The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 23 – Part 5

The heroes clasped their fists in farewell and rode off without a word. Green Willow Manor[^lvliuzhuang] fell well behind them before the road opened onto flat fields with no one in sight. Zhou Dian[^zhoudian] called out loudly, "This Miss Zhao needn't have any wicked scheme in mind. She waved a wooden jian at the Order Leader as a joke --- that's a girl's mischief, nothing more. Yang Left Assistant,[^yangzuoshi] you've misread the situation this time!" Yang Xiao mused, "I couldn't say exactly what's wrong, only that something doesn't feel right." Zhou Dian laughed, "The great and famous Yang Left Assistant, after the battle at Bright Peak,[^brightpeak] turned into a bird startled by the bowstring..." He swayed in the saddle and tumbled backwards off his horse.

Cannot Tell,¹ who rode closest, leapt down at once and rushed over to help him up. “Brother Zhou, what’s the matter?” Zhou Dian laughed, “Nothing… nothing at all. Must have had a few cups too many. A touch of dizziness.” The moment he spoke the word “dizziness,” the heroes exchanged alarmed glances. It was true that ever since leaving Green Willow Manor, the ride had left each of them with a faint lightheadedness they had put down to the wine. No one had thought anything of it — but Zhou Dian’s kung fu was formidable and his capacity for drink legendary. A few cups would not send him tumbling from his horse. Something was very wrong.

Zhang Wuji tilted his head back and searched his memory of the poisons recorded in Wang Nangu’s² Treatise on Poisons.³ Which colourless, tasteless, odourless toxin could cause dizziness after ingestion? He ran through every poison he knew, and none fitted. Moreover, he had eaten and drunk the same food and wine as the rest, yet he felt nothing at all. Then, like a flash of lightning, a thought struck him, and he cried out in alarm: “All who drank in the water pavilion⁴ — dismount at once, sit cross-legged where you are, and whatever you do, do not circulate your neili.⁵ Let everything take its natural course.” He issued a further order: “The Five Elements Banners⁶ and the men of the Tianying Order⁷ — spread out on all sides and guard the commanders closely. Kill anyone who approaches, whoever they may be!”

The company heard the Order Leader’s stern commands and responded with a thunderous assent, drawing their weapons at once and spreading out into formation.

Zhang Wuji called out, “No one is to break ranks until I return.”

The heroes did not understand. They felt only a mild dizziness, with no other symptom at all. Why was the Order Leader so alarmed? Zhang Wuji added another warning: “However sick or uneasy you feel, you must not circulate your internal breath. If the poison flares, there will be no saving you.” The company started. “We’ve been poisoned?”

With a slight shift of his body, Zhang Wuji was already a hundred feet away. He found horseback too slow and put his qinggong⁸ to use, sprinting back towards Green Willow Manor.

His anxiety was extreme. He knew that the lethal poison Yang Xiao, Yin Tianzheng⁹ and the others had swallowed would, once it flared, kill within hours — nothing like the Phantom Yin Finger,¹⁰ which allowed days of reprieve. Unless he reached the antidote in time, every one of them would die. The twenty-odd li¹¹ were covered in moments. He reached the manor gates, and with a single bound his body shot in like an arrow. The guards at the gate caught only a blur, as though a shadow had flashed past, and never saw who had breached the entrance.

Zhang Wuji sped straight to the rear garden and the water pavilion. There he found a young woman in a tender green silk robe, a teacup in her left hand and a book in her right, sitting and reading as she drank her tea. It was Zhao Min.¹² She had changed into women’s attire.

She heard his footsteps, turned, and smiled faintly. Zhang Wuji said, “Miss Zhao, I must trouble you for a few of your plants.” Without waiting for her reply, he pushed off from the pond’s edge with his left foot and soared across the water towards the pavilion, his body skimming level as a dragonfly touching the surface, while his hands plucked seven or eight narcissus-like plants from the pond, roots and all. He was about to step onto the pavilion when a hiss of tiny projectiles flew towards his face. With a flick of his right sleeve he caught them in the cloth, and swept his left sleeve towards Zhao Min.

Zhao Min twisted aside to dodge, and a gust of wind swept the teapot, teacups and fruit dishes from the table, carrying them across the pond to shatter among the flowerbeds. Zhang Wuji came to a standstill and examined the plants in his hands. Each had deep purple roots, and along every root grew pearl-like beads as green as jade. His heart leapt with joy — here was the antidote. He stuffed them inside his robe at once and said, “Many thanks. I take my leave!”

