The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre Chapter 12 Part 3

Some months had passed in this way when, one day, Hu Qingniu¹ found all at once that when he set his needle in the Guanchong acupoint on the outer side of Zhang Wuji's² ring finger, or in the Qinglengyuan two cun³ above the bend of the elbow, or in the Sizhukong in the hollow behind the brow, there came not the faintest response.These acupoints all belong to the Hand Shaoyang Sanjiao Meridian. The Sanjiao divides into upper, middle, and lower burner, and is one of the six bowels, and the medical books speak of it in terms so mysterious and abstruse that it can scarcely be laid hold of.

(Note: the Sanjiao of Chinese medicine, according to physicians, would seem to refer to the various internal secretions of the body. Science today is far advanced, yet Western medicine still knows little of the workings and regulation of the endocrine glands and their hormones. It has always been a most difficult department of medicine.)

Hu Qingniu applied his whole mind to the problem and tried many an ingenious method, but never could he force out the yin-poison that had scattered into Zhang Wuji’s Sanjiao. In the space of ten days and more, the toil of it turned a dozen of his hairs white.

Seeing him rack and torment his mind so, Zhang Wuji was moved to deep gratitude, and to unease as well. “Mister Hu,” he said, “you have spent all your heart and strength to drive out my poison. Every man in the world must die. That this poison scattered into my Sanjiao cannot be driven out is but the working of fate, and you need not tax yourself so, harming your own body to save my life.”

Hu Qingniu gave a snort, and said flatly, “You look down upon our Ming Order⁴ and Tianying Order.⁵ Since when did I mean to save your life? It is only that if I fail to cure you it will make the ‘Butterfly Valley Healing Sage’ look a bungler. I mean to cure you first, and then to kill you.”

Zhang Wuji gave a shiver. Hu Qingniu spoke of it so lightly, as though it were nothing at all, yet the boy knew that a thing once out of his mouth would never be recalled. He sighed. “I see that the yin-poison in me can never be cleared after all. You need not lift a hand. I shall die of my own accord. It seems the world will not be content until all others are dead. All these men who learn the martial arts and drill in their skills, is it not, every one, so as to strike another dead?”

Hu Qingniu gazed at the sky beyond the courtyard, lost in thought a good while, then said, low and grieving, “In my youth I gave myself to the study of medicine, resolved to succour the world and save the living. But the more I saved, the more it went awry. Those whose lives I saved turned their faces round and did me savage harm. There was a youth, in the Miao borderlands of Guizhou,⁶ who had taken the venom of the Golden Silkworm Gu,⁷ a poison beyond all others: the one who takes it cannot but die, and before he dies he passes through every worst agony under heaven. Three days and three nights I went without sleep, and spent all my heart’s blood to cure him. We swore brotherhood, and were as close as flesh and bone, and I gave my own younger sister to him for a wife. Who could have known that later he would murder my sister? And do you know who this man is? To this day he is a famed and towering head of one of the great orthodox schools.”

Zhang Wuji saw the muscles of his face contort, the look on it one of utmost pain, and pity rose in him unbidden. So he has lived through so cruel a thing, he thought. That is what has bred in him this nature of “seeing death and giving no aid.” He asked, “Who is this ingrate with the heart of a wolf and the lungs of a dog?” Hu Qingniu ground his teeth. “He… he is the zhangmen⁸ of the Huashan School,⁹ Xianyu Tong.”¹⁰ Zhang Wuji said, “Why do you not go and settle the score with him?”

Hu Qingniu sighed. “Three times over I have sought him out, and three times been beaten disastrously. The last time I all but lost my life at his hand. This man’s martial arts are formidable, and his cunning is beyond compare. His byname, indeed, is the Divine Strategist, and I am truly no match for him. And being zhangmen of the Huashan School, he has men and power at his back. My Ming Order these past years has been split and scattered, its masters slaughtering one another, each hard put to it to see to himself, with none able to lend a hand. Besides, I am ashamed to beg of others. This wrong, I fear, can never be avenged. Alas, my poor ill-fated sister. Our parents left us while we were still young, and we two, brother and sister, had none but each other to lean on…” At this his eyes glistened with unshed tears.

