The Orchid Farmer's Sacrifice

by Fred Yu

  Ever so slowly a crafty grin emerged on the old man’s face, evolving into a quiet, chest-heaving chuckle.

  “A martial arts genius!” he whispered under his breath. “A genius good enough to face the Commoner!”

  Feng looked at Ming on the hard ground and noticed fabric strapped around her shoulders. The old man had bandaged her wounds. He wasn’t touching her with the intent of a predator. He was trying to help.

  “Genius!” the old man said again, standing so close to Feng that he could feel his breath. “I may be dead, but I can teach you.”

  “Not until we have a deal.”

  The old man tried to laugh and broke into another cough spasm. “You want to bargain?” he asked, wheezing for air. “She may die before you can buy her safety. But if you learn to throw poison needles, you won’t have to negotiate. You can kill your enemy and take the girl.”

  Feng’s mind raced. Perhaps the old man knew her. He did bandage her wounds.

  “Give her back to me,” Feng said, “and I’ll learn anything you want. But she stays with me, and you don’t touch her again.”

  The old man relaxed, his tense arms lowering to his sides. He managed a crooked smile, and then his face turned to stone again. “Aren’t you a martial arts genius?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Fool! You don’t even know what you are. But not to worry. I will teach you so you can defeat the Commoner. That’s how I died. The Commoner killed me. But you’ll learn everything, and you’ll beat the Commoner for me. Then, we can leave here in the daylight.”

  “Daylight?”

  The old man held a finger to his lips. “The Commoner doesn’t come out at night.”

  Feng paused to ponder his predicament. Ming was in danger, but leaving the cave at that moment was not an option. Somehow, he would need to evade Zeng Xi’s army and carry Ming to a safe place. He glanced into the dark tunnels again. The crazy old man could help him. A tremendous fighter could at least help him break free when surrounded or execute an ambush that required more than one person. He had to get the old master to cooperate.

  If the old man was not willing to leave until nightfall, Feng would have to wait. Most of the army would descend the mountain at dusk.

  “Old master,” Feng called. “The Commoner is not out there. The big army scared him away.”

  “The Commoner is not afraid of the army,” the old man said. “The army is afraid of the Commoner.”

  “Zeng Xi, the Prodigy . . .” Feng began, changing the subject.

  The old man laughed, this time a dry laugh of outright contempt. “Zeng Xi? Did they call him a prodigy? He’s not even your caliber.”

  Feng shook his head. “Zeng Xi’s never been beaten in a swordfight.”

  “That’s because he hasn’t fought anyone good, stupid. Now, come. Once you learn this, Zeng Xi will not stand a chance against you.”

  Feng thought of his sister all of a sudden. Perhaps it was the prospect of seeking revenge, of personally killing Zeng Xi, that brought a smile to his lips. Perhaps it was the opportunity to learn what the old man had used against him earlier so the speed and power he had witnessed would no longer be a mystery.

  The old man took a step closer, rolled back Feng’s sleeves, and placed a long, narrow pouch in his hand. The top of the pouch was laced with a thin wire barely holding its mouth together. It was not meant to close.

  “What’s inside?”

  “Needles.”

  Feng reached into the pouch with two fingers and carefully extracted a needle. It was not long, but it was thicker and heavier by the head. He held it closer against the torch light and examined his new weapon.

  The old man squeezed a needle between two fingers and lowered his arm. “Throwing a regular needle and throwing a poison needle are very different. You can project the regular throwing weapon—it’s as good as swinging a sword from a distance—and the enemy has a chance to evade. This almost allows for a fair fight, but the enemy can’t strike back right away because you’re too far away. But throwing a poison needle is different. When you throw a poison needle, no one is supposed to know who threw it, and no one is supposed to know where it came from.”

  The old man barely moved, and Feng noticed a slight tremor in the torch. A needle was embedded in the wood.

  “How did you do that?”

