Smiling Proud Wanderer Vol 02, page 46
He didn’t even try to argue, and simply lay down on the meadow in repose with his eyes closed. Soon his fatigue caught up with him and before he knew it, he had fell asleep.
By the time he woke again, it was already the next day. He looked around and then found Ying-Ying washing her face on her knees by the mountain gully. He watched on as Ying-Ying began combing her hair after she finished washing her face. The skin on her arms was so white as though the arms were made out of pure jade, and the beautiful long hair almost touched the ground. The picture was so beautiful that Linghu Chong forgot about everything else and just sat there, watching in a daze.
Ying-Ying looked back over her shoulder and then blushed when she found Linghu Chong gazing at her in a trance.
“Lazy bum! Getting up so late!” she grinned.
“I’ll go catch some frogs. Let’s see if I’ve build up enough strength,” feeling quite embarrassed to be caught gazing at her, Linghu Chong uttered awkwardly.
“Why don’t you stay lying down and rest some more? I’ll go catch some,” Ying-Ying suggested.
Linghu Chong struggled to get back onto his feet, but all his limbs were sore and limp, and the energy streams inside him seethed the moment he tried to use his strength.
“Either let me die or let me live,” Linghu Chong thought to himself, feeling very irritated. “Staying half dead and half alive like this, I am pretty much a good-for-nothing. Even I am disgusted with myself, not mentioning how others would think of me as a complete nuisance.”
“Your internal injuries might not be so hard to heal. This is a very secluded area. We have nothing else, anyway. You can just let time take it’s course and let the wounds heal slowly. There’s no need to be impatient,” noticing the displeased expression on Linghu Chong’s face, Ying-Ying comforted him.
The valley the gully flow through was located in a remote section of the mountain range. Ever since the night when Ji Wushi and the rest of the group passed by, no one else ever showed up. The two of them lived in the valley for almost a fortnight. Ying-Ying’s internal wounds had healed early on, and every day she would pick wild fruit and catch wild frogs for food, but Linghu Chong only became thinner and thinner as days go by. She forced him to take the pill left by Great Master Fang-Sheng, and played the zither for him everyday to help him fall asleep, but these did not seem to have an effect on his injuries. Linghu Chong knew that his final day would be coming soon, but having always been open-minded all his life, he did not let that bother him, and kept talking and joking with Ying-Ying every day. Although Ying-Ying had always been arrogant and willful before, at the thought that Linghu Chong could be suddenly gone any moment now, she became even more gentle and soft, docile and obedient, and attended upon Linghu Chong with all her heart. Even at times when she got angry over trifles occasionally, she would immediately regret it and apologize to him.
One day after eating two peaches, Linghu Chong was exhausted already, and soon, he fell asleep. In the ooziness, he heard the sound of somebody sobbing. Opening his eyes slightly, he found Ying-Ying bending over by his side sobbing uncontrollably. Stunned, Linghu Chong was just about to ask the reason for her grief when he stumbled across the answer, “She knows that I am dying. That’s why she is so grieved.”
“Don’t cry! Don’t cry! I can live for at least another eighty years. I am not leaving this world in any hurry,” reaching out his left hand, he stroked her beautiful hair and said with a forced smile.
“You are getting thinner and thinner every day. I…I…I don’t want to live anymore…,” Ying-Ying whimpered.
Linghu Chong could feel the utter sincerity and deep sorrow in her voice, and immense gratitude immediately filled his heart. A strong surge of warmth suddenly shot up his throat, and blood immediately gushed out of his mouth. The entire world seemed to have started to swirl around him, and before he knew it, he lost consciousness.
Chapter 18: Collaboration
The old man turned his head back and glared at Linghu Chong coldly. With a trace of surprise shown on his face, he snorted. Linghu Chong raised his cup. "Please!" he said.
During the next many days, Linghu Chong remained in a coma. Occasionally, he would regain slight consciousness, feeling as though his body was drifting high in the clouds, before slipping right back into the coma only moments later. Sometimes, it felt as if someone was forcing water down his throat, while some other times, he felt as though his entire body had been roasted on fire. Not only couldn’t he move a muscle in his arms or legs, he didn’t even have any strength to open his eyes.
