The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 8

Maiden in white.

Yang Guo gently pushed open the window and slipped into the room belonging to the two Daoists, Ji and Pi. On the kang¹ he saw two bundles. He picked one up and weighed it in his hand, inside were about twenty liang of silver. This will serve perfectly as travelling money, he thought, and tucked it into his robes. The other bundle was about four feet long, wrapped around two longswords. He drew them out one at a time, used heavy-handed force to snap both blades, returned them to their scabbards, and wrapped the bundle up again. Just as he was about to leave the room, a thought struck him. He loosened his trousers and took a great piss right into the two Daoists’ bedding.

He heard the sound of someone climbing the wall and knew that these two Daoists had only ordinary lightness skills, they could not leap the wall in a single bound, but had to first jump onto the top, then spring down to the ground. He immediately slipped back into his own room, quietly closing the door behind him. The two Daoists were completely unaware. Yang Guo pressed his ear to the wall and listened to what was happening next door.

He heard the two Daoists talking in low voices, apparently quite confident about the martial contest scheduled for the following day. As they undressed and climbed onto the kang, Pi Qingxuan suddenly cried out, “Ah! What is this wet thing in the bedding? Ah, what a stench! Brother Ji, are you so lazy that you pissed in the bed?” Ji Qingxu spat, “What piss?” Then he too shouted, “Where did some filthy cat come from to piss in here?” Pi Qingxuan said, “A cat’s piss could never be this much.” Ji Qingxu said, “Strange… ah, where is the silver?” Instantly the room was thrown into chaos as the two men searched everywhere for the bundle containing the money. Yang Guo laughed to himself. He heard Pi Qingxuan shouting loudly, “Innkeeper! Innkeeper! Are you running a bandits’ inn here? Stealing a guest’s silver in the dead of night?”

The two men shouted several times before the inn servant, still half-asleep, came to ask what was the matter. Pi Qingxuan seized him by the chest and accused him of running a bandits’ inn. The servant cried to heaven that he had been grievously wronged, and soon the commotion roused the innkeeper, the cook, the serving staff, and even the other guests, who all crowded over to watch the excitement. Yang Guo mingled with the crowd and saw the inn servant launch into an eloquent defence, his tongue nimble and his argument flowing in an unending torrent, reducing the two Daoists to speechless silence. This servant was by nature someone who loved to argue with others, even when nothing was happening he would try to provoke people, so now that someone had come looking for trouble, and he was entirely in the right, how could he hold back? He talked until spittle flew from his lips and his spirits rose ever higher. The two Daoists, shamed into fury, wanted to resort to violence, but remembering the strict rules of their order and that they were at the foot of Mount Zhongnan,² how could they dare act rashly? They could only swallow their anger in silence, shut the door, and go to sleep. The inn servant continued to grumble outside their room without end.

The next morning, Yang Guo rose and went to eat noodles. The talkative inn servant came over to wait on him, still muttering curses without pause. Yang Guo asked with a grin, “What happened with those two thieving Daoists?” The servant, immensely pleased with himself, said, “Those mother-fucking scoundrels, those two stinking Daoists wanted to eat for free and stay for free. On account of the Chongyang Palace,³ I might have let it pass, but then they had the nerve to accuse us of running a bandits’ inn. Before dawn today, those two thieving Daoists slipped away. Hah! I’m definitely going to report this at the Chongyang Palace. The Quanzhen Order⁴ has thousands upon thousands of Daoist masters, every single one of them strictly observes the rules and precepts. But I’ve got those two thieving Daoists’ faces burned into my memory, and I will certainly identify them…” Yang Guo laughed inwardly. He stoked the fire a little more, paid for his room and meal, asked for directions to Jackal-Wolf Valley, and set off on his way.

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In the blink of an eye he had travelled over thirty li,⁵ and Jackal-Wolf Valley was no longer far. He saw that it was still only early morning. Yang Guo thought to himself, I’ll hide off to one side and watch how Gugu deals with those villains. Best if Gugu doesn’t recognise me first. He recalled how he had disguised himself as a farm boy to toy with Hong Lingbo that day, and the memory pleased him greatly. There was no harm in trying the same trick again. He went to the back courtyard of a farmhouse, poked his head in to look around, and saw a great bull in the cattle pen, full of vigour, lowering its head and thrusting its horns as it rammed furiously against the wooden fence with booming thuds. An idea stirred in Yang Guo’s mind. I’ll dress up as a cowherd. When Gugu sees me at first glance, she definitely won’t recognise me.

He slipped quietly into the farmhouse. Inside, only two small children sat on the ground playing with mud. They were too frightened to make a sound when they saw him. He found a set of farming clothes, put them on, slipped into straw sandals, grabbed a handful of earth, rubbed it evenly over his face, and approached the cattle pen. On the wall hung a bamboo hat and a short flute, exactly the things a cowherd would use. Delighted, he put on the hat, tied a straw rope around his waist, tucked the flute into the rope, then opened the pen gate. The bull, already snorting with rage at his approach, burst out the moment the gate swung open and charged straight at him.

