The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 28 – Part 2

Zhao Min glanced at Zhang Wuji and asked, “What exactly is it about you that makes everyone under you so utterly devoted?”

Zhang Wuji said, “We fight for our country, for our people, for chivalry and loyalty. Right Messenger Fan and I were complete strangers, yet we felt an instant kinship, hearts laid bare, bonded as flesh and blood. It is simply that we do not dishonour the word ‘brotherhood’.”

Fan Yao laughed heartily. “Chief, those words speak straight from my heart. Chief, although this Princess is young, she is ruthless and formidable, far from ordinary. Your conscience is too good. You are no match for her.”

Zhang Wuji said, “Indeed. I dare not be careless.”

Zhao Min smiled. “Thank you for the compliment, Bitter Dhūta.”

Fan Yao turned to leave the inn. As he passed Xiaozhao, he suddenly froze, his face contorted with astonishment, as if he had seen some terrible ghost. He cried out involuntarily, “You… you…”

Xiaozhao asked in surprise, “What is it?”

Fan Yao stared at her blankly for a long moment, then shook his head. “No… no… I was mistaken.” He heaved a long sigh, his expression deeply melancholy, and pushed open the door to leave, murmuring under his breath, “So like her… so like her…”

Zhao Min and Zhang Wuji exchanged a glance, neither knowing whom he thought Xiaozhao resembled.

Suddenly, from a distance came several sharp whistles: three long, two short. Zhang Wuji started. He recognised this as the Emei Order’s signal for gathering disciples. When he had encountered Miejue Shitai¹ and her party in the Western Regions, he had heard them use this signal several times to communicate. He wondered, Why have the Emei returned to Dadu? Could they have met with enemies?

Zhao Min said, “That’s the Emei Order. They seem to have some urgent matter. Shall we go and have a look?”

Zhang Wuji asked in surprise, “How do you know that?”

Zhao Min laughed. “I followed them for four days and four nights in the Western Regions before I captured Miejue Shitai. Of course I know their signals.”

Zhang Wuji said, “Very well, let us go take a look. Miss Zhao, may I ask a favour first: I would like to borrow your Heavenly Jian.”

Zhao Min laughed. “You have not even borrowed the Dragon-Slaying Dao² yet, and already you are asking for the Heavenly Jian. You are quite the calculator.” She untied the precious jian from her waist and handed it over.

Zhang Wuji took it and drew the blade from its sheath. “Xiaozhao, come here.” Xiaozhao stepped forward. Zhang Wuji swung the long jian, chi chi chi, several light sounds, and the shackles and chains on Xiaozhao’s wrists and ankles fell severed to the ground with a clatter.

Xiaozhao bowed and said, “Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Princess.”

Zhao Min smiled. “What a beautiful little girl. Your Chief must be very fond of you.” Xiaozhao blushed, her eyes shining with delight.

Zhang Wuji returned the jian to its sheath and handed it back to Zhao Min. “Many thanks!” The Emei Order’s whistles could be heard heading northeast. “Let us go.”

Zhao Min took out a small ingot of silver, tossed it onto the table, darted out of the inn, and broke into a run.

Zhang Wuji, afraid Xiaozhao could not keep up, held her right hand in his and supported her waist with his left, keeping pace behind Zhao Min without pressing or falling behind. After barely a dozen paces, however, he noticed that Xiaozhao’s body was light and floating, her steps swift and nimble. Slightly surprised, he withdrew the supporting force from his hand, yet Xiaozhao continued to walk abreast of him without falling behind at all. Although he was not using the finest qinggong³ at present, his pace was already extremely fast, and Xiaozhao was somehow keeping up.

In the blink of an eye, Zhao Min had crossed several quiet alleys and arrived outside a half-collapsed garden wall. Zhang Wuji could hear the faint sound of women arguing within. Knowing the Emei Order was inside, he pulled Xiaozhao’s hand and leapt over the wall, landing silently in the darkness. The ground within was overgrown with grass. It was an abandoned garden. Zhao Min followed them in, and the three of them crouched low in the undergrowth.

In the northeast corner of the ruined garden stood a dilapidated pavilion, inside which some twenty figures gathered indistinctly. A woman’s voice was saying, “You are the youngest disciple in our Order. By seniority, by skill, by any measure, the position of zhangmen is the last thing that should fall to you…”

Zhang Wuji recognised the voice as Ding Minjun’s. He crept forward through the tall grass until he was several dozen feet from the pavilion, then stopped. The starlight was dim, the scene a hazy blur. Focusing his gaze, he could make out men and women within, all Emei disciples. It seemed that most of Miejue’s senior disciples were present. On the left sat a slender figure in a green gown trailing to the ground, Zhou Zhiruo. Ding Minjun’s voice was sharp and unrelenting, “Speak… speak…”

Zhou Zhiruo said slowly, “Ding shijie⁴ is right. I am the youngest disciple in our Order. In seniority, skill, talent, virtue, not one qualifies me to be zhangmen. Shifu commanded me to take this burden, and I bitterly declined again and again. But Shifu sternly rebuked me and made me swear a solemn oath not to fail her trust.”

The Emei senior disciple Jingxuan said, “Shifu was wise. On her deathbed, she commanded Zhou shimei⁵ to succeed as zhangmen. She must have had deep reasons. We all heard it. We have all received shifu’s great grace in training us. We should honour her last wishes and assist Zhou shimei with one heart, to glorify our Order’s martial virtue.”

Ding Minjun sneered. “Jingxuan shijie says Shifu must have had deep reasons. Those four characters, ‘deep reasons’, are very well put. Were we not all at the top of the tower and beneath the tower, when we heard Bitter Dhūta and He Biweng⁶ shouting aloud? Who Zhou shimei’s parents were, and why Shifu treated her with such special favour, is it not plain?”

