The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 40 – Part 5

Zhang Wuji was seized by a mingling of shock and joy. He cried aloud, “Min mei!”

From several dozen feet behind him came a woman’s soft exclamation, a startled “Yi!” as though she had suddenly seen Zhao Min materialise before her. The cry was faint, yet Zhang Wuji heard it with perfect clarity.

He stood rooted, a multitude of thoughts racing through his mind. Slowly he reached out and took Zhao Min’s hand. Their palms met, and he felt her fingers stiff and cold. Understanding dawned at once. All day she had slipped away without a word, and he had searched everywhere for her in vain. Zhou Zhiruo must have seized her, sealed her acupoints,¹ and hidden her here. Zhou Zhiruo had deliberately led him to this spot and spoken every word so that Zhao Min might hear. Had he been soft with Zhou Zhiruo, had he spoken tender words to spare her feelings, or even taken her in his arms, he would have fallen squarely into her scheme, and Zhao Min would truly have had no choice but to leave. He thought that even at this moment Zhou Zhiruo was still practising her deceptions, and he could not help but cry out inwardly, “What shame!” A cold sweat broke out across his back. He laid two fingers against Zhao Min’s pulse and found her qi and blood flowing as they should. She was not hurt.

In the moonlight he saw her eyes and brows brimming with laughter, unspeakably charming. She must have listened to every word he had spoken with Zhou Zhiruo. Though she could neither move nor speak, to hear him pour out his heart so openly, to know he loved her with a love carved into bone and branded upon his soul, the earnestness of it filled her with a joy she could not contain.

Zhou Zhiruo bent close and whispered something in Zhang Wuji’s ear. He whispered back. Zhou Zhiruo cried fiercely, “Zhang Wuji, you have not the slightest regard for me! Look carefully, is Miss Zhao still alive after being poisoned?” Zhang Wuji started. “She…she has been poisoned? Did you poison her?” He bent to examine her, and had just lifted Zhao Min’s left eyelid when Zhou Zhiruo jabbed a finger into his back, sealing his acupoints. Zhang Wuji cried out and swayed. Her hands moved swift as wind, her slender fingers darting as she sealed five more vital points, his left shoulder, his waist, his lower back, and two more upon his spine.

Zhang Wuji fell backwards. A flash of blue steel. Zhou Zhiruo had drawn her jian² and pressed its point against his chest. “Once begun, once done through. I will take your life today. Yin Li’s ghost haunts me regardless. I cannot live on. We may as well all become ghosts together!” She raised her jian and drove it towards his breast.

From behind came a woman’s voice, sharp and clear: “Hold! Zhou Zhiruo, Yin Li is not dead!”

Zhou Zhiruo turned. A figure in black was bursting from the undergrowth, a finger stabbing towards her. Zhou Zhiruo sidestepped. The newcomer turned her head, and the moonlight, falling sideways, revealed a fair face traced with a few faint lines of dried blood. Zhang Wuji saw plainly. It was his cousin Yin Li.³ The swelling had drained from her face entirely, and though criss-crossing scars of blood still marked her cheeks, they did not mar her beauty. She looked again like the lovely, otherworldly girl he had once seen in Butterfly Valley, beside Golden Flower Granny.⁴

Zhou Zhiruo stepped back two paces, her left palm raised to guard her breast, the point of her jian still pressed to Zhang Wuji’s chest. “One more step and I kill him.” Yin Li dared not advance. “You…have you not done enough evil already?” Zhou Zhiruo studied her. “Are you person or ghost?” “I am a person, of course.”

Zhang Wuji leapt to his feet with a great cry: “Zhu’er!” He flung his arms around Yin Li. “Zhu’er…I…I have missed you so bitterly!” The assault was so sudden that Yin Li shrieked. Zhang Wuji held her fast, and she could not stir. The truth was that every acupoint Zhou Zhiruo had sealed upon him had been pretence.

Zhou Zhiruo gave a light laugh. “Otherwise you would never have shown yourself.” She turned and released Zhao Min’s acupoints, working the blood back through her meridians and massaging the channels. Zhao Min had been left here abandoned all day, chilled and furious. Only the sound of Zhang Wuji’s confession had turned her anger to tenderness. Now, with the sudden reappearance of Yin Li, fresh troubles crowded upon her. An old resentment dispelled, yet a new sorrow taking its place.

Yin Li scolded, “What are you doing, pulling and dragging at me? With Miss Zhao and Miss Zhou here, what a spectacle!” Zhao Min retorted, “Hmph, if we were not here, would it be a proper sight, then?” Zhang Wuji laughed. “To see you alive after death fills me with unbounded joy. Cousin, how…how did it come about?” Yin Li seized his arm and turned his face into the moonlight. She studied him for a long moment, then suddenly grabbed his left ear and twisted hard. Zhang Wuji yelped. “Ow! What are you doing?” “You wretched, cursed monster! You…you buried me alive and made me suffer so!” She hammered three blows against his chest, each loud and solid. Zhang Wuji dared not raise his Nine Yang Divine Skill⁵ to shield himself. He endured the pain and laughed. “Zhu’er, I truly and utterly believed you were…were dead. I wept for you, I wept more than once. You are alive, that is wonderful beyond words. Heaven truly has eyes!”

