Son of an old friend.

Madam Wu was at her wit’s end when she suddenly heard her husband calling out to her. She felt both joy and vexation, joy that he had finally appeared, vexation that this madman of hers had been off causing who knows what mischief, only to show up now. He came rushing towards her at top speed, his upper garment torn to shreds, still wearing around his neck the embroidered bib that He Yuanjun¹ had worn as a child. “My lady!” he called without pause. “Are you all right?” In nearly ten years, she had never seen her husband show such concern for her. Her heart swelled with gladness. “I’m here!” she called back. Wu Santong² rushed to her side, scooped up the Lu couple, one under each arm, and shouted, “Follow me, quickly!” No sooner had the words left his mouth than he sprang into the air. Ke Zhen’e³ and Madam Wu followed behind.

Wu Santong twisted and turned, running several li⁴ before leading them into a ruined kiln. It was a pottery kiln for firing wine jars, and a very large one at that. Madam Wu stepped inside and saw that her two sons, Dunru and Xiuwen, were safe and unharmed. She breathed a sigh of relief. In the kiln was a small bed, as if someone had been living there.

The Wu brothers were sitting on the ground playing with pebbles alongside Cheng Ying and Lu Wushuang. When the two girls saw the state the Lu couple were in, they threw themselves onto the pair, weeping and crying out.

Ke Zhen’e heard Lu Wushuang crying for her father and mother, and suddenly remembered Li Mochou’s⁵ words. “Aiya, this is bad!” he cried in alarm. “We’ve led the demon right to our door, that witch will be here any moment!” Madam Wu was already terrified from the battle she had just fought. “What do you mean?” she asked urgently. Ke Zhen’e said, “That witch wants to harm the Lu family’s two children, but she didn’t know where they were…” Madam Wu understood at once. “Ah, yes!” she said, horrified. “She deliberately spared us so she could follow us in secret.” Wu Santong flew into a rage. “That Scarlet Serpent⁶ witch, she haunts us like a vengeful ghost! Let me fight her!” He planted himself squarely before the kiln entrance.

Lu Liding’s⁷ skull was shattered, but there was still one matter weighing on his heart. Forcing himself to hold onto his last breath, he said to Cheng Ying, “Aying… take… take the handkerchief from my… my chest.” Cheng Ying wiped away her tears and reached into his inner garment, retrieving a brocade handkerchief. It was made of white satin, with a red flower embroidered at each of the four corners. The flowers were a vivid, dripping crimson, each set beside a leaf of emerald green. The white satin had yellowed with age, but the flowers and leaves remained as fresh and lovely as if they were real. Lu Liding said, “Aying, tie this handkerchief around your neck. You must never, ever take it off. Do you understand?” Cheng Ying did not understand his meaning, but since it was her uncle’s command, she took it and nodded her assent.

Madam Lu had been delirious with pain, but hearing her husband’s voice, she opened her eyes. “Why aren’t you giving it to Shuang’er?” she said. “Give it to Shuang’er!” Lu Liding said, “No. How could I betray the trust of her parents?” Madam Lu cried out in desperation, “You… you are so cruel! You won’t even care for your own daughter?” Her eyes rolled back, and her voice went hoarse. Lu Wushuang, not understanding what her parents were arguing about, could only cry, “Mama! Papa!” Lu Liding said gently, “My lady, you love Shuang’er. Wouldn’t it be good to let her come with us?”

The truth was that this red-flower, green-leaf brocade handkerchief was the token of love that Li Mochou had given to Lu Zhanyuan⁸ all those years ago. The red flower was the mandala,⁹ the most famous flower of the Dali Kingdom¹⁰, Li Mochou had used it to represent herself. The word for “green” (lü) sounds the same as the surname Lu,¹¹ so the green leaf represented her beloved Young Master Lu. The meaning was “red flower and green leaf, nestled together, leaning on one another.” On his deathbed, Lu Zhanyuan had foreseen that when the ten-year deadline arrived, both Li Mochou and Wu Santong would surely come to cause trouble. He had originally had a plan to deal with them, but had unexpectedly fallen gravely ill. His younger brother’s martial arts were mediocre at best and would be no match for them. In his helplessness, he had entrusted this brocade handkerchief to his brother with clear instructions: if Wu Santong came seeking revenge, avoid him if possible, if confrontation was unavoidable, they would certainly lose in a fight, but their lives would not be in danger. Li Mochou, however, had in recent years earned a fearsome reputation throughout the jianghu¹² for her ruthless cruelty, encountering her meant almost certain death. In a moment of crisis, tying this handkerchief around one’s neck might, he hoped, stir the witch’s remembrance of old affections and stay her hand. But Lu Liding was too proud to ever take out the handkerchief and beg for his life from this witch.

Cheng Ying was the daughter of Lu Liding’s wife’s brother. Her parents had entrusted her to his care before they died. He had accepted this solemn trust, and now, with his duty unfulfilled and disaster upon them, he gave the life-saving handkerchief to her. Madam Lu, after all, was a mother who loved her own child, seeing her husband disregard their biological daughter, the agony of her wounds overwhelmed her, and she fainted.

Cheng Ying, seeing her aunt distressed over the handkerchief, quickly passed it to her cousin. “Auntie said to give it to you, here, take it!” Lu Liding shouted, “Shuang’er, that belongs to your cousin. Don’t take it.” Madam Wu, perceiving the dilemma, said, “Why don’t I tear the handkerchief in two, half for each of you?” Lu Liding tried to speak again but could not draw breath, let alone utter a word. He could only nod. Madam Wu tore the brocade handkerchief in half and gave one piece to each girl.

Wu Santong stood at the kiln entrance. Hearing the crying and shouting behind him, he turned back, not knowing what had happened. Suddenly he saw that his wife’s left cheek was pitch black while the right side of her face was unchanged. Horrified, he pointed at her face and asked, “Wh-why is it like that?” Madam Wu raised a hand to her face and touched it. “Like what?” she asked. She felt that her left cheek was numb and nearly without sensation. Her heart seized with fear, she remembered that Li Mochou had touched her face just before departing. Could it be that one light stroke of that soft, fragrant hand had already delivered a deadly poison?

Wu Santong was about to ask more when he heard a voice outside the kiln, laughing: “The two little girls are in there, aren’t they? Dead or alive, just toss them out. Otherwise, I’ll set a fire and roast you all into wine jars.” The voice was like a silver bell, crisp yet soft.

Wu Santong leapt out of the kiln in a rush. There stood Li Mochou, poised and graceful. He was struck with astonishment. How can she still be so young and beautiful after ten years? When he had seen her at Lu Zhanyuan’s wedding banquet, Li Mochou had been in the full bloom of youth, not yet twenty. Now, ten years had passed, yet the woman before him, aside from having changed into Daoist robes, still had the same delicate, tender skin, just as lovely as she had been in those days. Her horsetail whisk¹³ swayed gently in her hand. Her bearing was leisurely, her beautiful eyes sparkling, her peach-blossom cheeks faintly flushed. Had he not known well that she killed without blinking, he would have taken her for a young lady of a wealthy family who had taken religious vows but kept her hair. Wu Santong saw her whisk move and suddenly remembered that he had left his weapon inside the kiln. If he went back for it, she might seize the chance to slip in and harm the children. Spotting a chestnut tree as thick as a rice bowl growing by the kiln entrance, he thrust both palms against it and, with a great shout, snapped the trunk in two.

Li Mochou gave a faint smile. “Impressive strength.”

Wu Santong held the tree trunk crosswise before him. “Miss Li,” he said, “it has been ten years. I hope you have been well.” He had called her “Miss Li” in the old days, and though she had since taken religious orders, he did not change his form of address, he used the old term still. In ten years, Li Mochou had not heard anyone call her “Miss Li.” Hearing those three words now stirred something in her heart. All at once, the tender, intimate scenes of her girlhood came flooding into her breast. But then she remembered, she could have spent her whole life at her beloved’s side, if not for the existence of another woman in this world named He Yuanjun, who had brought her heartbreak and disappointment, leaving her to a lifetime of loneliness and desolation. At this thought, the tender feelings that had surged up in that single moment transformed instantly into boundless venomous hatred.

Wu Santong, too, had had his heart broken when the woman he loved abandoned him for another. Though his circumstances differed from Li Mochou’s, they could be said to share the same affliction. Yet he had been at Lu Zhanyuan’s wedding banquet that day and had witnessed with his own eyes how she had slaughtered Old Master He the boxer and his entire household, more than twenty souls, men and women, young and old, with a brutality that still made him shudder to recall. Old Master He had never met her, bore her no grudge, and had no connection whatsoever to He Yuanjun. Simply because they shared the surname “He,”¹⁴ Li Mochou, in her grief, had wiped out the entire He family to the last person. Not one of them, even at the moment of death, ever knew why. At the time, Wu Santong had not understood the reason and had not intervened. Only afterward did he learn that Li Mochou had merely been venting her rage, nothing more than an outlet for the disappointment and venom in her heart. From that day on, he had both hated and feared this woman. Now, seeing a trace of softness flicker across her face before it hardened once more into a cold sneer, he could not help but fear for the two girls, Cheng Ying and Lu Wushuang.

Li Mochou said, “Since I left nine handprints on the Lu family’s wall, these two little girls must die. Master Wu San, please step aside.” Wu Santong said, “Lu Zhanyuan and his wife are already dead. His brother and sister-in-law have also fallen to your poisonous hand. These are just two small girls, spare them.” Li Mochou smiled and shook her head. Softly she said, “Master Wu San, please step aside.” Wu Santong gripped the chestnut tree even tighter and cried, “Miss Li, you are far too cruel. Ayuan…” The moment the name “Ayuan” left his lips, Li Mochou’s expression changed. “I once swore a heavy oath,” she said. “Whoever speaks that slut’s name in my presence, either he dies, or I do. I once destroyed sixty-three cargo ships and trading houses along the Yuan River, one after another, simply because their signs bore that foul character.¹⁵ Have you heard of this, Master Wu San? You brought this on yourself, do not blame me.” With that, her whisk swept up and came arcing down towards the crown of Wu Santong’s head.

Do not underestimate that small horsetail whisk, the sweep of it was both swift and powerful, setting the tangled hair on Wu Santong’s head dancing wildly. She knew that Wu Santong was a senior disciple of the Venerable Yideng¹⁶, though he was muddle-headed and foolish, his martial arts were truly of no common order. That was why she opened with a lethal strike. Wu Santong thrust upward with his left hand, the tree trunk sweeping out in a ferocious horizontal arc. Li Mochou saw how fierce the attack was and let her body drift back with the wind. Before he could bring the trunk’s full force to bear, she darted forward again, her whisk striking at his face. Wu Santong saw her penetrate his inner circle. His right hand shot up, a finger pointing towards her forehead. This move, Yiyang Finger¹⁷ point-striking, was not particularly fast, but it was unfathomably unpredictable, difficult to dodge and difficult to block. Li Mochou used the move “Inverted Golden Bell,”¹⁸ and in a flash her body had sprung back more than ten feet away.

Wu Santong watched her dart back and forth, advancing and retreating several times in the blink of an eye. Secretly impressed, he put all his strength into swinging the tree trunk, keeping her at bay beyond an eleven-foot distance. But the moment he showed the slightest opening, Li Mochou would close in like a flash of lightning. Had it not been for the power of his Yiyang Finger, he would have been defeated long ago. Even so, the tree trunk was heavy, and as he continued to swing it, he gradually began to tire. Li Mochou pressed ever closer. Suddenly, a blur of yellow, she had leapt onto the tip of the chestnut tree that Wu Santong held in his hands! Brandishing her whisk, she struck down from above. Wu Santong was horrified. He reversed the trunk and drove its tip violently towards the ground. Li Mochou laughed, a silvery, tinkling laugh, and came charging straight at him along the trunk. Wu Santong twisted aside, extended his arm, and thrust a finger at her. Her slender waist swayed, and she had already retreated to the tip of the trunk. Over the next several dozen moves, no matter how Wu Santong shook, smashed, swept, or pounded, she remained stuck to the chestnut tree as if glued there, riding the vibrations of the trunk to seek openings for her attacks.

This made things even more difficult for Wu Santong. Though her body was not heavy, it still added several dozen jin¹⁹ of weight to the trunk. What was more, standing on the tree, she was beyond the reach of his strikes, yet she could attack him freely, she held an invincible position. Wu Santong could see himself slipping into disadvantage. He knew that if he made the slightest mistake, his own death would be a small matter, every soul in that kiln, young and old, would perish at her hands. Summoning all his strength, he swung the trunk faster and faster, hoping that the violent spinning motion would fling her off.

They fought for a while longer. Then he heard Ke Zhen’e shouting from behind him: “Fu’er,²⁰ you’ve come too! Quick, tell the condors to bite this wicked woman!” A girl’s voice followed, calling out commands. Two white shapes plummeted from the sky, a pair of great condors, splitting left and right to attack Li Mochou from both sides. Guo Fu had arrived with the twin condors.

Li Mochou saw how fierce the condors’ assault was. She somersaulted off the chestnut tree, hooking her left foot around the trunk. The twin condors’ strike missed. They beat their wings and soared upward. The girl’s voice whistled a few more commands. The condors dove a second time, their four steel-hook iron claws tearing towards the base of the tree. Li Mochou had heard that Guo Jing²¹ and Huang Rong²² of Peach Blossom Island²³ kept a pair of great condors, creatures of considerable intelligence. Seeing the condors now coordinating their attacks, she was not particularly worried about the birds themselves, but she feared that if Guo Jing and his wife were nearby, she would be in serious trouble. She dodged several times, then, pa!, her whisk struck the female condor’s left wing. The bird screeched in pain, and several long white feathers drifted down from the sky.

