The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 19 – Part 5

Zhang Wuji thought to himself that Yang Xiao and the Five Unbound Adepts¹ did not seem the sort to break their word. Only Wei Yixiao was cause for concern, so he asked, “Senior Wei,² what do you say?” Wei Yixiao's voice trembled as he spoke. “For the moment we can only try to save our own skins. I will spare him for now. Next time we meet, we will fight it out… you die… I live.” By the time he reached those four words, he was gasping for breath. Zhang Wuji said, “That settles it, then. Bright Messenger,³ Green Winged Bat King, and the Five Unbound Adepts, all seven of you are heroes and brave men of this age. How could you break your word to a man? Master Yuanzhen, this Junior is about to offend you.” With that, he shuffled towards Yuanzhen.

He was inside the sack, and each step could carry him forward no more than a foot or so, but after a dozen steps he at last reached Yuanzhen. The sight of a great cloth sack inching slowly across the floor would have been comical under any other circumstance, but at this moment every man’s life hung by a thread, and nobody laughed.

Zhang Wuji listened to Yuanzhen’s breathing. When he was roughly two feet away he stopped and said, “Master Yuanzhen, this Junior is acting for the sake of both sides. Please don’t hold it against me.” Slowly, he raised his hand.

Yuanzhen gave a bitter smile. “I cannot move a limb. I can only let you young folk do as you please.”

Ever since Hu Qingniu,⁴ the Butterfly Valley Medical Immortal, passed away, Zhang Wuji’s skill at locating acupoints had been without rival in the world. Though the cloth of the sack lay between his fingers and Yuanzhen’s body, his index finger found the Yutang⁵ acupoint with not the slightest deviation. The Yutang acupoint sits on the chest, a little over two inches below the Zigong acupoint and a little over two inches above the Tanzhong acupoint, on the renmai.⁶ It is not a fatal acupoint, but it lies directly on the pathway through which qi must pass. Block it, and the entire body’s zhenqi is thrown into disarray.

Suddenly Yang Xiao, Leng Qian and Cannot Tell all cried out, “Oh no! Pull your hand back, quick!”

Zhang Wuji felt his right index finger jolt. A current of cold shot from the fingertip through his body like lightning, and at once he was cold from head to toe. He heard Zhou Dian and the Iron Crown Adept⁷ burst into furious curses. “You stinking thieving bald-pate! How dare you play such a dirty trick!” Zhang Wuji trembled all over, but he understood at once. Yuanzhen, though unable to shift his feet, had somehow managed to raise a finger and hold it just before his own Yutang acupoint. Zhang Wuji, trapped inside the sack, could not see the ruse. His fingertip met Yuanzhen’s through the cloth, and the Phantom Shadow Finger’s⁸ icy force poured through the sack and into his body.

Yuanzhen had concentrated every last dreg of his remaining neili⁹ into his fingertips. The moment the two fingers touched, he went utterly limp. His face turned green, stiff as a corpse.

Eight masters had lain injured and unable to move in the hall. Now Zhang Wuji made nine.

Zhou Dian was the most hot-tempered of them all. Though his words came in gasping fragments, he still insisted on cursing the thieving Shaolin bald-pate for his treachery and shamelessness. Yang Xiao and the others, however, thought differently. Yuanzhen could hardly be blamed. An enemy had been reaching for his acupoints, and he had raised a finger in self-defence. There was nothing improper in that.

Yuanzhen was exhausted to the point of death, yet secretly pleased. The boy could not have much neili at his age. After taking a full strike of the Phantom Shadow Finger, he would likely be dead within half a day. Yuanzhen’s own scattered zhenqi ought to re-congeal within a shichen,¹⁰ and then everything would be back in his hands, as it should be.

The hall fell silent once more. After half a shichen, the four candles guttered out one by one, and the great hall was plunged into darkness.

