ability is not yet sufficient.” Yang Guo’s face flushed bright red, deeply ashamed.

Xiaolongnü said, “Founding Grandmaster’s set of skills is called the ‘Jade Maiden Heart Sutra’.¹ The more advanced portions require two people training together, each aiding the other. At the time, Founding Grandmaster trained it together with my own shifu. Founding Grandmaster passed away not long after completing it, and my shifu never finished training it.” Yang Guo’s shame turned to joy. “I am your disciple, I can train it together with you.” Xiaolongnü pondered for a moment. “Very well. We shall see as we go. The first step is for you to master all the martial arts of our own school. The second step is to learn the martial arts of the Quanzhen Order. The third step is to train in the Jade Maiden Heart Sutra, which counters Quanzhen martial arts. When my shifu passed away, I was only fourteen. I had learned all of our school’s skills, but I had only just begun the Quanzhen martial arts, to say nothing of the Jade Maiden Heart Sutra. I can teach you the first step. For the second and third steps, the two of us will have to work them out together.”

In ordinary practice, the path of cultivating neili is mostly about strengthening one’s internal power. The same punch or kick, the same palm strike or sword thrust, when delivered by someone of ordinary internal power, it merely knocks the opponent down or injures them, or at most deflects an incoming attack. But once internal power is strengthened, a light palm strike can cause the enemy to vomit blood from severe injury, or even kill them with a single blow. A sweep of the sword can rebound the opponent’s heavy attacking weapon back upon themselves, splitting the skin between their thumb and forefinger, or even sending their weapon flying from their grasp. The difference in martial ability often comes down to the depth of one’s internal power. In those years when Guo Jing trained in martial arts with the Seven Freaks of Jiangnan² in the Mongolian desert, his progress was extremely slow. Later, when Ma Yu, the Daoist of Quanzhen known as Danyangzi,³ taught him superior internal techniques, after practising them his hands and feet became nimbler and his strength greatly increased without him even noticing, and his progress in martial training accelerated. The Ancient Tomb School’s method of cultivating martial arts was entirely different from ordinary martial practice. As internal power grew higher, the practitioner only became lighter of body and quicker of hand, able to deliver three or four moves in the time an ordinary person could deliver one, but the force of the moves did not increase correspondingly. For lightness and heaviness are opposites: if you seek lightness and speed, you cannot have heaviness and force, if heaviness and force are attained, lightness and speed must be correspondingly relinquished.

When Lin Chaoying, the founder of the Ancient Tomb School, created this martial discipline, her sole aim was to surpass Wang Chongyang, the beloved of her heart. All she wanted was to catch him off guard and lightly pat him on the back of the neck or the back, or poke him with a finger, she did not wish him to feel real pain, still less to injure him. If both could share a laugh and Wang Chongyang would admit defeat with folded hands, her heart’s desire would be fulfilled. Thus the faster and lighter the body movement, the better. The moves need carry not the slightest force. All that mattered was that the angle of the strike be utterly unexpected, and then the great achievement would be complete. This inevitably ran entirely contrary to established martial principles. What was passed down were all moves that had been tested and proven effective on Wang Chongyang. Wang Chongyang was a grandmaster of martial arts, invincible in his era, ranked foremost among the Five Greats⁴ at the Huashan Sword Summit.⁵ To lightly pat him on the body and make him admit defeat with folded hands, that was difficult beyond all difficulty. Lin Chaoying racked her brains and pondered day and night, walking a strange and deviant path of martial study. Passed down to later generations, Li Mochou,⁶ a mere frail woman, was able, relying on palm techniques that no one could predict and wondrous fly-whisk moves transformed from sword techniques, to awe the jianghu and make the assembled heroes turn pale at the mention of her name.

Xiaolongnü passed on the foundational skills to Yang Guo. After he had practised them until they were thoroughly familiar, she went out again and caught three sparrows, releasing them into the chamber that was narrow at the front and wide at the back, letting them fly freely. Then, when a sparrow flew low, she would dart forward and block it down, finally trapping all three sparrows within a small circle from which they could not escape.

Xiaolongnü said, “The ‘Soft Net Stance’ you trained earlier was about preventing eighty-one sparrows from escaping the circle. What you must train now is to first let the sparrows soar through the azure sky, then use palm force to force them down until they can no longer escape the binding of your palm power. In the end, you must train until you can force down all eighty-one sparrows. This set of skills is called the ‘Heaven’s Net Stance’,⁷ and it is considerably more difficult than the ‘Soft Net Stance’. When a sparrow flies high, no matter how good your qinggong, you can never leap five or six zhang⁸ into the air to force it down. You must rely on sharp eyes and quick hands, the moment you see a sparrow fly upward, you must immediately strike out to press it down. This skill is about competing with sparrows in speed: it must be faster than they are. Sparrows have no strength. A light flick of the finger or a gentle block of the palm, and they can fly no further. Therefore, the neili cultivated is also primarily qinggong, you must be able to move the instant the thought arises, strike like lightning, and it does not matter if your hands carry no force at all.”

