by Yan LeiSheng
But the tension wouldn’t leave her. She soon realized what was bothering her: despite her rural accent, the peasant had spoken in Mandarin, when it was Cantonese which was most prevalent in the southern regions of China. In addition, their inhabitants were generally looked down upon by the rest of the country; “Fear not the heavens, fear not the earth, but beware the Cantonese speaker” advised a popular saying. Shao Jun thus remained on her mount as she approached.
“Are you injured, madam?” she called out.
Her horse suddenly whinnied and fell with its rider into an enormous dark hole.
So it was a trap after all!
Despite her panic, her combat reflexes allowed her to react quickly: she removed her feet from the stirrups and grabbed a root protruding from the side of the earth as her mount continued its fall and crashed down below her. Hanging in mid-air, the young woman remembered with horror that her sword was beneath the saddle… but better to fight barehanded against whoever waited above than risk being trapped in this pit. Spying a low branch above her head on the tree she had seen earlier, she sent her rope dart to catch onto it and, slick with sweat but determined not to give in to panic, tried to climb towards the surface as fast as she could. She saw a figure emerge from the foliage, then felt herself suddenly falling back towards the bottom of the hole: they had sliced through her rope!
Her fall was cushioned by the body of her injured horse, which certainly prevented her from breaking any bones as she landed. Judging by the labored breathing of the poor beast, which weighed several hundred kilos, it must be gravely injured. Shao Jun had enjoyed the company of the strong and docile mount she had acquired at the last messenger post, but she knew it was as good as dead now. She drew her sword, felt the animal’s chest to find its heart, and thrust her blade firmly between its ribs to end its suffering.
Crash! Everything suddenly turned black. Looking up, she saw they had moved the upturned cart over the opening like a cover, with the only light a tiny ray filtering between two planks.
The walls of the hole were earth, irregular with numerous hand- and footholds she used to jump from one to another to reach the top. Once there, she wedged herself as best she could, and tried to create an exit by pushing with all her strength against the rough wood covering the hole. She rejoiced as she felt the cart move a little, but her triumph was short-lived: the barrier was immediately moved back with force, and she fell back down to the bottom of the hole – though this time she was able to control her descent to land lightly next to her dead horse. Barely an instant later, she heard a bam! bam! bam! as the bandits threw stones on top of the improvised cover to ensure their prisoner wouldn’t be able to move it back. That peasant, if it was she, was surprisingly strong.
“Miss Favorite,” another voice called out, “are you still alive?”
Shao Jun recognized the timbre of the voice of Qiu Ju the Demon, Zhang Yong’s bodyguard! It was he who had cut her rope dart, because he knew how much the former imperial favorite relied on this tool. It was also certainly he who had concocted the crude trap she was now cursing herself for falling into. How she regretted trusting the false Mandarin-speaking peasant in the middle of Guangdong!
“We must deal with her now!” she heard him shout. “This viper killed my two brothers!”
“The venerable captain general wants her alive,” replied Qiu Ju. “And, you should know that it’s dangerous to attack the imperial favorite in a rush… Uncle Luo, I understand your anger, but you can be assured that your twins will be avenged when Wang Yangming dies at our master’s hand.”
Uncle Luo? Shao Jun was stunned. So, Luo Xiang wasn’t just one person, but three brothers! Now that was a secret so incredible that there had been no chance of the mentor discovering it. The last survivor must have been following her since Tianzhou, patiently reining in his anger to avoid ruining the Tigers’ plans. The most worrying thing was that she now had irrefutable proof that Master Yangming had been unmasked, and that Zhang Yong was probably already on his trail. Did he know just how close the danger was?
The higher-ranking Qiu Ju addressed Luo Zang with a mix of pity and mockery.
“Come on, what are you so scared of? The girl is disarmed, harmless. And Uncle Zhang said he wanted her alive… he said nothing about whole!”
Luo Xiang came from a poor family which had sent two of the three triplets to the palace as eunuchs. There, their intelligence and the opportunities provided by their similarity drew the attention of Zhang Yong, who called the last of the brothers to his service – it was he who had been disguised as the female peasant. His level of kung-fu was the weakest of the three and now he feared losing his place among the Tigers: what use was he without high-level fighting skills or his siblings to carry out missions with? His hatred for Shao Jun knew no bounds.
