The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 10 – Part 5

Yu Lianzhou's challenge is revealed as a cunning stratagem to force the Shaolin Divine Monks into a six-against-three contest. Zhang Songxi goads Kongzhi into accepting, whilst the legend of the True Wu Seven Cuts Formation is recounted. Yin Susu then steps forth and confesses to the Dragon Gate Armed Escort massacre.

Yu Lianzhou’s manoeuvre seemed perilous, yet in truth he had been driven to it. He knew full well that the three Divine Monks of Shaolin possessed formidable neili¹ and were far senior to the Wudang brothers in both age and cultivation. In single combat, his eldest shixiong² Song Yuanqiao might hold his own against one of them, but Yu Lianzhou himself, still recovering from his wound, could not be certain of withstanding even a single Divine Monk. As for the third, whether it fell to Zhang Songxi, Yin Liting or Mo Shenggu, defeat was certain. His challenge, though framed as six Wudang brothers against twelve Shaolin monks, in truth discounted those nine Shaolin disciples as negligible threats. On the surface the Wudang Order fought outnumbered, but in reality the six Wudang disciples would be fighting the three Shaolin Divine Monks together.

Kongzhi³ saw through the device at once. He snorted and said, “Since Zhang Sanfeng the Perfected One⁴ will not deign to instruct us, then the three of us brothers shall each take on one of the Six Xias of Wudang in turn. Three bouts shall decide the matter, and whoever wins two of the three shall be the victor.”

Zhang Songxi⁵ said, “If Great Master Kongzhi⁶ insists upon single combat, that is not unacceptable. But of our seven brothers, our third shixiong² Yu Daiyan lies disabled by the cruel hand of a Shaolin disciple and cannot rise from his bed. The remaining six dare not shrink from the field. We propose six bouts, each Wudang disciple facing one Shaolin high monk in turn, and whoever wins four of the six shall be declared the victor.”

Mo Shenggu⁷ cried aloud, “Agreed! Should the Wudang Order lose, Zhang the Fifth Xia shall reveal to the abbot of Shaolin Monastery the whereabouts of the Golden Haired Lion King, and above all the Dragon-Slaying Dao.⁸ Should the Shaolin Order yield the field, then we ask the three eminent monks to take with them all these friends who have come under the name of birthday greetings but in truth to stir up trouble, and depart the mountain at once!”

The six-against-six format Zhang Songxi proposed had already placed the Wudang Order beyond risk of defeat. He judged that his eldest and second shixiong held skill roughly equal to the three Divine Monks, whilst the remaining Shaolin monks would be certain to lose three bouts running.

Kongzhi shook his head. “Not suitable, not suitable.” Yet why it was unsuitable, he could not readily say.

Zhang Songxi said, “The three of you issued a challenge to our shifu, declaring three against one. Now that we propose six against two Shaolin high monks, Great Master Kongzhi insists upon single combat once more. We agreed to single combat, yet the Great Master finds that unsuitable too. Very well then, let this junior alone face the three Shaolin Divine Monks. Surely that is suitable? The three of you strike this junior down in a single blow, and the Shaolin Order’s victory is complete. Is that not swift enough?”

Kongzhi’s face darkened with sudden fury. Kongwen⁹ chanted, “Amitofo!”¹⁰ Kongxing, who had not spoken a single word since ascending Mount Wudang, now said abruptly, “Two shixiong, this young Xia Zhang wishes to fight the three monks alone. Let us go!” His martial arts were lofty indeed, but he had entered the monastery as a child and knew nothing of worldly affairs. He could not hear the sting in Zhang Songxi’s words.

Kongwen said, “Shidi,¹¹ say no more.” He turned to Song Yuanqiao.¹² “Very well then. We six Shaolin monks shall test the high arts of the Six Xias of Wudang. One bout shall decide the victor.”

