The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 9 – Part 5

Before he could finish, Hong Lingbo had drawn the sword from its scabbard. But there was a cha sound, what she held was only the hilt. The blade remained inside the scabbard. For a moment she was stunned, then understood: when Yang Guo had returned the sword, he had secretly used force to snap the blade, leaving only the barest thread of metal connecting it. The moment she exerted force to draw the sword, it had broken clean off.

Li Mochou’s expression darkened. Yang Guo said, “Under normal circumstances, I could not cross hands with junior young ladies. But since you insist on testing me, how about this: I will receive three moves of your whisk with my bare hands. Let us be clear, only three moves. As long as you can withstand them, I shall let you go your way. But after three moves, you must not pester me further.” He knew that in this situation, a fight was unavoidable. But if they truly matched skills, he was absolutely no match for her. So he put on the airs of a senior, speaking with exaggerated authority, and used words to bind her, making her agree to only three moves, with no fourth move. Since he could not beat her anyway, whether he used a weapon or not made no difference. Ideally, she would also refrain from using that whisk, with its terrifyingly lethal techniques.

How could Li Mochou not see through his scheme? As if a whelp like you could take three of my moves, she thought. “Very well,” she said aloud. “Old senior, your junior requests instruction.”

Yang Guo said, “I wouldn’t dare, little sister…” Suddenly, a blur of grey-green motion, the shadows of the whisk surrounded him, front and back. This was Li Mochou’s move, “No Crevice Unpenetrated,”¹ which attacked every joint and bone of the opponent’s body. Though it was a single move, it was in truth a thousand strands, ten thousand threads, one move containing dozens of strikes, aiming simultaneously at every major acupoint across his entire body. She had just witnessed Yang Guo fight the two beggars and seen that his swordplay was refined, no mediocre hand. To wound him within three moves would not be easy. So from the very first move, she unleashed the most prized technique of her life: the Triple Threat Hand.

These three moves were her own creation, even Xiaolongnü had never seen them. Yang Guo, seeing them for the first time, was badly startled. This was, in truth, an unblockable move, dodge left and the right acupoints are struck. Evade the front and the back acupoints suffer. Only a fighter whose martial skill far surpassed hers could counter with a ferocious frontal assault, forcing her to pull back her whisk in self-defence. Yang Guo naturally lacked that level of power. In his desperation, he suddenly somersaulted, landing head-down, feet-up, and circulated his energy in the method taught by Ouyang Feng², reversing the flow through his meridians, sealing every acupoint in his body. He felt countless points on his body simultaneously prickle with a faint numbness, then nothing more. His body spun and he kicked out while inverted.

Li Mochou saw with her own eyes that she had clearly struck multiple acupoints, yet he could still counter-attack. She was astonished. She followed with “No Place Unreached,” a move that targeted the lesser acupoints across his entire body. Yang Guo, supporting himself on his head, thrust out his left hand, stabbing his finger at the “Weizhong” acupoint³ in the bend of her right knee. Even more shocked, Li Mochou dodged hastily. The third move of the Triple Threat Hand, “Nothing Left Undone,” followed immediately.

This move no longer targeted acupoints but struck specifically at the eyes, throat, lower abdomen, groin, and other soft, vulnerable parts of the body, hence the name “Nothing Left Undone.” It was vicious and merciless, bordering on the outright despicable. When she had practised this lethal move, how could she ever have imagined that there existed someone in the world who would fight standing on his head? In her haste, she launched the attack exactly as she had trained it, striking at the usual target areas of a standing opponent. As a result, the strike aimed at the eyes landed on the instep. The strike at the throat hit the calf. The strike at the abdomen struck the thigh. The strike at the groin landed on the chest. Every blow meant for softness met only solidity, utterly without effect.

Li Mochou’s shock was beyond description. In her life she had witnessed many great battles and had faced opponents whose martial skill exceeded her own, but she always assessed the enemy thoroughly beforehand, and whether attacking or defending, striking or evading, she had a plan firmly in mind. Never could she have imagined that this little Daoist possessed such inconceivable skill. In that single moment of stupefaction, Yang Guo suddenly opened his mouth and bit down on the filaments of her whisk. He flipped upright, and with a jerk, wrenched the whisk from her grasp.

