The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 10 – Part 9

Zhang Sanfeng seated himself in the pavilion, and presently a monk brought him tea. Zhang Sanfeng could not help but feel irked. *I am, for good or ill, the founder of a school, and at the very least your senior in the wulin.¹ How is it that no one invites me into the monastery, leaving me to sit here halfway up the mountain? Let alone me, even an ordinary guest ought not to be treated with such discourtesy.* But he was easygoing by nature, and after a moment's thought, let the matter pass.

Kongwen said, “Zhang Sanfeng the Perfected One,² your honourable presence on our humble mountain ought by rights to be greeted with a welcome into the temple. It is only that when Perfected One was young, you left Shaolin Monastery without taking your leave. This has been the rule of our school for several hundred years. Perfected One must know it as well as I: any disciple who abandons or betrays the school is forbidden for life from setting foot within the temple gates again, and violation is punished by having the feet cut off.”

Zhang Sanfeng laughed aloud. “Is that so? When I was a child, I did indeed serve Great Master Jueyuan³ at Shaolin Monastery, but I was a menial, sweeping floors and boiling tea. I was never tonsured, nor did I take a shifu⁴ as his disciple. I cannot claim to be a disciple of Shaolin.”

Kongzhi said coldly, “And yet Perfected One stole martial arts from Shaolin Monastery and carried them away.”

Zhang Sanfeng felt his temper rise, but then he reflected, The martial arts of our Wudang Order, though I did indeed create them through years of devoted study, trace back in the end to Great Master Jueyuan’s gift of the Nine Yang Manual,⁵ and to Guo Xiang nüxia⁶ bestowing on me that pair of Shaolin iron arhats. Without those, everything that came afterwards would have had no foundation at all. For him to say my martial arts came from Shaolin is not wrong. So he calmed himself and said evenly, “It is precisely for that reason that I have come today.”

Kongwen and Kongzhi exchanged a glance. What is he here for? they wondered. He cannot mean us any good. Most likely he has come about Zhang Cuishan, looking for trouble. Kongwen said, “Pray tell us more.”

Zhang Sanfeng said, “Great Master Kongzhi has just said that my martial arts came from Shaolin, and in that he is not wrong. In the years when I served Great Master Jueyuan, he was kind enough to teach me the Nine Yang Manual. That scripture is vast and profound, but I was young at the time, and what I learned was incomplete. To this day I count it a deep regret. Afterwards, Great Master Jueyuan recited the scriptures on a barren mountain, and three people were fortunate enough to hear him. One was Guo Xiang nüxia, the founder of the Emei Order. One was your school’s Chan Master⁷ Wuse. The third was myself. Of the three, I was the youngest, the dullest of wit, and had no foundation in martial arts. Of the three schools, mine received the least.”

Kongzhi said coldly, “That is not so. Perfected One served Jueyuan from childhood. How could he not have secretly taught you more besides? Today the Wudang Order’s name is known throughout the world, and that is Jueyuan’s doing.” Jueyuan’s generation was three ranks above Kongzhi. Reckoned properly, he ought to have been addressed as Grand Shishu.⁸ But since Jueyuan had fled Shaolin Monastery and been written off as an abandoned disciple, his place in the school’s generational register had been struck. Kongzhi’s tone therefore carried no courtesy.

Zhang Sanfeng rose to his feet and bowed with deep respect. “My shifu’s grace is something I never forget, not for a moment.”

Among Shaolin Monastery’s Four Divine Monks,⁹ Kongjian was compassionate at heart, but alas had died the earliest. Kongwen was deeply scheming, his joy or anger never showing on his face. Kongxing was muddled and muddle-headed, innocent as a child, with no understanding of worldly affairs. Kongzhi, however, was narrow-minded, and had long resented the fact that Zhang Sanfeng had learned martial arts at Shaolin Monastery only to found a school whose reputation now threatened to overshadow Shaolin’s own. He had never been reconciled to it. He was convinced that Zhang Sanfeng’s visit this time was to avenge Zhang Cuishan’s death. Moreover, on the day Yin Susu died, she had pretended to reveal Xie Xun’s whereabouts to Kongwen. That scheme of “shifting the disaster eastward” had been cruelly effective.

