by Jin Yong
“Yeah! While I was ill, I saw you all the time when I closed my eyes. That day when my fever worsened, Mom said that I kept talking to you in my dreams. Big apprentice brother, Mom has learned about that night when I spent the night up here.”
Linghu Chong blushed and felt some uneasiness. “Was Master-Wife angry?” he asked.
“Mom wasn’t angry about it. But…but….” Yue Lingshan suddenly blushed and stopped abruptly.
“But what?” Linghu Chong asked.
“I am not telling you,” Yue Lingshan declared.
Noticing the affected shy expression on Yue Lingshan’s face, Linghu Chong’s heart quivered. He immediately pulled himself together and said, “Little apprentice sister, you just got better. You really shouldn’t come up here so soon. I knew you were gradually getting better. Everyday when fifth apprentice brother or sixth apprentice brother brought food up for me, they all told me about you.”
“Then how come you are still so thin?” Yue Lingshan asked.
“Well, as soon as you fully recover, I will gain my weight back.” Linghu Chong answered with a smile.
“Tell me the truth. How much did you eat at each meal these days? Monkey Six said that you didn’t touch your food at all and only drank a lot of wine. He tried to persuade you, but you simply wouldn’t listen to him. Big apprentice brother, why don’t you…take good care of yourself?” At those words, tear drops started rolling in her eyes again.
“Nonsense! Don’t listen to him. Monkey Six always likes to exaggerate. Why would I only drink wine and not eat?” Linghu Chong denied.
A breeze of cold wind swept by and sent Yue Lingshan shivering. It was a very chilly day. The cliff didn’t even have a single tree to block the cold wind. It was already very cold on top of Mount Huashan; it was even colder here on the cliff.
“Little apprentice sister,” Linghu Chong said quickly, “you have not fully recovered yet. You’d better not catch a cold again. Go back down the cliff. Wait till one day when the sun comes out and after you have fully recovered, then you can come up to see me again.”
“I’m not cold. We are getting snow and windstorms everyday. Who knows when we will have sunshine again?” Yue Lingshan complained.
“But what if you get sick again? I…I…,” Linghu Chong said in a worried tone.
Seeing the thin and pallid face of Linghu Chong, Yue Lingshan thought, “If I get sick again, he’ll get sick too for sure. That will surely get him killed with no one here taking care of him at all.” So she had to agree. “Fine. I am leaving now. You take good care of yourself. Don’t drink that much wine. Have at least three bowls of rice every meal. I’ll go talk to Dad and tell him that you are not feeling well. You need more nutritious food. You can’t live off only vegetables.”
“I will not violate the prohibition. Seeing you getting better is enough nourish for me already. I am sure I will start gaining weight in a couple of days. My dear, please go back now,” Linghu Chong urged.
“What did you call me?” Her cheeks going red, Yue Lingshan asked in a low voice, love and affection swelling in her eyes.
Feeling a little bit shy, Linghu Chong immediately answered, “I just blurted that out. Little apprentice sister, please don’t mind.”
“Why would I mind? I like you to call me that.” Yue Lingshan replied.
Linghu Chong felt a warm current coursing through his heart. All he could think of was to embrace her tightly in his arms. But he immediately told himself, “She has shown me such affection. How could I ever disgrace her with such disrespectful behavior?” So he turned his head aside in a hurry, and only said in a soft voice, “Walk slow when you go down the cliff, one step at a time. Take a rest if you need to. Don’t just run all the way down like you used to do in other days.”
“I won’t,” Yue Lingshan answered as she turned around slowly and walked toward the road down the cliff.
Hearing the sound of her steps getting further and further, Linghu Chong turned his head back, only seeing Yue Lingshan standing a few dozen feet away down the road staring at him. For a long while, the two just stared at each other silently.
“Walk slow. It’s time for you to get back,” Linghu Chong finally said.
“Yes,” Yue Lingshan answered and this time really started heading back.
In that day, Linghu Chong felt a kind of joy he had never experienced before in his entire life. Sitting on the rock, he couldn’t resist his urge to laugh out loud. He suddenly burst out a long roar, and it echoed around the valley again and again. The roar seemed to be shouting the words, “I am so happy! I am so happy!”
