The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 32 – Part 4

Zhang Wuji started in alarm. His thoughts raced, <em>Friend or foe, it matters not. If they so much as hear a breath, my senior shibo¹ will know at once.</em> His left hand shot out and down, pressing five vital acupoints in succession across the man's chest and belly, then closing about his wrist. The flesh beneath his fingers was ice-cold. The man had been dead for some time. Borrowing what little light there was, Zhang Wuji fixed his gaze upon the dead man's face. Dim and shadowy though it was, he could have sworn the corpse was Mo Shenggu, his Seventh Shishu.² Shock overcame him. He cared nothing now for whether Song Yuanqiao and the rest would discover him. He gathered the body in his arms and walked several paces towards the mouth of the cave. The light grew stronger, and what he saw he saw plainly. It was Mo Shenggu, beyond any doubt. His face was drained of all colour, his eyes still open, which made him the more dreadful to behold. Zhang Wuji stood frozen, equal parts terror and grief.

Those few steps had not gone unheard. Yu Lianzhou³ cried out, “There is someone in there!” Cold light flashed as the Four Xias of Wudang drew their jian in unison.

Zhang Wuji cursed himself silently. I am holding Shishu Mo’s corpse and hiding here. No matter what, the charge of murdering my own shishu can never be washed from me. He thought of all the kindness Mo Shenggu had shown him, and the sudden, cruel sight of his death struck him with fresh anguish. A thousand thoughts crowded his mind in an instant, yet not one of them considered how he might clear himself when his four senior shibo entered the cave.

Zhao Min’s mind worked swifter far than his. She darted out, her jian whirling, and charged straight at the four. Slash, slash, slash, slash, four strikes, every one a desperate Emei Order technique, each aimed at a different member of the Four Xias.⁴ The four raised their blades to parry, but Zhao Min had already burst through the cave mouth. She leapt onto one of the horses they had ridden in, swung her jian backwards to deflect a thrust from Song Yuanqiao, and kicked hard at the beast’s belly. The horse, stung with pain, galloped off at full speed.

Zhao Min had scarce begun to congratulate herself on her escape when a sudden pain blazed across her back. Stars swam before her eyes, and the breath was driven from her lungs. She had taken a palm-strike from Yu Lianzhou. She heard the Four Xias unleash their qinggong⁵ and come in pursuit. Her only thought was: The further away I run, the better his chance of slipping from the cave. Otherwise, how can this false charge ever be lifted? Fortunately all four have come after me. They did not guess there was another in the cave. The agony in her back grew unbearable. She reached behind with her jian and stabbed the horse’s rump. The beast let out a long, shrill neigh and surged forwards.

When Zhang Wuji saw Zhao Min burst out, it took him only a moment to understand her purpose: she was luring the tiger from the mountain, that he might escape. He gathered Mo Shenggu’s corpse in his arms and ran from the cave. Hearing Zhao Min and the Four Xias ride off to the east, he set off swiftly to the west. He ran more than two li⁶ and hid the body behind a great boulder. Returning to the main road, he sprang up into a large tree. Long after, his heart still hammered against his ribs. Thinking of Mo Shenggu’s miserable death, he could not stop his tears. Our Wudang Order has suffered so many calamities. Who could have murdered my Seventh Shishu? His ribs were broken from behind, struck by internal palm-force. Then a memory surfaced: the other day, in the Maitreya temple, when Chen Youliang⁷ and Song Qingshu⁸ had spoken of “a junior turning against his senior,” they had mentioned Shishu Mo. Could there be some connection?

After little more than half a shichen,⁹ he heard three horses approaching from the east. The snow threw back the light, and he could make out Song Yuanqiao and Yu Lianzhou each on a mount, while Yin Liting and Zhang Songxi shared a single horse. Yu Lianzhou was saying, “That demoness took my palm-strike full and fell into the valley, horse and all. I doubt she drew another breath.” Zhang Songxi replied, “Today we have at last avenged our shame at Wan’an Temple and eased the weight upon our chests. Who would have thought she was hiding in that mountain cave? The affairs of this world are strange beyond all reckoning.” Yin Liting asked, “Fourth Brother, what do you suppose she was doing, skulking in that cave all alone?” Zhang Songxi said, “That is hard to guess. Killing the demoness would be small matter. Only when we have found Seventh Brother shall we have true cause for joy.” The four rode on and on, and presently their voices could be heard no more.

