The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre Chapter 3 Part 1

A hundred-forged precious blade births arcane light

Blossoms bloom and blossoms fall; blossoms fall and blossoms bloom. The young wanderers of the jianghu¹ grow old, and white hairs appear at the temples of once-beautiful maidens.

It was the second year of the Zhiyuan reign under Emperor Shun of the Yuan dynasty.² More than fifty years had passed since the fall of the Song.

Spring had reached its zenith in the third month, and along the coastal reaches of Jiangnan,³ a stalwart man of some thirty years strode down a broad thoroughfare. He wore a blue robe, straw sandals upon his feet, and moved at a swift and steady pace. His brows swept upward like sword-wings; his eyes gleamed bright and keen; his nose rose high and proud—all marking him as a man of formidable spirit.

Though dusk drew near and peach blossoms glowed red amid willow-green along the roadside, he had no leisure to admire the splendour of spring. His mind turned only on silent calculation: Today is the twenty-fourth of the third month. Fourteen days remain until the ninth of the fourth month. I must suffer no delay upon the road if I am to reach Mount Wudang⁴ in time to celebrate my shifu’s ninetieth birthday.

This stalwart man, surnamed Yu and named Daiyan,⁵ was the third disciple of Zhang Sanfeng,⁶ the founding patriarch of the Wudang Order.⁷ Earlier that year, his shifu⁸ had dispatched him to Fujian⁹ to slay a vicious bandit who had been ravaging the common folk and committing countless atrocities. That bandit, catching wind of his coming, had immediately gone to ground. Yu Daiyan spent more than two months tracking down his secret lair, then challenged him to single combat.

Using the Mysterious Void Bladework¹⁰ passed down from his shifu, he slew the man on the eleventh move. What he had expected to take ten days had consumed more than two months, and when he counted the days remaining until his shifu’s ninetieth birthday, he found them alarmingly few. Thus he pressed homeward from Fujian with all haste, and on this day had already reached the coast of eastern Zhejiang, south of the Qiantang River.¹¹

He pressed on at a rapid pace for a time, and the path grew narrower. To his right, toward the sea, he frequently glimpsed expanses of flat ground, smooth as mirrors and often seven or eight zhang¹² across—so level and slick that not even a water-polished tabletop could match them. Yu Daiyan had travelled the length and breadth of the land north and south of the Yangtze, and his experience was considerable, yet he had never encountered anything so peculiar.

When he asked a local, he could not help but laugh at his own ignorance: they were salt fields. The salt workers of that region channelled seawater into these fields; once it evaporated, they scraped up the salt-laden earth, dissolved it into brine, and gradually dried it into salt crystals. Yu Daiyan thought, I have eaten salt for thirty years, yet never knew that producing it required such toil.

As he walked on, he suddenly caught sight of a party of more than twenty men approaching swiftly from a side path to the west, all bearing loads upon their shoulders. Yu Daiyan took note of them with a single glance. Every man wore a matching outfit of short blue shirt and trousers with a broad-brimmed hat upon his head, and their burdens clearly contained sea salt. He knew the government levied crushing taxes upon salt; ordinary folk, though they dwelt beside the sea, could not afford the official product and had no choice but to buy smuggled salt from private dealers.

These men moved with bold, agile strides, their builds powerful and solid—clearly a band of salt smugglers. What struck him as strange was that the carrying poles upon their shoulders were neither bamboo nor wood, but black and dull, utterly without flex, as though they were iron bars. Each man bore some two hundred catties¹³ of weight, yet they moved with remarkable speed.

Yu Daiyan mused, Every one of these smugglers commands no mean martial skill. I have heard that the Sea Sand Gang¹⁴ of Jiangnan deals in contraband salt on a grand scale and counts among its ranks no few experts in martial arts. Yet for more than twenty such experts to band together hauling salt makes no sense at all. Were they minded to commit some unlawful deed—never mind mere robbery of wealthy households, they could storm a government treasury and the soldiers would be powerless to stop them. Why skulk about peddling illegal salt for such meagre profit? There must be more to this than meets the eye.