Song Yuanqiao said in a clear voice, “Good! Six of us against six of us, one bout to decide it!” He turned and said in a low voice to Yu Lianzhou, “Second Brother, the True Wu Seven Cuts would be best, but if we must, the True Wu Six Cuts shall be invincible under heaven!” Yu Lianzhou, Zhang Songxi and the rest understood Song Yuanqiao’s meaning at once.

Zhang Sanfeng¹³ possessed a martial art of which he was exceedingly proud, called the True Wu Seven Cuts Formation.¹⁴ Mount Wudang honoured the True Wu Great Emperor. One day he beheld the Tortoise and Snake generals stationed before the True Wu deity’s statue, and thought of Snake Hill and Turtle Hill where the Yangtze and Han rivers meet. The snake moves with supple wit, the tortoise with solemn weight. The True Wu Great Emperor, with a tortoise on one side and a snake on the other, had united the most agile and the most steadfast of creatures’ natures. Thereupon he travelled through the night to Hanyang, gazed upon the twin hills, and from the sinuous contours of Snake Hill and the steadfast mass of Turtle Hill devised a martial art of exquisite subtlety. Those two hills breathed an air of grandeur, and the martial art derived from their shapes was vast and manifold, embracing far more than any single person could wield at once. Zhang Sanfeng stood in silence by the great river, neither eating nor drinking for three full days and nights, turning the problem over in deep thought, yet could find no solution. On the morning of the fourth day, the rising sun lit the river’s surface with ten thousand golden serpents, shimmering without rest. Suddenly he understood. He laughed aloud, returned to Mount Wudang, summoned his seven disciples, and taught each a separate martial art.

Practised apart, each of those seven arts held its own subtle marvels, but when two joined forces, the brothers complemented one another, attack and defence intertwined, and their power grew greatly. When all seven performed together, it was as though sixty-four first-rate experts of the age had struck as one. Yet in all the world, those who could be counted first-rate numbered barely two or three dozen. What chance had they of gathering so many together? And even gathered, some would be orthodox and some unorthodox, some good and some evil, how could they unite their strength?

The martial art Zhang Sanfeng had devised from the Tortoise and Snake generals before the True Wu Great Emperor’s throne he named the True Wu Seven Cuts Formation. What had long puzzled him was this: guarding the east left the west exposed, and at the same moment north and south both offered the enemy opportunity. Only when he conceived of having seven disciples perform it together did he solve the difficulty. That the True Wu Seven Cuts Formation could not be wielded by a single person was a lasting regret, but he reflected, Were one person able to wield this art, then that one person alone would suffice to match sixty-four first-rate masters of the age. The thought is rather too absurd and arrogant. He could not help but laugh at himself.

Since the Seven Xias of Wudang¹⁵ had made their names, nothing had stood before them. No foe, however formidable, had yielded to fewer than two or three of them fighting together, and the True Wu Seven Cuts Formation had never once been employed. Now Song Yuanqiao, facing the gravest of enemies, reflected that though Yu Daiyan’s injury prevented them from forming the full Seven Cuts, six brothers performing together could surely overcome even the Shaolin three Divine Monks, however strong their neili, and whatever hidden skills their accompanying disciples might conceal. Six monks combined could never withstand the True Wu Six Cuts Formation. This battle would be won. Of that he was certain.

Since Yu Daiyan’s injury had left his limbs paralysed, two young Daoist acolytes, Qingfeng¹⁶ and Mingyue, attended to his meals, bathing and all his needs. Yin Susu¹⁷ lay ill in bed, and Qingfeng and Mingyue attended to her meals and tea as well. When the throng of outside guests arrived, the monastery was short-handed, and the two acolytes helped serve tea and dishes in the hall. Seeing the Shaolin high monks and Grand Shibo Song¹⁸ reach an impasse and preparing to fight, they were at once nervous and excited. Together they said, “We shall go and tell Fifth Grand Shishen¹⁹ and ask her to come and watch!” It was a rare spectacle of masters meeting in combat, the like of which the wulin²⁰ seldom witnessed. Yin Susu had always been kind and courteous to the two acolytes, and they did not wish her to miss the sight. They hurried in to inform her.

