The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 20 – Part 2

The little maiden said, "Young master, my name is Xiaozhao. I heard the young mistress call you 'Wuji gege'. Is your given name truly 'Wuji'?" Zhang Wuji replied, "Indeed, my surname is Zhang..." A thought suddenly struck him. He stooped and picked up a long spear, weighing it in his hand. It felt heavy, some forty jin[^jin] or so in mass. "This much gunpowder may yet save us," he said. "It might even blast that great boulder apart." Xiaozhao clapped her hands. "A good plan, a good plan!"

The iron chain on her wrist clinked as she clapped. Zhang Wuji said, “This chain hinders your hands and feet. Let me break it.” Xiaozhao cried in alarm, “No, no! The master will be furious.” Zhang Wuji said, “Tell him I broke it. I’ve no fear of his anger.” He gripped both ends of the iron chain and pulled with all his strength. The chain was no thicker than a chopstick, and his pull carried three or four hundred jin of force at the least. Yet to his surprise, he heard only a low hum as the chain vibrated and rang, refusing to break.

He uttered a sound of puzzlement, drew in a breath of zhenqi, and redoubled his effort.¹ The chain yielded not a hair’s breadth. Xiaozhao said, “This chain is most peculiar. Even a sharp blade or keen chisel cannot harm it. The key to the lock is with the young mistress.” Zhang Wuji nodded. “When we get out, I shall ask her for it and unlock your chain.” Xiaozhao said, “I fear she will not give it.” Zhang Wuji said, “My friendship with her is most particular. She will not refuse me.” He raised the spear and walked to the base of the great boulder, standing sideways and listening. Hearing no breath from Yuanzhen, he judged the man had gone far.

Xiaozhao held the torch aloft to light his work. Zhang Wuji said, “One blast will not shatter it. We must do it in stages.” He channelled neili² into both arms and slowly bored a hole with the spear in the gap between the boulder and the tunnel wall. Xiaozhao passed him the gunpowder, which he poured into the hole. Inverting the spear, he tamped the powder firm with the butt, then laid a trail of gunpowder leading back down into the stone chamber below as a fuse.

The two retreated into the stone chamber. Zhang Wuji took the torch from Xiaozhao, who covered her ears with both hands. He stood guard before her, bent and lit the fuse. A spark raced along the gunpowder trail. Then came a tremendous roar, a blast of fierce hot air that drove him back two paces. Xiaozhao toppled backwards, but he had foreseen this and caught her waist in his arm. The chamber filled with smoke, and the hot gust extinguished the torch.

Zhang Wuji asked, “Xiaozhao, are you unharmed?” Xiaozhao coughed. “I… I am well.” Her voice sounded choked, which struck him as odd. When he relit the torch, he saw her eyes were red. “What is it? Do you feel unwell?” Xiaozhao said, “Young master Zhang, you… you and I are complete strangers. Why are you so kind to me?”

Zhang Wuji asked in surprise, “What do you mean?” Xiaozhao said, “Why did you stand before me? I am a lowly bondmaid, and you… you with your noble person, how can you shield me?” Zhang Wuji smiled faintly. “What is noble about me? You are a young girl. Naturally I must protect you.”

When the smoke in the chamber had thinned somewhat, he walked up the slope. The great boulder stood safe and sound, as imposing as ever, having lost no more than a tiny corner. Zhang Wuji was disheartened. “I fear we must blast it seven or eight times before we can squeeze through. Yet the gunpowder we have left will serve at most two more.” He raised the spear and bored at the rock again. Several thrusts struck the tunnel wall, and suddenly a bushel-sized rock rolled down, revealing a hole. Delighted and startled, he reached in, gripped the neighbouring stone, and rocked it. It shifted slightly. He pulled harder and brought down another. He tore away four pieces in succession, each a foot or so across, leaving an opening large enough to squeeze through. The far end of the tunnel, it seemed, had another passage. This blast had not shattered the great boulder but had loosened the tunnel wall. The passage had been built of large granite blocks, each the size of a bushel.

