Zhu Cong (simplified: 朱聪, traditional: 朱聰, pinyin: Zhū Cōng, jyutping: Zyu1 Cung1), the Swift-Handed Scholar (妙手书生), was the second of the Seven Eccentrics of Jiangnan and one of Guo Jing’s shifus. A shabby, joking scholar with a battered fan, he was a master pickpocket and acupoint fighter, and with Ke Zhen’e the strongest of the seven.
Biography
Jiaxing
Zhu Cong grew up in Jiaxing with the other Eccentrics; Ke Zhen’e remembered him as a boy reading aloud from a tattered book in the Iron Spear Temple.
Before the meeting at the Drunken Immortal Wineshop, he stole Wanyan Honglie’s silver at an inn, having seen that the prince and Bao Xiruo were not husband and wife. In the drinking contest with Qiu Chuji, he saw that Qiu Chuji was forcing the wine out through his feet with neigong and offered to take him on alone. He matched Qiu Chuji bowl for bowl, telling tall tales of drinking against an elephant in Siam, until the vat was empty, then revealed the half-full wooden bucket he had hidden under his robe. In the same encounter he picked a sheet of Qiu Chuji’s verses from his pocket. In the fight at Fahua Monastery he struck at Qiu Chuji’s acupoints with his fan and was badly injured internally.
When Qiu Chuji proposed the wager over the two unborn children, Zhu Cong at first objected that it was a trick to bind them for eighteen years; when Qiu Chuji shamed them with the example of the xia of old, Zhu Cong, who knew the biographies of the wandering xia in the Records of the Grand Historian, apologised and accepted for the seven.
Mongolia
When the Eccentrics found Guo Jing, Zhu Cong won the boys over with a conjuring trick with pebbles and taught Tolui three moves of the Nothingness Fist, with which Tolui beat seven or eight boys one after another. In the fight with the Twin Evils of Dark Wind, Mei Chaofeng clawed five deep furrows in the back of his hand. He distracted her with a false cry to unseen allies above, and when Chen Xuanfeng had Nan Xiren at his mercy, Zhu Cong leapt on his back and choked him, at the cost of a blow to his own chest.
Fearing Mei Chaofeng’s return, and finding no one among the seven who knew the art, he devised his own Tendon-Splitting Bone-Dislocating Hand as a counter to the Nine Yin White Bone Claw, and taught it to Guo Jing. When the Eccentrics suspected that Guo Jing was learning from Mei Chaofeng, he and Quan Jinfa climbed the cliff and found the skulls she had left there.
Return to Jiangnan
On the way south he broke Ouyang Ke’s left little finger with the Tendon-Splitting Bone-Dislocating Hand. At the Returning Clouds Manor on Lake Tai, he exposed the man calling himself Qiu Qianren (in truth his twin Qiu Qianzhang): he lifted a diamond ring, bricks of flour and a smouldering wad of dry grass from the old man’s sleeves and showed how each feat had been faked, which comforted Huang Rong when the impostor told her that her father was dead. When Mei Chaofeng came to the manor, he picked her antidote, a dagger and her copy of the lower volume of the Nine Yin Manual from her clothes, leaving goldfish in their place, then gave the copy back out of pity.
Death on Peach Blossom Island
Zhu Cong wrote the letter that the Eccentrics carried to Peach Blossom Island, urging Huang Yaoshi not to fight the Quanzhen. On the island he was killed by Ouyang Feng in the tomb of Huang Rong’s mother. Ouyang Feng and Yang Kang stuffed his clothes with jewels from the tomb, so that he would seem to have died stealing them. Guo Jing found him lying with a smile still on his face and a small jade shoe clenched in his left hand. Before he died, Zhu Cong had picked it from Yang Kang, and Huang Rong later used it to work out that Yang Kang had been on the island.
Personality & traits
Physical appearance
He looked like a down-at-heel scholar, dirty and shabby, shuffling in slippers and fanning himself with a broken, filthy oil-paper fan. He wore a square scholar’s cap.
Character traits
Zhu Cong was flippant and comic in speech and manner, but careful and thorough in thought, and the others knew that behind his jokes there was usually a plan. He was also the most bookish of the seven. Guo Jing insisted that he was upright and had never cared for treasure.
Martial arts abilities
Zhu Cong and Ke Zhen’e were far stronger than the other Eccentrics.
Nothingness Fist
The Nothingness Fist (空空拳) was his fist art; the three simple moves he taught Tolui were among its subtlest.
Tendon-Splitting Bone-Dislocating Hand
He devised the Tendon-Splitting Bone-Dislocating Hand (分筋错骨手) himself. It dislocated joints and broke bones with very fast hands, attacking the limbs, skull and neck rather than the body. He regretted not having learnt it from experts in the Central Plains, but with his quick hands and knowledge of the acupoints and joints he mastered it within a few years; his version was less solid and vicious than a taught one, but effective. Its moves included “The Strong Man Severs His Own Wrist” (壮士断腕), which seized wrist and elbow to wrench the wrist out of joint, and Laughing Chin Loose (笑语解颐), which pulled the cheek to dislocate the jaw.
Acupoint striking and sleight of hand
He was skilled at striking acupoints, using his fan as an acupoint stylus. His sleight of hand was such that he could take anything from another man’s purse or clothes, even in the middle of a fight.
Weapons
His iron fan looked like a broken oil-paper fan, but its ribs were made of steel.
Relationships
Sworn siblings
He was the second of the Seven Eccentrics of Jiangnan, who had sworn to live and die together. He and Ke Zhen’e planned together in secret against Mei Chaofeng’s return.
Disciples
Guo Jing called him Second Shifu. Huang Rong, who liked his mischief, won him over when she first called him “Second Shifu” at the Returning Clouds Manor.
Behind the scenes
Portrayals
Zhu Cong has been portrayed by various actors in adaptations of The Legend of the Condor Heroes:
Television Series
- 1983 series — Michael Chan as Zhu Cong
- 1988 series — Liu Dan as Zhu Cong
- 1994 series — Wang Weiguo as Zhu Cong
- 2003 series — Bao Tianming as Zhu Cong
- 2008 series — Wang Gang as Zhu Cong
- 2017 series — Li Hongtao as Zhu Cong
- 2024 series — Liu Zhihao as Zhu Cong
Most adaptations emphasize Zhu Cong’s tactical intelligence, his pickpocketing skills, and his role as one of Guo Jing’s teachers, while showcasing his adaptability and cunning in combat situations.
See also
- The Legend of the Condor Heroes characters
- Seven Eccentrics of Jiangnan — His faction
- Guo Jing — His disciple
- Ke Zhen’e — His sworn brother
- Ouyang Feng — His killer
- Yang Kang — Ouyang Feng’s accomplice, from whom he took the jade shoe
- Peach Blossom Island — Where he died
- Tendon-Splitting Bone-Dislocating Hand — The art he devised