Zhang Wuji waited until the Four Xias had ridden well away, then dropped from the tree and followed the hoof-prints eastward through the snow. An anguish beyond words gripped his heart. Cunning she may be, but this time she risked her life to save me. If she should truly die for it, I… I… He ran faster and faster. In moments he had covered four or five li and came to the edge of a cliff. In the snow lay a great pool of dark crimson. Below the brink the footprints were all confusion, and a wide stretch of rock had collapsed and tumbled away. Plainly Zhao Min had fled hither on horseback, found no path, and plunged over the edge, horse and rider together.

Zhang Wuji cried, “Miss Zhao! Miss Zhao!” He called four or five times, but no answer came. His dread grew worse. He peered over the cliff and saw a deep valley, but the darkness of the night hid the bottom from his sight. The cliff face was sheer and vertical, with no foothold whatsoever. He drew a breath, extended his feet, pressed his face to the rock, and began to slide downwards. After thirty or forty feet the speed of his descent grew ever greater. He channelled neili into his fingertips and drove them into the thick ice caked along the cliff’s edge. When his body had slowed, he slid again. Five or six times he repeated this before he reached the floor of the valley. His feet landed on something soft. He leapt aside at once. He had landed on the horse’s belly. Zhao Min sat yet in the saddle, her arms locked about the horse’s neck.

Zhang Wuji felt for her breath at the nostrils. A faint pulse of air still passed. She had lost consciousness, but she lived. His heart eased somewhat. The valley was dark, and a winter’s snow lay unscaled, deep as a man’s waist. He judged that Zhao Min, never leaving the saddle, had had the full force of the fall borne by the horse. The mount had been killed outright, while she had merely been stunned. He took her pulse and knew that though her injuries were grave, her life was not in danger. He gathered her in his arms, palm against palm, and channelled his neili to heal her wounds.

The palm-strike Zhao Min had taken was Wudang Order’s own art, and Zhang Wuji knew its pulse-patterns intimately. The healing was no great labour. In less than half a shichen she stirred back to consciousness. Zhang Wuji fed his Nine Yang zhenqi¹⁰ into her body in a steady stream. Over half a shichen more passed, and the sky began to lighten. Zhao Min gave a low cry and vomited a great mouthful of dark, clotted blood. In a small voice she asked, “Have they all gone? They did not see you?”

Zhang Wuji heard that her first concern was whether he would be saddled with a charge he did not deserve, and his gratitude was profound. “They did not see me. You… you have suffered greatly on my account.” His lips moved, but the flow of zhenqi never faltered.

Zhao Min closed her eyes. Though her limbs held not a shred of strength, a warmth spread through her chest and belly, pleasant and easing. The Nine Yang zhenqi cycled through her body several further turns. She turned her head and said with a smile, “Rest now. I am much better.” Zhang Wuji’s arms encircled her waist, and he pressed his right cheek against her left. “You saved my good name,” he said. “That is more than saving my life ten times over.” Zhao Min gave a soft laugh. “I am a treacherous and wicked little demoness. I care nothing for my good name. My life is what matters.” At that moment a voice rang down from the cliff-top in furious anger, “Accursed demoness, you are not dead, then! How did you murder Mo the Seventh Xia?¹¹ Confess at once!” It was the voice of Yu Lianzhou.

Zhang Wuji was startled. How had his four senior shibo returned? Zhao Min said, “Turn your face away. Do not let them see you.” Zhang Songxi shouted down, “Vile demoness! If you do not answer, we will hurl down the boulders!”

