Heavenly Sword Dragon Slaying Saber Book 2, page 2
part #10 of Condor Trilogy Series
Zhang SanFeng said, "You’re just becoming an adult. So although you’ve entered the Devil Cult, you haven’t sunk in too deeply. You can still get out before it’s too late. I have a few words that you may not like. Do you want to hear them?” Chang YuChun said, "Of course. I’d love to hear any advice from Venerable Zhang.”
Zhang SanFeng said, "Good! I want you to leave the Devil Cult. If you like Wu Dang, I’ll have my eldest student Song YuanQiao take you in as his disciple. This way, you can later walk the martial world with your head up, as no one will ever look down upon you again.”
As the head of the Seven Heroes of Wu Dang, everyone knows the famous Song YuanQiao. Normally it’s almost impossible for people to even see him. The seven Wu Dang heroes recently began to take in students. But they have very strict standards. Only the most upright youngsters with great potential are admitted. As a member of the Devil Cult, a cult most people frown upon, this really is a once in a lifetime opportunity for Chang YuChun.
Yet his response was, "I deeply thank you for your offer. But since I am already a member of the Ming Cult, I cannot ever leave.” Zhang SanFeng tried to persuade him some more, but Chang YuChun would not waver.
Zhang SanFeng finally gave up, shook his head, and sighed. Then he said, "This girl.” Chang YuChun said, "Don’t worry. This girl’s father died because of me. I’m definitely going to take care of her.” Zhang SanFeng said, "Alright. But you cannot let her enter your cult.” Chang YuChun said, "I really don’t know what we do that make us so despicable in your mind. But if you insist, I’ll obey your wish.”
Zhang SanFeng held Zhang WuJi in his arms, and said, "Then let us part now.” He really doesn’t want any more to do with the Devil Cult, and therefore left out the words ‘See you later’.
Zhou ZhiRuo said to Zhang WuJi, "Little friend. You need to eat everyday, so the old priest won’t worry about you.” Zhang WuJi’s tears came out, and said, "Thank you for your words. It’s just that. I’ll only be able to eat for just a while longer.” Zhang SanFeng cleaned out Zhang WuJi’s tears with his sleeve. Zhou ZhiRuo asked in shock, "What? You. You.” Zhang SanFeng said, "Little girl, you have a kind heart. I hope you’ll later go on the route of righteousness, and not of evil.”
Zhou ZhiRuo said, "Ok. But this little friend, why does he say that he can only eat for just a while longer?” Zhang SanFeng could not respond.
Chang YuChun said, "Venerable Zhang, considering your martial arts abilities, surely you can cure this little friend’s poison, right?” Zhang SanFeng said, "Of course I can.” But he then shook his left hand behind Zhang WuJi, pointing out that Zhang WuJi is beyond help, but doesn’t want him to know it.
Upon seeing Zhang SanFeng shaking his hand, Chang YuChun gasped. He said, "Due to the severity of my injuries, I was just about to go see a very distinguished doctor. How about I take this little friend with me?” Zhang SanFeng shook his head, said, "His cold poison has already entered the vital organs. It’s not something normal medicine can cure. We only. only hope to slowly disperse the poison.” Chang YuChun said, "But the doctor I’m talking about has the ability to bring back the dead.”
Zhang SanFeng suddenly remembered a person, and asked, "Are you talking about the ‘Divine Doctor of the Butterfly Valley’?”
Chang YuChun said, "That’s right. So you know about Elder Hu too?”
Zhang SanFeng thought, "From my knowledge, this ‘Divine Doctor of the Butterfly Valley’, Hu QingNuo, does indeed have unparalleled medical skills. But he is member of the Devil Cult. Besides, he has a very strange temper. He’ll do his best to cure any Devil Cult followers, and not ask for a single penny. Yet he will not treat anyone else, no matter how much money is offered. Therefore, he has another nickname, ‘Rather See Death Than Help’. If so, it’s really better for WuJi to die than to enter the Devil Cult.”
Seeing the grave expression on Zhang SanFeng’s face, Chang YuChun understood what he’s thinking, and said, "Venerable Zhang, I know Elder Hu never treats outsiders. But since you saved my life, I’ll do anything I can to make Elder Hu break the rule this one time.” Zhang SanFeng said,
"I know just how amazing this Doctor Hu’s skills are. But unfortunately, this cold poison on WuJi’s body is very unique.” Chang YuChun said, "But you can’t cure him. The worst that can happen is that Elder Hu can’t cure him either. If he’s going to die regardless, what’s the big deal?” Chang YuChun is a straightforward person, and therefore said what he thought.
