The Eastern Heretic's Disciples.

Outside the stone formation, Da’erba¹ and the Mongol warriors were stunned. Inside, Guo Fu² and the Wu brothers were equally alarmed. All rushed forward to help. Da’erba possessed astonishing strength, and among the Mongol warriors were several skilled fighters. How could Guo Fu and the two Wus stand against them? Suddenly they saw the Golden Wheel National Preceptor³ rise unsteadily, swing his iron wheel with a ringing clang that shook the heart, his face deathly pale. He threw back his head and laughed to the heavens, but the laughter was filled with desolation and bitter anguish. Everyone stared at one another in horror and halted their advance.

The National Preceptor rasped, “In all my years, I have never suffered even the slightest wound at an opponent’s hand. Today I have wounded myself, is this Heaven’s will?” He reached out with a large hand to seize Huang Rong⁴.

Yang Guo⁵ had been thrown to the ground by the Preceptor’s palm force, his chest injured, unable to rise. Seeing Huang Rong in danger, he still mustered his strength to swing his staff across, deflecting the grasping hand. But the exertion made him cough up a mouthful of fresh blood. Huang Rong said sorrowfully, “Guoer, we accept defeat. Don’t fight anymore. Take care of yourself.” Guo Fu raised her longsword and stood protectively before her mother. Yang Guo said quietly, “Fu-mei, you must flee. Getting word to your father is what matters most.”

Guo Fu’s mind was in chaos. She knew her martial skills were meagre, but how could she bear to leave her mother? The Golden Wheel National Preceptor flicked his iron wheel, striking her longsword. With a clang, a flash of white light, the sword flew through the air and landed in the woods.

Just as the National Preceptor was about to push Guo Fu aside and seize Huang Rong, a woman’s voice called out: “Hold!” From the woods sprang a figure in green, who caught the falling sword midair. In three bounds, she had entered the stone formation. The Preceptor saw her face, dreadful beyond words, three parts human, seven parts ghost. Never in his life had he seen such a bizarre countenance. He froze, demanding, “Who are you?” The woman did not answer. She bent to push a boulder, placing it between him and Huang Rong, and said, “You must be the renowned Golden Wheel National Preceptor?” Her face was hideous, yet her voice was remarkably sweet and tender. The Preceptor replied, “Indeed. And who might you be?” The woman said, “I am a nameless girl. You could not possibly know me.” As she spoke, she shifted another boulder three feet.

By now the sun had set, and the woods were dim with twilight. A thought stirred in the Preceptor’s mind, and he shouted, “What are you doing?” He moved to stop her from shifting more stones, but the woman called out, “Horned Wood Dragon transforms to Golden Dragon of the East!”⁶ Guo Fu and the two Wus were startled. “How does she know the formation’s changes?” they thought. But her commands carried an air of authority, and they obeyed at once, moving the stones. With four or five boulders shifted, the scattered formation stirred to life once more.

The Golden Wheel National Preceptor was both startled and enraged. He bellowed, “A mere slip of a girl dares to interfere!” But she continued calling: “Heart Moon Fox shifts to Sun Rabbit of the Chamber,” “Net Moon Bird moves to Wood Wolf of the Legs,” “Earth Bat of the Maiden enters Fire Pig of the Room.”⁶ Every command she gave named the positions of the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions. Guo Fu and the two Wus heard her calling the formations as smoothly as Huang Rong herself had done, and their hearts swelled with joy. They strained to move the stones, and before their eyes the National Preceptor was about to be trapped once more.

The Preceptor had been struck on the back by a boulder. He had forcibly circulated his neili⁷ to protect himself, and though he showed no sign of it yet, his internal injuries were far from light. He no longer had the strength to kick stones aside. He knew that if he delayed even a moment longer, he would be trapped in the formation. Da’erba, for all his brute strength, understood nothing of formations and could not help. The Preceptor saw Huang Rong struggling to rise, still unable to stand steady, only a few steps and he could seize her with ease. Yet escape was more pressing. He feinted with his iron wheel, aiming for Wu Xiuwen’s head. Wounded as he was, his arm was limp and weak. Merely lifting the iron wheel was a struggle. If Wu Xiuwen had drawn his sword to parry, he could have knocked the wheel from the Preceptor’s grip. But the Preceptor’s presence was so fearsome that even a feint seemed irresistible. Wu Xiuwen dared not meet it head-on and shrank back into the formation.

The Golden Wheel National Preceptor slowly withdrew from the stone formation. He stood still for a long moment, his heart churning with emotion. “Today I let slip this golden opportunity. I fear I shall never meet with such fortune again. Does Heaven truly protect the Great Song, thwarting my great cause? That I should be wounded today is purely Heaven’s will. The Central Plains jianghu⁸ produces talents in every generation, even these few young men and women possess both civil and martial virtues. One cannot take them lightly. We foreign heroes pale in comparison.” He pressed his chest and sighed deeply, then turned to leave. After ten paces, there was a sudden clatter, the iron wheel fell to the ground. His body swayed. He believed deeply in fate, and felt that since his schemes had failed, they could not be forced.

Da’erba, horrified, cried out, “Shifu!” He rushed forward to support him. “Shifu, what is wrong?” The Golden Wheel National Preceptor furrowed his brow in silence, placed a hand on his disciple’s shoulder, and said quietly, “A pity, a pity. Let us go.” A Mongol warrior brought over a horse. The Preceptor, too severely wounded to mount, was lifted onto the saddle by Da’erba, who supported his shifu’s waist with one palm. The party rode eastward.

The young woman in green walked slowly to Yang Guo’s side. She paused, then bent to examine his face, checking the severity of his injuries. By now night had deepened. Even at a foot’s distance it was hard to see clearly. She leaned close to Yang Guo’s face and saw his eyes wide open, vacant and unfocused, his cheeks flushed, his breathing rapid, he was badly hurt.

In his daze, Yang Guo saw only a pair of gentle, tender eyes drawing close to his face, looking at him the way Xiaolongnü⁹ always did, soft, full of pity. He threw his arms around her and cried, “Gugu, Guoer is hurt. Don’t go away and leave me.”

The young woman in green was both mortified and anxious. She struggled slightly, and at once a searing pain shot through Yang Guo’s chest. He could not help crying out. The young woman dared not struggle harder. She whispered, “I am not your Gugu. Let go of me.” Yang Guo gazed into her eyes and pleaded, “Gugu, don’t abandon me. I… I am your Guoer.” The young woman’s heart softened, and she said gently, “I am not your Gugu.” By now the sky was even darker, and her terrible, ugly face was wholly hidden in the blackness. Only her eyes shone with bright, clear light. Yang Guo clutched her hand, begging without cease: “Yes, you are! You… don’t leave me again.” The young woman, held in his embrace, was so mortified her whole body burned with embarrassment. She did not know what to do. Seeing her warm, gentle gaze, Yang Guo cried, “You’re not Gugu, then you must be my wife! Are you… are you my wife?” The young woman shrank back and involuntarily pushed him away. “No, no! I am not your wi… wife!”

Suddenly Yang Guo’s mind cleared. He realized with a shock that the person before him was not Xiaolongnü. The disappointment was crushing. The world spun around him, and he fainted.

The young woman was alarmed. She saw Guo Fu and the two Wus gathered around Huang Rong, tending to her, and no one attending to Yang Guo. Seeing how gravely he was wounded, she supported him by the waist and half-dragged, half-carried him out of the stone formation. Turning to Guo Fu, she said, “Miss Guo, this Master Yang is badly hurt. I will try to find treatment for him. Please tell your mother I shall pay my respects another day.” Guo Fu asked, “Who are you, Jiejie? Do you know my mother?” The young woman replied, “I believe I do.” Supporting Yang Guo, she slowly made her way out of the woods. The lean horse, being clever and knowing its master, trotted up to them. The young woman lifted Yang Guo onto the horse’s back but did not ride with him. Instead, she walked alongside, holding the reins.

Yang Guo drifted between clarity and confusion. Sometimes he thought the woman beside him was Xiaolongnü and would cry out with joy. Other times he realized she was not, and his entire body felt as though plunged into an ice pit. He had no idea how much time passed. He only knew that a clear, fragrant sensation seeped into his mouth and penetrated the wound in his chest, indescribably soothing and pleasant. Slowly he opened his eyes and could not help being startled. He was lying on a cot, a thin blanket covering him. When he tried to turn and sit up, a sharp pain shot through his breastbone. He could not move at all.

He turned his head and saw, by the window, a young woman in green. Her left hand held down a sheet of paper while her right gripped a brush. She was writing. Her back was to the bed, so he could not see her face, but her silhouette was slender, her waist a delicate curve, exceedingly graceful. Looking around, he saw he was in a small room in a thatched cottage: plank bed, wooden stool, simple utensils, bare walls on all sides, yet spotlessly clean, serene and utterly refined. On a bamboo stand beside the bed sat a jade qin zither and a jade xiao flute, side by side.

He remembered only the fierce battle with the Golden Wheel National Preceptor in the forest stone formation. How had he come to this place? His mind was a blank. Straining to think, he vaguely recalled lying across a horse’s back while someone led the horse, a woman. Now, thinking back, he dimly remembered this young woman’s silhouette. She was absorbed in her writing, her right arm moving gently with an air of graceful ease. The room was perfectly silent. Compared to the fierce struggle in the stone formation earlier, it seemed he had entered another world entirely. He dared not disturb her by making a sound. He simply lay still. It was exactly as the verse describes: After the dream, the tower stands locked and high. Waking from wine, the curtain hangs low.¹⁰ He truly could not tell what world or age he was in.

Suddenly a thought stirred: this young woman in green was the same person who had warned him on the Chang’an road and later joined him to rescue Lu Wushuang¹¹. He had no connection to her, no ties of kinship or friendship. Why was she so good to him? The words escaped his lips before he could stop them: “Jiejie, so it was you who saved my life again.”

The young woman stopped writing but did not turn around. Softly she said, “I can hardly claim to have saved your life. I happened to be passing by and saw that Mongol monk being so brutish, and you were wounded…” She lowered her head slightly. Yang Guo said, “Jiejie, I… I…” His heart was full of gratitude, and for a moment his throat was choked. He could not speak. The young woman said, “Your heart is good, you risked your own life to save others. That I lent a little strength hardly counts for anything.” Yang Guo said, “Auntie Guo raised me. When she was in danger, of course I had to do all I could. But you and I…” The young woman said, “I wasn’t speaking of your Auntie Guo. I meant Lu Wushuang, the Lu family girl, your wife.”

The words “my wife”, when Yang Guo had thought of them recently, they referred only to Xiaolongnü. But this young woman was clearly speaking of the lame girl he had rescued from Li Mochou¹² on the Chang’an road, someone he had not thought of in a long time. Hearing her mention it, he quickly said, “She is not my wife. She called me ‘fool,’ so I called her ‘wife’, it was a joke, nothing serious. Is Miss Lu safe? Have her wounds healed completely?” The young woman said, “Thank you for your concern. Her wounds have healed. You haven’t forgotten her.” Yang Guo heard in her tone a close familiarity with Lu Wushuang and asked, “May I ask how you and Miss Lu are related?”

The young woman did not answer. She smiled faintly and said, “You needn’t call me Jiejie this and Jiejie that. I am not older than you.” She paused, then laughed. “You called someone ‘Gugu’ quite a few times already. Changing the way you address her now. I fear it may be too late.”

Yang Guo’s face reddened. He guessed that during his feverish stupor he must have mistaken her for Xiaolongnü and kept calling her “Gugu.” Perhaps he had even said intimate things, committed improprieties. The more he thought, the more uneasy he grew. Stammering, he said, “You… you aren’t offended, are you?” The young woman laughed. “Of course I’m not offended. Rest here and recover in peace. Once your wounds heal, go find your Gugu.” She added, “Don’t worry too much. You will find her in the end.” These words were gentle and considerate, carrying three parts kindness mixed with three parts respect, calming and cheering at once. She was unlike any other woman he had known. She was not sharp and playful like Lu Wushuang, nor arrogant and willful like Guo Fu. Yelü Yan¹³ was forthright and unrestrained. Wanyan Ping¹⁴ was delicate and pitiable. As for Xiaolongnü, at first she was cold as frost, utterly indifferent, and later wholly devoted, willing to live or die for love, a personality of extremes. Only this young woman in green was gentle and refined, warm and attentive. Knowing he longed for his “Gugu,” she urged him to rest well and recover so he could go find her. Being with her, he felt everything was calm and peaceful.

After saying these few words, she picked up her brush and resumed writing. Yang Guo said, “Jiejie, what is your honorable surname?” The young woman said, “Don’t ask this and that. Just lie quietly and don’t let your mind wander, your internal injuries will heal faster.” Yang Guo said, “Very well. Though I knew it was pointless to ask. You won’t even let me see your face, so of course you won’t tell me your name.”

The young woman sighed. “My face is very ugly. You’ve seen it yourself.” Yang Guo said, “No, no! That was a human-skin mask you wore.” The young woman said, “If I were as beautiful as your Gugu, why would I need to wear a mask?” Hearing her praise Xiaolongnü’s beauty, Yang Guo was immensely pleased. He asked, “How do you know my Gugu is beautiful? Have you seen her?” The young woman said, “I have not. But since you long for her so deeply, body and soul, she must be the most beautiful woman under heaven.” Yang Guo sighed. “I long for her not because of her beauty. Even if she were the ugliest woman in the world, I would still long for her the same. Still… if you met her, you would surely praise her.”

If Guo Fu or Lu Wushuang had heard these words, they would have made some cutting remark. But this young woman only said, “It must be so. She is not only beautiful but treats you better than anyone could.” With that, she bent over her desk and continued writing.