He went first with the torch, beckoning Xiaozhao to follow. The tunnel still spiralled downward. This time he had learned caution: his left hand held the spear extended above his head, lest Yuanzhen strike from the shadows. They walked four or five hundred feet and came to a stone door. He handed the spear and torch to Xiaozhao and pushed the stone door open with force. Inside lay another stone chamber.

This chamber was vast, with stalactites hanging from the roof, clearly a natural cavern. He took the torch and walked a few paces before he saw two skeletons lying on the ground. Fragments of clothing still clung to the bones, plainly one man and one woman.

Xiaozhao, seemingly frightened, pressed close to him. Zhang Wuji raised the torch and scanned the cavern from end to end. “This appears to be a dead end. Can we find another way out?” He prodded the cave walls with the spear, tapping everywhere. Each blow rang solid, and nowhere echoed hollow.

He approached the two skeletons. The woman’s right hand clutched a glittering dagger, thrust into her own breast. He started, and at once recalled Yuanzhen’s words. Yuanzhen and Lady Yang had met in the secret tunnel. Yang Dingtian had discovered them. In his fury, Yang Dingtian had suffered Qi Deviation³ and died, whilst Lady Yang had taken her own life with a dagger to follow her husband in death. “Could these two be Yang Dingtian and his wife?” He walked to the man’s skeleton and saw a sheet of sheepskin spread beside the hand, now reduced to bone.

Zhang Wuji picked it up. One side was fuzzy with hair, and the other was smooth. Nothing about it seemed remarkable.

Xiaozhao took it and her face lit up with joy. “Congratulations, young master! This is the supreme secret art of the Ming Order’s martial arts.” She reached out with her left forefinger, sliced a small opening at the dagger-wound in Lady Yang’s breast with the blade, and smeared the fresh blood upon the sheepskin. Slowly, characters appeared. The first line read: “The Holy Fire Secret Art of the Ming Order: the Great Shift of Heaven and Earth”⁴, eleven characters.

Zhang Wuji had stumbled upon the martial arts manual of the Ming Order, yet felt no great joy. If this tunnel holds neither water nor rice, he thought, then even if we cannot escape, within seven or eight days at most Xiaozhao and I shall die of hunger and thirst. What use is the highest martial art, if we learn it too late? He glanced at the two skeletons. How came Yuanzhen not to take this manual of the Great Shift? Perhaps after committing so shameful a deed, he dared never again look upon the bones of Yang Dingtian and his wife. Or perhaps he did not know the sheepskin bore a martial art. Had he known, even if the Yangs had still lived, he would have contrived to steal it. He wondered, too, How does Xiaozhao know that blood upon the skin reveals the writing? He asked her, “How did you know the sheepskin held a secret?”

Xiaozhao bowed her head. “The master once spoke of it to the young mistress. I overheard in secret. They are devotees of the Ming Order and dared not violate the Order’s rules by searching the tunnel themselves.”

Zhang Wuji looked at the two heaps of bone and felt a pang of sorrow. “Let us bury them.” The two carried over some of the rubble from the blasting, piled it aside, and laid the remains of Yang Dingtian and his wife together.

Xiaozhao suddenly picked something from among Yang Dingtian’s bones. “Young master Zhang, there is a letter here.”

Zhang Wuji took it. On the envelope were written the four characters “For my wife to open in person.” The years had rotted the envelope, the four characters all but consumed, yet one could still trace the bold and vigorous stroke of the brush beneath the decay. The letter was firmly sealed, and the wax stamp remained intact. Zhang Wuji said, “Lady Yang never had the chance to open this letter before she took her own life.” He placed it reverently among the bones and was about to pile stones over it when Xiaozhao said, “Shall we open it? Perhaps Order Leader Yang left some final wish.”

Zhang Wuji said, “This is a private letter. It would be disrespectful for us juniors to open it unasked.” Xiaozhao said, “Yet if Order Leader Yang had some unfulfilled wish, young master could tell my master and the young mistress, and they would carry it out for him. That too would be a good thing.” Zhang Wuji thought this reasonable and carefully opened the envelope. Inside he drew out a sheet of very thin white silk and two pages of yellow paper. Upon the silk, written in ink, were the words:

To my wife’s toilette:

Since you entered the house of Yang, you have been melancholy day and night. I am coarse and wanting in virtue, nothing to bring you joy, and for this I am deeply sorry. Now that we must part forever, I ask only that you forgive me.

