The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 15 – Part 10

Wu Lie said, "That boy must be hiding in the woods. He cannot have fled far." Zhu Changling[^zhuchangling] hastened to cut him short. "Ah, I do not know what offence Zhen'er said to offend Brother Zhang. I fear that at his tender age, if anything should befall him amongst these snow-bound mountains, I would dash myself to pieces and still not deserve the debt I owe Benefactor Zhang." His words sounded as though his heart were being torn with worry and self-reproach ran deep. Zhang Wuji[^zhangwuji] heard and felt his hackles rise. *His plot has not yet died,* he thought. *He is still trying to lure me out with fine words.*

The two of them each took up a wooden staff and beat their way through the long grass. Zhang Wuji lay curled into a ball, not daring to stir. The grove was broad, however, and they could not beat every corner of it. Before long Wei Bi¹ and the Twin Beauties of the Snowy Ridge² arrived. The five of them searched the woods for some time, but could find nothing, and at last, weary and spent, they sat down upon the rocks to rest. In truth the spot where they sat lay no more than fifty or sixty feet from where he hid, but the dense trees and tall grass concealed him wholly from sight.

Zhu Changling reflected for a moment, then suddenly raised his voice and shouted, “Zhen’er, what did you say to offend Brother Wuji that he slipped away in the dead of night without a word?” Zhu Jiuzhen³ started. Zhu Changling shot her a sharp glance.

Zhu Jiuzhen took the hint at once and cried aloud, “I was only teasing him and struck his acupoint on a whim. Who would have thought Brother Wuji would take it to heart?” With that she called out in a ringing voice, yet still soft and seductive, brimming with temptation: “Brother Wuji, Brother Wuji, come out quickly! Your Sister Zhen owes you an apology!” She called for a while, but receiving no answer, she suddenly began to weep. “Father, do not beat me. Do not beat me. I did not mean to offend Brother Wuji.” Zhu Changling slapped his own thigh hard, the sound cracking through the air, and bellowed in feigned fury. Zhu Jiuzhen kept up a ceaseless wailing, as though her father were beating her beyond endurance. Wu Lie, Wei Bi and Wu Qingying⁴ watched from the side with hidden smiles.

Zhang Wuji knew full well it was a performance between father and daughter, yet hearing that voice, his heart ached despite himself. It is fortunate I already knew you were putting on an act to trick me, he thought. Otherwise, hearing her shriek so piteously, I could not have kept from stepping out. The pair had calculated that Zhang Wuji lay hidden within the grove, and one cursed while the other wailed, their voices growing ever more piercing. Zhang Wuji pressed his hands to his ears, yet the sounds still reached him in waves. At last he could contain himself no longer and released a long, slow breath. Zhu Changling and Wu Lie detected it at once and shouted in unison, “There he is!” Startled, Zhang Wuji burst through the trees and ran. The two men leapt into the air and lunged after him.

Death had long since been his resolve. Without a moment’s hesitation, he ran straight towards the chasm a hundred thousand feet deep. Zhu Changling’s qinggong⁵ far surpassed his own, and by the time he reached the brink of the gorge, Zhu Changling was already upon his back, reaching out to seize him.

A piercing pain shot through Zhang Wuji’s back. Zhu Changling’s right hand had closed upon his spine with five fingers of iron, and at that very instant his foot found nothing beneath it. Half his body was already over the abyss. His left foot followed, and his whole frame pitched forward into the void.

Zhu Changling had never imagined the boy would cast himself from the cliff. Tugged by his weight, he too lurched forward. With decades of martial cultivation behind him, had he released his grip at once and leapt back, his life would have been safe. But he knew that the moment his five fingers loosened, the Dragon-Slaying Dao⁶ and the supremacy over the wulin⁷ it promised would be lost to him for ever, and the two months of careful scheming, the splendid manor now reduced to ash, would all vanish with that single loosening of his grasp.

He hesitated for an instant, but Zhang Wuji’s fall did not slacken. “No good!” cried Zhu Changling, reaching back with his left hand to clasp Wu Lie, who had rushed up from behind. Yet his fingers missed by about a foot, and still his right hand would not release its hold upon Zhang Wuji.

The two of them tumbled from the cliff together, plunging towards the floor of the gorge, a hundred thousand feet below. The cries of Wu Lie and Zhu Jiuzhen and the others echoed from above, then in a moment were swallowed by the mist. They burst through the clouds that filled the valley and continued to fall.

Zhu Changling had faced many perils in his life and did not lose his nerve in crisis. The wind roared past him and his body plunged ceaselessly downward. Now and then a branch protruded from the cliff face, and he would reach out with his left hand to grasp it. Several times he missed by several feet. At last his fingers closed upon one, but the force of their fall was too great. The branch could not bear the strain. A sharp crack sounded, and an arm-thick bough of pine snapped outright. Yet even that brief check gave him purchase, and he braced his feet against the rock, wrapping himself about the pine trunk in the posture called the Black Dragon Coiling Round the Pillar. He hauled Zhang Wuji up and laid him sideways across the branch, then seized his arm for fear the boy would leap again to his death.