Under ordinary circumstances, he would have investigated further, but with his shifu’s birthday weighing upon his mind, he could not afford to meddle in matters that might cause further delay. He quickened his pace and pressed on.

By evening he had reached Andong Town¹⁵ in Yuyao County.¹⁶ From there he would cross the Qiantang River to Yanguan¹⁷ and Lin’an,¹⁸ then turn northwest through Jiangxi and Hunan before finally arriving in Hubei at Mount Wudang. No boats crossed the river after nightfall, so he had no choice but to find a small inn in Andong Town and lodge there for the night.

After supper, he had just washed his feet and was about to retire when a commotion erupted in the common hall as a group of men arrived seeking lodging. He heard them speaking in the local dialect of eastern Zhejiang, yet their voices rang with full and vigorous inner breath—clearly all accomplished practitioners. Peering through his door, he saw that they were the same band of smugglers he had encountered on the road. Yu Daiyan thought little of it. He sat cross-legged upon his bed, practised three cycles of breath cultivation, then lay down to sleep.

In the depths of the night, a soft clicking sound from the neighbouring room roused him at once. He heard a man whisper, “Let us slip away quietly. Best not to disturb the guest next door and stir up trouble.” The others crept out, pushing open their door and entering the courtyard. Yu Daiyan watched through a crack in the window shutter as the smugglers shouldered their loads and departed.

These salt runners are up to something furtive, he thought. If they are merely peddling contraband, that is no concern of mine. But if they mean to commit some villainy, now that I have stumbled upon it, I cannot simply look the other way. Should I prevent them from doing harm and save an innocent life or two, even if I miss my shifu’s birthday celebration, he would surely be pleased. He strapped the cloth bundle containing his weapons and hidden projectiles to his back, slipped through the window, and vaulted over the wall.

He heard their footsteps heading northeast and deployed his qinggong,¹⁹ following in silent pursuit. The night sky was choked with clouds, and neither moon nor stars shone through. In the heavy darkness, he could just make out the twenty-odd smugglers bearing their loads as they raced along the narrow dikes between fields.

It is common enough for salt runners to travel by night, he thought. But these men possess considerable skill. If they wished to commit some unlawful deed—never mind burgling a wealthy household, they could even raid the government coffers and the soldiers could not stop them. Why sneak about selling contraband salt for such paltry gain? There must be something else afoot.

In less than half a shichen,²⁰ the band of smugglers had covered more than twenty li. Yu Daiyan’s qinggong was formidable; his footfalls made no sound, and because the smugglers seemed intent on some urgent business and pressed forward without looking back, they failed to notice him. By now they had reached the seashore, where waves crashed against rocks with an unceasing roar.

As they advanced, the man at the head gave a low whistle, and everyone halted. The leader called out in a hushed voice, “Who goes there?”

From the darkness came a rasping voice: “Friends of the three water strokes, is it?”

The leader replied, “That’s right. And who might you be?”

Yu Daiyan’s brow furrowed. Friends of the three water strokes—what does that mean? A moment’s thought brought understanding: Ah, so it is indeed the Sea Sand Gang. All three characters of their name—Hai, Sha, and Pai—share the water radical.

The rasping voice continued, “I advise you not to meddle in the matter of the Dragon-Slaying Sabre.”²¹

The leader’s voice carried a note of alarm and anger. “Have you also come for the Dragon-Slaying Sabre?”

The man with the rasping voice only laughed coldly—three short, sinister chuckles—and said nothing more.

Yu Daiyan concealed himself behind a rock by the shore and crept closer. He made out a tall, gaunt figure blocking the path. In the darkness he could not discern the man’s features, only that he wore white robes. To travel by night clad in white showed unmistakable confidence in his own martial prowess.

