The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 30 – Part 6

A spasm of agony tore through Zhang Wuji, yet in that instant his mind blazed clear as snow. He cried out, “The right must yield to the left, the right must yield to the left! Yes, yes, of course!” In the space of a heartbeat the principle was his. What the Three Messengers knew of the Great Shift of Heaven and Earth¹ was no more than the rudiments of its first level, but the Holy Fire Tablets² bore additional carvings of strange and crooked variations, lending their kung fu an uncanny aspect. In that single turn of thought Xiao Zhao's four lines of verse became wholly plain to him, though “Heaven square, Earth round” and the rest he could not yet fathom. He would need to read the inscriptions on the Holy Fire Tablets himself before he could master the essence of the Persian Ming Order's³ martial arts.

He suddenly uttered a clear whistle. His hands shot out in a seizing motion, the technique “Three Void, Seven Solid,” and he had already wrenched the two Holy Fire Tablets from the Bright Moon Messenger.⁴ Before the Drifting Cloud Messenger⁵ could react, “Something from Nothing” stripped the pair of tablets from his grasp as well. The two men froze. In that moment of stupefaction Zhang Wuji tucked all four tablets into his robe, seized each man by the back of the neck, and hurled them left and right.

Amid the shouting of the Persians, the Mysterious Wind Messenger⁶ leapt and sprang back towards his own ship. But now Zhang Wuji understood the crux of their kung fu. What he had penetrated was still extremely limited, yet the Mysterious Wind Messenger’s martial arts no longer held the slightest mystery in his eyes. His right hand darted out and closed on the man’s left ankle, dragging him bodily back through mid-air. He wrenched the Holy Fire Tablets from his grip, raised him overhead, and brought him crashing down towards the Zhen’e Guardian King’s⁷ head. The three Guardian Kings still remaining on the deck started in alarm. With a gesture they leapt back. Zhang Wuji sealed the Mysterious Wind Messenger’s acupoints and tossed him at his feet.

The turnabout was so abrupt, so complete, that in a single breath he had passed from defeat to dominance. Zhao Min and the rest were equal parts astonished and overjoyed, and demanded an explanation.

Zhang Wuji laughed. “If the Equality Guardian King⁸ hadn’t taken that blow to the face by pure accident, we would be in serious trouble indeed. Xiao Zhao, translate the writing on these six Holy Fire Tablets for me at once. Quick, quick!”

They examined the six tablets. The material was neither metal nor jade, impossibly hard, each tablet different in length and size, seemingly transparent yet not, with flames that seemed to flicker within — though in truth it was the tablet substance catching the light, shifting in colour. Every tablet bore a considerable inscription of Persian script. To say nothing of penetrating the deeper meaning, even to translate them in full would require no small amount of time.

Zhang Wuji knew that escape from their present predicament depended on uncovering the wellspring of the Persian school’s martial arts. “Miss Zhou,” he said, “please hold the Heavenly Jian⁹ at the Equality Guardian King’s throat. Godfather, hold the Dragon-Slaying Dao¹⁰ at the Mysterious Wind Messenger’s throat. Stall for as much time as you can.” Xie Xun and Zhou Zhiruo nodded their assent.

Xiao Zhao took up the six Holy Fire Tablets. The shortest bore the fewest characters and was the dullest and least striking, so she began by translating its inscription word by word. Zhang Wuji listened through the whole of it without understanding a single phrase. He strained to think, yet could make nothing of it at all, and grew deeply anxious.

Zhao Min said, “Xiao Zhao妹妹, start with the tablet that struck the Equality Guardian King.”

That single reminder sent Xiao Zhao back to checking. The tablet in question was the second longest. She translated its meaning, and this time Zhang Wuji grasped seven or eight parts in ten. When that tablet was done and she turned to the longest, he had listened only a few sentences before he cried delightedly, “Little sister, the longer the inscription on these six tablets, the simpler the content. This one describes nothing but the most elementary foundation work.”