The next day, it snowed again, and sure enough, Yue Lingshan did not come up. Linghu Chong heard from Lu Dayou that she was enjoying a speedy recovery and was getting better and better everyday. That truly cheered him up.
Another twenty or so days passed before Yue Lingshan came up the cliff again. She had a basket full of Zong-Zi51 this time. After looking at Linghu Chong’s face carefully for a moment, she smiled. “You didn’t lie. You sure gained quite a few pounds back.”
“You’ve recovered well. I am so happy to see you healthy.” Seeing the ruddy complexion on Yue Lingshan’s cheeks, Linghu Chong also smiled.
“I’ve been bugging Mom every day so that I could bring your food up, but Mom just wouldn’t let me. She kept saying that it was too cold, or it was too humid. She almost sounded as if as soon as I come up the cliff, I’ll drop dead. I said that big apprentice brother has stayed on the cliff for days and nights. I don’t see him getting sick. Mom said that big apprentice brother has very high inner energy; I am simply not in the same league. Hey, Mom was praising about you. Aren’t you happy to hear that?”
Linghu Chong nodded. “I really miss Master and Master-Wife. I wish I could see them soon.”
“Yesterday I spent a whole day helping Mom wrapping Zong-Zi. I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be nice if I could bring you some? And guess what? Before I even opened my mouth to ask today, Mom had already said to me, ‘Take this basket of Zong-Zi to Chong.’ What a surprise!”
Linghu Chong felt a lump in his throat, thinking, “Master-Wife is so nice to me.”
“These Zong-Zi just came out of the pot; they are still hot. Let me peel some for you.” Yue Lingshan went in the cave and started unwrapping the bamboo leaves outside of the Zong-Zi. Soon, an appetizing smell filled the small cave.
Taking the unwrapped Zong-Zi Yue Lingshan handed to him, Linghu Chong took a bite. Even though the Zong-Zi only had vegetarian stuffing, the mixture of straw mushrooms, lotus seeds, broad beans and other ingredients gave it a very delicious flavor.
“Little Lin and I picked those straw mushrooms the day before yesterday…,” Yue Lingshan bragged.
“Little Lin?” Linghu Chong was lost.
“Oh, That’s junior apprentice brother Lin. I’ve been calling him Little Lin these days. He came to me the day before yesterday and told me that there was straw mushrooms under those pine trees at the east slope. He even went with me and spent half a day picking them. But we only found enough to fill a half basket. While there’s not much, it sure is tasty, isn’t it?”
“Yummy! I almost swallowed my tongue together with it. So, little apprentice sister, you don’t yell at him now?” Linghu Chong asked.
“Why not! Anytime he doesn’t listen to me, I yell at him. But he sure learned how to behave himself these days, so I don’t yell at him as much now. And when he works hard and progress a little with his sword practice, I praise him a little, ‘Aha, Little Lin, this move looks not too shabby, much better than yesterday. But it’s still not fast enough. Practice more! Practice more!’ Ha-ha!” Yue Lingshan said amusingly.
“Are you teaching him sword arts?” Linghu Chong asked.
“Yep! He speaks Fujian dialect. Apprentice brothers and sisters are having a hard time understanding him. I’ve been to Fuzhou before and it’s easier for me to understand his words, so Dad asked me to help him with his sword art whenever I have t
ime. Big apprentice brother, since I can’t come up here to see you all the time, when I get bored, I might as well teach him a couple of moves. Little Lin is no dummy. He can learn quickly.”
“I see. So you are the senior apprentice sister and the instructor. No wonder he dares not to disobey you.” Linghu Chong laughed.
“I wouldn’t say that. Yesterday when I asked him to go hunt pheasants with me, he didn’t want to go, and said that he had not gotten the moves White Aurora Shooting to Sun and Heaven Hanging Upside Down right and needed to practice more.”
Linghu Chong was a bit surprised. He asked, “He has only been in our Huashan Sword School for several months, how come he is already practicing moves like White Aurora Shooting to Sun and Heaven Hanging Upside Down? Little apprentice sister, our Huashan sword arts require the practitioner to follow each of the steps. It would be harmful to try to advance too quickly.”
“Don’t worry about it. I won’t be teaching him irresponsibly,” Yue Lingshan explained. “Little Lin is always eager to excel. He practices days and nights. Every time when I want to chat a little, in less than three sentences, he would start asking questions about sword arts. Sword forms that will take others three months to grasp will only take him half a month. When I wanted him to go play with me, he would never agree frankly.”