Zhao Min laughed, “Coming is easy, but going is hard!” She flung the book onto the table and, in the same motion, drew from between its pages two short jian, thin as paper and white as frost, and lunged at him.

Zhang Wuji, worried for Yin Tianzheng and the others, had no wish to fight. His right sleeve shot out, and the dozen golden needles¹³ pinned in the cloth flew towards her. Zhao Min angled her body clear of the pavilion, touched the steps lightly with her right foot, and darted back in again. In that single out-and-in movement, all dozen needles fell into the pond. Zhang Wuji praised, “Good footwork!” He saw her left hand leading and her right following, both short jian thrusting in a slant, and thought, This girl has a vicious heart. If I had not practised the Nine Yang Divine Skill¹⁴ and studied Shimu Hu’s Treatise on Poisons, the Ming Order would have been destroyed this day without ever knowing why. He reached out with both hands to seize her blades.

Zhao Min flipped her wrists, and the twin jian slashed at his fingers like lightning. Zhang Wuji’s grab missed, which surprised him — but the Great Shift of Heaven and Earth¹⁵ was a work of profound subtlety. Though he failed to take the swords, his fingertips grazed the acupoints¹⁶ on both her wrists. She could no longer hold the blades and flung them at him instead. Zhang Wuji turned his head to one side. The two short jian struck the wooden pillar of the water pavilion with a double thud, their force undiminished, still quivering. He was slightly alarmed. In raw martial skill she was nowhere near the level of Yang Xiao, Yin Tianzheng, or Wei Yixiao,¹⁷ but her quickness and alertness, the speed and ferocity with which she changed her attacks — even unable to hold the swords, she still flung them to harm him.

With both jian spent, Zhao Min’s right wrist turned again, seizing the wooden sword sheathed around the Heavenly Jian.¹⁸ Without drawing the blade, she swung the sheathed weapon at his waist. Zhang Wuji’s left hand shot out, index and middle fingers stabbing at her shoulder acupoint. As she twisted to dodge, his right hand reached out — how could the Great Shift of Heaven and Earth fail a second time? — and wrenched the wooden sword from her grip.

Zhao Min steadied herself and said with a smile, “Young Master Zhang, what manner of kung fu was that? The Great Shift of Heaven and Earth? It seemed quite ordinary to me.” Zhang Wuji opened his left palm. A pearl flower trembled gently in it — the very one she had worn at her temple.

Zhao Min’s expression changed faintly. He had plucked the flower from her hair without her noticing. Had he chosen, at the moment of taking it, to press a finger against her left temple, her life would have been forfeit. She composed herself at once and said with an offhand smile, “If you like the flower, I’ll give it to you. There was no need to snatch it.”

Zhang Wuji found himself somewhat abashed by her words. He tossed the flower back with a light flick of his left hand. “Yours.” He turned and walked out of the pavilion.

Zhao Min caught the flower and called, “Wait!” Zhang Wuji turned back. She was laughing. “How did you steal the two largest pearls from my flower?” Zhang Wuji said, “I’ve no time for your games.” Zhao Min held the flower up high and said gravely, “Look — aren’t two pearls missing?”

Zhang Wuji glanced. Indeed, two golden wires of the flower were bare at their tips. He guessed she had plucked the pearls herself to lure him closer for some new trick. He gave a grunt and ignored her.

Zhao Min pressed her hand on the table’s edge and said sharply, “Zhang Wuji, if you’ve any courage, come within three paces of me.”

Zhang Wuji would not be provoked. “Call me a coward all you like.” He stepped down two more stairs.

Seeing her taunt had failed, Zhao Min’s face changed. She said in a stricken voice, “Enough, enough. Today I am utterly undone. How can I show my face before my shifu?” She reached behind her, pulled one of the short jian from the pillar, and cried, “Order Leader Zhang, I thank you for the mercy!”

Zhang Wuji turned his head. A flash of white — she had thrust the short jian into her own chest. Zhang Wuji sneered, “I’m not falling for that…” Before the next syllable had left his lips, the short jian was truly embedded in her breast. She gave a piteous cry and slumped against the table. Zhang Wuji was genuinely startled. He had not expected her to be so fierce — a few moves lost, and she would kill herself. If the blade had not struck her heart directly, there might still be time to save her. He turned at once and went back to examine her wound.

