The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 8 – Part 3

The young girl asked, “Hey, cowherd boy, what are you complaining about?” Yang Guo said, “This ox suddenly went mad and scraped off so much of its hide. When I go back, the master will beat me to death for sure.” The young girl looked at the bull, its coat was glossy and smooth, with no visible damage at all. She said, “Fine. Your ox helped me out, after all. Here’s a silver ingot for you.” She took a three-liang silver ingot from her robes and tossed it on the ground. She expected Yang Guo to be overjoyed and effusively grateful, but instead he remained sullen, shaking his head without picking up the silver. The young girl said, “What’s wrong with you? Fool, this is silver.” Yang Guo said, “One ingot is not enough.” The young girl took out another ingot and threw it down. Yang Guo, meaning to tease her, shook his head again.

The young girl grew annoyed. Her fine brows rose, her face darkened, and she snapped, “There’s no more, fool!” She turned to leave. Seeing her angry expression, Yang Guo could not help but feel hot blood surge in his chest and a stinging in his eyes, reminded of the way Xiaolongnü usually scolded him. His resolve was set. If I cannot find Gugu for a while, I shall simply gaze upon this girl’s angry face instead. He reached out and grabbed her right leg, crying, “You can’t leave!” The young girl struggled with all her might, but he held on fast and she could not break free. She grew even angrier and shouted, “Let go! Why are you clinging to me?” Yang Guo, seeing her rage building, grew all the more delighted. He cried, “I can’t go home! Save me!” And then he began yelling, “Help! Help!”

The young girl was both exasperated and amused. She raised her blade and threatened, “If you don’t let go, I’ll hack you to death.” Yang Guo held on even tighter. Pretending to cry, he said, “Go ahead and hack me to death. I won’t survive if I go home anyway.” The young girl said, “What do you want?” Yang Guo said, “I don’t know. I’ll follow you.” The young girl thought, For no good reason, I’ve got this fool clinging to me like a pest. She raised her blade and hacked down. Yang Guo had assumed she would not really strike, and kept holding her calf without letting go. But who could have known that this young girl struck viciously, the blade was truly aimed at the top of his head. Though she did not intend to take his life, she meant to cut his scalp and make him suffer, so that he would not dare pester her further. Yang Guo saw the blade coming straight down. He waited until the edge was mere inches from his head, then rolled aside to evade it, shouting, “Murder! Murder!”

The young girl grew even angrier. She closed in and slashed again. Yang Guo lay sideways on the ground, kicking wildly with both feet, shouting, “I’m dead! I’m dead!” His two mud-caked feet flailed about in the most unsightly manner imaginable, yet several times the young girl nearly had her wrist kicked and could never land a blow. Yang Guo watched the fury on her face, this was exactly the expression of anger he longed to see. He could not help staring at her in a daze. The young girl, seeing his strange expression, barked, “Get up!” Yang Guo said, “Will you kill me or not?” The young girl said, “Fine, I won’t kill you.” Yang Guo slowly got to his feet, gasping loudly for breath. Secretly he circulated his energy to constrict his blood flow, and instantly his face turned deathly pale, utterly bloodless, as though he had been scared out of his wits.

The young girl felt satisfied. “Pei!” she spat. “Let’s see if you dare pester me again.” She raised her blade and pointed at Pi Qingxuan’s severed fingers lying on the slope. “Those men were fierce as demons, and I still cut off their claws.” Yang Guo put on an expression of utter terror and cringed repeatedly. The young girl thrust the broadsword into her belt and turned to look for the black donkey, but the donkey had long since fled to who knows where. She had no choice but to walk.

Yang Guo picked up the silver, tucked it into his robes, and followed behind her, leading the ox by its rope. He called, “Gugu, take me with you.” The young girl paid him no attention. She quickened her pace and soon left him far behind, out of sight. But no sooner had she paused to rest than she saw him come running from afar, leading the bull and calling, “Take me with you! Take me with you!” The young girl frowned, then used her lightness skill to race several li in one breath, certain he could never catch up. But before long, she faintly heard the cry of “Take me with you!” once more. The young girl’s anger surged. She turned and charged back, drawing her broadsword and raising it high. Yang Guo cried, “Ah!” He fled, clutching his head. The young girl only wanted him to stop following, so she let it go and turned to walk again.