Zhang SanFeng pondered a bit, "He’s right. Look like WuJi only has about another month to live. What is there to be afraid of?” Zhang SanFeng has always been a very sincere person, and normally never thinks about possible hidden motives. But Zhang WuJi is his disciple’s only child. How could he give WuJi to a member of the Devil Cult? At this moment, he really doesn’t know what to do.
Chang YuChun said, "I know Venerable Zhang doesn’t want to go see Elder Hu. After all, how could a head of a righteous sect seek help from us evil cults? Besides, with Elder Hu’s strange temper, he’d probably offend you. I guess the only is way is for me to take Brother Zhang to Elder Hu. Then I’ll come to Wu Dang Mountain to be your hostage. Should anything happen to Brother Zhang, you can go ahead and kill me.”
Zhang SanFeng chuckled, thought, "Should anything really happen to WuJi, how would killing you help? Besides, how can I be sure you’ll definitely come to Wu Dang?” But considering WuJi’s condition, there really isn’t any other possible cure. So Zhang SanFeng said, "If so, then please take care of WuJi. But I must make two things clear. Mr. Hu cannot force WuJi into your cult. And Wu Dang is not going to accept your gratitude on this matter.” He knew that the Devil Cult is very devious and strange in its ways. Being associated with them could only lead to big problems. After all, isn’t Zhang CuiShan’s death a perfect example?
Chang YuChun said, "Venerable Zhang is really belittling my cult. But if you say so, I’ll obey.”
Zhang SanFeng said, "Take good care of WuJi. Should he ever recover, take him back to Wu Dang. But there’s no need to come to Wu Dang as a hostage.” Chang YuChun said, "I’ll do all I can to follow your wishes.”
Zhang SanFeng said, "As for this little girl, I’ll take her back to Wu Dang Mountain.”
Chang YuChun then went to a large tree by the shore, and dug a hole with his saber. Then he took off all of Little Master Zhou’s clothes, before burying him in the ground, and paid his respects. Burying members naked is one of Ming Cult’s rules. Everyone enters the world naked, and should therefore leave the world the same way. Since Zhang SanFeng does not know this rule, he found the burial procedure quite repulsive and mysterious.
The next morning, Zhang SanFeng took Zhou ZhiRuo in his hands, and parted with Chang YuChun and Zhang WuJi. After the death of his parents, Zhang SanFeng was like a grandfather to Zhang WuJi. So Zhang WuJi couldn’t help but burst into tears as they parted. Zhang SanFeng said, "WuJi, when you’re healthy again, your Big Brother Chang will take you back to Wu Dang Mountain. Be a good boy. We’ll only be apart for a few months. Don’t be so sad.” Despite his words, Zhang WuJi’s tears did not stop.
Zhou ZhiRuo returned to the boat, took out a handkerchief from her sleeve, and began to wipe away his tears. She then smiled at him, put the handkerchief into his pocket, before returning to shore.
(Translated by Huang Yushi from the 2nd edition of the original Chinese text: )
Zhang Wuji followed his grand-teacher with his eyes as the old man walked westwards with Zhou Zhiruo. As the same time, the little girl kept turning back and waving until both of them disappeared behind a row of poplar and willow trees. Suddenly, Zhang Wuji felt so lonely that he started to cry again.
"Brother Zhang, how old are you this year?" asked Chang Yuchun with frown. When the boy answered that he was already twelve, the man said, "I see. A twelve-year-old is no longer a child, so are you not ashamed to sob and cry like a baby? When I was twelve, I had already been beaten several hundred times, but never did I shed a single tear. A man sheds only blood, you know, not
tears. If you continue to cry like a girl, I will have to hit you."
"I cried because I could not bear to part with Grand-teacher," said Zhang Wuji. "If someone hit me,
I would not cry at all! Go ahead and hit me if you dare. I will return each of your punches with ten punches of my own someday."
Chang Yuchun was stunned. "Good for you!" he said with a hearty laugh. "Now that is what I call a
man with integrity. Since you are so formidable, I will not to hit you."
"Why not?" asked Zhang Wuji. "After all, I cannot even move a single finger."
Chang Yuchun laughed again and replied, "If I hit you today, what am I going to do when you eventually learn martial arts from your grand-teacher? How would I be able to endure ten punches from the exquisite fist techniques of the Wudang School?"
