The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 15 – Part 2
Translation by Jenxi Seow
Zhang Wuji could not suppress a cry of horror at the cruel spectacle, yet the dog had already crouched down to tear at the flesh it held in its jaws. He collected himself and saw at last that the man was a dummy stuffed with leather, its vital points hung about with strips of meat. The girl called out again, “General of Chariots and Cavalry! The lower belly!” A second fierce dog sprang forward and bit at the dummy's lower belly. These dogs had been trained with care. They attacked at the command, their mouths striking the appointed places without the least error.
Zhang Wuji started. He recognised at once that these were the very hounds that had savaged him in the mountains days before, and a moment’s recollection brought the voice that had checked them rushing back to him too. He had believed until this instant that the young mistress had saved his life. Only now did he understand that all his suffering had been her doing. Rage flooded his breast. Enough, enough, he thought. She has her pack of hounds, and there is nothing I can do against her. I would rather have died in those barren hills than nursed my wounds beneath her roof. He tore the bandages from his body, flung them on the ground, and turned to leave.
Qiaofu1 called out, “Oi, oi! Where are you off to? This is the young mistress, you know. Come kowtow at once!”
Zhang Wuji spat. “Kowtow to her? The hounds that tore me to pieces were raised by her, weren’t they?”
The girl turned her head. Seeing the fury on his face, she smiled faintly and beckoned. “Little brother, come here.”
Zhang Wuji found himself looking full at her, and his heart began to hammer. Her face was lovely, her skin white and fine as porcelain. A humming filled his ears. A chill crept up his back. His hands and feet trembled of their own accord. He lowered his head at once, not daring to look at her any longer, and the bloodless pallor of his cheeks flushed scarlet in an instant.
The girl laughed. “Come here, then.”
Zhang Wuji lifted his eyes and caught hers, those liquid, shining eyes, and a haze stole over his mind. Without willing it, his feet carried him slowly forward.
The girl smiled. “Little brother, are you angry with me, then?”
Angry? After all he had suffered beneath the claws and teeth of her hounds, how could he not be angry? But standing before her now, he caught the fragrance of orchids on her breath, one sweet scent drifting after another, until he felt himself nearly swooning. How could he speak of anger? He shook his head. “No.”
The girl said, “My surname is Zhu, and my name is Jiuzhen.2 And you?”
“I am Zhang Wuji.”
“Jiuzhen, Jiuzhen!” Zhu Jiuzhen mused. “What a refined name. You must come from a good family, little brother.” She pointed to a low stool beside her. “There. Sit here.”
This was the first time in Zhang Wuji’s life that the beauty of a woman had struck him with such force. Had Zhu Jiuzhen told him to leap into a pit of fire, he would have plunged in without a moment’s hesitation. To be bid to sit beside her filled him with a joy past words, and he seated himself with the utmost reverence. Xiaofeng3 and Qiaofu exchanged a glance. That the young mistress should show such favour to a filthy, stinking urchin was beyond their reckoning.
Zhu Jiuzhen called out again in her sweet voice, “General Who Turns Back the Chariots! The heart!” A great dog bounded forth and lunged at the dummy. But the meat at the dummy’s heart had already been torn away by an earlier hound, and so this one ripped a strip from beneath the dummy’s ribs instead and began to eat. Zhu Jiuzhen’s face darkened. “Greedy thing! You disobey me?” She raised her whip, stepped forward, and lashed twice in quick succession. The whip was studded with tiny thorns, and where it fell, two long trails of blood sprang open on the dog’s back. The dog would not release its prize but growled low in defiance.
“You disobey me?” The whip crackled on. The dog rolled across the ground, its body slick with blood. Her wrist was supple and her strokes swift. No matter how the beast leapt and twisted, it could not evade the lashes. At last the dog spat out the meat and lay flat upon the ground, whining piteously. Still Zhu Jiuzhen did not cease, beating it until it lay half-dead, before she said, “Qiaofu, carry it down and dress its wounds.”
“Yes, young mistress!” Qiaofu took the wounded hound out of the hall and handed it to the dog-servants, whose charge it was to tend the pack.
The other dogs, witnessing this, trembled in fear and dared not stir. Zhu Jiuzhen returned to her chair and called again, “General Who Pacifies the Bandits! The left leg! General Who Strikes from Afar! The right arm! General Who Conquers the East! The eyes!” One by one the fierce hounds obeyed, each striking its appointed place without error. Every one of her dozens of hounds bore a general’s title, and she commanded them at her ease, as though she were a great marshal leading her host.
Zhu Jiuzhen turned and smiled at him. “Do you see how base these creatures are? Without a good beating, would they obey?”
Zhang Wuji had suffered greatly beneath those very claws and teeth, yet the sight of the beaten dog stirred his pity. Seeing him silent, Zhu Jiuzhen laughed. “You said you were not angry with me, yet you have not spoken a word. How did you come to the Western Regions? Where are your father and mother?”
Zhang Wuji thought that in his present wretched state, to speak of his Grand Shifu or his parents would shame them both, and so he said, “My parents are dead. I could not remain in the Central Plains, and wandered until I came here.”
Zhu Jiuzhen said, “I shot that monkey. Who told you to hide it inside your robe? You were starving and wanted to eat monkey-meat, didn’t you? And to think you very nearly let my hounds tear you to shreds instead.”
