Black Dragon, Black Cat

by Brian Edwards

  Long-shun’s face went blank, and the crowd around them became as silent as a cemetery. “Are you mad woman?”, he shouted. “Are you out of your head? How can you hope to fight me?”

  “Are you afraid to fight a woman?”, Mao replied in a condescending tone meant to infuriate the master and goad him into a fight.

  Many of the men in the crowd laughed at Mao’s brashness. Master Long-shun, however, was not amused. “Woman, you could not best me one time in ten thousand! Never! But the point is irrelevant because I could never strike a woman!”

  “Are you afraid of me then?”, she repeated.

  One voice in the crowd lifted up over the rest, “Please Master, fight the woman and send her home.” Several other voices concurred, and then a general shout of approval went up from the crowd.

  Long-shun stood up and addressed the crowd. “Respected Sirs,” he said in a loud booming voice, “I cannot strike a woman. However, to settle this matter, I will contest the woman by allowing her to attempt to strike me five times. I will then block or parry these strikes. If she strikes me five times before I block five of her strikes, then she wins and I will register her for the tournament. If I win, then she must leave the square and never return again to bother us.” He then turned to face Mao. “Is this arrangement agreeable to you, crazy woman?”

  It was perfectly agreeable to Mao, and she joyfully accepted his challenge.

  The men cleared an area in front of the registration table, which Mao and Long-shun entered and prepared for their contest. Although Long-shun had grown heavy and had aged five decades, he was still a formidable opponent. He glared down contemptuously at the shorter Mao as she strode slowly toward him. She bowed to him, but he merely stood grimacing at her in evident disrespect.

  Someone in the crowd signaled the start of the match. Mao moved in quickly and attacked the master. In rapid succession, five flashes of movement sped around the master and five sounds of contact were heard. On the last one, Long-shun dropped to his knees and put a hand to his head. A collective gasp escaped from the crowd. Hei Mao had hit him so fast that he had managed to block not one of her strikes, let alone five. Those onlookers who had previously been very amused at the proceedings became subdued and silent. Long-shun knelt there on the ground for several moments, trying to comprehend what had just happened, trying to explain to himself what was inexplicable. Finally, he realized what must surely have happened.

  “Woman,” he shouted, “you attacked me before I was ready! We must begin again!” He stood up and dusted himself off. The crowd let out a collective sigh of relief, agreeing with the master that this was the only rational explanation.

  Mao merely bowed to the master, and resumed her fighting position. Long-shun arose to his feet very carefully, and with renewed confidence, set his position for the ensuing fight. This time, he was determined not to be caught off guard by the crazy woman.

  A bystander signaled the start of the match, and Mao again approached her opponent. This time, however, he began to circle around her, trying to keep her on his left side where her strikes would be easier to block. Mao realized his strategy at once, and used it to her advantage. She feinted a strike to his right which he raised his left arm to block. Yet before the strike landed, she deftly pivoted back to the left and struck him from behind. Again, five strikes landed on Master Long-shun, each with blinding speed that moved faster than the eye could discern. The last one drove him again to his knees, and he knelt there on the ground with both hands out before him. This time, however, there was no explanation other than the obvious one, that Hei Mao had bested him in a fair fight. A loud audible gasp escaped from the crowd again, and was followed by complete silence.

  Long-shun’s face grew bright red, and he became ashamed. Many terrible thoughts raced through his mind as he knelt there on the ground. He had been beaten by a woman! And in front of all these people! How could he ever live with this embarrassment? How could he have come to this? What would he do now?

  The men in the watching crowd tried to find their own explanations. They, too, could not believe what had just transpired before their eyes. One man in the crowd offered up a ray of hope when he began to laugh heartily and shouted, “Master Long-shun, you are hilarious! You have let the woman win! What a great jokester you are!”

  The others jumped at this opportunity to grasp what could be the only rational explanation for what had just occurred. They all laughed uproariously, and slapped each other. They lifted Long-shun back up to his feet, and congratulated him on his fine joke, slapping him on the back with approval.

  Master Long-shun was an honorable man, but faced with this circumstance, his courage and honor turned to dust. Although he knew that Mao had won the contest, he began to laugh, hesitantly at first, and then with more vigor as he came to believe the lie himself. He even congratulated himself at his own joke. The men began jeering at Mao. “Go away!”, they shouted at her. “We are through amusing you. Go back to your family!”

  Mao became furious, but did not say a word. She turned her back on the assemblage and walked away with clenched fists. She returned to her bush where she could lay unobserved and watch the tournament registration resume.

  The long lines at last started to shorten as nightfall approached. How many competitors had registered thus far she did not know, but surely it was in the thousands. Yet she herself had not managed to enter the tournament, and she began to lose faith and tears again welled up in her eyes.

