The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre – Chapter 8 – Part 3

Yin Susu cried, “Brilliant! Brilliant!” Zhang Cuishan said, “Why?” Then he too understood. “Ah, but to use such a trick against a monk of such virtue... that is rather cruel.” For he too had realised: Xie Xun striking his own crown would force Kongjian to cry out and rush to save him, and in that moment of unguardedness, Xie Xun could strike. Zhang Cuishan's cleverness was in no way inferior to his wife's, but because he never concerned himself with such scheming, he was a step slower in arriving at this thought.

Xie Xun sighed bitterly. “That was precisely my intent, to exploit his innate goodness. You guess correctly. My palm-strike at my own crown, though laced with cunning, was also a desperate gamble. Had the strike been light, and he perceived the ruse, he would not have come to stop me. Of the thirteen fists, only the last remained. However fierce the Seven Injury Fist might be, how could it breach his protective divine skill? All hope of finding my shifu for vengeance would be lost forever. I staked everything on that single throw, and the palm-strike was delivered at full power. Had he not come to save me, I would have shattered my own skull and died, for without vengeance, I had no wish to live.”

“The Great Master Kongjian, seeing this extremity, cried, ‘Don’t! Why must you…’ and immediately leapt forward, reaching out to deflect my right palm. My left fist shot out and struck his chest and abdomen with a thud. This time he was utterly unprepared. He had not even a thought of invoking his divine skill. His mortal flesh could not withstand that blow. His internal organs ruptured at once, and he fell to the ground.”

“I had struck those two fists, and seeing he could not survive, conscience surged within me. I threw myself upon him and wept bitterly, crying, ‘Great Master Kongjian, I, Xie Xun, am ungrateful and treacherous, worse than a beast!’”

The three of them, Zhang Cuishan, Yin Susu, and Wuji, fell silent, each thinking that to slay this virtuous monk by such a trick was indeed a grievous wrong.

Xie Xun said, “The Great Master Kongjian, hearing me weep, smiled faintly and comforted me: ‘All mortals must die. Why need you grieve, Benefactor? Your shifu is about to arrive. You must be calm and act with care. Do not be reckless.’ His words roused me from my despair. Those thirteen fists had drained a tremendous measure of true force, and with a great enemy about to appear, how could I waste my strength in weeping? So I sat cross-legged and regulated my breathing. But a long time passed, and my shifu did not appear. Puzzled, I looked at the Great Master Kongjian.”

“By now his breath was faint and broken. He said haltingly, ‘I… I never thought he… he would break his word… Could… could someone have detained him?’ I flew into a rage and roared, ‘You lied to me! You tricked me into beating you to death, and still my shifu will not come!’ He shook his head. ‘I did not lie to you. I am truly sorry.’ In my blind fury I wanted to curse him, but then I thought, What benefit could he gain from tricking me into killing him? I struck him dead, and he comes to apologise to me. Overwhelming shame seized me, and I knelt before him, saying, ‘Great Master, whatever wish you have, I will surely fulfil it for you!’ He smiled faintly and said, ‘Only this: when you kill in future, may you sometimes think of this old monk.’ “

“This eminent monk was not only supreme in the martial arts but great in wisdom and insight. He understood my nature perfectly. He knew he could never persuade me to abandon my thirst for vengeance and become a good man. But he asked that, when I killed, I might sometimes recall him. Fifth Brother, that day on the ship when you matched palms with me and I did not take your life, it was because I suddenly thought of the Great Master Kongjian.”

Zhang Cuishan had never imagined that his own life had been saved by the Great Master Kongjian, and his admiration for the eminent monk grew still deeper.

Xie Xun sighed. “His breath grew ever fainter. I pressed my palm to his Lingtai acupoint,¹ pouring every ounce of neili into prolonging his life. Suddenly he drew a deep breath and asked, ‘Your shifu has not come yet?’ I said, ‘He has not.’ He said, ‘He will never come now. He… he has deceived even me.’ I said, ‘Great Master, do not worry. I will not kill indiscriminately to provoke him. But I will search to the ends of the earth until I find him.’ He said, ‘Yes, but… your skill is not his equal… unless… unless…’ His voice grew lower and lower. I brought my ear to his lips and heard him say, ‘Unless… you can find the Dragon-Slaying Dao… find the… the secret within the…’ At the word ‘secret,’ his breath failed him, and he died.”

