The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 7, Part 2: Who Sends the Ice Boat to the Fairy Land

Part 2

The two knelt together upon the iceberg. Zhang Cuishan said aloud, “Heaven above, your disciple Zhang Cuishan this day takes Yin Susu as his wife. We shall share fortune and misfortune alike, and I shall never fail her.” Yin Susu prayed with devout sincerity, “Heaven bless us, that we may be husband and wife in life after life, for all eternity.” She paused, then added, “If one day we return to the Central Plains, I, Yin Susu, shall cleanse my heart and reform utterly. I shall follow my husband in doing good, relieving the suffering of others, striving to atone for my sins. Never again shall I wantonly take a life. If I break this oath, let my husband cast me off.” Zhang Cuishan was overjoyed. He had not expected her to make such a vow. He wrapped his arms around her at once. Though seawater had soaked them to the bone, their hearts were warm as a spring breeze.

After a long while, the two remembered they had not eaten or drunk all day. Zhang Cuishan stood at the iceberg’s edge with his silver hook in hand. When fish surfaced near the ice, he hooked one with a single cast. The fish in these waters, to withstand the cold, were particularly thick-fleshed and rich in fat. Raw, it tasted rank, but it put strength back into them.

Upon that iceberg, knowing full well that return was hopeless, they were nonetheless free from care. The days were extraordinarily long and the nights bizarrely short, the reverse of all they knew. They could no longer count the days, nor tell how many times the sun had risen and set upon the sea.

One day, Yin Susu suddenly saw a column of black smoke rising straight into the sky due north. Her face went white at once. “Fifth Brother!” she cried, pointing at the smoke. Zhang Cuishan was equal parts startled and overjoyed. “Could there be people living in this place?”

Though they could see the smoke, the distance was in truth enormous. The iceberg drifted for an entire day and still they had not drawn near. The black smoke climbed ever higher, and before long they could faintly make out firelight within it. Yin Susu asked, “What is that?” Zhang Cuishan shook his head without answering. Yin Susu’s voice trembled: “Our days are done! That… that is the gate to hell.”

Zhang Cuishan too was deeply alarmed, but he comforted her: “Perhaps there are people over there, burning the mountainside.” Yin Susu said, “What mountain fire sends flames that high?” Zhang Cuishan sighed. “Since we have come to this strange place, we can only leave everything to heaven’s will. If heaven will not let us freeze to death but means to burn us alive in fire, so be it. If you must enter hell, I will follow you into hell. Let them stir us in iron cauldrons, fry us in oil!”

Strange to tell, the iceberg they stood upon was indeed drifting straight toward that great column of fire. At the time, Zhang and Yin did not understand the reason, believing that some hidden hand had arranged their fate. Whether fortune or disaster, all was as heaven decreed. They did not know that the column of fire came from an active volcano near the Arctic. Its flames, erupting ceaselessly, had warmed the seawater beside the mountain. The warm water flowing south naturally drew cold water and ice up from the south to replace it, and so their iceberg had been carried gradually closer.

The iceberg drifted another day and night before reaching the foot of the volcano. There they saw that around the column of fire lay a vast expanse of green, an enormous island. The western side of the island was all jagged, grotesque peaks of sharp stone, in shapes beyond description. Zhang Cuishan and Yin Susu had travelled widely, but they had never seen a volcano. They did not know those peaks were formed from volcanic lava accumulated over millennia. The eastern side of the island was an endless plain, built up year by year from volcanic ash poured into the sea. Though the place lay near the Arctic, the volcano’s eternal flames gave it a climate resembling the Changbai Mountains: high peaks capped with ice and snow, while the lowlands stretched green as far as the eye could see, with tall pines and cypresses of extraordinary height, and all manner of strange flowers and trees unknown in the Central Plains.

Yin Susu gazed for some time, then suddenly leapt up and threw her arms around Zhang Cuishan’s neck. “Fifth Brother, we’ve reached the fairy mountain!” Zhang Cuishan’s heart too was brimming with joy, and in his daze he could find no words. On the plain below, a herd of spotted deer grazed with heads bowed. Look where they would, save for the somewhat fearsome volcano, all was peaceful and calm, with nothing in it to dread.