Yang Xiao and the rest heard Yuanzhen’s breathing shift from ragged gasps to a steady rhythm, from coarse and heavy to slow and deep. His zhenqi was re-congealing. Yet whenever any of them tried the faintest circulation of neili, the ice-cold force of the Phantom Shadow Finger invaded their dantian¹¹ and they could not help but shudder. Despair deepened by the moment. They suffered unbearably. Some even found themselves wishing Yuanzhen would recover his power quickly and despatch them each with a single blow, rather than leave them to this endless torment. Leng Qian and Zhou Dian simply closed their eyes and waited for death. That was straightforward enough for them. Cannot Tell and Peng Yingyu were more troubled. Both were ordained monks, yet paradoxically the most worldly of their company, the most concerned with the people’s suffering, the most devoted to saving the nation and bringing peace to the realm. Now the situation was beyond salvage. They would die at Yuanzhen’s hands, and all their lifelong ambitions would be swept away like water.

Cannot Tell said, his voice full of sorrow, “Peng the Monk, all we have ever schemed and plotted for is to drive out the Mongol tartars and save the people from their misery. Who would have thought it would all come to nothing in the end? I suppose the millions of common folk under heaven have not yet exhausted their share of suffering. There is more bitterness ahead for them yet.”

Zhang Wuji was holding a pool of warm qi in his dantian against the Phantom Shadow Finger’s cold, and he heard Cannot Tell’s every word with perfect clarity. He could not help but wonder: “Drive out the Mongol tartars? Could the infamous Demonic Cult¹² truly concern itself with the welfare of the common people?”

He heard Peng Yingyu reply, “Cannot Tell, I have said it many times before. We cannot drive out the Mongol tartars by the Ming Order’s strength alone. We must rally the heroes and brave men of all the world and struggle together if we are to succeed. Your shixiong¹³ Bang Hu and my shidi Zhou Ziwang, their uprisings of old were magnificent in their sweep, yet in the end they collapsed in total ruin. Was that not for want of allies on the outside?”

Zhou Dian bellowed, “Death is at the door, and you two thieving bald-pates are still arguing about who was right! One says the Ming Order must lead, the other says we must court the orthodox factions. In my Zhou Dian’s opinion, it is all bullshit, all fart! Our own Ming Order is split apart and rudderless, and we can barely lead ourselves. Lead what fart? And Peng the Monk wants to court the orthodox factions, that is the stinkiest fart of all, the supreme fart among farts! The six great factions are busy besieging and destroying us even as we speak, and you want to court them? What fart!”

The Iron Crown Adept broke in, “If Order Leader Yang were still alive, we would have beaten those six factions into submission long ago. Why worry about them refusing our orders?” Zhou Dian laughed aloud. “That Daoist stinker’s cow-fart stinks worse than anything! If Order Leader Yang were alive, naturally everything would be easy. Who doesn’t know that? What is the point of your saying… ow… ow…” He opened his mouth to laugh, and his scattered breath gave way. The Phantom Shadow Finger’s cold force surged into his heart and lungs, and he could not cry out.

Leng Qian said, “Enough.” The moment those two words left his lips, every man in the hall fell silent.

Zhang Wuji’s thoughts were in turmoil. “There is far more to this Ming Order than simple villainy.” He spoke aloud, “Master Cannot Tell, what is your Order’s true purpose? Might you tell me?”

Cannot Tell said, “Ha! You are not dead yet, then? Little brother, you have thrown away your life for our Ming Order without knowing why, and we are very sorry for it. You have only a few shichen left to live in any case, so the Order’s secrets would do no harm if told to you. Mr Cold-Face, what say you?” Leng Qian said, “Tell.” He ought to have said, “You tell him yourself,” condensing six words into one.

Cannot Tell said, “Little brother, our Ming Order traces its origins to Persia and was brought to the Central Plains during the Tang Dynasty. It was then called the Xuan Religion.¹⁴ The Tang emperors decreed the building of Great Cloud Brightness Temples¹⁵ throughout the realm as our Order’s places of worship. Our Order’s teachings are these: do good and root out evil; all beings are equal; if one has gold, silver or wealth, one must succour the poor. Our cultists eat no meat and drink no wine. We worship the Bright Lord.¹⁶ The Bright Lord is the God of Fire, and also the God of Goodness. Because the corrupt officials of successive dynasties have oppressed our Order, the brothers have often risen in rebellion. Since Order Leader Fang La of the Northern Song,¹⁷ there have been more uprisings than one can count.”

Zhang Wuji had heard of Fang La, and knew him as one of the Four Bandits of the Northern Song’s Xuanhe era, ranked alongside Song Jiang, Wang Qing and Tian Hu. “So Fang La was your Order’s leader?”