Yang Guo listened and nodded. He asked, “Gugu, although this martial art of ours is extremely fast, our strikes carry no force. If an opponent uses strength against us in a palm exchange, or tries to deflect our attacks, the force of their hands will be extremely fierce. I fear we would not be able to withstand it. What then?”

Xiaolongnü said, “Good, let us test it. Strike at me with force and exchange palms with me!” As she spoke, her right palm drifted lightly towards his face. Yang Guo slapped out heavily with his right palm, striking towards her incoming palm. This strike was also swift beyond compare, he hoped for a crisp smack as their two palms met and struck each other. But to his surprise, Xiaolongnü’s palm suddenly changed direction. With a soft thump, it brushed against the back of his head. Then her left hand suddenly shot out and her finger lightly flicked his right elbow at the “Celestial Well” acupoint.⁹ The Celestial Well acupoint lies in the depression between the two tendons one cun¹⁰ above the large bone behind the outer elbow, below the “Clear Cold Abyss” acupoint. Once struck, his arm immediately went limp and drooped powerlessly. Yang Guo cried, “You tricked me! I’m not playing, I’m not playing!”

Xiaolongnü smiled faintly. With her left hand she lifted his right arm, and with her right hand she gently rubbed and pressed the “Four Canals” and “Clear Cold Abyss” acupoints near the Celestial Well. The soreness and numbness in Yang Guo’s right arm ceased. He said, “Gugu, I understand! We don’t compete with the opponent in strength. We must be faster than them, so they are caught before they even realise what has happened.”

Xiaolongnü smiled. “Yes. What we train is how to be faster than them, to strike from unexpected angles, so that even if they think for three days and three nights they could never guess where our strike would come from. With the wondrous methods passed down by Founding Grandmaster, you only need to remember them. As for how to be faster, faster even than the greatest martial arts masters, we must train a great deal more. Not only must you train, I must train as well. Fortunately, with the aid of the Cold Jade Bed, we will eventually succeed.” She then taught him additional lightness techniques from the “Heaven’s Net Stance” for leaping high and crouching low. Yang Guo said, “Heaven’s Net, nothing escapes its embrace! Even if the enemy flees to the ends of the earth, we can use the Heaven’s Net Stance to capture them.”

---

After this, Xiaolongnü taught Yang Guo the essentials of the Ancient Tomb School’s internal techniques, fist and palm methods, weapons and hidden projectiles, one item after another. Two years passed in this manner. Yang Guo had now received the full transmission of the school’s arts. Aided by the Cold Jade Bed, his progress was astonishingly fast, only his internal power was still somewhat shallow. The martial arts of the Ancient Tomb School had been created by a woman, and three generations of masters and disciples had all been women. It was inevitable that the arts were more than sufficient in lightness and agility but somewhat lacking in depth and weight. Yet Yang Guo was by nature impetuous and quick, and this path of martial arts suited his temperament well.

Footnotes

1. 玉女心经 – Yùnǚ Xīnjīng. Jade Maiden Heart Sutra, the supreme manual of the Ancient Tomb School, created by Lin Chaoying to counter Quanzhen martial arts. Its advanced internal portions require two practitioners training together. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 江南七怪 – Jiāngnán Qī Guài. Seven Freaks of Jiangnan, who took Guo Jing as their disciple in Mongolia after a wager with Qiu Chuji. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 丹阳子 – Dānyángzǐ. Daoist name of Ma Yu, one of the Seven Masters of Quanzhen, who secretly taught Guo Jing superior neigong in Mongolia. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 五绝 – Wǔ Jué. Five Greats of the wulin: Wang Chongyang (Central Divinity), Huang Yaoshi (Eastern Heretic), Ouyang Feng (Western Venom), Duan Zhixing (Southern Emperor), and Hong Qigong (Northern Beggar). See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 华山 – Huáshān. One of China’s Five Sacred Mountains, site of martial arts competitions. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

7. 天罗地网势 – Tiānluó Dìwǎng Shì. Heaven’s Net Stance, an advanced Ancient Tomb School technique training the practitioner to force down all eighty-one sparrows from flight. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 丈 – zhàng. Traditional Chinese unit of length, approximately 3.33 metres or 10.9 feet. ↩

9. 天井穴 – Tiānjǐng Xué. Literally celestial well. Acupoint in the depression between the two tendons one cun above the large bone behind the outer elbow on the triple burner meridian; striking it can numb the arm. See Wikipedia. ↩

10. 寸 – cùn. Traditional Chinese unit of length, about 3.3 centimetres. Ten cun make one chi. ↩