Zhang Wuji thought, He is not, in truth, a cold and heartless man. Hu Qingniu of a sudden cried out harshly, “What I have said today, you are never to speak of to me again, and should you let it leak to another, I will cure you into a state where you can neither live nor die.” Zhang Wuji had been about to retort with a sharp word or two, but his heart softened all at once, feeling that this man’s lot was no less bitter than his own, and so he said, “Set your mind at rest. I will surely not tell.” Hu Qingniu stroked his hair, and sighed. “Poor child, poor child!” And he turned and went into the inner hall.

From the day of that deep talk with Zhang Wuji, and perceiving besides that the cold poison scattered into the boy’s Sanjiao was in the end past all removing, that even his own profound art could do no more than eke out a few more years of the child’s life, Hu Qingniu’s feeling toward him wholly changed. Though from then on he never again unbosomed to him his own history and heart, he found the boy quick to read a mood and a fine companion in the loneliness of the hills, and so day by day he instructed him in the changes of yin and yang and the five phases within medical principle, and in the arts of prescription, pulse, and acupuncture. Zhang Wuji applied himself with all his heart, and studied most diligently. Seeing how high his aptitude was, and how well he took in particular to such works as the Yellow Emperor’s Canon of the Toad, Xifangzi’s Moxibustion Canon of the Bright Hall, the Sagely Benevolent Prescriptions of the Taiping Era, the ABC Canon of Acupuncture and Moxibustion, and Sun Simiao’s Prescriptions Worth a Thousand in Gold, Hu Qingniu could not help sighing. “With wit and gifts like yours, and having met besides a clear-sighted teacher such as I, one who comes but once in a hundred ages, before you are twenty you should stand shoulder to shoulder with Hua Tuo¹¹ and Bian Que.¹² Only… alas, what a pity, what a pity!”

His unspoken meaning, of course, was this: by the time you have learned the art of medicine, your span of life will be run out, so of what use is all this bitter study? But Zhang Wuji had a purpose of his own within. He was set upon mastering the physician’s high art, so that when next he met Chang Yuchun¹³ he might heal that gravely damaged frame back to what it had been, and so that he might, he hoped, bring Yu Daiyan¹⁴ to walk again without another’s arm to lean on. These were his two great wishes, and could they but be fulfilled, then though his own span were spent thereafter, he would go without regret.

The valley was quiet and without event, and the months and years slipped by. More than two years passed thus, and Zhang Wuji was now fourteen. In those two years Chang Yuchun had come to see him several times, saying that Zhang Sanfeng,¹⁵ hearing how much his condition had mended, was greatly pleased, and had bidden him stay on a while longer in Butterfly Valley that he might be wholly cured. Zhang Sanfeng and his six disciples each sent clothing and articles of use, all saying how they longed for the boy and held him in their thoughts, but that, being of a different order, they could not conveniently come to visit. The seven sent gifts to Hu Qingniu besides, to thank him for the boy’s care. For his grandshifu and his six shibos and shishu¹⁶ Zhang Wuji too pined deeply, and wished he could return to Mount Wudang that very moment to be with them. Chang Yuchun spoke also of tidings from beyond the valley: how of late the Mongols pressed the Han people ever harder, so that the common folk went short of food and clothing, and bandits rose up on every side, with the realm plainly bound for great disorder, and how, at the same time, the strife between those who styled themselves the great orthodox schools and those branded the demonic cult and heretic factions grew fiercer by the day, both sides suffering heavy dead and wounded, and their feud knotting deeper and deeper. Each time Chang Yuchun came to Butterfly Valley he stayed but a few days before leaving again, as one much pressed by the affairs of his order.

