The Heavenly Sword & the Dragon Sabre Chapter 5 Part 1

Pale arms like jade with plum blossom adornment.

The Qiantang River¹ swept round in a great arc before the Six Harmonies Pagoda,² then flowed eastward. The tower stood some distance from the capital, and swift as Zhang Cuishan’s³ feet were, the sky had darkened to near-black by the time he reached the pagoda.

Beneath three ancient willows on the tower’s eastern flank, exactly as promised, a small flat-bottomed boat lay tethered. The river craft differed markedly from the pleasure boats of West Lake,⁴ for they carried sails and ran far larger, yet this vessel bore two pale-green paper lanterns at its bow, identical in every way to the one he had glimpsed the previous night.

His heart began to race. He steadied himself, approached the willows, and there, seated alone at the bow beneath the lantern’s glow, was the young woman. She had changed into the silken robes of her sex, a pale green shirt, and was no longer disguised.

Zhang Cuishan had come fully resolved to demand answers about last night’s business. Yet now, seeing her transformed, he found himself hesitant. Suddenly he heard her raise her voice in recitation, “Clasping knees upon the prow, hoping to meet my guest; the gentle breeze troubles the water, and I drift as though intoxicated.”

He called out clearly, “I am Zhang Cuishan. I have questions, and beg your indulgence in my boldness.”

The young woman replied, “Please, come aboard.”

He stepped lightly onto the prow.

“The night was dark,” she said, “heavy clouds obscured the moon. Tonight the sky clears, the clouds disperse.”

Her voice was crystalline and lovely; as she spoke, her gaze remained fixed upward, never once meeting his.

“Forgive me,” Zhang Cuishan ventured, “but might I ask your honourable family name?”

At this she turned sharply, her bright eyes flashing toward him for an instant, but she offered no reply. Struck by her exquisite beauty, his face flushed crimson. Unable to press further without impropriety, he leapt back to the shore and walked away slowly.

After perhaps a dozen paces, his feet stalled.

Zhang Cuishan, Zhang Cuishan, he thought bitterly to himself, what are you afraid of? Are you a man of courage in the jianghu,⁵ to be so easily defeated by a slip of a girl?

Without delay he turned, only to see the boat drifting toward the river’s deeper currents, its green lantern reflected in the water, rippling with each undulation. He did not hesitate now. Following the riverbank, he kept pace as she rowed, one upon the water, one upon the shore, the distance between them neither too great nor too small. She remained seated at the bow, her eyes lifted toward the heavens.

They proceeded thus for some distance. Zhang Cuishan found himself following her gaze, and saw the sky’s edge darkening with gathering clouds. Before long these had obscured the moon, the wind rose sharply, and rain began to fall. The shore was bordered only by open grassland; there was nowhere to shelter, not that Zhang Cuishan desired to shelter. The rain was gentle at first, but it fell steadily, and he soon found himself drenched to the skin. The young woman, sitting at the bow, was equally soaked.

“Miss,” he called, “please take shelter within the cabin.”

The girl started at once, issuing a surprised gasp before quickly composing herself.

“Are you not afraid of the rain?” she asked. As she spoke, she withdrew into the cabin. After a moment she emerged carrying an oiled-paper umbrella, which she tossed toward him.

Zhang Cuishan caught it and unfurled it. It was a fine instrument, painted with a scene of West Lake, its waters, mountains, and willow trees, and adorned with seven characters: “Where neither wind nor rain nor clarity prevails.”⁶

West Lake umbrellas were renowned throughout the realm for their artistry. The painting bore unmistakably the hand of a skilled craftsman, though it possessed that peculiar coarseness common to commissioned work. Yet those seven characters were not the work of a tradesman at all. They bore the refined, delicate stroke of a genteel maiden’s brush, their elegance utterly transcendent.

As Zhang Cuishan examined the calligraphy whilst walking, his attention divided, his foot suddenly found nothing where the earth should have been. A drainage channel lay hidden in the darkness. As his left foot dropped into the void, a lesser man would have stumbled. He pushed hard with his right leg, launching himself upward in a graceful leap that carried him cleanly across the trench. He heard the girl cry out, “Excellent!”

Turning, he saw her atop the boat, a small straw hat upon her head, her robes billowing about her like some immortal maiden descended to the mortal realm.

