The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 21 – Part 2

Zhang Wuji heals the injuries of the Kongtong and Huashan elders with medicine and neili, then demonstrates mastery of their secret Seven Injuries fist to awe the assembly. When pressed for Xie Xun's whereabouts, he reveals that Cheng Kun, not the Golden-Haired Lion King, was the true culprit behind the theft of the fist manual—only to discover that Cheng Kun, now the Shaolin monk Yuanzhen, is already dead.

Zhang Wuji smiled at Zong Weixia. “How does Senior feel?”

Zong Weixia started, then bowed deeply with cupped fists, his manner suddenly respectful. “I thank young xia Zeng for using his neili to heal my injuries. Young xia Zeng’s divine skill need not be mentioned, but this virtue of repaying injury with kindness, I am grateful beyond words.”

His words astonished everyone present. The onlookers did not know that during the three punches Zong Weixia had thrown, Zhang Wuji had channelled his Nine Yang zhenqi into the elder’s body. Though the exchange had been instantaneous, the Nine Yang zhenqi was so thick and powerful that Zong Weixia had already benefited enormously. Had Chang Jingzhi not attacked from behind, the third punch alone would have done far more good.

Zhang Wuji said, “How dare I accept the words ‘great virtue and great righteousness’? At this moment, Senior’s eight extraordinary meridians are all in violent upheaval. It would be best to sit down immediately and regulate your qi. The accumulated damage from years of practising the Seven Injuries fist can then gradually be eliminated within two or three years. If there is anything else I can do, I shall follow your instructions.”

Zong Weixia knew his own ailments best. He bowed again: “Thank you, thank you.” His gratitude was deeply sincere. He withdrew to one side, sat down, and began circulating his qi, aware that the move was undignified and unseemly before so many onlookers, but matters of life and death overrode appearances.

Zhang Wuji turned back to setting Tang Wenliang’s broken bones. He said to Chang Jingzhi, “Bring me some Huiyang Five Dragon Ointment.” Chang Jingzhi took it from his pouch and handed it over. Zhang Wuji said, “Now please go to the Wudang Order and request a dose of Three Yellow Treasure Wax Pills, and from the Huashan School some Yuzhen Powder.”

Chang Jingzhi did as asked and brought them back. Zhang Wuji said, “Thank you for your trouble. The caowu in your school’s Huiyang Five Dragon Ointment is excellent. The Three Yellow Treasure Wax Pills from Wudang contain mahuang, realgar, and gamboge, all very useful. Combined with the Yuzhen Powder, Senior Tang should be fully recovered after two months of recuperation.”

He spoke as he set the bones and applied the medicines, finishing in moments. The assembled onlookers grew ever more astonished. Zhang Wuji’s bone-setting technique surpassed any physician’s. That went without saying. But how did he also know exactly which medicines each school carried?

Chang Jingzhi lifted Tang Wenliang and retreated in embarrassment. Tang Wenliang suddenly cried, “Surnamed Zeng! You healed my broken bones, and I, Tang Wenliang, am grateful. I will find a way to repay you someday. But the Kongtong School and the demonic cult are enemies as deep as the sea. Do you think a small favour like this will make us stop? If you want us to listen to your mediation, forget it. If you call me ungrateful, go ahead and break all my limbs again.”

The onlookers thought, Fellow Kongtong elders, yet Tang Wenliang has far more backbone than Chang Jingzhi.

Zhang Wuji said, “According to Senior Tang, what would it take for you to accept my mediation?”

Tang Wenliang said, “Show us a feat of martial arts. If the Kongtong School cannot match it, we’ll have nothing more to say.”

Zhang Wuji said, “The Kongtong School’s divine arts have been passed down for generations, its masters numerous. How could I possibly match them? But since I have presumptuously taken on the role of peacemaker, I shall try my best.” He looked around and spotted a tall pine tree at the east end of the plaza, over thirty feet high, its branches spreading wide like a canopy. He walked over to it and called out, “I have learned a few moves of your school’s Seven Injuries fist. If I perform them incorrectly, I invite the Kongtong School’s seniors to correct me.”

Masters from every school exchanged puzzled looks. This boy knew the Kongtong School’s Seven Injuries fist? Where had he learned it?

Zhang Wuji recited in a loud voice, “The five elements’ qi regulate yin and yang. They damage the heart, injure the lungs, and ravage the liver. The viscera scatter, the essence departs, the spirit grows dim. The three burners rebel together, and the soul takes flight!”

The other schools merely listened with curiosity. But the Kongtong Five Elders heard these four lines, part song, part verse, and their faces went ashen. This was the Seven Injuries fist’s secret preamble, an oral teaching of the Kongtong School never transmitted to outsiders. How did this youth know it? They could not imagine that Xie Xun had seized the fist manual and passed its contents to him.

Zhang Wuji finished reciting and stepped forward. With a bang, he punched out. Suddenly the green canopy swayed. The upper half of the pine tree flew off horizontally with a thunderous crash, landing twenty feet away. Only a four-foot trunk remained, the cut remarkably smooth.

Chang Jingzhi muttered, “That… that’s not the Seven Injuries fist!” The Seven Injuries fist emphasised hardness within softness and softness within hardness. The fist that had shattered this tree was undeniably pure hard power. But when he stepped closer to examine the broken trunk, his jaw dropped: the wood fibres at the break were shattered to splinters, precisely the mark of the Seven Injuries fist practised to its deepest level. “This… this is the Seven Injuries fist!”

