Return of Condor Heroes, page 159
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As Yang Guo used his internal energy to help Xiao Longnu expel the poisons, he saw dark liquid slowly seeping out from the five fingertips on her left hand. It would take a while to remove all the poison. Suddenly he heard the sound of footsteps coming from the corridor. There were five people coming in total. Yang Guo was secretly startled and thought that the enemy always came to attack at every critical moment. Li Mochou alone had been difficult enough. How would he deal with five people? Xiao Longnu had just cleared her pressure points and her internal energy was weak. If the poisons weren’t driven out immediately, they were bound to enter her pressure points and spread out. Suddenly he saw lights flashing from the distance. Those five people were moving closer. Yang Guo then reached out his arm to carry Xiao Longnu and then jumped onto the empty coffin that was on top of Li Mochou. He pushed open the coffin lid with his palm.
The two people were hiding in the coffin when Yelu Qi and the others came in. Seeing that there were five coffins in the room, the five people became startled, faintly feeling that this was too big a coincidence and a bad omen. Guo Fu couldn’t bear it and said, “Hmmph, there are five of us here and there are five coffins!”
Yang Guo and Xiao Longnu inside the stone coffin heard Guo Fu’s voice. Puzzled, they thought, “How come she’s here?” Yang Guo’s left hand had never left Xiao Longnu’s palm, still forcing out the poisons. He heard that Guo Fu was among the five people. Even though surprised, he was relieved, thinking that she wouldn’t dare to take advantage of someone in a precarious situation. So he said nothing and kept concentrating on sending out his energy to expel the poisons.
Yelu Qi already heard the breathing sound from the stone coffin and thought it was Li Mochou who hid in there with a devious trick. This time he wouldn’t be fooled again and so he immediately made a hand signal, calling the four people to surround the coffin. Guo Fu noticed that the coffin lid and the coffin itself were not aligned and she could see the hem of a gown through the crack. She concluded that it was Li Mochou hiding in there. She laughed and thought, “I’m going to pay you back in your own coin!” She used her energy to push the coffin lid with her left palm and then fiercely shot out the two “Soul Freezing Needles”.
These two needles were sent out at close range. Also, there was no room in the coffin to move aside. The Yang Long couple cried out in surprise, “Ayo!” One needle hit Yang Guo’s right leg while the other struck Xiao Longnu’s left shoulder.
Having sent out the needles, Guo Fu was very pleased with herself. But then she actually heard the surprised cries from a man and a woman inside the coffin. Her heart jumped and she also let out an ‘Ayo’ cry. Yelu Qi kicked out his left leg. There came a crashing sound while the coffin lid fell down on the floor. Trembling, Yang Guo and Xiao Longnu stood up. Under the torch lights, the two people’s faces were pale as they sadly looked at each other.
Guo Fu didn’t know that this time she herself had created a bigger disaster than cutting off Yang Guo’s arm and only felt slightly sorry. She said apologetically, “Yang Da ge [Big Brother Yang], Long Zi Zi [Elder Sister Long], little sister didn’t know it was you two and accidentally shot out the needles. Luckily, my mother has the antidote to this poison. Years ago, my pet eagles were injured by Li Mochou’s needles and it was mother who cured them. Why were you hiding inside the coffin? Who would have thought it was the two of you?”
She thought about how she herself had cut off Yang Guo’s arm and how he’d bent her sword. She figured that they were about even. Let alone the fact that her mother had already scolded her vehemently for this. She mused, “I didn’t come to blame you. That should be enough.” She’d always had the upper hand since childhood. Others looked up to her parents and always gave in to her. Therefore, she only thought about herself and didn’t take other people into consideration. Speaking in retrospect, the Yang-Long couple was not supposed to be hiding in the coffin and therefore gave her a fright. She would not have thought that at the time Xiao Longnu was hit by the silver needle, the poisons inside her body had just stopped flowing out. Suddenly she was violently hit like this, the poisons from the “Five Poisons Divine Palm” all flew backwards, entering the major pressure points on her whole body. This time even if there were a divine pill of immortality, there wouldn’t have been a way to save her. Li Mochou’s silver needle inflicted no more than a flesh wound and, with a proper treatment, one could be cured. However, the poisons inside her were severe beyond reason.
