The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre Chapter 11 Part 2

That Zhou Ziwang¹ was, in fact, the senior disciple of the “Maitreya Order”² within the demonic cult,³ the Ming Order.⁴ Some years before, he had raised a rising at Yuanzhou⁵ in Jiangxi⁶ and set himself up as emperor, styling his state “Zhou". Before long it was stamped out by the Yuan army, and Zhou Ziwang was seized and beheaded. The Maitreya Order and the Tianying Order,⁷ though not of one branch, were alike offshoots of the Ming Order, and the ties between them ran deep, when Zhou Ziwang raised his rising, Yin Tianzheng⁸ had lent him support from Zhejiang.⁹ In saving Chang Yuchun¹⁰ this day, Zhang Sanfeng¹¹ had acted only on a momentary stir of chivalrous feeling, and moreover without first knowing the man's identity. It went, in truth, quite against his own inclination.

That night it was the second watch before they reached Taiping.¹² Zhang Sanfeng bade the boat moor a good way off from the town. The boatman went into the town, bought food, and cooked it, setting it out on the small table in the cabin: chicken, meat, fish, and greens, four large bowls in all. Zhang Sanfeng had Chang Yuchun and Zhou Zhiruo¹³ eat first, while he himself fed Wuji.¹⁴ When Chang Yuchun asked the reason, Zhang Sanfeng said the boy had been struck by a cold poison and could not move his limbs freely. Wuji was wretched at heart and could not swallow. When Zhang Sanfeng offered another mouthful, he shook his head and would eat no more.

Zhou Zhiruo took the bowl and chopsticks from Zhang Sanfeng’s hands and said, “Daoist Elder, you eat first. I will feed this young master.” Wuji said, “I am full. I don’t want any more.” Zhou Zhiruo said, “Young master, if you don’t eat, the old Daoist Elder will be uneasy at heart, and he too will be unable to eat. Would you not be leaving him with an empty belly?” Zhang Wuji thought this was true, and when Zhou Zhiruo brought the food to his lips he opened his mouth and ate. Zhou Zhiruo carefully picked out every fish-bone and chicken-bone, and to each mouthful of rice she added a little of the gravy. Zhang Wuji ate with great relish, and finished off a whole large bowl.

Zhang Sanfeng was a little comforted, and thought further, This child Wuji has a hard fate, his parents dead since his early years, and gravely ill as he is, he ought by rights to have a careful girl to wait on him.

Chang Yuchun did not touch the fish or meat, but only cleaned out the bowl of greens. Grievously wounded though he was, he still put away four large bowls of white rice. Zhang Sanfeng, who kept no fast from meat, saw what a hearty eater he was and urged him to have more of the chicken. Chang Yuchun said, “Perfected One,¹⁵ I am a worshipper of the Bodhisattva. I eat no meat.” Zhang Sanfeng said, “Ah, this old Daoist had forgotten.” Only then did he recall that the people of the demonic cult held to strict rules, abstaining from meat and fish, and had done so ever since the Tang dynasty.¹⁶ In the last years of the Northern Song,¹⁷ Fang La,¹⁸ a great chief of the Ming Order, raised a rising in eastern Zhejiang, and in that day the authorities and the common folk alike called them the “Vegetable-Eating, Demon-Serving Order.” Eating only vegetables and serving the Demon King were the two great rules of the demonic cult, handed down now for several hundred years. From the Song dynasty onward the authorities put the demonic cult to death with the utmost severity, and the folk of the wulin¹⁹ too held them in deep contempt, and so the demonic cult’s followers went about their affairs in secret, keeping their rules and their meatless fare, yet before outsiders gave out that they honoured the Buddha and worshipped the Bodhisattva, not daring to let their true identity be known.

Chang Yuchun said, “Perfected One, you have the great kindness of having saved my life, and since you knew my origins from the first, there is no need for me to hide anything. I am a man of the Ming Order, a servant of the Radiant Honoured One.²⁰ The court and its officials take us for felons beyond pardon. The renowned and orthodox schools of the chivalrous road look down on us, and even the men of the black road, who plunder homes and set fires and kill, call us devils and demons. Knowing full well who and what I am, you yet put out your hand to save me. For such a kindness, I truly do not know how to repay you.”