Yin Susu had already heard that many guests had arrived from various schools and factions, and surmised that most of them concerned her sworn brother Xie Xun and the Dragon Gate Armed Escort affair. She had long since prepared herself, a jian²¹ at her waist. When she heard the two acolytes come to tell her, she followed them at once to the rear of the hall and said in a low voice, “I shall watch from here. I will not go out there.” Her gaze fell first upon her husband Zhang Cuishan.²² His expression was bleak, his eyes heavy with sorrow.

Kongxing the Divine Monk had already bounded into the open ground before the great hall and called out, “Six Shaolin monks against Six Wudang Xias, one bout to decide the victor! We shall judge victory and defeat alone, not life and death!” His hands shaped themselves into the Dragon-Grasping Hand²³ and he seized at the empty air, a hissing sound following.

Suddenly a figure emerged from among the Shaolin monks, blind in his right eye, his face contorted with rage. He pointed an accusatory finger and cried, “Zhang Cuishan, you who call yourself Zhang the Fifth Xia, shall you not make the whole world laugh? That night at the Dragon Gate Armed Escort in Lin’an Prefecture, when you killed every last member of Du Dajin’s household, old and young, seventy-one souls in all, will you say it was not you? That night you wore the cap and gown of a blue-robed scholar, a folding fan in your hand, playing the refined gentleman. In truth you are nothing but a shameless wretch. Will you swear before Heaven that man was not you?” The one who spoke these words was Yuanye.²⁴ Just now Zhang Cuishan and Zhang Songxi’s words had beaten him back, and the more he thought upon it the more his fury grew. Seeing the zhangmen,²⁵ his shifu and the others about to engage in combat, his rage could not be contained and he broke out cursing once more.

Yin Susu saw her husband’s face twist with pain. Each time the monk cursed, a muscle in Zhang Cuishan’s cheek twitched. She heard Yuanye curse again in a coarse voice, “Zhang Cuishan, you are a disciple of Zhang Sanfeng the Perfected One. Did Zhang Sanfeng the Perfected One teach his apprentice to slaughter innocents so wantonly, to do evil and refuse to acknowledge it? The Wudang Order claims the name of xia,²⁶ and has deceived the jianghu²⁷ for decades. Have you not a shred of shame left?”

Yin Susu watched her husband’s clenched fists tremble, then saw him rise, seeming dizzy, sway in a small circle, and sink back into his chair. Her heart was cut as with a blade. From the open ground beyond the hall the old monk’s voice called, “Six Shaolin monks against Six Wudang Xias, are you fighting or not?”

Song Yuanqiao, Yu Lianzhou and Zhang Songxi looked at Zhang Cuishan. They all knew that Yuanye’s accusations had struck him to the heart. The killer was his wife Yin Susu. He could neither deny it nor bear to tarnish the Wudang Order’s good name, and so his conscience tortured him. Yu Lianzhou had travelled by water and land in the company of Zhang Cuishan and his wife, and Zhang Cuishan had concealed nothing from him, confiding his troubles most of all. Seeing his fifth shidi in such a state, Yu Lianzhou was seized with cold alarm. Fifth Brother is consumed with grief and fury. He seems about to… he cannot even stand steady. Since I took that palm-strike from the false Mongol soldier, my neili has not settled and is greatly diminished. Of the six shimen brothers, only four remain sound. I fear they cannot make good every flaw and weakness on all sides, and worst of all, those four must also divide their attention between caring for me and Fifth Brother. How shall we manage? He was afraid, and cold sweat beaded his forehead.