  “You didn’t see me do it,” the old man said. “That’s because I didn’t raise my arm above my head to launch the needle. I hid my fingers next to my hip, and I launched it with my wrist.” He drew another needle from the pouch in Feng’s hand and held it between his fingers. “Watch my wrist. It doesn’t just flick. There’s a twist. You control the release point with the twist.”

  The only throwing weapons Feng had ever encountered were spears and javelins, both long, substantial devices with heavy spearheads meant to kill by tearing apart human flesh. Throwing weapons—at least the honorable ones, as his father would say—were held in plain view and launched from a distance. There was no honor in a poison dart thrown from behind.

  Yet, Zeng Xi invaded the Venom Sect when they were unprepared, their guards and watchtowers immobilized by poison. Did the enemy use honorable weapons in war?

  Feng shook his head clear and focused on the old man’s wrist. He watched the slight twist, flicker, and the subtle tension at the end of the movement that launched the weapon.

  The old man reached for another needle and demonstrated the short, explosive burst in his wrist again. Eight needles were thrown before Feng nodded to him. It was his turn.

  Feng held a needle between his middle and pointer fingers and lowered his hand. He launched the needle the same way the old man launch his needle, but nothing happened.

  The old man shook his head with a grunt. “You’re supposed to be a genius.”

  Feng’s mind raced, and for a moment he couldn’t decide how to respond. Did he really want to play along?

  He needed a better weapon than an ordinary sword if he were to avenge his sister. A poison needle was useless in the battlefield against enemy soldiers in plate armor, but all he needed was a small puncture on the back of Zeng Xi’s hand.

  I’m becoming evil, he told himself. I’m about to attack someone from behind.

  “Of course, I’m a genius,” he said. He ignored the old man’s piercing gaze and reached into the pouch. His right hand dropped to the side, and he held a long needle, black with poison, between his fingers.

  He turned to the torch, his wrist snapped, and the torch fluttered. His needle struck the wooden handle and dropped to the floor.

  The old man laughed. “Weak.”

  Feng drew another needle and held it between two fingers. Then, with a sharp exhale he launched his missile. The needle struck the hard cavern wall. The old man shook his head. Feng reached for another.

  By the time complete darkness settled over Mount Oleander, Feng’s needles all punctured the torch. Some were even embedded in the hard wood. He found himself remembering every instruction the old man barked at him, from the minute bursts in the wrist to the subtle, quiet body language of the poison user.

  Soon he was too exhausted to continue. The silver moon no longer shone through the waterfall. It may have already begun descending toward the break of dawn.

  “How long before the poison starts to work?” Feng asked.

  “It can kill within three steps.”

  Could I possibly bring myself to use a poison that deadly?

  “You don’t want to use poison? Your martial arts skills are horrible,” the old man said as if reading his mind. “How do you expect to kill anyone without poison? It’s like trying to kill someone outside your range with an arrow. The arrow tip will barely puncture his skin, and at most he’ll itch for two days.”

  “You can also modify the arrows to make them spin so they can fly twice the distance,” Feng said.

  The old man fell silent, lost in thought. “Modified arrows. The damn Orchid Farmer. There’s no one else who could m
ake something like that.”

  “Orchid Farmer?”

  “He’s already dead, just like me. And his ghost grew orchids in the Valley of the Headless. His orchids are the best in the world! But the gods couldn’t make weapons like he can. That’s why he’s doomed to be a weaponsmaker forever.”

  “Valley of the Headless? Where is that?”

  The old man shook his head. “No one really knows. No one has ever been there and lived to talk about it.”

  “This Orchid Farmer,” Feng continued. “He made the Zhuge Nu bolts?”

  “Who?” The old man suddenly fell into a coughing spasm, his entire body shaking. Feng waited for him to calm. When he finally did, there was a splatter of blood on the floor. What had really happened to this old man living in a cave in such poor health?

  The old man steadied, and the wide grin of a child emerged on his face again. “Now you get to use the needles against me.”

  “The needles can’t harm you?”