The truth was that Zhang Wuji intended to awe the assembled crowd. Had he used the Seven Injuries fist alone to shatter the tree’s internal fibres, it would have taken ten days or half a month for the pine to wither before the effect became visible. So after unleashing the Seven Injuries qi to rupture the wood’s grain, he had followed with a surge of pure yang force to snap the trunk, imitating the technique his sworn father Xie Xun had used on Fire Ice Island: shattering the tree’s fibres first, then cutting it down with the Dragon-Slaying Dao.

Cheers and gasps rippled across the plaza from every school, rising and falling without pause.

Chang Jingzhi said, “Excellent! This is indeed supremely skilful Seven Injuries fist work. I bow to it. But may I ask, where did young xia Zeng learn this technique?”

Zhang Wuji smiled without answering.

Tang Wenliang said sharply, “Where is Xie Xun the Golden-Haired Lion King now? Please tell us, young xia Zeng.” His mind was quicker than Chang Jingzhi’s. He had already guessed the connection between Xie Xun and this young man.

Zhang Wuji was startled. This is bad. I showed off the Seven Injuries fist and dragged Sworn Father into it. If I reveal my connection to him now, it means openly opposing the six factions, and this peacemaker role is finished. He said quickly, “You think the culprit behind your school’s lost Seven Injuries fist manual is the Golden-Haired Lion King? Wrong! That night at the Green Yang Temple on Kongtong Mountain, the person who seized the manual and wounded your elders was not Xie Xun. It was the Mixed-Origin Thunderbolt Hand, Cheng Kun!”

When Xie Xun had raided Kongtong Mountain to seize the fist manual years ago, Cheng Kun had deliberately helped him, not out of loyalty to Xie Xun, but to create enemies for the Ming Order on every side. He had used his Mixed-Origin qi to injure Tang Wenliang and Chang Jingzhi, leaving blood-red spots across their bodies. Xie Xun had not understood at the time. Only after Divine Monk Kongjian had enlightened him did he learn the truth. Now Zhang Wuji thought, Cheng Kun spent his life in treachery, framing others. I might as well use his own methods against him. Besides, it is not a lie.

Tang Wenliang and Chang Jingzhi had suspected for over twenty years. Hearing Zhang Wuji’s words now, they exchanged a glance, speechless for a long moment. Finally Chang Jingzhi asked, “Then where is this Cheng Kun now?”

Zhang Wuji said, “The Mixed-Origin Thunderbolt Hand Cheng Kun has been deliberately provoking conflict between the six factions and the Ming Order. He later entered Shaolin as a monk, with the dharma name Yuanzhen. Last night he infiltrated the Ming Order’s inner hall and confessed everything in person to the cult’s leaders. Yang Xiao, Wei Yixiao the Bat King, the Five Unbound Adepts, all heard it with their own ears. Every word is true. If I lie, I am less than a dog or a pig, despised by all in the wulin. Yang Xiao and the others are not men who speak recklessly. You may ask them to confirm it.”

His words rang clear and steady, and the assembly stirred with emotion. Only the Shaolin monks erupted in uproar.

A single voice chanted a Buddhist invocation, and a figure emerged slowly: grey robes, imposing features, a string of prayer beads in his left hand. It was Kongxing, one of Shaolin’s three great divine monks. He stepped into the plaza and said, “Benefactor Zeng, why do you speak nonsense and slander my Shaolin disciples again and again? Before all the heroes of the world, can Shaolin’s honour be so casually defiled?”

Zhang Wuji bowed. “Great Master, please do not be angry. Summon Monk Yuanzhen to confront me, and the truth will be known.”

Kongxing said with a cold face, “You keep mentioning our shizhi¹ Yuanzhen. You are young. Why is your heart so malicious?”

Zhang Wuji said, “I wish to ask Monk Yuanzhen to come forward and distinguish right from wrong before all the heroes of the world. How is that malicious?”

Kongxing said, “Nephew Yuanzhen was the personal disciple of our shixiong² Kongjian. His Buddhist learning is profound. Apart from joining this expedition against the Ming Order, he has not left the temple in years. How could he be the Mixed-Origin Thunderbolt Hand Cheng Kun? Moreover, Nephew Yuanzhen toiled tirelessly for the six factions and passed away from exhaustion. His posthumous reputation. How dare you…”

At the words “passed away from exhaustion,” Zhang Wuji’s ears rang and his face went deathly pale. He heard nothing of what Kongxing said after that, only muttered, “He… he’s really dead? That… that can’t be.”

Kongxing pointed at a pile of corpses to the west. “Go look for yourself!”

Zhang Wuji walked to the pile of bodies. One corpse lay with sunken cheeks and upturned eyes, and indeed it was the Mixed-Origin Thunderbolt Hand Cheng Kun, who had entered Shaolin as Yuanzhen. He bent to check for breath. The flesh beneath his fingers was cold. Cheng Kun had been dead for some time. Grief and joy surged through Zhang Wuji in equal measure: the great villain who had ruined his sworn father’s life had at last met his end, his catalogue of evil complete. Hot blood rose in his chest, and he could not help throwing back his head with a great laugh: “You villain! You villain! A lifetime of wicked deeds, so this is how it ends!”

The laughter rang across the valley, carrying far into the distance. Every person present felt a chill.

Zhang Wuji turned and asked, “Who killed this Yuanzhen?”

Kongxing looked at him coldly, his face as though frosted over, and did not answer.

Yin Tianzheng, who had stepped aside, spoke up, “He matched palms with my son Yewang. The result: one dead, one wounded.”

Footnotes

1. 师侄 – shīzhí. Lineage nephew or niece. Disciple of one’s shixiong, shijie, shidi, or shimei. Shī means teacher. Zhí means nephew or niece. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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