The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 16 – Part 4

By the evening of the fourth day his mind was clear and empty, his body at ease. His legs were still badly injured, yet the divine skill[^jiuyangshen] he practised seemed to have advanced once more. All around lay hushed and still, when suddenly the barking of dogs came from afar, drawing nearer with each cry. Several fierce hounds were chasing some wild beast. Zhang Wuji started. Could they be the fierce dogs Sister Jiuzhen keeps? he thought. No, her hounds were all killed by Uncle Zhu long ago... But years have passed since then, and she could well have raised another pack.

He gazed out across the snow. A man was running towards them at full speed, three great hounds baying at his heels. The fellow was clearly spent. He stumbled and lurched, falling with every few steps, yet terror of the hounds’ fangs drove him on. Zhang Wuji remembered how he himself had once been besieged by a pack of dogs, and hot blood surged in his breast.

He wanted to help, but his legs were broken and he could not move. A long, piteous cry rang out: the man had fallen, and two of the hounds were on him at once, tearing at his flesh. Zhang Wuji shouted in anger, “Vile dogs, come here!” The three great hounds heard a human voice and bounded over. Sniffing, they found no familiar scent, and after a few furious barks lunged to bite. Zhang Wuji stretched out a finger and flicked each hound on the nose. The three beasts rolled over at once and lay still, dead on the spot. He had not expected to kill them so easily with a single flick each, and he felt both wonder and delight at the power of the Nine Yang Divine Skill.

The fallen man’s moans were faint. “Brother, are you badly hurt by those dogs?” Zhang Wuji called.

“I… I… I’m done for… I…” the man gasped.

“My legs are broken and I cannot walk. Please try to crawl over to me, and I will look at your wounds.”

“Yes… yes…” The man struggled forward, panting, crawling a little, resting, crawling again. When he was some ten feet from Zhang Wuji he gave a cry and collapsed face-down in the snow, unable to move another inch.

Between them lay that distance, one who could not go and the other who could not come. “Brother, where are you wounded?” Zhang Wuji asked.

“I… my chest, my belly… the vile dogs have torn my belly open and pulled out my entrails.”

Zhang Wuji was aghast. A belly laid open and entrails spilled meant death beyond recall. “Why were those dogs chasing you?” he asked.

“I… I was out at night driving off wild boar, so they wouldn’t trample the crops. I… I saw the Zhu family’s eldest daughter and… and a young master talking beneath a tree. I shouldn’t have gone close to look… I…” A long sigh, and no more sound came.

Though the man’s words were unfinished, Zhang Wuji had guessed eight or nine parts in ten. Most likely Zhu Jiuzhen and Wei Bi had slipped out in the night for a secret tryst, and this farmer had stumbled upon them. Zhu Jiuzhen had then set her hounds on him. He was still seething with anger when the sound of hooves came near, and a long whistle rang out, Zhu Jiuzhen calling her pack.

Two riders drew close, a man and a woman. The woman cried out suddenly, “Eh! How come General Pingxi and all the rest are dead?” It was Zhu Jiuzhen. She still gave each of her fierce hounds a general’s title, as she always had. Riding beside her was Wei Bi. He leapt from his horse and stared in astonishment, “Two men lie dead here!”

Zhang Wuji made up his mind. If they mean to harm me, I cannot afford mercy.

Zhu Jiuzhen saw the farmer lying with his entrails spilled, his death a hideous sight. Zhang Wuji’s clothes were torn to rags, his hair wild, his face matted with beard, his body still upon the ground. Doubtless the hounds had bitten him to death as well. Eager to resume her conversation with Wei Bi, she had no wish to linger. “Cousin, let us go! These two mud-legs fought to the death and killed three of my generals besides.” She wheeled her horse and rode west. Wei Bi found the three hounds lying dead and thought it odd, but with Zhu Jiuzhen already cantering away he had no time to examine the bodies. He vaulted into his saddle and followed.

Zhang Wuji heard Zhu Jiuzhen’s bright laughter fading into the distance, and anger rose in him. A little more than five years ago he had worshipped her as though she were a goddess. Had she pointed a little finger, he would have climbed a blade-mountain or plunged into a cauldron of oil without a moment’s hesitation. Yet now, seeing her again, he could not tell why the hold she once had on him had vanished without a trace. He supposed it was the Nine Yang Manual¹ he had been studying, or perhaps the discovery of her treacherous and cruel nature, that had so altered his feelings. He did not know that most young men and women pass through just such a muddled first love, wasting sleep and meals over a single person of the opposite sex, ready to live or die by them. The passion comes swiftly and goes swiftly too. Later, when the mind has cleared, one can hardly help laughing at one’s own former folly.

His belly was rumbling with hunger. He was minded to tear a leg from one of the dead hounds and eat it raw, but he feared Zhu Jiuzhen and Wei Bi might return at any moment, discover him alive and that their generals were dead, and attack him in anger. With his legs broken, he could not be sure of defending himself.

The next morning a vulture spotted the bodies of man and hounds below, circled several times in the sky, and swooped down to feed. This vulture too was fated to die. Instead of attacking the corpses, it chose to pounce at Zhang Wuji’s face. Zhang Wuji reached up, seized the vulture by the neck, and with a slight squeeze crushed its life out. “A breakfast flown down from the heavens indeed!” he said gladly. He plucked the feathers, tore off a leg and began to gnaw. Raw though it was, four days of hunger made it savoury. He had not finished the first vulture when a second swooped down. He fed on vulture flesh and vulture blood, which seemed somewhat more civilised than eating a dead hound.