Yang Guo stared at the bed canopy for a while, lost in thought, then could not resist turning his head again to gaze at her slender form. “Jiejie,” he asked, “what are you writing that is so important?” The young woman said, “I am practising calligraphy.” Yang Guo asked, “Which master’s calligraphy model are you copying?”¹⁵ The young woman said, “My characters are terribly ugly. How could I speak of copying a master’s model?” Yang Guo said, “You are too modest. I am certain they must be excellent.” The young woman laughed. “Now that is strange. How can you be so sure?” Yang Guo said, “With such a refined and elegant nature as yours, your calligraphy must also be refined and elegant. Jiejie, let me see what you’ve written, won’t you?”

The young woman laughed softly again. “My writing is not fit for others to see. When your wounds heal, I shall ask you to teach me.” Yang Guo thought to himself with shame how fortunate he was that Huang Rong had taught him to read and write on Peach Blossom Island. Without those days of diligent study, he would not even be able to tell good calligraphy from bad, let alone recognize the characters others wrote.

He drifted in thought for a while, feeling a dull ache in his chest. He quietly circulated his neili, channeling it through the hundred acupoints, and gradually felt more at ease and comfortable, until he sank into a deep sleep. When he awoke, the sky had darkened. The young woman had placed dishes on a low table and brought them to his bed, attending to him as he ate. Bamboo chopsticks, earthenware bowls, simple vessels, but all brand new. Even the smallest object seemed chosen with care.

The dishes too were ordinary fare: greens and beancurd, eggs and small fish, yet they were cooked with exquisite flavor. Yang Guo ate three large bowls of rice in one breath and praised the food without ceasing. Though the young woman’s mask concealed any expression of joy or displeasure, a happy light shone from her clear, bright eyes.

The next day Yang Guo’s injuries had improved further. The young woman moved a chair to his bedside and sat mending his clothes, patching up a tattered long gown until it was whole again. She held up the gown and said, “A person of your quality, why do you deliberately dress in such rags?” She went out and returned carrying a bolt of blue cloth, then began cutting it to the pattern of Yang Guo’s original garment.

From her voice and figure, she could not be more than seventeen or eighteen years old, yet the way she cared for Yang Guo was not merely that of an elder sister to a younger brother but almost the tender kindness of a mother. Yang Guo had lost his mother long ago. Now, in these moments, he felt as though he were a child once more. His heart was filled with gratitude and wonder. He could not help asking, “Jiejie, why are you so good to me? I truly do not deserve it.” The young woman said, “Making a garment, what goodness is there in that? What is truly difficult is risking your life to save others.”

The morning passed quietly. In the afternoon, the young woman again sat at the desk writing. Yang Guo desperately wanted to see what she was writing, but though he asked several times, she always refused. She wrote for about an hour, writing a sheet, staring into space for a while, then tearing it up, then writing another. It seemed she was never satisfied, tearing up each sheet as she went. Clearly she was not copying some martial arts manual. Finally she sighed, stopped writing, and asked, “What would you like to eat? I’ll make it for you.”

An idea struck Yang Guo. “Only I fear it would be too much trouble,” he said. The young woman said, “What is it? Tell me.” Yang Guo said, “I would like to eat zongzi.”¹⁶ The young woman paused, then said, “Wrapping a few zongzi, what trouble is that? I’ve been wanting some myself. Do you prefer sweet or savory?” Yang Guo said, “Either is fine. Just having some to eat would satisfy me completely. How could I be so picky?” That evening, the young woman indeed wrapped several zongzi for him as a snack, sweet ones with lard and sweet bean paste, savory ones with ham and fresh pork. They were truly delicious beyond compare. Yang Guo ate and praised them without pause.

The young woman sighed. “You are truly clever. You finally guessed my background.” Yang Guo was bewildered. I didn’t guess anything! How did I guess your background? But aloud he said, “How did you know?” The young woman said, “The zongzi of my homeland, Jiangnan, are famous throughout the land. You didn’t ask for anything else, you specifically asked for zongzi.” Yang Guo cast his mind back to the events of years past: meeting Guo Jing¹⁷ and his wife in western Zhejiang, battling Li Mochou, being adopted as Ouyang Feng¹⁸’s godson, a chain of incidents, yet he could not place who this young woman was.

His request for zongzi, however, had a hidden purpose. Just as he finished eating, while the young woman was not looking, he secretly kept a piece in his palm. When she went out to clear the dishes, he quickly took a length of thread left over from her sewing, stuck a bit of zongzi to one end, and cast it out to snag one of the torn scraps of paper. He reeled it in and looked, then froze. On the paper were written eight characters: “Ji jian junzi, yun hu bu xi.”¹⁹ These were two lines from the Book of Songs. Years ago, Huang Rong had taught him to read them and explained their meaning: “Now that I have seen this virtuous gentleman, how could I not be glad?” Yang Guo cast out the thread again and reeled in another scrap. The same eight characters were written on it, though the first character, ji (“now that”), had been half torn away. He cast and reeled, cast and reeled, retrieving more than a dozen torn scraps. On every one, written over and over in every direction, were those same eight characters. He pondered their deeper meaning and could not help falling into a daze.

Suddenly he heard footsteps, the young woman was returning. Yang Guo hastily hid the scraps under his blanket. The young woman gathered the remaining torn paper into a ball, took it outside, and burned it.

Yang Guo thought, She wrote “Now that I have seen this gentleman”, could this gentleman be me? I have barely exchanged a few words with her. What could she see in me that brings her such joy? Besides, I am such a mess, what kind of gentleman am I? But if it isn’t me, there is no one else here. In truth, in the Book of Songs, the word junzi simply means “a man”, it does not necessarily mean “a refined and virtuous gentleman.” But this was a nuance Yang Guo did not understand.

While he was lost in these thoughts, the young woman returned to the room. She stood quietly by the window for a moment, then blew out the candle. Pale moonlight streamed through the window and pooled on the floor. Yang Guo called, “Jiejie.” The young woman did not answer. Slowly, she walked out.

After a long while, the faint, melancholic sound of a flute drifted through the window. Yang Guo had seen her use her jade flute against Li Mochou and knew her martial skill was not weak. He had not expected her flute playing to be so beautiful as well. Back in the Ancient Tomb, when Xiaolongnü sometimes played the qin, he would sit beside her and listen as she explained the meaning of the music, so he had a rough understanding of musical principles. Now he recognized that she was playing in the Wushe Shang mode²⁰, the piece was “Qi Ao” (“The River Bay”).²¹ This qin melody was gentle and refined. Yang Guo had heard it a few times before and had never particularly liked it. But as he listened, he noticed she played only the first five phrases, over and over, now high, now low, now slow, now fast, always variations on those five lines, yet imbued with a lingering tenderness. Yang Guo remembered Xiaolongnü telling him that this piece praised a man, comparing him to carved ivory, so elegant, and to polished jade, so warm and smooth. But he could not recall the exact words.

She played a while longer, then slowly stopped and sighed. Softly, as though speaking to herself, she murmured, “Even if you really did call me Gugu… it wouldn’t be unreasonable…” Yang Guo said, “Miss…” The young woman did not answer. She simply left, and did not return that night.

The next morning, when the young woman brought in breakfast, she saw that Yang Guo was now wearing a human-skin mask. She stared, then laughed. “Why are you wearing one of those too?” Yang Guo said, “You gave it to me. Since you won’t reveal your true face, I’ll wear a mask as well.” The young woman said coolly, “That’s fine too.” After saying this, she set down the breakfast and turned to leave. She did not speak to him again all day. Yang Guo grew increasingly anxious, afraid he had offended her. He wanted to say something to make amends, but she never lingered in the room. That evening, when the young woman came to clear the dishes after he had finished eating, just as she was about to leave, Yang Guo said, “Jiejie, your flute playing is so beautiful. Won’t you play another piece?”

The young woman hesitated briefly, then said, “Very well.” She went out and fetched her jade flute, then sat by Yang Guo’s bed and began to play, soft and sorrowful. This time she played “Welcoming the Immortal Guest,”²² a piece for the ceremonial greeting between host and guest, its melody as dignified as a courteous bow, as solemn as receiving a great visitor. Yang Guo thought, So even in your flute music you wear a mask, unwilling to reveal the song of your heart.

From within the flute music, the sound of rapid footsteps could suddenly be heard in the distance, someone was racing toward the cottage. The young woman set down her jade flute, went to the doorway, and called out, “Cousin!” A person dashed up to the front of the house, panting. “Cousin, that witch has tracked me down! She’s on her way here. We have to go, now!” Yang Guo recognized the voice as Lu Wushuang’s. His heart leapt with joy, but then he heard her say the witch was closing in, she meant Li Mochou, of course, and a secret dread crept over him. Then he thought, So this young lady is my wife’s cousin.

The young woman said, “Someone is here recovering from injuries.” Lu Wushuang asked, “Who?” The young woman said, “You’re his wife. You tell me who.” Lu Wushuang cried out, “Fool! He… he’s here!” She rushed through the door.

In the moonlight, her face was radiant with joy. “Fool! Fool! How did you find your way here? This time it’s your turn to be the injured one.” Yang Guo began, “Wife…”. He after speaking only those two words, he remembered the gentle, dignified young woman in green beside him and dared not continue the joke. He stopped and changed the subject: “How did Li Mochou find you again?”

Lu Wushuang said, “That day at the tavern, after that battle, you suddenly left. My cousin brought me here to recover. Actually, my wounds healed long ago. I was bored and restless, so I went out wandering. That very day I ran into two Beggars’ Guild members and overheard them talking about some Heroes’ Assembly at Dasheng Pass. So I went to Dasheng Pass to see the excitement, but by the time I got there, the assembly had already dispersed. I was worried my cousin would be concerned, so I hurried back. Outside the tea house in the town ahead, I suddenly spotted that witch’s patterned donkey. She’d changed the donkey, but the golden bells hadn’t changed…” Her voice was trembling by now. She continued, “At least fate wasn’t done with me yet. If I’d run into her head-on. Cousin, Fool, you wouldn’t be seeing me now.”

Yang Guo said, “This young lady is your cousin? I owe her my life, but I haven’t yet had the honor of learning her name.” The young woman said, “I…” Lu Wushuang suddenly reached out with both hands and pulled off the human-skin masks from Yang Guo’s face and the young woman’s at the same time. “That witch will be here soon,” she said. “Why are you two still wearing these ridiculous things?”

Before Yang Guo’s eyes, everything suddenly brightened. The young woman’s complexion was crystalline, her skin like snow, her oval face graced with a tiny dimple and a hint of shyness. Though she could not match Xiaolongnü’s transcendent, otherworldly beauty, she was still an exceedingly lovely young woman.

Lu Wushuang said, “She is my cousin, Cheng Ying²³, the last and youngest disciple of Island Master Huang of Peach Blossom Island.” Yang Guo bowed with clasped hands. “Miss Cheng.” Cheng Ying returned the salute. “Young Hero Yang.” Yang Guo thought, How can someone so young be a disciple of Island Master Huang? And by my connection to Auntie Guo, wouldn’t that make me a generation below her? Suddenly he understood what she had said the night before: “Even if you really did call me Gugu… it wouldn’t be unreasonable…” The words nearly burst from his lips, he almost called her “Gugu.” But those two syllables, “Gugu,” held a special meaning for him: they meant “beloved, etched upon the heart.” To speak them would be to presume too much. In the end, he dared not say it.

The truth was this: Cheng Ying had once been captured by Li Mochou and narrowly escaped death when, by chance, Huang Yaoshi²⁴ of Peach Blossom Island passed by and saved her. After his daughter married, Huang Yaoshi had roamed the jianghu, drifting from place to place, making his home wherever he happened to be. In his old age, alone, he could not help feeling lonely. Seeing Cheng Ying so young and helpless, he was moved to compassion. After treating her wounds and neutralizing her poison, he kept her by his side. Cheng Ying served him with exquisite care and thoughtfulness, far surpassing the spoiled, mischievous, wild Huang Rong of years past. Huang Yaoshi’s pity deepened into affection, and he took her as his disciple. Though Cheng Ying’s cleverness and quick wits fell far short of Huang Rong’s, she was meticulous to the finest detail, attentive in small matters, and so she learned no small measure of Huang Yaoshi’s skills.

This year, having achieved a basic mastery of martial arts, she had taken leave of her shifu and travelled north to find her cousin. On the road through the Pass and Shaanxi, she had encountered Yang Guo and Lu Wushuang, the roadside warning, the midnight rescue, all were her doing. After the young fighters had jointly battled Li Mochou, she brought Lu Wushuang to this remote mountain to build a thatched hut and recover. A few days ago, Lu Wushuang had gone out alone and stayed away far too long. Cheng Ying, growing worried, went out to search for her and happened upon Huang Rong’s shifting stone formation in battle against the Golden Wheel National Preceptor. She had studied this esoteric formation art under Huang Yaoshi as well. Though her knowledge was limited, her learning had been meticulous. By a stroke of fortune, she had been able to rescue Yang Guo. Earlier, when Yang Guo had risked his life to save Lu Wushuang, Cheng Ying had already admired his chivalrous spirit and heroic bearing. This time, in his delirium, Yang Guo had held her in his arms and called her “Gugu” without ceasing, with such tender, passionate longing, as though he were pouring out his very heart. Sometimes he even called her “wife” with the deepest affection, and had once embraced and kissed her. Cheng Ying was mortified and flustered, but in her helplessness, her own heart could not help stirring. Against her will, she found herself utterly captivated.

Lu Wushuang said, “At a moment like this, you two are still being so polite?” Yang Guo asked, “Did Li Mochou see you later?” Lu Wushuang said, “You wish! If she had seen me, and you weren’t there to rescue me, could I have escaped her deadly hands? The moment I spotted the golden bells on the patterned donkey’s neck, I hid behind the tea house and didn’t dare breathe. I heard that witch asking the tea house owner whether he’d seen two young girls, one a little lame, the other an ugly freak. Cousin, she was talking about you, though she had no idea you’re the exact opposite of an ugly freak, that you’re a beauty…” Cheng Ying’s face flushed faintly. “Don’t talk nonsense. You’ll make Young Hero Yang laugh.” Yang Guo said, “Young Hero and all that. I don’t deserve such titles. Just call me Yang Guo.”