After walking a while, she heard a bovine bellow behind her. She turned her head and saw Yang Guo leading the bull, following far in the distance, about thirty or forty paces behind. The young girl stopped and waited for him to approach. But when Yang Guo saw that she had stopped, he stopped too. If she moved forward, he followed, if she turned around and charged at him with her blade raised, he turned tail and fled. This pursuit-and-pause continued until the sky darkened, yet the young girl still could not shake off his pestering. She saw that though this little cowherd seemed utterly foolish, his footwork was exceptionally quick, presumably from years of running in the mountains. Whenever she tried to catch up and knock him unconscious or slash his legs, he always escaped by the skin of his teeth, tumbling and crawling away in the most hair-raising fashion. The young girl noted that each time he escaped by a margin of no more than a hair’s breadth, and thought to herself that this fellow’s luck was remarkably good, without suspecting anything else.

After several more rounds of this, the young girl’s lame left foot was growing weary from walking so long. She thought of a plan. She called out loudly, “Fine, I’ll take you with me. But you have to do as I say.” Yang Guo said happily, “You really will take me?” The young girl said, “Yes, why would I lie to you? I’m tired from walking. You get on the ox, and let me ride too.” Yang Guo led the bull over quickly. In the dim twilight he saw a glint in her eyes and knew she was up to no good. Clumsily and awkwardly he scrambled onto the bull’s back. The young girl touched down with her right foot and sprang up lightly, settling in front of Yang Guo. She thought, My donkey has run off, riding this bull isn’t bad at all. She kicked the bull hard in the ribs with the tip of her foot. The bull felt the pain and broke into a gallop. The young girl smiled coldly to herself, then suddenly drove her elbow backward with force, striking Yang Guo squarely in the chest. Yang Guo cried “Ow!” He tumbled head over heels off the bull’s back.

The young girl was immensely pleased with herself. No matter how shameless you are, this time you’ve fallen for my trick. She jabbed her finger into the bull’s ribs and the beast ran even faster. But then she heard Yang Guo still shouting at the top of his lungs, and the voice was right behind her. She turned her head and saw him clinging tightly to the bull’s tail with both hands, his feet lifted off the ground, being dragged through the air by the galloping bull, his face covered in mud and his nose running with tears and snot, an indescribably wretched sight. Yet he would not release that tail. The young girl was at her wits’ end. She raised her broadsword, about to hack at his hands, when she suddenly heard the clamour of voices, the bull had charged into a market town. The crowd was dense and the bull had nowhere to go, so it stopped.

Yang Guo had loved teasing people since childhood and had always had a roguish streak in his nature. After entering the ancient tomb, with Xiaolongnü’s serious and strict discipline, he had not dared show the slightest recklessness. It had been bottled up for a long time. Now, with Xiaolongnü gone and his heart full of grief and bitterness, he amused himself by teasing this young girl, using it to vent his pent-up frustration, and at the same time taking comfort in watching her angry expressions, as though he were seeing his Gugu. He lay on the ground shouting, “My chest hurts so much! You’ve beaten me to death!” The people in the marketplace crowded around, asking what had happened.

The young girl tried to slip through the crowd and escape, but Yang Guo crawled across the ground and grabbed her right leg again, shouting, “Don’t go, don’t go!” Someone asked, “What is this? What are you arguing about?” Yang Guo, remembering how Xiaolongnü had asked him whether he wanted her as his wife, cried out, “She’s my wife! My wife doesn’t want me and beats me!” The man said, “A wife beating her husband, what kind of world is this?” The young girl’s willow-leaf brows stood on end. She kicked out with her left foot. Yang Guo shoved a burly man beside him into the path of the kick, which landed squarely in the man’s waist. The man was furious. “You little slut, kicking people?” he roared, raising a fist the size of a vinegar jar to strike. The young girl caught his elbow and pushed, borrowing his force to send him flying. The two-hundred-jin man soared through the air, howling, and crashed into the crowd, crushing people beneath him as they shouted and scrambled in chaos.

The young girl tried desperately to shake off Yang Guo, but he clung to her leg as if his life depended on it, how could she break free? She saw another five or six men closing in to cause trouble, so she had no choice but to lower her head and say, “Fine, I’ll take you with me. Just let go.” Yang Guo said, “Will you still beat me?” The young girl said, “Fine, I won’t!” Only then did Yang Guo release his grip and scramble to his feet. The two of them slipped through the crowd and fled the marketplace, with a din of shouting behind them. Even in the midst of all the chaos, Yang Guo had still managed to keep hold of the ox.