Yang Guo pressed his left palm against the bull’s head and vaulted onto its back. The bull was tall and heavily muscled, weighing a full seven hundred jin⁶ or more, with long hair and sharp horns, a truly imposing beast. In the blink of an eye it had charged onto the main road. It was in heat and exceptionally irritable, leaping and bucking with all its might, trying to throw Yang Guo off its back. Yang Guo sat firmly in place, extremely pleased with himself. He laughed and scolded, “If you don’t behave, you’ll be in for some suffering.” He raised his palm and struck the bull on the shoulder with the edge of his hand. He used only twenty per cent of his internal power, yet the bull was already in such pain it could barely endure it, bellowing loudly. Just as it was about to leap up in fury, Yang Guo struck down with another palm. After more than ten such blows, the bull finally dared not resist any longer. Yang Guo further discovered that if he poked it on the left side of the neck, it turned right, if he poked the right side, it turned left. A poke at the rear made it advance, and a poke at the forehead made it retreat. He could direct it as he pleased.

Overjoyed, Yang Guo jabbed his finger hard into the bull’s rump. The bull charged forward, astonishingly swift, almost like a galloping horse. Before long it passed through a dense forest and arrived at a valley ringed on all sides by towering mountain walls, exactly as the inn servant had described. He jumped off the bull’s back, let it graze on the hillside, held the tether rope in his hand, and lay down on the ground pretending to sleep.

The red sun slowly climbed to the centre of the sky. Yang Guo’s heart grew more and more agitated, fearing that Xiaolongnü would ignore the other party’s appointment and not come at all. All around was utter silence, broken only by the occasional bellow of the bull. Suddenly, someone clapped hands at the mouth of the valley, and then the sound of answering claps came from behind the mountain to the south. Yang Guo lay on the slope, one muddy leg propped up on his knee, the bamboo hat covering more than half his face, leaving only his right eye exposed.

After a while, three Daoists entered the valley. Two of them were Ji Qingxu and Pi Qingxuan, whom he had seen at the inn the day before. The third was about forty years of age and very short in stature, presumably that so-called “Shen shishu⁷”. Yang Guo studied his features and vaguely recalled having seen him at the Chongyang Palace. Then two more people came running from behind the mountain. One was stocky and powerfully built. The other had an aged face and a full head of white hair. Both were dressed as beggars, clearly the two men from the Beggars’ Guild,⁸ Han and Chen. The five men approached one another, exchanged wordless salutes, and formed a line facing west.

Just then, the faint sound of hoofbeats came from beyond the valley mouth. The five men exchanged glances and all fixed their eyes on the entrance. The hoofbeats grew nearer, a delicate, rapid rhythm, and at the valley mouth a contrast of black and white appeared: a black donkey carrying a maiden dressed all in white came racing in. From a distance, Yang Guo’s heart seized. It is not Gugu! Could it be another of their allies? He watched as the maiden reined in her black donkey a few zhang⁹ from the five men and swept a cold gaze over each of them, her face filled with utter disdain, as though she considered them beneath the dignity of speech.

Ji Qingxu called out, “Little girl, I wouldn’t have guessed you’d actually have the nerve to come. Call out your helpers.” The maiden gave a cold laugh. With a shua, she drew from her waist a slender, thin curved blade, like a crescent moon, its silver light dazzling the eye. Ji Qingxu said, “There are only the five of us here. Whenever your helpers arrive, we are not inclined to wait forever.” The maiden raised her blade and said, “This is my helper.” The blade sliced through the air with a humming ring.

At these words, all six people were startled. The five were startled that a lone girl would be so bold as to come without even a single ally, daring to challenge five skilled fighters of the jianghu. But Yang Guo was stricken with crushing disappointment and grief. He had come here fully expecting to meet Xiaolongnü. Who could have imagined that the so-called “beautiful maiden in white” was someone else entirely? Suddenly a surge of rebellious energy rushed up his chest, and unable to control himself, he burst out crying at the top of his lungs.

His crying startled the six as well, but when they saw it was only a cowherd boy leading an ox to graze on the hillside, they paid him no mind, assuming some country child had suffered some grievance and was weeping. Ji Qingxu pointed to Han and said, “This is Hero Han of the Beggars’ Guild.” Pointing to Chen, he said, “This is Hero Chen of the Beggars’ Guild.” Then he pointed to “Shen shishu” and said, “This is our shishu, Daoist Shen Zhifan, whom you have met before.” The maiden paid them no attention whatsoever, her cold gaze sweeping back and forth across their five faces as if they were not even there.

Footnotes

1. 炕 – kàng. Traditional heated brick bed platform common in northern China, built with a flue system that channels heat from a cooking stove or fire underneath. ↩

2. 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. ↩

3. 王重阳 – Wáng Chóngyáng. Historical founder of the Quanzhen Order of Daoism (1113–1170). In Jin Yong’s world he won the first Huashan Sword Summit and was the greatest martial artist of his era. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. Quanzhen Order (全真教). Major Daoist school founded by Wang Chongyang. In Jin Yong’s wuxia universe, it is one of the most powerful martial arts sects, based at the Chongyang Palace on Mount Zhongnan. Its seven senior disciples are known as the Seven Masters of Quanzhen. ↩

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

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

7. 师叔 – shīshū. Junior lineage uncle. Shidi or shimei of one’s shifu. Shī means teacher. Shū means father’s younger brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 丐帮 – Gàibāng. Largest martial arts organisation in the jianghu, continued from LOCH era. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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