Zhang Wuji, seeing he could not escape that grasp after all, despaired utterly. Bitterly he said, “Uncle Zhu, no matter how you torment me, no matter how you demand I lead you to my sworn father, you may forget it. Ten thousand times, no.”

Zhu Changling turned himself about and settled upon the branch. He gazed upward, but neither Zhu Jiuzhen nor any of the others could be seen, nor could their voices now be heard. For all his skill and boldness, the memory of that near-death shook him, and cold sweat beaded his brow. He composed himself and said with a smile, “What are you talking about? I do not understand a word. Do not let wild fancies mislead you, and do not mistake my good intentions.” Zhang Wuji replied, “Your schemes have been laid bare. It is all for nothing. Even if you forced me to Ice Fire Island,⁸ I would point this way and that at random, and we should all perish in the great sea together. Do you think I would not dare?”

Zhu Changling considered, The boy speaks truth enough. I cannot fall out with him now. I must work through my daughter and devise some fresh plan. He surveyed their surroundings. Climbing upward was plainly impossible, and below remained fathomless. The only course was to crawl along the slope of the mountain wall towards where the sunlight fell. To Zhang Wuji he said, “Little Brother, do not harbour such baseless suspicions. In sum, I would never force you to seek Xie daxia.⁹ If I did such a thing, may I, surnamed Zhu, be pierced by ten thousand arrows and left without so much as a grave.” He swore this heavy oath not idly, but because he saw the boy would sooner die than yield, and so no amount of force would serve. Only by luring him into willing cooperation lay any hope.

Zhang Wuji heard him swear so solemnly and felt his heart ease a little. Zhu Changling said, “Let us crawl slowly out from here. You must not leap down, do you understand?” Zhang Wuji replied, “If you will not force me, why should I seek death of my own accord?” Zhu Changling nodded, drew out a short dao, stripped bark from the pine and twisted it into a cord. He bound one end about his own waist and the other about Zhang Wuji’s. The two of them crept along the snow-covered slope, hands and knees to the ground, step by step, towards the sunlight.

The cliff was already precipitous, and the frozen ice made it treacherous beyond measure. Twice Zhang Wuji slipped, and both times Zhu Changling hauled hard on the cord to keep him from tumbling into the gorge below. Zhang Wuji felt no gratitude. You only want the Dragon-Slaying Dao, he thought. You are not saving me out of kindness.

They crawled for a long while, their elbows and knees laid raw by the sharp ice, until at last the slope eased and they could rise to their feet and stagger onward. When at length they rounded the great screen-like wall of rock, Zhu Changling cried out in despair. Before them stretched a boundless sea of cloud. No path remained. They stood upon an exalted platform open to the sky on three sides, a dead end in the air. The platform stretched over a hundred feet across, yet it hung suspended in emptiness: no way up, no way down. A death-trap in truth. The great platform lay white with ice and snow, barren of tree or beast.

Zhang Wuji laughed instead. “Uncle Zhu, you spent all your cunning only to end up stranded on this dangling ledge. Even if I handed you the Dragon-Slaying Dao this moment, and you commanded the world, there would be only me who dared defy you!”

Zhu Changling snapped, “Talk nonsense no more!” He sat cross-legged, swallowed a mouthful of snow, and circulated his neili¹⁰ to rest for a while. I am weary, he thought, but my strength still holds. If I starve another day here, I fear escape will be beyond me. He rose and said, “Our path forward is cut off. Let us go back and search for a way out on the other side.” Zhang Wuji replied, “But I find this place rather pleasant. Why go back?” Zhu Changling said angrily, “There is nothing to eat here. What is the point of staying?” Zhang Wuji smiled. “Better still for abstaining from mortal food. It suits a man cultivating the Dao.”

Rage boiled in Zhu Changling’s heart, but he knew that pressing the boy too hard might send him leaping from the cliff. “Very well, rest here a while. When I have found a way out, I will come back for you. Do not go near the edge, or you will fall.” Zhang Wuji said, “My life or death, what need have you to concern yourself so? You are still dreaming of my leading you to Ice Fire Island. Spare yourself the trouble.”

Zhu Changling gave no reply, but turned and retraced his path. At the great pine he struck off to the left. The terrain on that side was yet more perilous, but free of Zhang Wuji he moved swiftly, climbing or walking as the ground allowed. After more than half a shichen¹¹ he reached a cliff-edge. No way forward. He stood at the brink and sighed long and heavy, then after a long, dazed stillness, returned to the platform dejected.

Zhang Wuji needed no questions. One look at his face told him no exit had been found. I was struck by the Xuanming Divine Palm,¹² he thought. The venom will not yield. By my reckoning, my time draws short no matter where I die. Only he had good fortune and would not enjoy it, dreaming instead of supremacy over the wulin, and now he must starve beside me in this frozen waste. Pity and sorrow both!

