The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 24 – Part 7

When Zhang Sanfeng¹ beheld the fellow's bearing, he too started in alarm. *This man's origins are no small matter. Can my Taiji Fist² hope to stand against it?* He raised his hands slowly, prepared to let Asan³ make the first move.

Just then, from behind Yu Daiyan⁴ emerged a young Daoist acolyte, his hair dishevelled and his face smeared with grime. He said, “Grand Shifu,⁵ this patron wishes to sample the Wudang Order’s⁶ fistwork. Why trouble the Grand Shifu’s person? Let your disciple⁷ demonstrate a few moves for him. That should suffice.”

This grimy little acolyte was none other than Zhang Wuji.⁸ Yin Tianzheng,⁹ Yang Xiao¹⁰ and the rest had parted from him only moments ago, and though his clothing and appearance were utterly transformed, a single word from his lips was enough for them to recognise him at once. The Ming Order¹¹ heroes were all overjoyed to learn their Cult Leader had been present all along.

How could Zhang Sanfeng and Yu Daiyan have guessed such a thing? Zhang Sanfeng could not at once make out the boy’s features. Seeing his clothes, he took him for Qingfeng, one of the monastery’s acolytes, and said, “This patron possesses the external supernatural power of Shaolin’s¹² Diamond Subduing Demons skill. He must be a master from the Western Regions Shaolin¹³ branch. A child like you would have his sinews snapped and bones shattered in a single move. This is no game to play.”

Zhang Wuji tugged at the hem of Zhang Sanfeng’s robe with his left hand and gently swayed the old man’s left hand with his right, saying, “Grand Shifu, the Taiji Fist you taught me has never been tested, and I cannot say whether I have learned it properly. This patron happens to be a master of the external school. Let your disciple try out the principle of overcoming hardness with softness, of using emptiness to govern substance. Would that not be well?” As he spoke, he channelled a current of extraordinarily deep and gentle Nine Yang neili¹⁴ from his palm into Zhang Sanfeng’s body.

In that single instant, Zhang Sanfeng felt the force flooding through his palm was mighty beyond measure. Though his own decades of cultivation had accumulated neili of surpassing purity, and the incoming force was not as refined as his own, it flowed on and on, unceasing and inexhaustible, vast as an endless spring. Startled, he looked closely at Zhang Wuji’s face. The young man’s gaze held no brilliance, but there lingered in it a quiet warmth and tenderness, showing that his neigong had reached the utmost summit. Of all the men he had met in his long life, only his own master Jueyuan,¹⁵ Guo daxia,¹⁶ and Yang Guo the Condor Hero¹⁷ (a bare handful) had attained such cultivation. As for the living, apart from himself, he could think of no second person who had reached such heights. In that moment a thousand doubts crowded upon him, yet the young man’s neili was pouring into him plainly to aid his recovery, bearing no malice whatsoever. That much was certain. He smiled and said, “I am old and addled. What fine skill could I teach you? If you wish to test this patron’s supreme external kung fu, that is well enough. But be careful.” He supposed the acolyte was some young expert from a certain school, hastening to their aid, and so spoke in the most modest and courteous terms.

Zhang Wuji said, “Grand Shifu, your kindness to this child is heavy as a mountain. Even if I were ground to powder and shattered to the bone, I could not repay the great debt I owe the Grand Shifu and all my shibo and shishu.¹⁸ Though the Wudang Order’s kung fu does not dare claim supremacy beneath Heaven, it shall surely not lose to the Western Regions Shaolin. Grand Shifu, set your mind at ease.” Every word he spoke was utterly sincere, and his repeated cries of Grand Shifu came from the heart, beyond any power of pretence. Even Zhang Sanfeng was puzzled. Could he be a disciple of our own school, one who has been cultivating himself in secret, as my master Jueyuan did in years gone by? He gently lowered Zhang Wuji’s hand, stepped back, and sat down in his chair. Glancing sideways at Yu Daiyan, he saw the same bewilderment on his face.

Asan saw that Zhang Sanfeng had actually sent this mere acolyte to fight him. The contempt could scarcely have been more absolute. But he thought, I shall kill the child with a single punch, enrage the old Daoist until his qi turns reckless, and then fight him. I shall have all the more certainty of victory. He did not waste further words, but said only, “Child. Make your move.”