For over two years now, every few days someone from the wulin would arrive at Shaolin Monastery to cause trouble, breaking in openly, spying in secret, soft-coaxing or hard-demanding, endlessly asking after Xie Xun’s whereabouts. Kongwen had sworn oaths that he truly did not know, but hundreds of eyes from every school and faction had witnessed Yin Susu speaking into Kongwen’s ear there in Zixiao Palace on Mount Wudang. How could it have been false? No matter how Kongwen explained it, no one would believe him, and fights had broken out several times a month on that account alone. Many visiting martial artists had been killed or wounded, but Shaolin Monastery’s own senior monks had suffered losses too. And tracing it all back, was the root cause not the Wudang Order?

For over two years the monks of the monastery had swallowed their anger. Now Zhang Sanfeng had delivered himself to their door. An excellent opportunity to humble him thoroughly. Kongzhi said, “Perfected One has acknowledged that he stole martial arts from Shaolin Monastery. It is a pity that no one else heard this admission. If word were spread abroad, the entire jianghu¹⁰ would know.”

Zhang Sanfeng said, “The red flower springs from the lotus root. All the martial arts under heaven were once one family, and for hundreds of years they have borrowed from one another, so that their true origin can no longer be discerned. But the Shaolin Order has led the wulin for centuries, acknowledged by all. I have come up this mountain today precisely because I admire your school’s martial arts. Knowing my own inadequacy, I have come to seek instruction from the Great Master.”

Kongwen, Kongzhi and the rest took his words “to seek instruction from the Great Master” for a challenge, and their expressions changed. This old Daoist with a hundred years of cultivation behind him, his martial arts fathomless, who in the world is his match? they thought. He has come alone, plainly confident of his strength. In these past two years he must have mastered some fearsome new art.

For a time none of the three monks spoke. Then Kongxing said, “Good old Daoist, you want to test us, do you? Well, I, Kongxing, am not afraid of you. There are a thousand monks in Shaolin Monastery. If they all rushed you at once, you might not be able to demolish the place.” Though his mouth said “not afraid,” his heart was in fact profoundly and exceedingly afraid. He had already settled on a plan: a thousand men rushing him at once.

Zhang Sanfeng hastened to say, “Please, Great Master, do not misunderstand me. When I said I sought instruction, I meant it in earnest. It is only that I have practised the Nine Yang Manual my shifu transmitted, and found within it no few puzzles I cannot resolve and lacunae I cannot fill. Shaolin Monastery’s eminent monks are of profound cultivation. If they would not spare their guidance and allow Zhang Sanfeng to hear the Great Way, I should be grateful beyond measure.” As he spoke, he rose and bowed deeply.

Zhang Sanfeng’s words utterly astonished the Shaolin monks. His divine skill was matchless, he had founded a school, and he had cultivated his arts for close on ninety years. Among the martial artists of the present age, none matched the height of his reputation or the loftiness of his station. No one would have imagined he would come to the Shaolin Order to request teaching. Kongwen hastily returned the bow. “Perfected One jests. We of the younger generation are shallow in our learning. We could not even claim ‘the stone from another mountain may serve to polish jade,’ much less presume to ‘instruct’ you.”

Zhang Sanfeng knew the request was on its face so extraordinary that the other side could not easily credit it. So he told them everything from the beginning: how Wuji had been struck by the Xuanming Divine Palm,¹¹ how the yin poison within his body could not be driven out. He said the boy was Zhang Cuishan’s only surviving son, and that he must save his life at all costs. At present there was no other path than learning the Nine Yang Divine Skill¹² in full, and so he was willing to impart to the Shaolin Order everything he knew of the Nine Yang Manual, in the hope that Shaolin would share what it had learned in return, so that both schools might compare insights and fill in each other’s gaps.

