The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 16 – Part 2

Zhang Wuji washed the blood from his hands and from the oilcloth, then opened the bundle. Inside were four thin volumes of scripture, their pages perfectly preserved despite their long years hidden in the ape's belly.

The covers bore strange, twisted characters that he could not read at all. Opening the books, he found them filled entirely with this peculiar script, but between each line, in tiny regular script, someone had written out the common characters in full.

He steadied himself and began reading carefully from the start. The text appeared to be instructions for cultivating qi and guiding it through the body’s meridians. As he read slowly aloud, suddenly his heart jolted. He recognised three lines of scripture he had memorised long ago. They were the “Wudang Nine Yang Skill” that his Grand Shifu and Second Uncle Yu had taught him. But the words that followed were different. He leafed through, and within a few pages found more passages from the “Wudang Nine Yang Skill”, yet sometimes they diverged greatly from what his Grand Shifu and Second Uncle had transmitted.

His heart hammered wildly. He closed the book and sat in thought, What scripture is this? Why does it contain the Wudang Nine Yang Skill? And yet it differs from what our own school teaches? And there is more than ten times as much text besides?

At this, he suddenly remembered the story his Grand Shifu had told him on the journey to the Shaolin Monastery: how Great Master Jueyuan had learnt the Nine Yang Manual, and on his deathbed had recited the scripture aloud. His Grand Shifu Zhang Sanfeng, Guo Xiang,¹ the nüxia,² and Great Master Wuse of the Shaolin Order had each remembered a portion. From that fragment, the Wudang, Emei, and Shaolin Orders had each advanced their martial arts enormously, standing as equals for decades, their fame shaking the wulin.³ He thought, Could this be the Nine Yang Manual that was stolen all those years ago? Of course, Grand Shifu said it was written in the margins of the Lankavatara Sutra.⁴ These twisted characters must be the Sanskrit text of the Lankavatara Sutra. But why is it hidden inside an ape’s belly?

This scripture was, beyond question, the Nine Yang Manual. As for how it had come to be concealed within the ape’s belly, at that time, not a single person in the world knew the truth.

More than ninety years earlier, the thieves Xiaoxiaozi⁵ and Yin Kexi⁶ had stolen this scripture from the Shaolin Monastery’s scripture library. Great Master Jueyuan had pursued them all the way to the summit of Mount Hua. When they saw there was no escape, and a grey ape happened to be nearby, they seized upon a desperate scheme. They caught the ape, cut open its belly, and hid the scripture inside. Later, when Jueyuan, Zhang Sanfeng, Yang Guo, and the others searched Xiaoxiaozi and Yin Kexi thoroughly and found nothing, they let the two men take the ape and leave the mountain.

Afterwards, Xiaoxiaozi and Yin Kexi took the ape far into the Western Regions. Each man feared the other would master the scripture’s martial arts first and kill him, so they held each other in check, neither daring to take the book from the ape’s belly for a long time. In the end, they arrived at Jingshen Peak in the Kunlun Mountains, where the two men set traps for each other and fought until both were mortally wounded. Thus this supreme manual of internal cultivation remained hidden in the ape’s belly.

Xiaoxiaozi’s skill had been slightly superior to Yin Kexi’s, but because he had struck Great Master Jueyuan a blow at the summit of Mount Hua, the recoil of that strike had gravely injured him. When he and Yin Kexi finally fought, Xiaoxiaozi was the first to die. At the point of death, Yin Kexi encountered “The Three Sages of Kunlun,” He Zudao.⁷ His conscience stirred, and he begged He Zudao to travel to the Shaolin Monastery and tell Great Master Jueyuan that the scripture was inside the belly of an ape. But as he spoke, his mind was muddled and his words slurred. He said “the scripture is in the ape” (jing zai hou zhong), but He Zudao heard “the scripture is in the oil” (jing zai you zhong). He Zudao, true to his word, travelled all the way to the Central Plains and repeated these words, “the scripture is in the oil”, to Great Master Jueyuan. Jueyuan could not make head or tail of it, needless to say. The misunderstanding set off a tremendous chain of events, and from it the Wudang and Emei Orders were born.

As for the grey ape, it had been most fortunate. In the Kunlun Mountains it had fed on immortal peaches, nourished by the spiritual energy of Heaven and earth. After ninety-odd years, it could still leap and bound as nimbly as ever, and its fur had turned from black to shining white. It had become a white ape. But the scripture hidden in its belly pressed against its intestines and stomach, causing it frequent pain. The sore on its belly healed and broke out again by turns. Only now, at last, had Zhang Wuji removed the object from its belly. For the white ape, this was the removal of a mortal burden, and it was overjoyed.

