The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 36 – Part 3

Zhang Wuji drew a long breath. He thought to himself that, since he had acknowledged sheltering Zhao Min, all the offences she had committed in the past he must now take upon his own shoulders. In that instant he understood at last the feeling that had driven his father to cut his own throat --- the weight of a beloved wife's former sins. As for the enmities that Head of the Order Yang and his sworn father had amassed in years gone by, the time had come, and Dunan's words were true: if I do not bear it, who will?

He straightened his body and drove neili¹ through the tips of his feet. The branch, which had been swaying ceaselessly, froze at once, so still that it did not tremble in the least. His voice rang clear as he spoke. “Since the three venerable Chan Masters² say as much, I have no grounds for evasion. All blame shall rest on me alone. But my sworn father’s injury to the divine monk Kongjian³ was born of countless bitter necessities within, and I beg the three venerable Chan Masters to see it clearly.”

Du’e⁴ said, “What grounds have you to plead on Xie Xun’s behalf? Do you suppose the three of us, shixiong and shidi together, cannot kill you?”

Zhang Wuji thought to himself that matters had reached a point where only a desperate struggle remained. “I, alone against three, could never hope to match the three of you. Which Chan Master will grant me a bout?”

Dujie⁵ said, “One against one, we have no certainty of beating you. But a blood-feud of this depth allows no room for jianghu⁶ conventions. Come down and receive your death, you fiend! Amitabha!”

He intoned the Buddha’s name, and Du’e and Dunan⁷ spoke in unison, “The Buddha is merciful!”

The three black ropes⁸ shot upward at once, curling towards him with terrible speed.

Zhang Wuji’s body dropped like a stone. He threaded down between the three ropes, and before his feet had touched the ground his form had already shifted in mid-air, diving towards Dunan. Dunan’s left palm flipped outward, and a blast of force struck towards his lower abdomen. Zhang Wuji pivoted and redirected the blow, using the Great Shift of Heaven and Earth⁹ to disperse the palm-force. At that very moment the black ropes of Du’e and Dujie curled in from both sides. Zhang Wuji spun nimbly through half a circuit. Dujie’s left palm lashed out in silence, soundless and deadly. Between the three pines Zhang Wuji met each strike as it came. Suddenly he swung his palm and hurled several hundred soybean-sized raindrops, carried upon a blast of force, straight at Du’e. Du’e twisted his head to dodge, yet several dozen still struck his face, stinging sharply. He bellowed, “Brat, not bad!” His black rope quivered and wheeled into two great circles, sweeping down from above. Zhang Wuji darted forward like a flying arrow, slipping past the rope-circles and slashing towards Dujie.

The longer he fought, the more alarm he felt. The air about his body, stirred by the three black ropes and the three blasts of palm-force, seemed to be thickening, growing dense as glue. Since first he had mastered his martial arts, he had never encountered opponents of such calibre. The three monks’ techniques were not only exquisitely precise, but their neili was vast beyond measure. At the outset Zhang Wuji had devoted seven parts to defence and three to attack, but by the time they had exchanged two hundred moves he began to feel his zhenqi¹⁰ growing impure within him. He could only defend and not strike back, hoping to preserve himself.

His Nine Yang Divine Skill¹¹ was in truth inexhaustible, growing stronger the more he used it. Yet now every technique demanded such enormous neili that he began, for the first time since mastering the divine skill, to feel his reserves failing. Another dozen exchanges passed, and he thought, To fight on is merely to court death. I must escape for today, then fetch my grandfather, Left Messenger Yang, Right Messenger Fan, and Bat King Wei. The five of us together can surely overcome these three monks, and then we shall return to rescue my sworn father.

He launched three rapid attacks at Du’e, meaning to break free of the circle. But the ring the three black ropes composed had become a wall of bronze, and every charge he made was thrown back.

His heart lurched. The three monks fight as one body. Can any in this world truly wield such an art of hearts joined in unison? He did not know that Du’e, Dujie and Dunan had sat in dry meditation for thirty years and more, and the greatest portion of that labour had been devoted to this very communion — when one formed a thought, the other two perceived it at once. The principle was mystical in the telling, yet three men confined together in a small chamber for thirty-odd years, bending every effort to train such responsiveness, might in time make their minds as one. Difficult, yes; yet long practice could accomplish it.

