by Jin Yong
“How can I trick Black-White into the prison cell and whack him?” Linghu Chong thought to himself. “This man is so crafty; it would be impossible to swindle him. Moreover, without a way to break these iron shackles and chains around my wrists and ankles, even if I succeed in killing Black-White, I would still be stuck here.”
With that thought, his right hand naturally reached for his left wrist and then pulled. This was only a spontaneous move, and he certainly didn’t expect the iron shackle to break open, but to his great surprise, the iron shackle did actually open. He gave it a few more hard pulls and even managed to free his left wrist from the shackle.
This was definitely not something Linghu Chong could foresee, and his heart thumped quickly from the mixed feeling of shock and delight. He examined the iron shackle with his finger and then found a slit in the middle of the ring. If he had not dispersed the inner energy streams inside him, any hard movement would have made him faint. Even with the slit in the middle of the shackle ring, he would not have been able to pull it open. Since he had been working on dispersing inner energy streams for over two days, the energy streams the Peach Valley Six Fairies and Monk No-Commandment had forcefully injected into his body have been diffused into his Ren Passage, which in turn spontaneously originated strong inner force.
He felt the iron shackle on this right wrist. Sure enough, there was also a thin slit. He probably had felt the thin slit many times before, but never in his mind associated it with a crack in the shackle ring. He pulled hard with his left hand and freed his right hand from the shackle ring. Next he felt the two shackle rings around his ankles and also found thin slits in both. After some more hard pulling, he found himself breathless, covered in sweat, but completely free from all the shackles.
Once rid of the shackles, the iron chain no longer restrained him in anyway. He was truly puzzled: “Why is there a slit on each of the shackle ring? How could this kind of shackles have fettered anyone?”
The next day, when the deaf and mute old man delivered his food, Linghu Chong was able to actually look at the shackles closely. Next to each of the slits was a fine-grained saw pattern. Obviously someone had cut through the four shackles rings with a very thin steel wire saw. The slits shined under the dim light and there were no rust on the fractures. This meant that the cuts must have been made only recently.
“But why were these shackle rings closed again around my limbs?” Linghu Chong asked himself. “Someone must have tried to free me secretly. This underground dungeon is so well hidden; no one from the outside would be able to break in. Therefore, the secret rescuer must be someone inside the Plum Manor. Maybe he disliked the plot against me. That’s why he secretly cut open my shackles with a steel wire saw while I lay unconsciously in the prison cell. He probably didn’t want to openly declare himself an enemy of the Plum Manor, and he is still looking for an opportunity to help me escape.” At the thought, his spirit was greatly lifted.
“The entrance to the underground tunnel is concealed underneath Mr. Huang-Zhong’s bed in his bedroom. If it were Mr. Huang-Zhong who had wanted to rescue me, he could have done it anytime. He didn’t have to delay. Mr. Black-White obviously can’t be the one. Out of Mr. Bald-Brush and Mr. Paint, Mr. Paint is a confidant in the art of wine and had good fellowship with me. I bet it must be Mr. Paint.”
Then he remembered that Mr. Black-White would return the next day and thought about how he should cope with him. “I’ll just gloss things over with him. Why can’t I fool him with fake Kung Fu in exchange for some wine and meat?”
Then he thought, “Mr. Paint could come and rescue me any day now. I’ve gotta hurry and memorize all these formulas and techniques on the steel plate.”
He traced the carved characters and then recited each word carefully. When he studied these characters before, he didn’t pay very close attention, so memorizing everything with one hundred percent accuracy was no easy task. The handwritings on the steel plate were hasty and careless. With his limited education, he couldn’t recognize some of the poorly written characters. So he forced himself to memorize the strokes of the character and then randomly picked characters with similar strokes as substitutes. He knew that formulas for first-class martial arts are serious matters. Even one incorrect character could mean difference between life and death, success and failure. Any slight misunderstanding could very well lead to fire-deviation. Once he got out of the prison, who knows when he’ll be able to come back and reference the steel plate again? He must make sure he memorized everything with absolutely no errors.
