The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 7 – Part 6

At this Yang Guo leapt to his feet. “If they bully me again,” he said angrily, “do you think I’d let it rest?” “But you can’t beat them,” Xiaolongnü said coldly, “so that’s no use either.” “Then you’ll help me,” said Yang Guo. “I can’t beat your Auntie Guo,” said Xiaolongnü. “Still no use.” Yang Guo hung his head and said nothing, turning over ways and means. After a while he said, “For Uncle Guo’s sake, I just won’t quarrel with them.” Xiaolongnü thought, He’s lived in the tomb for over two years and trained in Ancient Tomb neigong, and his temper has cooled a great deal. That’s quite something. In truth Yang Guo had simply grown older and understood more of the world. He remembered how Guo Jing¹ had treated him with real warmth, and he was grateful, and willing to give way a step for his sake. Besides, there was no deep feud between him and Guo Fu² and the Wu brothers, only childhood squabbles and scuffles over crickets, and looking back now, they had long since ceased to matter.

“If you’re willing not to fight with people, nothing could be better,” said Xiaolongnü. “But from what you’ve told me, out there, even if you give way to others, they’ll still come and bully you. If we don’t master the skills Wang Chongyang left behind, then when we meet someone whose martial arts are really strong, we still won’t be able to hold them off in the end.” Yang Guo knew she had little wish to leave this quiet place, and could not bear to cross her. “Aunt, I’ll do as you say,” he said. “From tomorrow, we start training in the Nine Yin Manual.”

Because of that one conversation, the two of them stayed on in the valley for more than another year. Xiaolongnü and Yang Guo went back into the tomb by the secret passage and spent several days reciting Wang Chongyang’s carvings until they had them by heart without a slip, and only then came out to train. In that year and more, shifu and disciple both made great strides in inner and outer skills alike. But the carvings Wang Chongyang had left in the tomb were only the methods for dealing with the Jade Maiden Heart Sutra, a small part of the Nine Yin Manual, and of its most important part, the master key and general principles set down in Sanskrit sounds, they knew nothing at all. So what the two of them had learned still fell far short of what Guo Jing and Huang Rong³ had mastered. But that the two of them could not know.

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One day, when they had finished their training, both felt they had come on a great deal. Yang Guo was hopping up and down in high delight, but Xiaolongnü was glum and unhappy. Yang Guo kept telling her jokes to cheer her up, but she said not a word. Yang Guo knew that by now they had learned all the skills in Wang Chongyang’s carvings. To weave them all into one would take who knew how many months and years, but every secret and subtlety in them was now understood, and as long as they went on training, the deeper their skill went the greater its power would grow. He guessed that Xiaolongnü did not want to go down the mountain but had no excuse to keep them there, and that this was what troubled her. “Aunt,” he said, “if you don’t want to go down the mountain, we’ll just stay here for ever.” “That’s wonder…” cried Xiaolongnü in delight, and got no further. She knew full well that even if Yang Guo stayed for her sake against his will, he could never be truly happy. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” she said wistfully. She did not even eat her supper, but went back to her little thatched hut to sleep.

Yang Guo sat on the grass in a daze for a long while, until the moon rose from behind the mountain, and only then went back to his hut to sleep. Some time around midnight, in his sleep, he faintly heard a rushing of wind, sharp and fierce and quite out of the ordinary. He woke with a start and listened hard. It was the wind of fists and palms: someone was fighting. He shot out of his hut, ran to his shifu’s hut and said in a low voice, “Aunt, did you hear that?”

By now the palm wind was roaring louder still. Xiaolongnü must surely have heard it, yet no answer came from the hut. Yang Guo called twice more, then pushed open the brushwood door. The bed was empty. His shifu was long gone. More alarmed than ever, he raced off towards the sound of the palms. He had run more than a hundred feet and still could not see the fighters, but from the palm wind alone he knew that one of them was his shifu. The other’s palm wind was deep, massive and fierce, and the martial skill behind it seemed even greater than hers.

Yang Guo rushed forward. In the moonlight he saw Xiaolongnü circling to and fro with a big, burly figure, locked in a furious fight. Xiaolongnü moved light as air, but her opponent’s martial arts were tremendously strong, and under the blanket of his palm force she was barely holding on. Yang Guo was horrified. “Shifu, I’m coming!” he shouted. In two bounds he was beside them, and the moment he saw the man’s face he was struck with shock and joy at once. Cheeks and chin were covered in a curly beard, every hair as stiff as a halberd, so that the face looked like a hedgehog. It was none other than his adoptive father, Ouyang Feng, from whom he had been parted so long.