Guo Fu saw her condor injured and shouted, “Don’t be afraid, Condor! Bite this wicked woman!” Li Mochou glanced at her, the girl’s skin was like jade snow, her brows and eyes like a painting. Her heart stirred. I’ve heard that Madam Guo is the most beautiful woman among the heroes of the present age. I wonder how she compares to me? Could this child be her daughter?

Her thoughts wandered, and her hand slowed for a moment. Wu Santong, seeing that even with the twin condors’ help he still could not defeat her, grew frantic. He channelled strength into both arms and suddenly hurled the tree, himself and all, into the air, flinging her skyward. Li Mochou had never imagined he would use such a bizarre move. Her feet lost contact with the trunk, and she was thrown several dozen feet high. The twin condors saw her airborne and beat their wings, swooping in to peck at her.

Had Li Mochou been on solid ground, the twin condors could not have touched her. But now she hung in midair with nothing to push against, how could she contend with flying beasts? In her desperation, she swung her whisk to protect her head and face, and with a flick of her long sleeve, three Bingpo Silver Needles²⁴ shot out in rapid succession. Two were aimed at the condors. The third flew straight at Wu Santong’s chest. The twin condors beat their wings frantically to gain altitude, but the silver needles were incredibly fast, chi, chi, one grazed the male condor’s claw, slicing through the skin.

Wu Santong was looking up when he caught a flash of silver. He threw himself to the ground and rolled aside, but the needle still pierced his left calf. He scrambled up, but his left leg would no longer obey him. His left knee buckled. He forced his neili into motion, trying to prop himself up, but the numbness had already spread through his entire leg. He pitched forward and collapsed. His hands pushed against the ground a few times, and then he lay still, unmoving.

Guo Fu shouted, “Condors! Condors! Come back!” But the twin condors had fled far away and did not turn back. Li Mochou laughed. “Little sister, is your surname Guo, by any chance?” Guo Fu saw that she was beautiful and seemed kindly, she did not appear to be a “wicked woman” at all. “Yes,” she said, “my surname is Guo. What’s yours?” Li Mochou smiled. “Come, let me take you to play.” She stepped forward slowly, reaching for the girl’s hand. Ke Zhen’e thrust his iron staff against the ground and shot out of the kiln, planting himself in front of Guo Fu. “Fu’er, get back inside!” he shouted. Li Mochou laughed. “Afraid I’ll eat her?”

Just then, a boy in ragged clothes came hopping and skipping along, a rooster clutched in his left hand, singing a rustic ditty. Seeing the crowd before the kiln, he called out, “Hey! What are you doing at my house?” He walked up to where Li Mochou and Guo Fu stood, cocked his head to look at them both, and grinned. “Tsk, tsk, the big beauty is so lovely, and the little beauty is quite pretty too. Have you two young ladies come looking for me? A fellow named Yang doesn’t have beautiful lady friends like you.” His face wore a roguish smirk, and his words were slick and flippant.

Guo Fu pursed her lips in anger. “Little beggar, who’s looking for you?” The boy laughed. “If you’re not looking for me, why are you at my house?” He pointed at the kiln, so this ruined kiln was indeed his home. Guo Fu said, “Hmph! Who’d want to come to a filthy place like this?”

Madam Wu, seeing her husband lying on the ground with no sign of life, was beside herself with worry. She rushed out of the kiln and bent over him, crying, “Third Brother, what’s wrong?” Wu Santong grunted. His back heaved a few times, but he could not rise. Guo Fu gazed into the distance but could not see the condors. “Condors! Condors! Come back!” she shouted.

Li Mochou thought to herself, The longer this drags on, the worse it gets. I’d better finish this before Guo Jing and his wife arrive. She smiled faintly and headed straight for the kiln. Madam Wu spun around to block her, brandishing her sword. “Don’t come in!” she cried. Li Mochou laughed. “This is that young brother’s residence, what business is it of yours?” Her left palm pressed directly towards the sword’s edge. Just as her palm was about to meet the blade, she tilted it slightly, and three fingers pushed against the flat of the sword. The blade reversed towards Madam Wu’s forehead, shua!, slicing her forehead open. “My apologies,” Li Mochou said with a smile. She tucked her whisk into her collar, ducked into the kiln, and seized Cheng Ying and Lu Wushuang, one in each hand. Without even turning around, she tapped her left foot lightly and sprang backward out of the kiln. In the midst of this flurry, she even found time to kick Ke Zhen’e’s iron staff out of his hands.

The ragged boy saw her wound Madam Wu and abduct the two girls. A strong sense of injustice rose within him. Hearing Cheng Ying and Lu Wushuang cry out in terror, he leapt up and threw his arms around Li Mochou. “Hey, big beauty!” he shouted. “You come to my house, hurt people, and snatch people away without so much as a word to the landlord, that’s just rude! Put them down!”

Li Mochou had a girl in each hand and had not expected this boy to wrap his arms around her. She felt a pair of arms suddenly around her ribs, and her heart jolted. For some reason, her whole body went limp. She channelled force into her palms and gave a light flick, sending the two girls flying several feet away. Then she seized the boy by the back of his collar. She was not yet thirty and still a virgin. In the years of her bitter, obsessive love for Lu Zhanyuan, she had always maintained proper decorum. Over the past decade, many men in the jianghu had been stirred by her beauty, but the moment any of them showed the slightest hint of improper desire in their expression, they usually dropped dead on the spot beneath her Scarlet Serpent Divine Palm.²⁵ Who could have imagined that today she would be embraced by this boy? The moment she grabbed him, her original intent had been to release palm force and instantly shatter his heart and lungs. But she recalled how he had just praised her beauty, his words had been sincere, and in her heart she had been somewhat pleased. Such words, spoken by a grown man, would only have earned her disgust, but coming from the mouth of a twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy, they revealed only his innocence. For a moment, her heart softened, and she could not bring herself to strike.

Suddenly, the shrill cries of condors rang through the air. The twin condors had flown back from the distance and were diving to attack once more. Li Mochou flicked her left sleeve, and two Bingpo Silver Needles shot upward. The condors had already suffered at the hands of these deadly projectiles and beat their wings to climb higher, but the needles were too swift, though the condors flew fast, the needles flew faster. The birds shrieked in terror. Li Mochou was just delighting in the thought that these hateful birds could not escape this time when she heard a sharp whistling sound, two small projectiles tore through the air with astonishing speed. She had barely registered the sound when the projectiles had already crossed the sky and knocked both silver needles to the ground.

The force of these projectiles was overwhelming, their power undeniable. Li Mochou was badly startled. She casually dropped the boy and leapt over to look, they were nothing more than two ordinary pebbles. The person who launched these stones possesses martial arts of unfathomable depth, she thought. I am no match for them. Better to avoid them for now. Her body followed her thought, her right palm shot out, striking towards Cheng Ying’s back. She intended to wound the two girls first, then plan her next move.

Just as her palm was about to touch Cheng Ying’s back, she caught a glimpse of the brocade handkerchief tied around the girl’s neck, white satin embroidered with red flowers and green leaves. It was the very token she had painstakingly embroidered all those years ago and given to her beloved. She froze. Her palm force withdrew in an instant. The tender feelings of bygone days rolled through her heart in waves. He never forgot me after all, she thought. He kept this handkerchief safe all this time. He begs me to spare his descendants, but should I spare them or not? For a moment she hesitated, unable to decide. She resolved to kill the other girl first. Her whisk flicked out, its silver strands striking towards Lu Wushuang’s back. In the glare of the sunlight, she saw that this girl, too, wore just such a handkerchief around her neck. Li Mochou let out a soft “Yi?” How can there be two handkerchiefs? One of them must be a fake. She changed her whisk from a strike to a coil, wrapping it around Lu Wushuang’s neck and pulling the girl backward towards her.

At that moment, the sound of something tearing through the air came again, a small pebble hurtling towards her back. Li Mochou heard the wind of its passage and knew how fierce it was. She quickly reversed her whisk, and the steel handle swung out, striking the pebble dead-on. A sharp pain shot through the web of her thumb. Her palm burned hot. Her entire body shook violently. The whisk nearly flew from her grasp. Not daring to linger, she scooped up Lu Wushuang and launched into her qinggong,²⁶ sweeping across the ground like a fierce wind. In the blink of an eye, she had vanished without a trace.

Cheng Ying saw her cousin taken and cried out, “Cousin! Cousin!” She ran after them. But Li Mochou’s footwork was far too swift, how could Cheng Ying possibly catch up? The Jiangnan²⁷ water country was crisscrossed with rivers and lakes everywhere. Cheng Ying ran for a while until a small river blocked her path and she could go no farther. She ran along the bank, shouting, when suddenly she saw a flash of yellow on a small bridge to her left, someone was crossing from the opposite bank. Cheng Ying had only a moment to register this before Li Mochou stood before her. But Li Mochou’s hands were empty, she no longer held Lu Wushuang.

Cheng Ying was terrified to see her return, but she gathered her courage and asked, “Where is my cousin?” Li Mochou looked at her fair skin and lovely features. Coldly she said, “With a face like yours, when you grow up, if you don’t make others heartsick, you’ll make your own heart sick. Better to die early and spare the world a good deal of trouble.” Her whisk rose, sweeping down to smash the girl’s head and chest to pulp.

But as her whisk swung behind her, poised to strike forward, her hand suddenly tightened, the tail of the whisk had been caught by something and would not swing out. Startled, she turned to look, and in that instant, her body was lifted irresistibly into the air, yanked upward by a tremendous force. The shock was beyond anything she had known. She followed the momentum, leaping backward more than ten feet into the air before landing. Her left palm guarded her chest. Neili surged through her whisk as she thrust it straight out, but there was nothing before her. Empty air. In all her life, through hundreds of battles great and small, she had never encountered anything so bizarre. A thought flashed through her mind like lightning: A demon? A ghost? She executed the move “Primal Chaos Form,”²⁸ her whisk tracing a protective circle around her body to cover a five-foot radius, and only then did she turn around.

Beside Cheng Ying stood a tall, thin man in a dark green robe. His face was utterly expressionless, he seemed alive, yet also like a corpse. The moment she laid eyes on him, an indescribable revulsion surged through her heart. Li Mochou involuntarily retreated two steps. For a moment, she truly could not think of any formidable figure in the jianghu who looked like this. She was about to question him when she heard the man lower his head and say to Cheng Ying, “Child, this woman is vicious. Go hit her.” Cheng Ying dared not move. She looked up and said, “I don’t dare.” The man said, “What is there to fear? Just hit her.” Still Cheng Ying did not dare. The man seized Cheng Ying by the back of her collar and hurled her at Li Mochou.

In such an extraordinary situation, Li Mochou dared not respond with ordinary methods. She guessed that striking with her whisk would be a poor strategy, so she extended her left hand to catch the girl. But just as her hand was about to touch Cheng Ying’s waist, she heard a chi sound, her arm suddenly went limp and weak, and she could not lift it. Cheng Ying crashed headfirst into her chest, and then, following through with a swing of her hand, pa!, crisp and clear, she slapped Li Mochou across the face.

Li Mochou had never in her life suffered such humiliation. In her mad fury, she abandoned all restraint. Her whisk reversed and came slashing down towards the top of Cheng Ying’s head, but a violent jolt shot through the web of her thumb, and the whisk handle flew upward, nearly torn from her grasp. The man had flicked another small pebble, striking the handle of her whisk. Cheng Ying, meanwhile, was already standing steadily on the ground.

Li Mochou knew she could gain no advantage today. If she did not escape quickly, her very life would be in danger. She gave a light laugh, turned, and fled. After running a few steps, she swept both sleeves backward, a shower of silver light, as more than ten Bingpo Silver Needles shot towards the strange man in the green robe. She launched these projectiles without turning around, without looking back, yet every needle was aimed at a vital point. The man was caught off guard, he had not expected her hidden-weapon skill to be so insidious and lethal. He threw himself backward in a desperate leap. The silver needles came fast, but his backward leap was faster. A series of light ding-ding-zheng-zheng sounds rang out as the needles all fell to the ground. Li Mochou had known she could not hit him, those dozen-odd needles were merely meant to force him back. The moment she heard the wind of his backward leap, she flicked her sleeve again, and one more silver needle shot straight at Cheng Ying. She knew this one could not miss. Fearing the green-robed man might come after her, she did not even turn to look. She poured speed into her feet, raced across the bridge, and vanished into the mulberry grove.

The green-robed man cried, “Aiyo!” He rushed forward and picked up Cheng Ying. A long silver needle was embedded in her shoulder. His face changed colour. After a moment’s hesitation, he lifted her in his arms and strode swiftly westward.

Ke Zhen’e and the others, seeing that Li Mochou had finally made off with Lu Wushuang, were all filled with dread. The ragged boy said, “I’ll go take a look.” Guo Fu said, “What’s there to look at? That wicked woman will kick you dead with one foot.” The boy laughed. “You kick me dead? I doubt it.” With that, he set off at a run in the direction Li Mochou had fled. Guo Fu said, “Idiot! I didn’t say I was going to kick you.” She did not understand that the boy had twisted her words to call her the “wicked woman.”

