The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 15 – Part 5

Zhang Wuji's whole body burned with pain, and he was near fainting. He clenched his teeth and forced himself upright by sheer will, yet his mind remained clear. Hearing Zhu Changling's words, he felt a deep admiration and thought, *He distinguishes right from wrong. That is what a true man of xia¹ ought to be.* Zhu Changling's face was yellow with anger, his whole frame trembling, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Wei Bi and the other two kept their eyes on the ground, unable to meet his gaze.

Zhang Wuji saw that half of Zhu Jiuzhen’s fair face was swollen high, plainly her father’s palm strike had landed heavy. Seeing her shameful, frightened look, on the verge of tears yet afraid to cry, biting her lower lip, he said, “Master, this was not the young miss’s doing.” The words had barely left his mouth before he startled himself, for his voice was hoarse, barely audible, the result no doubt of Wei Bi’s blow to his throat.

Zhu Changling said, “This young brother’s fistwork has no form or method to it. Clearly he has never properly apprenticed to learn martial arts. He fought to the death on sheer grit alone, which makes him all the more worthy of respect. Yet the three of you bullied a man who cannot fight. Have you forgotten half the teachings of your parents and masters?” His sharp rebuke spared neither Wei Bi nor Wu Qingying. Zhang Wuji, hearing it, felt only greater unease.

Zhu Changling then asked how Zhang Wuji had come to the manor and why he wore a servant’s clothes. As he questioned, he ordered servants to bring medicinal salve and bone-setting paste for both Zhang Wuji and Wei Bi. Zhu Jiuzhen knew her father would be furious, but dared not conceal the truth. She told how Zhang Wuji had sheltered a young monkey, how the pack of hounds had torn at him, and how she had rescued him and brought him to the manor.

The more Zhu Changling heard, the deeper his frown grew. When his daughter had finished, he barked, “This Brother Zhang showed great compassion in saving the monkey. And you treated him like a servant? When this spreads through the jianghu,² every hero and brave man will say that I, Zhu Changling, known as ‘World-Shaking Brushstroke’,³ am a man without honour or righteousness. I thought you kept those savage hounds for sport, and that was bad enough. But to set them on a man? If I do not beat you to death today, how shall I, Zhu Changling, ever show my face among the wulin⁴ again?”

Zhu Jiuzhen saw that her father was truly enraged. She dropped to her knees and said, “Father, your daughter will never dare again.” Zhu Changling’s fury still raged. Wei Bi and Wu Qingying knelt together to plead for her.

Zhang Wuji said, “Master…” Zhu Changling hurried to cut him off, “Young brother, how can you call me Master? I am merely a few years your senior. Call me Senior,⁵ and that will be quite enough.” Zhang Wuji said, “Very well, Senior Zhu. But this matter is not the young miss’s fault. She truly did not mean it.”

Zhu Changling said, “You see? A child of his years, and already such breadth of heart. How do the three of you compare to him? It is the first day of the new year, and Young Miss Wu is our guest. I ought not to lose my temper. But this behaviour was utterly wrong, the conduct of a base villain from the black path,⁶ not the actions of those who walk the righteous way. Bi’er, you were wrong today as well. Since the young brother pleads on your behalf, you may all rise.” Wei Bi and the other two rose, their faces hot with shame.

Zhu Changling turned to the servant who tended the hounds and barked, “Where are those savage dogs? Let them all out.” The servant obeyed and released the pack. The hounds crouched low, jaws gaping, fangs bared, slobber dripping from their maws, their looks ferocious.

Zhu Jiuzhen, seeing her father’s expression, could not guess his purpose and called softly, “Father.” Zhu Changling sneered. “You raised these savage dogs to hurt people. Very well. Call your dogs to bite me then.” Zhu Jiuzhen wept, “Father, your daughter knows her fault.”

Zhu Changling snorted and stepped into the pack of hounds. Four sharp cracks rang out, and four great wolfish hounds lay with shattered skulls, dead where they fell. The onlookers stood frozen, speechless. Zhu Changling punched and kicked, chopped and thrust, his blue robe a flicker as he circled the yard, and in moments all thirty-odd fierce dogs lay slain. Not one had time to bite back or flee. That he slew them so swiftly was partly because the hounds had not received Zhu Jiuzhen’s command and were taken unawares, but his fists moved like lightning and his palm-force was terrifying indeed. Wei Bi, Wu Qingying and Zhang Wuji watched, agape and unable to speak.

