The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre Chapter 5 Part 7

Gao Zecheng¹ and Jiang Litao² were fine swordsmen, but catching boulders of such immensity was utterly beyond them. Gao Zecheng frowned, “Set them down.”

The two mighty Branch Masters³ gave a shout in unison, locked their arms straight, and hoisted the boulders overhead.

“Catch!” they bellowed.

This left the Kunlun pair no choice but to shrink back, for if either strongman’s grip faltered even slightly, four or five hundred jin⁴ of stone would come crashing down upon them, shattering bone and sinew. Rage seethed in their hearts, yet they dared not strike at the two men. With the boulders held aloft overhead, anyone who ventured close was courting death.

Bai Guishou’s⁵ voice rang out, “Since the two Kunlun swordsmen no longer wish to occupy the first seat, perhaps Zhang Cuishan⁶ would care to sit after all!”

Zhang Cuishan had been seated beside Yin Susu,⁷ her faint fragrance drifting to him, and his heart had gone soft and sweet. His spirit had begun to wander into dangerous waters when Bai Guishou’s summons cut through the haze. He snapped to attention. I must not let myself fall into this snare. What entanglement can I have with this demoness of a heretic cult?

He rose at once and walked over.

Bai Guishou had heard Chang Jinpeng⁸ praise Zhang Cuishan’s skill, but he had not yet seen it with his own eyes. Seizing this chance to test the man, he caught the eye of the two mighty Branch Masters and gave a subtle nod.

The two Branch Masters took the signal. As Zhang Cuishan drew near, they cried in unison, “Zhang Cuishan, take care! Catch!”

On the heels of their shout, both men dipped their bodies, drew their arms down, then surged upward with an explosive roar. The two boulders hurtled toward Zhang Cuishan’s head. Every warrior in the valley leapt to his feet.

Bai Guishou had intended only to test Zhang Cuishan’s abilities, and there was no malice in it. For one thing, the reputation of the Seven Xias of Wudang rang too loudly across the jianghu,⁹ and yet the man who stood before him was nothing more than a refined, mild-mannered young scholar, far from what he had expected. For another, Miss Yin had never so much as glanced twice at any young man, yet she was plainly smitten with this Zhang the Fifth Xia, and Bai Guishou was curious to know what lay beneath the surface.

When the two Branch Masters hurled the boulders recklessly, however, he was seized with instant regret. Disaster!

Zhang Cuishan was a disciple of a great school, and he would certainly not be harmed by mere falling stones. But in the scramble to dodge and leap aside, he was bound to cut an undignified figure. And if, heaven forbid, some small mishap did occur, Zhang Cuishan would take offence, and Miss Yin’s fury would be terrible. In the space of a heartbeat, Bai Guishou had already settled on his course: if things went badly, he would lay the blame squarely on the two Branch Masters and strike them dead on the spot, rather than risk Miss Yin’s wrath.

Zhang Cuishan saw the boulders plunging toward him and was momentarily startled. To leap backward in evasion would make him no different from Gao Zecheng and Jiang Litao, and that would disgrace his school’s name. There was no time for deliberation. In this moment of dire urgency, the skills drilled deep by years of training surged forth of their own accord. His right hand executed a rightward hook from the Wu Formula,¹⁰ catching and redirecting the boulder descending from his right. His left hand swept in a leftward stroke from the Dao Formula,¹¹ seizing the momentum of the boulder from his left. Each stone weighed four hundred jin or more, and the force of their descent only compounded their terrible weight.

Zhang Cuishan did not possess the raw strength to hold even a single boulder aloft with his bare hands. But the art that Zhang Sanfeng had derived from the strokes of calligraphy was a transcendent technique that seized the very essence of creation. The martial arts of Wudang had never prized brute force, nor blinding speed. Their deepest principle lay in the precise mastery of force, its absorption and its release, attuned with unerring exactitude to the angle and the instant, so that four liang¹² of strength could deflect a thousand jin. Now Zhang Cuishan brought forth the most profound skill his school had bequeathed him, harnessing the Branch Masters’ own throwing force to send both boulders soaring skyward.

The force that launched those boulders had in truth come entirely from the two Branch Masters. Zhang Cuishan had merely touched each stone with his palm and altered its trajectory. His long sleeves billowed as he moved, his hands hidden within the flowing fabric, so that to the onlookers it appeared as though he had swept the boulders into the sky with his sleeves alone. The two stones rose to different heights, one above the other, and came crashing down in succession. Zhang Cuishan executed the Ladder to the Clouds,¹³ his body rising with effortless grace, and alighted cross-legged atop the higher stone.