The boy ran for a while, then suddenly heard Cheng Ying’s voice in the distance, calling, “Cousin! Cousin!” He followed the sound. After running several hundred feet, he judged by the direction of the voice that he should have reached the place where Cheng Ying had called out, but there was no sign of either girl anywhere.

He turned his head and saw, scattered on the ground, more than a dozen gleaming silver needles. Their shafts were engraved with decorative patterns, exquisitely crafted. He bent down and picked them up one by one, gathering them in his left palm. Then he noticed, beside the silver needles, a large centipede lying belly-up, dead on the ground. He found this interesting. Bending closer, he saw that many ants had also died there. A few paces away, more ants were still crawling about. He took one of the silver needles and prodded a few of them. The ants circled a few times, then flipped over and died, stiff. He tried it on several more small insects, the same result.

The boy was overjoyed. These silver needles would be perfect for catching mosquitoes and flies! he thought. But then his left hand suddenly felt numb, as if it were not quite obeying him. He was jolted to awareness. The needles are poisonous! Holding them in my hand, isn’t that dangerous? He hurriedly opened his palm and dropped the needles. Both his palms had already turned black, the left one especially dark, like ink. Fear gripped him. He rubbed his hands vigorously against his thighs, but he felt the numbness in his left arm gradually climbing upward. In moments, it had reached his elbow. As a young child, he had once been bitten by a venomous snake and nearly died, the area around the bite had gone numb just like this. He knew the danger, and he could not help it, wa!, he burst into tears.

Suddenly he heard a voice behind him: “Little brat, you know you’re in trouble now, eh?” The voice was harsh and grating, as if it had crawled up from underground. The boy spun around and could not help but be startled. There stood a person, holding a wooden block in each hand, propped against the ground, upside down, head towards the earth, feet together and pointing at the sky. The boy backed away several steps. “You… who are you?” he cried.

The person pushed off the ground with both hands, and his body suddenly shot upward, leaping three feet into the air, landing before the boy. “Who… who am I?” he said. “If I knew who I was, that would be just fine.” The boy was even more terrified now. He broke into a run. Behind him he heard du, du, du, a rhythmic thumping. He looked back and nearly fainted from fright. The person was using his hands as feet, slapping the wooden blocks against the ground, walking upside down, and moving with incredible speed, now no more than a few feet behind him.

The boy quickened his pace, running for his life. Suddenly, hu!, the person vaulted over his head and landed in front of him. “Mama!” the boy screamed, and turned to flee. But no matter which direction he ran, the strange person always, hu!, leapt up and landed before him. He had two good legs, yet he could not outrun a man who walked on his hands. He changed direction several times, but the strange person pressed closer and closer. He reached out to push him away, but his arm was numb and would no longer obey him. Drenched in sweat, not knowing what to do, his legs gave way and he sat down hard on the ground.

The strange person said, “The more you run around, the faster the poison spreads through your body.” A flash of inspiration struck the boy. He dropped to his knees and cried, “Grandpa, save my life!” The strange person shook his head. “Hard to save, hard to save!” The boy said, “Your skills are so great, you can surely save me.” This flattering remark pleased the strange person immensely. He gave a slight smile. “How do you know my skills are great?” The boy heard the softening in his tone and sensed an opening. “You walk upside down and still run so fast,” he said quickly. “There’s not another person in the world who can match you.” He had tossed out this compliment casually, but the words “not another person in the world who can match you” struck the strange person right in the heart. He threw back his head and laughed, his voice shaking the treetops. “Turn upside down,” he said, “and let me have a look at you.”

The boy thought this made sense, he was standing upright while the man was upside down, so indeed they could not see each other clearly. Since the man was unwilling to stand right-side up, the only option was to turn himself upside down. He inverted himself, planting his head on the ground, bracing himself with his right hand, which still had some sensation. The strange person studied him closely for a moment, frowning and muttering to himself.

Now that the boy was upside down, he too could see the strange person’s features clearly. He had a high nose and deep-set eyes, and his face was covered with a short, grizzled beard, like silver and iron. The boy also heard him muttering strange, incomprehensible sounds, a grating, unpleasant language. Afraid the man would refuse to help him, the boy pleaded, “Good Grandpa, please save me.” The strange person saw that the boy had fine, handsome features and felt a measure of fondness for him. “Fine,” he said. “Saving you is not difficult, but you must agree to one thing.” The boy said, “Whatever you say, I’ll obey. Grandpa, what do you want me to agree to?” The strange person bared his teeth in a grin. “That’s exactly what I want you to agree to. Whatever I say, you must obey.” The boy hesitated. Obey everything he says? Even if he tells me to act like a dog eating dung?

The strange person saw his hesitation and grew angry. “Fine! Die, then!” He pulled in his hands and thrust them out again, and his body flew through the air, landing several feet away. The boy, afraid he would leave, hurried to chase after him and plead further. But he could not walk on his hands the way the man did. He flipped upright, ran a few steps, and called out, “Grandpa, I agree! Whatever you say, I’ll obey.” The strange person turned around. “Good,” he said. “Swear a heavy oath.” By now, the numbness in the boy’s left arm had spread to his shoulder, and his fear was growing by the moment. He had no choice but to swear: “If Grandpa saves my life and removes the poison from my body, I will certainly obey his words. If I disobey, may the poison return to my body.” He thought to himself, From now on, I’ll never touch those silver needles again, how could the poison return to my body? But I wonder if this strange person will accept such an oath?

He glanced sideways at the man and saw a look of satisfaction on his face. The boy secretly rejoiced. The old fellow believes me! The strange person nodded. Suddenly he flipped over, grasped the boy’s arm, and massaged it a few times. “Good, good,” he said. “You’re a good kid.” The boy felt the numbness in his arm immediately lessen under the man’s kneading. “Grandpa, do it again!” he cried. The strange person frowned. “Don’t call me Grandpa. Call me Papa!” The boy said, “My papa died long ago. I don’t have a papa.” The strange person barked, “The very first thing I say, and you won’t obey! What use is a son like you?”

The boy thought, So he wants to take me as his son. He had never seen his father’s face in his entire life. His mother had told him that his father had died before he was born. Ever since he was small, seeing other children cherished by their fathers, he had secretly envied them. But this strange person’s behaviour was so bizarre, so utterly mad, that he was most unwilling to acknowledge him as an adoptive father. The strange person shouted, “You won’t call me Papa? Fine! When other people call me Papa, I won’t even agree to it.” He suddenly emitted a string of bizarre sounds, as if chanting an incantation, and started to walk away. The boy cried out in alarm, “Papa, Papa! Where are you going?”

The strange person roared with laughter. “Good son! Come, I’ll teach you how to purge the poison from your body.” The boy drew near. The strange person said, “What you’ve been poisoned with is Li Mochou’s Bingpo Silver Needle venom. Curing it is truly no easy matter.” He then transmitted the oral formula and the method of circulating energy, explaining that the technique involved reversing the flow of qi²⁹, one had to be head-down and feet-up, with blood and qi flowing in reverse, so that the poison would exit the body through the same point where it had entered. But since the boy was a beginner learning it for the first time, he could only expel a little each day. It would take more than a month to drive out all the poison.

The boy was extremely intelligent, he grasped things at a single hint and remembered everything he heard. He immediately began practicing according to the method, and indeed the numbness lessened somewhat. After circulating his energy for a while, several drops of black fluid oozed from the tips of his fingers. The strange person said happily, “Good! No need to practice any more today. Tomorrow I’ll teach you new techniques. Let’s go.” The boy was taken aback. “Go where?” The strange person said, “You are my son. Wherever Papa goes, the son naturally follows.”

Just then, several condor cries rang through the air, the two great condors were gliding past overhead. The strange person stared blankly at the twin condors, struck his forehead with his hand, and frowned in deep contemplation. Suddenly, as if remembering something, his expression changed dramatically. “I don’t want to see them! I don’t want to see them!” he cried. He stretched out his arms and took a step forward. His arms swung alternately, the first stride was enormous, and the second carried him more than ten feet away in a combined step-and-leap. After a dozen such strides, his figure had already vanished behind the mulberry grove.

“Papa! Papa!” the boy called, running after him. He rounded a large willow tree and suddenly felt a fierce wind sweep past the back of his head, the twin condors had swooped past him from behind and landed up ahead. A man and a woman emerged from behind the willow grove, the condors perched on their respective shoulders.

The man had thick brows and large eyes, a broad chest and a trim waist. He appeared to be in his early thirties, with a faint mustache on his upper lip. The woman looked to be under thirty, with features of exquisite beauty and a pair of exceptionally lively eyes. Her gaze swept over the boy several times. “Who do you think he looks like?” she said to the man. The man studied the boy intently for a long moment. “You mean he looks like…” He spoke only four words, then did not continue.

These two were none other than Guo Jing and Huang Rong. That day, they had been making inquiries at a teahouse about Huang Yaoshi’s³⁰ whereabouts when they saw fierce flames shooting into the sky in the distance. A while later, people came running through the streets, spreading the word: “Lu Manor is on fire!” Huang Rong’s heart tightened. She recalled that the lord of Lu Manor in Jiaxing, Lu Zhanyuan, was a figure of some note in the jianghu. Though she had never met him, she had long heard of his reputation. In the jianghu, people often spoke of the two Lu family seats in Jiangnan. Guiyun Manor on Lake Tai and Lu Manor of Jiaxing. Hundreds of manors in Jiangnan were owned by families surnamed Lu, but when martial artists spoke of “the two Lu Manors,” they meant those two alone. For Lu Zhanyuan to be mentioned in the same breath as Lu Chengfeng,³¹ he could not be an ordinary man. Upon asking, they learned that the fire was indeed at Lu Zhanyuan’s home. The two of them rushed over at once. By the time they arrived, the flames had subsided somewhat, but the manor had already burned down to a smoldering shell. In the ruins lay several charred corpses, their bodies black as coal, their features unrecognizable.

“There’s something strange about this,” Huang Rong said. Guo Jing asked, “What do you mean?” Huang Rong said, “Lu Zhanyuan’s name carries considerable weight in the jianghu, and his wife, He Yuanjun, is also a renowned heroine of the present age. If this were an ordinary fire, how could no one in his household have escaped? It must have been set by enemies seeking revenge.” Guo Jing thought this over and agreed. “Right,” he said. “Let’s search around and see who set the fire and why they would resort to such vicious methods.”

The two of them circled the manor once but found no traces. Suddenly Huang Rong pointed at a half-collapsed wall. “Look, what’s that?” she cried. Guo Jing raised his head and saw several bloody handprints imprinted on the wall. The smoke had made them even more ghastly. Part of the wall had collapsed, leaving only half of two of the handprints. Guo Jing’s heart jolted, and the words escaped his lips: “Scarlet Serpent Immortal!”³² Huang Rong said, “It must be her. I’ve long heard that Scarlet Serpent Immortal Li Mochou’s martial arts are profound and her viciousness unmatched, no less than the Western Poison³³ of old. Now that she’s come to Jiangnan, this is our chance to test ourselves against her.” Guo Jing nodded. “All our friends in the jianghu say this witch is terribly difficult to deal with. If we could find Father-in-law, that would be ideal.” Huang Rong laughed. “The older you get, the smaller your courage.” Guo Jing said, “That’s true. The more you train in martial arts, the more you realise how inadequate you are.” Huang Rong laughed. “How modest Lord Guo is! I, on the other hand, feel I grow more formidable with every passing day.”

They joked between themselves, but in their hearts they remained on guard. They searched the surrounding area and found two Bingpo Silver Needles beside a pond. One needle was half-submerged in the water, and several dozen goldfish in the pond had all turned belly-up. The toxicity of these needles was truly terrifying. Huang Rong stuck out her tongue. She picked up two broken twigs to grip the needles, wrapped them carefully in a handkerchief, and tucked them into her pouch. The two of them searched farther afield, and that was when they came upon the twin condors and encountered the boy.

Guo Jing felt the boy’s face was familiar, but for the moment he could not place who he resembled. His nose suddenly caught a strange, foul odor. He sniffed a few times and felt a slight dizziness in his head. Huang Rong had smelled it too. The stench seemed to come from nearby. She turned to look and saw that the male condor had a wound on its left foot. She leaned closer to smell it, the foul odor was indeed coming from the wound. Both of them were alarmed. Examining the wound closely, they saw that although it had only grazed the surface of the skin, the injured foot had swollen to more than twice its normal size, and the flesh was already rotting. Guo Jing wondered, What kind of wound could be this severe? Then he noticed that the boy’s left hand was entirely black. “You’ve been poisoned by this too?” he exclaimed in alarm.

Huang Rong rushed over, took the boy’s hand, and looked at it. She quickly pushed up his sleeve, took out a small knife, and cut his wrist to squeeze out the poisoned blood. But the blood that flowed from the boy’s hand was bright red. She found this strange, his palm was clearly black all over, so why was there no poison in his blood? She did not know that the boy, under the strange person’s instruction, had already forced the poisoned blood towards his fingertips, temporarily halting its spread. She took a Nine-Flower Jade Dew Pill³⁴ from her pouch and said, “Chew this up and swallow it.” The boy took it in his hand. A fresh, delicate fragrance reached his nose first. He casually thanked her, put it in his mouth, and chewed. A sweet, exquisite flavor filled his mouth, and a stream of cool, refreshing energy penetrated straight to his dantian.³⁵ Huang Rong took out two more pills and fed one to each condor.