One evening, after Zhang Wuji had read a while in Wang Haogu’s medical work This Matter Is Hard to Know, he felt his head grow dull and heavy and a great weariness come over him, and so went at once to bed. Rising the next day, he found his head aching worse than before, and thought to fetch some drug to disperse the wind and cold, but when he came out into the hall, the shadows lay slanting to the west. It was already past midday. He was startled. That was a long sleep indeed. It seems I have fallen ill. He felt at his own pulse, but there was nothing amiss in it, and he was the more alarmed. Could it be that the yin-poison has flared, and my span is run out?

He went to the door of Hu Qingniu’s room, and finding it shut fast, coughed softly. He heard Hu Qingniu say, “Wuji, I am a little out of sorts today. My throat pains me. Read your books on your own.” Zhang Wuji answered, “Yes.” But being anxious for him, he said, “Mister Hu, let me look at your throat, and see whether it is well or no.” Hu Qingniu said, in a low, muffled voice, “There is no need. I have looked in the mirror, and it is nothing grave. I have already taken a dose of cattle-bezoar and rhinoceros-horn powder.”

That evening, when the page-boy carried the meal into the room, Zhang Wuji followed him in, and saw Hu Qingniu lying in bed, his face wasted. Hu Qingniu waved a hand. “Out, quickly. Do you know what illness I have? It is the smallpox!” Zhang Wuji looked at his face and his hands, and there were indeed small red spots upon them. He knew that smallpox, when it breaks out, is a most fearful thing, and that ill tended it may in the worst case cost a life, and in the lightest leave a face pitted with pocks. Hu Qingniu’s medical art was deep, and though he had caught the vile disease he would surely take no lasting harm from it, and yet, in the end, the boy could not help but fear for him.

Hu Qingniu said, “You are not to come into my room again. The bowls and chopsticks, the cups and dishes I have used, must all be boiled in scalding water. You and the page-boys are not to use them among your own.” He mused a moment, then added, “Wuji, you had best leave the valley and lodge somewhere outside for half a month, lest I pass the smallpox to you.” Zhang Wuji said quickly, “There is no need. You are ill. If I keep away, who is to wait upon you? I understand a little more medicine, at least, than these two page-boys.” Hu Qingniu said, “You would do better to keep your distance.” But though he urged it a long while, Zhang Wuji would by no means agree. In these years the two had lived together morning and night. And odd though Hu Qingniu’s temper was, a bond of feeling had grown up of itself between teacher and pupil, and besides, to flee at the moment of another’s peril went hard against Wuji’s nature. Hu Qingniu said, “Very well, then, but on no account are you to come into my room.”

Three days passed thus. Morning and evening Zhang Wuji paid his respects from beyond the door, and heard that Hu Qingniu, though hoarse of voice, was hearty enough in spirit, and ate indeed a greater quantity than was his wont, so that the boy reckoned there was no danger. Each day Hu Qingniu called out the names and measures of his medicines, and the page-boy brewed them and passed them in to him.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, Zhang Wuji sat in the thatched hall reciting a chapter of the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon, the “Great Treatise on Regulating the Spirit to the Four Seasons,” and came to the words: “Therefore the sage does not treat the sickness that has come, but the sickness not yet come, and does not order the disorder that is, but the disorder not yet come. Such is the meaning. To dose the great illness only after it is formed, to set right the disorder only after it is formed, is like digging a well when one is already thirsty, or forging one’s weapons when the battle is already joined: is it not too late?” He could not help nodding to himself. These few sentences are truly well said. To dig one’s well only when thirst is on one, to forge one’s blade only when the blow is about to fall. These are indeed too late. To put down a rising only after the realm has fallen into disorder, though quiet be restored, the vital strength is already gravely harmed. In treating illness too one should set to work before the sickness has broken out. But Mister Hu’s smallpox is an affliction taken from without, and there is no treating it before it comes. And he thought too of those lines from the Canon’s “Great Treatise on the Correspondences of Yin and Yang”: “The good healer treats the skin and hair. The next, the flesh. The next, the sinews and vessels. The next, the six bowels. The next, the five viscera. To treat the five viscera is a matter of half death and half life.” And he thought, A fine physician, seeing an illness first put forth its shoots, should set about it there and then. Once the disease has entered the five viscera, there is but half a hold upon its cure. And as for one like me, whose yin-poison has scattered through the very viscera and bowels, that is far more than half death: it is nine parts death to one of life.