The Sea Sand Gang leader said, “The Dragon-Slaying Sabre already belongs to our sect. It was stolen by some petty thief, and we have every right to reclaim it.”

The man in white let out another three cold laughs and continued to stand there, blocking the way with an air of utter disdain.

A man behind the leader shouted, “Out of the way! A cur blocking the road! You’re asking for death—”

The words had not left his mouth when the white-robed stranger shot forward, his hand lashing out to seize the man’s face. The Sea Sand Gang man twisted aside to avoid it, but the stranger gained a step. Another attacker swung his great iron hammer down at the white-robed man’s skull. The stranger shifted slightly; the hammer crashed into the ground, sparks exploding—the surface beneath was not ordinary blue brick but granite of exceptional hardness. The man to the west released his carrying pole and attacked from the flank, both hands slashing like eagle talons, darting high and low with ferocious speed.

Footnotes

1. 江湖 – jiānghú. Literally rivers and lakes. The world of martial arts. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 至元 – Zhìyuán. The second Zhiyuan era (1335–1340 CE) under Emperor Toghon Temür (Yuan Shundi). Not to be confused with the earlier Zhiyuan era of Kublai Khan. ↩

3. 江南 – Jiāngnán. Literally south of the river. The prosperous region south of the Yangtze River. See Wikipedia. ↩

4. 武当山 – Wǔdāng Shān. Sacred Daoist mountain in Hubei Province, headquarters of the Wudang Order. See Wikipedia. ↩

5. 俞岱岩 – Yú Dàiyán. His name meaning “Lofty Cliff of Mount Dai.” Third disciple of Zhang Sanfeng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 张三丰 – Zhāng Sānfēng. His name meaning “Three Peaks”. Legendary founder of the Wudang Order and creator of taijiquan. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 武当派 – Wǔdāng Pài. Orthodox Daoist martial order founded by Zhang Sanfeng on Mount Wudang. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 师父 – Shīfu. Master or teacher; specifically, one’s personal martial arts instructor with whom one shares a lifelong bond of loyalty and obligation. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 福建 – Fújiàn. Coastal province in southeastern China. See Wikipedia. ↩

10. 玄虚刀法 – Xuánxū Dāofǎ. Literally mysterious void bladework. Wudang Order dao technique. ↩

11. 钱塘江 – Qiántáng Jiāng. The Qiantang River, famous for its tidal bore. Flows through modern-day Hangzhou. See Wikipedia. ↩

12. 丈 – zhàng. A traditional Chinese unit of length equal to approximately eleven feet. ↩

13. 斤 – jīn. A traditional Chinese unit of weight, approximately 500 grams or 1.1 pounds. Four hundred jin would be roughly 440 pounds or 200 kilograms. ↩

14. 海沙派 – Hǎishā Pài. Literally Sea Sand Gang. A Jiangnan faction involved in salt smuggling. All three characters share the water radical (三点水). ↩

15. 庵东镇 – Āndōng Zhèn. Small town in Yuyao County, Zhejiang Province. ↩

16. 余姚县 – Yúyáo Xiàn. County in eastern Zhejiang Province. See Wikipedia. ↩

17. 盐官 – Yánguān. Historic town on the north bank of the Qiantang River. ↩

18. 临安 – Lín’ān. Capital of the Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1276), known for its cultural refinement and West Lake scenery. Modern-day Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. See Wikipedia. ↩

19. 轻功 – qīnggōng. Literally lightness skill. The ability to move with superhuman agility, and weightlessness through qi redistribution to leap over trees and roofs, and skip over water. See Wikipedia. ↩

20. 时辰 – shíchén. A unit of time in ancient China, equivalent to two hours. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

21. 屠龙刀 – Túlóng Dāo. The Dragon-Slaying Sabre; literally dragon-slaying dao. A legendary blade and the supreme weapon of the jianghu. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