The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 10 – Part 8

The six of them remained in the main hall for a long while. Suddenly Wuji opened his eyes and cried out, “Father! Father! It hurts so much! It hurts terribly!” He clung tightly to Zhang Sanfeng, pressing his head against the old man's chest.

Yu Lianzhou said sternly, “Wuji, your father and mother are dead. You must live on, cultivate your martial arts well, and one day avenge them.”

Wuji cried, “I don’t want revenge! I don’t want revenge! I want Father and Mother back! Second Uncle, let’s forgive all those wicked people and find some way to bring Father and Mother back to life.”

When Zhang Sanfeng and the others heard these words, they could not help but weep again. Zhang Sanfeng said, “We shall do our utmost. How much longer he can cling to life depends on Heaven’s mercy.” He waved his hand towards Zhang Cuishan’s corpse and called out through tears, “Cuishan, Cuishan! What a fate for a child so young.” Holding Wuji in his arms, he walked into his own quarters. His fingers darted out in rapid succession, sealing eighteen major acupoints on the boy’s body.

Once Wuji’s acupoints were sealed, his trembling ceased at once, though the greenish hue on his face grew ever more intense. Zhang Sanfeng knew that once the green turned to black, the poison would be beyond cure. He stripped off Wuji’s clothes and loosened his own Daoist robe, pressing chest to back with the boy.

Outside, Song Yuanqiao and Yin Liting were attending to the funeral arrangements for Zhang Cuishan and his wife. Yu Lianzhou, Zhang Songxi, and Mo Shenggu came to their shifu’s quarters and learned that their master was using his Pure Yang Ultimate Skill¹ to draw out the yin cold poison from Wuji’s body. Zhang Sanfeng had never married. Even at a hundred years old, he remained a youth in body, and his eighty-odd years of cultivation had brought the Pure Yang Ultimate Skill to the heights of perfection. Yu Lianzhou and the others attended at his side. After roughly half a shichen,² they saw greenish qi faintly appearing on Zhang Sanfeng’s face, his fingers trembling slightly. He opened his eyes and said, “Lianzhou, you take over. The moment you cannot hold on, pass him to Songxi. On no account strain yourself beyond your limit.”

Yu Lianzhou replied, “Yes, shifu.” He loosened his robe and took Wuji into his arms. The moment their skin touched, he could not help but shudder, as though he were holding a block of ice. “Seventh Brother,” he said, “have someone light several charcoal braziers, as hot as possible.” Soon the braziers were lit, yet Yu Lianzhou still found the cold all but unbearable.”

Zhang Sanfeng sat to one side, slowly guiding his zhenqi³ through the three passes, stirring the Mist and Haze Purple Qi⁴ in his dantian,⁵ dissolving the cold poison he had drawn into his body strand by strand. When he had purified the last trace of cold qi and rose to his feet, he saw that Mo Shenggu now held Wuji in his arms, while Yu Lianzhou and Zhang Songxi sat nearby with eyes half-closed in meditation, dissolving the cold poison within themselves. Before long Mo Shenggu too could hold on no longer, and he sent a Daoist boy to fetch Song Yuanqiao and Yin Liting to take their turn.

In healing wounds with neili,⁶ the depth of one’s cultivation shows itself at once. There is no cheating it. Mo Shenggu could manage only the time it takes to drink a cup of hot tea, whereas Song Yuanqiao could last through two sticks of incense. The moment Yin Liting took Wuji into his arms, he cried out and trembled all over. Zhang Sanfeng was alarmed. “Give me the child. Sit to one side and gather your thoughts. Do not let your mind wander.” It was that Yin Liting, grief-stricken at his Fifth Brother’s tragic death, had been in a daze, his spirit not with him. Only when his mind had settled did Zhang Sanfeng let him take Wuji again.

Thus the six of them took turns. For three days and three nights they toiled without rest, yet fortunately the cold poison in Wuji’s body gradually lessened, and each man could hold on for longer stretches. By the fourth day, the six of them could at last steal a moment’s respite and close their eyes for sleep. From the eighth day onward, each man assisted in his healing for two shichen at a time, and only then did they slowly begin to restore their own depleted strength.

