The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre Chapter 11 Part 5

The two order-sisters' quarrel had at first been so much gibberish to the bystanders. Only now did they dimly make it out: that Miejue Shitai,[^miejue] the zhangmen[^zhangmen] of the Emei Order,[^emeipai] thought highly of Ji Xiaofu[^jixiaofu] and had it in mind to pass her mantle to her, that Ding Minjun,[^dingminjun] harbouring jealousy, had somehow got hold of some handle against her, and meant of set purpose to make her lose face before them all. Zhang Wuji,[^zhangwuji] ever mindful of the warm and kindly care Ji Xiaofu had once shown him, could, seeing her thus pressed, have leapt out to box Ding Minjun's ears.

Ding Minjun was saying, “Ji shimei, let me ask you: that year, when our shifu gathered the order’s disciples on the Golden Summit of Emei¹ and taught the two jian-sets she herself had made, the Jian of Extinction and the Jian of Severance.² Why did you not come? Why did you provoke the old mistress into so towering a rage?” Ji Xiaofu said, “I was suddenly taken with a grave illness at Ganzhou³ and could not stir. I reported this to our shifu long ago. Why does shijie suddenly ask of it again?” Ding Minjun said with a cold laugh, “This matter you may hide from our shifu, but you cannot hide it from me. I have one more thing to ask you, but put out this monk’s eyes and I shall not ask it.”

Ji Xiaofu bowed her head and said nothing, sorely torn. Then softly, “Shijie, do you count for nothing the bond of our learning the art together in the same order?” Ding Minjun said, “Will you put it out or not?” Ji Xiaofu said, “Shijie, set your mind at ease. Even should our shifu mean to pass me her mantle, I would by no means dare accept it.” Ding Minjun said angrily, “Oh, excellent! By that account, it is I who am jealous of you. In what am I your inferior, that I should be beholden to you and you must yield to me? Now, will you put it out or not?”

Ji Xiaofu said, “If I have done any wrong and shijie would punish me for it, would I dare not submit? But there are friends here of other schools and orders, and for you to press me so…” At this she could not keep from shedding tears. Ding Minjun said with a cold laugh, “Heh, you put on this piteous air, while who knows how you are cursing me in your heart. That year you were at Ganzhou, seven years ago, or eight, I cannot rightly remember, though of course you know full well yourself. Were you truly labouring under an illness? Labouring, yes, there was labour in it right enough. Only I fear it was the labour of childbirth.”

At these words Ji Xiaofu turned and took to her heels. Ding Minjun, who had foreseen her flight, sped forward, quivered her long jian, and barred her way, saying, “I counsel you to put out Monk Peng’s⁴ left eye like a good girl. Otherwise I shall ask you who the child’s father is, ask why a disciple of a renowned and orthodox order should shield a demon-monk of the demonic cult.” Ji Xiaofu, beside herself, said, “You… you… I am leaving!”

Ding Minjun pointed her long jian at Ji Xiaofu’s breast and said loudly, “I ask you: where do you keep the child? You are the betrothed of Yin Liting,⁵ the Sixth Xia of the Wudang Order.⁶ How is it you have borne another man’s child?” These few earth-shaking words, once spoken, sent a jolt through the heart of every listener. Zhang Wuji was all bewilderment: “This Auntie Ji is a good person. How could she wrong Sixth Uncle Yin?” Of such matters between man and woman he understood little, but even the likes of Chang Yuchun,⁷ Monk Peng, and the long-bearded Kunlun Daoist were greatly astonished to hear it.

Ji Xiaofu, deathly pale, rushed forward. Ding Minjun suddenly struck to kill. With a hiss her jian gashed deep into Ji Xiaofu’s right arm, cutting clean to the bone. Ji Xiaofu, badly hurt, could bear no more. With her left hand she drew her jian and said, “Shijie, if you press me further so hard, I shall have to do you wrong.” Ding Minjun knew that, having now fallen out openly and laid bare her secret, Ji Xiaofu must surely kill her to silence her, and since her own martial arts were no match for Ji Xiaofu’s, a true fight to the death would be perilous in the extreme, which was why she had seized the chance at the outset to wound her right arm first. Hearing her speak so, she went in the move “Moon Sets Behind the Western Mountains,”⁸ thrusting straight at her belly. Ji Xiaofu, her right arm in fierce pain, saw that her shijie’s second stroke gave no quarter either, and at once struck back with the jian in her left hand.