But as the iceberg drifted beside the island, the warm current caught it and bore it outward again. Yin Susu cried, “Oh no, oh no! Now we cannot reach the fairy island!” Zhang Cuishan saw that things had turned against them. If they did not get ashore now, the iceberg might carry them off anywhere, and when would the drifting end? In his urgency, he struck the ice with hook and palm combined. Cracking sounds rang out as a great chunk of ice broke free. The two embraced it, plunged into the sea with a splash, and paddled with hands and feet until at last they crawled onto dry land.

The herd of spotted deer watched the newcomers with round, curious eyes, showing not the slightest fear. Yin Susu approached slowly and laid her hand upon one deer’s back. “If only there were a few cranes as well,” she said, “I would call this the southern pole’s fairy realm.” Suddenly the ground shifted beneath her feet and she fell. Zhang Cuishan cried, “Susu!” and rushed to help her, but he staggered too and could not keep his feet.

A deep rumbling sounded. The ground shook. The volcano was erupting again. After some tens of days upon the ceaselessly heaving sea, their feet on solid land felt insubstantial, and when the earth suddenly trembled, they both fell.

Startled, they saw nothing else amiss, and rose to their feet laughing. Exhausted from their ordeal, the two slept soundly upon the plain for more than four shichen.¹ When they woke the sun had still not set. Zhang Cuishan said, “Let us look around, see if there are any inhabitants, any venomous creatures or fierce beasts.” Yin Susu said, “You need only see how tame these deer are. This fairy island must be very peaceful indeed.” Zhang Cuishan smiled. “Let us hope so. But we ought to pay our respects to the immortals who dwell here.”

Yin Susu, even while stranded on the iceberg, had done her utmost to keep up her appearance and keep her clothes tidy. Now that they had reached the island, she took still greater care with her dress, arranged Zhang Cuishan’s hair as well, and only then set out to explore. She carried her longsword. Zhang Cuishan, having lost his iron brush, broke off a sturdy branch to serve in its place. The two unleashed their qinggong² and raced swiftly from south to north for some ten li.³ To have so much ground to run on again was a delight beyond telling. Along the way, apart from low hills and tall trees, the ground was covered with grass and strange flowers. From the undergrowth, now and then nameless birds and small beasts startled into flight, all seemingly harmless. In the distance, red-hot lava flowed westward. The trees and flowers in its path were scorched and blackened. Evidently the flow was fierce, and they gave it a wide berth.

Rounding a great stretch of forest, they saw in the northwest corner a rocky mountain, and at its foot the mouth of a stone cave. Yin Susu cried, “This place is wonderful!” and ran ahead. Zhang Cuishan called, “Careful!” but before he had finished speaking, a great white shape burst from the cave with a roar. A polar bear, enormous and shaggy-furred, larger than the biggest bull.

Yin Susu started back in alarm. The bear rose on its hind legs and brought a massive paw crashing down toward her head. Yin Susu curved her longsword and slashed at the bear’s shoulder, but she had been long adrift and her body was weak, and there was no force in the stroke. Though the blade bit into the bear’s shoulder, it only grazed the flesh. As she drew back for a second cut, the bear lunged, and with a sharp crack knocked the jian from her hand. Zhang Cuishan shouted, “Susu, get back!” He leapt forward and swung his branch in a horizontal sweep, striking the bear’s left foreleg at the knee with full force. The branch snapped in two with a crack, but the bear’s left leg broke as well. Maimed and in agony, the bear roared so loudly the valley rang, then hurled itself at Zhang Cuishan.

Zhang Cuishan sprang into the air with his Cloud Ladder⁴ qinggong, rising over a zhang.⁵ He executed a straight hook from the “Contend” character technique, his silver hook slashing down from midair and striking the bear squarely at the temple. The blow carried tremendous force. The hook bit several inches into the skull. The bear let out an earth-shaking bellow, wrenching the silver hook from Zhang Cuishan’s grip. It rolled over on the ground several times, then lay on its back, dead.

Yin Susu clapped and praised, “Fine qinggong, fine hook work!” She bent to retrieve her jian, when suddenly Zhang Cuishan shouted, “Jump over here!” Hearing the alarm in his voice, she did not stop to ask questions but lunged forward into his arms. She looked back, and a cry of horror burst from her lips. Behind her stood another polar bear, fangs bared, claws spread, poised to spring, a hideous and terrifying sight.

