The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 31: Both Sword and Saber Lost, People Said to Perish

Both jian and dao are lost together. People say she has perished.

After Yin Li had the Persian wound-salve applied to her injury, her fever still would not break and her delirium would not cease. During her days at sea, the illness had been compounded by wind-chill, and the salve could only treat external wounds. It could not dispel the pathogenic wind that had invaded her body. Zhang Wuji was deeply anxious. On the third day he spied a small island far to the east upon the sea, and he ordered the Branch Master to steer toward it.

When they landed on the island, everyone’s spirits lifted. The island was no more than a few li¹ in circumference, covered with low trees, flowers, and grasses. Zhang Wuji asked Zhou Zhiruo to tend Yin Li and Zhao Min while he parted the foliage and searched for medicinal herbs. But the island’s plants were utterly different from those of the Central Plains. Most were unrecognisable to him. He searched further and further afield, and by nightfall had found only a single herb. He could only return, crush it to a pulp, and feed it to Yin Li.

He saw that Zhao Min had been sleeping unconscious beside him and grew worried. He took her pulse: the beat was steady and even, with no abnormality. It must be that after her injury and the exhaustion of the sea voyage, now that she had reached the island she had simply fallen into a deep sleep. After a good while she finally awoke, and seeing Zhang Wuji gazing at her without blinking, she gave a faint smile and said, “What are you looking at me for? Don’t you recognise me anymore?”

Zhang Wuji laughed. “You slept so soundly. I’ve been worried for quite a while, afraid your injury might worsen. How do you feel?”

Zhao Min said, “I don’t feel anything wrong, just that I can’t wake up properly, and my head feels a bit heavy.”

Zhang Wuji said, “After your injury your body hasn’t recovered yet. Unfortunately there are no medicinal herbs to be found on this island. Sleep another day or two and you’ll be fine. Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?”

Zhao Min said, “Yes! I’ll help Sister Zhou cook.”

Zhou Zhiruo said, “You’re not well yet. Sleep a little longer. We’ll call you when the food is ready. We brought chicken and ham from the ship. Tonight we can eat our fill and have a good bowl of soup.”

The five of them sat around a bonfire and ate. All around them the flowers gave off a drifting fragrance, the grass and trees were fresh and clean, a world apart from the stifling confines of the ship. Yin Li’s spirits improved somewhat, and she said, “Brother Ah Niu, tonight we sleep here. We’re not going back to the ship.” Everyone agreed this was an excellent idea. The island seemed gentle and warm, with clear water. There appeared to be no fierce beasts or birds of prey, so they all settled down to sleep without worry.

When they awoke the next morning, Zhang Wuji rose and took a single step, but staggered and nearly fell. His legs felt soft and powerless, something that had never happened before. He rubbed his eyes and saw that the Persian ship was no longer where it had been anchored. Alarmed, he ran to the beach and scanned the horizon, but there was no sign of the vessel.

He dashed a few steps to the right and saw a woman lying face-down in the sand beside the beach. He rushed over and turned her onto her back. It was Yin Li. Her face was covered in blood. He quickly gathered her up and checked her breathing: it was faint in the extreme, almost imperceptible. Zhang Wuji was horrified. “Zhu’er! Zhu’er! What happened to you?” Yin Li’s eyes were tightly closed and she did not answer. Looking more closely, he saw that her cheeks had been slashed with a sharp blade, more than ten fine cuts, criss-crossing in every direction, the sight horrifying. Ever since Golden Flower Granny had wounded her, Yin Li had lost much blood, and the Thousand Spiders venom accumulated in her body had dispersed with the bleeding. The swelling in her face had subsided more than half, and in recent days her youthful, pretty features had begun to return to their former likeness. But now, with a dozen fresh cuts upon her face, though each slash was narrow, every one of them trailed blood, her countenance had become ugly once more.

He saw that her belly was distended. Clearly someone had dumped her in the sea, where she had swallowed seawater until her body was full. Fortunately the morning tide had receded, and the place where she lay face-down was exposed above the sand. Otherwise she would most likely have drowned by now. He quickly inverted her body, seized her legs, and jumped up and down. After a few leaps, seawater poured from Yin Li’s mouth. Overjoyed, Zhang Wuji continued jumping until no more water came out. He set her upright and took her pulse: it still skipped and faltered, very faint.

He was concerned for his sworn father and for Zhou and Zhao, so he carried Yin Li in his arms and ran back the way they had come, calling, “Father! Are you all right?” But he heard no answer from Xie Xun. He hurried to where Xie Xun had been sleeping and found him lying peacefully, sound asleep, his breathing and pulse normal. He relaxed somewhat. Then he looked around. The Dragon-Slaying Dao and the Heavenly Jian were both gone.

Zhao Min, Zhou Zhiruo, and Yin Li had been sleeping the previous night on a spot behind a large boulder some distance away. He ran over to look. Zhou Zhiruo lay on her side, but Zhao Min was not there. He examined Zhou Zhiruo and saw that a great mass of her beautiful hair had been shorn off, and a piece of her left ear had been cut away. The blood had not yet fully clotted, yet her face held a faint smile, as though she were lost in pleasant dreams. In the morning light she was beautiful as a begonia sleeping in spring.²

His heart cried out in a chain of anguish. “Miss Zhou! Wake up! Miss Zhou! Wake up!” But Zhou Zhiruo would not rouse. He checked her breathing and was relieved to find it unchanged. Zhang Wuji reached over and shook her shoulder. Zhou Zhiruo yawned, turned her head, and slept on. Zhang Wuji knew she must have been drugged with a sedative. So many strange things had happened the previous night while she remained utterly unaware, and now his whole body felt weak. He himself must certainly have been poisoned too.

