White Horse Neighing in the West Wind - Chapter 2

Shi Zhongjun was overjoyed. He opened his arms and held her tight.

Huo Yuanlong and Chen Dahai exchanged a smile, thinking: “Our second brother has nursed his lovesickness for ten years. Today, at last, his wish is fulfilled.”

A faint, delicate fragrance filled Shi Zhongjun’s nostrils. His mind was hazy. Feeling Shangguan Hong’s arms still wrapped around him, he could scarcely believe it was real.

Then, suddenly, a searing pain tore through his lower abdomen, as though a sharp blade had been driven into him.

He cried out and channelled strength into his arms to push Shangguan Hong away, but her arms clung to him in a death grip, unwilling to let go. At last the two of them fell to the ground together.

The change was so sudden that Huo Yuanlong and Chen Dahai, startled, tumbled hastily from their horses and rushed forward. When they lifted Shangguan Hong’s body, they saw a pool of blood at her chest, a small gold-hilted short jian¹ embedded in it. The other short jian, silver-hilted, was buried in Shi Zhongjun’s lower abdomen. It turned out that Gold and Silver Little Swords Third Lady² had resolved to follow her husband in death. Hidden within her clothes she had carried a pair of jian, one pointing outward, one pointing towards herself. The moment Shi Zhongjun embraced her, their four arms locked around each other, and both were pierced at the same instant.

Shangguan Hong died on the spot. Shi Zhongjun did not perish at once, but thinking that he was to die at his shimei’s³ hand, the anguish in his heart exceeded the agony of his wound. He cried out, “Third Brother, end it quickly and spare me further suffering.”

Chen Dahai saw that his wound was beyond healing and looked to his eldest brother. Huo Yuanlong nodded. Chen Dahai gritted his teeth, raised his jian, and drove it into Shi Zhongjun’s heart.

Huo Yuanlong sighed. “I never thought Gold and Silver Little Swords Third Lady had such a fierce spirit.”

Just then one of their escort captains galloped over to report, “We searched White Horse Li San’s corpse again. No map.”

Huo Yuanlong pointed at Shangguan Hong. “Then it must be on her.”

A thorough search of Shangguan Hong’s person turned up nothing beyond a few scattered pieces of silver and some spare clothes. Huo Yuanlong and Chen Dahai looked at each other, disappointed and puzzled. They had pursued Li San and his wife all the way from the Ganliang road to Huijiang,⁴ keeping them constantly in sight. Had the map been passed to someone else along the way, it could not have escaped the eyes of their dozens of men. Besides, the couple had staked their lives on protecting the map, and there was no reason they would have carelessly handed it to a stranger.

Chen Dahai went through the contents of Shangguan Hong’s small bundle once more. When he came upon a little girl’s clothes, a thought struck him and he said, “Eldest Brother, chase the little girl!”

Huo Yuanlong gave a grunt. “No need to panic. Where can a slip of a girl flee to in the great desert?” He waved his left arm and shouted, “Leave two men to bury Second Master Shi. The rest, follow me!” He pulled his horse’s reins and surged ahead. Hoofbeats thundered, shouts rang out, and over a hundred horses gave chase.

***

The little girl had ridden away long since and was by now more than twenty li⁵ ahead. But across the flat, boundless desert, the eye could see for more than ten li. Though the girl had fled far, given enough time, they would surely catch her.

And so it proved. By dusk, Chen Dahai suddenly shouted in triumph, “She’s ahead!”

A tiny black dot was moving where earth met sky.

Magnificent as the white horse was, it had galloped without rest from dawn to dusk. At last even it could go no further. Huo Yuanlong and Chen Dahai kept swapping to fresh mounts and gradually closed the distance.

The little girl, Li Wenxiu,⁶ lay slumped across the white horse’s back, utterly spent, and had long since fallen asleep. She had not eaten or drunk all day, and the desert sun had cracked her lips. The white horse was keenly intelligent. It knew the enemies pursuing from behind meant harm to its little mistress. Facing a sunset red as blood, it strained every last ounce of strength to run.

Suddenly it lifted its forelegs and let out a long whinny. It had caught a strange scent, and in its cry there was a thread of fear.

Huo Yuanlong and Chen Dahai were both consummate martial artists, and the long ride had meant nothing to them. But now both began to feel a heaviness in their chests, gasping for breath.

Huo Yuanlong said, “Third Brother, something seems wrong!”

Chen Dahai cast his eyes about, studying the surroundings. In the northwest, beside the blood-red sunset, a vast haze of yellow cloud had risen. Within the yellow cloud, purple flashes of light played ceaselessly. The sight was strangely beautiful, unlike anything he had seen in his life.

The yellow cloud grew with startling speed. In less time than it takes to eat a meal, it had covered half the sky. By now every man among the dozens of riders was drenched in sweat, gasping for air.

Chen Dahai said, “Eldest Brother, it looks like a great sandstorm.”

Huo Yuanlong said, “True. After her, quickly. Catch the girl first, then find shelter…”

He had not finished speaking when a violent gust struck, carrying a wall of yellow sand. It filled his mouth and nose with grit, and he could not get out another word.

On the desert, a sandstorm comes without warning. In an instant, a great wind swept across the earth. Seven or eight men swayed in their saddles and were blown from their horses.

Huo Yuanlong roared, “Everyone dismount! Circle up!”