“Perfect,” he growled. “I’ll tear her apart…”
Interrupted by hoofbeats on the road, he had no time to say more as a rider sped towards them. Travelers were rare in Guangdong – ten to fifteen days could pass between one person and the next – so Qiu Ju and Luo Xiang immediately agreed that the newcomer couldn’t be in the area by chance. They set up an ambush. From the bottom of her hole, Shao Jun thought that it must be a man working for the Tigers come to help them in their grisly work. From the way the horse was galloping, she guessed it was a high-quality destrier and not the mount of a simple commoner. At first, she feared it was Zhang Yong, but the Tigers said that he had left to attack Wang Yangming. So, who could it be?
“Who are you?” Luo Xiang called out harshly.
A few seconds later the young woman heard him let out a terrified shout, then a heavy weight fell onto the cart with a bang. Had the Tiger just been killed? Cling! Cling! The sound of a rapid exchange of weapons rang out. Fighters of Qiu Ju’s caliber didn’t just appear on rural roads, but surprisingly the two adversaries seemed to be of equal skill. Could it be Master Wang himself, come to help his protegee? The idea was crazy, but she knew of no one else who would be able to take on this kind of fight.
She climbed the walls of the pit once more to push against the upturned cart. Unfortunately, it was still weighed down with stones and didn’t budge an inch.
“Master!” cried the young woman. “Is that you?”
A shrill screech seemed to answer her question. Distracted by this unexpected interruption, Qiu Ju was injured. Gritting his teeth, he hissed in his irritatingly shrill voice, “You have no shame… to conspire in this way… Ahh…”
Now that was interesting, a member of the Eight Tigers who dared injure a fellow conspirator. A sword fell onto the cart with a crash and the Devil let out a final groan. The rider had killed him too! Shao Jun began pushing at the cart again to catch sight of her savior, but her feet slipped on the sides of the hole and she fell back to the bottom of the pit. Outside, she heard the stones being moved from the top of the wooden barrier. She could finally escape! Head tipped back, she waited to see the sky reappear… in vain. After a moment, she heard the horse stretch into a gallop. Incredulous, the young woman climbed to the top of the hole for a third time, breathed deeply, pressed her feet against the earth and pushed with all her strength to gain the space to finally escape the trap. Fearing a new ploy, she quickly slipped out, her sword held above her head to parry any incoming attack, but she was well and truly alone.
Feet planted firmly on the ground; she inspected the scene. Luo Xiang, cast from the same mold as his brothers, lay on his back with a gaping wound in his chest, still dressed in the peasant costume. Qiu Ju lay face down on the ground, his back torn open to reveal his ribs. He still breathed slightly. He was in no condition to talk, so Shao Jun ended his suffering with a quick sword slash. Tiger or not, she couldn’t bear seeing his agony.
She threw the two bodies into the hole and rolled the large stones that had been piled on the cart over them. It was a cruel irony shared between only her and the heavens
that the pit they had dug to trap the former imperial favorite had become their grave. There were only two Tigers left to vanquish, but she was still uneasy. She had no idea of her savior’s identity and worried about the danger closing in on Master Yangming.
As she tortured herself with worry, the sound of hooves hammering on the road rang out again. It was a magnificent destrier, saddled and riderless, galloping towards her at high speed. Taking no time to question this new mystery, she rushed towards it and leapt into the air to precisely land directly on its back. Clearly well trained, the fiery mount slowed its pace. It had to be Shao Jun’s anonymous savior who had sent her this horse. But why did they refuse to reveal themselves? “Never mind” she told herself, “Whoever it is, I’m sure there are good reasons to keep their identity secret.”
All her thoughts were focused on Master Yangming as she set off.