The two order-sisters knew each other’s swordplay through and through, and in attack and defence their bout was uncommonly close, and uncommonly fierce. The onlookers, each gravely hurt, could neither part them nor aid the one or the other, and could only watch wide-eyed, admiring in their hearts: “The Emei Order is one of the four great schools of martial learning of the present age, and its swordplay is fine indeed: the name is no idle one.”

The wound in Ji Xiaofu’s right arm bled without stopping, and the more she fought the worse it flowed. She used killing stroke upon killing stroke, seeking to force Ding Minjun off and cut a way clear to flee, but she was not used to wielding the jian left-handed, and wounded as she was, of her former skill scarcely three parts in ten remained. It was only that Ding Minjun had always been wary of this shimei and dared not press too hard, but merely kept her tangled up, so that she should bleed overmuch and of herself grow spent. Seeing Ji Xiaofu’s steps grow unsteady and her swordplay fall into disorder, no longer able to hold out, Ding Minjun struck twice, hiss, hiss, and Ji Xiaofu’s right shoulder took two strokes one after another, till half her clothing was dyed with blood.

Monk Peng suddenly cried aloud, “Lady Ji, come and put out my left eye. Monk Peng is grateful to you beyond all telling.” He reflected that for Ji Xiaofu to brave so deadly a peril in shielding an enemy was already a rare thing indeed, the more so since what Ding Minjun held over her was that spotless name which a woman prizes above her very life. But even had Ji Xiaofu now put out Monk Peng’s left eye, Ding Minjun would no longer let her off. She knew that if she did not seize this chance to be rid of this shimei, there would be no end of troubles to come.

Seeing how ruthless Ding Minjun’s strokes were, Monk Peng railed at her aloud: “Ding Minjun, you are shameless indeed! No wonder they call you Ding Minjun the Venomous-Handed Wuyan on the jianghu:⁹ truly your heart is like the snake and scorpion, and your face outdoes Wuyan’s own. If all the women of the world were as ugly as you, so that the sight of them turned the stomach, every man under heaven would go and become a monk. With this Venomous-Handed Wuyan forever standing before me, being a monk is not enough for Monk Peng: better to be blind in both eyes and be done with it.”

In truth, though Ding Minjun was no great beauty, she was comely enough, her features handsome and not without a delicate charm. But Monk Peng knew the ways of the world deeply, and knew the heart of every woman under heaven: be she ugly or fair, revile her looks and she will hate you to the bone. Seeing the danger of the moment, he made up on the spur of the tongue this byname of “Venomous-Handed Wuyan” for her, hoping that in her fury she would turn on him instead, so that Ji Xiaofu might seize the chance to get away, or at the least find some means to bind up her wounds. But Ding Minjun thought to herself, once I have killed Ji Xiaofu, where should I fear this stinking monk could flee to? She turned a deaf ear to his abuse.

Monk Peng cried out again, “The Lady Xia Ji is pure as ice and clean as jade. Who on the jianghu does not know it? Yet Ding Minjun the Venomous-Handed Wuyan must needs fancy herself in love, dreaming of luring away Yin Liting of the Wudang Order. When Yin Liting takes no notice of you, naturally you would do the Lady Xia Ji a harm. Ha. With cheekbones so high, a mouth as wide as a blood-basin, a sallow yellow skin, and a body like a bamboo pole. Even Monk Peng is sickened at the sight of you. How should the handsome, dashing Yin the Sixth Xia ever look twice? Without so much as glancing in a mirror, again and again you go casting sheep’s eyes at other men…”

Hearing this, Ding Minjun was near mad with fury. With an arrow-stride she sprang before Monk Peng and thrust her jian at his mouth. Ding Minjun’s cheekbones were indeed a little high, her mouth no cherry-small bud, her complexion not quite fair, and her frame naturally tall and slim. These small blemishes upon her looks she was herself often unhappy at, yet unless one looked closely they were not easily marked. Monk Peng’s eye was keen. Not only had he spied them out, but he had laid it on thick and talked wild besides. How should she not be enraged? Moreover she had never once set eyes on Yin Liting, and as for “casting sheep’s eyes again and again”, where in the world did that come from?

