The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre Chapter 13 Part 2

Hu Qingniu¹ went on, “She had always been gentle and yielding to me, deep in feeling and true in faith. In all the world you could not find her equal. Yet these graceless, contentious acts of mine, so wounding to my beloved wife, I committed one after another. Even were she made of clay, clay too has some temper in it. At last I understood how gravely wrong I had been, and swore a solemn oath: whomever she had poisoned, never again would I show off my skill to cure. Day by day, month by month, my sobriquet ‘the One Who Leaves the Dying Unhelped’² spread abroad.

“My wife, seeing that I knew my fault and could mend it, that I was not past saving, forgave me. But a few years after I had turned over a new leaf, I met with a case of poisoning most bizarre, past all imagining, uncanny in the extreme. At a single glance I judged that none but my wife could possess the skill and cunning to lay such a poison, and much as I admired it, I resolved to fold my hands and let it be. Yet the man’s affliction was so strange that, after some days of bitter forbearance, I lost my self-command at last and cured him.

“My wife, for her part, did not quarrel with me. She only said, ‘Good! Hu Qingniu, the Medicine Immortal³ of Butterfly Valley,⁴ has a divine touch in healing indeed. But I, Wang Nangu⁵ the Poison Immortal,⁶ will not concede. Let us match ourselves once more, and see whether the Medicine Immortal’s healing is the higher, or the Poison Immortal’s poison the fiercer.’ I hastened to apologise with all my heart, put myself to cruel penance, beat and battered myself, to no avail, of course. I cut myself with a knife and pricked myself with an awl to show my repentance, but how could such rancour be swallowed? The truth was that this time she had laid the poison not out of any grudge against the man, but because she had newly worked out a marvellous, subtle method of poisoning that ought to have been past all cure, and had tried it on him, only for me, by a fluke, blundering blindly, to heal him. I showed not the least tenderness for my beloved wife. Was I even a man?”

“In the years that followed, she gave herself to the study of poison-craft, laying poison in others for me to cure. The two of us matched ourselves without cease. For one thing, her poison-craft was marvellous, and my medicine sometimes reached its limit. For another, I was unwilling to anger her further, and so, when a few attempts failed to cure, I would leave off. But this angered my wife the more. She said I looked down on her, deliberately yielding, not contending with my full strength, and in her wrath she left Butterfly Valley and would not, for anything, return.

“After that I no longer acted rashly, but healing is the love of my very nature, and that craving I could by no means give up. Whenever I met a strange sickness or a curious poison, I could only set my hand to it. Little did I think that among those I cured, some had still been struck by my wife, only her methods were so deft that no trace of her hand showed, and I, unable to detect it, muddleheadedly healed the newcomers. And so, inevitably, the love between husband and wife was gravely wounded. Aiya. I, Hu Qingniu, ought by rights to be renamed Hu Chunniu, the ‘Stupid Ox.’ That a woman like Nangu should lower herself to marry me was a blessing earned over who knows how many lifetimes, yet I knew not how to serve her, how to cherish her, forever provoking her anger, until in the end I drove her from home to wander the ends of the earth and suffer the bite of wind and frost. And the hearts of men upon the jianghu⁷ are treacherous. The venomous and cruel are everywhere. How could I rest easy, with her a lone, frail woman abroad?” By this point his face wore the very look of self-reproach and lament.

Ji Xiaofu⁸ cast a glance at Wang Nangu lying on the couch and thought to herself, This Madam Hu is styled the Poison Immortal. Who under heaven could out-poison her? If she would but harm a few people fewer, that would be the greatest of blessings, and all would give thanks to heaven and earth. Who would dare come to harm her? That Mister Hu should dread his wife like a tiger, it is truly laughable.

Hu Qingniu went on, “So I swore a solemn oath: I would treat no one who was not of the Ming Order,⁹ lest I unwittingly spoil Nangu’s painstaking handiwork. For you must know that my wife and I are both of the Ming Order, and its brothers and sisters Nangu would on no account touch.”

Ji Xiaofu and Zhang Wuji¹⁰ exchanged a glance, both thinking: So this is why he treats none but those of the Ming Order.

Hu Qingniu resumed, “Seven years ago, an old couple who had taken a deadly poison came to Butterfly Valley to seek a cure. These were the masters of Spirit Snake Island¹¹ in the East Sea, the Golden Flower Granny¹² and Master Silver Leaf.¹³ The two of them came most punctilious in their courtesies, but the Golden Flower Granny, whether by design or not, let slip a stroke of her art, and at the sight of it my heart quailed within me. I dared not refuse to treat them outright, yet think: having found my way back from error and bitterly reformed, how could I offend again? So I felt their pulses and said, ‘By the pulse-signs of you both, aged though the old master of the island and his lady are, your pulses are no different from those of people in the prime of life. This must be the fruit of surpassing neili.¹⁴ That the aged should carry so vigorous a pulse, I meet for the first time in my life.’ The Golden Flower Granny said, ‘You are most discerning, sir.’ I said, ‘The poisonings of you two differ. For the old master of the island there is no cure, but he has some years of life remaining. The old lady’s poisoning is not deep, and she may heal herself by her own neili.’

