The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 22 – Part 2

By this point all four fighters knew victory was beyond them, and each had resigned himself to withdrawing whole in body. The Gao Elder suddenly cried out, “Brat, incoming!” With a cough he spat a mouthful of thick phlegm at Zhang Wuji. Zhang Wuji sidestepped, and the Gao Elder seized the moment to fling the steel dao behind his back. He laughed, “You still think you can... Aiya... pardon me...” For Zhang Wuji's left palm had reversed its draw and drawn Ban Shuxian across, and with a soft pu the Gao Elder's phlegm landed square between her brows.

Ban Shuxian flew into a fury and raked her fingers at Zhang Wuji. The Short Elder hooked his hand across, blocking his retreat just so, and when the Gao Elder and He Taichong saw their opening they lunged together, calculating that if they pinned him between the four of them they would surely catch the brat, and could twist and grapple him properly. Ungainly to behold, perhaps, but it would put an end to his tricks.

Zhang Wuji wielded the Great Shift of Heaven and Earth with both palms at once. With a clear whistle he rose into the air, turned lightly mid-flight, and drifted down about a dozen feet away.¹

He Taichong was clutching his wife by the waist, Ban Shuxian had seized her husband’s shoulder, and the two elders were locked arm over arm, and all four toppled to the ground. The He couple sensed something amiss and leapt free at once. The Gao Elder bellowed, “Got you! This time you’re not escaping… Aiya, wait, that’s not…” The Short Elder snapped, “Let go!” The Gao Elder replied, “How can I let go if you don’t let go first?” The Short Elder said, “Will you hold your tongue?” The Gao Elder said, “Hold my tongue I can, but…” The Short Elder released his arms and said sharply, “Get up!” The Gao Elder stood in some awe of his shige² after all, and hastily drew back. The pair leapt to their feet together.

The Gao Elder shouted, “Oi, brat! This isn’t a proper bout, all your crooked tricks, what sort of hero does that make you?” The Short Elder knew that to go on wrangling would only dig the hole deeper. He cupped his fists to Zhang Wuji and said, “Your lordship’s skill is beyond anything this old man has witnessed in all his days. The Huashan School accepts the defeat.”

Zhang Wuji returned the salute and said, “I have given offence. I was fortunate. Had the four of you not shown mercy just now, I should already be dead beneath the sabre and jian of your Complementary Two-Forms swordplay.” The words were no empty modesty. Before Zhou Zhiruo had coached him he had indeed been in dire straits, and though he had won through in the end, he held not the slightest contempt for the four fighters’ skill. They had plainly given their utmost, however, so the talk of “mercy” was generosity on his part.

The Gao Elder said, preening, “So you admit it was a lucky win?” Zhang Wuji said, “Might I ask the two Seniors’ honoured names? It would be well to know how to address you should we meet again.” The Gao Elder said, “My shige is known as ‘He Whose Fame Shakes…’” The Short Elder cut in sharply, “Hold your tongue!” and addressed Zhang Wuji, “A defeated general has no face to speak his name. What worth is a name unworthy of mention?” With that he withdrew into the ranks of the Huashan School. The Gao Elder clapped his hands and laughed, “Victory and defeat are the soldier’s lot. This old man takes them as they come.” He retrieved the two steel dao from the ground and strolled back at his ease.

Zhang Wuji went to where Xianyu Tong lay and, bending down, sealed two of his acupoints.³ “Once affairs here are settled, I will treat your poison. For now I seal it from reaching your heart.” Even as he spoke he felt a cold wind brush his back, faintly stinging. Startled, Zhang Wuji had no time to dodge. He drove hard through the balls of his feet and launched himself upwards and sideways, and heard two soft pu sounds followed by a long, drawn-out cry. Turning in mid-air, he saw He Taichong’s and Ban Shuxian’s jian standing side by side in Xianyu Tong’s chest.

The He couple had ranged the jianghu⁴ for half their lives, and could not swallow the shame of losing to a junior before so many witnesses. They had snatched up their jian, and seeing Zhang Wuji bending over Xianyu Tong’s body to seal his acupoints, they exchanged a glance, read each other’s thought, nodded once, and unleashed in unison a move called Soundless and Colourless,⁵ driving both jian at his back.