He reached a distance of three paces from the table and was about to lay his hand on her shoulder when suddenly the ground beneath his feet gave way. It went soft, then empty, and his body plunged downwards. He cursed silently and swept his sleeves downward, channelling neili into the cloth to slow his fall, while reaching his palm towards the table’s edge. Had he touched it, he could have used the leverage to spring back up. But Zhao Min’s suicide had been a feint, and this trap she had foreseen as well — her right palm shot out with force, preventing his hand from reaching the table.

All this happened in the space of a heartbeat. As their palms met, Zhang Wuji was already halfway down. In desperate haste he flipped his wrist and seized four fingers of Zhao Min’s right hand. Her fingers were slick and nearly slipped free. Had he found the slightest purchase, he would have had room to manoeuvre. His arm stretched and caught her upper arm — but his downward momentum was too fierce, and with the pull, they both fell. Total darkness. His body kept plunging, and he heard a sharp crack above as the trapdoor swung shut.

The fall was a good forty feet. Zhang Wuji’s feet touched the ground and he leapt at once, employing the Wall-Crawling Gecko Skill¹⁹ to scale the wall to the top of the pit, where he pushed at the trapdoor. His fingers met something hard and ice-cold — an enormous iron plate, clamped fast by a mechanism. He possessed the Great Shift of Heaven and Earth, but suspended in mid-air, with no firm footing from which to redirect force, he pushed with all his might and the plate did not stir. He dropped back down.

Zhao Min laughed, “Eight thick steel bars hold it from above. You’re underneath — no matter how strong you are, how could you push it open?” Zhang Wuji, angered by her cunning, ignored her and felt along the four walls of the pit, searching for a way out. Every surface was ice-cold, perfectly smooth, and exceedingly hard.

Footnotes

1. 说不得 – Shuōbùdé. Lit. Cannot Tell. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 王难姑 – Wáng Nàngū. Her name meaning “Wang Nangu”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 毒经 – Dú Jīng. Lit. Treatise on Poisons. A comprehensive work on toxins and their antidotes, compiled by Wang Nangu. ↩

4. 水阁 – shuǐgé. A water pavilion, a building erected over or beside a pond or lake. ↩

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

6. 五行旗 – Wǔxíng Qí. The Five Elements Banners, the military divisions of the Ming Order, each named after one of the five phases: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth. ↩

7. 天鹰教 – Tiānyīng Jiào. The Tianying Order, an offshoot of the Ming Order led by Yin Tianzheng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 轻功 – qīnggōng. Lit. light skill. The martial art of nimble movement, enabling practitioners to scale walls, cross rooftops, and traverse great distances with extraordinary speed. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 殷天正 – Yīn Tiānzhèng. His name meaning “Heavenly Upright”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 幻阴指 – Huànyīn Zhǐ. Phantom Yin Finger. A deadly technique that channels yin energy through the fingertip into an opponent’s meridians, causing slow-acting but agonising effects. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 里 – lǐ. A Chinese unit of distance, approximately 500 metres or one-third of a mile. ↩

12. 赵敏 – Zhào Mǐn. Her name meaning “Quick and Sensitive”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 金针 – Jīnzhēn. Golden needles. Thin golden projectiles used as hidden weapons. ↩

14. 九阳神功 – Jiǔyáng Shéngōng. Nine Yang Divine Skill. A legendary internal cultivation method emphasising pure yang energy, which Zhang Wuji practised during his years in exile. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 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 and reversing qi flow. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

16. 穴道 – xuédào. Acupoints. The vital points along the body’s meridians where qi can be accessed or disrupted. ↩

17. 韦一笑 – Wéi Yīxiào. His name meaning “Wei One Smile”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

18. 倚天剑 – Yǐtiān Jiàn. The Heavenly Jian. One of the two legendary weapons forged from the Heavy Iron Sword, said to contain a martial arts manual within. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

19. 壁虎游墙功 – Bìhǔ Yóuqiáng Gōng. Lit. Wall-Crawling Gecko Skill. A technique enabling the practitioner to scale vertical surfaces by adhering to the wall with neili channelled through the limbs. ↩