Yin Li flared. “Heaven has eyes, but you ugly monster has none! You know the physician’s art, yet you could not tell whether a person lived or died. I do not believe it. You thought my swollen face unsightly, and before I had even drawn my last breath you were in such a rush to bury me. Why did you not pile earth upon me so that I could not breathe and truly die? You heartless, cruel…cruel…wretch!” Her stream of curses, her bearing and her tone, were exactly as they had always been.

Zhang Wuji listened with a grin and scratched his head. “You are right to scold me. I was truly muddle-headed. When I saw your face covered in blood, no breath in your body, no beating in your heart, I thought all hope lost. I was so grieved I did not examine you closely…” Yin Li leapt up and reached for his other ear. Zhang Wuji laughed, sidestepped, and cupped his fists in a bow. “Good Zhu’er, forgive me!”

“I will not forgive you. That day I do not know how I came to, all around me cold, stone everywhere above and below. If you meant to bury me alive, why did you pile branches and stones on me instead? Why not pile soil so I could not breathe and truly die?” “I was afraid the dirt would scratch your face. I could not bear the thought of it…Thank Heaven I laid branches and stones first.” His eyes slid sideways towards Zhou Zhiruo. Yin Li flared again. “She is rotten through and through. I will not let you look at her.” “Why not?” “She is the one who killed me. Why do you concern yourself with her?” Zhao Min interposed, “Since you are not dead, she is not your killer.” “I died once. She was a killer once.”

Zhang Wuji soothed, “Good Zhu’er, you have returned to us safe. We are all overjoyed. Sit quietly and tell us what happened after you escaped from the grave…” “What do you mean ‘we’? I am asking you, who precisely is included in this ‘we’?”

Zhang Wuji smiled. “There are only four people here. Naturally it is myself, Miss Zhou, and Miss Zhao.” Yin Li gave a cold laugh. “Hmph! That you are glad I did not die, perhaps there is some sincerity in that. But Miss Zhou and Miss Zhao, are they glad as well?”

Zhou Zhiruo spoke. “Miss Yin, that day I conceived an evil intent and harmed you. Since then I have been consumed with remorse, and even in my dreams I have known no peace. Otherwise I would not have been so stricken to see you appear alive in the forest today. Now that I see you safe and unharmed, my sin relieved, Heaven above, I am truly filled with joy.” Yin Li tilted her head and considered for a moment, then nodded. “There is some reason in that. I had intended to settle accounts with you. But since it stands so, let it rest.”

Zhou Zhiruo sank to her knees, weeping. “I…I wronged you beyond all measure. I beg you to forgive me.”

Yin Li had always been stubborn and wilful, yet the sight of Zhou Zhiruo admitting her fault softened her at once. She helped her to her feet. “Sister Zhou,⁶ let us not dwell on what is past. I did not die, after all.” She took Zhou Zhiruo’s hand and they sat down side by side. Yin Li brushed her hair aside and added, “Those sword cuts on my face were not entirely without benefit. My face was swollen, and after the cuts the poisoned blood drained away, and the swelling has slowly subsided.” Zhou Zhiruo was flooded with guilt and knew not what to say.

Zhang Wuji spoke. “My sworn father,⁷ Miss Zhou, and I remained on the island for a long time afterwards. Zhu’er, after you emerged from the grave, how was it you did not find us?”

Yin Li’s anger returned. “I did not wish to see you. You and Miss Zhou, all tenderness and murmuring, it made me furious. Hmph! ‘From now on I shall love and cherish you all the more! We are husband and wife as one, how could I ever cause you suffering?’” She mimicked Zhang Wuji’s tone in each phrase, then switched to Zhou Zhiruo’s: “‘If I do something wrong, would you strike me, scold me, kill me? I had no father or mother to teach me. I may grow confused at any time.’” She coughed, then adopted a man’s voice once more: “‘Zhiruo, you are my beloved wife. Even were you to do wrong, I could not bear to speak a harsh word in rebuke.’” She pointed at the bright moon in the western sky. “The moon in heaven was witness between us.”

For every word Zhang Wuji and Zhou Zhiruo had spoken that night when they pledged their love, Yin Li had heard them all. Now she repeated them one by one. Zhou Zhiruo’s face burned crimson. Zhang Wuji squirmed in unease. He stole a glance at Zhao Min. Her pretty face had gone ashen with anger. Quietly he reached out and took her wrist. Zhao Min turned her palm, and the long nails of two fingers dug into the back of his hand. Zhang Wuji winced at the pain, yet he dared not cry out, nor did he dare to move.

Footnotes

1. 穴位 – xuéwèi. Points along the body’s meridians where qi gathers and may be sealed or struck by martial artists. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 剑 – jiàn. A straight, double-edged sword. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 殷离 – Yīn Lí. Zhang Wuji’s cousin, daughter of Yin Yewang. Also known as Zhu’er (蛛儿). See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 金花婆婆 – Jīnhuā Pópó. Lit. “Golden Flower Granny.” The disguise assumed by Daiqisi, one of the four Guardian Kings of the Ming Order. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

6. 姊姊 – zǐzi. Elder sister. A respectful form of address to a senior female. Here used as a courtesy between young women of roughly equal standing. ↩

7. 义父 – yìfù. Sworn father. Zhang Wuji’s sworn father is Xie Xun the Golden Haired Lion King. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