The Holy Fire Tablets of the Ming Order numbered twelve in all. Six bore inscriptions of martial arts. The remaining six carried the Order’s commandments — the Three Great Precepts and the Five Lesser Precepts. The twelve tablets had been cast in ancient days by the Mountain-Dwelling Sage Huoshan¹¹ of Persia, who engraved upon six of them the essence of his lifetime’s martial learning. The twelve tablets had entered the Middle Kingdom alongside the Ming Order itself, and had since served as the insignia of the Middle Kingdom’s Order Leader. As the years deepened, however, no one in the Middle Kingdom’s Ming Order could any longer read the Persian script upon the six inscribed tablets. Instead, the Order had carved the Three Great Precepts and Five Lesser Precepts of Middle Kingdom law upon the remaining six, blank tablets. Decades ago the Holy Fire Tablets had been seized by members of the Beggars’ Guild, passed through the hands of Persian merchants, and at last found their way back to the Persian Ming Order. The Persian headquarters had devoted decades to studying the inscriptions, and in that time every member of any rank had seen their martial arts advance by leaps. Only, the arts recorded upon the tablets were so vast and profound that even the Great Sage Guardian King,¹² whose cultivation was the highest among them, had mastered barely three or four parts in ten.

The Great Shift of Heaven and Earth had originated as the guardian art of the Persian Ming Order, built upon a foundation of superior neigong¹³ beyond the reach of ordinary practitioners. The Persian Ming Order’s Order Leader was required to be a maiden, and over the several centuries that followed, a succession of unremarkable women had held the post. The art passed down through them was accordingly incomplete, whereas the Middle Kingdom’s Ming Order had preserved the full teaching. What the Persian Ming Order now possessed was fewer than one part in ten of the old Great Shift, combined with two or three parts in ten of the newly acquired Holy Fire Tablets arts, fused together into a single strange and uncanny discipline.

Zhang Wuji sat cross-legged at the bow of the ship while Xiao Zhao translated the Holy Fire Tablets’ inscriptions for him, phrase by phrase. The martial arts contained within were marvellously intricate, yet when one method is understood, ten thousand methods follow. All recondite learning, pressed to its furthest reach, arrives at the same destination by different roads. Zhang Wuji was deeply versed in the Nine Yang Divine Skill,¹⁴ the Great Shift of Heaven and Earth, and the principles of the Wudang Order’s Taiji Fist.¹⁵ Strange as the Holy Fire Tablets’ arts might be, they were no more than a sidelong learning carried to its zenith — in breadth and depth they fell far short of the three disciplines above. By the time Xiao Zhao had finished translating all six tablets, he had committed barely seven or eight parts in ten to memory in his haste, and truly understood only five or six parts in ten of those. Even so, every technique the Guardian Kings and the Three Messengers had displayed was now as clear to him as the palm of his hand, and not worth a smile.

The moments passed one by one. He was wholly absorbed in the study of martial learning, unmindful of anything beyond himself. But to Zhao Min and Zhou Zhiruo and the rest, every instant was agony. They watched as shackles were clapped upon Daiqisi’s wrists and ankles; they watched the eleven Guardian Kings gather their heads in secret counsel; they watched the eleven strip off their long robes and don supple armour; they watched the eleven kings’ attendants bring forward eleven weapons of grotesque and unfamiliar shape; they watched ship after ship close in from every quarter, crowded with Persian warriors; they watched those warriors nock arrows to their bows and level the points at their own ship…

From the centre of the formation came a great shout. The Great Sage Guardian King raised his voice, and on all four sides drums thundered and horns blew in unison.

Zhang Wuji started. He raised his head and saw the eleven Guardian Kings, each clad in gleaming golden armour, weapons in hand, leaping aboard. Xie Xun and Zhou Zhiruo held sword and dao at the throats of the Equality Guardian King and the Mysterious Wind Messenger. At this show the eleven kings dared not press closer after landing on the bows. They formed a half-moon, watchful as tigers, awaiting their chance. Zhou Zhiruo, Zhao Min and the rest saw the eleven kings’ fearsome aspect and towering frames, and felt their hearts grow cold.