Lu Wushuang said crossly, “The moment you meet my cousin, you’re all obedient and well-behaved, giving her your full name. But with me, you’re always playing tricks and pretending.” Yang Guo smiled. “You call me ‘Fool,’ so I act like a fool to please you. Isn’t that obedient enough?” Lu Wushuang pouted. “I’ll settle accounts with you later.” She turned to Cheng Ying. “Cousin, you’ve been going into town wearing that mask to buy salt and rice and supplies. The townspeople all recognize you. The tea house owner would never imagine that a gentle, refined, beautiful nun like Li Mochou could harbor ill intentions, so naturally he told her where we live. That witch thanked him, then asked where in town she could find lodging, and took Senior Sister Hong to find a place to stay. She always strikes at the break of dawn, so we have about three shichen left.”²⁵

Cheng Ying said, “Yes. The day that witch came to your house, it was exactly at the yin hour’s end and the mao hour’s beginning.”²⁶ The three of them spoke of how Li Mochou had murdered Lu Wushuang’s parents all those years ago, and only then realized that the three of them had once met in Jiaxing as children. Cheng Ying and Lu Wushuang had even visited the same ruined kiln where Yang Guo had lived. Thinking that they had shared such an encounter in childhood, a warmth settled over each of their hearts.

Yang Guo said, “That witch’s martial arts are too powerful. Even if I weren’t injured, the three of us together still couldn’t beat her. As the saying goes, ‘the nephew carries the lantern, same as before’²⁷, let’s just slip away.” Cheng Ying nodded. “We still have three shichen. Brother Yang’s mount has good stamina. If we leave at once, the witch might not be able to catch us.” Lu Wushuang said, “Fool, with your injuries, can you ride?” Yang Guo sighed. “Even if I can’t, I’ll have to tough it out. Better than falling into that witch’s hands.”

Lu Wushuang said, “We only have one horse. Cousin, you take the fool and flee west. I’ll lay a false trail and lead her east.” Cheng Ying’s face flushed faintly. “No, you go with Brother Yang. I have no deep grudge against Li Mochou. Even if she captures me, she may not necessarily kill me. But if you fall into her hands, you will suffer terribly.” Lu Wushuang said, “She’s coming for me. If she sees me together with the fool, won’t that just drag him down for nothing?” The two cousins argued back and forth, each insisting the other should escort Yang Guo to safety.

Yang Guo listened for a while, deeply moved. He thought, Both these young women are heroes in their devotion. In a moment of deadly peril, each is willing to risk her life to save mine. Even if that witch captures and kills me, this life will not have been lived in vain. Lu Wushuang said, “Fool, say something. Do you want my cousin to escape with you, or me?” Before Yang Guo could answer, Cheng Ying said, “How can you keep calling him ‘Fool’ this and ‘Fool’ that? Aren’t you afraid Brother Yang will be offended?” Lu Wushuang stuck out her tongue and laughed. “The way you treat him, so gentle and proper. I’m sure Fool-brother wants you to go with him.” She had changed “Fool” to “Fool-brother” as a compromise.

Cheng Ying had a fair complexion and blushed easily. At these words, her cheeks turned the colour of roses. She smiled. “And doesn’t he call you ‘wife’? If his wife doesn’t go with him, how would that be right?” Now it was Lu Wushuang’s turn to blush. She reached out to tickle Cheng Ying, who turned and fled. In an instant, the little room was filled with a warm, sweet atmosphere, and the three no longer felt quite so afraid.

Yang Guo thought, If I let Miss Cheng escape with me, my wife will be in mortal danger. If my wife comes with me, Miss Cheng will be in grave peril. He said, “The way both of you treat me. I am grateful beyond words. I think it’s best if you both leave quickly and let me face that witch here. My shifu is her shijie. She must have some regard for that bond. Besides, she fears my shifu. She wouldn’t dare do anything to me…” Before he could finish, Lu Wushuang burst in, “No, absolutely not.”

Yang Guo knew that neither of them would abandon him and flee. So he declared firmly, “The three of us will travel together. If that witch catches up, we fight to the death together. At worst, all three of us die together.” Lu Wushuang clapped her hands. “Good, that’s the way.” Cheng Ying pondered and said, “That witch comes and goes like the wind. If we travel together, she will certainly catch us. Better to meet her here, waiting at ease for an exhausted enemy, than to fight while fleeing.” Yang Guo said, “Exactly. Jiejie knows the arts of qimen dunjia²⁸, you even trapped the Golden Wheel National Preceptor. The Scarlet Serpent Immortal may not be able to break through.”

At these words, a ray of hope appeared before all three. Cheng Ying said, “That shifting stone formation was set by Madam Guo. I was merely able to borrow from it and add slight variations. To set up a formation on my own. I don’t have that ability. As the saying goes, we can only do our best and leave the rest to Heaven. Cousin, come help me.” Yang Guo thought, Auntie Guo taught me formation changes, but in the rush I only memorized a dozen or so, just enough to lure that rusty Iron Wheel Preceptor into the formation. To stop this world-weary, heaven-defying Li Mochou, they’d be completely useless. This art is profoundly complex. To truly master it requires at least a year or more of work. Miss Cheng is so young. Naturally her knowledge can’t match Auntie Guo’s. Her words are surely not just modesty. But however crude her formation, something is better than nothing.

The two cousins picked up shovels and hoes, went out of the thatched cottage, and began digging earth and moving stones, laying out their defenses. They worked for more than two hours. Faintly, the crowing of a distant rooster could be heard. Cheng Ying was drenched in sweat. Looking at the earthen formation she had built, which fell so far short of Huang Rong’s shifting stone formation, she was secretly distressed. Madam Guo’s ability surpasses mine a hundredfold. Ah, to think of using this crude earthen formation to stop the Scarlet Serpent Witch, it is harder than climbing to Heaven. But she feared discouraging her cousin and Yang Guo, so she said nothing.

In the moonlight, Lu Wushuang saw the troubled look on her cousin’s face and knew she had no real confidence. She took a hand-copied booklet from her bosom and brought it inside to Yang Guo. “Fool,” she said, “this is my shifu’s Secret Manual of the Five Venoms.”²⁹ Yang Guo saw the booklet’s cover was red as blood and felt a slight chill in his heart. Lu Wushuang said, “I lied to her and told her the Beggars’ Guild had taken it. If she captures me later, she’ll search me and find it. Read it through carefully, memorize it, then burn it.” She had never spoken to Yang Guo with any seriousness before, but now, facing what might be her final hour, she had no heart for jokes. Yang Guo saw the sorrow in her expression and nodded, taking the book.

Lu Wushuang then drew out a brocade handkerchief from her bosom and said quietly, “If you should be so unfortunate as to fall into that witch’s hands and she tries to take your life, show her this handkerchief.” Yang Guo saw that the handkerchief was only half a piece, its edge ragged as though torn from something larger. Two corners were embroidered with red flowers. He had no idea what her meaning was. Bewildered, he did not take it. “What is this?” he asked.

Lu Wushuang said, “I’m entrusting it to you to give to her. Will you do it?” Yang Guo nodded and took it, placing it beside his pillow. But Lu Wushuang came over, picked it up, and tucked it into his clothing. Quietly she said, “Don’t let my cousin know.” Suddenly she caught the scent of his masculine presence and remembered the night on the road through the Pass and Shaanxi, how she had removed her clothes for him to set her bones, how they had shared a bed. Her heart quivered. She gazed at him with a long, lovesick look, then turned and left the room.

Yang Guo saw the boundless devotion in that backward glance, and his own heart began to pound. He opened the Secret Manual of the Five Venoms and read a few pages, memorizing the antidotes for the Scarlet Serpent Divine Palm and the Soul-freezing Silver Needles. He thought, Both antidotes are extremely difficult to prepare, but if I survive today, these two formulas will surely prove useful someday.

The door of the thatched cottage creaked open. Yang Guo looked up. Cheng Ying entered, her cheeks flushed, approaching the bedside, her forehead beaded with sweat. Her breathing was slightly quick. She said, “Brother Yang, the earthen formation I’ve set outside the door is truly too crude. It will be very hard to stop the Scarlet Serpent Immortal.” As she spoke, she drew a brocade handkerchief from her bosom and handed it to him. “If she breaks through,” she added, “show her this handkerchief.”

Yang Guo saw that this handkerchief, too, was only half a piece. Its fabric and pattern were identical to the one Lu Wushuang had given him. Startled, he lifted his eyes to meet her gaze. In the lamplight, he saw her eyes glistening with tears, at once bashful and joyful. Just as he was about to ask, Cheng Ying’s face suddenly flushed crimson. She whispered, “Whatever you do, don’t let my cousin know.” With that, she drifted out of the room.

Yang Guo drew Lu Wushuang’s half-handkerchief from his bosom and laid it together with the half in his hand. The two pieces indeed had been torn from the same cloth. The handkerchief was quite old. The white satin had yellowed with age, but the red flowers embroidered at the four corners were still as vivid as if dripping with dew. He stared at the torn handkerchief, knowing it concealed a deep significance. Why had each of them given him half? Why did both want him to give it to Li Mochou? Why did neither want the other to know? And why, when they gave the handkerchief, were both so bashful, their faces glowing with shyness?

He sat on the bed, lost in thought. From the distance came the crowing of another rooster, and then the soft, melancholy sound of a flute began. Cheng Ying, her defensive preparations complete, was playing to ease the heaviness in her heart. The piece was “Flowing Waves,”³⁰ the flute’s voice gentle and fine, yet without sorrow. There was even a hint of ease, of a heart untroubled. Yang Guo listened for a while, then softly hummed along. He could not remember the lyrics, so he merely followed the melody with improvised sounds.

Lu Wushuang sat behind an earthen mound, listening to her cousin and Yang Guo harmonizing in flute and song. In the east, the first light of dawn was appearing. She thought, Master will be here any moment. My life will not last past this hour. But I pray that when Master sees the handkerchief, she will spare my cousin and him, and that the two of them… Lu Wushuang had always been sharp and mischievous. Growing up, Cheng Ying had always yielded to her in everything, caring for her with all her heart. But now, facing death, Lu Wushuang’s one single-minded wish was for Yang Guo to be safe. Her feelings for him ran deep. She made a silent vow: if they could only escape this calamity, she would gladly accept his union with her cousin. She could die without regret.

Lost in these thoughts, she suddenly looked up and saw, standing outside the earthen mound, a woman in a yellow robe, a Daoist nun, her horsetail whisk held level, her robes billowing in the breeze. It was her shifu, Li Mochou.

Lu Wushuang’s heart convulsed. She drew her sword and stood. But Li Mochou stood perfectly still, her head tilted, listening.

She had heard the flute and song harmonizing together, and it brought back memories of her youth, when she and her beloved Lu Zhanyuan had played music together, one on the flute, one on the mouth organ. “Flowing Waves” was a piece they had often played in those days. That was twenty years ago. Now the melody was the same, but the wind and moon, heartless, had changed the people in secret.³¹ Hearing this answering of flute and song, so intimate and tender, a sudden, unbearable pain seized her. She could not restrain herself and burst into loud weeping.

This sudden outpouring of grief was even more unexpected to Lu Wushuang. She had always seen her shifu as stern and murderous, without a trace of softness in her heart. How could someone who had come for revenge and killing be weeping outside the door? But as she listened to the weeping, so utterly wretched, so filled with twisting anguish, she could not help feeling a pang of sorrow herself.

Li Mochou’s weeping alerted Yang Guo and Cheng Ying, and their singing and playing fell out of rhythm. A thought stirred in Li Mochou’s heart. Suddenly she lifted her voice in song, the melody plaintive and desolate:

“Ask the world: what is love, that it binds lives together in life and death? Companions flying north and south, old wings worn through how many cold and warm seasons? The joy of union, the pain of parting, among them are the most lovesick of souls. You must have words to say: across ten thousand miles of layered clouds, a thousand mountains in evening snow. to whom does the lonely shadow fly?”³²

The flute and song had originally been full of joy, but Li Mochou’s song was bitter in meaning, mournful in tone, and its rhythm and meter were completely different from “Flowing Waves.” As her voice grew softer, it climbed higher and higher. Cheng Ying’s concentration wavered. Unconsciously, she followed the phrase “the joy of union,” and when Li Mochou shifted to “the pain of parting,” Cheng Ying found herself drawn along against her will. She hastily tried to change the key, but the flute’s tone was clear and gentle, and her neili was shallow, she could not produce notes high and fierce enough to contend with Li Mochou’s singing. After a moment’s hesitation, she rushed into the cottage, set down her jade flute, and sat beside the low table to play the qin. Yang Guo also raised his voice in song to lend her strength.

Li Mochou’s singing grew ever more bitter and desolate. Cheng Ying’s qin strings climbed higher and higher in response. Zheng! The first string, the zhi string, suddenly snapped.

Cheng Ying was startled. Her fingering wavered, and the second string, the yu string, also broke. Li Mochou’s long song, now mixed with weeping, the third string, the gong string, snapped as well. Cheng Ying had learned both qin and flute from Huang Yaoshi. Though she had studied under a brilliant shifu, she was still young, and her attainments were shallow. Normally, when an opponent’s strings snap and their melody scatters, when their heart is thrown into confusion, one can advance unopposed. But Li Mochou saw that the earthen formation outside the cottage, however haphazard it appeared, clearly concealed the principles of the Five Elements’ mutual generation and destruction.³³ She did not understand this art, and having been ambushed and wounded many times in the Ancient Tomb, she could not help feeling wary. An idea came to her. She suddenly circled around to the left side, and in the midst of her piercing song, broke through the wall and entered.

Cheng Ying’s earthen formation, mounds here, piles there, had all been designed to guard the front door. It had never occurred to her that the cottage walls were so flimsy. Li Mochou bypassed the entrance entirely, struck out with both palms, smashed through the earthen wall, and attacked from within. Lu Wushuang was horrified. Sword in hand, she rushed in after her.