Her jian was on the point of striking home when suddenly a man dashed out from the wood with a great shout and threw himself before Monk Peng. He came so fast that Ding Minjun could not draw back her stroke, and her long jian was already thrust out. The man was half a head shorter than Monk Peng, and the blade went clean through his forehead. In that flash of lightning the man struck out with his palm and landed it on Ding Minjun’s chest. With a great thud she was flung back several steps and fell sprawling, blood spurting from her mouth, while the long jian stood lodged in the man’s forehead, and it was plain he too could not live.

The long-bearded Kunlun¹⁰ Daoist forced himself a few steps closer and cried out in alarm, “Bai Guishou!¹¹ Bai Guishou!”. Then his knees gave way and he sat down hard on the ground. For the man who had taken this jian-stroke for Monk Peng was none other than Bai Guishou, Altar Master of the Xuanwu Altar¹² of the Tianying Order.¹³ Gravely wounded, and learning that Monk Peng, for shielding him, was beset by the picked fighters of four schools, Shaolin, Kunlun, Emei, and Haisha,¹⁴ he had driven himself on and hurried up, just in time to take this stroke in Monk Peng’s stead. His powers were much diminished, yet this dying palm-blow of his broke several of Ding Minjun’s ribs.

When her fright had a little subsided, Ji Xiaofu tore off a strip of her robe and bound up the wound on her arm, then reached out and freed the sealed acupoints¹⁵ at Monk Peng’s waist and side. Without a word she turned to go. Monk Peng said, “Wait, Lady Ji, pray receive a bow from Monk Peng.” And he made to bow. Ji Xiaofu stepped aside and would not receive the bow.

Monk Peng picked up the long jian the long-bearded Daoist had dropped on the ground, and said, “This Ding Minjun has talked wild nonsense and slandered the lady’s fair name. She cannot be left alive.” So saying, he raised the jian and stabbed down at Ding Minjun’s throat. Ji Xiaofu swept her jian up with her left hand and turned it aside, saying, “She is my shijie of the same order. Though she has no feeling for me, I cannot be without honour toward her.” Monk Peng said, “Matters have come to this pass. If she is not killed, this woman will surely do the lady great harm hereafter.” Ji Xiaofu said through her tears, “I am the most ill-starred, the most luckless woman under heaven. Let me but resign myself to my fate! Great Master Peng, do not harm my shijie.” Monk Peng said, “What the Lady Xia Ji commands, how should I dare not obey?”

Ji Xiaofu said in a low voice to Ding Minjun, “Shijie, take care of yourself.” And with that she sheathed her jian and walked out of the wood.

Footnotes

1. 峨嵋金顶 – Éméi Jīndǐng. Golden Summit, the highest peak of Mount Emei in Sichuan and the seat of the Emei Order. See Wikipedia. ↩

2. 灭剑, 绝剑 – Miè Jiàn, Jué Jiàn. Jian of Extinction and the Jian of Severance, two sword-sets devised by Miejue Shitai, whose names echo her own. ↩

3. 甘州 – Gānzhōu. Prefecture in the Hexi Corridor of the far northwest, in what is now Gansu Province. ↩

4. 彭莹玉 – Péng Yíngyù. “Monk Peng,” a monk of the Ming Order. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 殷梨亭 – Yīn Lítíng. The sixth of the Seven Xias of Wudang. His name meaning “Pear Pavilion.” ↩

6. 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. ↩

7. 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. ↩

8. 月落西山 – Yuè Luò Xī Shān. Literally the moon sets behind the western mountains. Sword move of the Emei Order. ↩

9. 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. ↩

10. 昆仑派 – Kūnlún Pài. Kunlun School, a major martial arts school based in the Kunlun Mountains of the northwest. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 白龟寿 – Bái Guīshòu. His name meaning “White Tortoise Longevity.” Altar Master of the Xuanwu Altar of the Tianying Order, who died shielding Monk Peng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 玄武坛 – Xuánwǔ Tán. Literally Black Tortoise Altar. Mythological Black Tortoise was one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellations, representing the Water element, the direction North, and the season of winter. ↩

13. 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. ↩

14. 海沙派 – Hǎishā Pài. Haisha School, a Jiangnan faction involved in salt smuggling. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 穴 – xué. Acupoint; a vital point on the body where qi concentrates, which can be struck or sealed to disable an opponent. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