“I asked after the one who had laid the poison, and learned it was an old foreign monk of the Western Regions¹⁵ in the service of the Mongols, no concern of my wife’s. But having said that I would treat none but the disciples of the Ming Order, I could make no exception even for these two. The Golden Flower Granny promised me a most handsome reward, begging only that I save the old island-master’s life. Yet mindful of the bond between husband and wife, I still folded my hands and turned away. The old couple, remarkably, used no force against me, but departed in silent dejection. As she left, the Golden Flower Granny said only this: ‘Heh heh, the Ming Order, the Ming Order. So it is all for the Ming Order after all!’ I knew well that my refusal to heal poison and injury had made me no few grudges and no end of enemies. But the love between my wife and me is deep. I could not, in the end, wound our married bond for the sake of unconnected strangers. Do you not think I was right?”

Ji Xiaofu and Zhang Wuji held their peace, little inclined to endorse his doctrine of “leaving the dying unhelped.”

Hu Qingniu went on, “Of late my wife had word abroad that Master Silver Leaf’s poison had taken his life, and that the Golden Flower Granny meant to come and make trouble for me. This was no small matter. Deep in her love, my wife hurried home to face the powerful foe at my side. Finding a stranger in the house, she first drugged Wuji into a night’s stupor.”

Understanding dawned on Zhang Wuji, and inwardly he was startled: That night I slept clean through to the following afternoon, so it was Madam Hu’s sleeping-drug, and I fancied myself merely ill. This Poison Immortal wounds a man all unawares, without the least warning sign, formidable beyond compare indeed.

Hu Qingniu continued, “I was overjoyed at my wife’s sudden return. She had me feign that I had caught the smallpox, so as to see no outsiders, and the two of us kept to our room, searching our minds for a means to withstand the Golden Flower Granny. This elder is a person of such surpassing power that flight was utterly impossible. Within a few days, Xue Gongyuan,¹⁶ Jian Jie,¹⁷ Miss Ji, and the rest of you, fifteen in all, arrived one after another.

“The moment I heard how you were hurt, I knew the Golden Flower Granny meant to test me, to see whether I would truly keep my word and treat no outsider save the disciples of the Ming Order. Fifteen of you, bearing fifteen strange wounds and rare afflictions, and I, Hu, love physic as my very life. Let me but see one such curious injury and I cannot keep my hands off it, let alone fifteen kinds together. But I understood the Golden Flower Granny’s design too: heal but a single one, and the cruel vengeance she had prepared for me would be a hundredfold the worse. So, itch as my heart did past all scratching, still I folded my hands and let it be, until Wuji came to ask me the way to treat them, and then I told it. But I took particular care to make plain that Wuji is a disciple of the Wudang Order,¹⁸ with no connection whatever to me, Hu Qingniu.

“When Nangu saw that Wuji’s treatments, following my direction, took marked effect, she grew displeased again, and each night stole poison secretly into everyone’s food, drink, and medicine, meaning, of course, to carry on her contest with me. And there was kindness in it too, a wish to shield me: for were Wuji to cure these fifteen of their strange ailments, the Golden Flower Granny would surely lay the blame on me. These fifteen are every one of them able fighters of the wulin.¹⁹ How could she come to each one’s side to lay poison without their taking alarm? The truth is she first drugged them all into a stupor, and then, at her leisure and unhurried, applied her marvellous poison-craft to each in turn. Such consummate skill has never been seen before, and, I fear, will never be seen again.”

Ji Xiaofu and Zhang Wuji exchanged a glance, and only now understood why, when Zhang Wuji had gone into Ji Xiaofu’s thatched shed, he had had to shove hard at her shoulder before she would wake.

Hu Qingniu resumed, “These past days Miss Ji has been mending very fast, which showed plainly that Nangu’s poison was taking no effect. Once she looked into it, she realised that Wuji had discovered her secret, and so she meant to work her venom on Wuji as well. Aiya, as the old saying goes, rivers and mountains are easily changed, but a man’s nature is hard to alter. I, Hu Qingniu, am after all not faithful to my beloved wife through and through. I had been resolved to keep my hands off, but last night, when Wuji came to urge me to travel away and avoid the coming calamity, his manner was so earnest, treating me truly as his own kin, that my heart softened, and I wrote out a prescription after all, naming this and that: angelica, rehmannia, polygala, siler, pubescent angelica.²⁰ Only, as Nangu was then at my side, I could not speak plainly.

“But Nangu is clever beyond measure, and knows the properties of drugs. Hearing that the prescription ran contrary to all sense, she pondered it a little and saw through the trick within. She bound me up, took several deadly poisons herself, and said, ‘Shige,²¹ you and I have been husband and wife more than twenty years. Though the seas run dry and the stones crumble, this love will not change. Yet you have always scorned my poison-craft: whatever poison I lay, you are sure to cure it. This once I have taken a deadly poison myself. Cure me now, and I shall truly submit to you.’ I was frightened out of my wits, admitted defeat over and over, and pleaded without end, but she stuffed a great walnut into my mouth so that I could not speak. What followed, you already know.” And he shook his head again and again.