Guo Jing sank into deep thought for a long while, then suddenly opened his mouth and let out a long howl. The strange sound erupted beside the boy’s ear without warning, startling him badly. The howl travelled far into the distance, startling birds into chaotic flight in all directions, and the drooping willow branches nearby trembled and shook. Before the first howl had faded, a second followed, howl upon howl, the sound waves overlapping and compounding, like a thousand horses and ten thousand soldiers galloping into the distance.

Huang Rong knew her husband was using his voice to challenge Li Mochou. When she heard his third howl ring out, she too gathered qi in her dantian and let loose a long, clear howl. Guo Jing’s howl was powerful and grand. Huang Rong’s was clear and soaring. Their two howls intertwined, like a great roc and a small bird flying side by side, climbing higher and higher, and the small bird never once fell behind the great roc. The two of them had trained diligently in seclusion on Peach Blossom Island, and their neili had reached the realm of perfection. When their twin howls rose together, it was truly as if they soared through the Ninth Heaven, their sound carrying for several li.

The upside-down strange person, hearing the howls, quickened his pace and fled.

The green-robed stranger carrying Cheng Ying heard the howls and gave a laugh. “So they’ve come too,” he said. “I’ll go farther away, save myself the trouble.”

Li Mochou, with Lu Wushuang clamped under her arm, was racing along at top speed when she suddenly heard the howls. She stopped abruptly, flicked her whisk, and turned around. “Guo the Great Hero’s name shakes the jianghu,” she said with a cold laugh. “I’d like to see whether he truly possesses genuine skill and learning.” Then she heard a clear, bright howl rise in response. The two howls echoed and harmonized, hard and soft complementing each other, their power redoubled. Li Mochou’s heart tightened. She knew she could not match them. And then she thought, husband and wife roaming the jianghu together, supporting each other, while she was all alone. A wave of utter desolation washed over her. She let out a long sigh. She was about to abandon Lu Wushuang and leave her behind when she caught sight of the half-handkerchief around the girl’s neck. Her heart ached. She seized the girl by the back of her collar and sped away.

By this time, Madam Wu had helped her husband to his feet and, taking her two sons, had bid farewell to Ke Zhen’e and departed. Ke Zhen’e, after the fierce battle just now, feared that Li Mochou might return to harm Guo Fu. He was leading the girl away, looking for a hidden place to take shelter, when he suddenly heard the howls of Guo Jing and Huang Rong. His heart surged with joy. “Papa! Mama!” Guo Fu cried, and broke into a run.

The old man and the young girl followed the sound of the howls until they reached Guo Jing and Huang Rong. Guo Fu threw herself into Huang Rong’s arms. “Mama,” she said with a laugh, “Grand Elder just drove away a wicked woman. His venerable skills are truly tremendous.” Huang Rong naturally knew the girl was lying, but she only smiled. Guo Jing scolded, “Little child, when you speak, you must be honest.” Guo Fu stuck out her tongue and laughed. “Grand Elder’s skills aren’t tremendous? Then how could he be your teacher? That’s strange!” Afraid her father would scold her further, she ran far off and beckoned to the boy. “Go pick some flowers and weave me a flower crown!”

The boy followed her over. Guo Fu glanced at his black palm and said, “Your hands are so dirty, and the rest of you is dirty too. I won’t play with you. You’d just make the flowers stink.” The boy said coldly, “Who wants to play with you?” He strode off in great strides.

Guo Jing called out, “Little brother, don’t rush off. The residual poison in your body hasn’t been cleared, if it flares up, it’ll be terrible.” What the boy hated most was being looked down upon by others. Guo Fu’s words had stabbed at his heart. He held his head high and walked straight on, ignoring Guo Jing’s calls as if he had not heard them. Guo Jing hurried forward and blocked his path. “How did you get poisoned? Let us treat you before you go.” The boy said, “I don’t even know you. What business is it of yours?” He quickened his pace, trying to slip past Guo Jing. Guo Jing saw the resentment on his face, and something about his brows and eyes reminded him powerfully of an old friend. A thought stirred in his heart. “Little brother,” he said, “what is your surname?” The boy rolled his eyes at him, turned sideways, and tried to bolt past. Guo Jing flipped his palm and caught the boy’s wrist. The boy struggled several times but could not break free. His left fist shot out and landed heavily on Guo Jing’s abdomen.

Guo Jing smiled faintly and paid it no mind. The boy tried to pull his arm back to strike again, but his fist was sunk deep into Guo Jing’s belly and would not come out. His small face flushed crimson. He pulled with all his might until his arm ached, yet he could not escape that suction force from Guo Jing’s abdomen. Guo Jing laughed. “Tell me your surname, and I’ll let you go.” The boy said, “My surname is Ni, and my given name is Laozi.³⁶ Now let me go!” Guo Jing was deeply disappointed. He relaxed his abdominal muscles. He had no idea that the boy was actually saying his name was “Ni Laozi”, “your father”, and was taking advantage of him. The boy’s fist came free. He looked at Guo Jing and thought, Your skills are impressive, but your father here is even more impressive than his good son.

Huang Rong had seen the sly, mischievous look on his face and could not shake the feeling that he bore a strong resemblance to that person. She could not resist testing him once more. “Little brother,” she said with a laugh, “you want to be my husband’s father, wouldn’t that make you my father-in-law?” Her left hand shot out and pressed down on his right shoulder. The boy felt the force of her grip and quickly summoned his strength to resist. Huang Rong suddenly released the pressure, and the boy pitched forward involuntarily, peng!, his forehead slamming hard against the ground. Guo Fu clapped her hands and laughed. The boy was furious. He sprang to his feet, covered in dust, and backed away several steps. He was just about to spew a stream of foul curses when Huang Rong darted forward, pressed both hands on his shoulders, and gazed steadily into his eyes. Slowly, she said, “Your surname is Yang, and your given name is Guo.³⁷ Your mother’s surname is Mu, isn’t that right?”

The boy was indeed named Yang Guo. Having Huang Rong speak his name so suddenly shocked him beyond measure. Blood and qi surged up in his chest, the poison in his hand suddenly rushed backward, and his mind went blank. He fainted.

Huang Rong was alarmed. She caught him and supported his body. Guo Jing massaged him a few times. The boy’s eyes slowly opened, he had bitten through his tongue, and his mouth was full of blood. Guo Jing was both startled and overjoyed. “So… so he is the child of my sworn brother Yang Kang!”³⁸ Huang Rong saw that Yang Guo’s poisoning was extremely deep. “Let’s find an inn first,” she said quietly. “We’ll go into town and prepare some medicine.” Yang Guo asked, “You… how do you know me?” Guo Jing said, “We were friends of your mother. Where is your mother?” Yang Guo said, “My mother is dead. She died a long time ago.” Guo Jing was shaken by these words. His hand tightened involuntarily, and Yang Guo fainted again.

What had happened was this: Huang Rong had noticed that the boy’s features closely resembled Yang Kang’s. She recalled how, years ago, Wang Chuyi³⁹ had tested Mu Nianci’s⁴⁰ martial arts background at an inn in Zhongdu⁴¹, he had pressed down on her shoulder, and Mu Nianci had pitched forward instead of backward. That was the unique qi-circulation training method of Hong Qigong’s⁴² school. If this boy was Mu Nianci’s son, the martial arts he practised would follow the same lineage. Huang Rong was Hong Qigong’s disciple and knew the secrets of her school’s training methods intimately. With one test, she had indeed exposed his true identity.

Guo Jing picked up Yang Guo and, together with Ke Zhen’e, Huang Rong, Guo Fu, and the twin condors, returned to the inn. Huang Rong wrote out a prescription, and the inn attendant went to the apothecary to fill it. Most of the medicines she used were rare and obscure. Though Jiaxing was a major commercial hub, even so, they could not be gathered all at once. Guo Jing saw that Yang Guo’s intense pain showed no sign of abating and was deeply worried. Huang Rong knew that ever since the death of his sworn brother Yang Kang, her husband had carried a constant burden of guilt in his heart. Meeting Yang Kang’s son today had filled him with boundless joy, yet the boy had been struck with a deadly poison, and his fate hung in the balance. “Let’s go out and gather the herbs ourselves,” she said. Guo Jing knew that if there were even the slightest hope of a cure, she would have offered words of comfort. Seeing the gravity in her expression only made him more anxious. He instructed Guo Fu not to wander off, and the couple went out to search for medicinal herbs.

Yang Guo slept in a dazed stupor until nightfall without improvement. Ke Zhen’e came in to check on him several times but was helpless, the toxicity of his poison caltrops⁴³ was entirely different from that of the Bingpo Silver Needles, and their antidotes could not be used interchangeably. He also feared Guo Fu might slip out, so he kept coaxing her to sleep.

Yang Guo did not know how much time had passed in his stupor when he suddenly felt someone massaging his chest. He slowly came to and opened his eyes. A dark shadow flickered, someone had darted out through the window. He forced himself to stand, leaned on the table, and walked to the window to look out. There, upside down on the eaves, stood a person, head down, feet up. It was the strange person who had told him to call him “Papa” that day. The figure swayed unsteadily, as if he might fall from the roof at any moment.

Yang Guo was both surprised and overjoyed. “It’s you!” he called. The strange person said, “Why aren’t you calling me Papa?” Yang Guo called out, “Papa!” He thought to himself, You’re my son, I’ll just switch big for small and call you Papa. The strange person was very pleased. “Come up,” he said. Yang Guo climbed onto the window ledge and jumped for the roof. But his body was weak from the poison, and his strength was insufficient, his fingers missed the eaves, and he fell. “Aiyo!” he cried out in alarm.

The strange person reached out and caught him by the back of his collar, setting him gently on the roof. He flipped upright and was about to speak when he heard a soft ka from the window lattice of the western room. Realizing someone had discovered him, he scooped up Yang Guo and fled at top speed. By the time Ke Zhen’e leapt onto the roof, all was silent.

The strange person carried Yang Guo to a patch of wasteland outside the town and set him down. “Use the method I taught you,” he said. “Force out a bit more of the poison.” Yang Guo did as instructed. After about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, several drops of black blood oozed from his fingertips, and he felt a great easing in his chest. The strange person said, “You’re a very clever child, you learn as soon as you’re taught, sharper than my own flesh-and-blood son was. Ai! My child!” Thinking of his deceased son, his eyes grew moist. He stroked Yang Guo’s head and sighed softly.

Yang Guo had never had a father. His mother had also died of illness when he was eleven. On her deathbed, Mu Nianci had told him that his father had died at Iron Spear Temple⁴⁴ in Jiaxing. She instructed him to cremate her body and bury her ashes outside Iron Spear Temple, and to go seek refuge with his martial uncle Guo Jing. Yang Guo had followed his mother’s last wishes. He had travelled from Changxing⁴⁵ by Lake Tai to Jiaxing, not a long journey. After burying his mother, he had drifted through Jiaxing ever since, living in this ruined kiln, scraping by through petty thievery. Though Yang Guo was young, he was born stubborn and proud. He was unwilling to go to Peach Blossom Island to throw himself on others’ mercy and live on their charity. Mu Nianci had taught him some rudimentary martial arts, but her own skills had never been high to begin with, and Yang Guo had been so young when she died that she had really not been able to teach him much. Over these past few years, Yang Guo had faced cold stares everywhere and suffered constant bullying. This strange person, a complete stranger, had treated him so well, seeing the genuine emotion in his eyes, Yang Guo was deeply moved. He leapt up and threw his arms around the man’s neck. “Papa! Papa!” he cried. Ever since he was two or three years old, he had longed for a father who would love him and protect him. Sometimes in his dreams, a kind and heroic father would appear, but when he woke, that father was gone, and he would often cry bitterly over it. Now, the wish of so many years had suddenly been granted. In those two cries of “Papa,” all the pent-up longing of his heart poured forth. He no longer had any thought of getting the better of the man in his mind.

Yang Guo was deeply moved, but the strange person, sensing the genuine emotion in the boy’s calls, was even more overjoyed. When they had first met, Yang Guo had been forced to acknowledge him as father and had been a hundred times unwilling. Now their hearts were in communion, and they were truly as close as father and son. Each felt that if the other were in danger, he would gladly die for him. The strange person laughed and shouted with joy. “Good child, good child! Good son, call me Papa again.” Yang Guo did so twice more, leaning against him.

The strange person laughed. “Good son, come, I’ll teach you the martial art I’m most proud of.” He crouched down and made three strange sounds from his throat: gu, gu, gu. Both hands pushed forward, and, hong!, with a thunderous crash, half a wall of rammed earth before them collapsed at the strike. Dust and grit billowed everywhere. Yang Guo was dumbstruck, his tongue hanging out. Overwhelmed with shock and delight, he asked, “What kind of skill is that? Can I learn it?” The strange person said, “This is called Toad Skill.⁴⁶ As long as you’re willing to train hard, you’ll naturally learn it.” Yang Guo said, “After I learn it, will no one dare bully me anymore?” The strange person’s brows shot up. “Who dares bully my son? I’ll tear out his tendons and flay his skin! With just one push like this, no matter how many villains, you’ll send them all sprawling, unable to get up.”