The Wisdom Guardian King¹⁶ spoke in Chinese: “You had best return our fellow members at once, and we shall spare your lives. These two are to us no more than swine and dogs. What use is it to hold a blade at their throats? If you have the stomach, kill them. In the Holy Teach of Persia, such as these are counted by the thousand. What loss is one or two?”

Zhao Min replied, “You need not speak in such grand terms to deceive us. We know full well that one of these two is the Equality Guardian King and the other is the Mysterious Wind Messenger, both of high rank in your Ming Order. You say they are as swine and dogs to you. In that you are greatly, greatly mistaken.”

The Wisdom Guardian King’s Chinese was book-learned, his “your honours” and “those persons” all askew and absurd. Zhao Min mimicked his diction and cadence so perfectly that Xie Xun and the others, perilous as their situation was, could not suppress a smile.

The Wisdom Guardian King frowned. “In the Holy Teach, there are three hundred and sixty Guardian Kings. The Equality Guardian King ranks three hundred and fifty-ninth. We have one thousand two hundred messengers. This Mysterious Wind Messenger’s kung fu is mediocre; he ranks one thousand one hundred and nineteenth of them. You had best kill him at once.”

“Very good, very good!” said Zhao Min. “You friends holding sword and dao, kill these two useless fellows quickly.”

“As you command!” said Xie Xun. He raised the Dragon-Slaying Dao and brought it whistling down in a horizontal cut at the Equality Guardian King’s head.

Amid a chorus of cries, the blade swept past his crown, less than half an inch from the skull, shearing away a great lock of hair that the sea wind caught and scattered through the air. Xie Xun swung his right arm. A cut from the left, a cut from the right, aimed at the Equality Guardian King’s shoulders. Each stroke seemed certain to sever an arm, yet at the last instant his wrist turned a hair’s breadth, and no more than a strip of sleeve came away from each shoulder. Three brutal, full-force cuts, and the placement so precise that even a man with perfect eyes would have found it supremely difficult — let alone a blind man.

The Equality Guardian King, escaped from the jaws of death, was near to fainting from terror. The eleven Guardian Kings and the Three Messengers stared, tongues hanging out, unable to speak.

Zhao Min said, “You have now beheld the martial arts of the Middle Kingdom’s Ming Order. This Golden-Haired Lion King¹⁷ ranks three thousand five hundred and ninth in the Middle Kingdom’s Ming Order. If you rely upon numbers to claim victory today, the Middle Kingdom’s Ming Order will surely come to Persia another day to avenge itself and sweep away your headquarters. You would not be able to withstand it. It would be best for both sides to make peace at once.”

The Wisdom Guardian King knew Zhao Min’s words were false, yet for the moment he could think of no counter. The Great Sage Guardian King suddenly spoke several sentences in Persian.

Xiao Zhao cried, “Order Leader, they mean to scuttle the ship!”

A chill ran through Zhang Wuji. If their vessel went down, none of them could swim, and surrender would be unavoidable. His form flickered, and he was already before the Great Sage Guardian King. The Wisdom Guardian King shouted, “What do you think you are doing?” On either side, the Merit Guardian King¹⁸ and the Flame Guardian King¹⁹ brought down an iron whip and an eight-cornered hammer in unison.

By now Zhang Wuji was thoroughly familiar with the Persian school’s martial arts. Neither dodging nor deflecting, he thrust both hands forward, seizing for the two kings’ throats. A sharp clang rang out — the Merit Guardian King’s iron whip and the Flame Guardian King’s eight-cornered hammer had struck one another, sparks flying. Both men found their throat acupoints gripped and were dragged sideways and backwards by his pull. In the confusion Zhang Wuji chained four kicks in rapid succession: two sent the Unity Guardian King’s and the Zhen’e Guardian King’s great dao spinning from their hands. Two more sent the Diligent Cultivation Guardian King²⁰ and the Transparent Guardian King tumbling into the water.