He thought further, Then even if I fetch my grandfather and several other masters of the highest order, we may still be unable to breach the wall their joined hearts have raised. Must my sworn father remain beyond rescue? Must I die here this day?

His mind sharpened with urgency, and his concentration scattered for an instant. Dujie’s five fingers swept across his shoulder at once, the pain piercing to the bone. He thought, My own death I can bear. But my sworn father’s injustice must be made known. He has lived his life too proud to offer a single word of self-defence now that he has fallen into others’ hands. He spoke aloud, his voice steady. “Three venerable Chan Masters, I am trapped today, and a man of honour meets death without a murmur — what is that? But there is one matter I must make plain.”

Two black ropes hissed in from left and right. Zhang Wuji deflected one and drew the other aside, dispersing their force, and continued, “That Yuanzhen’s lay name is Cheng Kun, surnamed the Hunyuan Thunderbolt Hand, and he was my sworn father Xie Xun’s own shifu.”

The three Shaolin monks watched him parry their strikes and speak at the same breath, and recognised that such neigong¹² was beyond their own reach. Their wariness redoubled. They held the Ming Order to be a demonic cult that practised every evil, and the higher its zhangmen’s¹³ martial arts rose, the greater the harm he would do the world. If they could seize this chance to remove him whilst he lay trapped within their ropes, the merit would be immeasurable. The three monks gave no answer, but pressed their ropes and palm-force all the harder.

Zhang Wuji went on, “I tell the three venerable Chan Masters this: Cheng Kun’s shimei was the wife of Ming Order Head of the Order Yang Dingtian. Cheng Kun had long been in love with his shimei, and love bred envy in him, until at last he forged a bitter hatred between himself and the Ming Order.” Even as he spoke, his hands continued to unravel the three monks’ attacks, and he gave them a full account: how Cheng Kun had plotted with cold deliberation to crush the Ming Order; how he had carried on a secret affair with Lady Yang, driving Yang Dingtian to his death; how he had feigned drunkenness and attempted to ravish Xie Xun’s wife, then murdered his entire family; how he had forced Xie Xun to slaughter innocent men and women of the wulin¹⁴ in blind revenge; how Cheng Kun had then taken the divine monk Kongjian as his shifu, tricking Kongjian into absorbing thirteen blows from Xie Xun; and how he had broken his word and refused to appear, leaving Kongjian to die with his hatred unspent.

Du’e and the others listened with mounting astonishment. Each detail seemed beyond belief, yet each fitted reason and circumstance, locking together like the pieces of a tally. Du’e sighed. “So that is how Yang Dingtian died.” His black rope slackened first.

Zhang Wuji said, “I do not know how Head of the Order Yang came to be at enmity with Great Master Du’e, but I fear some villain stirred the trouble between them — and that villain is most likely this Yuanzhen. Great Master Du’e need only recall what passed and judge whether my words are false.”

Du’e made a low sound of assent. His rope halted in mid-air. “There is sense in that,” he said, after a pause. “When old monk bore his grudge against Yang Dingtian, this Cheng Kun lent me great assistance. Afterwards he begged to take old monk as his shifu. Old monk has never accepted disciples, and so I introduced him to study under my shizhi¹⁵ Kongjian. So you say he had laid it all out in advance?”

“Not only that,” said Zhang Wuji. “At this very moment he covets the abbacy of Shaolin Monastery, gathering partisans about him, weaving secret plots to destroy Abbot Kongwen¹⁶.”

The words were not yet finished when a thunderous rumble shook the slope to their left. A great boulder came crashing down between the three pines. Du’e barked, “Who goes there?” His black rope lashed twice, striking the boulder with a crack that sent chips of stone flying. Behind the boulder a figure darted out, swift beyond measure, lunging towards Zhang Wuji. Cold light flashed — a short dao aimed at his throat.

The attack came so suddenly that Zhang Wuji, fully occupied fending off Dujie and Dunan’s ropes, had no notion that another foe would strike from ambush. In the darkness he felt the wind of the blade already at his throat. Desperately he twisted aside, and with a tearing sound the blade’s point ripped a great gash in his tunic. A hair’s breadth more, and it would have laid his belly open. The assassin, having missed his thrust, used the boulder for cover and rolled clear of the three monks’ rope-circle.

Zhang Wuji’s heart pounded. Close! He shouted, “Cheng Kun, you villain! If you have the stomach for it, face me and answer for your crimes. Are you trying to silence a witness?”