Fighting against the wind and sand, the men gathered their hundred-odd strong horses into a great circle, then lay down, man and beast together. Each man linked arms with the next, sheltering beneath the horses’ bellies. The wind-driven sand lashed their faces with a crackling sound, like the cut of a blade, and streaks of blood rose at once across their faces and hands.

For all their numbers, in the boundless desert, beneath the sky-consuming storm, they were no more than a small boat upon a great ocean, helpless, at the mercy of heaven, with not a shred of control.

The storm raged ever fiercer. The sand piled thicker upon man and horse…

Even hardy men like Huo Yuanlong and Chen Dahai, who feared nothing under heaven, could only tremble before the storm’s power, as heaven and earth changed colour. In both men’s hearts the same thought flashed: “What possessed us to chase this Gaochang Labyrinth,⁷ travelling all the way from Shanxi to this desert, and now to be buried here.”

The great wind howled and roared, as though ten thousand demons raged at once.

The desert storm raged through the night. Not until the next morning did it gradually subside.

Huo Yuanlong and Chen Dahai clawed their way out from under the yellow sand and took stock. Their losses were not great. Two companions dead, five horses. But every man was worn to exhaustion. Worse still, no one knew where the little girl on the white horse had ended up. Chances were she had been buried in the sandstorm. If rugged, martial-trained men could not withstand it, what hope did a tender little girl have?

The men lit fires in the desert, cooked their food, and rested for half a day. Then Huo Yuanlong issued his order, “Whoever finds traces of the white horse and the little girl shall be rewarded with fifty liang⁸ of gold!”

All who had followed him to Huijiang were jianghu⁹ heroes from Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Liangzhou. A man rides a thousand li from home for one reason: gold. Fifty liang was no small sum.

The men cheered. Fifty-odd riders fanned out across the yellow sands like a great open fan.

“White horse. Little girl. Fifty liang of gold.” Three thoughts turned in every man’s mind.

Some rode due west, some northwest, some southwest. They agreed to rendezvous at dusk, sixty li due west.

***

Escort master Ding Tong¹⁰ the Two-Headed Snake¹¹ swung onto a strong horse and galloped northwest. He had served the Jinwei Armed Escort¹² for seventeen years. His martial skill was not outstanding, but he was shrewd and capable, one of the Luliang Three Heroes’¹³ most trusted men.

He rode more than twenty li without pause. His companions had vanished from sight. In the vast, empty desert, a sudden loneliness and fear gripped him. He galloped up a sand dune and looked ahead. In the northwest, a patch of green, seven or eight tall willow trees rising high. To see so large an oasis in a desert where not a blade of grass grew filled him with inexpressible joy. “A place this green must have a spring. Even if there are no people here, the company can rest properly.”

His mount too had caught sight of water and grass. At once its spirits surged. Without Ding Tong even pulling the reins, it broke into a thundering gallop.

The ten-odd li were covered in moments. From a distance, the oasis stretched beyond sight, the fields thick with cattle and sheep. At the far western edge stood tents, row upon row, no fewer than six or seven hundred of them.

Ding Tong was alarmed at the sight. Since entering Huijiang, the largest gathering of tent-dwellers he had seen was thirty or forty at most. A great tribal encampment like this was the first he had ever encountered. Judging by the style of the tents, they were plainly Kazakh.¹⁴

Footnotes

1. 剑 – jiàn. Double-edged sword, one of the fundamental weapons in Chinese martial arts. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 金银小剑三娘子 – Jīnyín Xiǎo Jiàn Sān Niángzi. “Gold and Silver Little Swords Third Lady,” Shangguan Hong’s jianghu epithet, from her paired gold- and silver-hilted short swords. ↩

3. 师妹 – shīmèi. Female junior. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Mèi means younger sister. ↩

4. 回疆 – Huíjiāng. Western regions of Xinjiang, beyond the frontier passes. “Hui” referred to the Muslim Uyghur peoples; “jiang” meant border or frontier. ↩

5. 里 – lǐ. Chinese unit of distance, roughly a third of a mile or half a kilometre. ↩

6. 李文秀 – Lǐ Wénxiù. Li San and Shangguan Hong’s daughter. Her name meaning “Literary Elegance.” ↩

7. 高昌迷宫 – Gāochāng mígōng. Gaochang Labyrinth. Gaochang was an ancient kingdom on the Silk Road, near modern Turpan in Xinjiang. ↩

8. 两 – liǎng. A unit of weight, one-sixteenth of a jin, and the unit silver and gold were reckoned in. Never “tael,” which reached English through Portuguese from Malay. ↩

9. 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. ↩

10. 丁同 – Dīng Tóng. Escort master of Jinwei Armed Escort, seventeen years with the company. Shrewd and capable rather than a great martial artist. ↩

11. 两头蛇 – Liǎng Tóu Shé. “Two-Headed Snake,” Ding Tong’s jianghu epithet. ↩

12. 晋威镖局 – Jìnwēi Biāojú. Jinwei Armed Escort. Jin refers to Shanxi province (its ancient name); wei means might or prestige. ↩

13. 吕梁三杰 – Lǚliáng Sān Jié. Luliang Three Heroes, a sworn brotherhood of martial artists based in Shanxi province. ↩

14. 哈萨克 – Hāsàkè. Kazakh people, a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia and northwestern Xinjiang, traditionally nomadic herders. ↩