  For a moment only she felt like giving up and returning to the home of Master Jai-tien, but then a thought occurred to her. She remembered the gift from her master upon her departure, the black garments of the great Black Dragon, and a plan formed in her head. She took the bundle of black cloth from her pack and slowly unrolled it. Did she dare to do it? For a moment she hesitated, but she had no choice: if she did not register for the tournament soon, it would be too late. The lines had stopped growing altogether and were rapidly shrinking. Soon all the competitors would have registered and the officials would pack up their lists and go home.

  Stripping her own clothes off, she slipped on the coarse pantaloons and tunic of the legendary Hei Lang, and tightened the black belt around her waist. The robe and pants fit her surprisingly well. She had always imagined that Master Jai-tien had possessed more manly proportions when he was young than the bent and gaunt aged body he had now, but she realized that he was apparently the same size then as he was now. Finally, she tucked her long black hair down the back of her tunic, and, with great reverence, wrapped the long scarf of the mask around her head, leaving only her eyes exposed. She felt an explosion of emotion within her, and her heart felt as if it would leap out of her body.

  Although her body was now concealed, she was still at risk of being detected. She reached to the ground and grasped a handful of dirt. This she sifted into her mouth after making an opening in the black scarf wound around her head, trying hard not to choke as she worked the dirt around the inside of her mouth and swallowed it. The ordeal almost made her vomit. Then she picked up a few pebbles from the ground, and placed these in her mouth also. Hopefully, this preparation and the muffling of the mask would provide sufficient disguise of her feminine voice.

  After these preparations, Mao waited near the back of the queue on the far side away from Master Long-shun. At this late hour of the day, the wait was much shorter as the lines were waning with the deepening of the night. She waited just out of sight until she was sure that she would be the last person in line, and then strode over to take her place at the last second before the person ahead of her had finished. She stepped forward as the full moon rose over the palace, casting a pale light over the registration table, helping to obscure in shadow the figure standing in front of the tournament official.

  The man behind the table looked up as Mao’s shadow crossed the table, and was taken aback to see a competitor dressed in such strange garb. He seemed to be quite amused. “And just what is this?”, he said aloud to himsel
f in mock seriousness. “Is it a specter of the night? Or has someone forgotten to change out of his sleeping robes before leaving his house this morning?”

  Mao shook her head slowly, keeping her eyes unblinkingly focused on those of the official. She spoke slowly in the harsh, low voice that had been produced by the dirt and gravel in her mouth, “I am here to register for the tournament.”

  The official had not expected such a gruff answer, and was slightly disconcerted by Mao’s tone of voice and her piercing gaze. It was the end of a very long day and he only wanted to return to his home for supper. He shrugged and decided not to press the matter further. “What is your name?”, he asked her.

  “Hei Mao,” she replied in the same low voice.

  “Hei Mao!”, the official repeated incredulously. “Your name is Black Cat? Are you joking? Come on now! What is your real name?”

  “Hei Mao,” she replied.

  The official shrugged and shook his head, but questioned her no further. He was ready to go home, and simply wrote ‘Hei Mao’ on the registration sheet and asked her to mark it with her symbol. He then told her to appear at the arena in the market district of the city at noon the next day for her first match of the tournament.

  As she left the table, it took several moments for the realization to dawn on her that she had made it into the tournament. She had made it! Tomorrow she would compete in the Grand Tournament that she had dreamed of all her life! Her heart raced with excitement, and she again became overwhelmed with emotion. She went back to her bush, spat out the pebbles, changed back into her own clothes, and tried to fall asleep under the blazing, mottled orb hanging over the palace.

  The coil of destiny

  The next morning Mao stood up at sunrise after a night in which she slept not a single minute. Her mind was racing with excitement about the beginning of the tournament preliminary rounds today, for which she had been waiting a lifetime. She opened her pack and ate some of her dwindling rations of rice and bread, and then again unrolled the black garb of the legendary Black Dragon. As she donned the pantaloons and tunic, she felt anew the energy and power that seemed to emanate from them. She wrapped and secured the scarf around her head, and tightened the black belt around her waist. She then sat on the ground cross-legged for several moments to meditate and ask her spirits for strength and courage. The time had then come for her to head to the arena for her first match of the day.

  The arena where she was to begin the competition was located on the other side of the city from the palace square, but Mao had figured out how to get around the town during her wanderings the day before. Although she did not take the straightest path to get there, she eventually located the arena where the first matches in her division were to be held. Mao received many strange and amused looks from the denizens of the city as she walked through the narrow streets in her dark costume, but no one spoke to her.

  There was no true structure to the arena, only an open park filled with men bustling about in frenzied activity. Tournament officials were checking their lists and preparing the pairings for the matches that day. Workers were setting up the rings for the matches, which were nothing more than corded ropes spread out in circular patterns for these preliminary matches. More competitors were arriving by the minute, and they were preparing themselves for their matches in various ways, some exercising, some meditating, and some were even slapping themselves in the face.