  The old man released a couple of short coughs, then bared his teeth in a defiant grin. “Of course not. I will circle you, and I will strike. You will hit me before I strike.”

  Feng nodded, a long needle already poised between his fingers. The old man’s grin faded, and he darted forward. Feng also shot forward, closing the distance and firing the needle at the same time. The old man spun to the side and evaded the needle, and in that moment Feng reached him and jabbed him with a second needle well hidden in his left hand.

  The old man ogled the small puncture wound on his arm as a drop of blood seeped from it and burst out in screaming laughter. “A genius! A real genius in martial arts! But your martial arts skills are horrible. Why?” He took one bold step forward and stood inches away from Feng’s face. “But not anymore. You’re going to be a master.”

  “Enough to beat the Commoner?”

  The old man’s smile faded, and he shook his head with a frown. “No one can beat the Commoner. No one ever did.”

  “Let’s run while it’s still dark. Let’s get Ming off this mountain.”

  “Are you going to marry her?”

  Feng froze, unable for a second to react to the blunt question. “I’m going to try.”

  The old man emitted a slow, dark chuckle. “You? Do you qualify?” He picked up Ming like he would a kitten, threw her over his shoulder, and headed into the tunnels.

  Feng stumbled, already exhausted but eager to follow. He picked himself up and ran after the old man. “And why not?”

  The old man studied him with amusement on his face. “Your forehead is too big.” He grabbed Feng by the belt so quickly, even with Ming over his shoulder, that Feng couldn’t react. He was dragged into the waterfall, through it, and into open air.

  Feng fell into the rapids below, the rushing water looming before him. He thought he heard the old man say, “Hold your breath!”

  Feng took a deep breath. The old man shoved him in midair and flung him sideways. Feng twisted with all his strength, angling himself to enter the water feet first in case of any sharp rocks below. But when he pierced the rushing water, he felt his feet touch soft gravel. The old man guided his fall into a safe area. He had done this many times before.

  The current pushed him forward. Feng moved like an arrow with his arms clamped against his sides and his feet together. For the longest time the force of the rapids carried his descent until it finally slowed, until he thought his lungs would burst if he didn’t emerge for air.

  A hand closed around his belt and pulled him out of the water. “Don’t drown.”

  Feng strained for air, doubling over to cough and gasp as soon as he surfaced.

  “Ming!” He climbed to his feet. The old man was smiling next to him. Ming was seated with her back against a large tree. She was still unconscious.

  They were alone at the foot of Mount Oleander, right before the rapids merged into a much larger river and wound around the back of the mountain. A small path next to them extended straight up to the Red Mansion, and the path below wrapped around the side, past the ravine, and toward the front of Oleander.

  The roads on the front of the mountain were the best option. Feng wouldn’t know where to go if he entered the Haunted Valleys.

  “Where are we going?” Feng asked in a loud whisper. The old man pointed to Ming and headed down the road. Feng kneeled beside her, ever so gently lifted her into his arms, and leaned closer to whisper in her ear. “Sorry, Ming. You’re soaking wet again, and I have no way to keep you dry.”

  He clasped her small frame against his chest and hurried down the narrow path.

  The old man had already reached the foot of the mountain, where he stood behind a rock and stared at the road outside. There was a horse carriage a short distance below, the same one in which Feng had ridden earlier that day. All four horses remained harnessed to the carriage, though they had moved away from the road to graze.

  So, Ming left her carriage here and ascended Mount Oleander from the side, already certain her fiancé would ambush her in the front.

  Feng reached the bottom of the little path and stood beside the old man. The horses had already stopped grazing. There were wheel tracks winding in circles on the soft road, sometimes entering the grass area, sometimes emerging from it. A set of tracks deeper than the rest made a single circle before reentering the pasture.

  There was no reason for these tracks to be deeper unless the carriage was suddenly heavier.

  “There are soldiers in the carriage,” Feng whispered. “They’re waiting for us.”

  “Really?” The old man’s rugged voice boomed loud and clear.