Zhang Wuji said, “The fistwork I have newly learned was created by my Grand Shifu Zhang Sanfeng the Perfected One¹⁹ over many years of labour. It is the Wudang Order’s supreme attainment, and is called the Taiji Fist. I am a beginner at it, and may not yet have grasped its essence. Within thirty moves I fear I shall not be able to strike you down. But that will be because my skill is unripe, not because the fistwork is wanting. That distinction you must understand.”

Asan did not grow angry but laughed. He turned to Ada and Aer and said, “Eldest Brother, Second Brother, can you believe the arrogance of this whelp?” Aer burst into loud guffaws. Ada, however, had already perceived that the acolyte was no easy opponent, and said, “Third Brother. Do not underestimate him.”

Asan stepped forward and hurled a punch at Zhang Wuji’s chest, swift as lightning. Before the fist had reached halfway, his left punch followed, even faster, arriving before it had been sent, striking at Zhang Wuji’s face. The technique was so uncanny as to be almost without precedent.

Zhang Wuji had spent more than one shichen²⁰ since hearing Zhang Sanfeng expound the Taiji Fist silently contemplating its principles. Seeing Asan’s left punch arrive, he at once employed the move called Grasping the Sparrow’s Tail: his right foot solid, his left foot empty, he invoked the Press principle, adhering and sticking, following and yielding, until his right palm had caught the man’s left wrist and sent a transverse force through it. Asan’s body lurched forward of its own will. He stumbled two steps before he could steady himself. The onlookers gasped as one.

This move, Grasping the Sparrow’s Tail, was the first time since the Taiji Fist came into the world that it had been tested against an opponent. Zhang Wuji, possessed of the Nine Yang Divine Skill and deeply versed in the Great Shift of Heaven and Earth,²¹ suddenly unleashed the Taiji Fist’s adhering method. Though he had studied it for less than two shichen, he wielded it as though he had practised all his life. Asan, struck by that Press, felt the thousand-odd jin²² of force in his own punch pour into a vast ocean, vanishing without trace or sound, whilst his body was dragged sideways two steps by his own fist’s momentum. In shock, rage flooded his chest. He unleashed a flurry of rapid punches, his arms blurring until it seemed as if dozens of arms and dozens of fists were striking at once.

The onlookers were aghast at this tempestuous assault. No wonder even a master of Kongxing the Divine Monk’s calibre fell to this man, they thought. All save Zhao Min’s own party feared for Zhang Wuji’s safety.

Zhang Wuji intended to glorify the Wudang Order’s name. He set aside his own martial arts entirely and used nothing but the Taiji Fist’s moves as Zhang Sanfeng had created them. Single Whip, Raising the Hands, White Crane Spreads Its Wings, Brushing the Knee and Twisting the Step. When he came to the move called Strumming the Lute, pressing right and drawing left, he suddenly apprehended a subtle and profound truth at the heart of the Taiji Fist’s purpose. The move flowed like drifting clouds and running water, incomparably free and easy.

Asan found every attack on his upper body utterly enveloped by those two palms, beyond evasion, beyond resistance. He had no choice but to channel neili into his back and take the palm strike head-on, whilst simultaneously swinging his right fist in a savage blow, hoping that both men would take a hit and the result be a draw at worst. But Zhang Wuji’s hands traced a circle, as though embracing the Taiji, and a current of prodigious force formed a vortex that spun Asan round on the spot seven or eight times, as if he were a top, as if he were a spindle. Only by invoking the full weight of the Thousand-Jin Drop did he at last wrench himself still, his face crimson with blood, his bearing pitiful in the extreme.

The Ming Order’s heroes roared their approval. Yang Xiao cried, “The Wudang Order’s Taiji Fist is truly wondrous. It opens the eyes wide.” Zhou Dian laughed, “Asan, old fellow, I advise you to change your name. Call yourself Azhuan!” Yin Yewang²³ said, “A few more turns and you needn’t be ashamed. Did the ancients not say, of thirty-six strategies, turning is the best?” Cannot Tell²⁴ added, “Among the heroes of Liangshan Marsh there was one called the Black Whirlwind. A whirlwind, by its nature, must spin!”