Zhao Min looked up and saw, sure enough, that all four held great rocks above them. A single heave, and both their lives were forfeit. She whispered in Zhang Wuji’s ear, “Tear off your fur lining first. Cover your face. Then carry me away from here.” Zhang Wuji did as she said, ripping a strip from the hem of his fur robe and binding it about his face, tying it at the back. He pressed his fur cap low over his brow until only his eyes showed.

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The Four Xias of Wudang had pursued Zhao Min and driven her into the valley. These four men had walked the jianghu¹² long enough, through trial enough, to know that a woman of a princess’s rank would not ride out alone without escort. They had feigned a departure, ridden several li, tied their horses to the roadside trees, and returned to search. First they had gone back into the cave, lit torches, and penetrated to its furthest reaches. There they found two dead musk deer, half-devoured by some beast, the flesh torn beyond recognition, yet the musk-scent lingering still. They had searched out of the cave again, and at last discovered Zhang Wuji’s footprints. Following them, they had come upon Mo Shenggu’s corpse. His hands and feet had been gnawed by animals. The four were overwhelmed with grief and fury. Yin Liting wept and collapsed upon the ground.

Yu Lianzhou wiped his tears and said, “That demoness Zhao Min’s martial arts are no trifling matter, but by herself she could never have harmed Seventh Brother. Sixth Brother, do not grieve. We must find every one of the murderers and kill them, one by one, to avenge Seventh Brother.” Zhang Songxi said, “Let us hide beside the cave. By daylight, the demoness’s men will come searching for her.” The stratagem of “waiting by the stump for the hare” was plain enough, but they had no better plan. The four choked back their sorrow and each found a rock on either side of the cave, where they concealed themselves and waited.

When daylight came, none of Zhao Min’s people appeared. The four went again to the place where she had fallen over the cliff. From below, they heard faint voices. Looking down, they saw a man in brocaded robes holding Zhao Min in his arms. The demoness had not died, it seemed. The four wished to force from them the truth of Mo Shenggu’s death and would not simply stone them to death. The snow-valley was shaped like a deep well, sheer cliffs on every side, save for a narrow passage in the north-west corner. Zhang Songxi shouted down, “You Yuan dog! Come up at once! If you delay further, the boulders fall!”

Zhang Wuji heard his Fourth Shibo mistake him for a Mongol, doubtless on account of his rich clothing and his being in Zhao Min’s company. He saw that there was no place to hide anywhere about the valley. If the four cast down their rocks, he might dodge them with his qinggong, but Zhao Min’s life would be lost. There was nothing for it but to climb, and take whatever came. He carried Zhao Min up through the narrow cleft, moving slowly. He affected clumsy martial arts, slipping and stumbling at every few steps. The cleft was in any case grievously hard to climb, and he made the more show of it, panting loudly, woefully out of countenance. He fell seventeen or eighteen times before he hauled himself onto level ground.

The moment he emerged from the snow-valley, his first thought was to seize Zhao Min and flee. With his qinggong, even carrying one person, the four would likely not overtake him. But Zhang Songxi was sharp-witted. He had seen something studied in the man’s clumsy scramble up the slope and had quietly alerted his three shixiong.¹³ The four posted themselves at the four corners. The instant Zhang Wuji’s foot touched the ground, four jian-points were less than six inches from his body.

Song Yuanqiao spoke through gritted teeth, “Thieving Tartar! You cover your face in fur. Does that save your life? Tell me true: who killed Mo the Seventh Xia of Wudang? Speak well, and speak honestly! If a single word is false, I will carve you, you vile Tartar dog, into a thousand pieces and lay your belly open!” He was by nature mild and even-tempered, but the sight of his Seventh Shidi’s miserable death had wrung foul words from his mouth, a thing most rare in decades.

Zhao Min sighed. “General Yalubuhu,¹⁴ things have come to this pass. You had best tell them.” Then she leaned her lips to Zhang Wuji’s ear and whispered, “Use the Holy Fire Tablet martial arts.”