The first boulder struck the earth with a resounding thud, and the ground trembled. The second landed upon the first. The two stones collided with a shower of sparks, and every bowl and dish on every table rattled and rang. Zhang Cuishan sat motionless atop the stacked boulders, his expression perfectly serene, and smiled. “The strength of the two Branch Masters is truly astonishing. You have my admiration.”

The two strongmen stood rooted to the spot, gaping upward, unable to utter a single word.

For a heartbeat the valley was utterly silent. Then, after a long pause, a thunderous roar of applause erupted and rolled on and on.

Yin Susu shot Bai Guishou a sharp glance, then broke into a radiant, triumphant smile. Bai Guishou was overjoyed. His reckless gamble had nearly ended in disaster, but Zhang Cuishan’s extraordinary skill had transformed the blunder into a stroke of genius, one that happened to delight Miss Yin immensely. He picked up a chair, carried it to the first seat, and set it down. “Zhang the Fifth Xia, please be seated. The fame of the Seven Xias of Wudang has long preceded them. Having witnessed Zhang the Fifth Xia’s divine skill today, I am struck with the deepest admiration. I drink a cup to Zhang the Fifth Xia.”

He poured a cup of wine and drained it in one draught. Zhang Cuishan leapt down from the boulder.

“You are too kind,” he said, and drank a cup in return.

Bai Guishou raised his voice so that all could hear, “Our humble Order has recently come into possession of a precious dao, known as the Dragon-Slaying Dao.¹⁴ The saying goes: ‘Supreme in the wulin, the Dragon-Slaying Dao. He who commands it, commands the world, and none shall dare defy him!’”¹⁵

He paused, and his bright, piercing gaze swept the assembly from left to right. He was not a large man, yet his resonant voice and keen eyes radiated an authority that held every man present in its grip. “Our Order Leader Yin had intended to send formal invitations to the heroes of every school and faction for a grand gathering at Mount Tianpang, where the dao would be displayed for all to see. Such an undertaking, however, requires considerable time to organise.

“Fearing that the heroes of the realm might not yet know the dao has come into our humble Order’s possession, we have invited the leaders of the Jiangnan guilds and schools to this nearer gathering at Wangpan Island,¹⁶ to come and behold the dao’s true nature.”

He waved his hand.

Eight of the order’s disciples answered with a shout and disappeared into a large cavern at the western end of the valley. The onlookers assumed they had gone to fetch the dao and fixed their eyes upon the cave entrance. But when the eight men re-emerged, they had stripped to the waist and were carrying between them an enormous iron cauldron. Within it raged a blazing fire, its flames leaping ten feet into the air. The eight men kept their distance, bearing the cauldron on long iron poles braced across their shoulders, calling out to one another as they manoeuvred it into the centre of the open ground. The assembled warriors recoiled from the blast of heat.

Behind the eight came four more men. Two carried a great iron anvil of the sort used by blacksmiths, and the other two each held aloft a massive iron sledgehammer.

Bai Guishou called out, “Altar Master Chang, if you would, display the dao!”

Chang Jinpeng answered, “As you command!”

He turned and bellowed, “Bring the dao!”

The two mighty Branch Masters who had earlier hefted the boulders strode into the cavern and returned bearing between them a bundle wrapped in yellow silk, one man cradling it in both hands while the other walked at his side as guard. A Branch Master presented the bundle to Chang Jinpeng with both palms upturned. The two men took their stations on either side of him. Chang Jinpeng unwrapped the silk, revealing a single-edged dao. He held it across his palms, surveyed the assembly, and with a sharp rasp drew the dao from its scabbard.

“Behold,” he declared, “the Dragon-Slaying Dao, supreme in the wulin.¹⁷ Observe it well!”

He raised the unsheathed dao above his head in a posture of deep reverence.

The assembled warriors had long heard tell of the Dragon-Slaying Dao, but the weapon they beheld was dark, dull, and wholly unremarkable. A common doubt formed in every mind: How can we know this is genuine?

Chang Jinpeng slowly handed the dao to the Branch Master on his left.

“Test it against the hammer,” he commanded.

The Branch Master took the dao and laid it upon the iron anvil, edge upward. The other Branch Master raised his great sledgehammer and brought it crashing down upon the dao. A faint hiss sounded, nothing more, and the hammerhead split cleanly in two. One half remained on the shaft, while the other clattered to the ground. The assembled warriors surged to their feet in astonishment. Jian sharp enough to sever gold and cleave jade were rare but not unheard of. Yet this dao had parted the iron hammer as easily as a knife through bean curd, without producing even a whisper of metallic ring. Either this was a divine weapon beyond mortal reckoning, or some trick was at play.

Men from the Shenquan School and the Jujing Guild hurried to the anvil and picked up the fallen half of the hammerhead. The cut was smooth, polished, gleaming, unmistakably fresh.