All these twists of cause and circumstance, even someone a hundred times cleverer than Zhang Wuji could not have guessed them. Zhang Wuji sat stunned for a while, then, knowing he could never untangle the mystery, he stopped trying. He picked up the great peach the white ape had given him and bit into it. A flood of sweet, fresh juice flowed down his throat, in its own way, as fine as the nameless fruits of the valley.

Zhang Wuji finished the peach and thought, Grand Shifu once said that if I could master the Nine Yang Skill of all three schools, Shaolin, Wudang, and Emei, I might be able to drive out the yin poison within me. All three schools’ Nine Yang Skills are derived from the Nine Yang Manual. If this book truly is the Nine Yang Manual, then practising from it directly would be far better than learning fragments from three different schools. I have nothing else to do in this valley. I’ll study the book. Even if I’ve guessed wrong and the scripture is useless, or even harmful, at worst I’ll only die.

With his mind at peace, he stored three of the four volumes in a dry place, covered them with dry grass, and weighed them down with three boulders too heavy for even the ape to move, fearing the apes might play with the books and tear them to shreds. He kept only the first volume, reading it through several times until he had it by heart, then began to study and practise, starting from the very first line.

He thought, Even if I truly master the divine skill from this scripture and drive out the yin poison, I’m trapped in this valley surrounded by sheer cliffs on all sides. I can never leave. The days stretch long in this hidden valley. Whether I succeed today or tomorrow makes no difference. And if I never succeed, at least I’ll have passed the idle days. With this spirit of “glad if I succeed, content if I fail,” he followed nature’s course and did not force himself. Paradoxically, his progress was swift. In a mere four months, he had fully comprehended and mastered all the techniques in the first volume.

Having completed the first volume, he counted the days: Hu Qingniu’s⁸ predicted deadline for the poison’s fatal outbreak had long since passed. Yet he felt light and strong, his body filled with flowing zhenqi,⁹ without the slightest sign of illness. Even the cold poison that had plagued him so regularly now stirred only once a month or more, and even then only faintly. Soon, in the second volume, he read a line: “Breathing in the Nine Yang, embracing the One, containing the Origin, this book may be called the Nine Yang Manual.” Only then did he know with certainty that this was indeed the precious scripture his Grand Shifu had spoken of so often. Overjoyed, he redoubled his study. The white ape, grateful for his healing, often brought him great peaches, a fine tonic for building the body and restoring vitality. By the time he had practised more than half of the second volume, the yin poison in his body had been driven out utterly, without a trace remaining.

Each day, when not practising, Zhang Wuji played with the apes, free of worry and care. The fruit he gathered, he always divided in two. Half he rolled through the small tunnel to Zhu Changling, to keep the man from starving. But Zhu Changling, confined to his tiny ledge, lived each day as if it were a year. When winter came, the mountains were covered in ice and snow, the wind cut to the bone, and his suffering was beyond description. Though he lived without worldly concerns and his internal skill had improved considerably, his mind was consumed with thoughts of how to capture Zhang Wuji, force him to lead to Xie Xun, seize the Dragon-Slaying Dao, and become the supreme master of the wulin, with all men obeying his commands. His body was still, but his mind raced like a galloping horse through the dust of the world, and so he could never achieve true, superior internal cultivation.

When Zhang Wuji finished the second volume, he no longer feared cold or heat. But the further he progressed, the more profound and mysterious the teachings became, and the slower his advance. The third volume took a full year. The fourth and final volume took more than three years to bring to completion. The scripture’s end noted one final great barrier to pass before the work was truly complete, but this barrier was exceedingly difficult to open. Without a teacher to guide him, he could not find the way through. After trying for several days, he let it go.

He had lived in the snowy valley for more than five years now, growing from a boy into a tall young man. In the last year or two, he had sometimes climbed the cliff walls with the apes in moments of inspiration, gazing out at the world beyond. With the skill he now possessed, scaling the peaks and leaving the valley would have been no great difficulty. But when he thought of how treacherous and cruel the hearts of men could be, a chill ran through him, and he thought, I might as well stay in this beautiful valley until I grow old. Isn’t that well enough? Only when he remembered his Grand Shifu and his uncles did the thought of leaving arise, to go to Wudang Mountain.