Chapter 14
After Guilin, Wang Yangming travelled towards Nanchang to return the imperial troops to their garrison. His orders were then to return to the capital, though he first planned to visit his disciple in the village of Hongqimen to ready her for the surprise attack they were preparing to launch on Zhang Yong’s island lair. Following his route, in Yongzhou Shao Jun learned that the army had continued towards Binzhou; in Binzhou, she heard that they had struck camp the day before she arrived, and she would need to cross Guangzhou to reach her destination. The young woman was filled with anxiety throughout her journey. If Zhang Yong got to her master before she did, she couldn’t allow herself to think of the consequences.
She moved quickly, riding day and night without a rest, soon crossing the Dayu mountains as she travelled from Guangdong to Jiangxi and reached the small province of Nan’an, which marked the frontier with the semi-wild countries of the south. These remote regions were separated from the imperial power of the Central Plain by five mountain ranges, which inspired countless artists. One of them wrote the melancholy poem Passing Through the Dayu Mountains at the beginning of the Tang dynasty:
Travelling the mountainous peaks to the rebel countries,
I pause and yearn for my family.
My soul soars with the birds escaping to the south,
My tears remain hanging from the branches of northern trees.
Threatening rain rises up the mountain,
The clouds on the river flow into a thick fog.
I will return one day,
But the mountains of the south will remain in my heart.
While the regions evoked in the text were not as wild as they had been at the start of the Tang dynasty, they were still very sparsely populated, and the post where Shao Jun stopped to the north of Mount Dayu was small and dilapidated. There she was relieved to learn that Master Yangming had passed through the day before, which meant he was still alive. Reinvigorated by the good news, she left as soon as she could and the next day reached the town of Huanglong, which sat between mountains to the west and a river to the east – charming but far too modest to justify the opening of a messenger post. She soon spied the military encampment nearby and hastened towards it. As she approached, she recognized Master Yangming’s escort, arms filled with kindling.
“A-Liang!” she called out.
The young man initially recoiled fearfully, failing to recognize her immediately.
“Oh, it’s you! A-Jun, why are you dressed as a messenger?”
“Don’t worry about that. Is the master here?”
“He just left to take a walk with an old friend.”
“Who was it? Was anyone with him?”
“It was a thin old man I’ve never seen before, and he was alone. He ordered me to warm up the tents just before leaving with the master.”
Shao Jun sighed. Perhaps it was a false alarm. She didn’t think Zhang Yong would attack alone, and as Wang Yangming had many friends in the region, it was entirely possible that he had used his time there to reconnect with one of them. For example, it was likely to be someone like Wang Qiong who he had promoted to inspector general of Nan’an prefecture several years earlier. At the time, the surrounding provinces had been invaded by seemingly indomitable armies, and the empire, as often happened when faced with this type of situation, had sent Shao Jun’s master to take care of the situation. His strategy had been two-fold: he had studied the local manners and customs to better understand and overcome his adversaries, and had then ordered schools to be built there so that the older insurgents and the younger generations who followed them could harmoniously integrate into the empire. Because, as he said, “it is easier to break a mountain than a twisted heart.”
But just in case, it was better for the young woman to warn Wang Yangming of the threat he faced as soon as possible.
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“I’m not sure. They’ll return by the end of the day at the latest, for dinner.”
What should she do? Leave and search for Wang Yangming, or wait here until nightfall? Although he was officially a count, the master liked to remain a simple man at heart, which could endanger him in this type of situation; no other person of his rank would venture so far from the military camp without an armed escort…
“A-Jun,” A-Liang ventured, “I’d like to ask something which I’m worried will offend you.”
His youthful concern amused Shao Jun.
“Don’t worry, I’m listening!”
“A-Jun… Are you also an uncle?”
The young woman laughed aloud. It was true that recently she had been covering her tracks well of late. When she left Nanjing, she even wore a false beard to avoid being recognized by Yu Dayong’s men. Then, playing the role of one of Master Yangming’s aides, she had blended into the almost exclusively male crowd of the imperial delegation. But even disguised as a messenger and on horseback, she couldn’t hide her fine features or her figure, which gave her a decidedly androgynous appearance and so led some to think that she might be an “uncle”, in other words, a eunuch. The issue could be delicate, because few eunuchs had chosen their situation for themselves: most came from poor families who had, so to speak, sold them to the palace when they were children.