Zhang Sanfeng had heard a little of the demonic cult’s origins, and knew that the great Demon King they served was called Mani,²¹ whom those within the order called the “Radiant Honoured One.” The order had come into the Middle Kingdom during the Yuanhe years of Emperor Xianzong of the Tang, when it was called the Mani Order, and also the Great Cloud of Radiance Order. Its followers called themselves the Ming Order, but on account of the “mo” in Mani’s name, others styled it the demonic cult. He mused a moment, then said, “Hero Chang…”

Chang Yuchun said quickly, “Venerable Daoist Elder, you needn’t go on with your ‘Hero’ this and ‘gallant’ that. Just call me Yuchun and have done.” Zhang Sanfeng said, “Very well! Yuchun, how old are you this year?” Chang Yuchun said, “I am just twenty.” Zhang Sanfeng, seeing that despite the thick beard covering his cheeks his speech and bearing showed him to be very young, which was why he had asked, nodded and said, “You are only just come to manhood, though you have cast in your lot with the demonic cult, you are not yet deep in the mire, and to turn back early is not a whit too late. I have a word of counsel you may not like to hear. I hope you will not take it amiss.” Chang Yuchun said, “When the Daoist Elder instructs me, how should I dare take it amiss?”

Zhang Sanfeng said, “Good! I counsel you, this very day, to wash your heart and mend your ways, and forsake the heretic cult. If you do not think the Wudang Order’s²² skills too poor, this old Daoist will bid my eldest disciple Song Yuanqiao²³ take you as his own disciple. Thereafter, walking the jianghu,²⁴ you may hold your head high, and none will dare think lightly of you.” Song Yuanqiao was the foremost of the Seven Xias,²⁵ his fame shaking the realm, and for an ordinary man of the wulin even to meet him once was no easy thing. The Wudang xia had only in recent years begun to take disciples, and their choosing was most strict: unless one’s frame and endowment, character and temper were without a single flaw, one could by no means enter the Wudang gate. Chang Yuchun was of the demonic cult, at whose mere mention most men would knit their brows. That Zhang Sanfeng should nonetheless look on him with favour, and would have him enter Song Yuanqiao’s gate, was, for one who studied the martial arts, a rare and boundless good fortune indeed.

Yet Chang Yuchun said, in a clear voice, “That the Perfected One should think well of me, I am grateful beyond measure. But I belong to the Ming Order. Loyal I must be to the very end, and never in my life would I dare turn my back on the order.” Zhang Sanfeng pressed him a few more words, but Chang Yuchun would by no means consent.

Seeing him so obstinately blind, Zhang Sanfeng shook his head and sighed, saying, “This little girl…” Chang Yuchun said, “Set your mind at ease, Daoist Elder. This little girl’s father died on my account. I shall of course see her properly cared for.” Zhang Sanfeng said, “Good! But you must not let her enter your order.” Chang Yuchun said, “I truly cannot think how we are so steeped in wickedness as to be despised like this, that people should look on us of the Ming Order as though we were venomous snakes and savage beasts. Well, since the Daoist Elder so bids, I shall obey.”

Zhang Sanfeng took Zhang Wuji up in his arms and said, “Then here we part.” Truly unwilling to have much to do with people of the demonic cult, he held back even the four words “till we meet again.” Chang Yuchun bowed once more in thanks.

Zhou Zhiruo said to Wuji, “Young master, you must eat your fill every day, so the Daoist Elder need not worry over you.” Zhang Wuji’s tears burst from his eyes, and he said, choking, “Thank you for your kindness, but… but I have only a few days of eating left.” Zhang Sanfeng, downcast at heart, raised his sleeve and wiped the tears from the boy’s cheeks. Zhou Zhiruo said in alarm, “What? You… you…” Zhang Sanfeng said, “Little girl, your heart is very good, only I hope that in days to come you will walk the upright road, and never, ever fall in with the heretic demons.” Zhou Zhiruo said, “Yes. But this young master, why does he say he has only a few days of eating left?” Zhang Sanfeng, grieved, did not answer.