Linghu Chong fell silent, and all of a sudden, some kind of indescribable annoyance filled his heart. He took another bite, and then just stared at the Zong-Zi in his hand blankly.
“Big apprentice brother, did you swallow your tongue? Why have you stopped talking?” Yue Lingshan pulled at Linghu Chong’s sleeves.
Absentmindedly, Linghu Chong put the remaining of the Zong-Zi in his mouth. Somehow, the supposedly delicious Zong-Zi got stuck in his mouth and he couldn’t swallow it down.
Yue Lingshan pointed at him and giggled hard. “Aren’t you too impatient? See, you got it stuck to your teeth.”
With a wry smile, Linghu Chong swallowed hard and finally managed to send it down his throat. He thought to himself, “I am really being stupid! Little apprentice sister loves to play. Since I can’t go down the cliff, she wanted apprentice brother Lin to be her company. That’s really quite normal. Why am I being so narrow-minded and getting mad at that?” So he relaxed a little and said with a smile, “You must have worked on this one. See how tight did you wrap it? It got my tongue and my teeth all stuck together.”
Yue Lingshan burst into loud laughter. After a few moments, she commented, “Poor big apprentice brother, who has to be a prisoner on top of the cliff. See how gluttonous you are!”
The next time when she came up the cliff again, it was already over ten days later. Other than the meal basket, she also brought a small basket with half basket of pine nuts and chestnuts.
During the ten days, Linghu Chong’s neck probably had gotten longer from all the anxious looking down the cliff. Every time he asked about little apprentice sister from Lu Dayou when he brought food up, Lu Dayou would always look queer and speak in an odd way. Linghu Chong got suspicious, but simply couldn’t get a straight answer out of him. When Linghu Chong pressed really hard sometimes, Lu Dayou would always answer, “Little apprentice sister is doing great. She practices sword art diligently everyday. Maybe Master didn’t want her up the cliff so she wouldn’t be disturbing big apprentice brother’s meditation here.”
Now when he finally saw Yue Lingshan again after all the waiting, his joy was unspeakable. She seemed to be glowing with health and radiating vigor, looking even prettier than how she looked before the illness. Linghu Chong couldn’t help but think, “She has fully recovered. Why did she wait so long before coming up the cliff again? Did Master or Master-Wife ban her from coming up here?”
Seeing the puzzled look in Linghu Chong’s eyes, Yue Lingshan suddenly blushed. “Big apprentice brother, I hadn’t come up to see you for so many days. Are you mad at me?” she asked.
“Why would I be mad? Master and Master-Wife must have told you not to come up, haven’t you?” Linghu Chong said.
“Yeah. Mom just taught me a new sword art form. She said that this sword art form has so many complicated variations, if I had come up the cliff to chat with you, I’d lose my focus.”
“Which sword art form?” Linghu Chong asked curiously.
“Take a guess!” Yue Lingshan challenged.
“Yang-Wu Sword Form?”
“Nope.”
“Xi-Wu Sword Form?”
“Try again!” Yue Lingshan shook her head.
“Could it be the Fair-Maiden Sword Form?”
“That’s my mom’s specialty. I am not even qualified to give the Fair-Maiden Sword Form a try yet.” Yue Lingshan stuck her tongue out and made a face. “Ok, let me tell you. It’s The Nineteen Stances of the Jade Maiden Sword!” she said triumphantly.
Linghu Chong was taken by slight surprise. “You start to learn The Nineteen Stances of the Jade Maiden Sword now? Oh, that really is a very complicated sword form,” he said happily. All his suspicion melted away.
