Zhu Ziliu

Zhu Ziliu (simplified: 朱子柳, traditional: 朱子柳, pinyin: Zhū Zǐliǔ, jyutping: zyu1 zi2 lau5) was the scholar among the Fisherman, Woodcutter, Farmer and Scholar, the four disciples of Great Master Yideng. Like the other three he came from the Dali Kingdom, where he had served as a minister before following his sovereign into retirement. He guarded the last stretch of the stone beam that led to Yideng’s retreat.

Biography

The stone beam

When Guo Jing carried the wounded Huang Rong up the mountain to seek Yideng’s help, the scholar sat at the end of the stone beam, on the only foothold beyond the last gap, reading the Analects aloud. He ignored Guo Jing’s request to be announced until Huang Rong mocked his reading. He looked about forty, with a scholar’s scarf, a folding fan and a long black beard. He set her three tests and promised to take them to his shifu if she passed all of them.

Huang Rong solved his riddle poem at once; its answer was xin wei zhuangyuan (辛未状元), “Top Scholar of the xinwei year”, and he said it was a riddle from the ancients and not about himself. She matched his first couplet line, a joke at his own expense, and then his old “absolute”, Qin, se, pipa, eight kings all of one face, with Chi, mei, wang, liang, four little ghosts, each with his own scheme inside, which mocked all four disciples at once. He rose and bowed to her to the ground. On the way to the temple he chided her, citing the Mencius, for letting Guo Jing carry her, and was left speechless by her retorts. He then announced them to his shifu.

Yideng’s sacrifice

The scholar and the farmer were angry that Huang Rong had tricked her way past them, and the scholar warned Yideng that the pair had been sent by a villain to do him harm. Yideng nevertheless healed her, and the scholar handed his exhausted shifu the Nine Flower Jade Dew Pills. Afterwards, with the other three, he confronted Guo Jing and Huang Rong. The scholar explained that the healing had cost Yideng his martial power and would take five years of unbroken cultivation to restore. Seeing that the two were sincere, he told them the history of Yideng’s retirement: Wang Chongyang and Zhou Botong’s visit to the Dali palace, when the four disciples had waited on their guests, Wang Chongyang’s warning about Ouyang Feng, and Ouyang Feng’s attack on the farmer as a ploy to drain Yideng’s strength.

When the four tested Guo Jing with weapons, the scholar joined in after the fisherman and the woodcutter with his long jian, using the Thirty-Six Jians of Ailao Mountain, thirty-six thrusts in all directions. Guo Jing flicked the blade aside with the Divine Finger Flick at the last thrust, and the scholar sheathed his jian and thanked him for holding back his palms. Guo Jing had by then judged that, refined as he looked, the scholar was the best fighter of the four. When the farmer reproached him for telling the outsiders everything, the scholar only smiled.

Yinggu

When Yinggu came to take her revenge, the scholar asked Guo Jing and Huang Rong to help, since the four disciples could not raise a hand against their former mistress. At the end of the stone beam the four knelt to her, and the scholar told her that their sovereign had loved his people and harmed no innocent. When she forced her way past, he jabbed at an acupoint on her wrist, but she met his fingertip with a poisoned gold needle worn on her forefinger, and he fell. He held out on willpower until he saw his shifu unharmed, then collapsed. Still unrecovered, he and the farmer saw Guo Jing and Huang Rong to the temple gate when they left.

Mount Hua

The scholar came with Yideng and the other three to Mount Hua at the second Huashan Sword Summit. When Qiu Qianren was caught, he told him that a man who had done endless evil could be put to death by anyone. As the four followed Yideng away, he teased the radiant Huang Rong with a line from the Classic of Poetry, “On the low wet ground grows the chu, how luxuriant its branches!” She answered with another, and he laughed and took his leave.

Personality & traits

The scholar was learned and proud of excelling in both letters and arms, and admitted to himself that he fell short of Huang Rong in the one and of Guo Jing in the other. He was quick-witted and fair-minded: once he saw that Guo Jing and Huang Rong were sincere, he told them the whole story, and when Huang Rong revealed that Yinggu was Consort Liu, he alone of the four had already guessed most of it. Like his fellow disciples, he revered Yideng as both sovereign and shifu.

Martial arts abilities

Dianxue

Like the other three disciples, the scholar had learned dianxue from Yideng himself. It fell far short of the One Yang Finger, but counted as first-rate in the wulin.

Thirty-Six Jians of Ailao Mountain

The Thirty-Six Jians of Ailao Mountain (哀牢山三十六剑) were thirty-six thrusts, six from each of six directions, said to be the most relentless swordplay of Yunnan.

Relationships

Great Master Yideng

The scholar served Great Master Yideng first as a minister and then as a disciple.

Fellow disciples

His fellow disciples were the fisherman, the woodcutter and the farmer; he called the farmer shixiong.

Huang Rong

The scholar was outwitted by Huang Rong on the stone beam, and they parted on friendly, teasing terms at Mount Hua.

Behind the scenes

Name

The scholar is not named in the narrative of the third edition of The Legend of the Condor Heroes. The name Zhu Ziliu appears only in Jin Yong’s note at the end of chapter 30, which explains that Huang Rong’s exchanges with him on the stone beam, including the quotations from the Analects and Mencius, the riddles and the couplets, are drawn largely from Feng Menglong’s Ming collection Gujin Tangai. He appears under that name in The Return of the Condor Heroes.