Shi Wanchen (simplified: 石万嗔, traditional: 石万嗔, pinyin: Shí Wànchēn, jyutping: sek6 maan6 can1), known as the “Venomous Hand Divine Owl” (毒手神枭), is a poisoner in Jin Yong’s Side Story of the Flying Fox. He learnt his art under the same shifu as Great Master Wuchen (无嗔大师), the true King of Venoms, and was expelled for using poison without restraint. After Wuchen’s death he takes the name King of Venoms for himself, takes Wuchen’s disciples Murong Jingyue and Xue Que as his own, and hunts Cheng Lingsu for her shifu’s book (SIDE ch. 18–20).
Biography
Expulsion and blindness
As a young man Shi Wanchen trained alongside Wuchen. Their shifu expelled him because he used poison freely and harmed good people. Over the following decades he fought Wuchen several times, poisoner against poisoner, and lost every time; Wuchen, mindful of their bond as fellow disciples, always spared him. In their last contest Heartbreak Grass (断肠草) blinded him. He fled to the Yeren Mountains in Burma and spent ten years drawing out the poison with silver spider silk. His sight came back, but much weakened (SIDE ch. 20).
Returning to the Central Plains, he learnt that Wuchen was dead and turned his hatred on Wuchen’s disciples. Murong Jingyue begged for his life and offered to become his disciple and lead him to the Medicine King Divine Record (药王神篇), which had passed to Cheng Lingsu. Shi took him on, and at Murong’s prompting killed Jiang Tieshan and his son and took Xue Que as a disciple (SIDE ch. 20).
At the Grand Assembly
He arrives at Fuk’anggan’s Grand Assembly of Zhangmen under Heaven dressed as an itinerant physician, with Murong Jingyue and Xue Que, whom Murong now calls his wife. As he enters he flicks back an iron bodhi seed that has been knocked towards him, poisoning it in the flick, and it injures two men. Murong introduces him as “Mr Shi”, the King of Venoms. When the Shaolin abbot Dazhi asks how he is related to Wuchen, he says he does not know the name. Cheng Lingsu, seeing him exchange a look with Tian Guinong, concludes that the two are old acquaintances and that the Heartbreak Grass Tian used to blind Miao Renfeng came from Shi (SIDE ch. 18).
Named zhangmen of a “Medicine King School” (药王门) that he invents on the spot, he is awarded one of the Jade Dragon Cups. Cheng Lingsu has dusted the cups with poison, and his hand is burnt like those of the other winners. When her smoke gives the whole hall stomach pains, she and Hu Fei cry out that the King of Venoms is poisoning the assembly, and hidden weapons fly at him from every side (SIDE ch. 19). His damaged eyes had kept him from noticing the poison on the cup or in her smoke (SIDE ch. 20).
The Medicine King Temple
Shi follows Hu Fei and Cheng Lingsu to a Medicine King Temple outside Beijing, where he and his two disciples lie in wait. He has put Jade Silkworm Poison Gu (碧蚕毒蛊) on the body of Ma Chunhua for them to touch. Cheng Lingsu sees through it. Holding her shifu’s book, she draws him into testing a method it records: whether Crane Crown Red and Peacock Gall will hide the gu’s green tinge. He tries it on Murong Jingyue’s palm. The three poisons together have no cure, and Xue Que cuts off Murong’s arm to save his life. Xue Que then seizes Cheng Lingsu, and Shi moves to put the same three poisons on her palm. Hu Fei attacks and cuts off three of Shi’s fingers, but Shi flicks the poisons onto the back of Hu Fei’s hand before fleeing with his disciples. Cheng Lingsu saves Hu Fei by sucking out the poisoned blood and dies of it (SIDE ch. 20).
That night Shi returns with Murong and Xue Que for the book. Wary of the unlit candle on the altar, he lights the half-burnt one beside it instead. Cheng Lingsu had laced it with Seven-Heart Begonia. Murong and Xue Que die. Shi, who had taken an antidote before entering, survives, but his weakened eyes fail again and he runs blind into the night crying “Seven-Heart Begonia!” The narrative explains that Cheng Lingsu had chosen a thin candle with less poison so that he would not die on the spot, leaving him for Hu Fei to avenge her (SIDE ch. 20).
Before she died, Cheng Lingsu had also told Hu Fei that the poison on his father Hu Yidao’s dao was most likely Shi’s work. The narrative says this may have been fact or only a guess, meant to give Hu Fei a reason to live (SIDE ch. 20).
The inn at Chenguantun
Hu Fei tracks him south and finds him, blind and in rags, in an eating house at Chenguantun. Four officers led by Zeng Tie’ou, sent by Fuk’anggan to arrest the man they blame for wrecking the assembly, sit down at his table. He flicks poison into their wine as he pours it. Zeng quietly swaps his cup for Shi’s, and Shi, who cannot see it, drinks his own poison. Hu Fei, feeling pity, walks out (SIDE ch. 20).
Relationships
- Great Master Wuchen (Shixiong): The true King of Venoms, who defeated and spared him repeatedly and blinded him in their last contest.
- Murong Jingyue and Xue Que (Disciples): Wuchen’s disciples, who went over to him and died by Cheng Lingsu’s candle.
- Jiang Tieshan: Wuchen’s second disciple, whom Shi killed.
- Cheng Lingsu: Wuchen’s last disciple, whom Murong urges to bow to Shi as her shishu; she refuses to recognise him.
- Tian Guinong: An old acquaintance, by Cheng Lingsu’s reading of their exchanged look.
- Hu Fei: Cut off three of his fingers; the man Cheng Lingsu left to avenge her.
Martial arts
Shi Wanchen is a master poisoner. A belt of seventy or eighty small pockets holds his powders, and he flicks them out with a fingernail faster than Cheng Lingsu can. His finger strength is great enough to send an iron bodhi seed back hard enough to break a guard’s finger, and he parries a full cut from Hu Fei with the rattle-ring (虎撑) he carries as a travelling physician (SIDE ch. 18, 20).