The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 8 – Part 5

Yang Guo stretched lazily and sat up slowly. “What’s all that shouting outside? Miss Lu, where are you? Eh, why are you standing there like that?” He gave her a few pushes in the back. Lu Wushuang felt a strong force pass into her, her whole body jolted, and the three sealed acupoints came free. With no time to think it over, she bent down, picked up her dao and leapt out of the main door. Three men stood there with their backs to the moon.

She wasted no words, but turned her wrist and thrust her dao at the man on the left. He was armed with an iron whip. He swung round, took aim and brought the whip smashing down on the point of her dao. The whip was heavy to begin with, his arm was very strong, and his aim was true, and with a clang the dao flew from Lu Wushuang’s hand. The Daoist in the middle came thrusting at her with a long jian. Yang Guo, lying on the table, saw her leap aside and point her left hand slantwise. Good, he thought. That Daoist is going to lose his jian. Sure enough, she flicked her wrist over in a move of the Ancient Tomb School, snatched the long jian from the Daoist’s hand and brought it straight down, and with a thud the jian bit into his shoulder. He cursed loudly and jumped back to tear strips from his Daoist robe and bind the wound.

Lu Wushuang, whirling the jian, closed with the man with the whip. A second, short and slight, armed with a tasselled spear, jabbed at her now from this side and now from that, but dared not come too close. The burly man with the whip was no weak fighter, and after a dozen or more passes Lu Wushuang began to flag. Yet there was a certain bearing in the way he struck and moved, as if he were very conscious of his standing, and several times, when she slipped, he did not press her hard.

The Daoist finished binding his wound and came back empty-handed. He pointed at Lu Wushuang and cursed her. “You little slut of the Ancient Tomb School, what a vicious hand you have!” He thrust out his arms, fists flailing, and charged at her. White light flashed, and the Daoist took another cut of the jian across his back. But in that same moment the short man’s spear had reached the middle of Lu Wushuang’s back, and the burly man’s iron whip was jabbing at her shoulder. This is bad! Yang Guo cried inwardly, and flung the two pebbles he held in his hands at once. One knocked the spear aside, the other struck the burly man’s right wrist.

But the burly man’s martial skill was formidable. With the stone in his right wrist he could no longer drive the whip home, but his left palm darted out quick as lightning, and with a thud it struck Lu Wushuang full in the chest. Yang Guo was aghast. He was young after all, and short on experience, and had not seen how formidable the burly man’s left-hand fist and palm work was. He rushed out, grabbed the man by the back of the collar, put his strength into it and flung him away. The burly man flew up into the air and came down ten feet or more away. Seeing what Yang Guo could do, the Daoist and the short man hurriedly helped the burly man up and left without a backward glance.

Yang Guo bent his head to look at Lu Wushuang. Her face was the colour of gold paper and her breathing was faint. She was badly hurt. He put his left hand behind her back and eased her slowly up to sitting, and there came two soft cracks, the sound of bone knocking on bone: the burly man’s palm had broken two of her ribs. She had already fainted, but as the broken bones shifted, a stab of agony brought her round, and she moaned softly. “What is it?” said Yang Guo. “Does it hurt a lot?” Lu Wushuang was half dead with pain. She gritted her teeth and swore at him. “What a question. Of course it hurts. Carry me inside.” Yang Guo could not lift her without jolting her a little, and the broken ends ground together again, sending another wave of unbearable pain through her. “All right, you wretched fool,” she cursed, “you… you’re tormenting me on purpose. Where are those three?” She had been knocked senseless before Yang Guo made his move, and did not know that he had saved her life.

Yang Guo smiled. “They thought you were dead, so they dusted off their hands and left.” Lu Wushuang felt a little easier. “What are you smiling at?” she snapped. “You damned fool, the more it hurts me, the happier you are, is that it?” Every time she scolded him, Yang Guo was reminded of how Xiaolongnü used to scold him. The few years he had spent with Xiaolongnü in the Tomb of the Living Dead had truly been the happiest days of his life. Even when she rebuked him he knew his shifu cared for him with all her heart, and he still felt warm inside. Now he could not find his shifu, and he had happened on another girl in white, and his misery and loneliness were eased a little. In fact Xiaolongnü was cold by nature, and even when she reproved him it was never more than a few calm words, spoken without the least change of expression. How could she ever have ranted and raved at him the way Lu Wushuang did? But in Yang Guo’s present state of mind, a girl to scold him was far better than no one at all, so he only smiled at her abuse and paid it no heed, and he lifted her up and laid her on the table. As Lu Wushuang lay down, the broken bones grated again, and she could not stop herself crying out in pain. Crying out made her draw breath into her lungs, which pulled at her ribs and made the pain worse still. She clenched her teeth hard, her forehead beaded all over with cold sweat.