That move, Soundless and Colourless, was the deadliest stroke in the Kunlun School’s sword-craft, one that demanded two practitioners of equal skill and equal neili.⁶ As the stroke went out their forces ran in precisely opposite directions, so that the shock-waves and the hiss of parting air from the two blades cancelled one another out. The move had been devised for night-fighting, when the adversary could neither hear nor sense the steel coming, and no warning preceded the white edge at his body. Employed by day against an unguarded back, it was no less difficult to ward. They had not reckoned on Zhang Wuji’s mind being elsewhere. The Nine Yang Divine Skill⁷ guarded him of its own accord, and his body turned with extraordinary speed. Even so, the back of his robe was slit in two long rents before he cleared the line. A hair’s breadth from disaster. The He couple could not check their stroke in time, and their twin jian drove clean through the Huashan School’s zhangmen⁸ and pinned him to the earth.

Zhang Wuji landed, and a roar went up from the onlookers. The He couple, having crossed a line they could not uncross, turned their jian on Zhang Wuji in earnest, thinking, We have done the shameful thing and done it before all eyes. What face is left to us? If we do not kill him now, we cannot live in the world. Every stroke was a stroke for mutual ruin.

Zhang Wuji dodged several passes. Seeing that the He couple sought only to drag him down with them and plainly would not relent, an idea struck him. He crouched low, scooped a handful of earth from the ground with his left palm, and as he continued to evade the jian-steel he kneaded the soil with the sweat in his palm into two small pills. He Taichong bore in from the left and Ban Shuxian’s jian swept from the right. Zhang Wuji darted forward at a sprint, reached Xianyu Tong’s corpse, fumbled briefly at the dead man’s robes as though searching them, then wheeled about and struck out at the He couple with both palms. He put some six or seven tenths of his strength into the blow. The He couple felt their chests constrict, their breath choked off, and could not help but open their mouths to exhale. Zhang Wuji flicked his wrist and the two mud pills flew, one into each open mouth, carried down their throats on that desperate gust of air.

The He couple coughed without pause, but could not dislodge the pills. Dread seized them. What they had swallowed had been taken from Xianyu Tong’s body, and the man was famed for his poisons and his gu. What could he carry about him that was wholesome? Their faces went the colour of ash in an instant, and Ban Shuxian, remembering the agony Xianyu Tong had suffered from the Golden Silkworm gu poison not long before, nearly fainted. Zhang Wuji said coolly, “This zhangmen Xianyu keeps live Golden Silkworms on his person, wrapped in wax pills. Each of you has swallowed one. If you can vomit it up quickly, before the wax melts, there may yet be a cure.”

The He couple had no choice but to believe him. They circulated their neili at full force and heaved and retched to bring the “wax pill” back up. Their internal skill was considerable, and after several violent efforts they brought the contents of their stomachs up at last, a mess of mud and gastric fluid. Of a wax pill there was no sign whatsoever.

The Gao Elder of the Huashan School sauntered over, pointing and laughing. “Aiya, those are Golden Silkworm droppings! The silkworm’s in your belly and it’s taking a shit!” Ban Shuxian, between terror and fury, had nowhere else to vent her rage. She lashed out at him with a heavy slap. The Gao Elder ducked and fled, calling over his shoulder, “You Kunlun shrew! You’ve killed our School’s zhangmen. The Huashan School will not let the matter rest!”

The He couple, hearing this, grew more distracted still. Xianyu Tong was base of character, true, but he had been the Huashan School’s zhangmen for all that. To have killed him by accident was to invite a turmoil seldom seen in the wulin.⁹ But with Golden Silkworm gu poison in their bellies and death at their heels, they could think of nothing else. Only Zhang Wuji, it seemed, could lift the poison, and they had treated him so ill in days past, how could they expect him to reach out and save them now?

Zhang Wuji gave a faint smile. “The two of you need not panic. The Golden Silkworm has entered the belly, but its poison will not stir for six shichen.¹⁰ Once affairs here are concluded, I will certainly find a remedy. I only hope He furen will not offer me poisoned wine again. That would be Heaven’s mercy.”