At the second Huashan Sword Summit,⁴ Ouyang Feng, reversing the flow through his meridians, had bitten Huang Yaoshi’s⁵ finger in a single snap and nearly cost him his life. When reversing the meridian flow, the lips and mouth circulate energy, and the instinct to bite arises naturally from the opening and closing motions. Of all the forces the human body can exert, none surpasses the power of the teeth, an ordinary person can crack a walnut with their teeth, but even the strongest man’s grip cannot crush a walnut shell. Thus, though Yang Guo’s internal power was far inferior to Li Mochou’s, the moment his teeth clamped onto the whisk, he wrested away the weapon she had used to dominate the jianghu for over a decade.

This turn of events was so sudden that Hong Lingbo and Lu Wushuang both cried out in alarm. Li Mochou, though startled, showed not a trace of fear. She clapped her palms together lightly, unleashing the Scarlet Serpent Divine Palm, and lunged to seize back her whisk. But just as her palm was about to strike, she suddenly cried, “Ah! It’s you! Where is your shifu?” For Yang Guo had smeared mud on his face, and during those frantic inverted spins, the mud had flaked off, revealing half his true features. At the same moment, Hong Lingbo recognised Lu Wushuang and called out, “Shifu, it’s Shimei!”⁶ Earlier, Lu Wushuang had not dared face Li Mochou or Hong Lingbo directly, but while Yang Guo and Li Mochou fought fiercely, she had watched intently and forgotten to keep her face turned away from Hong Lingbo’s gaze.

Yang Guo touched down with his left foot and flew onto Li Mochou’s painted donkey. At the same time, his left hand flicked and a Jade Bee Needle⁷ shot into the head of the donkey Hong Lingbo was riding. Li Mochou was enraged. She flew at Yang Guo. Yang Guo vaulted from the saddle, reversed the whisk handle, and with a pu sound, smashed the painted donkey’s skull to pulp. “Wifey!” he yelled. “Quick, flee with your husband!” He landed on his horse’s back and flailed the whisk wildly behind him. Lu Wushuang instantly spurred her horse into a gallop. Li Mochou’s qinggong, when deployed, could easily outrun a four-legged beast within one or two li, but Yang Guo’s bizarre moves had frightened her so badly that she dared not close the distance too much. She merely used the Lesser Grappling Hand⁸ to try to snatch back her whisk. On the fourth exchange, the three fingers of her left hand brushed the whisk filaments. She reversed her grip and pulled. Yang Guo could not hold on, and the whisk was back in her hands.

Hong Lingbo’s donkey, struck in the head by the Jade Bee Needle, suddenly went mad. It charged straight at Li Mochou, jaws gaping to bite. Li Mochou shouted, “Lingbo! What’s wrong with you?” Hong Lingbo said, “The donkey’s gone stubborn!” She yanked hard on the reins, pulling until the donkey’s mouth was full of blood. Abruptly the donkey’s four legs went soft and it collapsed, dead. Hong Lingbo sprang up. “Shifu, let’s chase them!” But by now, Yang Guo and Lu Wushuang had already raced more than half a li away, there was no catching them now.

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Lu Wushuang and Yang Guo galloped hard for a long stretch. When she turned and saw that her shifu was no longer pursuing, she called out, “Fool, my chest hurts terribly. I can’t take it!” Yang Guo leapt off his horse, pressed his ear to the ground, and listened. There was no sound of pursuing hoofbeats. “No need to be afraid now,” he said. “Let’s go slowly.” And so the two rode side by side.

Lu Wushuang let out a long sigh. “Fool, how did you manage to snatch even my shifu’s whisk away?”

Yang Guo said, “I messed around with her and made her happy, so she gave me the whisk. But I, your elder, was too embarrassed to take a little girl’s things, so I gave it back.”

“Hmph,” said Lu Wushuang. “And why exactly was she happy? Because she thought you were handsome?” As she said this, her cheeks flushed faintly.

Yang Guo laughed. “Maybe she thought I was amusingly foolish. It’s possible.”

Lu Wushuang spat. “Pei! Amusing indeed.”

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The two travelled slowly for a while, then, fearing Li Mochou would catch up, spurred their mounts into another gallop. Thus they alternated, fast, then slow, fast, then slow, until dusk. Yang Guo said, “Wifey, if you want to keep your little life, you’ll have to endure the pain of your wound and ride through one more night.”