Yin Susu saw her husband’s resolve harden, his body swaying, whilst the face of her husband’s peerless second shixiong had changed utterly, sweat upon his brow, clearly facing some grave crisis. Hot blood surged in her chest. She darted out from behind the wooden screen, bowed with bent knee to Zhang Sanfeng in salute, and cried, “Shifu!” She turned to face Kongwen, Kongzhi, and Yuanye, whose finger still pointed in anger at Zhang Cuishan, and said in a clear voice, “You who have come to Mount Wudang to demand an accounting from my husband Zhang Cuishan…” Kongzhi did not let her finish. He broke in, “Is this female lay patron²⁸ Zhang the Fifth Xia’s wife? This old monk has heard that this female lay patron is the daughter of Yin Tianzheng, White-Browed Eagle King and zhangmen of the Tianying Order.²⁹ Is this correct?”

Yin Susu said, “It is correct! My father is indeed Yin Tianzheng, zhangmen of the Tianying Order, the White-Browed Eagle King. I am the Hall Master of the Ziwei Hall of the Tianying Order and sit in the third chair of the Order. The accusations you have levelled at Zhang the Fifth Xia are all nonsense. You who call yourselves a renowned and righteous faction, to speak such drivel before all the heroes of the world, to look people in the eye and lie, it is laughable, laughable!”

Kongzhi said coldly, “What is there to laugh at?”

Yin Susu said, “The bloodbath at the Dragon Gate Armed Escort in Lin’an Prefecture was most certainly not the work of Zhang the Fifth Xia of the Wudang Order. You insist on pinning it on him. Is that not laughable?”

Kongzhi shook his head. “Madam Zhang is depraved by nature and calls a deer a horse. This… this puts one in a difficult position.”

Yin Susu said, “You accuse Zhang the Fifth Xia without cause and turn right and wrong upside down. Is there no justice left in the wulin? What do you mean by a renowned and righteous faction? Is confounding black and white what makes a renowned and righteous faction?”

Kongxing was outside the great hall working the Dragon-Grasping Hand until the wind hissed. Seeing that the Six Xias of Wudang did not come out to meet his challenge, he lost interest, returned to the hall, and demanded loudly, “Who exactly is confounding black and white, turning right and wrong upside down?”

Yin Susu said in a loud voice, “The seventy-odd lives of the Dragon Gate Armed Escort were clearly not taken by Zhang the Fifth Xia. You wrong him. That is confounding black and white, turning right and wrong upside down!”

Kongxing barked, “Then who did kill them?”

Yin Susu thrust out her chest and said, “I did! At that time I had not yet married Zhang the Fifth Xia. I did not know him from Adam! It was plainly the Tianying Order’s doing, yet you pin it on the Wudang Order. Is that not wrong? You want revenge, then go to the Tianying Order. The Tianying Order’s headquarters is atop Eagle’s Nest Peak, at North-South Lake in Haiyan County, south of the river!”

The various schools and guilds who had come to Mount Wudang demanding justice, hearing Yin Susu confess to the massacre of the Dragon Gate Armed Escort’s entire household, at once found their cause without foundation and felt it all rather pointless. The true purpose of their journey had been Xie Xun, but even that pretext had slipped away, and everyone felt empty.

Kongwen said, “Very well! For every wrong there is a claimant, for every debt a creditor. You are a woman, and we shall go to Yin Tianzheng of the Tianying Order instead.” He turned to Zhang Sanfeng, palms pressed together.³⁰ “Zhang Sanfeng the Perfected One, since Madam Zhang has entered your Order, should she slaughter innocents again in the future, I fear your Order will bear some responsibility. In the wulin, one must in the end uphold reason. One cannot rely upon strength alone to prevail.”