The thirty-second-generation Order Leader Yi left this charge: that after I had mastered the Great Shift of Heaven and Earth, I should lead our followers to Persia and there contrive to recover the Holy Fire Tablets.⁵ Though our Order first arose in Persia, it has taken root in Cathay, branching and flourishing now for several hundred years. Today the Tartars occupy our central lands, and our Order has sworn to struggle against them to the end. We must not obey the unreasonable commands of the Persian Grand Order, nor bow to the Mongol Yuan as our master. If the Holy Fire Tablets return to my hand, our Ming Order in Cathay can stand as an equal with the Persian Grand Order.

Zhang Wuji thought, So the Grand Order of the Ming Order lies in the Persian realm. Order Leader Yi and Order Leader Yang both refused to submit to the Grand Order’s command and surrender to the Yuan dynasty. They were men of spirit and backbone indeed. His respect for the Ming Order grew yet further. He read on:

Now my art has only just reached the fourth layer, and I have learned all of Cheng Kun’s treachery. My blood and qi surge beyond control. My true force is spent, and I approach my final end. Heaven has ordained it. What more is there to say?

Zhang Wuji sighed softly. “So when Order Leader Yang wrote this letter, he already knew of his wife’s secret meetings with Cheng Kun in the tunnel.” Seeing Xiaozhao wished to ask but dared not, he briefly recounted the affair between Yang Dingtian, his wife, and Cheng Kun. Xiaozhao said, “I say it was all Lady Yang’s fault. If her heart had never forgotten Cheng Kun, she should never have married Order Leader Yang. And having married him, she should not have met Cheng Kun in secret.”

Zhang Wuji nodded, thinking, For one so young, she has considerable insight. He continued to read:

My life draws to its close, and I have failed the heavy trust of Order Leader Yi. I am truly a sinner to our Order. I ask my wife to take this letter in my own hand and summon my left and right Bright Messengers, the four Guardian Kings, the five Banner Chiefs, and the Five Unbound Adepts. There proclaim my final order:

“Whoever recovers the Holy Fire Tablets shall be the thirty-fourth-generation Order Leader of our Order. Until that day, Xie Xun⁶ shall act as Order Leader and adjudicate the Order’s weightiest affairs. Whosoever disobeys, let the whole Order assail him.”

Zhang Wuji’s heart shook. So Order Leader Yang had already commanded my sworn father to act as Order Leader. My sworn father was a man of both civil and martial talent, and after Order Leader Yang’s death, he stood first among all in the Ming Order. It is a pity Lady Yang never saw this letter. Had she done so, the Ming Order would not have torn itself apart, nor wrought such havoc. Reflecting upon Yang Dingtian’s great trust in Xie Xun, he felt both joy and sorrow. After long abstraction, he read on:

The manual of the Great Shift of Heaven and Earth shall pass for now to Xie Xun, and in due course be offered to the new Order Leader. After recovering the Holy Fire Tablets, observe the Three Great Commands and the Five Lesser Commands. Illuminate our Order, drive out the Tartars, do good and banish evil, uphold the righteous and slay the wicked. Let the holy fire of our Bright Lord shine upon all the world. Let the new Order Leader strive to this end.

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Footnotes

1. 真气 – zhēnqì. Refined qi cultivated through internal practice. ↩

2. 内力 – nèilì. Internal force, the kinetic manifestation of qi. ↩

3. 走火入魔 – zǒuhuǒrùmó. Qi Deviation. A catastrophic deviation in internal cultivation, often caused by emotional disturbance or improper practice, leading to madness or death. ↩

4. 乾坤大挪移 – Qiánkūn Dà Nuóyí. The Great Shift of Heaven and Earth. The supreme secret art of the Ming Order, capable of redirecting force, reversing qi flow, and manipulating the trajectory of attacks. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 圣火令 – Shènghuǒ Lìng. The Holy Fire Tablets. Twelve golden tablets of the Ming Order, symbols of authority. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 谢逊 – Xiè Xùn. Xie Xun the Golden Haired Lion King, one of the four Guardian Kings of the Ming Order and Zhang Wuji’s sworn father. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