That afternoon, he read through all four volumes from beginning to end. Turning the last page, he found the author’s own account of how the scripture had been written. The author gave no name or origin, saying only that he had been Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist in turn, never finding rest in any single path. One day, at Mount Song, he had won a drinking contest against Wang Chongyang, founder of the Quanzhen Order, and in return had been allowed to read the Nine Yin Manual.¹⁰ Though he had deeply admired the manual’s subtle and marvellous martial arts, he found it devoted itself entirely to exalting “the learning of Laozi,” emphasising softness overcoming hardness, yin prevailing over yang. It had not yet grasped the wonder of yin and yang sustaining each other. So in the margins of the four volumes of Sanskrit Lankavatara Sutra, he had written in Chinese the “Nine Yang Manual” that he himself had created. He felt that, compared with the purely yin Nine Yin Manual, his own work better embodied the harmonious Way of yin and yang balanced, hardness and softness sustaining each other.

Zhang Wuji closed the book and reflected, overwhelmed with admiration for this master’s impartial, unprejudiced understanding of martial philosophy. He thought, This should have been called the Yin-Yang Mutual Harmony Manual. To call it the Nine Yang Manual to correct the other’s excess, that is itself one-sided.

In the left wall of the cave, he dug a hole about three feet deep. There he buried the four volumes of the Nine Yang Manual, together with Hu Qingniu’s medical treatise and Wang Nangu’s treatise on poisons, all wrapped in the oilcloth taken from the white ape’s belly. He filled the hole with earth and thought, I received these scriptures from the white ape’s belly, a stroke of extraordinary fortune. Who knows, in a thousand years, might someone else come to this very spot and find all three? He picked up a sharp stone and carved six large characters on the cliff face: “The Place Where Zhang Wuji Buried the Scriptures.”

During his years of practice, his mind had been so fully occupied that he had never felt the loneliness. Now, with his great work complete, he felt a sudden emptiness. And with his divine skill accomplished, his courage had grown. He thought, Even if Uncle Zhu tries to harm me again, I have nothing to fear. I might as well go and have a word with him. So he bent and crawled into the tunnel. When he had entered at fifteen, his body had been small. Now, at twenty, full-grown, he could not fit through the narrow passage. He drew a deep breath, activated the Bone-Shrinking Skill,¹¹ compressing his skeleton until the spaces between his bones narrowed, and slipped through with ease.

Zhu Changling was dozing against the rock wall, dreaming that he had obtained the Dragon-Slaying Dao and was hosting a great banquet at home. Servants bustled about, friends and allies gathered to congratulate him, heroes from every quarter came to pay respects. What glory, what joy! Then he felt someone tapping his shoulder. Startled awake, he opened his eyes and saw a tall figure standing before him. Zhu Changling leapt up, still only half awake, and stammered, “You… you…”

Zhang Wuji smiled, “Uncle Zhu, it’s me, Zhang Wuji.” Zhu Changling felt a surge of astonishment, joy, anger, and hatred. He stared at him for a long while, then said, “You’ve grown so tall. Hmph, why didn’t you come out to speak with me all this time? No matter how much I begged, you never answered.” Zhang Wuji smiled, “I was afraid you’d give me a hard time.”

Footnotes

1. 郭襄 – Guō Xiāng. Her name meaning “襄, a helper.” Foundress of the Emei Order. ↩

2. 女侠 – nǚxiá. A title of respect for a woman martial artist. ↩

3. 武林 – wǔlín. Literally martial forest. The community of martial artists and their world, distinct from but overlapping with the jianghu. ↩

4. 楞伽经 – Lèngqié Jīng. Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, an important Mahayana Buddhist scripture particularly significant to Chan Buddhism. Said to have been brought to China by Bodhidharma himself. See Wikipedia. ↩

5. 潇湘子 – Xiāoxiāngzǐ. A thief who stole the Nine Yang Manual from Shaolin Monastery. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 尹克西 – Yǐn Kèxī. A thief who stole the Nine Yang Manual from Shaolin Monastery alongside Xiaoxiaozi. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 何足道 – Hé Zúdào. Known as “The Three Sages of Kunlun.” A master of the Kunlun School. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 胡青牛 – Hú Qīngniú. Known as “Divine Doctor of Butterfly Valley.” A physician of the Ming Order who taught Zhang Wuji medical skills. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 真气 – zhēnqì. Refined qi produced through internal cultivation, the kinetic manifestation of one’s neili. ↩

10. 九阴真经 – Jiǔyīn Zhēnjīng. Literally Nine Yin True Scripture. Legendary internal cultivation manual emphasising yin energy and powerful martial techniques. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 缩骨功 – Suō Gǔ Gōng. Literally bone-shrinking skill. Technique of the Nine Yang Divine Skill that allows the practitioner to compress the spaces between bones, dramatically reducing body size to pass through narrow openings. ↩