The Branch Master raised the second sledgehammer and struck. Again the dao parted it without effort. This time, the entire assembly erupted in thunderous applause.

Zhang Cuishan marvelled in silence, Such a dao, truly, I have neither seen nor heard of its like.

Chang Jinpeng walked to the centre of the open ground, took up the dao, and executed Step Up and Cleave the Mountain.¹⁸ With a soft hiss, the great iron anvil split down the middle. Then, in a sudden burst of speed, he dashed to his left and swept the dao in a horizontal arc through the trunk of a massive pine tree. Without pausing, he leapt and ran onward, swinging the dao again and again, slashing through eighteen great trees in succession. The onlookers watched him whirl the dark dao and saw the trees standing exactly as before, without the slightest sign of damage.

Puzzlement rippled through the crowd, and then Chang Jinpeng threw back his head in a ringing laugh. He strode to the first pine, flicked his sleeve against its trunk, and with a great splintering crash the tree toppled outward. The dao had been so impossibly sharp, and Chang Jinpeng’s force so perfectly controlled, that each tree had been severed clean through at the waist, yet the upper half remained balanced upon the lower, undisturbed, until an external force sent it tumbling.

The first pine crashed down, and the gust of its fall set off the rest. One after another, in a cascade of thunderous cracks, the remaining trees came toppling to the earth.

Footnotes

1. 高则成 – Gāo Zéchéng. His name meaning “High and Accomplished.” A disciple of the Kunlun School. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 蒋立涛 – Jiǎng Lìtāo. His name meaning “Standing Waves.” A disciple of the Kunlun School. ↩

3. 舵主 – duòzhǔ. Literally Branch Master. Rank within the Tianying Order beneath the altar masters. Each of the four altars commands five Branch Masters. ↩

4. 斤 – jīn. Traditional Chinese unit of weight, approximately 500 grams or 1.1 pounds. Four hundred jin would be roughly 440 pounds or 200 kilograms. ↩

5. 白龟寿 – Bái Guīshòu. His name meaning “White Tortoise Longevity.” Altar Master of the Xuanwu Altar of the Tianying Order, who died shielding Monk Peng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 张翠山 – Zhāng Cuìshān. His name meaning “Verdant Mountain.” Fifth disciple of Zhang Sanfeng and member of the Seven Xias of Wudang. His epithet is the Silver Hook Iron Brush. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 殷素素 – Yīn Sùsù. Her name meaning “Plain and Simple.” Daughter of Yin Tianzheng and mother of Zhang Wuji; she took her own life two years before. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 常金鹏 – Cháng Jīnpéng. His name meaning “Golden Roc.” Altar Master of the Vermilion Bird Altar of the Tianying Order. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 江湖 – jiānghú. Literally rivers and lakes. Itinerant world beyond settled society and official reach, holding not only martial artists but the trades that travel with them, including pedlars, physicians, fortune-tellers, entertainers, boatmen, beggars, outlaws and the like. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 武字诀 – Wǔ Zì Jué. Literally “wǔ” character formula. Martial technique derived from the strokes of the character 武 (wǔ, meaning “martial” or “military”), part of Zhang Cuishan’s calligraphy-based martial arts. ↩

11. 刀字诀 – Dāo Zì Jué. Literally “dāo” character formula. Martial technique derived from the strokes of the character 刀 (dāo, meaning “knife” or “blade”), part of Zhang Cuishan’s calligraphy-based martial arts. ↩

12. 两 – liǎng. Traditional unit of weight, about 37 grams, and the standard unit in which silver currency was reckoned. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 梯云纵 – Tīyún Zòng. Literally ladder to the clouds. Signature qinggong technique of the Wudang Order. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 屠龙刀 – Túlóng Dāo. Dragon-Slaying Dao; the name’s literal sense is “dragon-slaying”. Legendary blade and the supreme weapon of the jianghu, forged with the Heavenly Jian from meteoric iron. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 武林至尊，宝刀屠龙。号令天下，莫敢不从 – wǔlín zhìzūn, bǎodāo túlóng. Hàolìng tiānxià, mò gǎn bù cóng. Legendary couplet about the Dragon-Slaying Dao, claiming that its possessor shall command the obedience of the entire jianghu. ↩

16. 王盘山 – Wángpán Shān. Wangpan Island, the sea island where the Tianying Order raised the Dragon-Slaying Dao to overawe the wulin some years before. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

17. 武林 – wǔlín. Literally martial forest. Those who actually practise, teach or study martial arts. Wulin sits inside the jianghu and is narrower than it: every member of the wulin belongs to the jianghu, but a pedlar or physician of the jianghu who never trained is no part of the wulin. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

18. 上步劈山 – shàngbù pī shān. Literally step up and cleave the mountain. Fundamental dao technique combining a forward step with a powerful downward slash. ↩