The short dao’s thrust had come too fast for him to make out the attacker’s form. But the swiftness of the movement, the ruthlessness of the strike, the sheer force behind it, and the martial style — identical to Xie Xun’s own — left no room for doubt. Save for Cheng Kun, there was no other.

The three Shaolin monks’ three black ropes, like three great hands, snatched up the boulder weighing a thousand jin¹⁷ and hurled it away. But Cheng Kun was already far down the mountain.

Du’e said, “Was it truly Yuanzhen?”

Dunan said, “It was he, beyond question.”

“If he were not guilty of a thief’s conscience, why would he…” Du’e began.

Before he could finish, shouts rose from every quarter. Seven or eight figures came swooping in. The leader cried, “Shaolin monks, you call yourselves disciples of the Buddha, yet you slaughter so many without a thought for the karma you amass? Everyone — attack!”

Eight fighters, each armed, charged the three monks among the pines. Zhang Wuji, trapped within their circle, watched as the newcomers — three bearing jian, the rest with dao or whip — proved themselves masters of considerable skill. In moments they were locked in combat with the three monks’ black ropes.

He observed a while, and recognised in the swordwork of three of them the same style as the three swordsmen of Xiliang who had died days before at the hands of the Shaolin monks. Those three had belonged to the Qinghai School.¹⁸ The present three wielders of the jian were far their superiors — their technique subtle, their force immense. These must be elders of the Qinghai School, fighters of the highest order. The three of them attacked Du’e in concert. Another trio assailed Dunan, while the remaining two joined forces against Dujie. Though Dujie faced only two opponents, those two were yet more formidable than the rest.

After a long while Zhang Wuji saw that Dujie was being pressed back, whilst Du’e held firm advantage, fighting three alone and still moving at ease.

Ten more exchanges passed. Du’e perceived that Dujie was hard-pressed, and with a quiver of his black rope seized a gap to lash at Dujie’s two opponents. Both men were broad-shouldered and black-bearded, nimble as leopards. One wielded a pair of judge’s brushes,¹⁹ the other a pair of acupoint-striking mallets. Du’e and Dujie, now some thirty feet apart, could already feel the force radiating from those weapons. Should the two close to short-weapon range, the savage advantage of their reach would tell yet more cruelly. The three Qinghai swordsmen, their jian meeting less resistance, began slowly to recover their lost ground. And so the battle shifted: Dunan fought three alone. Du’e and Dujie together faced five, and for a time neither side could break the other.

Footnotes

1. 内力 – nèilì. Internal force. The kinetic manifestation of qi, cultivated through neigong. Never translate. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 禅师 – chánshī. Chan Master. An honorific title for a monk accomplished in Chan (Zen) meditation. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 空见 – Kōngjiàn. One of the Four Holy Monks of Shaolin Monastery, renowned for his mastery of invincible neigong. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 渡厄 – Dù’è. The eldest of the Three Elders of Bodhidharma Hall at Shaolin Monastery, blind in one eye. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 渡劫 – Dùjié. The second of the Three Elders of Bodhidharma Hall. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 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. ↩

7. 渡难 – Dùnàn. The third of the Three Elders of Bodhidharma Hall. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 黑索 – hēisuǒ. The black ropes used by the Three Elders of Bodhidharma Hall as weapons, wrought from an unknown material and infused with force. ↩

9. 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. ↩

10. 真气 – zhēnqì. True qi. Refined qi from internal cultivation. Never translate. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

12. 内功 – nèigōng. Internal cultivation. The disciplined cultivation of neili. Never translate. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 掌门 – zhǎngmén. The leader of a martial school or order. Never translate. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 武林 – wǔlín. The martial forest. The community of martial artists and their affairs. Never translate. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 师侄 – shīzhí. Lineage nephew or niece. The disciple of one’s shixiong, shijie, shidi, or shimei. Shī means teacher. Zhí means nephew or niece. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

16. 空闻 – Kōngwén. The abbot of Shaolin Monastery. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

17. 斤 – jīn. A unit of weight, approximately 590 grams in the Ming Dynasty. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

18. 青海派 – Qīnghǎi Pài. The Qinghai School, a martial school from the western regions. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

19. 判官笔 – pànguān bǐ. Judge’s Brushes. A pair of short, cylindrical weapons resembling large brush handles, named after the underworld judge. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