At that moment a tall, lean Guardian King came lunging at him, a short sword in each hand, thrusting for Zhang Wuji’s chest.

Footnotes

1. 乾坤大挪移 – Qiánkūn Dà Nuóyí. The supreme secret art of the Ming Order, capable of redirecting force, reversing qi flow, and manipulating the trajectory of attacks. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 圣火令 – Shènghuǒ Lìng. Twelve golden tablets of the Ming Order, symbols of authority. Six bear the martial arts of the Mountain-Dwelling Sage of ancient Persia; six bear the Order’s commandments. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 波斯明教 – Bōsī Míng Jiào. The Persian branch of the Ming Order, from which the Middle Kingdom’s Ming Order originally derived. Its martial arts had advanced enormously after decades of studying the Holy Fire Tablets. ↩

4. 辉月使 – Huīyuè Shǐ. The Bright Moon Messenger, one of the Three Messengers of the Persian Ming Order. ↩

5. 流云使 – Liúyún Shǐ. The Drifting Cloud Messenger, one of the Three Messengers of the Persian Ming Order. ↩

6. 妙风使 – Miàofēng Shǐ. The Mysterious Wind Messenger, the most martially accomplished of the Three Messengers. ↩

7. 镇恶王 – Zhèn’è Wáng. The Zhen’e Guardian King, one of the Persian Ming Order’s guardian kings. The name means “Demon-Subduing King.” ↩

8. 平等宝树王 – Píngděng Bǎoshùwáng. The Equality Guardian King, ranked three hundred and fifty-ninth among the three hundred and sixty Guardian Kings of the Persian Ming Order. ↩

9. 倚天剑 – Yǐtiān Jiàn. “Heaven-Reliant Sword.” One of the twin legendary weapons, containing the Book of Wumu hidden within. ↩

10. 屠龙刀 – Túlóng Dāo. “Dragon-Slaying Sabre.” The other of the twin legendary weapons. ↩

11. 霍山 – Huòshān. The Mountain-Dwelling Sage, a legendary figure of the Persian Ming Order who cast the twelve Holy Fire Tablets and inscribed upon them his lifetime of martial arts. ↩

12. 大圣宝树王 – Dàshèng Bǎoshùwáng. The Great Sage Guardian King, chief among the eleven Guardian Kings of the Persian Ming Order and the most martially accomplished. ↩

13. 内功 – nèigōng. Internal cultivation. The refinement of qi through disciplined practice, distinct from waigong (external techniques). ↩

14. 九阳神功 – Jiǔyáng Shéngōng. The Nine Yang Divine Skill, a legendary internal cultivation method. ↩

15. 太极拳 – Tàijí Quán. The foundational unarmed art of the Wudang Order, embodying the principles of yin and yang through circular, ceaseless motion. ↩

16. 智慧宝树王 – Zhìhuì Bǎoshùwáng. The Wisdom Guardian King, one of the eleven Guardian Kings of the Persian Ming Order. His Chinese was learned from books and was marked by archaic and stilted constructions. ↩

17. 谢逊 – Xiè Xùn. The Golden-Haired Lion King, one of the four Guardian Kings of the Middle Kingdom’s Ming Order and Zhang Wuji’s sworn father. ↩

18. 功德宝树王 – Gōngdé Bǎoshùwáng. The Merit Guardian King, one of the eleven Guardian Kings. ↩

19. 掌火宝树王 – Zhǎnghuǒ Bǎoshùwáng. The Flame Guardian King, one of the eleven Guardian Kings. ↩

20. 勤修宝树王 – Qínxiū Bǎoshùwáng. The Diligent Cultivation Guardian King, one of the eleven Guardian Kings. ↩