Zhang Wuji had no wish whatsoever to use force against his four senior shibo, but his position was past all delicacy. He gritted his teeth and suddenly lifted Zhao Min’s body and hurled her towards Yin Liting. He roared hoarsely, leapt into the air, turned a mid-air somersault, and clawed towards Zhang Songxi with outstretched arms. Yin Liting caught Zhao Min on instinct and, in his stupefaction, sealed her acupoints and flung her aside.

In the space of a breath, Zhang Wuji had unleashed the strange and unaccountable martial arts inscribed upon the Holy Fire Tablets.¹⁵ His fists struck at Song Yuanqiao, his feet kicked at Yu Lianzhou, his head butted towards Zhang Songxi, and with a backwards grab he had already wrenched the jian from Yin Liting’s hand. These moves were swift as a starting hare and a striking falcon, at once fast and bizarre. The Four Xias of Wudang were martial artists of the first rank in the wulin,¹⁶ yet those seven or eight strange blows, struck in quick succession, threw them into confusion. Each felt he could scarce defend himself.

That day on Spirit Snake Island, even at the height of Zhang Wuji’s martial prowess, he had been hard-pressed against the Holy Fire Tablet techniques of the Persian Ming Order’s Wind-and-Cloud Three Messengers.¹⁷ How much the less could he be resisted now, when he had mastered the arts inscribed upon all six tablets, a mastery exceeding the Three Messengers many times over? The arts borne upon the Holy Fire Tablets were not, in themselves, the deepest of supreme cultivations. They were strange, certainly, and bewildering past all guessing, yet wielded by an ordinary hand they would not have withstood Wudang Order’s orthodox internal arts. But Zhang Wuji drew upon the Nine Yang Divine Skill¹⁸ for his foundation, the Great Shift of Heaven and Earth¹⁹ for his threading, and a thorough knowledge of every Wudang technique, so that each blow found the gap in the four men’s defence. By the twentieth exchange, his Holy Fire Tablet martial arts grew ever more phantasmal and impossible to divine.

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Footnotes

1. 师伯 – shībó. Senior lineage uncle. The shixiong or shijie of one’s shifu. Shī means teacher. Bó means father’s elder brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 师叔 – shīshū. Junior lineage uncle. The shidi of one’s shifu. Shī means teacher. Shū means father’s younger brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 俞莲舟 – Yú Liánzhōu. The second of the Seven Xias of Wudang, renowned for his mastery of the order’s martial arts. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 峨嵋派 – Éméi Pài. The Emei Order, a Buddhist martial order founded by Guo Xiang. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 轻功 – qīnggōng. Lightness skill; the martial art of making the body light and swift for leaping, running, and scaling heights. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 里 – lǐ. A Chinese unit of distance, approximately one-third of a mile or five hundred metres. ↩

7. 陈友谅 – Chén Yǒuliàng. A disciple of Cheng Kun who infiltrated the Beggars’ Guild and schemed to manipulate the wulin. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 宋青书 – Sòng Qīngshū. Son of Song Yuanqiao, once known as the Jade-Faced Mengchang, who fell into disgrace. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

10. 真气 – zhēnqì. True qi; refined qi cultivated through neigong. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 莫七侠 – Mò Qī Xiá. Mo the Seventh Xia, an epithet for Mo Shenggu, the youngest of the Seven Xias of Wudang. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 江湖 – jiānghú. Literally rivers and lakes. The itinerant world beyond settled society and official reach, holding not only martial artists but the trades that travel with them. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 师兄 – shīxiōng. Male senior fellow disciple. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Xiōng means older brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 押鲁不花 – Yālǔbùhuā. A Mongol general’s name; Zhao Min’s assumed identity for Zhang Wuji in this moment. ↩

15. 圣火令 – Shènghuǒ Lìng. The Holy Fire Tablets, sacred relics of the Persian Ming Order bearing inscribed martial arts of bizarre and unorthodox character. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

16. 武林 – wǔlín. The martial forest; the community of martial artists and their factions. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

17. 风云三使 – Fēngyún Sān Shǐ. The Wind-and-Cloud Three Messengers, three elite envoys of the Persian Ming Order who wield the Holy Fire Tablet martial arts. ↩

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

19. 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 reversing qi flow. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