Zhang Wuji flushed and shook his head. “I did not want to eat monkey-meat.”
Zhu Jiuzhen laughed prettily. “You had best not lie to me, at any rate.” A thought seemed to strike her. “What martial arts have you learned? You killed my Left General with a single palm strike and shattered its skull. Your palm-force was very fine.”
Hearing her speak of the hound he had slain, Zhang Wuji felt a pang of guilt. “I was in a panic at the time, and my strike was heavier than I meant. I learned a year or two of fistwork from my father when I was small, but I know no real martial arts.”
Zhu Jiuzhen nodded. “Xiaofeng, take him and wash him. Put him in something presentable.”
Xiaofeng pressed her lips together in a smile. “Yes!” She led him out.
Zhang Wuji lingered reluctantly. At the threshold of the hall he could not help glancing back, only to find Zhu Jiuzhen watching him even then. Her eyes met his, bright and flowing, and she smiled. Shame coloured him to the roots of his hair. His wits scattered, and he failed to see the threshold at his feet. He stumbled and fell flat on his face. His whole body was covered in wounds, and several tore open afresh with the impact. He dared not cry out, but braced himself and clambered up.
Xiaofeng giggled. “Anyone who sets eyes on our young mistress loses his wits. But you’re so young, and already so afflicted?”
Zhang Wuji was burning with embarrassment and hurried on ahead. After a while Xiaofeng laughed. “Are you going to the mistress’s quarters to bathe and change?”
He stopped and looked. Before him hung embroidered gold curtains over a doorway. He had never been in this part of the estate. In his fluster he had taken a wrong turning. That cunning little vixen Xiaofeng had said nothing, letting him blunder all the way here before she mocked him.
Zhang Wuji hung his head, his face crimson, and did not speak.
Xiaofeng said, “Call me Elder Sister Xiaofeng and beg me nicely, and I’ll show you the way out.”
“Elder Sister Xiaofeng…”
Xiaofeng pressed the tip of her right forefinger to her cheek and said with solemn gravity, “Mm? What do you want of me?”
“I beg you, take me out of here.”
Xiaofeng laughed. “That’s better.” She led him back to the small room where he had been nursed and called to Qiaofu, “The young mistress has ordered a bath and clean clothes for him.”
“Yes, yes!” Qiaofu’s reply was respectfully given. Though Xiaofeng was also a servant, her rank was plainly higher than that of the common attendants. Five or six menservants gathered around, each calling out “Elder Sister Xiaofeng” in turn to curry favour. Xiaofeng ignored them with lofty indifference, then turned suddenly and offered Zhang Wuji a curtsy.
He stared. “You… what for?”
Xiaofeng laughed. “You kowtowed to me earlier. I am returning the courtesy.” With that she glided within.
Qiaofu told the other servants how Zhang Wuji had mistaken Xiaofeng for the young mistress and kowtowed to her, embellishing the tale until the menservants roared with laughter. Zhang Wuji went into the room with his head bowed, but he was not angry. He turned Zhu Jiuzhen’s smile, her frown, every word she had spoken, over and over in his heart, savouring each one.
Presently he had bathed, and Qiaofu brought him his change of clothes: a straight-bodied robe of plain blue cloth. A servant boy’s attire. Anger stirred in him. I am no base menial of their household. Why should I wear such things? He put on his own tattered garments instead, each hole showing skin beneath. Then he thought, When the young mistress sends for me, she will be displeased to see me in these filthy rags. And even if I truly were her servant, to be at her bidding, what harm would that be? The notion calmed him at once, and he drew on the servant boy’s robe.
Yet that day the young mistress did not send for him, nor the next, nor for more than ten days running. He did not so much as catch sight of Xiaofeng, much less the young mistress herself. Zhang Wuji remained lost in thoughts of her voice, her laughter, her face. Even the stern set of her brow as she whipped the hounds seemed to him indescribably charming. He longed to go to the rear courtyard on his own, if only to glimpse her from a distance, if only to hear her speak a single word to another, but Qiaofu had warned him more than once: unless summoned by the mistress, he was not to set foot within the inner gate, or the hounds would tear him apart. He recalled the savage looks of the pack, and for all his yearning, he dared not go.
Another month passed. The bones in his arm had knit as before, and the places where the dogs had bitten him had healed, though several scars remained on arm and leg, indelible. Each time he thought of them as the work of the young mistress’s own hounds, a sweetness stole into his heart. Through all these days the cold poison within him still flared every few days, and each flare-up was worse than the last.
One day the poison seized him again. He lay upon his bed, wrapped tight in quilts, his whole body shaking. Qiaofu came in. He had grown used to the man’s visits and took no notice.
“When you are easier, drink a bowl of Laba porridge.4 And this is your New Year’s clothing from the mistress.” Qiaofu set a bundle on the table.
Zhang Wuji endured until past midnight, when the cold poison’s assault at last ebbed. He rose and opened the bundle. Inside was a new-set suit of padded clothes lined with white long-fleece sheepskin. He was pleased, though the cut was again that of a servant boy’s robe. Plainly the Zhu household had made up their mind to keep him as a servant. Zhang Wuji was gentle by nature and took it in his stride, not taking offence. To think I have been here more than a month, and the New Year is almost upon us, he thought. Mr Hu said I had but a year to live. Once this New Year passes, I shall not see a second.