Bitter Dhūta had told Lu Zhangke⁷ that Miejue Shitai was his old lover and Zhou Zhiruo their illegitimate daughter, but that was merely the eccentric jesting of a heterodox mind. Yet now that He Biweng had shouted it openly, others had heard. Though they might not entirely believe it, some suspicion would inevitably linger. In matters of romance, people always preferred to believe something had happened rather than not. And Miejue’s extraordinary favour toward Zhou Zhiruo had never been explained to anyone’s satisfaction. The words “illegitimate daughter” were the most convenient explanation of all. After hearing Ding Minjun’s words, everyone fell silent.

Zhou Zhiruo said in a trembling voice, “Ding shijie, if you refuse to accept me as zhangmen, you may say so plainly. To speak wild slander and tarnish Shifu’s lifelong reputation, that is a grave sin. My late father’s surname was Zhou. He was a boatman on the Han River, without a trace of martial arts. My late mother, née Xue, came from a good family originally from Xiangyang. After Xiangyang fell, her family fled south, destitute and alone, and she married my father. Through the recommendation of Zhang Sanfeng the Perfected One⁸ of the Wudang Order, I was accepted into the Emei Order nine years ago. Before that time, I had never so much as seen Shifu in person. You have received Shifu’s great kindness, yet on the very day after she passed away, you speak like this… this…” Her voice choked, tears rolling down her cheeks, and she could say no more.

Ding Minjun sneered, “You wish to become zhangmen without the Order’s approval, your own status unclear, and already you want to lord it over me and assign blame? ‘Tarnishing Shifu’s reputation’, ‘a grave sin,’ you say? You want to punish me, is that it? Let me ask you: if you truly received Shifu’s command to succeed as zhangmen, you should have returned to Emei immediately. Shifu has passed away, and the Order’s affairs are countless, every one requiring the zhangmen’s attention. Yet you slipped away alone and came back to Dadu in secret. Why was that?”

Zhou Zhiruo said, “Shifu left me a tremendous burden. That is why I had no choice but to return to Dadu.”

Ding Minjun said, “What matter is that? There is no one here besides our own disciples. You may speak plainly.”

Zhou Zhiruo said, “It is the Order’s most closely guarded secret. It may not be told to anyone except the zhangmen.”

Ding Minjun sneered, “Hmph, hmph! You hide behind those three characters, ‘zhangmen’, for everything. You think you can fool me? Let me ask you: our Order and the demonic cult⁹ are enemies as deep as the sea. Many of our fellow disciples have perished at the demonic cult’s hands, and countless cult members have fallen beneath Shifu’s Heavenly Jian. Shifu herself passed away because she refused the demonic cult Chief’s request. And yet, before her bones have even grown cold, why are you sneaking off to find that young whoremonger from the demonic cult, that great demon who serves as their Chief?”

When Zhang Wuji heard these last words, he could not help but start. Just then, he felt a soft finger trace across his left cheek, gently scratching twice. It was Zhao Min beside him, using her fingertip to tease him with embarrassment. His face burned. He thought, Could it be that Miss Zhou really came looking for me? Zhao Min felt the heat in his cheeks and suppressed a smile, barely managing not to giggle.

They heard Zhou Zhiruo stammer, “You… you are talking nonsense again…”

Ding Minjun raised her voice. “You still want to deny it? You told everyone to return to Emei first, and when we asked what business you had in Dadu, you hemmed and hawed and refused to say. The rest of us suspected something was wrong, so we followed you from behind. You asked your father Bitter Dhūta where that young whoremonger was staying, as if we did not know? You went to the inn looking for that young whoremonger, as if we did not know?”

One moment it was “young whoremonger” this, the next “young whoremonger” that. Even with Zhang Wuji’s legendary temper, he could not help but feel annoyed. Just then he felt someone breathing softly against his neck. It was Zhao Min teasing him again.

Ding Minjun continued, “Who you choose to speak with, who you choose to befriend, that is none of anyone else’s business. But that young whoremonger surnamed Zhang is our Order’s deadliest enemy. Last night at Wan’an Temple, when we all faced mortal danger, why did you gaze at him with such tender eyes? I am not making this up. Everyone here saw it with their own eyes. That day on Bright Summit, Shifu told you to stab him with a jian stroke, and he did not dodge or block, just smiled at you adoringly while you winked and fluttered back at him, giving him the lightest, most painless little scratch. With the Heavenly Jian’s sharpness, how could you possibly have failed to kill him? If there was no secret understanding between you, who could believe it?”

Zhou Zhiruo burst into tears. “Who was winking and fluttering? You keep saying horrible things to slander me.”

Footnotes

1. 灭绝师太 – Mièjué Shītài. Her dharma-name, meaning “Extinction” or “Annihilation”. ↩

2. 屠龙刀 – túlóng dāo. Literally dragon-slaying sabre. ↩

3. 轻功 – qīnggōng. Literally lightness skill. The martial art of body lightness; practitioners leap great heights and move with extraordinary speed. ↩

4. 师姐 – shījiě. Female senior. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Jiě means older sister. ↩

5. 师妹 – shīmèi. Female junior. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Mèi means younger sister. ↩

6. 鹤笔翁 – hè bǐwēng. His name meaning “Crane-Pen Old Man”. ↩

7. 鹿杖客 – lù zhàngkè. His name meaning “Deer-Cane Guest”. ↩

8. 真人 – zhēnrén. Literally “true person”. Honorific title for an eminent Daoist. ↩

9. 明教 – míng jiào. Literally “Bright Order”. ↩