Lu Wushuang said, “If you spout any more nonsense, see if I pay you any attention.”

Yang Guo stuck out his tongue. “It’s a shame the horses are tired. Ride them one more night and they’ll surely drop dead.”

The sky was darkening when suddenly they heard the neighing of several horses ahead. Yang Guo said happily, “Let’s change horses.” They urged their mounts forward and after about a li came upon a village where over a hundred horses were tethered, it was the Mongol cavalry unit they had seen earlier that day. Yang Guo said, “Wait here. I’ll scout the village.” He dismounted and slipped inside.

He saw lamplight streaming from the window of a large house. Yang Guo crept to the window and peered in. A Mongol official sat with his back to the window. An idea stirred in Yang Guo’s mind: Rather than change horses, change the man. He waited a moment until the Mongol official rose and began pacing the room. The man was about thirty years old, the same brocade-robed official they had seen during the day. His manner and bearing carried great authority. His rank was clearly not low. When the official’s back was turned, Yang Guo gently lifted the window lattice and slipped inside. The official heard the wind at his back. He lunged forward a step, swung his left arm across, and spun around, the ten fingers of both hands like the talons of a hawk, stabbing viciously forward. It was the fierce and formidable “Great Power Eagle Claw Skill.”⁹ Yang Guo was mildly surprised, he had not expected this Mongol official to possess some degree of martial ability. He sidestepped, slipping through the gap between the man’s hands. The official grabbed several more times, but Yang Guo evaded each strike with casual ease.

In his youth, the official had received instruction from a renowned exponent of the Eagle Claw School¹⁰ and was confident in his martial prowess. Yet after exchanging several moves with Yang Guo, he found himself utterly unable to execute a single technique. Yang Guo saw him thrusting viciously with both hands again. He suddenly sprang upward, pressing his left hand on the man’s left shoulder and his right hand on the right shoulder, driving his internal power straight through both arms. “Sit!” he commanded. The official’s knees buckled and he collapsed to the floor, his chest tight and stifled as though a bellyful of blood was about to burst from his throat. Yang Guo reached out and massaged two acupoints beneath the man’s ribs. The official’s chest immediately relaxed, and he let out a long breath. He rose slowly and stared at Yang Guo. After a long pause, he finally asked, “Who are you? What do you want?” These two sentences of Chinese were spoken with perfect pronunciation and tone.

Yang Guo smiled and countered, “What is your name? What office do you hold?”

The official’s eyes blazed with fury and he lunged again. Yang Guo paid him no mind and sat down in the chair the man had just vacated. The official hammered straight down with both arms. Yang Guo casually deflected and neutralised each blow without the slightest effort. “Hey,” he said, “you’ve got an injury in your shoulder. Better not exert yourself.”

Footnotes

1. 三无三不手 – Sānwú Sānbù Shǒu. Literally three no’s and three doesn’ts. It refers to the three absolutes of this technique: No crevices it doesn’t penetrate, no place it doesn’t reach, and nothing it doesn’t do. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 欧阳锋 – Ōuyáng Fēng. His name meaning “blade” or “cutting edge”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 委中穴 – Wěizhōng Xué. Literally middle of the bend. Acupoint at the back of the knee on the bladder meridian; striking it can numb the leg. See Wikipedia. ↩

4. 华山 – Huáshān. One of China’s Five Sacred Mountains, site of martial arts competitions. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

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

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

8. 小擒拿手 – Xiǎo Qínná Shǒu. Grappling and joint-locking technique. Qinna (擒拿) is the art of seizing and controlling an opponent through joint locks and pressure-point manipulation; the Small variant uses the hands and fingers rather than the whole body. ↩

9. 大力鹰爪功 – Dàlì Yīngzhuǎ Gōng. Great Power Eagle Claw Skill, a hard-style external martial art that trains the fingers to grip and tear with the strength of an eagle’s talons. Practitioners can crush bone and tear flesh with their bare hands. ↩

10. 鹰爪门 – Yīngzhuǎ Mén. Martial arts school specialising in hard-style external claw and finger techniques, training practitioners to seize, tear, and crush with the strength of an eagle’s talons. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