The young woman abruptly stopped laughing as she was hit by a sudden realization.
“A-Liang,” she said, “you asked me if I was also an uncle… Does that mean the master’s old friend was a eunuch?”
“Yes, he was an uncle.”
Shao Jun ran towards her horse and leapt into the saddle.
“Quickly!” she called to the youth. “Come with me! Where did they go?”
“I… I don’t know… The master said that they would talk as they admired the landscape.” He pointed to the horizon with a finger. “They left in that direction.”
The horse set off at a gallop in that direction, followed with great difficulty by A-Liang, who was completely confused and didn’t know what to think. This mysterious “friend” who was at that very moment alone with Wang Yangming could be none other than Zhang Yong! How he had followed the trail of the jade pendants was still a mystery, but it was very clear that he had discovered the real identity of the mentor of the Central Plain Brotherhood, and that he had decided to use all means at his disposal to eliminate him. And after the attempt on his life in Tianzhou, the mentor was certainly in no fit state to face the formidable kung-fu of the leader of the Eight Tigers, who was among the best in the world. Particularly as his old adversary would not settle for a simple duel.
No, he would set a carefully planned trap, the way he always removed any obstacles to his will…
Shao Jun’s heart froze. She feared she would fail to save her master when they were so close to their goal, and this single thought seemed to fog her vision, like a cloud of despair hampered her ability to fight. She pushed her mount to its limit, but the poor beast had already carried her across the land without rest, food, or water. She was at the end of her stren
gth, and the panicked exhortations of her rider made no difference. What’s more, the young woman had nothing but a vague direction in which to travel and had no time to formulate a plan of attack. But nothing else mattered to her just then. The risk didn’t matter. Her life didn’t matter. She had to save her master!
•••
Meanwhile, Wang Yangming was relaxing on a small sailboat a short distance from the town. The breeze sent ripples across the surface of the water and rustled the reddened leaves of the luxurious trees that bordered this section of the river. The scent of Mount Dayu oolong tea wafted from the canvas cabin erected on the boat where they were playing a game of Go by the light of a red lantern. Black and white counters spread over the board.
“Zhang, my friend, what brings you to this remote region?” Wang Yangming asked as he brought a steaming cup to his lips.
He placed a black counter with a malicious smile, taking the upper hand. After a long journey in his famous palanquin borne by twenty-four porters, Zhang Yong was alone and dressed in a simple gray chemise. Neither arrogant nor cruel, he was no longer the noble captain general of the twelve battalions of the imperial guard, but an ordinary old man. His white counters, spread in the grand dragon formation, waged a bitter struggle in stark contrast to his calm indifference, but victory was less important to him than the pleasure of playing the game.
“Now the Emperor is the clear monarch,” he answered, “the world is at peace. Particularly since your political and military genius calmed the troubles in Tianzhou. I know you once administered the region of Ganzhou, and I was delighted to see a copy of Passing Through the Dayu Mountains in your tent.”
Wang Yangming was no fool: his old friend-turned-rival would not travel thousands of lis to speak of poetry and play Go. “The world is my heart, my heart is the universe,” Liu Xiangshan had professed in the Song dynasty, a doctrine which had inspired his own as the founder of the School of Mind. Applying it to the world of martial arts required the user to avoid being dependent on their eyes to examine their surroundings, and instead use their inner energy, which was capable of much greater acuity. For example, when he was tracking her, Gao Feng had made himself almost invisible to Shao Jun, but he had been unable to hide from her master, who had not relied on his eyes to discover him. This was what he was doing now, searching for attackers hidden here or there in the vegetation, but his “heart” confirmed what his sight and hearing had already suggested: he was well and truly alone with Zhang Yong. Even Qiu Ju, normally ever-present at his side, was absent from the scene. Was it possible that news of Luo Xiang’s death had not yet reached the leader of the Eight Tigers? Caution was still warranted, because after the strait, their boat would enter the maritime area that the captain of the guard knew like the back of his hand from his years fighting bands of pirates.