Xiao Longnu was still for a moment but then she felt as if her chest was empty like there was nothing inside and her heart went missing. Then she turned her head to look at Yang Guo and saw in his eyes heartache, a combination of grief and indignation. His whole body was trembling. He looked as if the lifetime of sadness and abuse all came out at this time. Xiao Longnu couldn’t bear to see him bitter and miserable like this so she gently said, “Guo’er, our destiny is like this. Let’s not resent other people. Don’t be so bitter.” She then stretched out her hand to pull out the silver needle from his leg and then later the other poisoned needle from her shoulder. Unlike the “Five Poisons Divine Palm” that Li Mochou had created herself, the “Soul Freezing Needles” were passed on by her ancestor master and so she carried the antidote with her. She gave Yang Guo one grain and she herself took another. Filled with immense hatred, Yang Guo made a sound and spat out the antidote onto the ground.
Guo Fu angrily said, “Ayo, very big of you. Is this to say I came here to harm you on purpose? I did apologize and that should be enough. What’s with the temper? They were only two small needles. What’s a big deal?” Wu Santong saw the sad expression on Yang Guo’s face gradually concealed and replaced by a rising anger. He also saw him picking up the shiny big black sword from the ground. Knowing something was not right, he quickly went forward and coaxed, “Yang Xiong di [Brother Yang], please don’t be upset. The five of us were trapped inside a stone chamber by Li Mochou and escaped with great difficulty. Guo Guniang [Miss Guo] was rash, mistaking.. ..”
Guo Fu butted in, “What? Was I rash? You yourself also thought it was Li Mochou. If not, why haven’t you said something?” Wu Santong eyed Yang Guo and then looked at Guo Fu, not knowing how to appease them.
Xiao Longnu took out another grain of antidote and in a low voice she said, “Guo’er, take the antidote. Don’t you listen to my words anymore?” Hearing Xiao Longnu’s gentle urge, Yang Guo opened his mouth and swallowed. He thought about how the two of them wrestled with life and death with difficulty for the last few days and how finally it was all for nothing. He couldn’t bear it any longer and suddenly knelt down to loudly cry on the stone coffin.
Wu Santong and the others looked at one another in blank dismay. All were thinking that he had always been extremely strong and full of spirit. How come today, after being hit by just a small needle, he was weeping so bitterly like this?
Xiao Longnu reached out her hand to stroke Yang Guo’s hair and said, “Guo’er, you tell them to go. I don’t like them in here.” The plain sentence “I don’t like them in here” contained all her hatred and resentment.
Yang Guo stood up. His eyes began with Guo Fu and then scanned the people one by one. Even though he was extremely angry and hateful, he eventually realized that Guo Fu’s launching the silver needles was an inadvertent mistake. Except blaming her for being rash, he couldn’t say she was wrong. Let alone the fact that even if he used the sword to split her open, he still wouldn’t be able to save Xiao Longnu’s life. He picked up his sword with rage in his eyes. Suddenly he raised his black iron heavy sword and there came a thundering sound and flying sparks. Surprisingly he only chopped the stone coffin they were hiding in earlier into two sections. This strike was executed not only out of male strength, but also out of bottomless grief and indignation.
Seeing his strike to be this incredibly powerful, Guo Fu and the others couldn’t help becoming startled. They saw with their own eyes how thick and heavy the coffin was. It was chiseled from granite. To break it into two pieces, a stone mason using a big axe to cut it for half a day still wouldn’t be able to do it. If Yang Guo had used a large mountain-cutting axe or a thick machete, it might have been conceivable. But long swords were originally light and quick weapons, which were treasured for their sharp blades. If colliding with a solid stone like this, they would immediately snap. Who would have thought that this sword could cut through a stone like it was clay. As soon as the blade dropped, the coffin broke.
Yang Guo saw the five people looking at each other in alarm. He then fiercely bellowed, “What did you come here for?” Wu Santong answered, “Yang Xiong di [Brother Yang], we followed Guo Fu ren [Madame Guo] to come look for you.”
Yang Guo angrily retorted, “You came here to bring back her daughter, didn’t you? To get this little baby, you were willing to kill my dear wife.”
Wu Santong was startled and said, “Kill your dear wife? Ah, that is Long Guniang [Miss Long].” Then he noticed that Xiao Longnu was wearing a bridal gown and immediately understood. He quickly said, “Your wife was hit by a poisoned needle. Guo Fu ren [Madame Guo]’s got the antidote. She is just outside.”