Then, one day, when he was finally in his right mind, he felt someone grabbing tightly around his wrists and infusing two streams of burning hot energy into his body, each through an acupoint on one of his wrist. And instantly, they clashed and collided fiercely with the streams of energy already inside his body. Feeling the ineffable pain, he opened his mouth and cry out loud, yet no sound came out of it, while the pain only worsened as though he was experiencing the combination of all tortures known to mankind at the same time.
This went on and on. In his ooziness, Linghu Chong didn’t know how many days passed by like that; all he knew was that every time after more inner energy was infused inside him, the excruciating pain and suffering would reduce slightly compared to the last time. Eventually his brain began to function normally once again and it didn’t take him long to figure out that someone with very resourceful inner power must have been working on him, curing his internal injuries.
“Could Master and Master-Wife have found a senior grandmaster to save my life?” he thought, “But where did Ying-Ying go? And where are Master and Master-Wife? How about little apprentice sister?” As soon as the thought of little apprentice sister came into his mind, the energy flow in his chest seethed hysterically, and he lost consciousness instantaneously.
Thus everyday, someone came and infused more inner energy into his body, and at last the day came when he was much more clear-headed and was able to open his mouth to speak.
“Many…many thanks to the senior master! Where…where am I?”
He opened his eyes slowly, and then took in the glimpse of a much-crinkled face, which smiled gently at him. This face looked very familiar. Still in a daze, Linghu Chong gazed at him to take a better look, and before long he noticed that there was no hair on the man’s head, only burning scars from incense sticks58 – the man was a Buddhist monk. The indistinct image of a man came to his mind.
“You…you are Great…Great Master…Fang,” he muttered.
“Very good! Very good! You can recognize me now. I am Fang-Sheng,” the old monk replied in a smile, looking utterly gratified.
“Yeah, yeah! You are Great Master Fang-Sheng,” Linghu Chong repeated.
By then, he had just realized that he was inside a small room. A small oil lamp on the table lit the room with dim yellowish glow, and he was lying on bed under a cotton-padded quilt.
“How do you feel?” Fang-Sheng asked.
“I feel better now. Where…where am I?” Linghu Chong asked.
“You are inside the Shaolin Temple,” Fang-Sheng answered.
“I…I am inside the Shaolin Temple? Where’s Ying-Ying? How did I come to the Shaolin Temple?” Linghu Chong asked in amazement.
“You have only regained your consciousness a moment ago. It would be wise to restrain your thoughts so as to not exhaust yourself and to avoid any possibility of relapse. Everything can wait till later.” Fang-Sheng smiled.
Henceforth, Fang-Sheng would come to the small room everyday to work on Linghu Chong’s injuries using his own inner energy, once in the morning and once in the evening. A fortnight later, Linghu Chong was already able to sit up and eat, drink without any help. But every time when he asked about the whereabouts of Ying-Ying and how he had ended up in the temple, Fang-Sheng would not answer but only smile.
One day, after Fang-Sheng had infused his inner energy into Linghu Chong’s body, he said, “Young hero Linghu, by now, your life has been temporarily preserved, but the old monk’s Kung Fu is only limited and still could not dissolve the heterogeneous energy streams inside your body. At the moment any deferral would count as a gain. But I am afraid that within the period of one year, your internal injuries would have a relapse, and by then, even the Buddha, himself, would not be able to save you.”
“Ping One-Finger, Dr. Ping, told me the same thing that very day. Great Master has done his utmost to cure me, and I can never be thankful enough to what Great Master has done for me. The lifespan of any man is his destiny. Even if Great Master had greater inner energy, you wouldn’t have been able to turn Heaven’s will.” Linghu Chong nodded.
“We members of the Buddhist order only believe in Karma, not Heaven’s will.” Fang-Sheng shook his head. “I’ve already told you that day when we first met that the Abbot of our temple, senior apprentice brother Fang-Zheng, has profound inner power. If he finds you a part of his Karma and is willing to teach you the secret of the Tendon-Altering Sutra, then even one’s tendons and muscles can be altered, much less dissolving heterogeneous energy inside. I’ll bring you to pay a formal visit to the Abbot. I hope you will answer him wisely.”