Zhu Changling carried Zhang Wuji in his arms to his own quarters to recover. Before long, Madam Zhu and Zhu Jiuzhen came to tend to him with medicines and broth. Zhang Wuji had lost much blood from the hounds’ earlier attack and was already weak. This new beating left him unconscious for several days. When he came to, he wrote out a prescription for his own recovery and had the medicines brewed. Only then did he begin to mend swiftly. Zhu Changling, seeing his skill with medicines, was astonished and delighted in equal measure.

Throughout the twenty-odd days of his recovery, Zhu Jiuzhen often sat by his bedside, singing songs and telling stories, like an elder sister tending a younger brother, attentive to his every need.

When Zhang Wuji was well enough to rise, Zhu Jiuzhen still spent half of each day with him. When she practised martial arts with her father, she did not exclude him but had him watch. Zhu Changling twice hinted that he wished to take Zhang Wuji as a disciple and pass on all his arts. But the boy gave no sign of wishing to apprenticed himself, and after that Zhu Changling spoke no more of it. He treated him with the utmost warmth, as one of his own household. The Zhu family’s martial arts were tied to calligraphy, and Zhu Jiuzhen practised her characters daily. She had Zhang Wuji study alongside her. Ever since leaving the Ice Fire Island for the Central Plains, Zhang Wuji had known only hardship and sorrow. When had he ever known such ease and happiness?

The days passed swiftly to the middle of the second month. On this day, Zhang Wuji and Zhu Jiuzhen sat in the small study, copying calligraphy models side by side. The maidservant Xiaofeng entered and announced, “Young Miss, Young Master Yao the Second has returned from the Central Plains.”

Zhu Jiuzhen was delighted. She flung down her brush and cried, “At last! I have waited half a year for him, and only now does he come.” She took Zhang Wuji’s hand. “Wuji, come, let us see if Second Uncle Yao bought everything I asked for.” The two walked hand in hand towards the main hall. Zhang Wuji asked, “Who is Second Uncle Yao?” Zhu Jiuzhen said, “He is my father’s sworn brother, known as Yao Qingquan the Thousand-Li Wind-Chaser.⁷ Last year my father asked him to travel to the Central Plains to deliver gifts. I begged him to buy me rouge and powder and silk from Hangzhou, embroidery needles and patterns from Suzhou, and also brushes from Huzhou and ink from Hui, rubbings and books. I wonder if he got everything.” She explained that the Zhu Manor lay deep in the Western Regions by the Kunlun Mountains, where fine goods could not be bought for several thousand li. The Kunlun Mountains were ten thousand li from the Central Plains, and a round trip took two or three years. When someone was bound for the heartland, Zhu Jiuzhen would naturally commission him to bring back a great many necessities.

As they approached the hall, they heard a sound of weeping and wailing. Both were startled. Entering, they were more astonished still, for Zhu Changling and a tall, thin middle-aged man were kneeling on the ground, embracing and sobbing. The man wore white mourning clothes, a rope of straw knotted at his waist. Zhu Jiuzhen went to him and called, “Second Uncle Yao!” Zhu Changling cried aloud, “Zhen’er, Zhen’er! Our great benefactor, Fifth Master Zhang… Fifth Master Zhang… he… he… is dead!” Zhu Jiuzhen cried, “How can that be? Was not Benefactor Zhang lost for ten years and only recently returned in safety?”

Yao Qingquan sobbed, “We live too far from the heartland, and news travels slowly. It seems Fifth Master Zhang took his own life with his wife more than four years ago. I had not yet reached Wudang Mountain when I heard the news on the road through Shaanxi. Only when I climbed the mountain and met Song the First Xia⁸ and Yu the Second Xia⁹ did I learn the full truth. Alas…”

Zhang Wuji grew more alarmed with every word, and by the end had no doubt at all. Their great benefactor Fifth Master Zhang could only be his own father, Zhang Cuishan. Seeing Zhu Changling and Yao Qingquan weep so bitterly, and Zhu Jiuzhen’s eyes brimming with tears, he could hardly restrain himself from revealing his true identity. But a second thought stayed him: I have kept silent about myself until now. If I speak the truth today, Senior Zhu and Sister Zhen will most likely not believe me. They will suspect I am a fraud, trading on a dead man’s name to claim their gratitude, and I shall be diminished in their eyes.