Chang Yuchun said, “Perfected One, your attainments run deep and your powers are vast. Deeply poisoned though this young master is, surely you can dissolve it?” Zhang Sanfeng said, “Yes!”, but his left hand, thrust beneath Wuji, gave two slight shakes, meaning that the poison was grave and hard to heal, though he would not have the boy himself know it. Seeing the shake of his hand, Chang Yuchun was startled, and said, “My own internal injury is no light one, and I am on my way to beg treatment of a divine physician. Why should the Daoist Elder not come along with this young master?” Zhang Sanfeng shook his head. “His cold poison has spread into the vital organs. No ordinary medicine can cure it. One can only… only dissolve it slowly.” Chang Yuchun said, “But that divine physician has truly the power to bring the dead back to life!”

Taken aback, Zhang Sanfeng suddenly bethought himself of a certain man, and asked, “Do you mean the Butterfly Valley Healer?”²⁶ Chang Yuchun said, “The very man. So the Daoist Elder too has heard the name of my Hu shibo.”²⁷

Zhang Sanfeng fell into deep hesitation: “I have long heard that the Butterfly Valley Healer, Hu Qingniu,²⁸ is a physician of the very highest art, but he is a man of the demonic cult, ever scorned by the folk of the wulin. They say his temper is strange beyond compare: let any man of the demonic cult fall ill, and he will treat him with all his heart and strength, and take not a single copper, but let one from outside the order beseech him, and though ten thousand liang of gold were heaped before him, he would not spare it a glance. And so he has another byname, ‘Sees Death, Offers No Aid.’ This being the man, I would sooner let Wuji die of the poison than allow him to sink into the demonic cult.”

Seeing him knit his brows and muse, Chang Yuchun understood his mind, and said, “Perfected One, my Hu shibo never treats those outside the order, but the debt I owe you for saving my life is deep and heavy, and Hu shibo must make an exception. Should he truly refuse to treat the boy, I will not let the matter rest with him.” Zhang Sanfeng said, “That this Mister Hu’s healing art is godlike, I have heard, but the cold poison in Wuji’s body is truly no common thing…” Chang Yuchun said loudly, “This young master is done for in any case. At worst he cannot be cured, and either way it is death, so what is there to fear?”

He was blunt in the extreme by nature, and whatever came into his mind he said straight out. Hearing those words, “either way it is death”, Zhang Sanfeng felt a jolt at his heart, and thought, This blunt fellow’s words are not wrong. Wuji has at most a month to live, and one can only treat the dead horse as though it were a live one. All his life he had dealt with men heart to heart, trusting where he gave his trust, and this Chang Yuchun was plainly a fellow who set store by honour. Yet Wuji was the only flesh and blood of his beloved disciple, and to hand him over to a follower of the demonic cult, a body long famed for the strange, the crooked, and the wicked, he was, in truth, anything but easy in his mind, and for the moment could come to no decision.

Chang Yuchun said, “That the Perfected One is unwilling to go and see my Hu shibo, this I understand. The Perfected One is a great grandmaster of the present age. How could you go and beg of the likes of us, a heathen and heterodox lot? And my Hu shibo’s temper is odd. Meeting the Perfected One, he might well fall short in courtesy and give offence. As for Brother Zhang here, there is nothing for it but that I take him, yet the Perfected One is not easy about that either. Let us do this, then: I will bring Brother Zhang to Hu shibo and ask him to treat the boy at his leisure, while I myself go up Mount Wudang and stand as a hostage. Should any harm come to Brother Zhang, the Perfected One has only to strike me dead with one palm.”

Footnotes

1. 周子旺 – Zhōu Zǐwàng. Historical rebel leader who rose against the Yuan, proclaimed himself emperor, and was captured and beheaded; Chang Yuchun had served him. See Wikipedia. ↩

2. 弥勒宗 – Mílè Zōng. Maitreya School, a branch of the Ming Order. 弥勒 renders the Buddha Maitreya (Sanskrit Maitreya), the future Buddha. See Wikipedia. ↩

3. 魔教 – Mó Jiào. Literally demon order. Derogatory name by which outsiders and the authorities styled the Ming Order, rendered here as “demonic cult”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 明教 – Míngjiào. Literally the religion of light. Also known as Manichaeism, a dualistic religion of Persian origin that became the backbone of several rebel movements in Chinese history. In the wuxia tradition, it serves as the organising force against the Mongol Yuan dynasty. ↩