Yang Guo, wounded as he was, could not rise to fight. He could only lie still. Cheng Ying knew that fighting Li Mochou would be throwing her life away for nothing. She steeled her heart, put life and death out of her mind, tuned her strings, and began to play “The Peach Tree Tender.”³⁴ This melody was glorious and splendid, brimming with joy. In her heart she thought, I have been lonely and wretched all my life. To die today beside Brother Yang, it is not a wasted life. Her gaze drifted toward Yang Guo. Yang Guo gave her a faint smile. Cheng Ying’s heart filled with sweetness and joy. She sang silently to herself: “The peach tree is tender and fair, blazing bright are its blossoms…”³⁴ Her qin music grew ever more expansive and free, the notes carrying the gentle warmth of spring breezes, the fragrance of blooming flowers.

The sorrow on Li Mochou’s face gradually faded. She asked Lu Wushuang, “That book, did the Beggars’ Guild take it or not?” Yang Guo tossed the Secret Manual of the Five Venoms to her, saying, “Chief Huang and Chief Lu of the Beggars’ Guild are great in benevolence and righteousness. What use would they have for a sinister book like this? They long ago issued orders that no guild member may turn a single page of this volume.” Li Mochou saw that the book was intact and felt greatly relieved. She also knew that the Beggars’ Guild had always conducted itself with integrity and strict discipline, perhaps they truly had never looked inside.

Yang Guo then drew the two half-handkerchiefs from his bosom and laid them on the low table beside the bed. “Take this handkerchief too,” he said. Li Mochou’s expression changed drastically. With a flick of her whisk, she swept up both pieces of cloth. She held them in her hands, stunned. For a moment, her thoughts surged like a stormy tide. Her mind could not settle. Cheng Ying and Lu Wushuang exchanged glances, both blushing. Neither had imagined the other would give her handkerchief to Yang Guo, or that he would produce them so openly.

In that moment, as they looked at one another, hearts full of unspoken feeling, eyes glistening with emotion, the deadly atmosphere in the cottage was transformed in an instant into tenderness and deep affection. Cheng Ying’s qin played “The Peach Tree Tender” with even greater passion and joy.

Suddenly, Li Mochou tore the two brocade handkerchiefs into four pieces. “The past is past,” she said. “What more is there to say?” With both hands she tore them furiously and flung the pieces into the air. The fragments of brocade drifted down like pear blossoms scattered by the wind. Cheng Ying was startled. Zheng! Another qin string snapped.

Li Mochou shouted, “Ha! Break another one!” Amid her mournful singing, the fifth string, the jue string, indeed snapped at the sound. Li Mochou sneered. “In the space of a single breath, I shall make the three of you wish neither to live nor to die. Weep in each other’s arms while you still can.” By now only two strings remained on the qin. Cheng Ying’s skill was mediocre to begin with. She could hardly form a melody now. Li Mochou said, “Play something sorrowful! The world is full of suffering, what joy is there in living?” Cheng Ying plucked the strings twice. Though it was no proper melody, the rhythm was still that of “The Peach Tree Tender.” Li Mochou said, “Fine. I’ll kill one of you first. Let’s see if you grieve then.” With this fierce cry, another string snapped. She raised her horsetail whisk, about to bring it down on Lu Wushuang’s head.

Yang Guo laughed. “The three of us will die together today, happy and content, far better than you, living alone in lonely misery. Ying-mei, Shuang-mei, come here.” Cheng Ying and Lu Wushuang came to his bedside. Yang Guo put his left arm around Cheng Ying’s shoulder and his right around Lu Wushuang’s. “The three of us dying together, chatting and laughing on the road to the Yellow Springs³⁵, isn’t that ten times better than what this woman has?” Lu Wushuang laughed. “Yes, Fool. You’re absolutely right.” Cheng Ying smiled gently. With Yang Guo’s arms around their shoulders, both cousins felt their hearts drunk with bliss. Yang Guo, however, was thinking, Ah, if only Gugu were here beside me. But he forced himself to smile, gently took each of their hands in his, and drew the two young women close against him.

Li Mochou thought, This boy’s words are not wrong. If the three of them die like this, it truly is better than my being alive. She brooded: How can the world allow such a bargain? I must make you feel heartbreak before you die. So she lightly flicked her whisk, her face cold as frost, and began to sing softly, still that same melody, “Ask the world: what is love, that it binds lives together in life and death?” Her voice, now broken, now continuous, was bitter and piercing, like a discarded wife swallowing her sobs, like a vengeful ghost weeping in the night.

Yang Guo and the two women clasped hands in a four-hand grip. Listening for a while, they could not help feeling sorrow creep into their hearts. Yang Guo’s neili was deeper. He focused his concentration and remained still, a faint smile still on his face. Lu Wushuang was hard-hearted by nature and not easily stirred. But Cheng Ying could no longer hold back her tears. Li Mochou’s singing grew softer and softer, until at last her voice was like a wisp of gossamer, now there, now gone.

The Scarlet Serpent Immortal was waiting only for all three to shed tears. Then, with one sweep of her whisk, she would strike them all dead at once. Just as her singing reached its most mournful, most heart-rending pitch, a loud laugh suddenly burst from outside the cottage, someone was clapping hands and singing, approaching step by step.

The singing voice was a woman’s, and from its sound she was no longer young, yet the song she sang was a naive, innocent nursery rhyme:

“Rock, rock, rock, rock to Grandma’s bridge. Grandma calls me her dear little darling, A packet of sweets, a packet of treats. Eat them all up and ask for more to eat.”³⁶

The song brimmed with joy. At once, Li Mochou’s bitter lament was disrupted. The singer drew nearer and nearer, circling this way and that, until she walked right in through the front door. It was a middle-aged woman with disheveled hair and a foolish grin, her eyes round and wide, giggling vacantly. In her hand she carried a fire-poker from a stove. Li Mochou was startled. How did she so easily bypass the earthen mounds and come in through the front door? Either she’s in league with the three of them, or she’s deeply versed in the arts of qimen dunjia. With her mind now divided, the power of Li Mochou’s singing to move the heart diminished at once.

Seeing the woman, Cheng Ying cried out with great joy, “Shijie! This person wants to harm me. Help me, quickly!” This disheveled woman was none other than Qu Shagu³⁷. In truth, she was a generation below Cheng Ying, but she was much older, so Cheng Ying called her shijie.³⁸

Shagu clapped her hands and laughed, singing her nursery rhymes, one about “a star in the sky, a bone on the ground,” another about “the pagoda spire piercing the heavens.” She sang one song after another, sometimes mixing up the lyrics and stringing nonsense together. Li Mochou had sought to overwhelm them with sorrowful sound, but how could she know that Shagu was muddled and oblivious, having never known sorrow or worry in her life? One must understand that emotion arises from the heart. With a heart in utter chaos, no external stimulus, however strong, can create something from nothing, can stir what does not exist. What was more, Li Mochou’s mournful song, mixed with Shagu’s nonsensical nursery rhymes, could no longer even hold Yang Guo and the others in its grip. Li Mochou was furious. I must finish off this person first, she thought. Without ceasing her song, she struck at Shagu’s head with her whisk.

Years ago, Huang Yaoshi had regretted acting in a fit of temper and venting his anger on the innocent, which had led to his disciple Qu Lingfeng³⁹ dying at the hands of an enemy. He had therefore taken in Qu Lingfeng’s daughter, Shagu, and vowed to teach her everything he knew. But Shagu had been simple-minded since childhood, and she never improved as she grew older. No matter how much effort Huang Yaoshi poured into patiently guiding her, human effort could not overcome Heaven’s design. To expect her to learn even a fraction of his literary or martial arts was utterly impossible, let alone teaching her to recognize more characters or master a few crude fighting techniques. Still, over more than ten years under this brilliant shifu’s tutelage, Shagu had managed to learn one set of palm techniques and one set of fire-poker techniques. By “set,” I mean only three moves each. Huang Yaoshi knew she could never remember complex variations or clever moves, so he exhausted his wisdom to create three palm moves and three poker moves. These six moves were stiff and simple, without variations or follow-ups, their power lay entirely in force and momentum. Ordinary martial artists practice dozens, even hundreds or thousands of variations. Shagu practiced only six. Over time, they naturally became refined and pure. Few though the moves were, they were remarkably formidable.

As for how she bypassed the earthen mounds in front of the cottage, she had lived on Peach Blossom Island so long that Cheng Ying’s arrangements, being the most basic of Peach Blossom techniques, required no knowledge of qimen dunjia for Shagu to navigate. Without even looking, she simply walked in as naturally as breathing.

Now she saw Li Mochou’s whisk sweeping toward her. At once, she thrust her fire-poker straight out at chest level. Li Mochou heard the fierce whistle of the poker cutting through the air and was greatly alarmed. I never imagined this woman’s power was so profound. She quickly sidestepped to the left and swung her whisk at Shagu’s neck. Shagu paid no attention to the enemy’s move and simply thrust her poker straight forward. Li Mochou reversed her whisk and wrapped it around the poker’s head. Shagu acted as though she had not noticed. The poker continued thrusting forward. Li Mochou wrenched with all her strength, but the poker did not budge. In the blink of an eye, it was already at her chest. It was only Li Mochou’s superior martial skill that saved her, in desperation she executed a “Reverse Seven Stars Step”⁴⁰ and sprang backward through the hole in the wall, barely avoiding this thunderbolt strike. She was drenched in cold sweat.

She steadied herself briefly, then leaped back into the cottage. She soared upward and brought her whisk down from midair. Shagu responded to endless variations with unvarying simplicity: she thrust her poker straight out once more. Since her opponent had leaped high, this thrust aimed for the lower abdomen. Li Mochou saw the force was fierce and heavy. She reversed her whisk handle and parried against the poker shaft, borrowing the momentum to vault aside. She stared at Shagu, thinking, Each of the three attacks I just launched concealed nine variations and twelve follow-up moves. No martial arts adept in the world could have treated them lightly. Yet this woman simply thrust her poker straight at my chest each time, and all sixty-three of my variations were dissolved into nothing. This woman’s martial arts are unfathomably deep. I must flee at once!

How could she know that Shagu’s poker technique consisted of only three moves, coming and going? Had the exchange lasted a little longer, Li Mochou would have recognized the pattern and easily prevailed. As the saying goes, “Cheng Yaojin had only three axe-strokes.”⁴¹ Shagu had only three poker thrusts. That she had driven away this supremely dangerous enemy with a single poker technique was indeed something the Master of Peach Blossom Island could take pride in.

Li Mochou turned around, meaning to leap out through the breach in the wall, but saw someone already sitting beside the opening, a man in a green robe with a long beard. It was none other than the Master of Peach Blossom Island, Huang Yaoshi, the very man who had rescued Cheng Ying from Li Mochou’s clutches years ago. Li Mochou had suffered a crushing defeat at his hands back then. Seeing him now, terror gripped her heart. Her only thought was to find a way to escape. But he was seated at a low table, and on the table lay the qin that Cheng Ying had been playing moments before. Li Mochou, even in the heat of battle, had always kept watch in all directions, alert to every sound. Yet Huang Yaoshi had entered the cottage, taken the qin, and seated himself, and she had not noticed any of it. If he had struck her from behind, taking her life would have been as easy as turning over his palm.

While Li Mochou had been fighting Shagu, she had kept up her mournful singing, fearing that Cheng Ying and the others would join the fight and disturb her concentration. Now, seeing Huang Yaoshi sitting there in silence, stroking the qin, her heart jolted. Her singing stopped at once.

Huang Yaoshi plucked a note on the qin and sang in a resonant voice: “Ask the world: what is love, that it binds lives together in life and death?”, and what he sang was precisely Li Mochou’s own song. Only one string remained on the qin, the yu string, yet on this single string he produced all five tones. gong, shang, jue, zhi, yu, and the qin’s voice was far more sorrowful than her singing had been.

Li Mochou knew this song by heart. With Huang Yaoshi’s variations, the resonance it stirred in her heart was ten times stronger than what Yang Guo and the others felt. Huang Yaoshi had long known of her countless crimes. Today he meant to use this opportunity to eliminate her. Years ago, he had matched his jade flute against Ouyang Feng’s iron zither and Hong Qigong⁴²’s whistling, fighting them to a draw. Now, after all these years, though his physical strength had waned with age, his neili had grown ever deeper with practice. How could Li Mochou possibly withstand him? Within moments, she felt her heart and spirit wavering beyond control.

Huang Yaoshi’s qin and song intertwined, now joyful, now wrathful, now soaring and fierce, now low and lingering. In the space of a breath, it shifted through countless moods, drawing her along, now delighted, now grieving, now enraged, now desolate. It was clear that when this song ended, Li Mochou would inevitably go mad, beyond all restraint.

But just at this moment, Shagu turned her head and suddenly saw Yang Guo. In the candlelight, he looked exactly like his father, Yang Kang⁴³. What Shagu feared most in the world were ghosts, and the image of Yang Kang dying of poison that day was seared deep into her memory, never to be forgotten. Seeing Yang Guo sitting there motionless, she thought it was Yang Kang’s ghost haunting her. She leaped up in terror, pointing at him, and shrieked, “Yang… Brother Yang… don’t… don’t hurt me… you… you weren’t killed by me… go… find someone else…”

Huang Yaoshi had not anticipated this sudden, sideways disruption. Zheng! The last string of the qin snapped. Shagu fled behind her grand-master, shouting, “Ghost… ghost… Grandfather, it’s Brother Yang’s ghost!” Seizing this moment of reprieve, Li Mochou urgently swept her whisk to extinguish the candle and slipped out through the hole in the wall. Huang Yaoshi had failed to deliver the death blow. In the end, she had escaped. His status forbade him from leaving the cottage to pursue her. In the darkness, Shagu grew even more terrified, shrieking louder: “It’s an evil ghost! Grandfather, strike the ghost, strike the ghost!”