The He couple were vastly relieved. A gentle taunt was a small price, and they let it pass, though the words of thanks would not come. They withdrew in some embarrassment. Zhang Wuji said, “Go to the Kongtong School and beg four pills of their Jade Cavern Black Stone Dan. It will keep the poison from attacking your heart.” He Taichong said quietly, “I am obliged,” and sent his eldest disciple to the Kongtong School at once for the pills.

Zhang Wuji suppressed a smile. The Jade Cavern Black Stone Dan was indeed an antidote of sorts, but it brought on two shichen of savage abdominal cramp. Sure enough, within moments the He couple were doubled over in pain, convinced the Golden Silkworm poison had begun its work. They had walked into a trap, and did not know it. Yet Zhang Wuji’s punishment was no more than a fright. To repay old grudges in earnest would have required something sharper. His calculation was simpler: with the threat of “poison” hanging over them, the He couple would lean heavily on him for the antidote, and if further disputes with the other Schools arose, the Kunlun School would be bound to take his side. Once before he had passed off a Mulberry-Bel Pill as an Arsenic-Zhen Pill for Wugu, and told the truth too soon. He had nearly died for it at He Taichong’s hands. He would not make the same mistake twice.

Meanwhile, Miejue Shitai called across to Song Yuanqiao, “Song daxia, of the Six Great Schools only ours and yours remain. This old nun is but a woman, and looks to Song daxia to command the field.” Song Yuanqiao said, “I have already traded blows with Cult Leader Yin and could not prevail. Shitai’s sword-craft is divine. You will surely subdue this young fellow.” Miejue Shitai sneered, drew the Heavenly Reliant Jian from its sheath on her back, and walked slowly into the arena.

Among the Wudang Order, Yu Lianzhou the Second Xia¹¹ had been watching Zhang Wuji throughout, and was profoundly shaken by the strangeness of his skill. He thought, Miejue Shitai’s swordplay is refined, to be sure, but it may not equal the four masters of Kunlun and Huashan joined. If she too is beaten, and the Wudang Order cannot bring him down either, then the Six Great Schools are finished indeed. I must first test him myself. He strode quickly into the arena and said, “Shitai, allow us five shixiong¹² to try the young man’s skill first. Shitai can then take the final bout and carry it in one stroke.”

The meaning was plain. The Wudang Order was famed for the endurance of its neili, and from Song Yuanqiao down to Mo Shenggu the five would engage Zhang Wuji one after another in unbroken succession. Even if none of them could prevail, no master in the world, he reasoned, could fight five consecutive bouts against the Seven Xias of Wudang without being worn to a thread. A spent arrow against Miejue Shitai’s unmatched steel, and the Emei Order would carry the day in a single exchange.

Footnotes

1. 丈 – zhàng. A Chinese unit of length, roughly ten feet. ↩

2. 师哥 – shīgē. Colloquial form of shixiong (师兄), a male senior fellow disciple of the same shimen. Shī means teacher. Gē means elder brother. ↩

3. 穴道 – xuédào. The system of acupoints through which neili is directed and, when sealed, through which it may be blocked. ↩

4. 江湖 – jiānghú. Literally rivers and lakes. The itinerant world beyond settled society and official reach, holding not only martial artists but the trades that travel with them. ↩

5. 无声无色 – Wúshēng Wúsè. Literally soundless and colourless. A Kunlun School sword-technique devised for two practitioners of matched neili, whose opposing forces cancel all sound and warning of the strike. ↩

6. 内力 – nèilì. Internal force. The kinetic manifestation of qi cultivated through neigong. ↩

7. 九阳神功 – Jiǔyáng Shéngōng. The Nine Yang Divine Skill. A legendary internal cultivation method emphasising pure yang energy, granting among other things an automatic protective response. ↩

8. 掌门 – zhǎngmén. The head of a School or Order. ↩

9. 武林 – wǔlín. The martial forest; the community of martial artists and their affairs. ↩

10. 时辰 – shíchén. A traditional Chinese unit of time, each equal to two hours. The day was divided into twelve shichen. ↩

11. 俞莲舟 – Yú Liánzhōu. The second of the Seven Xias of Wudang, senior among Zhang Wuji’s shixiong after Song Yuanqiao. ↩

12. 师兄 – shīxiōng. Male senior fellow disciple of the same shimen. Shī means teacher. Xiōng means older brother. ↩