At first Wuji made great progress. The cold in his body receded, his consciousness returned day by day, and he could take a little food and drink. Everyone thought his young life had been saved. Who could have known that on the thirty-sixth day, Yu Lianzhou suddenly realised that no matter how he drove his neili, not a single strand of cold poison could be drawn from Wuji’s body. Yet the boy’s flesh was ice-cold to the touch, and the greenish hue on his face had not faded. Yu Lianzhou suspected his own cultivation was insufficient and at once reported to his shifu. Zhang Sanfeng tried himself and found himself equally powerless. For five days and five nights, the six of them tried every method of circulating qi they knew, yet not the slightest effect resulted.

Wuji said, “Grand Shifu,⁷ my hands and feet are warm now, but the top of my head, my chest, and my lower belly grow colder by the day.”

Zhang Sanfeng was deeply alarmed but reassured him, “Your injury is healed. We needn’t hold you all day any longer. Rest a while on Grand Shifu’s bed.” He carried the boy to his own bed and laid him down.

Zhang Sanfeng and his disciples went out to the hall. He sighed, “The cold poison has invaded his crown, his heart, and his dantian. No external force can reach it. It seems these thirty-odd days of toil have been wasted.” He pondered long and then thought, “To dissolve the cold poison within him, others can offer no help. Only by cultivating the supreme neigong⁸ recorded in the Nine Yang Manual⁹ can he balance yin and yang and neutralise the utmost yin. Yet when my late shifu transmitted the scripture, what I learned was incomplete. Even now, after several closed-door retreats and bitter study, I have managed to comprehend only three or four tenths of it. For the moment, I can only teach him to practise it himself. If he can preserve his life one more day, then he lives one more day.”

So he transmitted to Wuji the methods and oral formulas for cultivating the Nine Yang Divine Skill.¹⁰ This school of kung fu is complex in its transformations and cannot be exhausted in words. In brief, the preliminary cultivation is the practice of the Great Heaven Circuit circulation,¹¹ guiding a stream of warm zhenqi from the dantian to the Yin Heel Cavern, which seals and governs the Ren, Du, and Chong meridians,¹² then turning to flow towards the Tail Gate, whence it divides into two branches ascending upward, passing the Pulley Gate on either side of the fourteenth vertebra of the lumbar spine, continuing upward through the back, shoulders, and neck to the Jade Pillow Gate. This is what is called “running the zhenqi in reverse through the three passes.” Then the zhenqi rises further over the crown of the head at the Hundred Meetings acupoint, divides into five routes descending, and all the body’s qi meridians converge in great assembly at the Danzhong acupoint¹³ in the centre of the chest. Thence it divides once more into principal and subordinate branches, reunites at the dantian, enters the aperture and returns to the origin. Thus one circuit is completed, and the body is as though bathed in sweet dew, neither utmost yang nor utmost yin, but yin and yang in mutual aid, blended in harmonious primal unity. The zhenqi in the dantian curls like wisps of incense smoke, at ease and at liberty. This is what is called the “Mist and Haze Purple Qi.” When this qi is cultivated to a sufficient degree, it can dissolve the cold poison lodged in the dantian. The principles of neigong among the various schools differ little, but the methods of practice are utterly distinct. The heart-method Zhang Sanfeng taught, in terms of sheer power, could be counted the foremost under heaven.

Wuji practised according to the method. After more than two years, the Mist and Haze Purple Qi in his dantian had achieved a small success. Yet the cold poison within his body clung fast to the meridians and hundred vessels, not only refusing to dissolve, but the greenish hue on his face grew more intense day by day. Whenever the cold poison flared, the agony he suffered grew worse with each passing day. Throughout these two years, Zhang Sanfeng devoted himself entirely to watching over Wuji’s neigong cultivation, while Song Yuanqiao and the others travelled far and wide in search of miraculous pills and wondrous medicines. Wild mountain ginseng over a hundred years old, He Shou Wu that had taken human form, Snow Mountain fuling, five-coloured lingzhi, and other rare and precious substances — they knew not how many he consumed, yet it was all as if a stone had been dropped into the sea. They watched him grow thinner and more haggard by the day. Though he always forced a smile when they saw him, every one of them was grieved at heart, thinking that the only flesh and blood Zhang Cuishan had left behind would likely not survive.