Linghu Chong had long heard of the grand name of the Shaolin Temple Abbot, Great Master Fang-Zheng. “Thank you very much for introducing me, Great Master,” he said joyously. “Even if it’s not in my Karma for Great Master Abbot to look upon me with favor, just being able to pay a visit to this accomplished hierarch of the present age is already good luck that is hard to come by.”
Slowly, he got off the bed, dressed himself, and then followed Great Master Fang-Sheng out of the small room.
As soon as he stepped out of the small room, he was bathed in the warm and dazzling sunshine. It almost felt as though he had just entered into another world, and his spirit soared. Still feeling sore and limp in his legs, he walked in slow paces and looked around along the way. The temple had many hall buildings, and each of the hall buildings looked majestic and magnificent. They met many monks on their way, and every time far before they even got there, those monks would move out of the way and bow to Fang-Sheng with their palms together in a Buddhist greeting, holding him in reverence and sticking to etiquette. After walking through three long corridors, they arrived outside a stone building.
“Fang-Sheng requests an audience with apprentice brother Abbot,” Fang-Sheng said to the young Buddhist novice standing outside of the building.
The young Buddhist novice went inside to report and soon returned.
“Abbot is happy to have your presence,” he said, putting his palms together in greeting.
Linghu Chong followed Fang-Sheng and entered the building. Then a short, old monk sitting on a cattail hassock in the middle caught his attention.
“Fang-Sheng here shows his respect to apprentice brother Abbot, and I’d like you to meet the Head Apprentice of the Huashan School, young hero Linghu Chong,” Fang-Sheng bowed and saluted.
Linghu Chong knelt down on his knees right away and kowtowed respectfully. Abbot Fang-Zheng raised himself slightly and extended his right arm in greeting.
“Young hero, no need for excessive courtesy. Please sit down.”
After Linghu Chong finished kowtowing, he took a seat on the cattail hassock to the right of Fang-Sheng and shot another glance at Abbot Fang-Zheng. The man had a thin face with a kind and amiable look, which gave no indication as to how old the man really was.
“Who would have thought that this so well-known hierarch looks so mediocre? Without prior knowledge, who would have believed that he turns out to be the Head Master of the Number One martial arts school in the entire Martial World?” Linghu Chong thought to himself secretly. Then he heard Great Master Fang-Sheng’s voice.
“After the last three months of nursing and nourishing, young hero Linghu is feeling much better now.”
“Did I stay in a coma for over three months? I thought it was only twenty some days.” Linghu Chong thought to himself, feeling astounded.
“Excellent,” Fang-Zheng replied. Turning his head toward Linghu Chong, he said, “Young hero Linghu, your respectful master Mr. Yue, the Head Master of the Huashan School, is an upright man who never stoop to flattery. His clean fame is well known to the entire Martial World. I’ve always admired him very much.”
“Thank you for your kind words!” Linghu Chong stood up and bowed. “I had been unconscious due to my severe injuries, and I owe a great debt of gratitude to Great Master Fang-Sheng for saving my life. But I had no idea that three month have passed. May I ask you if my Master and Master-Wife are well?”
Even though that he shouldn’t have asked an outsider about the well being of his own Master and Master-Wife, feeling very concerned about them, he still couldn’t help but ask.
“I heard that Mr. Yue, Madam Yue, and the Huashan apprentices are in the Fujian Province at this moment,” Fang-Zheng replied.
“Many thanks, Great Master Abbot!” Linghu Chong felt relieved right away. But then immediately after, a feeling of sadness welled up in this heart. “So Master and Master-Wife have brought little apprentice sister to apprentice brother Lin’s home at last,” he thought to himself.
“Young hero Linghu, please sit down,” Fang-Zheng said gently. “Apprentice brother Fang-Sheng told me that young hero showed most excellent sword art skills and has truly mastered the skills taught by Grandmaster Feng of Huashan. That is so gratifying.”
“You flatter me,” Linghu Chong answered.
“Grandmaster Feng has lived in seclusion for many years. I had thought that the venerable grandmaster had passed away. It is such pleasure to hear that he is still with us in this world,” Fang-Zheng said.
“Yes!” Linghu Chong acknowledged.