Just as he was marvelling at the ancients’ penetration, and grieving anew for himself, he heard, faint and far, the drum of hooves come sounding in from beyond the valley, and before long they had reached the outside of the hut, and a man’s clear voice called out, “A fellow of the wulin¹⁷ would see the Healing Sage, Mister Hu, and beg the venerable one to cure his hurts.”

Zhang Wuji went to the door. Outside stood a swarthy-faced fellow leading three horses. On each of two of them a man lay slumped, the blood dark upon their clothes, plainly gravely hurt. The fellow had a strip of white cloth bound about his head, and it too was soaked with blood, and his right arm was slung from his neck in a bandage, by the look of it, no light wound of his own.

Zhang Wuji said, “You have come at an unlucky hour. Mister Hu is himself ill, and keeps to his bed, and cannot serve you. You had best seek another master of the art!” The fellow said, “We have galloped several hundred li.¹⁸ Our lives hang by a breath, and rest wholly upon the Healing Sage to save us.” Zhang Wuji said, “Mister Hu has taken the smallpox, and the illness is a grievous one. This is the plain truth, and I would not for the world deceive you.” The fellow said, “We three are gravely wounded this day, and without the aid of the Butterfly Valley Healing Sage we shall assuredly die. I must trouble the Young Brother to carry word in, and let us hear what Mister Hu will command.” Zhang Wuji said, “If it is so, may I ask your honoured names?” The fellow said, “Our three mean names are not worth the telling. Only say that we are disciples of Xianyu, the zhangmen of the Huashan School.” And with those last words his body swayed and reeled, past all holding up, and of a sudden his mouth fell open and he spat out a great gout of blood.

Footnotes

1. 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. ↩

2. 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. ↩

3. 同身寸 – tóngshēn cùn. The body-cun of Chinese medicine: a proportional unit scaled to the patient rather than a fixed length, one cun being the width of his own thumb at the knuckle. Acupoint positions are given in it, so it does not convert to inches. A fen is a tenth of a cun. ↩

4. 明教 – Míngjiào. 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. 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. ↩

6. 贵州 – Guìzhōu. Province in the mountainous southwest of China, home to many of the Miao people. See Wikipedia. ↩

7. 金蚕蛊 – Jīncán Gǔ. Golden Silkworm Gu, a venom of the southwestern borderlands; the poisoned suffer terribly and cannot survive. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 掌门 – zhǎngmén. Literally the one who holds the gate. Head of a martial arts school or order, holding its authority and its transmission. Zhǎng means to take charge of or preside over. Mén means gate, and by extension the school itself. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 华山派 – Huàshān Pài. Huashan School, a martial school based upon Mount Hua, one of China’s Five Sacred Mountains. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 鲜于通 – Xiānyú Tōng. Zhangmen of the Huashan School, styled the Divine Strategist (神机子) for his cunning. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 华佗 – Huà Tuó. Legendary physician and surgeon of the late Han dynasty, celebrated for his miraculous cures. See Wikipedia. ↩

12. 扁鹊 – Biǎn Què. Famed physician of antiquity, revered as a founding figure of Chinese diagnostic medicine. See Wikipedia. ↩

13. 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. ↩

14. 俞岱岩 – Yú Dàiyán. His name meaning “Lofty Cliff of Mount Dai.” Third of the Seven Xias of Wudang, crippled years before. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

16. 师叔 – shīshū. Junior lineage uncle. Shidi or shimei of one’s shifu. Shī means teacher. Shū means father’s younger brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

17. 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. ↩

18. 里 – lǐ. Traditional Chinese unit of distance, approximately 500 metres or a third of a mile. ↩