He lay in the snow tending his injuries, waiting for the bones to mend. Day after day passed, and not a single soul appeared across the wilderness. At his side lay three dead hounds and one dead man, but the deep-winter cold kept the corpse from rotting, and he had long grown used to solitude, so he did not find it hard.

That afternoon he had finished a circuit of neigong² and looked up to see two vultures wheeling in the sky above, circling and circling, never daring to descend. Presently one swept down, coming within some three feet of him before veering away and climbing again. The turn of its flight was superb to behold. A thought struck him: If that turning could be used in martial arts, an enemy would find it hard indeed to guard against a sudden strike. Even if the first assault missed, drifting lightly away would leave the foe no chance to counter.

The Nine Yang Manual he practised was purely internal cultivation and the principles of martial study. It held not a single move of attack or defence. Thus long ago, even though the great master Jueyuan³ had mastered a body of divine skill, he had been all thumbs when attacked by Xiaoxiangzi and He Zudao, unable to raise the slightest defence. Zhang Sanfeng⁴ too had needed Yang Guo to teach him four moves to his face before he could stand against Yin Kexi. Zhang Wuji had studied martial arts since childhood, and his foundation was far deeper than either Jueyuan’s or Zhang Sanfeng’s in their youth. Yet what Xie Xun had taught him was chiefly the essence of fist technique, not any practical move by move.

Only now did Zhang Wuji truly understand his sworn father’s care. Xie Xun’s martial arts were vast and profound. Had he taught them in orderly stages, twenty years would not have sufficed to finish. Seeing that their time together was short, he had chosen instead to teach him the principles of every supreme art, so that Zhang Wuji might come to understand them on his own in days to come. The only fist technique Zhang Wuji had truly learnt was the thirty-two moves of Wudang Long Fist his father had taught and drilled into him on the raft. He knew that from now on, apart from continuing to study the Nine Yang Divine Skill and striving yet further, his task was to weave the supreme internal cultivation he had already mastered into the martial arts Xie Xun had passed on. And so whenever he saw flowers drift to earth, or strange trees straining skyward, or the movement of birds and beasts, the shifting of wind and cloud, his thoughts turned at once to martial technique.

He was hoping the vultures above would continue their circling and reveal more postures, and was watching intently, when he heard the soft crunch of footsteps in the snow afar, light and small, like a woman’s.

Zhang Wuji turned his head. A woman was approaching at a brisk pace, a bamboo basket in her hand. She saw the human corpse and the hounds’ carcasses in the snow, cried “Eh!” in surprise, and halted.

He looked more closely. She was a girl of seventeen or eighteen, a village poor-woman with a thorn hairpin and a cloth skirt. Her face was dark, her skin swollen and pitted, plain in the extreme, yet her eyes held a bright spirit, and her figure was slender and lithe.

The girl stepped nearer and saw Zhang Wuji watching her with open eyes. She started slightly. “You… you’re not dead?”

“I don’t think so.”

A nonsensical question, a droll reply, and at the thought of it both could not help laughing.

The girl smiled. “If you’re not dead, what are you doing lying here without moving an inch? You gave me a fright, you know.”

“I’m sorry to have startled you! I fell from a mountain and broke both my legs, so I’ve no choice but to lie here.”

“Is that man your companion? And why are there three dead dogs as well?”

“Those three dogs were fierce indeed. They bit this brother to death, but ended up as dead dogs themselves.”

“And what will you do, lying here? Are you hungry?”

“Hungry, naturally. But I can’t move, so I can only leave it to heaven.”

The girl smiled faintly and took two wheat cakes from her basket, holding them out to him. “Many thanks, miss.” He took them, but did not eat.

“Are you afraid my cakes are poisoned? Then why not eat?”

Through the five years and more, Zhang Wuji had exchanged no more than a few words at a time with Zhu Changling across the cave, a truly dismal existence. Apart from that he had not had the chance to speak so much as a single sentence to another soul. Now, though the girl was plain of face, her words were witty and he felt cheered. “They’re cakes you’ve given me, miss. I can’t bear to eat them.” The words carried a touch of playfulness. He had always been honest and earnest, never glib, yet in this girl’s presence his heart was light and at ease, and the words slipped out before he could stop them.

The girl’s face flushed with anger. She snorted. Zhang Wuji repented at once and snatched up a cake to bite into. He ate so hastily he choked and broke into a fit of coughing. The girl’s anger turned to mirth. “Thank heavens, choke to death, you ugly thing! You ugly fright is no good sort, no wonder heaven is punishing you. Why was it no one else broke their dog-legs, but only you?”

Zhang Wuji thought, I’ve gone five years without a shave or a haircut, so of course I’m an ugly fright. But you’re no great beauty yourself. We’re six of one and half a dozen of the other, so we’ve no business casting stones. Yet he dared not say so aloud. Instead he answered solemnly, “I’ve been lying here nine days. It’s a rare thing to see someone pass by, and you’ve given me cakes as well. Truly, I thank you.”

The girl pressed her lips together and laughed. “I’m asking you, why was it no one else broke their dog-legs, but only you? Answer me, or I’ll take my cakes back.”

Footnotes

1. 九阳真经 – Jiǔyáng Zhēnjīng. Literally Nine Yang True Scripture. A legendary internal cultivation manual hidden within the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, emphasising yang energy and balanced development. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 内功 – nèigōng. Internal cultivation; the refinement of qi through meditation and breathing exercises. Distinct from 外功 (waigong), external techniques. ↩

3. 觉远 – Juéyuǎn. A monk of Shaolin Monastery who, though never formally trained in martial arts, stumbled upon the Nine Yang Manual and mastered its principles to an extraordinary degree. ↩

4. 张三丰 – Zhāng Sānfēng. Founder of the Wudang Order and one of the greatest martial artists of his age. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