  This scene was replicated thirty-two times around the city as makeshift arenas were erected wherever open plots of grass were located. With several thousand people competing in the tournament, the preliminary matches were located at many different places within the city walls. There would be five to ten matches occurring simultaneously at each of the arenas, each match watched carefully by a referee to make sure that the contestants followed the rules and to name the winner. The rules were simple: no weapons of any sort could be used. Other than this, anything was acceptable. The winner would be declared once his opponent had decided to quit the match, had been thrown out of the ring, or was unable to continue the fight for any reason. The structure of the tournament was simple: if you won the match, you continued to the next round, and if you lost, you went home. The preliminary matches would continue for two weeks, and only the final thirty-two warriors would compete in the city’s Royal Arena at the Grand Tournament, which would last for another week.

  Upon her arrival at the arena, Mao began to make preparations for her first match. She did not know in which ring or at which time she would fight, but she knew that she must be ready regardless. She would have four matches in her first day alone, if she were to continue to tomorrow’s matches. For several days, each competitor would face multiple matches, but, after the first week, the number would be reduced to one or two per day as the competition weeded out the less qualified opponents. However, as the number of matches per day grew fewer, they would also grow longer and more tiring: the more proficient competitors would not go down so easily when faced off against each other. Some of the final matches could go on for hours, such as the legendary battles of the great Hei Lang and Grand Master Bai Chen!

  Mao sat cross-legged on a wall at the edge of the arena park where she could see most of the action in the rings scattered over the grassy square. Without ceremony, the tournament began! Pairs of names were called out, and the competitors came forward and were led to one of the rings by a referee. All of the matches occurred simultaneously, and as soon as one was finished, another pair of names was called to proceed to the next match. Many of the matches were over almost as soon as they had started, when a competitor was vastly superior to his opponent. Rarely did these early matches last for more than five minutes. Mao was struck by the scene as it unfolded. It was not how she had imagined it. So many people were unceremoniously being thrown out of the tournament after only their first fight, which might have lasted only ten seconds! She thought sadly about how disheartening and crushing it must be to the poor souls who had trekked a thousand miles across ancient China to be sent home after only one match. She was determined that this would not happen to her.

  After an hour of eager anticipation, Hei Mao finally heard her name called along with that of another competitor, and she proceeded quickly to the tournament official. The pair was assigned to a ring, and they walked together toward the referee who would check them for hidden weapons. Mao’s opponent was a small man with a very lean body covered in snow white cloth bound with a multi-colored sash. As they walked toward the ring, she could hear the man giggle under his breath, apparently in amusement at the ridiculous spectacle of the black costume. The referee himself gave a light chuckle as they entered his ring, and he rapidly patted their arms and legs to ensure that they were not carrying weapons. Mao flinched as his hands passed over her, hoping that he would not notice the signature clues of a woman’s body. Immediately after he finished, he started counting down, “Three…two…one…Fight!”

  Just like that the fight was on. Mao began by bowing to her opponent as a sign of respect, expecting him to do the same, but the man immediately seized the opportunity to attack her. His lean body made him blazingly fast, and he charged and leapt at her with both feet aimed directly at her head. Mao was caught completely by surprise, but her training had fine-tuned her reactions to the point where her body responded to rehearsed visual signals before her mind had time to decide what to do. The match ended at that point when she dropped to one knee and rolled sideways, sending the man flying over her head and out of the ring. He landed on his back with an audible thud, and was very slow in getting up.

  The match had ended almost as soon as it started. It had happened so fast, Mao was not even sure what she did. Her training had taken over and she had handled the attack before she even had time to analyze it. She fully realized then why Jai-tien had always stressed the importance of performing many repetitions of a technique: “So that the body would know what to do without the brain having to think about it.” The referee gave her the winne
r’s chip, and she took it over to the tournament official who wrote her name down as the winner of the match. Then she went back to her spot on the wall to await her second match.

  The fight had ended too fast for her to realize fully that she had won her first tournament match until after she had regained her seat on the wall. She realized that she had been lucky to have fought a relatively weak opponent, and she vowed not to be taken by surprise again. Nevertheless, she smiled broadly and began to feel pride swelling within her. She had won! She looked across the arena at the continuing matches and wondered which of these competitors she would next face. But then her eyes fell upon the man she had just beaten, and she could read the despair and shame in his body. He slowly made his way from the arena, and disappeared beyond the wall on the opposite side of the square. Mao’s sense of pride immediately vanished, leaving only a hollow feeling in its place. Again, she fully realized the virtue of humility, and recalled her master’s words, “There is no honor to be gained by taking honor from another.”

  Several hours passed before Hei Mao heard her name called again. This time she was paired with a giant of a man, whose size dwarfed her own. She could see that he lumbered heavily when he walked, and appeared to possess great strength. She suspected that he would be hard to bring down with swift strikes, as his head and body had the appearance of being very solid. She also predicted that he would try to take her to the rock-hard ground and crush her with his bulk. This would be a difficult opponent for her.

  The referee signaled the start of the match in the same manner as before, by counting backward from three. Mao again bowed to her opponent, but this time, she did so cautiously and never took her eyes off of his. The giant man also bowed, and made no attempt to take advantage of her sign of respect.