Although the set of Jade Maiden Sword form only had nineteen stances, every stance had very complicated changes and variations. If the practitioner couldn’t memorize all those, he wouldn’t even be able to fully use just one stance. He had heard from Master about it before, “The Nineteen Stances of Jade Maiden Sword mainly focus in the fancy variations and changes. The form is quite different from our school’s main focus – Inner Energy Drives the Sword. Since female apprentices tend to have less strength from their arms, when they encounter with a tougher opponent, they can use this sword form to counter with artful moves. But all the male apprentices have no need to learn it.” That’s why even Linghu Chong himself had not learned it before. Based on Yue Lingshan’s current skill level, it seemed that she was not ready to learn this sword form yet. Before, Linghu Chong, Yue Lingshan and some other apprentice brothers and sisters had watched how Master and Master-Wife showed the set of sword form. Master had attacked using many different sword art forms from different sword schools and styles, but Master-Wife only defended with this Nineteen Stances of Jade Maiden Sword form. The Nineteen Stances of Jade Maiden Sword were actually well matched with the hundreds of excellent sword moves in a dozen different styles. All the apprentices watching by the side were dumbfounded in amazement. Yue Lingshan had begged her mother to teach her this sword form by then, and Madam Yue had answered, “You are still too young. First, you don’t have the skill level yet. Secondly, this sword art form requires a lot of brainpower. You should probably wait till you are twenty years old before learning this sword form. In addition, this sword form is used for countering sword moves from other sword schools. If you only work with apprentice brothers and sisters in our own school, you’d end up practicing how to counter Huashan sword art. Chong knows a lot of different Kung Fu and he probably remembers many different sword moves from other sword schools. He can probably practice with you in the future.” This was an episode that happened about two years ago, and nobody ever mentioned it again. Who’d expect that Master-Wife actually taught her this sword form?
“Master must be in a real good mood these days to practice sword art with you everyday,” Linghu Chong said.
This sword form focused on adapting itself to changing conditions and not restricting oneself to certain moves or postures, that was why right from the beginning, the practitioner would need to practice with a partner. Within the Huashan Sword School, Yue Buqun and Linghu Chong were the only two having good knowledge about sword arts from other sword schools. Thus, since Yue Lingshan was learning The Nineteen Stances of Jade Maiden Sword, Yue Buqun had to be working with her to attack her with other sword school’s sword moves.
Yue Lingshan flushed slightly again. “Dad doesn’t have that much time. It was Little Lin who helped me to practice,” she said bashfully.
“Apprentice brother Lin? Does he know many sword moves from other sword schools?” Linghu Chong asked in surprise.
“He only knows the family
Kung Fu of his – Evil-Resisting Sword Art. Dad said that even though the Evil-Resisting Sword Art isn’t that powerful at all, it has some interesting variations in the moves, which would be good for me to compare to. He wanted me to counter Evil-Resisting Sword Art as the starting point for my Nineteen Stances of Jade Maiden Sword training.”
“I see.” Linghu Chong nodded.
“Big apprentice brother, are you upset?”
“No. Why would I be upset? You are learning an advanced form of our Huashan sword arts now. I feel very happy for you! Why should I be upset?”
“But you don’t look very happy.”
“Which stance are you on now?” Linghu Chong squeezed out a smile and asked.
Yue Lingshan didn’t answer. After a long time, she finally said, “I see. Mom said to let you help me practice, but I am having Little Lin do it, that’s why you are upset. Am I right? But think about it, big apprentice brother, in the short while, you won’t be able to come down from the cliff, and I am just too anxious to learn this sword form. I just can’t wait for you any longer.”
“You are talking childishly again. We are all apprentice brothers and sisters, so it’s all the same no matter who practices with you,” Linghu Chong said in laughter. He paused for a second and then went on, “I know you’d rather have apprentice brother Lin practice with you than having me.”
“Nonsense!” Yue Lingshan blushed again. “Compared to you, Little Lin’s skill level is miles away. What good does it do me practicing with him?”
Linghu Chong thought to himself, “Apprentice brother Lin has only joined the Huashan Sword School for several months. Even if he were a super genius, how good could he get?” So he said, “Of course there’s benefit here. Wouldn’t you feel great when you can beat him with every single one of your moves?”
“Humph, just with his clumsy Evil-Resisting Sword Art, does he actually expect to defeat me?” Yue Lingshan giggled.
Linghu Chong had long known that the little apprentice sister was the type who always wanted to win. When she sparred with Lin Pingzhi, most likely she was able to use the newly learned sword art with facility, and was able to enjoy advantage with every single move. Lin Pingzhi’s Kung Fu level was very low, and he probably made a perfect spar partner. When Linghu Chong thought about that, his depression went away immediately. “Then let me try a couple moves with you. Let’s see how good you are with your Nineteen Stances of Jade Maiden Sword,” he suggested, smiling.