Huang Yaoshi silenced Shagu with a command. Cheng Ying struck a light to relight the candle, then knelt to pay her respects to her shifu. Rising, she briefly recounted the backgrounds of Yang Guo and Lu Wushuang.

Huang Yaoshi turned to Yang Guo and laughed. “This grand-disciple and disciple of mine is foolish beyond measure. She knew your father. You do indeed resemble him greatly.” Yang Guo bent at the waist from his bed and kowtowed, saying, “Forgive me, my injuries prevent me from kneeling to pay proper respects.” Huang Yaoshi’s expression was gentle. “Twice now you have risked your own life to save my daughter and granddaughter. You are a fine child.” It turned out he had already met with Huang Rong and learned the full story. Hearing that Cheng Ying had rescued Yang Guo, he had brought Shagu along to find them.

Huang Yaoshi brought out a wondrous healing medicine and gave it to Yang Guo, then circulated his neili to perform tuina massage on him. Everywhere Huang Yaoshi’s hands touched, Yang Guo felt as though scorched by fire, and involuntarily his body generated resistance. Huang Yaoshi suddenly felt the flesh and muscle beneath his hands shudder, and then sensed the circulation through Yang Guo’s meridians, his neili cultivation was truly extraordinary. Huang Yaoshi increased the pressure. After about the time it takes to eat a meal, Yang Guo felt every joint and limb, every bone and vessel, completely at ease. Drowsily, he sank into deep sleep.

When he woke the next day, Yang Guo opened his eyes to find Huang Yaoshi sitting at his bedside. He hurriedly sat up and saluted. Huang Yaoshi said, “Do you know what name the jianghu calls me?” Yang Guo replied, “You are the Master of Peach Blossom Island?” Huang Yaoshi said, “And what else?” Yang Guo felt that the words “Eastern Heretic”⁴⁴ would be improper to speak aloud. But then he thought, Since his nickname contains the word ‘heretic,’ his temperament must be quite unlike ordinary people’s. So he boldly said, “You are the Eastern Heretic!” Huang Yaoshi burst into loud laughter. “That is correct,” he said. “I have heard that your martial skills are not bad, that your heart is warm, but that your conduct is also heretical enough. I have also heard that you wish to marry your shifu as your wife. Is that true?” Yang Guo said, “It is. Old Senior, everyone forbids me, but I would rather die a thousand deaths than give her up.”

Huang Yaoshi heard the absolute finality in these words. He stared at Yang Guo for a long moment, then suddenly raised his head and laughed to the heavens, so loudly that the thatch on the roof rustled and shook. Yang Guo said angrily, “What is so funny? I thought you, who are called the Eastern Heretic, would have some remarkable insight. I never imagined you would be just the same as every other conventional person.” Huang Yaoshi declared loudly, “Good! Good! Good!” After saying the word “good” several times, he turned and walked out. Yang Guo sat there, stunned. With those words, I must have offended this old senior terribly. But why did he show no anger?

What Yang Guo did not realize was that throughout his life, Huang Yaoshi had roamed the world with utter contempt for the ritual proprieties and conventional opinions of his age. Everything he said and did was utterly unorthodox, which was precisely why he had earned the name “Heretic.” He was aloof and solitary, and in all his life had never truly had a kindred spirit. Even with his own daughter and son-in-law, the bond was not one of true understanding. Guo Jing was upright and solemn, qualities Huang Yaoshi found particularly distasteful. He had never expected that after all these years drifting through the jianghu, he would encounter Yang Guo. News of Yang Guo’s various deeds at the Heroes’ Assembly had already reached his ears, and Huang Rong had also spoken briefly of this youth’s conduct and character. Now, after exchanging only a few words with him, Huang Yaoshi found him perfectly to his liking.

That evening, Huang Yaoshi returned to the room. “Yang Guo,” he said, “I hear you turned against the Quanzhen Order and struck your own shifu, heretical enough indeed. Why not go a step further and turn against the Ancient Tomb Sect as well, and take me as your shifu instead?” Yang Guo was taken aback. “Why?” he asked. Huang Yaoshi laughed. “First you stop acknowledging Xiaolongnü as your shifu, then you marry her as your wife. Wouldn’t that be perfectly proper and aboveboard?” Yang Guo said, “That method is indeed clever. But who made the rule that shifu and disciple may not marry? I insist on having her be both my shifu and my wife.”

Huang Yaoshi clapped his hands and laughed. “Excellent! Thinking like that, you surpass even me.” He reached out and massaged Yang Guo’s wounds, then sighed. “I had wanted you to inherit my mantle, so the world would know that after Huang the Old Heretic comes Yang the Young Heretic. But since you won’t become my disciple, there is nothing to be done.”

Yang Guo said, “One doesn’t have to be shifu and disciple to spread your heretical name. If you don’t mind my youth and shallow martial skills, the two of us could simply become friends, or else swear brotherhood.” Huang Yaoshi feigned anger. “You little whelp, your gall is not small. I’m not that Old Mischief Zhou Botong⁴⁵, how could I be so lacking in decorum with you?” Yang Guo asked, “Who is this Old Mischief Zhou Botong?” So Huang Yaoshi briefly told him about Zhou Botong’s character, and how he had become sworn brothers with Guo Jing.

The two talked and talked, their hearts in perfect harmony. As the saying goes, “With a bosom friend, a thousand cups of wine are too few. When words don’t click, half a sentence is too many.” Yang Guo was quick-witted and eloquent, and by nature he was remarkably similar to Huang Yaoshi. Whatever he said, Huang Yaoshi would exclaim that it captured his own heart exactly. It was truly a case of becoming fast friends at first meeting, regretting only that they had not met sooner. Though Huang Yaoshi refused to admit it aloud, in his heart he already regarded Yang Guo as a friend despite the vast gap in their ages. That night, he ordered Cheng Ying to set up an extra cot in Yang Guo’s room, and the two lay side by side, talking through the night. At the time, Yang Guo was not yet twenty, while Huang Yaoshi was nearly eighty. Between them stood Guo Jing and Huang Rong, a couple in their forties. Yang Guo was, in truth, already of his grandchildren’s generation.

Several days passed. Yang Guo’s wounds healed completely, and he and Huang Yaoshi had become as close as lacquer and glue, inseparable. Huang Yaoshi had originally planned to take Shagu and head south, but now he said not a word about leaving. Cheng Ying and Lu Wushuang watched this old man and young man, drinking together before the wine cups by day, trimming the lamp and talking through the night, their lofty discussions flowing in endless torrents, and could not help secretly laughing. They both felt that the elder had abandoned all dignity of age and status, while the younger was far too unrestrained. In terms of knowledge and learning, Yang Guo did not possess even a fraction of a fraction of Huang Yaoshi’s. It was simply that whatever Huang Yaoshi said, Yang Guo agreed with from the depths of his soul, and his occasional interjections were always perfectly apt. Their temperaments were naturally in tune. Huang Yaoshi could not help but regard Yang Guo as the foremost kindred spirit of his entire life.

During these days, aside from keeping Huang Yaoshi company in conversation, Yang Guo often thought about what Shagu had said the night she mistook him for someone else. She had said: “You weren’t killed by me. Go find someone else!” He guessed she must know who had killed his father. Others had kept it hidden, but Shagu was muddled and deranged, perhaps he could coax the truth from her lips.

One afternoon, Yang Guo said, “Shagu, come here. I have something to tell you.” Shagu thought he looked too much like Yang Kang and was always afraid of him. She shook her head. “I don’t want to play with you.” Yang Guo said, “I can do magic tricks. Want to see?” Shagu shook her head. “You’re lying. I won’t look!” She squeezed her eyes shut. Yang Guo suddenly flipped upside down, standing on his head. “Look, quick!” Using the technique Ouyang Feng had taught him, he inverted his body and walked on his hands, crossing them as he moved. Shagu opened her eyes, saw this, and was overjoyed. Clapping and cheering, she ran after him.

Yang Guo continued walking upside down until they reached a place where the trees grew thick, far from the thatched cottage. He flipped upright and said, “Let’s play hide-and-seek, all right? But the loser has to pay a forfeit.” In all these years following Huang Yaoshi, Shagu had never had anyone to play with. Hearing this, she was beside herself with delight and clapped repeatedly, her fear of him instantly cast to the winds. “Wonderful, wonderful! Good brother, what’s the forfeit?” She had called Yang Guo’s father “good brother,” and now called Yang Guo the same.

Yang Guo took out a handkerchief and blindfolded her. “You try to catch me. If you catch me, you can ask me anything, and I’ll answer truthfully, without hiding a single word. If you can’t catch me, then I get to ask you, and you must answer truthfully too.” Shagu said over and over, “Wonderful, wonderful!” Yang Guo called out, “I’m over here! Come catch me!” Shagu spread her arms and chased the sound. Yang Guo had trained in the Ancient Tomb Sect’s qinggong, which was matchless in its time. Even if Shagu’s eyes were uncovered, she could never have caught him. She chased this way and that for a while, crashing into tree trunks until she had raised several large bumps on her forehead, crying out in pain.

Fearing Shagu would lose interest and quit the game, Yang Guo deliberately slowed his steps and gave a soft cough. Shagu lunged forward and seized his back, shouting, “Caught you, caught you!” She pulled off the blindfold, her face glowing with delight.

Yang Guo said, “All right, I lost. Ask me your question.” This, in fact, presented her with a difficult problem. She stared blankly at Yang Guo, her mind utterly blank, having no idea what to ask. After a long silence, she asked, “Good brother, have you eaten yet?” Yang Guo saw that after all that thinking, she had asked something so trivial, and nearly burst out laughing. Keeping a straight face, he answered seriously, “I have eaten.” Shagu nodded and said nothing more. Yang Guo said, “Is there anything else you want to ask?” Shagu shook her head. “No more questions. Let’s play again.” Yang Guo said, “All right, hurry and catch me.”

Shagu touched the bumps on her forehead and said, “This time, you catch me.” That she suddenly became not so foolish caught Yang Guo off guard, but it suited his purpose perfectly. He took the handkerchief and blindfolded himself.

Shagu might have been simple, but her qinggong was considerable. In total darkness, how could Yang Guo catch her? He leaped and bounded several times, then secretly tore a small slit in the handkerchief. Spotting her hiding behind a large tree to the right, he deliberately groped to the left, saying, “Where are you? Where are you?” Then, with a sudden spin, he seized her wrist. His left hand pulled down the handkerchief and tucked it into his clothing to prevent her from seeing through his ruse. “Now it’s my turn to question you,” he said, laughing.

Shagu immediately said, “I’ve already eaten.” Yang Guo laughed. “I’m not asking about that. Let me ask you, you knew my father, didn’t you?” As he spoke, his expression became very grave. Shagu said, “Who is your father? I don’t know him.” Yang Guo said, “There was someone who looked exactly like me. Who was that?” Shagu said, “Ah, that was Brother Yang.” Yang Guo said, “You saw Brother Yang killed by someone, didn’t you?” Shagu answered, “Yes, in the middle of the night, in that temple. So many crows cawing loudly, caw, caw, caw!” She imitated the hoarse cries of crows. The forest was already dark and gloomy, the foliage blocking the sun. Her cawing made it feel even more chilling and sinister.

Yang Guo could not help trembling. He asked, “How did Brother Yang die?” Shagu said, “Gugu wanted me to say, but Brother Yang wouldn’t let me. So he hit Gugu with a palm strike, and then he laughed, haha! hehe! haha!” She tried her best to imitate Yang Kang’s laughter as he lay dying, and frightened even herself in the process, her face contorted with terror. Yang Guo was utterly baffled. He asked, “Who is Gugu?” Shagu said, “Gugu is Gugu.”⁴⁶

Yang Guo knew that the mystery of his father’s murder was on the verge of being solved. The blood surged hot in his chest. He was about to ask more when he suddenly heard a voice behind him: “What are you two playing at here?” It was Huang Yaoshi. Shagu said, “Good brother was playing hide-and-seek with me. He’s the one who wanted to play, not me. Don’t scold me.” Huang Yaoshi smiled faintly and glanced at Yang Guo. His expression carried a deep knowing, as though he had already seen through Yang Guo’s intentions.

Yang Guo’s heart pounded. He was about to say something to cover up when he heard rapid footsteps outside the woods. Cheng Ying came running, leading Lu Wushuang by the hand. She said to Huang Yaoshi, “You were right, Old Master. She is still over there.” She pointed to the west, beyond the mountain. Yang Guo asked, “Who?” Cheng Ying said, “Li Mochou!”

Yang Guo was greatly astonished. How can that woman be so bold? He looked at Huang Yaoshi, hoping for an explanation. Huang Yaoshi smiled and said, “Let us go and have a look.” With him present, the others naturally feared nothing, so they all walked toward the west side of the mountain.

Knowing the question still burned in Yang Guo’s heart, Cheng Ying said quietly, “Master says that Li Mochou knows he is a Great Master. Since that night in the cottage he intended to kill her but failed, he is like Kong Kong’er in the Biography of Nie Yinniang⁴⁷, having struck once and missed, he would be ashamed to strike a second time.” Yang Guo suddenly understood. Startled, he said, “So she has been waiting here with perfect confidence, biding her time to take the lives of the three of us. If Island Master Huang had not foreseen this, we would have assumed she had fled far away long ago, let down our guard, and inevitably fallen victim to her deadly hands.” Cheng Ying smiled gently and nodded. Lu Wushuang broke in, “You think you’re so clever, but compared to Island Master Huang, you’re nowhere close.” Yang Guo laughed. “I’m a fool, overflowing with foolishness. I’m Shagu’s good brother.”

As they talked, the five of them had rounded the mountain. There, beside a large tree, stood a small, dilapidated thatched cottage. The wicker gate was tightly shut, and pinned to it was a sheet of white paper bearing four columns of characters, sixteen in all:

“Peach Blossom Island Master, disciples in great number. Five against one, the laughingstock of the jianghu!”