Yang Guo made a spitting sound and shouted, “You people came in to cause ruckus like this, the poisons in her body turned to attack all her major pressure points. What would Guo Fu ren [Madame Guo] do? Does she have the skill to bring back the dead?”
Wu Santong owed Yang Guo for saving his sons and therefore was extremely respectful of him. Although hearing him lashing out an accusation like this, he didn’t think to be defiant in the least bit. He only mumbled, “The poisons turned to attack all her major pressure points. This is not good.”
From the side, Guo Fu was getting mad. She heard Yang Guo speaking disrespectfully of her mother and flew into a rage. She shouted, “What has my mother done to you? At the time you were young, you were homeless. Wasn’t it my mother who sheltered you? She fed you. You… Hmmph.. Instead, you turned out to be ungrateful and stole my little sister.” By this time, she already knew that even though her sister fell into Yang Guo’s hand, he had no evil intention. But as she was in a verbal fight with him, she didn’t think about what could or couldn’t be said and brought up this issue.
Yang Guo sneered and said, “Right, today I am ungrateful. You said I stole this child. I’ll take her and never return her. How will you catch me?” Guo Fu tightened her left arm and firmly held her little sister. With her right arm, she raised the torch high to block the front part of her body.
Wu Santong anxiously said, “Yang Xiong di [Brother Yang], your wife has been poisoned. We must soon detoxify the poisons…”
Yang Guo bitterly responded, “Wu Xiong [Brother Wu], it’s useless.” Suddenly he let out a long, loud roar and sent out his right sleeve. Guo Fu and the others all sensed a gust of wind blowing their way and their faces felt burning hot and painful like being scraped by a blade. The five torches were blown out and so the place immediately turned pitch black. They gave out a loud ‘Ayo!’ cry. Yelu Qi was afraid that Yang Guo would hurt her so he jumped forward, only to hear Guo Xiang’s wailing from outside of the stone chamber. They were all alarmed. The wailing sound was already 20 or30 feet away. They were moving fast, just like spirits.
Guo Fu cried out, “He snatched my little sister.” Wu Santong called out, “Yang Xiong di [Brother Yang]… Long Guniang [Miss Long]! Yang Xiong di…Long Guniang!” But there was no one to answer him. They had no light and in the darkness couldn’t see what was going on.
Yelu Qi said, “We must get out of here quickly. Don’t let him close us in here.”
Wu Santong indignantly said, “Yang Xiong di [Brother Yang] was very kind and very righteous, why did he do this?”
Guo Fu retorted, “His being kind and righteous... We should go quickly. What are we waiting here for?” Having said those few words, she suddenly heard two ‘ka-ka’ sounds from inside a stone coffin. And since the sounds were muffled by the coffin lid, they appeared really melancholy.
“There’s a ghost!” Guo Fu screamed, pulling Yelu Qi’s arm which was nearby. Wu Santong and the others clearly heard that the sounds came from inside the coffin as if a corpse was scrambling to get out. In the darkness, everybody was absolutely terrified.
Yelu Qi said to Wu Santong in a low voice, “Wu Shushu [Uncle Wu], you stay here. I’ll go over there. If a corpse comes out, we’ll use our four palms to beat him to pulp. Then he grasped Guo Fu by her wrist and pulled her to stand behind his body for fear that the ghost would harm people.
Then they heard a sudden sound of something flying out of the coffin. Wu Santong and Yelu Qi had earlier prepared to send out their energy. As they heard the whooshing sound, they lashed out their strikes. When the two people’s hands made contact with that thing, they together cried out, “Wretched!” What they actually hit was a chunk of long stone, which was laid in the coffin as a stone pillow. The two people used their whole strength in the attack. As that stone chunk was fiercely hit, it dropped onto the stone coffin and smashed it into flying fragments. The stone pillow itself split into several pieces. At the same time, there was another whooshing sound of something flying past them. Wu Santong and Yelu Qi were about to raise their palms to attack again but that thing had already floated away from them. They heard a ‘hei-hei’ cold laugh and then immediately came a bleak silence.