Only now did Zhang Cuishan and Yin Susu understand why he had spent years in anguished thought probing the Dragon-Slaying Dao’s secret, why he was gentle and courteous in his right mind and like a wild beast when the madness took him, why a man who bore skill without equal in the world went burdened with sorrow from morning to night…

Xie Xun said, “Later I learned news of the Dragon-Slaying Dao and raced to Wang Pan Island to seize it. Fifth Sister, your father was a close friend of mine in years past: we were as brothers. The Eagle King and the Lion King, our names known throughout the world, later became bitter enemies. The complications that entangled others in that affair… those I cannot speak of to you. Before I obtained the dao, I searched by every means for Cheng Kun. After I gained the Dragon-Slaying Dao, I was instead afraid he would come for me, so I sought the most remote and hidden place I could find, to explore the dao’s secret at my leisure. It was because I feared you might reveal my whereabouts that I brought you along. Who could have imagined that in the blink of nine years, Xie Xun, you have accomplished nothing at all!”

Zhang Cuishan said, “When the Great Master Kongjian was dying, perhaps his words were not complete. He said, ‘Unless you find the secret within the Dragon-Slaying Dao…’. The implication may point to something else.” Xie Xun said, “In these nine years, I have considered every possibility, however wild or impossible. Not one fits his words. There is certainly a great secret hidden within the dao, of that I am sure. But I have exhausted every avenue of thought and cannot fathom it. I have traced my fingers over this blade and found only a notch near the hilt, unlike any common dao, but this notch serves no particular purpose in bladework either…”

After that long night’s conversation, Xie Xun spoke no more of the matter, but his supervision of Wuji’s training grew ferociously strict. Wuji was only nine years old at the time, and though clever, how could he hope to comprehend in a short span martial arts that were among the rarest under heaven? Xie Xun also taught him the arts of shifting acupoints and releasing sealed ones, skills of the most profound order in martial science. Wuji could not even identify the acupoints correctly, and with no foundation in neili,² how could he possibly learn them? Xie Xun beat and scolded him without the slightest mercy.

Yin Susu often saw bruises covering her son’s body and felt great pity. She said to Xie Xun, “Big Brother, your divine skill is unmatched, but how can Wuji master it in three or five years? On this island, time stretches without limit. Why not teach him slowly?” Xie Xun said, “I am not teaching him to practise. I am teaching him to commit it all to memory.” Yin Susu asked in surprise, “You are not having Wuji train in martial arts?” Xie Xun said, “Hmph! To drill each move one by one, how could that be fast enough? I need only that he remember, that he engrave it deeply in his heart.”

Yin Susu did not understand his purpose, but knowing this big brother of hers always acted in ways that defied expectation, she let him be. Whenever she saw the child covered in fresh bruises, however, she would take him in her arms and comfort him. Wuji, remarkably, seemed to grasp the situation. “Mother, Sworn Father wants what is best for me. The harder he hits, the more firmly I remember.”

The better part of another year passed in this way. One morning, Xie Xun suddenly said, “Fifth Brother, Fifth Sister, in four months’ time the winds will turn south. From today, we begin building a raft.” Zhang Cuishan was seized by a mixture of shock and joy. “You mean to build a raft and return to the Central Plains?” Xie Xun said coldly, “That depends on whether heaven shows us mercy. It is said, ‘Man proposes. Heaven disposes.’ If we succeed, we return. If we fail, we drown in the great sea.”