Huang Yaoshi gave a hearty laugh. He casually picked up two pebbles from the ground and flicked them from between thumb and middle finger. Chi, chi! The two pebbles shot forward. With a crack, the two wooden doors, more than ten paces away, were thrown open by the impact of two tiny stones. Yang Guo had heard Guo Fu speak of her grandfather’s “Flicking Divine Finger”⁴⁸ skill back on Peach Blossom Island. Seeing it with his own eyes today, it was even more impressive than its reputation. He was utterly filled with admiration.

The doors swung open to reveal Li Mochou seated on a prayer mat, her horsetail whisk in hand, her eyes downcast, meditating. Her spirit was withdrawn inward, her expression serenely composed, she looked exactly like a woman of profound Dao. There was no one else in the cottage. Hong Lingbo⁴⁹ was not with her. In a flash, Yang Guo understood. She mocked Island Master Huang for having too many disciples and overwhelming a lone opponent with numbers, so she has even sent Hong Lingbo far away. What she relies on is not the ability to defeat Island Master Huang, but the fact that, being alone, Island Master Huang’s status will not permit him to make a move against her.

Lu Wushuang thought of her parents’ murder, of all the years of swallowed grievances and endured humiliation. She suddenly drew her longsword and cried, “Cousin! Fool! We don’t need Island Master Huang to act. The three of us will fight her to the death!” Shagu rubbed her fists and palms together, saying, “And me too!” Li Mochou opened her eyes, swept her gaze across the five faces, her expression contemptuous, then closed her eyes again, as though she did not consider the powerful enemies before her worthy of the slightest concern. Cheng Ying looked to her shifu, awaiting his command.

Huang Yaoshi sighed. “Huang the Old Heretic truly does have many disciples. If even one of my four great disciples. Qu, Chen, Mei, Lu, were here, how could she dare speak such words?” He waved his hand. “Let us go back.” None of the four understood his meaning. They followed him back to the cottage, where they saw that he was deeply troubled. He did not eat dinner and went straight to sleep.

Yang Guo lay on the cot beside him, replaying his conversation with Shagu from that afternoon and pondering Li Mochou’s demeanor. He thought, She mocked us for fighting five against one. My wounds are healed now. Even alone, I might not necessarily lose to her. Why not slip out quietly and fight her to the death? First, I can avenge the insult she dealt my Gugu. Second, I can help Island Master Huang vent his anger. His mind made up, he quietly dressed. Reckless though he was, he was also fairly cautious in his actions. He knew Li Mochou was a formidable opponent, the slightest carelessness and his life would be in her hands. So he sat cross-legged on the cot, circulating his qi and regulating his breath, wanting to build up his spirit before going out for a death match.

After about half a geng⁵⁰ of sitting, he suddenly felt as though a brilliant light had opened before his eyes. Every limb and bone, every part of his body, was filled with qi. Unconsciously, a sound burst from his mouth, like a dragon roaring across a great marsh, like a tiger howling in a deep valley. The sound travelled far into the distance. Huang Yaoshi had been aware from the moment Yang Guo rose and dressed. Hearing this extraordinary sound, he realized that Yang Guo’s neili had reached such a level, and he was both astonished and overjoyed.

When a person’s neili cultivation reaches a certain level, they will often unconsciously emit strange sounds. In later times, during the Ming dynasty, the great Confucian scholar Wang Yangming was practising qi in a military camp in the middle of the night when he could not resist letting out a long, resonant whistle, the entire army was startled. This is a matter of historical record. At this moment, Yang Guo’s central qi was so abundant that he suddenly could not contain it, and his whistle was audible for several li. Cheng Ying and Lu Wushuang were naturally amazed. Even Li Mochou, behind the mountain, was secretly alarmed when she heard it. But she assumed it must be Huang Yaoshi expelling his neili, and since he would not attack her anyway, she felt no fear. She never imagined that Yang Guo, having benefited from the Cold Jade Bed and studied the secrets of both the Jade Maiden Heart Sutra and the Nine Yin Manual, had accumulated profound neili. When Huang Yaoshi had treated his wounds days earlier, the Peach Blossom Island Master’s neili followed a path entirely different from his own. Stimulated by this incomparably deep neili, Yang Guo had involuntarily let out this long, resonant whistle.

The whistling continued for about the time it takes to eat a meal before gradually subsiding. Huang Yaoshi thought, I pride myself on being a once-in-a-generation genius, yet even I did not reach this stage until after the age of thirty. This youth has achieved it more than ten years earlier than I did. I wonder what extraordinary encounters he must have had. When Yang Guo exhaled and stood up, Huang Yaoshi asked, “What would you say is Li Mochou’s most formidable martial art?”

Yang Guo understood from this question that Huang Yaoshi had seen through his plan. He answered, “The Scarlet Serpent Divine Palm and her horsetail whisk techniques.” Huang Yaoshi said, “Correct. Since your neili has reached such a foundation, breaking her signature skills will not be difficult.” Yang Guo was overjoyed. Without thinking, he knelt and kowtowed. He had always been quite proud. Though he acknowledged Huang Yaoshi as a senior and knew his martial arts were profound and his esoteric learning divine, he had been unwilling to bow his head to him. Now, hearing that the skills with which Li Mochou had dominated the jianghu could be broken as easily as spitting, how could he not submit?

The next morning, Huang Yaoshi called for Cheng Ying and had Yang Guo join her in receiving instruction in the “Flicking Divine Finger” technique. Cheng Ying had studied this skill under her shifu before, but had never delved deeply into it. This time, Huang Yaoshi focused on teaching how to use it to counter the Scarlet Serpent Divine Palm. He then taught the two of them a sword technique derived from his jade flute, to be used against her whisk.

Yang Guo listened to the essential secrets Huang Yaoshi explained, asked about every difficulty and doubt, and committed everything to memory with deep concentration. But he felt that both of these martial arts were profoundly subtle and intricate. By his reckoning, even achieving basic competence would take at least a year. To secure certain victory would require no less than three. He said, “Island Master Huang, to defeat her immediately, there is simply no way.”

Huang Yaoshi said, “Three years pass in the blink of an eye. By then, at twenty-one or twenty-two years of age, you will have mastered such martial arts, can you still call that insufficient?” Yang Guo said, “I… I wasn’t thinking of myself…” Huang Yaoshi patted his shoulder and said gently, “If you kill her for me three years from now, I will already be deeply grateful. I destroyed my own worthy disciples with my own hands all those years ago, should I not receive some measure of retribution today?” He let out a long, sorrowful sigh. Memories of his disciples rose in his heart, and he could not help feeling grief, remorse, and self-reproach.

Cheng Ying went to him and took his hand, calling softly and tenderly, “Shifu!” Huang Yaoshi’s eyes glistened with tears. Forcing a smile, he said, “Good, good! Huang the Old Heretic’s luck has not entirely run out. I still have one little disciple!”

Yang Guo knelt and kowtowed eight times, calling, “Shifu!” He knew that in teaching him martial arts, Huang Yaoshi wanted him to avenge the insult of the sixteen characters on Li Mochou’s poster, and for that, the bond of shifu and disciple was necessary.

But Huang Yaoshi understood that Yang Guo’s bond with the Ancient Tomb Sect was too deep, he would never willingly take another master. Reaching down, he helped Yang Guo up and said, “When you face that witch in combat, you are my disciple. Apart from that, you are my friend. Brother Yang, do you understand?” Yang Guo laughed. “To be able to call a great martial arts master like you my friend, what tremendous good fortune.” Huang Yaoshi laughed. “Meeting you has also been a rare blessing in my life.” The two clapped hands and laughed, the sound shaking the four walls.

Huang Yaoshi then explained in meticulous detail the profound secrets and essential subtleties of the “Flicking Divine Finger” and the “Jade Flute Swordplay.” Hearing him explain things so thoroughly, Yang Guo knew he was about to leave. Sadly, he said, “We have known each other for so short a time, and now we must part. When we meet again, who knows what day that will be?” Huang Yaoshi laughed. “You and I are of one heart and mind. Though we may be at opposite ends of the earth, it will be as though we are neighbors. In the future, if I learn of anyone obstructing your marriage, even from ten thousand li away, I will surely come to help you.” Hearing this firm promise, Yang Guo’s heart was greatly comforted. He laughed and said, “I fear the first person to interfere may be your own beloved daughter.”

Huang Yaoshi said, “She herself married the husband of her dreams, can she not understand the pain of another’s longing? This precious daughter of mine only has eyes for her husband. Heh, ‘marry and obey the husband’, the Three Obediences and Four Virtues,⁵¹ how very admirable!” Laughing loudly, he shook out his robes and strode through the door. In a flash, his laughter was already dozens of zhang⁵² away. Truly, he departed like a divine dragon, coiling and twisting, vanishing beyond all trace.

Yang Guo sat in a daze for a long while, then sat quietly, reviewing the essential secrets of the techniques he had just learned. After lunch, he practiced the “Jade Flute Swordplay” with Cheng Ying, and before he knew it, they had unconsciously incorporated some of the mutual protection techniques from the Jade Maiden Heart Sutra. Yang Guo said, “Cheng Shijie, once we have mastered this sword technique, we can join forces to kill Li Mochou and make our shifu happy.” Cheng Ying smiled enchantingly. “You call me Shijie?” Yang Guo laughed. “Seniority in the school goes by who entered first. You are naturally my Shijie.” Cheng Ying smiled. “Madam Guo is my true Shijie.” Seeing the tender beauty of her face, Yang Guo could not resist saying, “Then I should call you ‘Gugu.’” Cheng Ying said seriously, “You already have your own Gugu.” Seeing her earnest expression, Yang Guo dared not continue.

The next morning, just as Yang Guo had risen, the plank door suddenly swung open. Cheng Ying walked in, holding a long blue cloth gown in her hands. She smiled faintly and said, “Try this on. See if it fits.” Yang Guo was deeply grateful. His hands trembled slightly as he took it.

His eyes met Cheng Ying’s. In her gaze, he saw deep, wordless affection, a tenderness without limit. He went to the bedside and changed into the new gown. The body, the waist, the sleeves, everything fit perfectly. He said, “I… I… truly thank you.” Cheng Ying gave him another enchanting smile, but then a look of sorrow crossed her face. She sighed. “Master, the Old Master, has gone. Who knows when we shall meet again.” She was about to sit and talk when she glimpsed a flash of yellow outside the door, which instantly vanished. She knew it was her cousin. This girl has too many thoughts in her head, she thought. I shouldn’t stay too long in his room. She rose and walked slowly out.

Yang Guo examined the new gown closely. The stitches were fine and dense. His heart could not help stirring. She treats me like this, and my wife also treats me so well. But my heart long ago found its home. There is no room to turn elsewhere. If I don’t leave soon, I will only cause everyone more anguish. He sat there, lost in thought, for a long time. Then he worried that after he left, Li Mochou might suddenly attack. He went alone to the back of the mountain to spy on the cottage where she had stayed. All he saw was a patch of scorched earth, the cottage had been reduced to ashes. Li Mochou had set fire to it and already left.

With the great enemy gone, that night he sat by the lamplight and wrote a farewell letter. But thinking of the affection both Cheng Ying and Lu Wushuang held for him, he could not help feeling desolate. Worse, he found his writing lacked any literary grace and his calligraphy was clumsy and crude. Cheng Ying would surely laugh at him. He wrote half a letter, then tore it up. That night, he tossed and turned, unable to sleep.

In his drowsiness, he suddenly heard Lu Wushuang pounding on the door outside. “Fool! Fool! Come out and look, quickly!” Her voice was urgent with alarm. Yang Guo rose, threw on his clothes, and opened the door. The dawn breeze was cool and carried a slight chill. The sky was not yet fully light. Lu Wushuang’s face was filled with terror. She pointed at the wicker gate. Following her finger, Yang Guo looked, and was startled. Four vivid blood-red handprints were stamped on the door panel. Clearly, Li Mochou had come to investigate during the night. Learning that Huang Yaoshi had departed, she had announced her intention to kill all four of them.

The two of them stood frozen for a moment. Then Cheng Ying, hearing the commotion, came out as well. “When did you notice these?” she asked. Lu Wushuang said, “I saw them before dawn.” As soon as the words left her mouth, her face flushed bright red. It turned out she had been missing Yang Guo and had been lingering beneath his window since early morning. Cheng Ying pretended not to notice and said, “Fortunately, we didn’t run into her. Now that the sun is about to rise, the witch won’t come today. We can take our time thinking of a plan, no need to rush.” The three of them went into Yang Guo’s room to discuss.

Lu Wushuang said, “That day she got a taste of Shagu’s fire-poker technique. How come she’s not afraid anymore?” Cheng Ying said, “Shijie’s poker moves, coming and going, are only those few. After going back and thinking it over carefully, she must have figured out how to counter them.” Lu Wushuang said, “But the Fool’s wounds are healed now. If the two fools join forces, won’t their power be limitless?”

Yang Guo burst out laughing. “A fool plus a Shagu, one muddled mess. What power could there be?”

The three talked for a while but came up with no brilliant plan. Still, they reasoned that with four of them working together, even if they could not win, they could at least defend themselves. They would just have to fight her with all their strength the next day. Yang Guo said, “The two of us fools will face her head-on, working together. You two cousins will attack from the flanks. Let’s go find Shagu and rehearse first.”

But when they called for Shagu, there was no answer. She had vanished without a trace. All three grew worried and split up to search the front and back of the mountain. After searching for a while, Cheng Ying suddenly found Shagu lying in a pile of rubble, her breathing barely a thread. Horrified, Cheng Ying opened her clothing to examine her and saw a faint blood-colored palm print on her back, she had indeed been struck by Li Mochou’s Scarlet Serpent Divine Palm. She quickly called Yang Guo and Lu Wushuang over, then took out her shifu’s wondrous medicine, the Nine Flower Jade Dew Pills,⁵³ and gave them to Shagu. Yang Guo remembered the antidote method recorded in the Secret Manual of the Five Venoms for treating this venomous palm and urgently circulated his neili to massage her acupoints.