Before long, they heard loud weeping from the courtyard. Madam Zhu, supported by a maidservant, came out into the hall and pressed Yao Qingquan for details. Yao Qingquan, in his grief and anger, forgot even to salute his sworn sister-in-law and at once recounted how Zhang Cuishan had taken his own life. Zhang Wuji restrained himself from crying aloud, but the tears rolled down his cheeks unchecked. Everyone in the hall was weeping. No one noticed him.

Zhu Changling suddenly raised his palm and with a crash smashed half of the eight-immortal table beside him to splinters. “Second Brother, tell me plainly, who were the men who drove our benefactors to their deaths on Wudang Mountain?”

Yao Qingquan said, “When I first learned the news, I ought to have hurried home at once to report to our eldest brother. But I thought it more important to learn the names of our enemies. Those who drove Fifth Master Zhang to his death on Wudang Mountain numbered many, starting from the three great divine monks of the Shaolin Order and all below them. I went from place to place making quiet enquiries, and that was what delayed me.” He named them all: from the Shaolin, Kongtong and Emei orders, and from the Haisha School, Jujing Guild, Shenquan School, Wushan Gang and other factions, all who had climbed Wudang Mountain to press Zhang Cuishan: Abbot Kongwen,¹⁰ Great Master¹¹ Kongzhi,¹² He Taichong, Jingxuan Shitai,¹³ Guan Neng, and others.

Zhu Changling sighed, “Second Brother, every one of these men is among the finest fighters in the wulin today. Not one of them could we take on alone. But Fifth Master Zhang’s kindness to us is as heavy as a mountain. Even if we are ground to dust, we must avenge him.”

Yao Qingquan wiped his tears. “Eldest Brother speaks true. Our lives were saved by Fifth Master Zhang. We have lived these ten-odd years on borrowed time. We may as well give them back to him. What grieves me most is that I never met Fifth Master Zhang’s son. Had I done so, I could have conveyed our regards. It would be best to invite him here and spend our remaining days in his service.”

Footnotes

1. 侠 – xiá. A martial artist who upholds righteousness and protects the weak. The ideal of the jianghu. ↩

2. 江湖 – jiānghú. Literally rivers and lakes. The itinerant world beyond settled society and official reach, holding not only martial artists but the trades that travel with them. ↩

3. 惊天一笔 – Jīngtiān Yī Bǐ. Literally World-Shaking Brushstroke. Zhu Changling’s epithet, referencing his skill with the writing brush. ↩

4. 武林 – wǔlín. Literally martial forest. The community of martial artists and their factions. ↩

5. 前辈 — qiánbèi. A senior of the martial generations. Term of respect for one of higher standing or longer experience in the jianghu. ↩

6. 黑道 — hēidào. The black path. The underworld of thieves, bandits, and those who live by predation rather than honour. ↩

7. 千里追风 — Qiānlǐ Zhuīfēng. Literally Thousand-Li Wind-Chaser. Yao Qingquan’s epithet, referencing his swift qinggong. ↩

8. 宋大侠 — Sòng Dàxiá. Song Yuanqiao, the eldest of the Seven Xias of Wudang. Daxia is a title of respect for a renowned martial artist. ↩

9. 俞大侠 — Yú Dàxiá. Yu Lianzhou, the second of the Seven Xias of Wudang. ↩

10. 空闻 — Kōngwén. Abbot of Shaolin Monastery, one of the Four Holy Monks. ↩

11. 大师 – dàshī. Great Master. An honorific title for a monk of high cultivation. ↩

12. 空智 — Kōngzhì. One of the Four Holy Monks of Shaolin, known for his fiery temper. ↩

13. 静玄师太 — Jìngxuán Shītài. A senior nun of Emei Order. Shitai is an honorific for an esteemed Buddhist nun. ↩