A smile appeared on Zhang Wuji's face: This Brother Chang may look very ferocious, but he is not a bad man.
Hiring a riverboat, the two travelled all the way to Hankou before switching to a larger vessel and sailing east down the Great River. The Butterfly Valley where the Healing Sage Hu Qingniu lived was located on the banks of Nushan Lake in northern Anhui.
The Great River flowed in a south-easterly direction from Hankou to Jiujiang, before turning northwards into the province of Anhui. Two years earlier, Zhang Wuji had sailed up this very river on his way to Mount Wudang. He had his parents and Yu Lianzhou as companions then, so the journey had been filled fun and laughter. Now, his parents were both dead, and he was on a joyless trip to seek treatment with Chang Yuchun. The difference between the two were as stark as the sky above and the land below. But he did not dare to let his tears fall, fearing that Chang Yuchun would be angered again. By then, all the acupoints that Zhang Sanfeng had blocked earlier had returned to normality, so he could actually feel each excruciating attack of the toxins in his body. Yet, there was nothing that he could do, except to grit his teeth in endurance until his
242 Heavenly Sword Dragon Slaying Saber
upper and lower lips were all cut and bruised. To make things worse, the bouts became more frequent and painful with each passing day.
When they reached the Gua Pier after Jiqing, Chang Yuchun and Zhang Wuji went ashore and travelled north in a hired carriage. Several days later, they arrived in the town of Mingguang, east of Fengyang. Chang Yuchun knew that his Uncle Hu did not like his secluded place of abode to be widely-known, so he sent the carriage away about twenty li (10 km) from Nushan Lake. Then, carrying Zhang Wuji on his back, he tackled the final leg of the journey on foot.
He thought that these last twenty li would be covered in the blink of an eye, but he had travelled only one li (500 metres) when his nerves and bones started to ache terribly. His breathing became laboured and he found it very difficult to even walk. The internal injuries that he had sustained after
being struck twice by the foreign monks were worse than he had realised.
Feeling very apologetic, Zhang Wuji said, "Brother Chang, let me walk on my own. You had better not tire yourself out."
"I can cover a hundred li (50 km) in a single breath without feeling tired at all," Chang Yuchun snapped, "so how could those stupid monks stop me with two strikes of the palm?" Gathering up all his strength, he forced himself to march forward. Unfortunately, he was already too wounded to push himself in this manner, and the frustration that he felt just made things worse. After several zhang or so (1 zhang = 3.33 metres), he began to feel as if his limbs and bones were falling apart. Yet, he was not ready to admit defeat. He was also unwilling to put Zhang Wuji down or to sit and
rest. So, he laboured on, a step at the time.
This, of course, made their progress terribly slow. By nightfall, they had not covered even half of the targeted distance. The rugged terrain only served to make the walk more difficult, but they trudged on until they reached some woods. Then, Chang Yuchun finally put Zhang Wuji down and collapsed spread-eagle on the ground. After a simple meal of sugared fruit and biscuits, Chang Yuchun rested for half a shichen (one hour) before voicing his desire to resume the journey. Zhang Wuji tried his best to persuade the man otherwise, suggesting that they could spend a peaceful night in the woods and set out the next morning instead. By and by, Chang Yuchun realised that it would probably be midnight by the time they reached Butterfly Valley. Hu Qingniu would certainly be very irritated by their visit at such an hour, so he gave in to his companion's suggestion to stay in the woods. They soon fell asleep leaning against a large tree.
At midnight, Zhang Wuji was jolted awake by another attack of the toxins in his body. He started to shiver and shake badly, but he endured the pain in silence for fear of waking Chang Yuchun up. Just then, the sounds of clashing weapons drifted into the woods, followed by several voices that shouted, "Where are you going?" "Block the eastern route and force him into the woods!" "We cannot let this crooked baldy get away this time!" Footsteps sounded as several people ran towards the trees.
Waking up with a start, Chang Yuchun grabbed his sabre with his right hand and Zhang Wuji with his left. Then, he waited to see if he should fight or flee.
"I do not think that they have come for us," the boy whispered.
Nodding in agreement, Chang Yuchun peered through the trees and saw seven or eight people attacking an unarmed man from all sides. Although the man managed to fend his enemies off with a pair of swift palms, the group began closing in on him after a while.
By and by, a crescent moon appeared from behind the clouds and cast a silvery light on the scene.
