The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 7

Chongyang's carved legacy¹

Yang Guo followed Xiaolongnü through the passage and out of the ancient tomb, wild with joy. He drew a few deep breaths under the starlight and said, “Aunt, I’ll go and drop the Dragon-Breaking Stone² and smother those two wicked women inside.” He was already turning to look for the mechanism. Xiaolongnü shook her head. “Wait. Let me go back in first.” Yang Guo started. “Why?” he asked quickly. “My shifu charged me to guard this tomb well,” said Xiaolongnü. “I must never let anyone else take it.”

“If we seal the door,” said Yang Guo, “they’re as good as dead.” “But then I could never get back in either,” said Xiaolongnü. “I’d never dare disobey my shifu. Not like you!” She shot him a glare. Hot blood surged into Yang Guo’s chest. He caught her arm. “Aunt, I’ll do as you say.” Xiaolongnü reined in her heart. Afraid of being stirred, she dared not say one word more. She shook off his hand, walked in through the tomb door and said, “Drop the stone!” She stood with her back to the entrance, afraid she might change her mind after all, and would not turn round for one more look at him.

Yang Guo’s mind was made up. He drew a deep breath, and his chest filled with the scent of flowers and the fresh, clean smell of grass and trees. He looked up. The sky was thick with stars, glittering without cease, and he thought, This is the last time I’ll ever see the stars. He ran to the left side of the tombstone and, as Xiaolongnü had shown him, put his strength into heaving aside a great boulder. Sure enough, beneath it lay a round stone. He gripped it and pulled hard. The round stone came away and bared a hole. Fine sand streamed out of it at astonishing speed, and the two huge slabs above the tomb door slowly began to sink. These two Dragon-Breaking Stones weighed well over ten thousand jin.³ When Wang Chongyang⁴ built the tomb, it had taken several hundred men hauling on great ropes to set them in place. Now they would block the door for good, and however great the martial skill of Li Mochou,⁵ Xiaolongnü and Hong Lingbo, not one of the three would ever leave this tomb alive.

At the sound of the great stones coming down, Xiaolongnü could not stop the tears from streaming down her face, and she turned round. Yang Guo waited until the stones were some two feet from the ground. Then, all at once, he used Jade Maiden Casting the Shuttle⁶ and shot through the two-foot gap like an arrow. Xiaolongnü cried out in alarm, but Yang Guo was already on his feet, smiling. “Aunt, now you’ll never drive me out again.” The words were hardly spoken when, with two thunderous booms, the stones hit the ground.

Shock and joy struck Xiaolongnü at once, so violently that she nearly fainted again. She fell against Yang Guo and could only gasp for breath. Yang Guo put his arms gently around her and patted her back. A long while passed before she said, “Very well. We’ll die together, the two of us.” She took his hand and led him towards the inner chamber.

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Li Mochou and her disciple had been searching all around for the mechanism, tapping here and knocking there without the least idea where to look, frantic with worry. When the two suddenly reappeared, it was more than they had dared hope for. Li Mochou’s figure flickered and she was behind Xiaolongnü and Yang Guo, cutting off their retreat. “Shijie,”⁷ Xiaolongnü said coldly, “I’ll take you somewhere.” Li Mochou hesitated and gave no answer, thinking, This tomb is riddled with traps. I mustn’t fall for her tricks. If she tries anything in here, I’ll never be able to guard against it all. “I’ll take you to pay your respects at Shifu’s coffin,” said Xiaolongnü. “If you don’t wish to come, so be it.” “Don’t think you can trick me with Shifu’s name,” said Li Mochou. Xiaolongnü gave a faint, cold smile and, without a word, walked straight towards the door. There was an authority in her words and bearing that Li Mochou felt could not be defied, and so she and her disciple followed, wary at every step, never relaxing for an instant. Xiaolongnü went ahead holding Yang Guo’s hand, unafraid that her shijie might strike from behind, and led them into the chamber where the stone coffins lay.

Li Mochou had never been in this chamber before. As she thought of all her late shifu had done to raise and teach her, a faint sadness touched her heart, but then she remembered how partial Shifu had been, and in an instant the grief turned to anger. She would not so much as kowtow to the coffin. “Shifu and I broke with each other long ago,” she said angrily. “What have you brought me here for?” “There are still two empty stone coffins here,” Xiaolongnü said evenly. “One is for you and one is for me. I’m just telling you. Take whichever you like.” She pointed at the two coffins.

Li Mochou flew into a rage. “You dare make sport of me?” The words were barely out before her palm was flying at Xiaolongnü’s chest. But Xiaolongnü watched it come and made no move to dodge or block. Li Mochou faltered, thinking, I mustn’t kill her with this blow. A few inches from Xiaolongnü’s chest she wrenched the strike back. “Shijie,” said Xiaolongnü, quite calm, “the Dragon-Breaking Stones on the tomb door are already down!”