This strange person, of course, was none other than Western Poison Ouyang Feng.⁴⁷

Ever since Huang Rong had driven him mad with her schemes at the Huashan Sword Summit,⁴⁸ Ouyang Feng had wandered to the farthest corners of the earth for over ten years, ceaselessly pondering: Who am I, really? Wherever the scenery seemed vaguely familiar, he would linger, hoping to find himself. He had been staying in Jiaxing these past few months for precisely this reason. In recent years, he had been practicing the Nine Yin Manual⁴⁹ in reverse, and his neili had advanced considerably. His mind had also cleared a great deal. Though he was still mad, he had gradually recovered many old memories. Only the question of who he himself was remained forever beyond his grasp.

And so Ouyang Feng now transmitted to Yang Guo the introductory mental techniques for cultivating Toad Skill. Among all the martial arts under heaven, Toad Skill was a supreme discipline. The toad as a creature first burrows deep into the earth for a long period, storing up energy, when it emerges, it needs little sustenance. Toad Skill likewise emphasized the principle of accumulating power and storing strength, which was why the cultivation of neili was extraordinarily difficult. The slightest error in practice could result in severe internal injury, even vomiting blood and death, so much so that Ouyang Feng had not even taught it to his own biological son, Ouyang Ke.⁵⁰ Now, his emotions in turmoil and his mind confused, heedless of proportion, he taught it without the slightest reservation to this newly adopted son. Yang Guo had no foundation in martial arts whatsoever. Though he memorized the introductory formulas firmly, how could he possibly grasp their essential meaning? And because he was so clever, he would impose his own interpretations on the parts he did not understand. Ouyang Feng taught for half the day, but listening to the boy’s wild tangents and nonsense, as far off the mark as a horse’s mouth on a cow’s head, he grew annoyed and raised his hand to slap him across the face. But in the moonlight, he saw the boy’s handsome, lovely features, even more beautiful than the young Ouyang Ke had been, and the slap would not come down. “You’re tired,” he sighed. “Go back and rest. I’ll teach you more tomorrow.”

Ever since Guo Fu had called him dirty, Yang Guo had conceived a loathing for her entire family. “I’ll stay with Papa,” he said. “I’m not going back.” Ouyang Feng was only confused about his own affairs. About other matters, he was not muddled at all. “There’s something not quite right with my head,” he said. “I’m afraid I might bring trouble on you. Go back for now. Once I’ve figured something out, we two, father and son, will stay together forever and never part, all right?” Since his mother’s death, Yang Guo had never in his life heard anyone speak such warm words to him. He stepped forward and took the man’s hand, choking back tears. “Then come get me soon,” he said. Ouyang Feng nodded. “I’ll follow you in secret. Wherever you go, I’ll know. If anyone bullies you, I’ll break his ribs into seventy or eighty pieces.” He picked up Yang Guo and carried him back to the inn.

Ke Zhen’e had come looking for Yang Guo earlier. Not finding him in bed, he had searched around the inn but could not locate him and had grown very anxious. When he came to check a second time, Yang Guo had already returned. He was about to ask where the boy had been when he heard the sound of wind sweeping across the roof, someone was leaping overhead. He recognized that two people with extremely high martial arts were passing across the rooftop. He quickly carried Guo Fu over and laid her on the bed beside Yang Guo, then stood guard at the window with his iron staff, fearing the two might be enemies who would return. Sure enough, the sound of wind came back from the distance, and in a flash, they were on the roof again. One voice said, “Look, who’s that?” The other said, “Strange, strange, could it really be him?” It was Guo Jing and Huang Rong.

Ke Zhen’e relaxed. He opened the door and let them in. Huang Rong said, “Grand Master, is everything all right here?” Ke Zhen’e said, “Everything’s fine.” Huang Rong said to Guo Jing, “Could we have been mistaken?” Guo Jing shook his head. “No, nine chances out of ten it was him.” Ke Zhen’e said, “Who?” Huang Rong tugged at Guo Jing’s sleeve, signaling him not to say. But Guo Jing could not bring himself to deceive his shifu. “Ouyang Feng,” he said. Ke Zhen’e had hated this man more than anyone in his life. The mere mention of the name made his face change colour. “Ouyang Feng?” he said in a low voice. “He’s not dead?” Guo Jing said, “Just now, when we were returning from gathering herbs, we saw a figure flash past the side of the house, the movement was both fast and strange. We gave chase immediately, but he had already vanished. It looked very much like Ouyang Feng.” Ke Zhen’e knew that Guo Jing was always steady and reliable, never speaking lightly. If he said it was Ouyang Feng, it could not be anyone else.

Guo Jing, worried about Yang Guo, took a candleholder and went to the bedside to check on him. He saw that the boy’s face was rosy, his breathing even, and he was sleeping soundly. Overjoyed, he cried, “Ronger, he’s better!” Yang Guo was actually feigning sleep. He had been listening with closed eyes to the three of them talk. He had vaguely gathered that his adoptive father’s name was “Ouyang Feng,” and that these three were clearly quite wary of him. He secretly rejoiced.

Huang Rong came over to look and was greatly puzzled. Earlier, she had clearly seen the poison spreading up the boy’s arm, after all these hours, it should only have grown darker and more swollen. Yet the poison had actually receded. It was truly bizarre. She and Guo Jing had searched for half the day but had been unable to gather all the necessary herbs. She crushed the few they had found, squeezed out the juice, and fed it to him, also giving the male condor a few spoonfuls of the medicinal liquid.

The next morning, Guo Jing and his wife saw that Yang Guo was more lucid and energetic, and the blackness on his palm had greatly faded. They were very pleased. They asked about the circumstances of his mother’s death. Yang Guo said, “My mother coughed for months on end. She took medicine, but it didn’t help. Later she started coughing up blood. I was so anxious, I could only cry. My mother said she wasn’t going to get better. She told me that after she died, I should cremate her body and bury her beside the Iron Spear Temple outside Jiaxing, she said that was where my father was buried…” Guo Jing’s heart was heavy with sorrow. He sighed. Yang Guo continued, “A few days later, my mother finally died. I burned her body to ashes, wrapped them up, and asked people along the way until I found Iron Spear Temple in Jiaxing. I dug a grave outside the temple and buried my mother’s ashes. Before she died, my mother told me to find my way to Peach Blossom Island and look for Uncle Guo and Auntie Guo…”

Guo Jing said, “I am your Uncle Guo.” He pointed to Huang Rong. “She is your Auntie Guo.” Yang Guo called out, “Uncle Guo! Auntie Guo!” He did not know whether he ought to kowtow. Guo Jing and Huang Rong acknowledged him. They reflected that although Peach Blossom Island was not terribly far from Changxing, where Mu Nianci had lived, it was not exactly close either. They had been unwilling to leave the island and re-enter the jianghu, and so had never gone to visit or care for their old friend. They felt considerable guilt. It was fortunate that they had encountered the son of an old friend, from now on, they would properly look after him and raise him to adulthood. Huang Rong said, “Why didn’t you come to Peach Blossom Island to find us?” Yang Guo said, “Mother told me that when I got to Peach Blossom Island, I had to be careful in everything, obedient and well-behaved, and not offend anyone. I figured I wouldn’t starve to death here anyway, so… heh heh… so I didn’t come!” Guo Jing felt only sadness, but Huang Rong, hearing this, understood that the boy simply did not want to be careful in everything, obedient and well-behaved, that was why he had not come to Peach Blossom Island.

That day, Guo Jing and his wife, together with Ke Zhen’e, took the two children and left Jiaxing, heading southeast. They decided to return to Peach Blossom Island first and cure Yang Guo’s poison injury. That evening, they stopped at an inn. Ke Zhen’e shared a room with Yang Guo. Guo Jing and his wife shared a room with their daughter.

In the middle of the night, Guo Jing and his wife heard a ka sound from the rooftop, followed by Ke Zhen’e’s loud shout from the adjacent room as he smashed through the window and leapt out. Guo Jing and Huang Rong sprang up and rushed to the window. On the rooftop, Ke Zhen’e was locked in fierce combat with someone, fighting barehanded. The opponent was tall and long-limbed, unmistakably Ouyang Feng. Guo Jing was horrified, fearing that Ouyang Feng might take his Grand Master’s life in a single move. He was about to leap up and help when he saw Ke Zhen’e let out a great cry and tumble off the roof. Guo Jing flew forward and, just as Ke Zhen’e’s head was about to strike the ground, caught him gently by the back of the collar, lifted him up, and then set him down softly. “Grand Master, are you hurt?” he asked. Ke Zhen’e said, “I won’t die. Go quickly and cut off Ouyang Feng.” Guo Jing said, “Yes.” He leapt onto the roof.

On the rooftop, Huang Rong’s twin palms were dancing as she fought fiercely with this old adversary whom she had not seen in over ten years. Her martial arts had advanced greatly over the years, her neili had strengthened, and her palm strikes had grown even more subtle and ingenious. In over ten moves, Ouyang Feng had been unable to gain any advantage.

Guo Jing called out, “Master Ouyang, I trust you have been well since we last met.” Ouyang Feng said, “What did you say? What did you call me?” His face was a mask of confusion. He focused only on defending against Huang Rong’s attacks, a vague sense stirring in his mind that the two characters “Ou-yang” had some extremely intimate connection to himself. Guo Jing was about to speak again when Huang Rong, seeing that Ouyang Feng’s madness had not healed, quickly cried, “Your name is Zhao Qian Sun Li, Zhou Wu Chen Wang!”⁵¹ Ouyang Feng was stunned. “My name is Zhao Qian Sun Li, Zhou Wu Chen Wang?” Huang Rong said, “That’s right. Your name is Feng Zheng Chu Wei, Jiang Shen Han Yang.” She was reciting surnames from the Hundred Family Surnames.⁵² Ouyang Feng’s mind was already confused. Having her rattle off several dozen surnames in one breath left him half-believing, half-doubting, and even more bewildered. “Who are you?” he asked. “Who am I?”

Suddenly he heard a great shout from behind him: “You are the Old Poison who murdered my five good brothers!” Ouyang Feng heard the words “Old Poison” and something seemed to click. He was about to ponder this further when an iron staff came crashing down, it was Ke Zhen’e. He had been forced off the roof by Ouyang Feng’s palm force earlier but had not been injured. He had gone inside to retrieve his iron staff and returned to fight. Guo Jing shouted, “Shifu, be careful!” Ke Zhen’e’s iron staff smashed down, now less than a foot from Ouyang Feng’s back, but with a hu sound, the staff rebounded. Ke Zhen’e could not hold on. The iron staff flew from his hands, and his body followed, tumbling into the courtyard.

Guo Jing knew that although his teacher had fallen, it was not serious. But if Ouyang Feng seized the momentum to press his attack, the follow-up moves would be devastating. “Watch this!” he called. His left leg bent slightly, and his right palm traced a circle as it pushed forward, this was “The Proud Dragon Repents,”⁵³ from the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms.⁵⁴ He had practised this move diligently day and night without cease. Even when he first learned it, it had been extraordinary. With more than ten years of bitter training added, it had truly reached the realm of pure perfection. When first pushed out, it seemed light and effortless, but the moment it met resistance, it could, in the space of an instant, layer on thirteen successive bursts of power, each stronger than the last, overlapping and compounding, simply unstoppable, unbreakable. This was a sublime state he had comprehended from the Nine Yin Manual. Even Hong Qigong in his prime, considering this single move alone, had not achieved such profound mastery.

Ouyang Feng had just sent Ke Zhen’e crashing off the roof when he felt a faint breeze brush against his face. Though the wind was not strong, it already made breathing difficult. He knew this was trouble. He quickly crouched down and pushed both palms forward, using the skill he was most proud of in all his life: Toad Skill. Three palms met. Both men’s bodies shook. Guo Jing’s palm force surged, wave after wave, crashing forward like a raging tide. Ouyang Feng let out a strange ge-ge cry from his throat. His body swayed back and forth as if he might topple at any moment, but the more Guo Jing’s palm force intensified, the more Ouyang Feng’s counterforce grew in response.

The two had not crossed hands in over ten years. Now, reunited in Jiangnan, they tested each other once more. In the Huashan Sword Summit of old, Guo Jing had been no match for Ouyang Feng. But in the years since, he had advanced with fierce determination, and his martial arts had reached great maturity and completeness. Ouyang Feng, though he had practised the manual in reverse and gained his own insights, was still, one following the orthodox path, the other the inverse, ultimately orthodox prevailing over inverse. By this encounter, Guo Jing could now stand shoulder to shoulder with him, neither able to overcome the other. Huang Rong wanted her husband to win by his own strength, so she only watched from the sidelines and did not join the attack.

Southern rooftops were very different from northern ones. In the north, roofs had to withstand the weight of winter snow and ice, so they were exceptionally solid. But south of the Huai River, rooftops were made of overlapping tiles, prioritizing lightness and convenience. Guo Jing and Ouyang Feng pressed against each other with their palm forces, strength channeling into their legs. After about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, they heard creaking and groaning beneath their feet. Suddenly, kalala!, with a thunderous crash, several rafters snapped at once. A great hole opened in the roof, and both men plunged through.