“Shall I set your broken bones for you?” said Yang Guo. “Stinking fool,” Lu Wushuang snapped, “what do you know about setting bones?” “Our mangy dog at home got in a fight with the big yellow dog next door and had its leg bitten clean through, and I set the bone for it. And when Uncle Wang’s sow broke a rib, I was the one that set it.” Lu Wushuang was furious, but she dared not raise her voice, so she said in a low growl, “So you’re calling me a mangy dog, and a sow. You’re the mangy dog, you’re the sow.” Yang Guo laughed. “Even if I were a pig, I’d be a boar. Besides, the mangy dog was a bitch too. He-dogs don’t get mange.” For all her sharp tongue, every word she spoke sent a stab of pain through Lu Wushuang’s chest. She longed to have it out with him, but she had not the strength, and she could only shut her eyes against the pain and ignore him. “Once I’d set that mangy dog’s bone, it was better in a few days,” said Yang Guo. “It fought other dogs as if the bone had never been broken.”

Perhaps this fool really can set bones, Lu Wushuang thought. Besides, if no one treats me, I’m as good as dead. But if he sets my bones he’ll have to touch my chest, and… and what then? Hmph. If he botches it, I’ll take him down with me. And if he heals me, I’ll never let a man who has seen my body go on living. Struck by cruel disaster as a child, and fighting for her life through every humiliation since, she had never been like other people, and long years at Li Mochou’s side, seeing and hearing all she did, had made her more ruthless still in heart and hand. Young as she was, her head was full of vicious thoughts. “Very well!” she said in a low voice. “But if you’re lying to me, hmph, little fool, I’ll make sure you don’t die an easy death.”

If I don’t make things hard for her now, Yang Guo thought, I’ll never get another chance. “When Uncle Wang’s sow broke a rib,” he said coldly, “his daughter begged and pleaded with me, and only after she’d called me ‘dear brother’ a hundred times did I go and set the bone…” “Pah, pah, pah, stinking fool… stinking fool… ow…” said Lu Wushuang, and another stab of pain shot through her chest. Yang Guo grinned. “If you won’t say it, never mind. I’m going home. You have a good rest.” With that he got up and walked towards the door.

If he goes, Lu Wushuang thought, I’ll die of the pain here for sure. There was nothing for it but to swallow her anger. “What do you want?” she asked. “By rights you’d have to call me ‘dear brother’ a hundred times too,” said Yang Guo. “But you’ve cursed me something cruel all along the road, so it’ll have to be a thousand.” I’ll agree to anything for now, Lu Wushuang reasoned. Once I’m better there’ll be time enough to pay him back. So she said, “Then I’ll call you dear brother, dear brother, dear brother… ow… ow…” “All right,” said Yang Guo. “Nine hundred and ninety-seven to go. I’ll put those on the slate, and you can say them when you’re well.” He came close and reached out to undo her clothes.

Lu Wushuang shrank back without meaning to. “Get away!” she cried in alarm. “What are you doing?” Yang Guo stepped back. “I can’t set broken bones through clothes. Those mangy dogs and old sows don’t wear any.” Lu Wushuang found that rather funny herself, but she still felt too shy to let him undress her. It was a long while before she lowered her head. “All right. I can’t win against you.” “If you don’t want treating, don’t,” said Yang Guo. “It’s not as if I care…”

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Just at that moment they heard someone outside the door say, “The little slut is bound to be within twenty li¹ of here. Let’s search, and quickly…” At the sound of that voice Lu Wushuang went white with terror. Forgetting the pain in her chest, she reached out and clapped her hand over Yang Guo’s mouth. The speaker outside was Li Mochou.

Yang Guo was badly startled at the sound of her voice too. Then a second woman’s voice said, “That curved dao stuck in the beggar’s shoulder was our shimei’s² Silver Arc Blade, plain as day. What a pity we couldn’t get it out and have a proper look.” This could only be Hong Lingbo.

Shifu and disciple had escaped the Tomb of the Living Dead by the skin of their teeth and returned to Crimson Cloud Manor to find Lu Wushuang gone. That alone might have been let pass, but she had taken the Secret Manual of the Five Venoms with her as well. Li Mochou ran roughshod over the jianghu, and the whole wulin³ feared her, chiefly not for her martial skill but for the deadly poison of her Scarlet Serpent Divine Palm⁴ and her Soul-Freezing Silver Needles.⁵ The Secret Manual of the Five Venoms set down the nature and the making of the poisons on the palm and the needles, and of their antidotes. If it ever got about, the Scarlet Serpent Immortal would be like a scarlet serpent with its fangs drawn. She had long since learnt everything in it by heart, so there was no need to carry it about with her, and she had hidden it at Crimson Cloud Manor with the utmost secrecy. But Lu Wushuang had always kept her eyes open, and had found out where her shifu kept it, and once she had made up her mind to run away, she had stolen the book too.