At first he had loathed Zhu Changling for his cunning and cruelty, and after their fall from the cliff he had still mocked him. But now that every escape was cut off and Zhu Changling hung his head in defeat, pity rose in him instead. He spoke gently, “Uncle Zhu, you are old now. You have enjoyed every glory and pleasure a man may know. Were you to die this moment, what regret would you carry? Do not grieve.”

Zhu Changling had humoured Zhang Wuji all along, unwilling to abandon hope of tricking him at last into leading the way to Ice Fire Island. But now that all escape was sealed, and they owed their plight wholly to this boy, how could he swallow his bitterness? His eyes seemed to blaze with fire, and he glared at Zhang Wuji with savage fury.

Zhang Wuji saw the kindly, gentle elder he had known transformed in an instant into some fierce and cruel beast, ready to spring and tear him apart. Terror seized him. He shrieked, leapt to his feet and ran. Zhu Changling shouted, “Is there anywhere to run here?” He reached to grab him from behind, resolved to torment him to the utmost, to make him suffer every agony before he killed him.

Zhang Wuji slipped a step forward and saw on the left-hand wall of rock a dark opening that might be a cave. Without a thought he thrust himself inside. A tearing sound came, and a strip of his trouser-leg was ripped away. His thigh was scored by Zhu Changling’s claws. He stumbled deeper into the hole, his head crashing against the stone, so that sparks danced before his eyes. He knew Zhu Changling had now cast all pretence aside, and would stop at no cruelty. In his panic he drove himself deeper into the darkness, with no thought left for whether the cave might prove a trap from which even the man’s malice could not reach him. Fortune favoured him: the passage narrowed the further in he crawled. After over a hundred feet, he could barely fit his body, and Zhu Changling could squeeze in no more.

Zhang Wuji crawled on several feet further and saw, to his joy, light filtering ahead. Hands and feet both working, he pressed forward faster. Behind him Zhu Changling, frantic and furious, cried, “I am not coming to harm you. Stop!” But Zhang Wuji paid him no heed.

Zhu Changling summoned his neili and struck the rock wall with his palm. The stone was harder than anything he had known. The blow jarred his palm to the bone, yet the cliff showed not so much as a scratch. He drew his short dao and attempted to pry the rock loose and widen the mouth. In his desperation he drove too hard, and after a few strokes the blade snapped in two with a sharp crack. In his frenzy Zhu Changling surged forward with his shoulders, forcing his body some half a foot ahead. Yet to advance another half foot was wholly beyond him. The unyielding stone pressed against his chest and back until he could scarce draw breath.

Suffocating, he tried to push back, but his body, wedged in the rock, could move neither forward nor retreat. Terror overcame him. Summoning every ounce of strength, he thrust with both arms against the stone. His body shifted back a mere half foot, and then a sharp agony tore through his chest. A cracking sounded, and one of his ribs snapped clean.

Footnotes

1. 卫璧 – Wèi Bì. Son of Wei Wu’ya and Lady Xue, cousins of the Wu family. A young martial artist of the Western Regions. ↩

2. 雪岭双姝 – Xuělǐng Shuāngshū. The Twin Beauties of the Snowy Ridge, an epithet for Zhu Jiuzhen and Wu Qingying. ↩

3. 朱九真 – Zhū Jiǔzhēn. Daughter of Zhu Changling, of the Zhu Family Manor in the Western Regions. Her name Jiuzhen means Nine Truths. ↩

4. 武青婴 – Wǔ Qīngyīng. Niece of Wu Lie, and one of the Twin Beauties of the Snowy Ridge. ↩

5. 轻功 – qīnggōng. Literally lightness skill. The martial art of body lightness; practitioners leap great heights and move with extraordinary speed. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 屠龙刀 – Túlóng Dāo. The Dragon-Slaying Dao. One of the two supreme treasures of the jianghu, forged from the Heavy Iron Sword and said to contain a supreme martial-arts manual. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 武林 – wǔlín. The martial forest; the community of martial artists and their factions. ↩

8. 冰火岛 – Bīnghuǒ Dǎo. Literally Ice Fire Island. A remote volcanic island in the far east where Zhang Cuishan, Yin Susu and Xie Xun were stranded for ten years. ↩

9. 谢逊 – Xiè Xùn. One of the Four Guardian Kings of the Ming Order, known as the Golden Haired Lion King. Zhang Wuji’s sworn father. ↩

10. 内力 – nèilì. Internal force. The kinetic manifestation of qi cultivated through neigong. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 时辰 – shíchén. A traditional Chinese unit of time, equal to two hours. The day was divided into twelve shichen. ↩

12. 玄冥神掌 – Xuánmíng Shénzhǎng. The Xuanming Divine Palm. A lethal palm technique infused with cold yin energy, capable of inflicting a slow and agonising death. ↩