“Young hero, after you had your injuries, your healer had gone about the wrong way in curing you, leaving the many conflicting energy streams inside you that can not be easily dissolved. Apprentice brother Fang-Sheng has explained all these to me. After careful consideration, I came to realization that only after you begin training in the secret Kung Fu of our school, the Tendon Altering Sutra, will you be able to use your own internal power to dissolve them gradually. If we use any external source of inner energy and force it upon young hero’s body, it would be like drinking poison to quench thirst and cause more suffering. For the last three months, apprentice brother Fang-Sheng used his own inner energy to extend your life. But after he infused his inner energy into your body, he had only added another heterogeneous energy stream inside you. If you try gathering your inner energy, you’ll see what I mean.”
Linghu Chong gave it a try, and just as Fang-Zheng had said, he immediately felt waves of inner energy surging inside his lower stomach, clash with each other, completely out of his control. Agonizing pain soon swept over him, his body trembling wildly as cold sweats streamed down his forehead.
“The old Buddhist monk is so incompetent and only caused young hero more pain and suffering,” Fang-Sheng said apologetically, putting his palms together.
“Please don’t say that, Great Master,” Linghu Chong replied hurriedly. “For my well being, you worked with all your heart and did everything you could do, exhausting precious inner energy of your own that took a long time to cultivate. I have only been granted a new lease of life thanks to Great Master’s kindness.”
“I really don’t deserve that,” said Fang-Sheng. “Grandmaster Feng granted me great benevolence many years ago. What I did couldn’t even repay a fraction of my debt of gratitude to Grandmaster Feng.”
At these words, Fang-Zheng held up his head.
“Why haven’t you ascended the meanings of benevolence and rancor? Benevolence is Karma while rancor is also Karma. Rancor should not be persisted in while benevolence need not be persisted in, either. All things in the mortal world are as transient as a fleeting cloud. There is no benevolence or rancor after death.”59
“Yes, many thanks for the advice, senior apprentice brother,” Fang-Sheng answered.
“We members of the Buddhist order believe that compassion is the principle of life, so with the knowledge of young hero’s internal injuries, we will aid to the best we can,” Fang-Zheng said slowly. “The divine art of the Tendon Altering Sutra was written by the venerable Bodhidharma,60 the First Ancestor of the Zen Sect of Mahayana in the East Region, and inherited by the Second Ancestor of the Zen sect, Great Master Hui-Ke. Great Master Hui-Ke had a previous Buddhist name called Shen-Guang. He was from Luoyang. Having been an expert in the Doctrine of Confucius and Mencius since young, he was especially proficient in understanding profound theories. At the time when First Ancestor Bodhidharma resided in the Xiben Temple, Great Master Shen-Guang went to the temple to make an application for increase. Seeing that Great Master Shen-Guang had been studying heterogeneously with many preconceived ideas rooted deeply and was too self-assured, which would make a great obstacle in learning the true ideas of Zen, First Ancestor Bodhidharma refused him at once. Great Master Shen-Guang entreated for a long time, yet still could not cross the threshold, so he drew his sword and chopped his own left arm off.”
Linghu Chong uttered a cry of shock, thinking to himself, “That was some fortitude Great Master Shen-Guang had shown in search of Buddhist principles and truths.”
“His whole heartedness finally moved First Ancestor Bodhidharma,” Fang-Zheng continued, “who accepted him as his student and renamed him to Hui-Ke. Thus, Second Ancestor Hui-Ke was able to inherit the mantle of First Ancestor Bodhidharma and carry on the teaching of Zen principles. What the Second Ancestor had learned from the First Ancestor Bodhidharma was the correct reason of the Buddhist doctrine, using the teaching in the Lankavatara Sutra for introspection and for realizing one’s nature. Even though the name of our school’s martial arts skills is widely known, it is, in fact, only a superficial study that is extremely insignificant. First Ancestor Bodhidharma only taught his apprentices ways to strength and invigorate their bodies. When the body is strengthened, the mind becomes clever, and when the mind becomes clever, the easier it is to comprehend. But many later disciples often became infatuated with martial arts, so as to attend to trifles and neglect the essentials, therefore, gave no consideration to the original purpose of First Ancestor’s martial arts teaching. Pity, what a pity!”