Shagu giggled foolishly. “Bad woman. Behind me. Hit me. Shagu. Backhand. Hit her.” Shagu’s backhand palm was one of the three moves Huang Yaoshi had taught her. Though Li Mochou had succeeded in her sneak attack, she had also been struck on the forearm by Shagu’s backhand. Her arm bone had nearly been shattered. In shock and pain, she had fled at once, not daring to follow through and take Shagu’s life.

The three of them saved Shagu and sat facing one another in gloom. Of the four, they had lost one of their best fighters. Tomorrow’s battle would be even harder to withstand. Shagu was gravely wounded. If they tried to protect her while fleeing, Li Mochou would surely catch them. Yang Guo looked at Cheng Ying, then at Lu Wushuang. He casually picked up a silk thread from the sewing basket and snipped it into pieces with a pair of scissors. Shagu, lying on the cot, suddenly shouted, “Snip! The bad woman’s broom! Snip the broom!” She did not know the word “horsetail whisk,” so she called it a “broom.”

A thought stirred in Yang Guo’s mind. That witch’s whisk is a soft, flexible weapon, and she wields it with supernatural skill. No treasured saber or sharp sword can harm it. But if we really had a giant pair of scissors as a weapon and, snip!, cut it in two, that would be perfect. At this thought, he took the silk thread in his left hand and flicked it as though it were a whisk striking. His right hand brought the scissors forward and cut the thread in two. Then, imagining the whisk’s various trajectories, he pursued with the scissors, inventing techniques as he went.

Cheng Ying and Lu Wushuang watched for a while and grasped his intent. Their faces lit up with joy. Cheng Ying said, “About seven or eight li north of here, there is a blacksmith’s shop…” Lu Wushuang broke in, “Right! Let’s go have the blacksmith forge a giant pair of scissors.” Yang Guo thought, Forged in such haste, this weapon will be extremely difficult to master. But I’ll adapt as the fight unfolds, it’s still a hundred times easier than mastering the Jade Flute Swordplay. Anyway, there’s no other option. We might as well try. He also realized that if he went alone to the blacksmith’s shop to place the order and Li Mochou attacked suddenly, the danger would be extreme. At this moment, the four of them could not be separated for even an instant. So Cheng Ying and Lu Wushuang padded the horse’s back with bedding, laid Shagu across it, and all of them went to the blacksmith’s shop together.

After the Mongols conquered the Jin, their cavalry had pushed into Song territory. This region lay at the northern frontier of the Great Song, and the towns were mostly occupied by Mongol troops, everywhere lay in ruins. The blacksmith’s shop was extremely crude. Right inside the entrance stood a large anvil, the floor covered in coal dust and iron scraps. On the walls hung a few plowshares and sickles. The place was silent and deserted.

Yang Guo looked at the scene and thought, A place like this, what kind of weapon could they possibly forge? He called out loudly, “Is the master smith at home?” After a long pause, an old man emerged from a side room. His beard and hair were gray-white. He appeared to be about fifty. Years of bending over the forge had given him a hunched back. His eyes, red and narrow from smoke and fire, were rimmed with yellowish discharge. His left leg was crippled, and he supported himself with a crutch wedged under his shoulder. “What are your orders, honoured guests?” he asked.

Yang Guo was about to answer when he heard the sound of hoofbeats. Two riders charged up to the shop door. One was a Mongol squad leader. The other a Han Chinese, either an interpreter or a local constable. The Han man shouted, “Old Feng the blacksmith! Come out and receive your orders.” The old blacksmith stepped forward and bowed. “This humble one is he,” he said. The man said, “Orders from the commander: all blacksmiths in the town are to report to the county seat within three days, to be assigned to military service. You will report to the county seat tomorrow. Do you hear?” Old Feng said, “This humble one is so old…” The Mongol squad leader raised his riding crop and struck him across the head, growling something unintelligible. The Han man said, “If you’re not there tomorrow, watch your head roll.” The two riders galloped off.

Old Feng let out a long sigh and stood there, staring blankly. Cheng Ying, seeing how pitiful the old man was, placed ten taels of silver on the table. “Master Feng,” she said, “at your age, and with difficulty walking besides, being conscripted into the Mongol army would be throwing your life away for nothing. Take this silver and flee for your life.” Old Feng sighed. “Thank you for your kindness, Miss. An old blacksmith who has lived to this age, life or death means little. What is lamentable is that the millions of souls south of the Yangtze are about to suffer a great calamity.” In truth, he was not so very old, only in his fifties, but his demeanor was so listless and feeble, his back so bent, that he appeared twice as aged.

All three were startled. “Why do you say that?” they asked together. Old Feng said, “The Mongol commander is conscripting blacksmiths, clearly to forge weapons. The Mongol army has always had ample weapons and equipment. If they need to manufacture large quantities now, they must be preparing to attack the Great Song southward.” The three were impressed by his eloquence and the soundness of his reasoning. They were about to ask more when Old Feng said, “What did the three of you wish to have forged?”

Yang Guo said, “Master Feng, you have urgent business of your own, and we should not trouble you. But our need is pressing, so we must impose upon your skill.” He then described the style and dimensions of the giant scissors. The object was peculiar indeed, but to their surprise, Old Feng showed no astonishment after hearing the description. He merely nodded, pulled the bellows to stoke the furnace, and placed two pieces of fine steel into the coals to smelt. Yang Guo asked, “Can it be finished tonight?” Old Feng said, “This humble one will work as quickly as possible.” With that, he pulled the bellows furiously, heating the coals in the furnace to a blazing red. They were now near the north, yet Old Feng’s speech carried a Jiangnan accent.

Shagu lay slumped across the table, half-sitting, half-lying. Yang Guo and the two young women all hailed from Jiangnan. Though they had left home young, hearing that their homeland was about to suffer calamity filled them all with somber concern. The three of them gazed at the furnace fire, each thinking that in such chaotic times, human life was cheap, and misery and hardship were everywhere. Tomorrow they would face danger of their own, but since the whole world was in the same plight, their fear and dread diminished somewhat.

After more than two hours, Old Feng finished smelting the iron. His left hand used tongs to lift the glowing iron bar onto the anvil. His right hand raised a great iron hammer and struck. Old though he was, his arm strength was considerable. He swung the hammer as though it cost him no effort at all. He hammered for a long time. They watched as he bent the two iron bars into the rough shape of a giant pair of scissors, gradually taking form. Lu Wushuang said happily, “Fool, we can get it finished tonight after all.”

Suddenly, they heard a cold voice behind them: “Forging a giant pair of scissors, to cut my whisk, is it?” The three were horrified. Turning, they saw Li Mochou standing in the doorway, gently flicking her whisk.

The weapon was not yet forged, and the deadly enemy had arrived. Cheng Ying and Lu Wushuang each drew their longswords. Yang Guo spotted an iron bar beside the furnace, ready to snatch it up the moment the enemy struck.

Li Mochou sneered. “Forging giant scissors to cut my whisk, what a clever idea, you little brats. I’ll just sit here and wait until your scissors are finished before we fight. No rush.” She dragged a bench over and sat down, as though the three of them were not even worth noticing.

Yang Guo said, “Nothing could be better. I suspect that whisk of yours is destined to be snipped in two.”

Li Mochou saw Shagu slumped over the table, her back slightly rising and falling, and thought, This woman took a direct hit from my palm and can still sit up, she is formidable indeed. She asked coldly, “Where is Huang Yaoshi?” Old Feng, hearing the name “Huang Yaoshi,” jolted. He lifted his head and glanced at her, then immediately lowered it and continued hammering. Cheng Ying said, “You know perfectly well my shifu is not here. Why ask? If you knew he had not yet left, you wouldn’t dare come, not with ten times the courage.”

Li Mochou gave a cold snort and drew a sheet of white paper from her bosom. “Huang Yaoshi deceives the world with an empty name, relying on nothing more than taking many disciples and overwhelming opponents with numbers. Hah! And among all those disciples, which one is truly worth anything?” With a flick of her wrist, she sent the paper flying. A slight movement of her arm followed, and a silver needle shot out, pinning the paper to a pillar. “Let this remain as evidence,” she said. “When Huang the Old Heretic returns, he will know who killed his two precious disciples.” She turned to Old Feng and barked, “Hurry up and finish. I haven’t the patience to wait long.”

Old Feng squinted at the white paper with his reddened eyes and read the sixteen characters: “Peach Blossom Island Master, disciples in great number, five against one, the laughingstock of the jianghu!” He raised his head and stared at the rafters, lost in thought. Li Mochou snapped, “Are you going to hurry up or not?” Old Feng lowered his head and said, “Yes, yes. Almost done, almost done.” His left hand reached out with the tongs and seized both needle and paper together, then cast them into the roaring furnace. The white paper instantly burned to ashes.

Everyone was utterly astonished. Li Mochou was enraged. She raised her whisk, about to strike him on the crown of the head, but then thought, An old blacksmith in this small town, yet so audacious, could he be someone extraordinary? She had already risen. Now she slowly sat back down. “Who are you?” she demanded. Old Feng said, “Can’t you see? I’m an old blacksmith.” Li Mochou said, “Why did you burn my paper?” Old Feng said, “What was written on it was incorrect. Better not to have it nailed up in my shop.” Li Mochou demanded harshly, “What was incorrect about it?”

Old Feng said, “The Master of Peach Blossom Island possesses abilities that reach Heaven and penetrate Earth. Any disciple who learns even a single art from him can dominate the jianghu. His first disciple, Qu Lingfeng, he moved like the wind, his martial skills unfathomably versatile, a master of the Iron Eight Trigrams Divine Skill.⁵⁴ His second disciple, Chen Xuanfeng, his entire body was bronze sinew and iron bone, impervious to blade and spear. Have you heard of them?” As he spoke, he continued hammering, blow after blow, the clanging of the iron lending force to his words.

When he mentioned Qu Lingfeng and Chen Xuanfeng, Li Mochou was startled, but Yang Guo and the others were even more taken aback. They would never have imagined that an old blacksmith in a poor, remote village would know of these figures from the Jiangnan jianghu. Li Mochou said, “Hah! According to jianghu rumor, Qu Lingfeng ‘moved like the wind’, and was killed by Imperial Guard officers. Copper Corpse Chen Xuanfeng, I heard, was stabbed to death by a mere child. What was so impressive about that? And ‘impervious to blade and spear’, what outrageous boasting!”

Old Feng said, “Mm, mm. The Master of Peach Blossom Island’s third disciple was called Mei Chaofeng. Though a woman, her finger technique was formidable and her whip technique extraordinary.” Li Mochou gave a cold laugh. “Yes, yes. This woman’s finger technique was so formidable that the Seven Freaks of Jiangnan first blinded her, and then Western Venom Ouyang Feng shattered her heart and lungs.”

Old Feng stood frozen for a long moment. Mournfully, he said, “Such things happened? I did not know. The Peach Blossom Island Master’s fourth disciple, Lu Chengfeng, his qinggong was divine, his Splitting Air Palm⁵⁵ fierce beyond compare.” Li Mochou said, “Someone had both his legs broken and could not walk, that would be this Lu Chengfeng of the ‘divine qinggong.’ Qinggong without legs, hah, all he could do was ride the wind. And as for the Splitting Air Palm being ‘fierce beyond compare’, every palm he struck hit nothing but air. That is the Splitting Air Palm of Peach Blossom Island.”

Old Feng lowered his head. Sss, sss, two drops of water fell onto the glowing iron and vanished in twin plumes of steam. Lu Wushuang was sitting closest to him and saw clearly: they were tears falling from his eyes. She was secretly astonished. The old man raised his hammer even higher, and the sound of its falling grew even louder.

After a while, Old Feng spoke again. “Lu Chengfeng was not only a master of martial arts but also skilled in the esoteric arts of qimen dunjia. If you had encountered him, you would certainly not have fared well.” Li Mochou sneered. “What use is qimen dunjia? He built a Returning Cloud Manor by the shores of Lake Tai, which the heroes of the jianghu praised as wonderfully mysterious, yet someone burned it to white ashes with a single fire. He himself has had no trace ever since, and most likely was burned to death in that very fire.”

Old Feng said, “The Master of Peach Blossom Island’s only beloved daughter serves as the Chief of the Beggars’ Guild. Chief Huang’s marvelous stratagems are unmatched. Her might shakes the world. The moment she makes a move, she would send you tumbling head over heels ten times over.” Li Mochou said, “Hah! That little Huang Rong has no real skill herself, she merely relies on her husband Guo Jing to put on a show of strength. And her position as Beggars’ Guild Chief is only propped up by her shifu, Northern Beggar Hong Qigong.”

Old Feng raised his head and said sternly, “You Daoist nun speak nonsense. Every disciple of the Peach Blossom Island Master is supremely skilled in martial arts, each ten times your superior. Do you think you can deceive a country villager who knows nothing of the world?” Li Mochou sneered. “Ask these three little brats and you’ll learn the truth.”

Old Feng turned his gaze to Cheng Ying, his eyes questioning. Cheng Ying rose and said sorrowfully, “My school has suffered misfortune. Its talents have withered. This junior entered the school late and her skills are meagre. I cannot win honor for my shifu. I am truly ashamed. Might you, Old Master, have some past connection with my shifu?” Old Feng did not answer. He studied her from head to toe and asked, “The Peach Blossom Island Master took another disciple in his later years?”

Cheng Ying looked at Old Feng’s crippled left foot, and a thought suddenly stirred in her heart. She said, “My master grew lonely in his old age and ordered this junior to attend upon him. A junior of such youth and shallow learning as myself dare not truly claim to be a disciple of Peach Blossom Island. I am merely a little maid who serves tea and water at Old Master Huang’s side. What is more, to this day, this junior has not even had the fortune to set foot on Peach Blossom Island.” By saying this, she was also acknowledging that she was a Peach Blossom Island disciple.