  Feng held a finger to his lips. “I’ll lure them out into the open one by one so you can capture them. The horses haven’t taken a single step since the carriage became heavier. It may be heavier than all four horses want to pull. We should—”

  The old man laughed, leaped forward, and charged across the road.

  “Wait!” Feng whispered.

  The old man tore across the grass, circled to the back of the carriage, and yanked the door open. Multiple spears instantly jabbed at him from within. He flung them away with one swipe of his arm. Then, he took a step back and launched a wave of poison needles. The soldiers inside screamed. The old man leaped forward, hammering left and right, tearing through them and killing every soldier with his bare hands.

  Feng heard a sharp whistle from deep inside the carriage. The old man leaped inside, and the whistle was muffled.

  Shouts carried down from the mountain above in response to the whistle. Soldiers descended shortly after.

  Feng clasped Ming tighter and rushed into the road. “Throw them out of the carriage!” he shouted. The old man laughed again. One after another he tossed the dead soldiers out the back.

  Feng had already run out of breath when he reached the rear doors. “Is there rope inside?”

  The cabin was empty. He lay Ming comfortably on the cabin floor and turned to the dead bodies strewn across the grass. There had been almost twenty men packed into the carriage. “We’ll use their belts. Let’s tie four bodies behind the carriage and drag them behind us. It’ll cover our tracks.”

  The old man flashed a crafty smile. “We have a strategist here.”

  The shouts from above were becoming louder. Feng could already see the torches dancing toward them. There must have been hundreds.

  In a moment they tied four corpses behind the carriage. “We need to avoid covering the old tracks,” Feng said, pointing to the circles on the soft road, “or it’ll be obvious we’re hiding new ones. They would look for—”

  A big hand closed around his mouth from behind. Feng’s eyes widened in alarm. Something was shoved into his mouth. Then, he felt a hard slap on his chest. Feng doubled over to gasp, choking, and realized he had swallowed it. A sharp needle stabbed his arm. Feng felt the world spinning around him. His stomach was on fire. He could barely stand, but he managed to turn to see who was doing this to him. It was the old man.
r />   The world around him darkened.

  * * *

  Feng opened his eyes to blazing sunlight streaming through the windows. He was inside the carriage, moving at a steady pace, his head throbbing in painful pulses. He tried to lift himself, but a sharp flash of pain left him shaking.

  Ming was on the other side of the cabin, still unconscious. The old man hovered over him, a wide grin on his face. Strange, Feng thought, how he also resembles the pale skin foreigners that came through the Silk Road from time to time. He must have been among the original elders who fled the western lands and came to China to rebuild.

  The old man shoved something else into Feng’s mouth and forced him to swallow it. He produced a handful of needles, each longer and thicker than the other. He dipped them into various pouches around his waist and pierced Feng in the arm one needle at a time. Feng was certain the old man wanted to inflict a slow, painful death. He no longer had the strength to resist, and there was nothing he could do to save Ming before he died. At least Ming would be by his side when he took his last breath.

  * * *

  The pain was gone when he awoke again. Days must have passed. He felt weak, depleted, as if recovering from a month of illness. It was dark in the cabin with only the silver moonlight filtering through the windows.

  Ming still lay on her back on the other side of the cabin, her hands folded over her chest in deep sleep. The old man was nowhere in sight. Feng could hear the horses fidgeting in front of the carriage. Perhaps the old man had left.

  Feng tried to climb to his feet, barely lifting his upper torso, and managed to push himself into a seated position. This old man had tortured him for days, perhaps to see whether he was strong enough to withstand it. Yet, Ming appeared healthier than ever.

  There was no point strategizing against the crazy old man. If he hadn’t killed them by now, then he must have other intentions. Maybe he found something else more interesting out there and left.

  Feng no longer felt pain or nausea. If he could find his strength again, he could reach the harness strapped in front of the driver’s seat. He didn’t have the energy to climb over the tall ledge between the cabin and the horses, but he had no choice. Quietly driving away was his best move now.