In Yin Susu’s heart, she would gladly have remained on this island paradise, living in carefree ease without risking the perils of the voyage. But she thought of how Wuji would one day need to marry and raise children, and how pitiful it would be for him to be buried on this island all his life. So she threw herself into the work of building the raft with high spirits. The island was rich in towering ancient trees, but because they grew in that frozen climate, their growth was slow and the wood dense and hard as ironstone. Xie Xun and Zhang Cuishan busied themselves felling timber while Yin Susu wove sails from tree-fibre and beast-hide, and twisted cordage. Wuji ran to and fro as messenger. Despite the formidable skill of Xie Xun and Zhang Cuishan, and though Yin Susu was long since no delicate maiden, without proper tools the building of this great raft was twice the effort for half the result.

While the raft was under construction, Xie Xun always kept Wuji at his side, cross-examining him on the martial arts he had learned. By now Zhang Cuishan and Yin Susu no longer withdrew when the questioning began. They listened as the sworn father questioned and the sworn son answered, all of it oral formulas. Xie Xun even required Wuji to commit to memory, as if reciting sacred texts, the oral traditions of various dao and jian techniques. This “martial education” was strange enough, but he added not a single word of explanation, like the worst of schoolmasters, forcing a child to memorise ‘the Odes say’ and ‘the Master said’ without understanding a word. Yin Susu, listening beside them, sometimes could not help but feel sorry for Wuji. How could even an adult versed in martial arts remember so many formulas and techniques? And what use was rote memorisation without practical demonstration? Could one truly defeat an enemy by reciting a few moves aloud? Moreover, whenever Wuji made the slightest error in recitation, Xie Xun would deliver a heavy slap to his cheek. Though he channelled no neili into the blow, a single slap would often leave one side of Wuji’s face swollen and red for half a day.

The great raft took more than two months to complete, and the raising of the main and secondary masts consumed another half-month. Then came the hunting, the salting of meat, and the sewing of leather bags to hold fresh water. By the time everything was ready, the days had grown short and the nights long, but the wind had not yet turned. The three of them built a thatched shelter on the shore to cover the raft, waiting only for the wind to shift before they could put to sea.

By this time Xie Xun would not let Wuji out of his sight for even a moment. Even at night, the boy slept beside him. Zhang Cuishan and Yin Susu, seeing how he combined fierce strictness with genuine tenderness toward their son, could only exchange wry smiles.

One night, Zhang Cuishan was roused from sleep by an unfamiliar quality in the wind. He sat up at once and listened. Sure enough, the wind was blowing from the north. He pushed Yin Susu awake and said joyfully, “Listen!” Before Yin Susu, still drowsy, could answer, they heard Xie Xun’s voice from outside, “The north wind has turned! The north wind has turned!” His voice carried what seemed like the sound of weeping. Heard in the dead of night, it was unbearably bleak and desolate.

The next morning, Zhang Cuishan and Yin Susu packed everything in high spirits, though after ten years on this ice-fire island, the sudden departure stirred a reluctant attachment. By the time all provisions had been loaded onto the raft, it was noon. The three of them worked together to push the raft into the sea. Wuji was the first to leap aboard, followed by Yin Susu.

Zhang Cuishan took Xie Xun’s hand and said, “Big Brother, the raft is six feet from shore. Let us jump aboard together!”

Xie Xun said, “Fifth Brother, from this day forward we brothers part for ever. Take good care of yourself.”

Zhang Cuishan’s heart gave a sudden lurch, as though a heavy fist had struck him in the chest. “You… you…” Xie Xun said, “Your nature is kind, and you should by rights be blessed without end. But in matters of right and wrong you are too rigid, and so your path will be beset with trials. Be careful in all things.

“Wuji’s mind is broad and yielding. In all he does hereafter he will be more supple and more easy with men than you. Fifth sister, though she is a woman, will not be done by by any man. The one I fear for is you.” Zhang Cuishan listened in growing wonder and distress, and said in a trembling voice, “Big brother, what are you saying? You are not… you are not coming with us?” Xie Xun said, “I told you so years ago. Have you forgotten?”

Footnotes

1. 靈台穴 – Língtái Xué. An acupoint on the Governing Vessel, located on the back opposite the heart. ↩

2. 内力 – nèilì. Literally internal force. The kinetic manifestation of qi, cultivated through neigong and deployed in martial arts. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