The colour drained from Li Mochou’s face. She did not know every mechanism in the tomb, but she knew the Dragon-Breaking Stones were the deadliest of them all, the last resort for sealing the door. Years before, when their shifu had faced a great enemy and very nearly failed to hold the foe off, she had come close to dropping the stones to keep the enemy out, until at last she wounded the foe with Soul-Freezing Silver Needles⁸ and Jade Bee Needles.⁹ Li Mochou had never dreamed that her shimei¹⁰ would shut her inside the tomb. Panic seized her, and her voice shook. “You have another way out, don’t you?”

“Once the Dragon-Breaking Stones are down, the door can never be opened again,” said Xiaolongnü coolly. “Didn’t you know?” Li Mochou’s hand shot out and seized the front of her robe. “You’re lying!” she cried harshly. Xiaolongnü’s face did not change. “The Jade Maiden Heart Sutra¹¹ that Shifu left is right here.” She took an old book from her bosom and tossed it into one of the coffins that still had no lid. It was in fact the Can Tong Qi,¹² a key Daoist classic that every student of the Way must study. Xiaolongnü had happened to read a few pages and tucked it into her robe, so she had simply pulled it out and thrown it. “If you want to read it, go and read it,” she said. “However fine your skill becomes, there’ll be no one left to fight. Guoer and I are here. If you want to kill us, go ahead. But leave this ancient tomb alive? I don’t think so!”

Li Mochou had no idea of the truth. Shaken to the core, she believed that the Jade Maiden Heart Sutra she had longed for day and night lay right before her eyes, and she wanted to stoop into the empty coffin and take it. But the moment she turned, her shimei and her shimei’s disciple would fall on her unguarded back. She thought, Kill the pair of them first, then take the sutra. That way nothing can go wrong. And she swung her palm at Xiaolongnü’s face. Yang Guo darted forward and put himself in front of Xiaolongnü. “Kill me first!” he shouted.

Li Mochou’s palm dropped and turned towards Xiaolongnü’s chest, its force held in check. She glared venomously at Yang Guo. “So you’d shield her like this, and gladly die for her too, is that it?” “That’s right!” Yang Guo said ringingly. Li Mochou’s left hand shot out sideways and snatched the long jian from his belt. She levelled it at his throat. “I’ll kill only one of you,” she said harshly. “Say it again. Do you die, or does she?” Yang Guo smiled at Xiaolongnü. “Me, of course!” he said loudly. By now both of them had put life and death out of their minds. Whatever killing stroke Li Mochou might use, it meant nothing to them.

Li Mochou heaved a long sigh. “Shimei, your vow is broken. You may go down the mountain now.”

Years ago Lin Chaoying,¹³ founder of the Ancient Tomb School, had loved Wang Chongyang with a bitter love, and in the end the match was never made. Heartbroken, she laid down a rule for her school: whoever received her true legacy must swear to live in the ancient tomb all her life and never once descend Mount Zhongnan.¹⁴ But if a man were ever willing, of his own free will, to die for her, the oath would count as broken. On no account, though, could the man be told of this beforehand. For Lin Chaoying was convinced that every man under heaven was faithless and ungrateful, and that not one would gladly die for the woman he loved. If even Wang Chongyang, heroic and chivalrous as he was, had been no different, what of other men? Should such a man ever truly appear, then a later disciple of hers who followed him down the mountain would not have done so in vain. Li Mochou had entered the school before Xiaolongnü and by rights should have inherited the mantle, but she refused to keep the oath never to leave the mountain, and so in the end it was Xiaolongnü who received the true legacy.

Footnotes

1. 重阳遗刻 – Chóngyáng yí kè. Chapter title. Lit. “Carvings left behind by Chongyang.” Wang Chongyang founded the Quanzhen Order. ↩

2. 断龙石 – Duànlóng Shí. Dragon-Breaking Stone, two massive ten-thousand-jin blocks installed by Wang Chongyang at the tomb entrance. Once dropped, they seal the tomb permanently. ↩

3. 斤 – jīn. Traditional Chinese unit of weight, approximately 500 grams or 1.1 pounds. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 王重阳 – Wáng Chóngyáng. Founder of the Quanzhen Order and foremost of the Five Greats. He led resistance against the Jin before turning to Daoism. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

6. 玉女投梭 – Yùnǚ Tóusuō. Literally jade maiden casting the shuttle. A move of the Ancient Tomb School. ↩

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

8. 冰魄银针 – Bīngpò Yínzhēn. Literally soul-freezing silver needles. Li Mochou’s signature hidden weapons, silver needles coated in a deadly poison. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 玉蜂针 – Yùfēng Zhēn. Fine needles coated with Jade Bee poison, a signature hidden weapon of the Ancient Tomb School. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 师妹 – shīmèi. Female junior. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Mèi means younger sister. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 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. ↩

12. 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. ↩

13. 林朝英 – Lín Cháoyīng. Founder of the Ancient Tomb School and a martial genius who once surpassed Wang Chongyang. She created the School’s arts specifically to counter Quanzhen techniques, driven by her unrequited love for him. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. Mount Zhongnan (终南山). Zhōngnán Shān. Mountain range south of Xi’an in Shaanxi Province, historically significant in Daoism. Site of the Chongyang Palace and the Tomb of the Living Dead. ↩