Asan’s face went from crimson to livid with rage. He gave a great bellow and sprang forward, his left hand alternating between fist and palm in bewildering mutation, while his right hand employed pure fingerwork: seizing, clawing, striking, gouging, hooking, picking, pressing, flicking, his five fingers like a judge’s brush, like an acupoint-sealing wedge, now dao, now jian, now spear, now halberd, the assault ferocious beyond measure. Zhang Wuji, whose Taiji Fist was still unfamiliar, was at once thrown into confusion, hard-pressed to answer. Suddenly, with a rip of cloth, his sleeve was torn away. He had no choice but to deploy his qinggong²⁵ and flee, evading for the moment this fingerwork he had never before encountered. Asan bellowed and gave chase, but how could he match the ethereal grace of his opponent’s qinggong? Over a dozen clawing grabs, every one of them air.

As he dodged, Zhang Wuji thought, If I do nothing but run, am I not admitting defeat? I cannot yet manage this Taiji Fist properly. Let me use the Great Shift and fight him a bout. He did not retreat. His hands formed the posture of Parting the Wild Horse’s Mane from the Taiji Fist, while his left hand had already invoked the Great Shift’s method. Asan’s right forefinger thrust towards his opponent’s shoulder, yet somehow, deflected by that shifting force, it landed with a thud upon his own left upper arm. The pain was such that stars swam before his eyes and his left arm near lost all power. Yang Xiao perceived at once that this was not Taiji Fist at all, yet he cried out quickly, “The Taiji Fist is truly beyond compare!”

Asan, at once agonised and furious, snarled, “This is demonic sorcery! What Taiji Fist is this?” He thrust three fingers in rapid succession. Zhang Wuji leapt aside. Asan stretched out his arm again, two fingers aiming for his opponent, but Zhang Wuji invoked the Great Shift once more, pulling and redirecting, and with a thud Asan’s two fingers drove into one of the hall’s great wooden pillars, buried to the knuckles. The onlookers were torn between astonishment and laughter.

Amid the roar of laughter, Yu Daiyan cried out in a harsh voice, “Hold! That is Shaolin’s Diamond Finger power?”

Zhang Wuji leapt clear. The moment he heard the words Shaolin’s Diamond Finger power, he remembered: Yu Daiyan had been crippled by Shaolin’s Diamond Finger power. For twenty years the Wudang Order had harboured a deep grievance against Shaolin on this account. So the true culprit was the man standing before him.

Asan said coldly, “And what if it is? Who told you to play the hero and refuse to reveal where the Dragon-Slaying Dao²⁶ lies? How has the taste of twenty years as a cripple been?”

Yu Daiyan said fiercely, “I am grateful to you for revealing the truth today. So it was the Western Regions Shaolin who did this to me. It is a pity… it is a pity for my good Fifth Brother, my good shidi!” At the last words his voice broke. For when Zhang Cuishan²⁷ had cut his own throat, it was because Yu Daiyan had been maimed by Yin Susu’s²⁸ Mosquito-Whisker Needles²⁹ and he could not bear to face his shixiong. In truth, after Yu Daiyan had been struck by the Mosquito-Whisker Needles, Yin Susu had entrusted the Longmen Armed Escort³⁰ to carry him back to Wudang, where a month of treatment would have restored him. That his limbs had been broken was in fact the work of the Diamond Finger’s vicious skill. Had they found the true chief culprit that day, Zhang Cuishan and Yin Susu need never have died. Yu Daiyan grieved for his shidi’s innocent death and hated his own maimed body. His heart was so full of bitterness and hatred that fire seemed to blaze from his eyes.

When Zhang Wuji heard their exchange, he understood at once the whole chain of cause and effect. In his childhood he had heard his father speak of how a fire-working ascetic³¹ of Shaolin Monastery had secretly learned martial arts and beaten to death Chan Master Kuzhi,³² the Chief Seat of Bodhidharma Hall. The masters of the Shaolin Order had fallen to bitter dispute, so that Chan Master Kuhui³³ had fled to the Western Regions and founded the Western Regions Shaolin school. This man before him, it seemed, was a successor of Kuhui’s line.

Sure enough, they heard Zhang Sanfeng say, “Patron, your heart is truly cruel. We did not imagine that among Chan Master Kuhui’s successors there would be one such as you.”

Asan grinned hideously. “Who is Kuhui?”