Now his thoughts turned only to Zhao Min. He ran in every direction searching, but there was no trace of her. He sprinted along the beach in a full circuit, dreading all the while the moment he might see her corpse washed ashore, or floating in the sea, bobbing with the waves. Fortunately that terrible sight did not appear, and his initial dread slowly, step by step, turned to grief.

“Could all this have been Zhao Min’s doing? Last night she put poison in our food, stupefied us all, then boarded the Persian ship and forced the sailors to weigh anchor and leave, stranding us all on this island. But why? Why? She banished me so she could deal with the Ming Order, so she took both the Dragon-Slaying Dao and the Heavenly Jian?”

He thought further, After her injury she was not yet recovered. She could hardly have forced the Persian sailors to leave. Hmph, she had the Dragon-Slaying Dao and the Heavenly Jian, those two mighty weapons in her hands, she could easily have terrified the Persian sailors into obeying her commands. Zhao Min, Zhao Min, what are the world’s riches and honours worth? You have cast aside all the deep affection and gratitude I bore you. Ah, a foreign woman is truly not to be trusted. Those who are not of our kind, their hearts must be different.³ Mother told me on her deathbed: the more beautiful a woman is, the better she lies! He thought of all the times in his life he had been deceived and let down, but never so grievously as today. Gazing out at the boundless sea, thinking of Xiao Zhao, he felt he wanted to throw himself into the water and never rise again.

Then he thought of his sworn father, blind, the Dragon-Slaying Dao lost, and Miss Zhou and Miss Yin, stranded alone on this island, all depending on him for protection. He ran back to Xie Xun’s side and called, “Father! Father!” Xie Xun sat up groggily and asked, “What is it?”

Zhang Wuji said, “It’s bad! We’ve fallen into a cunning trap.” He briefly told Xie Xun how the Persian ship had sailed away, and how Yin Li and Zhou Zhiruo had been wounded.

Xie Xun asked in alarm, “And Miss Zhao?”

Zhang Wuji said, his voice bleak, “I can’t find her.” He drew a breath, circulated his neili slightly, and felt his limbs floating and powerless, unable to muster the least strength. The words burst from him, “Father, we’ve been given the Ten-Fragrance Softening Bone Powder.”⁴

Xie Xun had already heard from Zhang Wuji how Zhao Min had used Ten-Fragrance Softening Bone Powder to disable the experts of the six great factions and taken them all captive to Dadu’s Wan’an Temple. He stood, and his own legs too felt light and feeble. He steadied himself and asked, “What about the Dragon-Slaying Dao and the Heavenly Jian? Did she take those too?”

Zhang Wuji nodded, his face desolate. “They’re all gone.” He felt both furious and despairing. In his sworn father’s presence he was like a child. He forgot all dignity befitting the Order Leader and burst into loud sobs. He wept half from grief at Xiao Zhao’s departure, and half from grief at Zhao Min’s betrayal and deceit.

After crying for a while, he remembered Yin Li’s injury and hurried back to where Zhou Zhiruo and Yin Li lay. He pushed Zhou Zhiruo, but she still slept on. He thought, My neili is the deepest, which is why I woke first. Sworn Father was next. Miss Zhou’s neili is far behind ours two. She will not wake for some time. His tears still unchecked, he reflected, Miss Zhao gave up her princess’s rank to roam the jianghu with me, a common fellow of the wilds. She shouldn’t be capable of such heartless cruelty. Could it be that among the Persian sailors there was a hidden expert who sprang a drug upon us in the night, stupefying us all, and carried Miss Zhao off? He felt in his robe. The six Holy Fire Tablets were still there. He thought, If the Persian Ming Order’s experts had drugged us, the first thing they would have taken was the Holy Fire Tablets. Why would they take only the jian and dao and leave the Tokens? And if they meant to oppose the Central Plains Ming Order, surely they would have killed Sworn Father and me first. What use would they have for Miss Zhao? If they truly mean to command the Central Plains Ming Order, they would have taken me. Yet no matter how he tried to exonerate Zhao Min, he could not make the pieces fit.

He went back to examine Yin Li. Her breathing had grown even weaker, and the water in her belly would no longer drain. Zhang Wuji was deeply distressed. He found a thin branch and used it as an acupuncture needle, but it had no effect. He could only go to the mountainside, gather some styptic herbs, chew them to a pulp, and apply them to Yin Li’s face, then do the same for Zhou Zhiruo’s scalp and ear.

Suddenly Zhou Zhiruo yawned and opened her eyes. Seeing his hand reaching toward her head, she blushed crimson and pushed his arm away, saying indignantly, “You… what are you doing…” Before the words were finished, she must have felt the pain in her ear. She raised her hand to touch it and gave a startled cry, leaping to her feet. “What happened? Aiyo!” Her knees suddenly went weak, and she collapsed into Zhang Wuji’s arms.

Footnotes

1. 里 – lǐ. Traditional Chinese unit of distance, approximately 500 metres or a third of a mile. ↩

2. 海棠春睡 – hǎitáng chūn shuì. Literally the begonia asleep in spring. A classical allusion to Yang Guifei’s beauty. Emperor Xuanzong of Tang compared the sleeping Yang Guifei to a spring begonia flower, and the phrase became a standard literary image for a beautiful woman asleep. ↩

3. 非我族类，其心必异 – fēi wǒ zú lèi, qí xīn bì yì. Literally those not of our kind must be of a different heart. A proverb from the Zuo Zhuan (Commentary of Zuo), meaning that those of a different race or faction cannot be trusted, as their loyalties will always differ. ↩

4. 十香软筋散 – Shíxiāng Ruǎnjīn Sǎn. Literally ten-fragrance tendon-softening powder. A powerful drug devised by Zhao Min that saps neili and leaves the limbs powerless. ↩