Kongwen listened and pondered for a long time. Then he said, “Our Shaolin Order’s seventy-two supreme skills have in eight hundred years never been mastered in more than a dozen by any single monk or lay disciple. Perfected One’s learning is beyond compare in ancient times or modern. But our school finds that the martial arts left by our predecessors of past generations are already too many. To learn even a tenth of them is extremely difficult. For, Perfected One to add another divine skill to our store, though the generosity is to be appreciated, would be surplus to our needs.” He paused, then continued, “The Wudang Order’s martial arts trace their origin to Shaolin. If today the two schools were to exchange their learning, then in days to come those in the jianghu who do not know the full truth would say that while the Wudang Order certainly derives from Shaolin, the Shaolin Order also profited from what Zhang Sanfeng the Perfected One had to offer. I, unworthy, serve as Shaolin’s zhangmen,¹³ and such gossip I could not bear.”

Zhang Sanfeng sighed inwardly. You are the zhangmen of the greatest school in the wulin, numbered among the Four Divine Monks, and still you are so bound by factional prejudice. Your breadth of mind is too narrow indeed. But since he had need of them, it would not do to rebuke him outright. He could only say, “The three of you are divine monks of this age, compassionate at heart. This child’s life hangs by a thread. I beg you to consider the Buddha’s spirit of saving the world and succouring the living, and grant my request. I should be deeply grateful for your righteousness.”

But no matter how earnestly he pleaded, the three Shaolin monks declined with polite refusals. At last Kongwen said, “We dare not disobey Perfected One’s honourable command. Pray do not take offence.” He turned to a monk at his side. “Send word to the Fragrant Accumulation Kitchen to deliver a feast of the finest vegetarian food here, to host Zhang Sanfeng the Perfected One.” The monk went to carry out the order.

Zhang Sanfeng’s expression was forlorn. He raised his hand and said, “In that case, this old Daoist has come on a fool’s errand. I dare not presume upon your feast. I have caused much disturbance. Pray forgive me. I take my leave.” He bowed deeply, took Wuji by the hand, and drifted away.

Footnotes

1. 武林 – wǔlín. Lit. martial forest. The community of martial artists and their schools, distinct from the wider jianghu. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

3. 大师 – dàshī. Lit. great master. Honorific title for an eminent Buddhist monk. ↩

4. 师父 – shīfù. Teacher and lineage father. Shī means teacher. Fù means father. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 九阳真经 – Jiǔyáng Zhēnjīng. Lit. Nine Yang True Scripture. A legendary internal cultivation manual hidden within the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, emphasising yang energy and balanced development. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 女侠 – nǚxiá. A title of respect for a woman martial artist of heroic standing. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 禅师 – chánshī. Lit. Chan master. Honorific title for a Buddhist monk distinguished in Chan meditation. ↩

8. 太师叔祖 – tàishīshūzǔ. Grand shishu. Three generations above one’s own shifu in lineage. ↩

9. The Four Divine Monks (四大神僧) of Shaolin in this generation: Kongjian, Kongwen, Kongxing, and Kongzhi, ranked by generation and reputation. ↩

10. 江湖 – jiānghú. Lit. 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. ↩

11. 玄冥神掌 – Xuánmíng Shénzhǎng. Lit. Xuanming Divine Palm. A devastating palm technique that channels supreme yin cold poison into the victim’s body, slowly killing them unless countered by overwhelming yang energy. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 九阳神功 – Jiǔyáng Shéngōng. Lit. Nine Yang Divine Skill. A legendary internal cultivation method emphasising pure yang energy, capable of granting extraordinary martial prowess. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 掌门 – zhǎngmén. The head of a martial school or sect. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