The men of the Wudang Order were so occupied with saving Wuji that they had no leisure to pursue those who had harmed Yu Daiyan and the boy. During these two years, Yin Tianzheng, the zhangmen¹⁴ of the Tianying Order, several times sent messengers to inquire after his grandson’s health, bearing many costly gifts. The Wudang xias bore a grudge that both Yu and Zhang, their two brothers, had been harmed indirectly by the Tianying Order, and each time they drove the Tianying Order’s envoys down the mountain and returned the gifts, refusing to accept a single one. Once Mo Shenggu even beat the messenger soundly, and after that Yin Tianzheng sent no more men up the mountain.

One day it was the Mid-Autumn Festival. The Wudang xias were celebrating with their shifu, but before the feast had even begun, Wuji suddenly fell ill. The greenish hue on his face blazed forth, and he shivered with cold without ceasing. Fearing he would spoil the others’ enjoyment, he gritted his teeth and endured, but who could fail to see his state? Yin Liting led Wuji into a room and put him to bed, covered him with a cotton quilt, and lit a charcoal brazier burning hot. Zhang Sanfeng said suddenly, “Tomorrow I shall take Wuji and make a journey to Shaolin Monastery on Mount Song.” The disciples understood their shifu’s intention. It was that, left with no other choice, he was forced to humble himself before Shaolin, to go in person and beseech Great Master Kongwen¹⁵ for aid, hoping that the high monks of Shaolin might supply what was lacking in the Nine Yang Divine Skill and save Wuji’s life.”

Two years before, at the gathering on Wudang Mountain, the enmity between Shaolin and Wudang had run deep. Zhang Sanfeng, a grandmaster of his generation, at over a hundred years of age, was about to stoop from his lofty station to seek instruction. It would surely cost him dearly in stature. Yet thinking of Zhang Cuishan’s devotion, they knew that once their shifu ascended Mount Song to beg instruction, from that day forth the Wudang Order could never again hold up its head before the Shaolin Order. But such empty reputation could not be weighed against a life. Originally the Emei Order also possessed a portion of the Nine Yang Manual, but their zhangmen, Miejue shitai,¹⁶ was wilful and strange in temperament beyond all measure. Zhang Sanfeng had written to her several times, sending the letters by Yin Liting, and Miejue shitai would not even break the seal, returning the letters unopened. Now there was no other way but to bow before Shaolin.”

Had Song Yuanqiao led his shidis to Shaolin to seek instruction, it would have saved the Wudang Order some face, but as matters stood, Great Master Kongwen would certainly not transmit the true secrets of the Nine Yang Manual to them. Thinking that for twenty or thirty years the Wudang Order’s fame had resounded through the jianghu,¹⁷ and now it must humble itself before Shaolin, they were all downcast. The feast celebrating the Mid-Autumn reunion ended in despondency after a few cups of melancholy wine.”

At dawn the next day, Zhang Sanfeng set out with Wuji. The Fifth Brother wished to accompany them, but Zhang Sanfeng said, “If we go in force, it will arouse Shaolin’s suspicions. Better that just the two of us go, one old and one young.”

Each rode a grey donkey, travelling northward. The two great schools of Shaolin and Wudang were in truth not far apart. From Wudang Mountain in northern Hubei to Mount Song in western Henan, they arrived in a few days. Zhang Sanfeng and Wuji crossed the Han River at Laohekou, reached Nanyang, rode north to Ruzhou, then turned west to Mount Song.”

They ascended Mount Shaoshi, tethered their donkeys beneath a tree, and proceeded on foot. Zhang Sanfeng, revisiting a place long known to him, recalled how more than eighty years before, his shifu Great Master Jueyuan had carried a pair of iron water buckets, leading Guo Xiang and himself in flight from Shaolin. Looking back now upon that former life, how many lifetimes had passed? His heart was heavy with feeling. He held Wuji’s hand and walked slowly up the mountain. The five peaks stood as before, the forest of steles unchanged, yet Jueyuan, Guo Xiang, and all the rest had long since left this world. They reached the One-Reed Pavilion, and Shaolin Monastery came into view. Two young monks approached, talking and laughing. Zhang Sanfeng clasped his fists in greeting and said, “Please announce us. Say that Zhang Sanfeng of Wudang Mountain seeks an audience with the Master Abbot.”