“Do the painting and characters please your eye, young Master Zhang?” she asked. Zhang Cuishan was a man whose interests lay more in calligraphy than painting.

“This script follows the methods of Lady Wei,”⁷ he replied. “The brushwork throughout possesses remarkable subtlety. One might say it attains depths infinite and refinement abundant.”

Hearing her own technique so precisely divined, the young woman was delighted.

“The worst character among them all,” she said, “is the word for ‘neither’ itself.”

Zhang Cuishan studied the offending character carefully.

“It is charmingly natural,” he observed, “but it lacks a certain weight of meaning. The other characters seem to overflow with resonance, yet this one stands somehow apart.”

Her face brightened with understanding. “Ah, now I perceive it! I have puzzled over this character endlessly, never quite understanding what troubled me, yet you have revealed it at once.”

Her boat drifted onward. Zhang Cuishan followed along the bank. As they conversed of calligraphy and painting, neither noticed when night fell utterly black, and soon the darkness was such that neither could discern the other’s features. Then the young woman spoke, “To hear you speak once is worth ten years of study. I am grateful for your instruction. Farewell.”

She pulled the sail taut, caught the wind, and the boat shot forward with impressive speed. Zhang Cuishan stood motionless, watching the vessel recede into the darkness, seized by an inexplicable melancholy. Then, from across the widening distance, he heard her voice call, “My surname is Yin… We shall meet again, and I shall ask more of you…”

When he heard the words “My surname is Yin”, a memory struck him like lightning. Could it be? he thought. Did Du Dajin⁸ not mention entrusting my third shixiong⁹ to a young master surnamed Yin? Could this woman be that same person, merely disguised?

At this realisation, all propriety fell away. He began to pursue. Fast as the boat was, it could not match his qinggong.¹⁰ Drawing near, he called out clearly, “Miss Yin, do you know my third shixiong, Yu Daiyan?”¹¹

The young woman turned, but offered no response. Zhang Cuishan thought he heard a faint sigh cross the distance between them, though he could not be certain, so great had the separation grown.

“I confess myself bewildered,” he continued, “and pray you will grant me clarity.”

“Must you truly know?” she replied. “Tell me truly, was it you who entrusted my third shixiong to the Dragon Gate Armed Escort¹²? If so, Zhang Cuishan owes you a debt beyond measure.”

“Good intentions do not always yield good outcomes,” she said quietly.

“My third shixiong was gravely wounded at the foot of Mount Wudang.¹³ Did you know this?” For a long moment she did not answer. When she spoke at last, her voice trembled. “I… I am grieved beyond words. My heart… I cannot bear what has befallen him.”

As they spoke, the wind grew fiercer still, and the boat’s pace quickened.

“You have pursued me all this way,” she said. “What is it you wish to know?”

“Were you the one who killed the men of the Dragon Gate Armed Escort?” The young woman’s voice became cold and measured. “That night I spoke plainly to Du Dajin. I instructed him to care well for Yu the Third Xia, or face the consequences.”

“You said you would kill his men,” Zhang Cuishan pressed.

“Precisely. He failed to protect Yu the Third Xia. That is his failing, not mine.”

At these words, Zhang Cuishan felt ice flood through his veins. “Then they… all of them…”

“All of them were killed by me,” she confirmed. The roar of his own blood filled his ears. He could scarcely fathom that this ethereal creature, so exquisite in form and feature, could be a reaper of such terrible efficiency. Only after a long silence could he speak again. “What of the two Shaolin monks?”

“I killed them as well. I had no wish to entangle myself with their affairs, but they struck first with poisoned darts. They have only themselves to blame.”

“Then… why did you allow people to believe that I was responsible?”

“Ah, that,” she said, a note of satisfaction in her tone, “was a carefully laid snare.”

Zhang Cuishan’s anger flared. “You and I have no quarrel! Why would you betray me so?”

The young woman made a dismissive gesture and withdrew into the cabin. But Zhang Cuishan would not be so easily dismissed. Though the distance had grown too great to leap, he snapped off two willow branches from the bank, cast them into the water, and used them as stepping-stones to vault onto the bow.

“How,” he demanded, “did you construct this trap?”