Old Feng nodded. His gaze was exceedingly gentle, full of a sense of kinship. He lowered his head and hammered a few more times, as though lost in thought. Cheng Ying saw his hammer trace a half-circle in the air, and when it landed on the anvil, it struck with a sideways drag, a motion strikingly similar to the Peach Blossom Falling Petal Palm technique⁵⁶ of their school. In her heart, she grew three parts more certain. She said, “When my shifu had idle moments, he would talk with this junior. He said that when he drove his disciples from the island all those years ago, Chen and Mei brought it upon themselves, that goes without saying. But the four. Qu, Lu, Wu, and Feng, were innocently caught up in it. Especially that Feng Mofeng⁵⁷, his youngest disciple brother, who had always been the most respectful and obedient, and whose life had been so pitiable. When Master thinks of him, he is often troubled and sorrowful, weeping alone, filled with deep regret. He says he wronged him terribly and only regrets that he never had the chance to make amends.”

In truth, Huang Yaoshi’s temperament was perverse. Even if he felt such things in his heart, he would never speak of them aloud. It was simply that Cheng Ying was gentle and perceptive, good at reading her shifu’s moods. When Huang Yaoshi, in his loneliness, talked with her, he would occasionally let slip a hint, and she had vaguely guessed the rest. Though her words were not a verbatim report of her shifu’s speech, they did not violate his true intent.

Li Mochou, listening to their exchange and observing their expressions, had already guessed eight or nine parts of the truth. She saw Old Feng let out a long sigh, tears streaming down like rain. As they fell onto the glowing iron. sss, sss, sss, they all turned to white mist. Even she could not help feeling a pang of sympathy. But in the space of a thought, her heart hardened once more. She thought, Even if they have gained another helper, this old blacksmith is a cripple, what help can he be? She said coldly, “Feng Mofeng, congratulations on your reunion as shixiong and sister.”

This old blacksmith was indeed Huang Yaoshi’s youngest disciple, Feng Mofeng. Years ago, when Chen Xuanfeng and Mei Chaofeng stole the Nine Yin Manual and fled, Huang Yaoshi had vented his fury on his remaining disciples, breaking their legs and expelling them from Peach Blossom Island. Qu Lingfeng had been expelled even earlier. Lu Chengfeng and Wu Gangfeng both had both legs broken. When it came to Feng Mofeng, seeing that he was young and his martial arts still weak, Huang Yaoshi had been suddenly moved to pity and broke only his left leg. Heartbroken, Feng Mofeng had travelled far to the region between the Xiang and Han rivers, earning his living as a blacksmith in this countryside, cutting off all contact with figures of the jianghu. He had lived there for more than thirty years, obscure and unknown. Never had he imagined that today he would once again hear news of his school. His very life had been saved by Huang Yaoshi, who had rescued him from the clutches of a local tyrant when he was a child. Raised from youth by his shifu’s nurturing hand, his debt of gratitude was profound beyond measure. No matter how Huang Yaoshi had treated him, he harbored no resentment. Now, hearing Cheng Ying’s words, a hundred emotions welled up in him, and sorrow surged from his heart. He said, “Little Shi-mei, is our shifu, the Old Master, in good health?” Cheng Ying said, “He is well.” Feng Mofeng said slowly, “Our shifu’s kindness is weighty as a mountain. Even if his disciple were ground to powder, he could not repay it. Since Master has spoken such words, he no longer blames me. As for making amends, there is no need. Hearing this, I can die content.”

达尔巴 – Dá’ěrbā. Golden Wheel National Preceptor’s second disciple. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
郭芙 – Guō Fú. Her name meaning “lotus”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
金轮国师 – Jīnlún Guóshī. Mongol Empire’s national teacher and martial arts adept. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
黄蓉 – Huáng Róng. Her name meaning “lotus” or “hibiscus”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
杨过 – Yáng Guò. His name meaning “fault or transgression”; his courtesy name Gaizhi means “to correct it”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
二十八宿 – Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions. Ancient Chinese system dividing the celestial sphere into twenty-eight segments, each named after a constellation. These mansions were used in traditional Chinese astronomy, astrology, and in the qimen dunjia formation arts. Names follow a pattern of animal and element associations: Horned Wood Dragon (角木蛟), Golden Dragon of the East (亢金龙), Heart Moon Fox (心月狐), Sun Rabbit of the Chamber (房日兔), Net Moon Bird (毕月乌), Wood Wolf of the Legs (奎木狼), Earth Bat of the Maiden (女土蝠), Fire Pig of the Room (室火猪). ↩ ↩²
内力 – nèilì. Literally internal force. Kinetic manifestation of cultivated qi. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
江湖 – jiānghú. Literally rivers and lakes. Term refers to the jianghu: the subculture of wandering knights-errant, martial artists, and sect members who live outside mainstream society, governed by its own codes of honour, loyalty, and vengeance. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
小龙女 – Xiǎolóngnǚ. Literally little dragon maiden. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
“After the dream, the tower stands locked and high…”. From the Song dynasty poet Yan Jidao’s lyric poem to the tune “Immortal by the River” (临江仙). Full couplet evokes the disorientation of waking from a dream or from drunkenness, not knowing what world one inhabits. Verse perfectly captures Yang Guo’s bewildered state. ↩
陆无双 – Lù Wúshuāng. Her name meaning “peerless” or “without equal”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
李莫愁 – Lǐ Mòchóu. Her name meaning “do not sorrow”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
Yelu Yan (耶律燕). Sister of Yelu Qi, a young woman of Khitan aristocratic descent whom Yang Guo encountered during his travels. ↩
完颜萍 – Wányán Píng. Her name meaning “duckweed”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
碑帖 – Calligraphy model. Literally “stele and copybook.” Traditional Chinese calligraphy is learned by copying from stone rubbing collections (bei) of famous calligraphers’ works or from handwritten copybooks (tie). Asking which model someone is copying is a cultured question that implies the person is studying calligraphy seriously. ↩
粽子 – Zongzi. Glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves, a traditional food particularly associated with Jiangnan (the region south of the Yangtze River). Zongzi from Jiaxing (嘉兴) in Zhejiang province are especially famous. Cheng Ying’s reaction reveals her Jiangnan origins. ↩
郭靖 – Guō Jìng. His name meaning “tranquillity” or “pacification”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
欧阳锋 – Ōuyáng Fēng. His name meaning “blade” or “cutting edge”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
既见君子，云胡不喜 – “Ji jian junzi, yun hu bu xi”. From the Book of Songs (诗经), specifically the poem “Wind and Rain” (风雨). Full stanza reads: “Wind and rain, gloom and darkness / The cock crows without cease / Now that I have seen this gentleman / How could I not be glad?” It expresses the joy of reunion with a loved one. Cheng Ying’s obsessive rewriting of these lines reveals her feelings for Yang Guo. ↩
无射商 – Wushe Shang. One of the twelve standard pitches (shi’er lü) in traditional Chinese music. Wushe is the eleventh pitch; Shang is one of the five pentatonic modes. Combination designates both the keynote and the mode of the piece. ↩
淇奥 – “Qi Ao”. Poem from the Book of Songs (诗经, “Guo Feng: Wei Feng”), praising a gentleman of virtue. Famous lines compare the gentleman to “carved and polished” ivory and “cut and filed” jade, metaphors for moral self-cultivation through diligent refinement. ↩
迎仙客 – “Welcoming the Immortal Guest”. Traditional qin melody used for ceremonial occasions, particularly for greeting honored guests. Its formal, restrained quality contrasts with the emotional intimacy of “Qi Ao,” which is why Yang Guo feels she is still “wearing a mask” even in her music. ↩
程英 – Chéng Yīng. Her name meaning “heroine” or “outstanding”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
黄药师 – Huáng Yàoshī. His name meaning “medicine master”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
时辰 – shíchén. Traditional Chinese unit of time equal to two hours. Day was divided into twelve shichen, each named after one of the Earthly Branches. ↩
寅时, 卯时 – Yin hour and Mao hour. yin hour is roughly 3—5 AM; the mao hour is 5—7 AM. Transition between them — “the end of yin and the beginning of mao” — corresponds to approximately 5 AM, just before dawn. This is when Li Mochou characteristically launches her attacks. ↩
外甥点灯笼，照旧 – “The nephew carries the lantern — same as before”. Chinese pun. “照旧” (zhao jiu) means “same as before,” but “照舅” (zhao jiu) is a homophone meaning “shines on the uncle.” The nephew carrying a lantern to light the way for his uncle is “shining on the uncle,” hence “same as before.” Yang Guo uses the idiom to suggest they simply flee as they have done before. ↩
奇门遁甲 – Qimen Dunjia. Ancient Chinese divination and formation art combining the principles of the Book of Changes, the Five Elements, astronomy, and calendrical systems. In wuxia fiction, it is often used to create bewildering battle formations that trap or disorient enemies. Huang Yaoshi is one of the foremost masters of this art. ↩
五毒秘传 – Wǔdú Mìchuán. Secret Manual of the Five Venoms, a handwritten compendium recording the preparation and antidotes for various poisons used by Li Mochou. ↩
流波 – “Flowing Waves”. Traditional Chinese melody. Piece’s flowing, gentle quality makes it suitable for expressing quiet contentment, which contrasts sharply with the tension of the approaching confrontation. ↩
风月无情人暗换 – “The wind and moon, heartless, had changed the people in secret”. Adapted from a line by the Song dynasty poet Ouyang Xiu. Original sentiment is that time passes mercilessly, changing people before they realize it. Li Mochou hears the same melody she once played with her lover, but everything else has changed. ↩
问世间，情是何物 – “Ask the world: what is love…”. This famous poem is “Touching the Fish” (摸鱼儿), subtitled “Wild Geese Hill” (雁丘词), by the Jin dynasty poet Yuan Haowen. ↩
五行 (Wǔxíng). “Five Elements” or “Five Phases”: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. They interact through cycles of mutual generation and mutual overcoming, forming the basis of Chinese cosmology, medicine, and strategic thought. ↩
桃夭 – “The Peach Tree Tender”. Wedding poem from the Book of Songs (诗经, “Zhou Nan”).” Cheng Ying plays this joyous wedding song as she faces death beside Yang Guo, her heart full of quiet happiness. ↩ ↩²
黄泉 – Yellow Springs. Underworld in Chinese mythology, equivalent to the Greek Hades. “The road to the Yellow Springs” is a poetic euphemism for death. ↩
摇摇摇，摇到外婆桥 – Nursery rhyme. Well-known Chinese nursery rhyme about being rocked to Grandma’s bridge and receiving treats. Its childish innocence, sung by a middle-aged woman, creates a jarring, unsettling contrast with Li Mochou’s mournful song, breaking the emotional hold of the latter. ↩
曲傻姑 – Qū Shǎgū. Daughter of Qu Lingfeng; mentally impaired but possesses formidable martial arts taught by Huang Yaoshi. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
师姊 – Shijie. “Elder shijie.” In martial arts schools, seniority is determined by order of entry into the school, not by age. Cheng Ying calls her “shijie” out of politeness and affection. ↩
曲灵风 – Qū Língfēng. Huang Yaoshi’s eldest disciple, the Wave-Striding Master. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
倒转七星步 – Dàozhuǎn Qīxīng Bù. Evasive footwork patterned on the Big Dipper. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
程咬金三斧头 – “Cheng Yaojin had only three axe-strokes”. Chinese idiom. Cheng Yaojin was a famous general of the early Tang dynasty, known in folklore for having only three powerful axe techniques. Once those three moves were seen through, he was easily defeated. Idiom describes someone whose repertoire, though initially impressive, is very limited. ↩
洪七公 – Hóng Qīgōng. Literally Hong the Seventh Lord; the numeral seven marks seniority among sworn brothers. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
杨康 – Yáng Kāng. His name meaning “health” or “peace”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
东邪 – Eastern Heretic. Huang Yaoshi’s jianghu nickname. His “heretical” nature refers to his utter contempt for Confucian social conventions and ritual propriety. ↩
周伯通 – Zhōu Bótōng. His name meaning “elder who understands all”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
Gugu (姑姑) — Literally “paternal aunt,” but used here as a term of respectful address for a young woman of the older generation. Yang Guo uses this to address Xiaolongnü, his shifu. ↩
聂隐娘传 – Kong Kong’er in the *Biography of Nie Yinniang. Legendary assassin from the Tang dynasty tale Nie Yinniang. Kong Kong’er was a master thief and assassin of such skill that he could enter any room unseen. His code of honor dictated that if he failed in an assassination attempt, he would never attempt the same target again. Huang Yaoshi, as a Great Master, follows a similar principle. ↩
弹指神通 – Tánzhǐ Shéntōng. Huang Yaoshi’s signature finger technique. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
洪凌波 – Hóng Língbō. Her name meaning “treading the waves”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
一更 – yī gēng. First of the five night watches, approximately seven to nine in the evening. ↩
三从四德 – Three Obediences and Four Virtues. Set of Confucian ethical codes for women. Three Obediences dictate that a woman should obey her father before marriage, her husband after marriage, and her son after her husband’s death. Four Virtues are morality, proper speech, modest manner, and diligent work. Huang Yaoshi’s sarcastic invocation of these reflects his lifelong contempt for Confucian orthodoxy. ↩
丈 – zhàng. Traditional Chinese unit of length, about 3.3 metres. Ten chi make one zhang. ↩
九花玉露丸 – Jiǔhuā Yùlù Wán. Peach Blossom Island healing medicine. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
铁八卦神功 – Tiě Bāguà Shéngōng. Qu Lingfeng’s signature martial art. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
劈空掌 – Pīkōng Zhǎng. Palm technique that projects neili through the air. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
桃花落英掌 – Táohuā Luòyīng Zhǎng. Huang Yaoshi’s signature palm technique. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
冯默风 – Féng Mòfēng. Huang Yaoshi’s sixth disciple, the Smith. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 15

Read previous

The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 14

Read next

The Return of the Condor Heroes Chapter 16

New chapters in your inbox

Quick reference

People

Factions

Skills

Concepts & culture

Historical

Site

Read

Explore

Community

Footnotes