Li Mochou’s shock and fury were no small thing. She took Hong Lingbo and gave chase, day and night, but Lu Wushuang had long since got clear away and was keeping to lonely back roads. Shifu and disciple swept from north to south and back again several times to cut her off, without finding a trace of her. Then, as luck would have it, that evening they came near Tong Pass⁶ and heard from some disciples of the Beggars’ Guild that the Guild’s members on the western circuit were being called to a gathering. The Beggars’ Guild had followers everywhere under heaven, Li Mochou reasoned, with eyes and ears in every quarter. Someone must have seen Lu Wushuang. So shifu and disciple hurried towards the meeting place to see what they could learn, and on the road they ran straight into a five-pouch disciple⁷ being carried along at a run on the back of another Guild member, with seventeen or eighteen beggars guarding him on either side. Li Mochou saw a curved dao sticking out of the man’s shoulder: Lu Wushuang’s Silver Arc Blade. She slipped aside and listened in secret, and from the beggars’ angry shouting she could just make out that a lame girl had hit him in the shoulder with a thrown curved dao.

Li Mochou was overjoyed. The man had not been wounded long, she thought, so Lu Wushuang had to be close by, and she hurried off at once in pursuit until she came to the ruined temple. In front of it a fire had been burning, and she caught a faint smell of blood. Quickly she shook a tinder-stick alight and looked all round, and sure enough there were several patches of blood on the ground, still fresh: there had plainly been a fierce fight not long before. Li Mochou plucked her disciple’s sleeve and pointed at the ruined building. Hong Lingbo nodded, pushed the door open and burst in, her jian whirling to guard her.

When Lu Wushuang heard her shifu and her shijie⁸ talking, she knew there was no escape. She hardened her heart and lay there waiting to die. The door creaked softly, and a figure in pale yellow slipped in. It was her shijie, Hong Lingbo.

Hong Lingbo was fond enough of her shimei. She knew that this time their shifu would use every vicious trick she had, tormenting her shimei past all bearing before she was slowly put to death. Seeing her lying on the altar table, Hong Lingbo raised her jian at once and thrust it at Lu Wushuang’s heart, to spare her a slow death by inches.

The point of the jian was about to touch Lu Wushuang’s chest when Li Mochou reached out and patted Hong Lingbo on the shoulder. All the strength went out of Hong Lingbo’s arm and it dropped at once. Li Mochou smiled coldly. “Do you think I can’t kill someone myself? What are you in such a hurry for?” To Lu Wushuang she said, “Don’t you even bow when you see your shifu?” Furious as she was, her speech was as gentle and refined as ever. Lu Wushuang thought, Now I’ve fallen into her hands, I’ll be tortured whether I beg or defy her. So she said coolly, “There’s a blood feud between you and my family that goes back generations. There’s nothing more to say.” Li Mochou gazed at her quietly, and who could say whether it was gladness or grief in her eyes. Hong Lingbo’s face was full of pity. Lu Wushuang’s upper lip curled a little. If anything, she looked haughty.

The three of them stared at one another like this for a long time. At last Li Mochou said, “The book. Give it here.” “A wicked Daoist and a stinking beggar snatched it from me!” said Lu Wushuang. Li Mochou was secretly alarmed. She had no quarrel with the Beggars’ Guild, but her feud with the Quanzhen Order was no small one, and she knew very well how close the ties between the Beggars’ Guild and Quanzhen ran. If the Secret Manual of the Five Venoms had fallen into their hands, it would be no laughing matter.

Footnotes

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

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

3. 武林 – wǔlín. Literally martial forest. Those who actually practise, teach or study martial arts. Wulin sits inside the jianghu and is narrower than it: every member of the wulin belongs to the jianghu, but a pedlar or physician of the jianghu who never trained is no part of the wulin. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 赤练神掌 – Chìliàn Shénzhǎng. Li Mochou’s palm technique, infused with poison. Name links her palm strikes to her serpentine nickname, suggesting that her very touch is as deadly as a venomous snake’s bite. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 冰魄银针 – Bīngpò Yínzhēn. Soul-Freezing Silver Needles, Li Mochou’s signature hidden weapon: silver needles coated with a deadly poison. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 潼关 – Tóng Guān. Tong Pass, a historically strategic mountain pass in Shaanxi Province guarding the approach to the Central Plains from the northwest. ↩

7. 五袋弟子 – wǔdài dìzǐ. Five-pouch disciple. In the Beggars’ Guild a member’s rank is shown by the number of pouches he wears; five pouches marks a disciple of middle rank and some standing. ↩

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