From the darkened cabin came no answer. Zhang Cuishan prepared to enter, then hesitated. To force his way into a young woman’s private quarters was unthinkable. Behaviour most improper and ungentlemanly. As he wrestled with this constraint, light suddenly bloomed within the cabin. The young woman had lit a candle.

“Please,” she said, “come inside.”

Zhang Cuishan smoothed his robes and closed the umbrella before entering. Within stood what appeared to be a young scholar, dressed in a green silk tunic, holding an open fan, bearing himself with all the confidence and poise of a gentleman. The resemblance to himself was, he realised with astonishment, quite marked. The girl had resumed her male disguise. He had been about to speak, but the words died upon his tongue.

In the candlelight’s uncertain glow, the similarity was undeniable. Small wonder that Monk Huifeng and Du Dajin had been so completely deceived.

“Please be seated, Zhang the Fifth Xia,” she said. She lifted a teapot and poured a cup with careful courtesy, extending it to him. “We have no wine here, alas, so I offer tea in its place, a humble welcome for an honoured guest.”

Hearing such politeness in her address, much of Zhang Cuishan’s anger dissolved.

“My thanks,” he said. Observing that he was soaked to the skin, she spoke again, “There are clothes of mine in the back cabin. Should you wish to change into dry garments, you may do so there.”

Zhang Cuishan shook his head. Instead, he drew upon his neili¹⁴ and sent a current of cultivated qi rising from his dantian.¹⁵ His body temperature spiked, and the moisture in his robes began to steam away in visible wisps.

“The neigong¹⁶ of the Wudang lineage has long been renowned as supreme in all the realm,” she remarked. “I have spoken out of turn.”

Zhang Cuishan asked, “What faction claims your allegiance?”

At this question, she turned sharply toward the cabin window, her expression clouding with unease.

Footnotes

1. 钱塘江 – Qiántáng Jiāng. The Qiantang River, famous for its tidal bore. Flows through modern-day Hangzhou. See Wikipedia. ↩

2. 六和塔 – Liùhé Tǎ. Literally Six Harmonies Pagoda. An octagonal pagoda along the Qiantang River in modern-day Hangzhou. See Wikipedia. ↩

3. 张翠山 – Zhāng Cuìshān. His name meaning “Verdant Mountain.” Fifth disciple of Zhang Sanfeng and member of the Seven Xias of Wudang. His epithet is the Silver Hook Iron Brush. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 西湖 – Xīhú. West Lake. Cultural symbol of Southern Song refinement, located in modern-day Hangzhou. See Wikipedia. ↩

5. 江湖 – jiānghú. Literally rivers and lakes. The world of martial arts. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. A line from Su Shi’s (1037–1101) celebrated poem Ding Feng Bo (定风波 – Dìng Fēng Bō). Su Shi was a renowned Northern Song poet and calligrapher whose influence on literati culture remained profound through the Southern Song period. See Wikipedia. ↩

7. 卫夫人 – Wèi Fūren. Lady Wei Shuo (272–349 CE), a legendary calligrapher of the Eastern Jin Dynasty whose methods of brushwork became canonical in Chinese calligraphic training. See Wikipedia. ↩

8. 都大锦 – Dū Dàjǐn. His name meaning “Great Brocade.” See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 师兄 – shīxiōng. Male senior. A fellow disciple who entered training earlier, regardless of age. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 轻功 – qīnggōng. Literally light skill. Techniques that allow practitioners to move with extraordinary speed and agility, and weightlessness through qi redistribution to defy gravity. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 俞岱岩 – Yú Dàiyán. His name meaning “Lofty Cliff of Mount Dai.” Third disciple of Zhang Sanfeng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 龙门镖局 – Lóngmén Biāojú. Literally Dragon Gate Armed Escort. An armed escort agency. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 武当山 – Wǔdāng Shān. Sacred Daoist mountain in Hubei Province, later home to the Wudang Order founded by Zhang Sanfeng. See Wikipedia. ↩

14. 内力 – neìlì. Inner strength. The kinetic manifestation of cultivated qi. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 丹田 – dāntián. Literally cinnabar field. The energy centre located three finger-widths below the navel, where qi is cultivated and stored. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

16. 内功 – neìgōng. Literally internal skill. It is the skill used to increase one’s internal power. See Wikipedia. ↩