5. 袁州 – Yuánzhōu. A prefecture in modern Jiangxi Province; site of Zhou Ziwang’s rebellion. ↩

6. 江西 – Jiāngxī. Province in southeastern China, south of the Yangtze. ↩

7. 天鹰教 – Tiānyīng Jiào. Tianying Order, founded by Yin Tianzheng the White-Browed Eagle King. 教 here is the order’s own neutral name for itself; “Cult” is the orthodox schools’ derogatory register and is not the sect’s name. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 殷天正 – Yīn Tiānzhèng. White-Browed Eagle King, founding Order Leader of the Tianying Order and Wuji’s maternal grandfather. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 浙江 – Zhèjiāng. Coastal province in eastern China, south of the Yangtze delta. ↩

10. 常遇春 – Cháng Yùchūn. Fighter of the Ming Order who befriended Zhang Wuji; historically a founding general of the Ming dynasty. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 张三丰 – Zhāng Sānfēng. His name meaning “Three Peaks.” Legendary founder of the Wudang Order and creator of taijiquan; Zhang Wuji’s Grand Shifu. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 太平店 – Tàipíngdiàn. Literally Great Peace waystation. River town on the Han River. ↩

13. 周芷若 – Zhōu Zhǐruò. Her name from two fragrant plants, angelica and pollia. Girl Zhang Wuji met briefly aboard a riverboat. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 张无忌 – Zhāng Wújì. His name meaning “Without Envy” or “No Misgivings.” Son of Zhang Cuishan and Yin Susu, and the protagonist of the tale. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 真人 – zhēnrén. Literally true person. Daoist honorific title for accomplished practitioners; here referring to Zhang Sanfeng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

16. 唐 – Táng. Dynasty ruled by the Han Chinese under the House of Li from 618 to 907 CE. See Wikipedia. ↩

17. 北宋 – Běi Sòng. Northern Song (960–1127), the first period of the Song dynasty, before the loss of northern China to the Jin. See Wikipedia. ↩

18. 方腊 – Fāng Là. Historical rebel leader who rose in eastern Zhejiang in the last years of the Northern Song. See Wikipedia. ↩

19. 武林 – wǔlín. Literally martial forest. Those who actually practise, teach or study martial arts. Wulin sits inside the jianghu and is narrower than it: every member of the wulin belongs to the jianghu, but a pedlar or physician of the jianghu who never trained is no part of the wulin. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

20. 明尊 – Míngzūn. Ming Venerable, the Lord of Light revered by the Ming Order, whose worship descends from Manichaeism. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

21. 摩尼 – Móní. Mani (216–274 CE), the prophet and founder of Manichaeism, whose faith spread into Tang China. First syllable of his name, 摩 (mó), puns on 魔 (mó, “demon”), whence outsiders derived the slur rendered here as “demonic cult”. See Wikipedia. ↩

22. 武当派 – Wǔdāng Pài. Wudang Order, the Daoist martial order founded by Zhang Sanfeng; 派 renders as “Order” for its religious character. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

23. 宋远桥 – Sòng Yuǎnqiáo. His name meaning “Distant Bridge.” Eldest of the Seven Xias of Wudang. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

24. 江湖 – jiānghú. Literally rivers and lakes. Itinerant world beyond settled society and official reach, holding not only martial artists but the trades that travel with them, including pedlars, physicians, fortune-tellers, entertainers, boatmen, beggars, outlaws and the like. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

25. 武当七侠 – Wǔdāng Qī Xiá. Seven foremost disciples of Zhang Sanfeng, of whom Zhang Cuishan is the fifth. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

26. 蝶谷医仙 – Diégǔ Yīxiān. Literally the Healing Immortal of Butterfly Valley. Byname of the physician Hu Qingniu, who dwells in seclusion in Butterfly Valley. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

27. 师伯 – shībó. Senior lineage uncle. Shixiong or shijie of one’s shifu. Shī means teacher. Bó means father’s elder brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

28. 胡青牛 – Hú Qīngniú. His name meaning “Green Ox.” The Butterfly Valley Healer, a physician of the Ming Order, nicknamed “Sees Death, Offers No Aid” for refusing to treat any who are not of the order. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