When the two monks heard the name Zhang Sanfeng, they were startled. They gazed at him intently and saw a tall figure, his beard and hair white as silver, his face ruddy and smooth, his eyes crinkled in a smile most amiable. Yet his black cloth Daoist robe was filthy and worn. For Zhang Sanfeng lived as he pleased and paid no heed to his appearance. In his middle years, men in the jianghu had called him behind his back “the Slovenly Daoist,” and some had called him “Slovenly Zhang.” It was only later, when his martial arts grew ever higher and his fame ever greater, that none dared address him so.”

The two monks thought, “Zhang Sanfeng is the grandmaster of the Wudang Order, and Wudang has long been at odds with our Shaolin. Could he be here to pick a fight?” Yet they saw he led a boy of eleven or twelve, green-faced and thin. Neither of them looked in the least imposing. There was no hint of menace about them. One monk asked, “Are you truly the Zhang…Zhang Sanfeng the Perfected One¹⁸ of Wudang Mountain?”

Zhang Sanfeng laughed. “Genuine goods, no counterfeit!”

The other monk, hearing him speak with not the slightest solemnity befitting a grandmaster, was all the more sceptical. “You’re surely not joking?”

Zhang Sanfeng laughed. “What’s so remarkable about Zhang Sanfeng? What profit is there in impersonating him?”

The two monks, half-believing and half-doubting, sped back to the monastery to report. After a long while, the great gate opened, and Abbot Kongwen emerged, accompanied by his shidis Kongzhi and Kongxing. Behind the three came a dozen old monks in yellow robes. Zhang Sanfeng knew them for the elders of the Damo Hall, whose rank might well exceed even the abbot’s. They dwelt within the monastery devoting themselves to the study of martial arts and took no part in external affairs. Hearing that the zhangmen of the Wudang Order had arrived, a matter of no small consequence, they had accompanied the abbot to greet him.”

Zhang Sanfeng hurried from the pavilion and bowed deeply. “I trouble the abbot and all you Great Masters to come out to welcome me. How can I deserve such honour?”

Kongwen and the others all pressed their palms together in return. Kongwen said, “Zhang the Perfected One has come from afar, greatly exceeding this monk’s expectations. To what do we owe the visit?”

Zhang Sanfeng said, “There is one matter I must beg.”

Kongwen said, “Please, be seated. Be seated.”

Footnotes

1. 纯阳无极功 – Chúnyáng Wújí Gōng. Literally Pure Yang Ultimate Skill. Zhang Sanfeng’s supreme neigong, cultivating pure yang qi to the highest degree ↩

2. 时辰 – shíchén. Two hours; the day divided into twelve ↩

3. 真气 – zhēnqì. Refined qi from internal cultivation ↩

4. 氤氲紫气 – Yīnyūn Zǐqì. Literally Mist and Haze Purple Qi. A state of refined zhenqi in the dantian, curling like incense smoke ↩

5. 丹田 – dāntián. Energy center below the navel ↩

6. 内力 – nèilì. Kinetic manifestation of qi, the internal power cultivated through neigong ↩

7. 太师父 – tàishīfù. Two rungs up in the lineage; one’s shifu’s shifu ↩

8. 内功 – nèigōng. Internal cultivation, distinct from neili which is its manifestation ↩

9. 九阳真经 – Jiǔyáng Zhēnjīng. Nine Yang Manual. A legendary internal cultivation manual hidden within the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra ↩

10. 九阳神功 – Jiǔyáng Shéngōng. Nine Yang Divine Skill. The martial art derived from the Nine Yang Manual, emphasising pure yang energy ↩

11. 大周天搬运 – Dà Zhōutiān Bānyùn. Great Heaven Circuit circulation. An advanced neigong practice guiding zhenqi through the body’s major meridians in a complete circuit ↩

12. 经脉 – jīngmài. The body’s energy channels or meridians ↩

13. 膻中 – Dànzhōng. The Danzhong acupoint, located at the centre of the chest. One of the body’s major qi convergence points. Translator’s note: the source reads 膑中 (kneecap centre), which is plainly a printing error for 膻中 (chest centre); the surrounding passage describes qi converging in the chest, not the knee. ↩

14. 掌门 – zhǎngmén. Head of a school or order. ↩

15. 大师 – dàshī. Great master, an honorific for senior monks ↩

16. 师太 – shītài. Honorific for a senior nun. ↩

17. 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 ↩

18. 真人 – zhēnrén. Literally true person. Honorific title for a Daoist master who has attained spiritual perfection. ↩