Cannot Tell said, “Indeed. During the Jianyan era of the Southern Song, Order Leader Wang Zongshi rose up in Xinzhou. During the Shaoxing era, Order Leader Yu Wupo rose up in Quzhou. During the Shaoding era under Emperor Lizong, Order Leader Zhang Sanqiang rose up in Jiangxi and Guangdong. Because our Order has always stood against the court and its officials, the court has branded us the ‘Demonic Cult’ and outlawed us without mercy. To survive, we have had to act in secret and use cunning to evade their agents. The orthodox factions and our Order have been locked in enmity for generations, each side irreconcilable as water and fire. And of course, among our own cultists there have been those who lacked self-restraint and committed evil, some who used their martial arts to slaughter the innocent, some who raped and plundered. And so the Ming Order’s reputation has sunk ever lower, like the waters of a great river in flood…”

Yang Xiao broke in coldly, “Cannot Tell, are you speaking of me?” Cannot Tell said, “My name is Cannot Tell. Things that cannot be told, I do not tell. Each man knows his own deeds. As the saying goes, a mute eating wontons knows the count in his belly.” Yang Xiao snorted, and said no more.

Footnotes

1. 五散人 – Wǔ Sǎnrén. The Five Unbound Adepts of the Ming Order: Leng Qian, Peng Yingyu, Zhou Dian, Zhang Zhong the Iron Crown Adept, and Cannot Tell. A sanren belongs to no sect, school or post; these five hold no office in the Order. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 前辈 – qiánbèi. Senior. A respectful form of address for a martial elder of the senior generation. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 光明使者 – Guāngmíng Shǐzhe. Bright Messenger. Yang Xiao’s title within the Ming Order, second only to the Order Leader. ↩

4. 胡青牛 – Hú Qīngniǔ. Known as the Butterfly Valley Medical Immortal (蝶谷医仙). A physician of extraordinary skill who would treat only Ming Order cultists. Zhang Wuji’s teacher of medicine and acupoint lore. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 玉堂 – Yùtáng. The Yutang acupoint, located on the chest. A press here temporarily blocks the upward flow of zhenqi from the dantian without causing injury. ↩

6. 任脉 – Rèn Mài. The Conception Vessel (renmai), one of the body’s principal meridians, running up the front of the torso. ↩

7. 铁冠道人 – Tiěguān Dàorén. The Iron Crown Adept, real name Zhang Zhong. One of the Five Unbound Adepts, known for his iron crown and fierce temper. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 幻阴指 – Huànyīn Zhǐ. Phantom Shadow Finger. A finger technique of terrifying subtlety, channelling a yin-cold force that paralyses the victim’s meridians. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 内力 – nèilì. Internal force. The kinetic manifestation of qi cultivated through neigong, stored in the dantian and circulated through the jingmai. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 时辰 – shíchén. A traditional Chinese unit of time, equal to approximately two hours. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 丹田 – dāntián. The field of elixir. The body’s principal energy centre, situated below the navel, where neili is stored. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 魔教 – Mó Jiào. Demonic Cult. The pejorative name given to the Ming Order by its enemies. The Order itself uses 明教, the Bright Cult. ↩

13. 师兄 – shīxiōng. Male senior fellow disciple. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Xiōng means older brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 袄教 – Ǎo Jiào. The Xuan Religion, a name used in the Tang Dynasty for Zoroastrianism and, by extension, the early Ming Order. The faith originated in Persia and entered China along the Silk Road. ↩

15. 大云光明寺 – Dàyún Guāngmíng Sì. Great Cloud Brightness Temples. Temples decreed by the Tang emperors for the worship of the Bright Lord, serving as the Ming Order’s public places of worship. ↩

16. 明尊 – Míng Zūn. The Bright Lord. The supreme deity of the Ming Order, identified with both the Fire God and the God of Goodness. The central figure of the Order’s worship. ↩

17. 方腊 – Fāng Là. Order Leader of the Ming Order during the Northern Song, who led a major rebellion in the Xuanhe era (1119–1121). One of the so-called Four Bandits of the late Northern Song, alongside Song Jiang, Wang Qing and Tian Hu. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