With no weapon in hand, Zhang Cuishan pulled Yin Susu up into a tall pine tree. The bear circled below, now and then rearing up and roaring. Zhang Cuishan broke off a pine branch and flung it at the bear’s right eye. A soft thud, and the branch struck home. The bear bellowed in pain and tried to climb the tree. Zhang Cuishan took the longsword from Yin Susu, aimed at the bear’s head, and hurled it down with all his strength. A dull thunk, and the blade sank more than halfway into the bear’s skull. The creature slowly collapsed and died beneath the tree.

Zhang Cuishan said, “I don’t know if there are more bears in the cave.” He picked up several stones and threw them inside. After a while, nothing stirred. He went in first, Yin Susu close behind. The cave was spacious, running eight or nine zhang deep, with cracks in the rock admitting a sliver of daylight like a natural skylight. The cave held the remains of the bears’ meals: fish flesh and fish bones, rank and fetid. Yin Susu covered her nose. “It’s well enough, but the stench is unbearable.” Zhang Cuishan said, “If we sweep and wash it daily, in ten days or half a month it will be fine.” Yin Susu thought of all the years they would spend together on this island, growing old and dying here, and her heart was filled with equal parts joy and sorrow.

Zhang Cuishan went out and broke branches to fashion a great broom, sweeping the filth from the cave. Yin Susu helped as well. When the cleaning was done, the stench still lingered. Yin Susu said, “If only there were a stream nearby to wash it clean. There is plenty of seawater, but no bucket to carry it in.” Zhang Cuishan said, “I have an idea.” He fetched several large blocks of ice from the cold, shaded side of the mountain and placed them on a high rock inside the cave. Yin Susu clapped. “Brilliant!” The ice melted slowly into water that flowed out of the cave, as though someone were washing it clean, only very slowly.

Zhang Cuishan cleaned the cave while Yin Susu used her longsword to butcher the two bears, cutting the meat into strips. Though there was a volcano on the island, the extreme northern latitude kept the place very cold. The bear meat, stored beside ice, would not spoil for months. Yin Susu sighed, “The human heart is never satisfied. We gain Long and then we want Shu.⁶ If only we had fire to roast a bear paw, how wonderful that would be.” She added, “I’m afraid the ice in the cave will never melt fast enough to wash away the stench.” Zhang Cuishan gazed at the flames erupting from the volcano’s mouth. “There is fire, right enough. The pity of it is that the fire is too fierce. Give us time to think of a way and we shall fetch it here.”

That night they ate their fill of bear brain and slept wedged among the tree branches. In their dreams they still seemed to be upon the iceberg at sea, rocking with the waves, when in truth it was only the wind moving the branches.

The next morning, before Yin Susu had even opened her eyes, she said, “How fragrant, how fragrant!” She rolled down from the tree and found that a great cluster of unknown flowers beneath the tree was sending forth waves of perfume. Yin Susu was delighted. “So many fragrant flowers before the cave. This is truly wonderful!” Zhang Cuishan said, “Susu, don’t get too excited yet. There is something I must tell you.” Seeing the gravity on his face, Yin Susu was taken aback. “What is it?” Zhang Cuishan said, “I have figured out how to get fire.” Yin Susu laughed. “Ah, you rascal. I thought it was something bad. What is the method? Tell me quickly!”

Zhang Cuishan said, “The flames at the volcano’s mouth are too fierce to approach. I fear that even dozens of zhang away, a person would be roasted alive. So we twist bark into a long rope, dry it in the sun, and then…” Yin Susu clapped. “Good method, good method! Then tie a stone to the rope and hurl it into the crater. The flames will catch the rope and bring the fire down!”

Footnotes

1. 时辰 – shíchén. Traditional Chinese unit of time equal to two hours; the day was divided into twelve shichen. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 轻功 – qīnggōng. Literally qinggong. Ability to move with superhuman agility, and weightlessness through qi redistribution to leap over trees and roofs, and skip over water. See Wikipedia. ↩

3. Li (里) – A traditional Chinese unit of distance, roughly equivalent to a third of a mile or half a kilometre. ↩

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

5. 丈 – zhàng. Traditional Chinese unit of length, approximately 3.33 metres or 10.9 feet. ↩

6. 既得陇，又望蜀 – jì dé Lǒng, yòu wàng Shǔ. Literally having gained Long, one looks to Shu. Proverb for insatiable desire, from Cao Cao’s remark on taking Longyou and coveting Shu next: no sooner is one thing won than another is wanted. ↩