Huang Rong was horrified. She jumped through the hole after them and saw the two still locked palm-to-palm, their feet resting on several rafters, which were pressing down on an inn guest. The man had been deep in pleasant dreams. How could he have known that calamity would fall from the sky? Both his legs were broken, and he howled in agony. Guo Jing could not bear to harm the innocent and dared not put force into his feet. Ouyang Feng, however, cared nothing for the lives of bystanders. The two had originally been evenly matched, but because Guo Jing’s footing was unstable and his palms had nothing to borrow force from, he gradually fell into disadvantage. He was using one palm against the enemy’s two, and though his entire body’s strength was concentrated in his right palm, his left palm, though free, had no strength left to use. Huang Rong saw her husband’s body tilting slightly backward, though the retreat was only a matter of half an inch or a fraction, he was clearly losing. “Hey!” she called out. “Zhang San Li Si, Confused Turtle Bastard, watch this!” She sent a light, drifting palm strike towards Ouyang Feng’s shoulder.

: 寸 – cùn. A traditional Chinese unit of length, about 3.3 centimetres. Ten cun make one chi.

Though this palm strike appeared light, it was an advanced technique of the Falling Blossom Divine Sword Palm⁵⁵, landing on an enemy’s body, the force would penetrate straight to the internal organs. Even a first-rate expert like Ouyang Feng would be injured. Ouyang Feng heard her call him by yet another strange name and was momentarily baffled. Then he suddenly saw her attack coming. He pushed forward with both palms, forcing Guo Jing’s palm force back half a foot, and in that lightning-flash instant, seized Huang Rong’s shoulder. His five fingers hooked like claws, ready to tear a chunk of flesh from her.

The moment this grab landed, all three were shocked at once. Ouyang Feng felt a sharp pain in his fingertips, he had grabbed the spikes of her Soft Hedgehog Armor.⁵⁶ He released his grip in a panic. At that very instant, Guo Jing’s palm force arrived again. Ouyang Feng swung his palm back to meet it. In the crisis, both put forth their full strength, peng!, and both were hurled backward simultaneously. Dust and grit flew everywhere. Walls collapsed and the roof caved in. It turned out that both had used hard palm strikes in that final exchange. Unable to see each other clearly in the darkness, the tremendous force of the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms and Toad Skill had both landed on the other’s shoulder. The two men burst through the wall, and half the roof collapsed. Huang Rong’s shoulder had taken that grab, though she was not injured, her face had gone pale with fright. In the chaos, just as the roof was about to cave in completely, she shot out at an angle. She saw Ouyang Feng and Guo Jing standing about five feet apart, motionless, both had clearly suffered internal injuries.

Huang Rong had no time to attack the enemy. She immediately took up a position beside her husband to guard him. She saw the two men close their eyes and regulate their breathing. Wa, wa, almost simultaneously, both spat out a mouthful of blood. Ouyang Feng cried, “Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms, heh, impressive! Impressive!” He laughed wildly and strode away, vanishing without a trace in the blink of an eye.

By now, the inn was in utter chaos, with people shouting for their fathers and mothers. Huang Rong knew they could not stay here any longer. She took her daughter from Ke Zhen’e’s arms and said, “Shifu, carry Jing-gege. Let’s go!” Ke Zhen’e hoisted Guo Jing onto his shoulder and limped northward. After walking for a while, Huang Rong suddenly remembered Yang Guo, she had no idea where the boy had fled. But her concern for her husband’s severe injuries took precedence. Other matters would have to wait.

Guo Jing was fully conscious, but Ouyang Feng’s palm force had blocked his qi, and he could not speak. On Ke Zhen’e’s shoulder, he regulated his breathing and circulated his energy through his meridians. After they had travelled about seven or eight li, his meridians cleared. “Grand Master,” he said, “I’m all right now.” Ke Zhen’e set him down. “Are you sure?” he asked. Guo Jing shook his head. “Toad Skill is truly formidable!” Seeing his daughter sleeping soundly on her mother’s shoulder, his heart seized. “Where’s Guoer?” he asked. Ke Zhen’e could not think for a moment who “Guoer” was and stared blankly, unable to answer. Huang Rong said, “Don’t worry. Let’s find a place to rest first. I’ll go back and look for him.”

By now, dawn was approaching, and the trees and houses along the road were becoming dimly visible. Guo Jing said, “My injury isn’t serious. Let’s all go look for him together.” Huang Rong frowned. “That child is clever enough, no need to worry about him.” Just as she spoke, she saw a small head poke out from behind a white wall by the roadside, then quickly withdraw. Huang Rong darted over and grabbed him, it was Yang Guo. “Auntie Guo!” he called with a grin. “You’ve only just arrived? I’ve been waiting here for ages.” Many doubts swirled in Huang Rong’s heart, but she only answered casually, “Good. Come with us.”

Yang Guo smiled and followed behind. Guo Fu opened her eyes and asked, “Where did you go?” Yang Guo said, “I went to catch crickets. Now that was fun.” Guo Fu said, “What’s so fun about that?” Yang Guo said, “Hmph, who says it’s not fun? A big cricket was fighting an old cricket. The old cricket was losing, so two little crickets came to help, three against one. The big cricket hopped all over the place, kicking here, biting there, heh heh, it was really something…” He stopped there and said no more. Guo Fu had been listening, entranced. “What happened next?” she asked. Yang Guo said, “You said it wasn’t fun, why are you asking me?” Guo Fu had been rebuffed and was very angry. She turned her head away and ignored him.

Huang Rong had understood that his words were clearly taking Ouyang Feng’s side, mocking her and her husband and Ke Zhen’e. “Tell Auntie,” she said, “who won in the end?” Yang Guo smiled and said lightly, “I was just getting to the good part when you all showed up, and the crickets all ran away.” Huang Rong thought to herself, Like father, like son, indeed. She could not help feeling a bit vexed.

As they talked, the group arrived at a village. Huang Rong sought an audience with the master of a large estate. The master was very hospitable. Hearing that someone was injured and ill, he quickly ordered the servants to prepare a side room to receive them. Guo Jing ate three large bowls of rice, then sat on the couch, closed his eyes, and rested. Huang Rong saw that her husband’s breathing was calm and his spirit settled, and she knew the danger had passed. She sat beside him, keeping watch. Reflecting on everything that had happened since they met Yang Guo, she felt that although the boy was young, there were many strange and puzzling things about him. But if she questioned him in detail, he would probably not tell the truth. She decided she would simply keep a careful eye on his actions. The day passed without incident. After the evening meal, everyone retired to their rooms.

Yang Guo shared a room with Ke Zhen’e. In the middle of the night, he quietly rose. He heard Ke Zhen’e snoring loudly, sleeping soundly, so he opened the door and slipped out. He walked to the wall, climbed a sweet osmanthus tree, leapt up, grabbed the top of the wall, and dropped down lightly on the other side. Two dogs outside caught his scent and began to bark. Yang Guo had come prepared, he took out two meat bones he had hidden during the day and tossed them over. The dogs seized the bones and chewed vigorously, immediately falling silent.

Yang Guo got his bearings and headed southwest. After about seven or eight li, he arrived at Iron Spear Temple. He pushed open the temple door and called, “Papa, I’m here!” A grunt answered from within, it was Ouyang Feng’s voice. Yang Guo was overjoyed. He felt his way to the offering table, found a candleholder, and lit the stub of a candle. Ouyang Feng was lying on several rush cushions before the deity statues, his expression weary, his breathing weak. His injuries were similar to Guo Jing’s, but Guo Jing was in the prime of life and recovered quickly, while Ouyang Feng was older and his vitality had already declined considerably.

The previous night, Yang Guo had been sharing a room with Ke Zhen’e at the inn when Ouyang Feng had come to see him in the middle of the night. Ke Zhen’e had awakened immediately and begun fighting with Ouyang Feng. Afterward, Huang Rong and Guo Jing had joined the battle in succession, and Yang Guo had watched from the sidelines the entire time. Finally, Ouyang Feng and Guo Jing had both been injured, and Ouyang Feng had fled. In the chaos, Yang Guo had seen that no one was paying attention to him and had quietly followed Ouyang Feng. At first, Ouyang Feng had moved extremely fast, and Yang Guo naturally could not keep up. But later, as his injuries took hold and every step became a struggle, Yang Guo caught up and supported him to rest by the roadside. Yang Guo knew that if he did not return, Huang Rong, Ke Zhen’e, and the others would surely come looking for him, and he feared bringing disaster upon his adoptive father. He had arranged with Ouyang Feng to meet at Iron Spear Temple. This temple held great significance for both of them, so they understood each other at once. Yang Guo had waited alone by the main road and, after reuniting with Guo Jing and the others, had not come to visit until the middle of the night.

Yang Guo took seven or eight steamed buns from his bosom and placed them in Ouyang Feng’s hands. “Papa, eat,” he said. Ouyang Feng had gone hungry all day, afraid to go out and encounter enemies. He had hidden in the temple the entire time, enduring. After eating a few buns, his spirits revived somewhat. “Where are they?” he asked. Yang Guo told him everything.

Ouyang Feng said, “That fellow Guo took a palm strike from me, he won’t recover within seven days. His wife has to tend to her husband and won’t dare leave his side. Right now, we only need to worry about Ke the Blind. If he doesn’t come tonight, he’ll come tomorrow. It’s just a pity I don’t have a shred of strength left. Ai, it seems I killed some brothers of his. I can’t remember if it was four or five…” He broke into a violent coughing fit.

Yang Guo sat on the ground, chin propped on his hands, his small head spinning with ideas. Suddenly he thought, I’ve got it! I’ll set some sharp things on the floor. If that old blind man comes in, I’ll make sure he gets hurt first. He took four candleholders from the offering table, pulled out the old candles caked with years of dust, and placed the candleholders at the entrance. He left the temple door slightly ajar, then moved an iron incense burner, climbed up, and set it on top of the door.

He looked around, thinking of more traps to set. He saw that in the eastern and western side halls, a great iron bell hung in each. Each bell was so large that three people with arms linked could not encircle it, they must have weighed over a thousand jin. At the top of each bell was an extremely thick iron hook connected to a frame of massive timber. Iron Spear Temple had fallen into disrepair over the years, crumbling and dilapidated, but the great bells and their timber frames were both sturdy and still perfectly intact. Yang Guo thought, If that old blind man comes, I’ll climb up onto the bell frame, he’ll never find me.

Holding a candleholder, he was about to go to the rear hall to find a weapon for self-defence when he heard du, du, du from the main road, the rhythmic striking of an iron staff against the ground. He knew Ke Zhen’e had arrived. He quickly blew out the candle, then remembered: The blind man can’t see, I didn’t need to blow it out. So he let the candle stay lit and placed the holder on the offering table. The du-du-du sound grew closer and closer. Ouyang Feng suddenly sat up, gathering every last shred of strength in his body into his right palm, ready to strike first and kill the blind man with one blow. Yang Guo picked up another candleholder, its iron prong facing outward, and stood guard beside Ouyang Feng, thinking, Though my martial arts are meager, I must at least help Papa fight that old blind man.

Ke Zhen’e had originally known that his martial arts were far, far inferior to Ouyang Feng’s, he could never match him. But he had heard Guo Jing and Huang Rong say that Ouyang Feng had been severely injured in their palm exchange and could not have gone far. Iron Spear Temple was nearby, and it was a place Ouyang Feng had frequented in the past. Ke Zhen’e guessed that Ouyang Feng would not dare lodge with civilians and would most likely be hiding in the temple. Remembering how his five sworn siblings had died cruelly at this man’s hands, and that today he had this chance for revenge, how could he let it slip? In the middle of the night, he had softly called, “Guoer! Guoer!” Hearing no answer, he assumed the boy was sleeping soundly and did not even go near to check. He climbed over the wall and left. The two dogs were still gnawing on the bones Yang Guo had given them. Seeing him come out, they only whimpered a few times but did not bark.

He made his way slowly to Iron Spear Temple and cocked his ear to listen. Sure enough, there was the sound of breathing inside. “Old Poison!” he shouted. “Ke the Blind has come for you! If you’ve got the guts, come out!” He struck the ground with his iron staff. Ouyang Feng feared losing the qi in his dantian and did not dare make a sound.

Ke Zhen’e called out several times but heard no response. He raised his iron staff and smashed open the temple door, then stepped inside. Hu!, a heavy object came crashing down on his head. At the same moment, his left foot stepped onto the iron prong of a candleholder, which pierced through the sole of his boot, sending a sharp pain through the centre of his foot. For an instant, he could not comprehend what was happening. He swung his iron staff, dang!, with a deafening clang, knocking the iron incense burner aside. Then he rolled on the ground to keep the iron prong from driving deeper into his foot. But there were more candleholders nearby, he felt a stab of pain in his shoulder as another prong pierced his flesh. He grabbed the candleholder with his left hand and pulled it out. Blood gushed forth. Not daring to be careless now, he listened for the sound of Ouyang Feng’s breathing and crept forward step by step, the soles of his feet scraping against the ground. When he was three feet away, he raised his iron staff high and shouted, “Old Poison, what do you have to say for yourself now?”

Ouyang Feng had already channelled what little strength remained in his body into his right arm. The moment the iron staff came down, he would strike out with his palm simultaneously, taking the blind man down with him. Ke Zhen’e knew his enemy was severely wounded, but he did not know exactly how severe the injuries were. His staff hung in the air,迟迟不落 — he hesitated to strike, wanting Ouyang Feng to make the first move, which would reveal how much strength he had left. The two faced each other in stalemate, neither moving.