Footnotes

1. 张三丰 – Zhāng Sānfēng. Founder of the Wudang Order and creator of Taiji Fist. Formerly known as Zhang Junbao. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 太极拳 – Tàijí Quán. The Taiji Fist, Zhang Sanfeng’s foundational unarmed technique embodying yin-yang balance through circular, continuous motion. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 阿三 – Ā Sān. One of Zhao Min’s three household servants, a master of Shaolin’s Diamond Finger power from the Western Regions Shaolin lineage. ↩

4. 俞岱岩 – Yú Dàiyán. The Third Xia of the Seven Xias of Wudang, paralysed for twenty years after an attack by the Diamond Finger. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 太师父 – tàishīfù. Grand Shifu. One’s shifu’s shifu; two rungs up the lineage ladder. ↩

6. 武当派 – Wǔdāng Pài. The Wudang Order, founded by Zhang Sanfeng on Mount Wudang. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 弟子 – dìzǐ. Disciple. ↩

8. 张无忌 – Zhāng Wújì. Protagonist, Cult Leader of the Ming Order, and Zhang Cuishan’s son. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 殷天正 – Yīn Tiānzhèng. The White Brows Eagle King, founder of the Tianying Order and Yin Susu’s father. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 杨逍 – Yáng Xiāo. The Bright Left Messenger of the Ming Order. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 明教 – Míng Jiào. The Ming Order, a revolutionary organisation opposing Yuan rule. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 少林派 – Shàolín Pài. The Shaolin Order. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 西域少林 – Xīyù Shàolín. The Western Regions Shaolin, a branch of the Shaolin Order founded by Chan Master Kuhui after a schism. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 九阳神功 – Jiǔyáng Shéngōng. The Nine Yang Divine Skill, a legendary neigong method emphasising pure yang energy. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 觉远 – Juéyuǎn. A Shaolin monk who was Zhang Sanfeng’s master. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

16. 郭靖 – Guō Jìng. His name meaning “Guo Jing”. One of the Condor Trilogy heroes. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

17. 杨过 – Yáng Guò. Yang Guo, known as the Condor Hero, protagonist of Return of the Condor Heroes. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

18. 师伯 – shībó. Senior lineage uncle. The shixiong of one’s shifu. Shī means teacher. Bó means father’s elder brother. ↩

19. 真人 – zhēnrén. Literally true person. A Daoist honorific title for one who has attained the Way. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

20. 时辰 – shíchén. A unit of time, equivalent to two hours. The day was divided into twelve shichen. ↩

21. 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 manipulating the trajectory of attacks. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

22. 斤 – jīn. A unit of mass, approximately 590 grams in the Ming Dynasty. ↩

23. 殷野王 – Yīn Yěwáng. Yin Susu’s elder brother and Zhang Wuji’s uncle. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

24. 说不得 – Shuōbùdé. Known as Cannot Tell, one of the Five Unbound Adepts of the Ming Order. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

25. 轻功 – qīnggōng. Lightness skill. The martial art of movement, agility, and levity. ↩

26. 屠龙刀 – Túlóng Dāo. The Dragon-Slaying Dao, the legendary dao whose possession is said to grant supremacy over the wulin. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

27. 张翠山 – Zhāng Cuìshān. The Fifth Xia of the Seven Xias of Wudang, Zhang Wuji’s father. He took his own life upon learning the truth about Yu Daiyan’s crippling. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

28. 殷素素 – Yīn Sùsù. Zhang Wuji’s mother, Zhang Cuishan’s wife, and Yin Tianzheng’s daughter. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

29. 蚊须针 – wénxū zhēn. Mosquito-Whisker Needle. Yin Susu’s concealed weapon: needles so fine they resembled a mosquito’s whiskers. ↩

30. 龙门镖局 – Lóngmén Biāojú. The Longmen Armed Escort. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

31. 火工头陀 – huǒgōng tóutuó. The Fire-Working Ascetic. A Shaolin monk who tended the kitchen fires and secretly learned martial arts by observation, eventually killing Chan Master Kuzhi, the Chief Seat of Bodhidharma Hall. His actions triggered a schism in the Shaolin Order. ↩

32. 苦智 – Kǔzhì. Chan Master Kuzhi, Chief Seat of Bodhidharma Hall at Shaolin Monastery, beaten to death by the Fire-Working Ascetic. ↩

33. 苦慧 – Kǔhuì. Chan Master Kuhui, a Shaolin master who fled to the Western Regions after the schism caused by the Fire-Working Ascetic and founded the Western Regions Shaolin school. ↩