Ji Xiaofu and Zhang Wuji looked at each other, torn between vexation and laughter. So strange a couple was surely rare under heaven. That Hu Qingniu’s love for his wife should turn to dread was one thing, but that Wang Nangu should be so bent on overmastering her husband that in the end she would not scruple to test the poison on her own body.

Hu Qingniu went on, “Think of it. What am I to do? If this time I heal her with all my care, that only proves my skill has bested hers, and she will be wretched all her life long. But if I fail to heal her, she goes to her death. Aiya! I can only hope the Golden Flower Granny comes soon and beats me dead with one blow of her staff, and so spares Nangu her grief. What is more, her poison-craft has advanced so greatly these last years that I cannot make out in the least what poison she has taken, and of how to cure it, still less can I say.” He spoke very loudly, as though he meant every word to reach clearly the ears of his wife lying on the bed.

“Sir,” said Zhang Wuji, “your medical art is divine. Can you truly not tell, even by examining her, what poison Shimu²² has taken?”

“Your Shimu’s craft with poison has of late reached a pitch past all art,” said the physician. “This time, do what I may, I cannot cure her. I guess she may have taken the deadly poison of the three vermin and three herbs,²³ but how the six venoms are compounded, that I cannot for the life of me make out.” As he spoke, he stretched out the forefinger of his right hand, dipped it in tea, and wrote a prescription on the table. Wang Nangu was lying on her side, her face turned inward, and could not see him writing with his finger. Hu Qingniu at once wiped away the wet marks on the table and waved his hand. “Go out, the two of you. If Nangu dies, I too shall on no account live on alone.”

“Please take care of yourself, and comfort Shimu with kind words,” said Ji Xiaofu and Zhang Wuji in one voice.

“Comfort her with what?” said Hu Qingniu. “It is all my fault, all deserving of death! And since I deserve death, then let me die soon.” By these words his voice was thick with sobs. Ji Xiaofu and Zhang Wuji withdrew at once.

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. 见死不救 – jiàn sǐ bù jiù. “The One Who Leaves the Dying Unhelped.” Hu Qingniu’s jianghu sobriquet, earned by his refusal to treat any whom his wife had poisoned. ↩

3. 医仙 – yīxiān. Medicine Immortal, Hu Qingniu’s epithet, honouring his all-but-miraculous skill in healing. ↩

4. 蝴蝶谷 – Húdié Gǔ. Lit. “Butterfly Valley.” The secluded valley home of Hu Qingniu, on the shore of Nüshan Lake in northern Anhui. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 王难姑 – Wáng Nángū. Wife of Hu Qingniu, styled the Poison Immortal. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 毒仙 – dúxiān. Poison Immortal, Wang Nangu’s epithet, honouring her unrivalled mastery of poisons. ↩

7. 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. ↩

8. 纪晓芙 – Jì Xiǎofú. Her name meaning “Dawn Hibiscus.” A disciple of the Emei Order, once betrothed to Yin Liting of Wudang. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 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. ↩

10. 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. ↩

11. 灵蛇岛 – Língshé Dǎo. Spirit Snake Island, in the East Sea; the stronghold of the Golden Flower Granny. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 金花婆婆 – Jīnhuā Pópo. Golden Flower Granny, the mysterious hunchbacked old woman whose plum-blossom golden flowers strike from her prayer-beads. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 银叶先生 – Yínyè Xiānshēng. Master Silver Leaf, husband of the Golden Flower Granny and co-master of Spirit Snake Island. ↩

14. 内力 – nèilì. Literally internal force. Kinetic manifestation of cultivated qi; generates tangible effects such as deflecting weapons or scaling walls. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 西域 – Xīyù. Literally western regions. Frontier territories west of Yumen Pass, encompassing the lands beyond China proper where various ethnic groups and small kingdoms existed. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

16. 薛公远 – Xuē Gōngyuǎn. Disciple of the Huashan School under Xianyu Tong. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

17. 简捷 – Jiǎn Jié. Bald elder of the Kongtong School, styled the Sacred Hand Sangharama (圣手伽蓝); 伽蓝 (Sanskrit saṃghārāma) is a Buddhist temple, and 伽蓝神 its guardian spirit. Epithet casts him as a temple-guardian of divine skill. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

18. 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. ↩

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. The five herbs named, 当归 (dāngguī, Chinese angelica), 生地 (shēngdì, rehmannia root), 远志 (yuǎnzhì, polygala root), 防风 (fángfēng, siler root), and 独活 (dúhuó, pubescent angelica), make up an seemingly ordinary prescription whose hidden reading was meant to carry Hu Qingniu’s true message. ↩

21. 师哥 – shīgē. The same relation as 师兄, in the colloquial register. Used here by Wang Nangu as an affectionate address to her husband. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

22. 师母 – shīmǔ. Wife of one’s shifu. Shī means teacher; mǔ means mother. ↩

23. 三虫三草 – sān chóng sān cǎo. Three vermin and three herbs; a compound poison made from three venomous creatures and three poisonous plants. ↩