Ke Zhen’e heard the heavy sound of Ouyang Feng’s breathing. Suddenly, in his mind, he heard the voices of his sworn brothers, Zhu Cong, Han Baoju, Nan Xiren⁵⁷, as if they were urging him in unison to strike quickly. He could hold back no longer. With a great roar, he executed the move “The King of Qin Wields the Whip,”⁵⁸ bringing his iron staff crashing down towards Ouyang Feng’s head. Ouyang Feng shifted his body slightly and was about to release his palm strike, but his arm had only extended half a foot when his breath failed him, and it dropped limply. Peng!, with a thunderous crash, sparks flew everywhere as the head of the iron staff shattered several floor tiles.

Ouyang Feng had dodged in time. Ke Zhen’e’s first strike missed, and the second followed immediately, the iron staff swept horizontally at Ouyang Feng’s midsection. On an ordinary day, Ouyang Feng could have deflected it with a light tug, sending the staff flying from Ke Zhen’e’s hands, or at the very least leapt over it. But now his entire body was weak and limp. He could not muster the slightest strength. He could only roll on the ground to evade. Ke Zhen’e unleashed his Demon-Subduing Staff techniques,⁵⁹ each move faster than the last. Ouyang Feng’s dodges grew slower and more sluggish, until finally Ke Zhen’e’s move “Pestle Subdues the Yaksha”⁶⁰ struck his left shoulder.

Listening from the side, Yang Guo’s heart pounded and his flesh jumped. He wanted to rush forward and help his adoptive father, but he knew his own martial arts were too meager, he would only be throwing his life away.

Ke Zhen’e landed three consecutive staff strikes on Ouyang Feng’s body. Today, Ouyang Feng was fated to suffer this calamity. Fortunately, his neili was profound, though he had no strength to fight back, he could still retreat and neutralize, deflecting the force of each blow aside. His skin was torn and his flesh split open, but his sinews, bones, and internal organs remained unharmed. Ke Zhen’e marveled secretly. This Old Poison’s abilities are truly extraordinary. Every strike clearly lands, yet it always slides off his body, nine-tenths of the force is dissipated. He thought, His skull can’t possibly use soft techniques to slide off my staff force. So he channelled his staff into a whirlwind, every move aimed at Ouyang Feng’s head.

Ouyang Feng dodged his head aside several times, but in an instant, his body was enveloped in the wind of the staff. He groaned inwardly. If one of those staff strikes landed on his head, how could he keep his life? In his helplessness, he took a desperate gamble, he suddenly threw himself into Ke Zhen’e’s chest and seized him by the lapels. Ke Zhen’e was horrified. His iron staff was outside, unable to strike the enemy. He could only reach out and grapple in return. The two of them tumbled to the ground together.

Ouyang Feng dared not let go. He held fast to his opponent’s chest and reached with his left hand to twist at Ke Zhen’e’s waist. Suddenly his hand touched something hard. He grabbed it urgently, it was a sharp knife. This was the Butchering Ox Knife,⁶¹ the weapon Zhang Asheng⁶² had always used. Despite its name, it was not actually used for butchering oxen. The blade could cut through metal and jade, it was incomparably sharp. Zhang Asheng had died at the hands of Chen Xuanfeng⁶³ in the Mongolian desert. Ke Zhen’e, cherishing the memory of his sworn brother, kept this knife on his person at all times, never parting with it for a moment. Ouyang Feng, grappling at close quarters, pulled it out. His left hand curved around, and he raised the knife to stab it into his enemy’s flank. But at that very instant, Ke Zhen’e released his iron staff and swung his right fist, peng!, sending Ouyang Feng tumbling head over heels. Stars danced before Ouyang Feng’s eyes. In his daze, he flung the knife at his enemy. Ke Zhen’e heard the wind of its passage and dodged aside. Dang!, the sound of the bell rang out, humming endlessly. The knife had struck the iron bell in the hall. Ouyang Feng’s throw had little strength behind it. The blade glanced off the bell and slid away, embedding itself in the wooden pillar of the bell frame. The blade quivered, humming.

Yang Guo was standing beside the bell. The knife had flown past his face, nearly slashing his cheek. His heart pounded with fear. He scrambled up the bell frame as fast as he could. Ouyang Feng quietly stood up, circled behind the bell, and held his breath. The bell was still ringing, and Ke Zhen’e could not immediately discern where Ouyang Feng’s breathing was coming from. He cocked his head, listening intently. In the dim candlelight of the great hall, Yang Guo saw Ke Zhen’e’s wild white hair and his posture as he leaned on his staff, listening. Yang Guo perceived the critical point. He pulled out the Butchering Ox Knife and struck the bell with its handle, dang!, drowning out both men’s breathing.

Ke Zhen’e heard the bell and lunged forward, swinging his staff horizontally. Ouyang Feng dodged aside, and the staff struck the iron bell, dang!, with a deafening crash that made the ears ring. Yang Guo felt a dull ache in his eardrums. Ke Zhen’e’s temper flared. He swung his iron staff and struck the bell again and again, before one peal had faded, the next had begun, growing louder and louder. Ouyang Feng thought, If he keeps this up, even though Guo Jing is injured, Huang Rong will probably come to help. Taking advantage of the deafening bell, he lightened his steps and tried to slip out through the rear hall. But Ke Zhen’e’s hearing was extraordinarily acute, even amid the thunderous clanging of the bell, he could still distinguish the faintest sounds. He heard Ouyang Feng’s footsteps moving and pretended not to notice, continuing to hammer the bell wildly. He waited until Ouyang Feng had taken several steps and was farther from the bell, then suddenly lunged forward and brought his staff down towards Ouyang Feng’s head.

Ouyang Feng may have lost his strength, but he had weathered countless storms in his life, how could he not understand the feints and stratagems of combat? The moment he saw Ke Zhen’e’s right shoulder twitch, he knew his intent. Before the iron staff could swing out, he had already fled back behind the bell. Though his severe injuries had made every step a struggle, now, with his life hanging by a thread, he drew from the depths of decades of profound neili a surge of power he himself did not know he possessed. Ke Zhen’e was furious. “Even if I can’t beat you to death, I’ll exhaust you to death!” he shouted, and circled the bell in pursuit.

Yang Guo watched the two of them chase each other around the iron bell. If this went on much longer, his adoptive father would surely run out of strength. Seeing how desperate the situation was, a plan suddenly came to him. He climbed onto the bell frame and waved his arms wildly, making exaggerated gestures. Ouyang Feng was fully focused on dodging his enemy’s pursuit and did not notice. After two more circles, he finally saw Yang Guo’s shadow cast on the ground, the boy was signaling him to leave. He did not immediately understand, but thought, Since he’s telling me to leave, there must be a reason. He took the risk and dashed towards the outside.

Ke Zhen’e stopped and stood still, trying to determine which direction his enemy had fled. Yang Guo pulled off both his shoes and threw them towards the rear hall, pa, pa, they landed on the floor. Ke Zhen’e was baffled. He had clearly heard Ouyang Feng heading for the main door, how could there be sounds from the rear hall? In that moment of hesitation, Yang Guo raised the Butchering Ox Knife and hacked at the crossbeam from which the iron bell hung. The beam was extremely thick, and Yang Guo’s strength was slight, though the blade was sharp, how could a few frantic chops cut through it? But the iron bell was tremendously heavy. After several gashes had been cut into the beam, it could no longer bear the weight of the great bell. Kalala, with a series of cracks, the crossbeam snapped. The great iron bell, carrying a fierce gust of wind, came crashing straight down towards the crown of Ke Zhen’e’s head.

Ke Zhen’e had already heard a strange sound from above and was wondering what it could be when the great bell came plummeting down. There was no time to flee. In his desperation, he thrust his iron staff straight up, dang!, with a thunderous crash, the rim of the bell caught on the staff. That single instant of resistance gave him just enough time to roll out from under the bell. But then, ka, peng, peng, hong!, a series of crashes followed as the great bell, having struck the iron staff, toppled and rolled, slamming violently into Ke Zhen’e’s leg and hurling him out through the temple gate. He tumbled head over heels several times, his nose bleeding and a large gash opened on his forehead. Ke Zhen’e, unable to see, had no idea what had caused this calamity. Fearing there might be other strange enemies in the hall, he scrambled to his feet and limped away.

Ouyang Feng had watched from the side, and even he was somewhat alarmed. “A pity, a pity!” he kept saying. Then: “Good child, how clever!” Yang Guo climbed down from the bell frame. “That blind man won’t dare come back now,” he said happily. Ouyang Feng shook his head. “That man’s hatred for me is deeper than the sea. As long as he draws breath, he will certainly return.” Yang Guo said, “Then let’s leave quickly.” Ouyang Feng shook his head again. “I’m too badly injured, I can’t get far.” Now that the immediate danger had passed, he felt as if every bone and joint in his body were about to come apart. He truly could not take a single step. Yang Guo said anxiously, “Then what do we do?” Ouyang Feng was silent for a long moment. “There is a way,” he said at last. “Cut through the crossbeam of the other bell and lower it over me.” Yang Guo said, “But how will you get out?” Ouyang Feng said, “I’ll train under the bell for seven days. Once my primal energy is restored, I can lift the bell and come out on my own. During those seven days, even if Ke the Blind comes back for revenge, with his paltry abilities, he won’t be able to lift this great bell. As long as that girl Huang Rong doesn’t come, no one is likely to see through the trick. If Huang Rong comes, then all is lost.”

Yang Guo thought it over and realized there truly was no other way. He confirmed that Ouyang Feng could indeed open the bell by himself without anyone’s help, then asked, “You won’t have anything to eat for seven days, will you be all right?” Ouyang Feng said, “Go find a basin or bowl, fill it with clean water, and put it beside me. There are still several steamed buns here, eating them slowly, I can hold out for seven days.”

Yang Guo went to the kitchen and found an earthenware bowl. He washed it clean, filled it with water, and placed it beneath the other bell, which still hung high. Then he helped Ouyang Feng sit properly beneath the bell. Ouyang Feng said, “Child, go ahead and follow that fellow Guo. Someday I will surely come find you.” Yang Guo agreed. He climbed onto the bell frame, cut through the crossbeam, and the great iron bell descended, covering Ouyang Feng within.

Yang Guo called “Papa” several times but heard no answer from Ouyang Feng. He knew his father could not hear sounds from outside the bell. He was about to leave when a thought struck him. He went to the rear hall and fetched another earthenware bowl, filling it with clean water. He placed the bowl on the ground, then turned himself upside down, dipped his left hand into the water, and, following the reverse-meridian method Ouyang Feng had taught him, forced out some of the poisoned blood from his hand. But this technique was extremely taxing, and he had only learned the barest rudiments. Though he managed to squeeze out only a dozen or so drops of black blood, he was already drenched in sweat. After resting for a while, he tore down several cloth banners from in front of the deity statues, wrapped them around a divination-stick holder, dipped it in the bloody water in the bowl, and smeared it all over the outside of the bell. If Ke the Blind comes again and tries to pry open the bell, he thought, the moment his palm touches the bell’s surface, he’ll be poisoned for sure.

Then it occurred to him, his adoptive father was sealed inside the bell. He mustn’t suffocate during those seven days. He used the sharp knife to dig at the green bricks beneath the rim of the bell, gouging out a hole the size of a fist for ventilation. As he dug, the knife struck a hard stone beneath the bricks, pa!, and snapped in two. The Butchering Ox Knife was incomparably sharp, but its blade was thin. Yang Guo had been using it like a chisel, digging and gouging recklessly, and a treasured blade had been ruined. He had no idea how precious the knife was. Since it wasn’t his anyway, he felt no regret. He tossed it aside casually, lay flat on the ground, and called into the hole beneath the bell: “Papa, I’m going now. Come get me soon. I’ve dug a hole by the bell’s edge for air. The outside of the bell is poisonous, be careful when you come out.” Then he turned his head and pressed his ear to the hole. He heard Ouyang Feng’s faint voice: “Good child, I’m not afraid of poison, poison is afraid of me. Take care of yourself. I will certainly come for you.”

Yang Guo stood silently for a long while, reluctant to leave. At last, he ran swiftly back to the estate where they were staying. He was anxious and fearful as he climbed the wall, afraid Ke Zhen’e would discover him. But when he entered the room, he found that Ke Zhen’e had not yet returned, which was beyond his expectations.

Early the next morning, he suddenly heard someone pounding on the door with a stick, peng, peng, peng! Yang Guo jumped out of bed and opened the door. There stood Ke Zhen’e, holding a wooden staff, his face ashen. The moment he stepped through the door, he pitched forward and collapsed on the floor. Yang Guo saw that both his hands were black, he had indeed gone looking for Ouyang Feng again and had finally fallen victim to the poison Yang Guo had laid. Secretly delighted, Yang Guo feigned alarm and shouted, “Grandpa Ke! What’s wrong?”

Guo Jing and Huang Rong heard the cries and rushed over. Seeing Ke Zhen’e on the floor, they were shocked. By now, Guo Jing could walk, but he had no strength. Huang Rong helped Ke Zhen’e onto the bed. “Grand Master, what happened?” she asked. Ke Zhen’e shook his head and did not answer. Huang Rong saw the blackness on his palms. “That vile woman Li again!” she said bitterly. “Jing-gege, let me go deal with her.” She tightened her belt and strode towards the door.