Ouyang Feng stood rooted like a mountain, chopping out palm after palm, slowly. Xiaolongnü could only dodge. She dared not take his palm force head on. “We’re all friends here,” Yang Guo called. “Stop fighting.” Xiaolongnü was taken aback, thinking, How can this crazy bearded man be a friend? In the moment her mind was on it, her footwork faltered a little. Ouyang Feng’s palm shot out slantwise from under his elbow, and a blast of wind drove straight at her face with tremendous force. Yang Guo was horrified and sprang forward. Xiaolongnü’s left palm was already locked against Ouyang Feng’s right, and he knew his shifu’s power was far below his adoptive father’s. If it went on for any time at all, she was sure to be injured inside. At once he stretched out five fingers and lightly brushed Ouyang Feng’s right elbow. It was Strumming the Five Strings,⁴ a skill of the highest order from the Nine Yin Manual that he had just learned. He had not yet trained it to perfection, but his touch landed exactly where it should. Ouyang Feng’s arm went a little numb, and the force drained out of his whole body.

Xiaolongnü was lightning-quick to seize her chance. The instant she felt her opponent weaken she pressed the attack, and in that instant Ouyang Feng’s whole body lay open. The lightest touch of a finger would have hurt him badly. Yang Guo flipped his hand over and caught his shifu’s palm, putting himself between the two of them. “Both of you, stop,” he said, laughing. “We’re friends.” Ouyang Feng still had not recognised him. He felt only that the boy’s martial arts were strangely high and not to be taken lightly. “Who are you?” he said angrily. “What’s all this friends or no friends?”

Yang Guo knew his adoptive father had always been half mad, and feared he had forgotten him altogether. “Father,” he cried out, “it’s me, it’s your son.” The words were full of feeling. Ouyang Feng stood dumbstruck. He took Yang Guo’s hand and turned his face to the moonlight to look at it, and it was indeed the adopted son he had been hunting for everywhere these past years. Only he had grown taller, and his martial arts had become formidable, which was why at first Ouyang Feng could not recognise him. At once he threw his arms around Yang Guo and bellowed, “My boy, I’ve looked for you so hard!” The two of them clung to each other, and both shed tears.

Xiaolongnü had always been cold and aloof, and had thought Yang Guo the only one in the world with feelings as hot as fire. Now she saw that Ouyang Feng was the same, and the thought of going down the mountain filled her with a deeper dread. She sat quietly to one side, sorrowful thoughts stealing over her.

That day, after Ouyang Feng parted from Yang Guo at the Iron Spear Temple in Jiaxing,⁵ he had hidden under the great bell, and Ke Zhen’e⁶ could do nothing to him. In secret he worked his divine skill to heal his inner injuries, and after seven days and seven nights his neili was restored. But the outer wounds from Ke Zhen’e’s iron staff were no light matter and slow to mend. He heaved up the great bell and went to an inn to nurse them for another twenty days or so, and only then, healed inside and out, did he set off to find Yang Guo. But a whole month had gone by. The world was vast and boundless. Where could he hope to find the boy’s trail now? He thought, Nine times out of ten the boy has gone to Peach Blossom Island.⁷ At once he got hold of a small boat and sailed for Peach Blossom Island. He dared not go near the island by day, and only after dark did he land on the far side of the hill. He knew he was no match for Guo Jing and Huang Rong together, and he did not know that Huang Yaoshi⁸ was away from the island. Even with twice his skill he could not have beaten the three of them, so by day he hid in the most remote caves, and every night he crept about searching. The island was laid out with uncanny cunning, and he dared not wander about at random.

So more than a year went by. He was so very careful, never daring to leave his cave by day, that no one ever found a trace of him. Then one night he overheard Wu Dunru and his brother talking, and learned that Guo Jing had sent Yang Guo to the Quanzhen Order to learn martial arts. Ouyang Feng was overjoyed. At once he stole a boat, left the island, and hurried to the Chongyang Palace.⁹ But by then, who could have known it, Yang Guo had already fallen out with the Quanzhen Order and gone into the Tomb of the Living Dead. For the Quanzhen Order this was the deepest disgrace, and everyone in it, high and low, refused to say a word about it, so Ouyang Feng could not glean the least scrap of news. In all that time he had tramped every inch of the country for several hundred li¹⁰ around Mount Zhongnan, but how could he know that Yang Guo was hidden deep underground? Naturally he could not find him.