“Li Mochou!” Wu Santong said with a start. Guo Fu cried out, “No that was the corpse! How would Li Mochou be inside the coffin?” Yelu Qi let out a groan with his mouth hanging open. He didn’t believe that there were ghosts in the world but to think that it was Li Mochou was actually quite unreasonable. Obviously she and he came in together while Yang Guo and Xiao Longnu had actually been inside Gu Mu for many days. How could she be right under the Yang Long couple’s coffin? Wu Santong said, “Then where has Li Mochou gone to?” Yelu Qi said, “Everything inside the tomb is becoming weird. Let us get out of here first.” Guo Fu asked, “What should we do about my little sister?” Wu Santong then said, “We ran into a dead end but your mother will surely have a great plan. Let’s go out and ask her what to do.”
So the people searched for the way out and returned to the mountain creek. From under the water, all they saw was red. The woods on both sides of the creek had caught fire and hot steam was attacking them. Horrified, Guo Fu called out, “Ma, Ma!” but didn’t hear any reply. Suddenly on the bank a big burning tree toppled down. Yelu Qi pulled her up and quickly jumped upstream, just in time to dodge the danger. It was deep winter at this time of year and all the plants were dried out and withering. So the mountain became a sea of fire. Even though the five people were soaked in the middle of the creek, the big fires were encroaching and their faces felt boiling hot.
Wu Santong said, “The Mongolian army must have been attacking the Chongyang Palace. They suffered defeat and then set fire to the mountain to vent their anger.
Guo Fu worriedly cried out: “Ma…Ma! Where are you?” Suddenly on the left side of the creek she saw a woman’s figure skipping around to avoid the flames. “Ma, Ma! She cried out in delight and jumped up from the water to rush ahead. “Be careful!” Wu Santong called out after her and there suddenly came chaotic ‘ka-la’ sounds. Two big trees fell down, blocking his view.
Guo Fu rushed through the smoke and fire. At this time she was still in the water. First she thought about her mother. Second, she just came out of the darkness inside Gu Mu and into the sudden brightness. Her eyes couldn’t adjust and so she couldn’t see things very clearly. As she got closer, she then realized that the back side of that figure didn’t seem right. She became nervous. And when that person turned her body around it was, unexpectedly, Li Mochou.
Earlier Li Mochou was trapped under the stone coffin by Yang Guo and had no way to get out. But afterwards Yang Guo struck the top coffin out of anger, causing the coffin lid below to also crack. She therefore escaped death by throwing out the stone pillow and leaping out after it.
Even though she was confined inside the coffin for less than an hour, she got a taste of what it was like being suffocated to death inside a coffin, which was truly the most painful and miserable situation. During this short period of time, she clenched her jaws, detesting every living person in the world. She thought to herself, “After I die, I must become an evil spirit. I will kill Yang Guo, Xiao Longnu, Wu Santong, Huang Rong.. ..” Not discriminating who it was, all she wanted was to kill everybody. Although she could escape by luck later, the hatred in her heart was actually not lightened. Suddenly seeing Guo Fu, she let out a smile and gently said, “Guo Guniang [Miss Guo], it’s you. The fires are burning with such ferocity. You must be careful.”
Guo Fu saw her friendly expression and was quite relieved. So she asked, “Did you see my mother?” Li Mochou moved a few steps closer and pointed to the left. She said, “She went that way, didn’t she?” Guo Fu looked towards the direction she just pointed. Li Mochou suddenly closed in and reached out to seal a pressure point below her waist. With a laugh she said, “Don’t worry. Your mother will come to look for you.” She saw that the fires were nearing from all directions. If she was delayed again, her own life would be in danger. She jumped up and took off towards the west. Guo Fu was left paralyzed on the ground, only hearing the chilling sound of Li Mochou’s singing from behind the violent flames. She sang, “I ask the world. What is this love that makes people live and die for?”
The singing gradually faded away and the wind suddenly blew a thick plume of smoke, enveloping Guo Fu. She couldn’t move her limbs and so, choking in the smoke, she coughed loudly. The Wu father and sons and Yelu Qi were standing midstream, with burning ashes falling on their heads. Between the small creek and Guo Fu was a raging fire twenty feet high. They knew perfectly well that Guo Fu was in imminent danger but if they were to go in and rescue her, they would only accompany her in death and so they couldn’t come up with a plan to save her.