“It wasn’t that woman,” Ke Zhen’e said in a low voice. Huang Rong stopped and turned back, surprised. “Oh? Then who was it?” Ke Zhen’e felt that he could not even handle a person with no strength to truss a chicken, and had instead come back injured, he was utterly useless. His nature was rigid and proud, and he would not speak a single word about the cause of his injury. Guo Jing and Huang Rong knew his temperament, if he wanted to tell them, he would, otherwise, the more they asked, the angrier he would get. Fortunately, the poison had only affected his skin and was not severe. He had merely fainted temporarily. After taking a Nine-Flower Jade Dew Pill, he was fine.

Huang Rong considered the situation. With Guo Jing and Ke Zhen’e both injured, and Li Mochou’s viciousness and cunning unfathomable, the safest course was to first escort the two wounded men and two children to Peach Blossom Island, then come back later to settle accounts with Li Mochou. They rested at that family’s home for the morning, and in the afternoon hired a boat to travel east. Yang Guo, seeing that Huang Rong was not going after Ouyang Feng, secretly rejoiced. He also thought, Papa is very afraid of Auntie Guo coming after him. Could it be that Auntie Guo, a delicate, beautiful woman like her, is even more formidable than Ke the Blind?

The boat travelled for half a day. As evening approached, they moored at the bank, and the boatman washed rice to prepare the evening meal. Guo Fu, seeing that Yang Guo was ignoring her, felt both angry and bored. She leaned against the boat window and gazed outside. Suddenly, beneath the shade of the willows, she saw two small children weeping bitterly. From their appearance, they were none other than the brothers Wu Dunru and Wu Xiuwen. Guo Fu shouted, “Hey! What are you doing?” Wu Xiuwen turned and saw it was Guo Fu. “We’re crying, can’t you see?” he sobbed. Guo Fu said, “What for? Did your mother beat you?” Wu Xiuwen wept, “Our mother is dead!”

Huang Rong asked, “Who is their mother?” Guo Fu said, “They’re Uncle Wu’s and Auntie Wu’s sons.” Huang Rong had already learned that Wu Santong and his wife had helped resist Li Mochou, and that Wu Santong was a disciple of their benefactor, Master Yideng. Alarmed, she leapt ashore.

She saw the two children weeping piteously beside their mother’s body. Madam Wu’s face was entirely black, she had been dead for some time. Huang Rong asked about Wu Santong’s whereabouts. Wu Dunru wept, “Papa has gone off somewhere, we don’t know where.” Wu Xiuwen said, “Mama sucked the poison from Papa’s wound, she sucked out so much black blood. Papa got better, but Mama died. When Papa saw that Mama was dead, his mind went muddled again. We called to him, but he ignored us and just walked away.” He began crying again. Huang Rong thought, Madam Wu gave her life to save her husband, she was truly a woman of righteousness and courage. “You must be hungry,” she said. The two brothers nodded without stopping.

Huang Rong sighed. She ordered the boatman to bring them aboard for a meal, then went into town and bought a coffin to lay Madam Wu to rest. It was too late to bury her that night, so they waited until the next morning to find a grave site and inter the coffin. The Wu brothers threw themselves on the ground before the grave and wept bitterly.

Guo Jing said, “Ronger, these two children have lost both parents. Let’s take them to Peach Blossom Island. It’ll mean more trouble for you to look after them.” Huang Rong nodded her agreement. She comforted the Wu brothers, and they boarded the boat, sailing to the coast. There they hired a larger vessel and set out eastward for Peach Blossom Island. Huang Yaoshi had been away from the island for a long time. Guo Jing and Huang Rong had settled there and no longer harmed people recklessly, so the nearby boatmen no longer feared Peach Blossom Island as a dragon’s pool or a tiger’s den.

何沅君 – Hé Yuánjūn. Her name meaning “Yuan River lord”; 沅 names the Yuan River and 君 means lord or gentleman. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
武三通 – Wǔ Sāntōng. His name meaning “three penetrations” or “three communications”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
柯镇恶 – Kē Zhèn’è. His name meaning “subduing evil”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
里 – lǐ. Traditional Chinese unit of distance, approximately one-third of a mile or five hundred metres. ↩
李莫愁 – Lǐ Mòchóu. Her name meaning “do not sorrow”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
赤练 – Chìliàn. Scarlet Serpent, a highly venomous snake native to China; Li Mochou’s epithet draws on this imagery of deadly beauty. ↩
陆立鼎 – Lù Lìdǐng. His name meaning “establishing the tripod”, a metaphor for laying a stable foundation. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
陆展元 – Lù Zhǎnyuán. His name meaning “spreading the origin”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
曼陀罗花 – Màntuóluó Huā. Mandala or datura flower, famed in the Dali Kingdom. Li Mochou used the red flower to represent herself on the love token handkerchief. ↩
大理 – Dàlǐ. Historical kingdom in present-day Yunnan Province (937–1253), contemporaneous with the Song dynasty. In the Condor Trilogy it is associated with the Duan imperial family and Great Master Yideng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
绿/陆 – lǜ/lù. In Chinese, 绿 (green) and 陆 (the surname Lu) are near-homophones, differing only in tone. This wordplay is central to the handkerchief’s symbolism. ↩
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. ↩
拂尘 – fúchén. Horsetail whisk: a handle with long, soft fibres attached. In Daoism it is a symbol of spiritual authority, and in wuxia fiction it is often wielded as a flexible weapon capable of entangling and disarming opponents. ↩
何 – Hé. Surname He. Li Mochou massacred Old Master He’s household solely because they shared He Yuanjun’s surname, illustrating the irrational depths of her obsession. ↩
沅江 – Yuán Jiāng. Major river in Hunan Province. Li Mochou destroyed sixty-three businesses along its banks because their signs bore the character 沅, which also appears in He Yuanjun’s name. ↩
一灯大师 – Yīdēng Dàshī. Literally one-lamp master; a Buddhist honorific title. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
一阳指 – Yīyáng Zhǐ. Literally One Yang Finger. Dali Duan family’s signature finger technique. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
倒打金钟 – Dào Dǎ Jīnzhōng. Inverted Golden Bell, a martial arts manoeuvre involving a sudden backward leap or reversal of position, named after the image of striking a golden bell from the opposite direction. ↩
斤 – jīn. Traditional Chinese unit of weight, approximately one pound or half a kilogram. ↩
郭芙 – Guō Fú. Her name meaning “lotus”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
郭靖 – Guō Jìng. His name meaning “tranquillity” or “pacification”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
黄蓉 – Huáng Róng. Her name meaning “lotus” or “hibiscus”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
桃花岛 – Táohuā Dǎo. Huang Yaoshi’s island stronghold, continued from LOCH era. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
冰魄银针 – Bīngpò Yínzhēn. Li Mochou’s signature hidden weapons, silver needles coated with a deadly poison. Name Soul-Freezing reflects both their cold appearance and their lethal effect. ↩
赤练神掌 – Chìliàn Shénzhǎng. Li Mochou’s palm technique, infused with poison. Name links her palm strikes to her serpentine nickname, suggesting that her very touch is as deadly as a venomous snake’s bite. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
轻功 – qīnggōng. Literally lightness skill. Martial art of body lightness; masters can leap great heights and move with extraordinary speed. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
江南 – Jiāngnán. Prosperous region south of Yangtze River, continued from LOCH era. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
混元式 – Hùnyuán Shì. Primal Chaos Form, a defensive martial arts technique that creates a protective circle around the practitioner, drawing on the concept of primordial chaos as an undifferentiated, all-encompassing state. ↩
气 – qì. Vital energy or life force that circulates through the body. In martial arts, qi cultivation is the foundation of neili. ↩
黄药师 – Huáng Yàoshī. His name meaning “medicine master”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
陆乘风 – Lù Chéngfēng. His name meaning “riding the wind”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
赤练仙子 – Chìliàn Xiānzǐ. Literally scarlet chain immortal. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
西毒 (Xī Dú). “Western Poison,” the martial name of Ouyang Feng. One of the Five Greats of the previous generation, known for his mastery of poison and his Toad Skill. He was Yang Guo’s godfather, having taken the boy under his wing during a period of madness. ↩
九花玉露丸 – Jiǔhuā Yùlù Wán. Nine-Flower Jade Dew Pill, a renowned healing elixir created by Huang Yaoshi from nine flowers gathered with morning dew. It is effective against a wide range of poisons and injuries. ↩
丹田 – dāntián. Cinnabar field, a key energy centre in the body in Daoist internal alchemy and Chinese martial arts. Lower dantian, below the navel, is the primary centre for storing and cultivating qi. ↩
你老子 – nǐ lǎozi. Pun: 倪 (Ní) is a real surname, but 你老子 means your father, an insult. Yang Guo is cleverly insulting Guo Jing while pretending to give his name. ↩
杨过 – Yáng Guò. His name meaning “fault or transgression”; his courtesy name Gaizhi means “to correct it”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
杨康 – Yáng Kāng. His name meaning “health” or “peace”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
王处一 – Wáng Chùyī. His name meaning “dwelling in oneness”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
穆念慈 – Mù Niàncí. Her name meaning “cherishing kindness”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
中都 – Zhōngdū. Central Capital, present-day Beijing during the Jin dynasty. ↩
洪七公 – Hóng Qīgōng. Literally Hong the Seventh Lord; the numeral seven marks seniority among sworn brothers. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
毒蒺藜 – Dú Jílí. Poison caltrops, Ke Zhen’e’s signature hidden weapons, coated with a different type of poison than Li Mochou’s silver needles. ↩
铁枪庙 – Tiěqiāng Miào. Iron Spear Temple in Jiaxing, named after the iron spear of the Five Dynasties general Wang Yanzhang. It is where Yang Kang met his death. ↩
长兴 – Chángxīng. County near Lake Tai in Zhejiang Province, where Mu Nianci lived and raised Yang Guo. ↩
蛤蟆功 – Hámá Gōng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
欧阳锋 – Ōuyáng Fēng. His name meaning “blade” or “cutting edge”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
华山论剑 – Huàshān Lùnjiàn. Literally sword discussion at Huashan. Use of discussion is key as the participants were engaged in a martial arts exchange and a philosophical debate on mastery, rather than just a physical contest. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
九阴真经 – Jiǔyīn Zhēnjīng. Nine Yin Manual, the most comprehensive martial arts text in the Condor Trilogy, containing the accumulated wisdom of countless masters. ↩
欧阳克 – Ōuyáng Kè. Ouyang Feng’s nephew (actually his illegitimate son). He was a skilled but lecherous martial artist who died during the events of The Legend of the Condor Heroes. ↩
赵钱孙李，周吴陈王 – Zhào Qián Sūn Lǐ, Zhōu Wú Chén Wáng. Opening lines of the Hundred Family Surnames, a classic Chinese text listing common surnames. Huang Rong is deliberately confusing Ouyang Feng by reciting random surnames. ↩
百家姓 – Bǎijiāxìng. Classic Chinese text composed during the Song dynasty, listing over 400 common Chinese surnames in rhyming verse. It was traditionally used to teach children to read. ↩
亢龙有悔 – Kàng Lóng Yǒu Huǐ. Proud Dragon Repents, the first and most famous move of the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing. Name comes from the Book of Changes, hexagram 1 (乾), top line: a proud dragon will have cause to repent, warning against excessive pride. ↩
降龙十八掌 – Xiánglóng Shíbā Zhǎng. Signature martial art of the Beggars’ Guild, mastered by Hong Qigong and Guo Jing, and among the most powerful external martial arts in the wulin. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩
落英神剑掌 – Luòyīng Shén Jiàn Zhǎng. Falling Blossom Divine Sword Palm, a palm technique created by Huang Yaoshi, named for its flowing, petal-like movements that conceal deadly force. It is one of Peach Blossom Island’s signature martial arts. ↩
软猬甲 – Ruǎn Wèi Jiǎ. Soft Hedgehog Armour, a protective garment made of interlocking metal plates covered with sharp spikes, worn under clothing. It was passed down through Huang Rong’s family and has saved her life many times. ↩
朱聪、韩宝驹、南希仁 – Zhū Cōng, Hán Bǎojū, Nán Xīrén. Three of the Seven Freaks of Jiangnan, Ke Zhen’e’s sworn brothers. All except Ke Zhen’e were killed by Ouyang Feng and Yang Kang at Peach Blossom Island. ↩
秦王鞭石 – Qín Wáng Biān Shí. King of Qin Wields the Whip, a staff technique named after the legendary King of Qin (Qin Shi Huang), who was said to have used a magic whip to drive stones into the sea to build a bridge. ↩
伏魔杖法 – Fúmó Zhàngfǎ. Ke Zhen’e’s signature staff technique, wielded through his iron crutch with devastating effectiveness despite his blindness and lameness. ↩
杵伏药叉 – Chǔ Fú Yào Chā. Pestle Subdues the Yaksha, a staff technique named after the Buddhist imagery of subduing yakshas (malevolent nature spirits) with a ritual pestle. ↩
屠牛刀 – Tú Niú Dāo. Butchering Ox Knife, Zhang Asheng’s signature weapon. Despite its humble name, it is a blade of exceptional quality, capable of cutting through metal and jade. ↩
张阿生 – Zhāng Āshēng. Laughing Buddha, the fifth of the Seven Freaks of Jiangnan. He died in the Mongolian desert at the hands of Chen Xuanfeng while protecting Guo Jing. ↩
陈玄风 – Chén Xuánfēng. Copper Corpse, a renegade disciple of Huang Yaoshi who, with his wife Mei Chaofeng, stole the Nine Yin Manual and became infamous for their brutal martial arts. ↩

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