The man in the centre of the circle was a tall and thin monk in his forties who was dressed in a white robe. His attackers consisted of two grey-robed monks, two Taoists, two men in secular attire and two slim-built women. The grey-robed monks had a pole and a sabre between them, which they used with such power that leaves flew everywhere in the woods. One of the Taoists had a sword which glinted under the moonlight as he waved it about, while one of the men in secular attire -- a short and small-sized fellow with a pair of swords -- rolled back and forth on the ground, attacking the legs of the white-robed monk with Ditang swordplay, a technique that focused on the lower extremeties of the body.
The two women had a sword each, through which they executed a series of very swift but fluid strokes. As the battle wore on, one of the women turned in such a way that part of her face was lit up by the moonlight. The sight almost had Zhang Wuji blurting out: "Auntie Ji!" Indeed, she was none other that Yin Liting's fiancee, Ji Xiaofu.
Initially, Zhang Wuji thought that it was very unfair for so many people to attack the monk at once, and hoped that the hapless victim would be able to free himself. However, after recognising one of the attackers as Ji Xiaofu, he decided that the white-robed monk was a bad man. After all, he was an enemy of the Auntie Ji who had comforted him on the day of his parents' suicide. Although Zhang Wuji did not accept the necklace that she had given him, he was nevertheless very grateful for her kind thoughts.
As the white-robed monk's strokes alternated by fast and slow, and real and false, Zhang Wuji quickly realised that he was actually a highly skilled pugilist. There were also too many variations to his techniques to be identified, especially when the movements were speeded up. As a result, Ji Xiaofu and her group could not gain the upperhand despite being larger in number and battling for a long time.
Suddenly, one of the men shouted, "Use the projectiles!"
The other man and one of the Taoists responded at once, leaping to the left and the right respectively before sending a flurry of pellets and flying daggers towards the white-robed monk. As the monk scrambled to deal with the weapons that fell like rain around him, the other Taoist -- a fellow with a long beard -- shouted, "Monk Peng, we do not want your life, so why are you fighting us with all your might? Just hand Bai Guishou over and we will part with a smile. Would that not be better for everyone?"
Chang Yuchun was shocked. "So this is Monk Peng?" he wondered in a whisper.
Zhang Wuji was surprised too, for he had heard his parents tell his Second Uncle Yu about the incident on Wangpan Island and the resulting inter-clan vendettas upon returning to China two years earlier. Therefore, he knew that Bai Guishou, the Leader of the Eagle Sect's Xuanwu Circle, was the only one who had left Wangpan Island with his mental faculties intact. In recent years, many clans and organisations had taken the Eagle Sect to task because they wanted Bai Guishou to reveal where Xie Xun was. Consequently, Zhang Wuji thought: Could this Monk Peng be a member of my mother's sect as well?
Just then, Monk Peng said in a loud voice, "Circle-Leader Bai has been grievously wounded by all of you and I have a friendship with him that goes back a long way. To tell you the truth, even if I did not know him at all, I would still not ignore a dying man."
"What dying man?" roared the Taoist with the long beard. "We do not want his life, for we just want to find out where a certain person is." "Since you want to know where Xie Xun is, why do you not go and ask the abbot of the Shaolin Temple?" said Monk Peng.
One of the grey-robed monks stepped up and shouted, "That is but an evil ploy to shift blame to my Shaolin Temple by that witch from the Eagle Sect, Yin Susu. Who believes her?" Apparently, this monk was from the Shaolin School.
The mention of his mother's name filled Zhang Wuji with both pride and sorrow: Although my mother has passed away for two years, she can still make all of you dizzy with trouble!
Suddenly, one of the Taoists shouted, "Everybody, get down!" As his companions fell on their faces, five flying daggers cut through the air towards Monk Peng's chest. These weapons could be avoided if the monk bent forward, fell on his face or leaned backwards at once, but his attackers had pre-empted his moves by positioning their weapons around him at ground-level. So how could he escape then?
As Zhang Wuji watched with bated breath, Monk Peng leapt into the air and the five flying daggers went by under his feet. The two grey-robed Shaolin monks and the Taoist with the long beard responded to this turn swiftly, slashing Monk Peng's legs with their pole, sabre and sword. Forced to strike back, the white-robed monk sent a palm into the head of one of the Shaolin monks before snatching his sabre and using it as a lever against the other monk's pole to push himself two zhang (6.66 metres) away from the fray.