Footnotes

1. 内力 – nèilì. Internal power. The kinetic manifestation of qi cultivated through neigong. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 师兄 – shīxiōng. Male senior fellow disciple. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Xiōng means older brother. ↩ ↩²

3. 空智 – Kōngzhì. A hot-tempered senior monk of Shaolin Monastery, of the Kong generation. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 真人 – zhēnrén. Literally true person. Honorific title for a Daoist master of the highest attainment. ↩

5. 张松溪 – Zhāng Sōngxī. The fourth of the Seven Xias of Wudang, known for his intelligence and quick wit. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 大师 – dàshī. Great master. Honorific title for a senior Buddhist monk. ↩

7. 莫声谷 – Mò Shēnggǔ. The youngest and most hot-tempered of the Seven Xias of Wudang. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 屠龙刀 – Túlóng Dāo. The Dragon-Slaying Dao. One of the twin legendary weapons forged from Yang Guo’s Heavy Iron Sword. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 空闻 – Kōngwén. Abbot of Shaolin Monastery. One of the three senior Kong-generation monks, alongside Kongzhi and Kongxing. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 阿弥陀佛 – Āmítuófó. The Buddha Amitābha. A Buddhist invocation, equivalent to “Namo Amitābha Buddha.” ↩

11. 师弟 – shīdì. Male junior fellow disciple. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Dì means younger brother. ↩

12. 宋远桥 – Sòng Yuǎnqiáo. The most senior of the Seven Xias of Wudang. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 张三丰 – Zhāng Sānfēng. Founder of the Wudang Order and creator of Taiji martial arts. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 真武七截阵 – Zhēnwǔ Qī Jié Zhèn. Literally True Wu Seven Cuts Formation. A martial art Zhang Sanfeng devised from the shapes of Snake Hill and Turtle Hill, designed to be performed by seven practitioners in concert. ↩

15. 武当七侠 – Wǔdāng Qī Xiá. The Seven Xias of Wudang: Song Yuanqiao, Yu Lianzhou, Yu Daiyan, Zhang Songxi, Zhang Cuishan, Yin Liting and Mo Shenggu, the seven disciples of Zhang Sanfeng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

16. 清风 – Qīngfēng. A young Daoist acolyte serving at the Purple Cloud Temple on Mount Wudang. ↩

17. 殷素素 – Yīn Sùsù. Daughter of Yin Tianzheng, Zhang Cuishan’s wife and Zhang Wuji’s mother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

18. 师伯 – shībó. Senior lineage uncle. The shixiong or shijie of one’s shifu. Shī means teacher. Bó means father’s elder brother. ↩

19. 师婶 – shīshěn. Lineage aunt. Wife of one’s shibo or shishu. Shī means teacher. Shěn means uncle’s wife. Here the acolytes address Yin Susu as Fifth Grand Shishen, wife of their grand-level shibo Zhang Cuishan. ↩

20. 武林 – wǔlín. Literally martial forest. The community of martial artists and their affairs. ↩

21. 剑 – jiàn. A straight, double-edged Chinese sword. ↩

22. 张翠山 – Zhāng Cuìshān. The fifth of the Seven Xias of Wudang. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

23. 龙爪手 – Lóng Zhǎo Shǒu. Literally Dragon-Grasping Hand. A Shaolin hand technique that imitates the clawing motion of a dragon. ↩

24. 圆业 – Yuányè. A Shaolin monk of the Yuan generation, blinded in his right eye by Yin Susu at West Lake. Known for his violent temper. ↩

25. 掌门 – zhǎngmén. The head of a martial school or Order. ↩

26. 侠 – xiá. A martial artist who upholds justice and protects the weak. The code of xia demands righteousness, courage, and self-sacrifice. ↩

27. 江湖 – jiānghú. Literally rivers and lakes. The itinerant world beyond settled society and official reach, holding not only martial artists but the trades that travel with them. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

28. 女施主 – nǚ shīzhǔ. Female lay patron; a respectful form of address to a female donor or benefactor in a Buddhist context. ↩

29. 天鹰教 – Tiānyīng Jiào. The Tianying Order, meaning Heavenly Eagle Order. A martial Order led by Yin Tianzheng, the White-Browed Eagle King. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

30. 合十 – hé shí. Pressing the palms together, a Buddhist gesture of greeting or respect. ↩