This night, as chance would have it, he was passing by the valley when he saw a girl in white sitting hugging her knees and sighing long at the moon. “Hey,” Ouyang Feng asked in his crazed way, “where’s my boy? Have you seen him?” Xiaolongnü cut a sidelong glance at him and paid him no heed. Ouyang Feng sprang forward and grabbed for her arm. “Where’s my boy?” he shouted. Xiaolongnü saw how powerful his hand was. His martial arts were higher than any she had seen in all her life. Even the Quanzhen masters fell far short. Badly startled, she quickly slipped free with the Small Grappling Hand. Ouyang Feng had expected the grab to land for certain, and never thought she would twist free so lightly and deftly. Without asking who she was, he followed up at once with his left hand, and so the two of them fell to fighting for no reason at all.

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Adoptive father and adopted son told each other all that had happened since they parted. Ouyang Feng’s wits were half clear and half clouded. He could no longer tell much of what had gone before, and he only half followed what Yang Guo told him. He knew only that all these years Yang Guo had been training with Xiaolongnü. “This little girl’s martial arts aren’t even as good as mine,” he said loudly. “Why train with her? Let me teach you.” Xiaolongnü was hardly going to argue with him. She gave a faint smile at his words and walked off to one side.

Yang Guo, though, felt awkward. “Father,” he said, “my shifu is very good to me.” Ouyang Feng grew jealous. “She’s good to you, and I’m not?” he shouted. Yang Guo laughed. “You’re good to me too. In all the world, you two are the only ones who are good to me.” Muddled as Ouyang Feng’s words were, Yang Guo understood that in these few years he had been searching for him everywhere, and had truly been through a thousand hardships.

Ouyang Feng held his hand and giggled foolishly. After a while he said, “Your martial arts aren’t bad, but it’s a pity you don’t know the two greatest marvels of the martial world.” “What are they?” asked Yang Guo. Ouyang Feng’s thick brows bristled. “And you call yourself a martial artist,” he barked, “and you don’t know the two great marvels of the world. What use is it, taking her as your shifu?” Seeing him swing from joy to rage and back, Yang Guo could not help worrying. He thought, Father’s sickness has gone deep. Who knows when he’ll ever be well? Ouyang Feng roared with laughter. “Heh, let Father teach you. The first of the two great marvels is the Toad Skill, and the second is the Nine Yin Manual. I’ll teach you the first steps of the Toad Skill.” And he began reciting the formula. Yang Guo smiled. “You taught me that before. Have you forgotten?” Ouyang Feng scratched his head. “So you’ve learned it already. Couldn’t be better. Let me see you do it.”

Since entering the ancient tomb Yang Guo had never once practised the strange skills Ouyang Feng had taught him long ago, but now, hearing this, he happily obliged. He had trained in them on Peach Blossom Island, and now, with neigong of the highest order behind them, they burst at once into a dazzling show. Ouyang Feng laughed. “Pretty! Pretty! But it’s not right. Fine to look at and no use at all. I’ll pass you every secret of it!” And waving his arms and stamping his feet, he talked on and on without a break, never caring whether Yang Guo could remember it all, a stretch of Toad Skill, then a stretch of a jumbled, back-to-front Nine Yin Manual. Yang Guo listened for a long time. Every sentence seemed to hold endless subtle meaning, but it was all so intricate and so strange. How could he take in so much all at once?

Footnotes

1. 郭靖 – Guō Jìng. His name meaning “tranquillity” or “pacification”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 郭芙 – Guō Fú. Her name meaning “lotus”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 黄蓉 – Huáng Róng. Her name meaning “lotus” or “hibiscus”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 手挥五弦 – shǒu huī wǔ xián. Technique from the Nine Yin Manual, named after the gesture of strumming a five-stringed instrument. It neutralises an opponent’s force through a light, precisely placed touch. ↩

5. 嘉兴 – Jiāxīng. City in northern Zhejiang Province, known for its South Lake and its role as a key location in Jin Yong’s novels. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 柯镇恶 – Kē Zhèn’è. His name meaning “subduing evil”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. Peach Blossom Island (桃花岛). Táohuā Dǎo. Huang Yaoshi’s island fortress, filled with ingenious mechanisms and traps. Its name comes from the peach trees that cover the island. Guo Jing and Huang Rong made it their home after their marriage. ↩

8. 黄药师 – Huáng Yàoshī. His name meaning “medicine master”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. Chongyang Palace (重阳宫). Main temple of the Quanzhen Order on Mount Zhongnan, named after the Order’s founder Wang Chongyang. Vast complex of halls and courtyards housing hundreds of Daoist priests. ↩

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