Yang Guo said with a grin, “Everyone says a wife shouldn’t beat her husband.” The young girl said viciously, “You dead fool, if you spout any more nonsense about me being your wife or whatever, see if I don’t hack your stupid head right off.” She raised her blade for emphasis. Yang Guo clutched his head and dodged a few steps away, pleading, “Fine, young lady, I won’t say it anymore.” The young girl spat, “Look at your filthy appearance, even the ugliest freak wouldn’t marry a fool like you.” Yang Guo giggled foolishly and said nothing.

By now the sky had darkened. The two stood in the open wilderness, gazing at tendrils of cooking smoke rising from the distant marketplace. Both felt hunger gnawing at their stomachs. The young girl said, “Fool, go into town and buy ten steamed buns.” Yang Guo shook his head. “I’m not going.” The young girl’s face darkened. “Why not?” Yang Guo said, “Of course I’m not going! You just want to trick me into buying buns so you can sneak away.” The young girl said, “I said I wouldn’t sneak away.” Yang Guo just shook his head. The young girl clenched her fist to hit him, but he darted away again. The two of them chased each other around the great bull like children playing hide-and-seek. The young girl’s lame foot made walking difficult, and though she had lightness skills, she saw this boy tumbling and scrambling, shouting and yelling, and could never catch him.

She was furious beyond measure. Here she was, possessing a full set of martial skills and known for her cleverness and cunning, yet utterly helpless against this filthy, stinking country fool. It was the height of incompetence. The truth was that Yang Guo’s wretched act was simply too convincing, otherwise, after failing to kill this little fool several times over, she would have grown suspicious long ago. She walked south along the main road, and seeing Yang Guo following from afar with his ox, she calculated how to kill him when he least expected it. After walking for the time it takes to eat a meal, the sky grew even darker. She saw a dilapidated temple by the roadside that seemed uninhabited. Tonight I’ll sleep here. When that fool falls asleep in the middle of the night, I’ll hack him to death with one stroke. She pushed open the temple door and entered. Dust assaulted her nostrils. The divine statues inside were broken and decayed, it had clearly been abandoned for a long time. She cut some grass, wiped the altar table clean, lay down on it, and closed her eyes to rest.

She saw that Yang Guo had not followed her in. She called, “Fool! Fool!” No answer came. She wondered, Could that fool have known I was going to kill him and run away? Though she told herself she did not care, she felt a faint loneliness. After a long while, just as she was drifting hazily toward sleep, the aroma of roasting meat suddenly filled her nostrils. She leapt up and went to the door. There she saw Yang Guo sitting beneath the moonlight, a large chunk of meat in his hand, chewing away with great relish. Before him blazed a fire, and over the fire, game meat hung roasting on a rack of branches, its fragrance wafting toward her in waves.

When Yang Guo saw her come out, he grinned and said, “Want some?” He tossed her a fragrant roasted leg of meat. The young girl caught it, it seemed to be the leg of a river deer. Her stomach was empty, so she tore off a piece and ate. Though there was no salt, the taste was still rather good. She sat down near the fire and ate with dainty refinement, tearing the meat into small shreds before chewing them slowly. But when she saw Yang Guo eating with spit flying everywhere, smacking his lips noisily, she could not help feeling disgusted. She wanted to stop eating, but her stomach was still hungry, so she could only turn her head away and not look at him.

When she finished one piece, Yang Guo handed her another. The young girl said, “Fool, what is your name?” Yang Guo said blankly, “Are you a fairy or something? How did you know my name is Fool?” The young girl was amused. She laughed and said, “Ha, so you really are called Fool. What about your father and mother?” Yang Guo said, “They’re all dead. What is your name?” The young girl said, “I don’t know. Why do you ask?” Yang Guo thought, You won’t tell me, let me provoke you into it. He said smugly, “I know, you’re called Fool too, so you won’t say.” The young girl flew into a rage. She sprang up and brought her fist crashing down on his head. “Who says I’m called Fool? You’re the fool!” Yang Guo, with a mournful face, clutched his head and said, “When people ask me my name, and I say I don’t know, they call me Fool. You said you don’t know too, so naturally you’re Fool as well.” The young girl said, “Who said I don’t know? I just don’t feel like telling you. My surname is Lu. Do you understand?”