So he read them again and again, losing count of how many times he had recited them, until he felt that he could even recite backward from the end to the beginning. Only by then, he felt at ease and allowed himself to fall asleep.
That night, in his dream, Linghu Chong actually saw Mr. Paint coming forth to open the prison cell door and let him out. The excitement woke him and then he realized it was only a fond dream. He didn’t let that depress him.
“He hasn’t come to rescue me today only because he doesn’t have the right opportunity. He’ll certainly come to my rescue before long,” he thought to himself.
He figured that although the formulas and techniques carved on the steel plate were very beneficial to him, they could be extremely harmful to others. If someone else gets locked up in this dark prison cell again in the future, that someone must have been a good person, and he wouldn’t let that person fall for Ren Woxing’s scheme. With that in mind, he traced the handwritings and recited the entire thing for another ten times or so, and then scraped off over a dozen characters in the passage from the steel plate using the iron shackles he freed himself from.
Mr. Black-White didn’t show up that day, but Linghu Chong didn’t care much about it. Instead, he continued cultivating his internal energy streams according to the formulas and methods on the steel plate. For the next several days, Mr. Black-White never came. Linghu Chong could tell that he had made great improvement in his training. Over sixty percent of the heterogeneous energy steams left inside him by the Peach Valley Six Fairies and Monk No-Commandment had been successfully dispersed out from his Dan-Tian and into his various Ren and Du Passages. He was sure that all of them could be dispersed out if he persevered.
Each day, he would recite the formulas scores of times and then scrape off a dozen or so characters from the steel plate. He noticed a gradual increase in his strength, and it became easier and easier to scrape the steel plate with the iron shackles. Another month went by in this manner. Although he lived deep underground, he could still sense a gradual decrease of the sweltering summer temperature.
“This must have been the work of divine providence. If I had been imprisoned here during winter, I would never have found the handwritings on the steel plate. Who knows? Perhaps before summer hits, Mr. Paint would have already had me rescued.”
At that moment, he suddenly heard the sound of Mr. Black-White’s footsteps from the outside tunnel.
Linghu Chong was lying in bed. He quickly turned around with his face toward the inside of the cell. Then he heard Mr. Black-White stopping outside of the prison door and spoke apologetically.
“Revered…revered mister Ren! I am truly very sorry for not having come sooner! In the past month, my eldest sworn-brother never set foot outside. Every day I anxiously awaited the opportunity to come and pay the revered mister my respect, but that opportunity only presented itself today. I hope the revered mister…the revered mister do not take any offense!”
Together with Mr. Black-White’s voice, a wonderful aroma of wine and roast chicken also came in through the square-shaped opening on the prison door. It had been many days since Linghu Chong last tasted any drop of wine. As soon as the smell of the wine hit his nose, he could no longer hold his patience and quickly turned around.
“Give me the wine and chicken!” he demanded.
“Sure! Sure! So the revered mister has agreed to teach me the secret formulas of the divine art?” Mr.
Black-White asked.
“Bring me three catties4 of wine and a whole chicken each time, and I’ll teach you four segments of the secret formulas. Once I’ve had three thousand catties of wine and one thousand whole chickens, you can probably get all the formulas by then.”
“I am afraid this arrangement might be too slow and cause unnecessary problems. How about I bring six catties of wine and two whole chickens each time so the revered mister can teach me eight segments of the secret formulas?” Mr. Black-White bargained.
“You are certainly greedy!” Linghu Chong said with a grin. “Fine! Come on! Give those to me!”
Mr. Black-White handed over a wooden tray through the square-shaped opening, upon which were a large kettle of wine and a fat roast chicken.
Linghu Chong thought, “I am sure you won’t kill me with poison before I teach you the secret formulas.” So he picked up the wine kettle and quickly gulped down mouthful of wine. The wine was not in any way spectacular, but in his mind it tasted so good that even Mr. Paint’s Turfan Grape-Wine of four cycles of distillation and ferments was no match for it. Without any stop for breath, he quickly poured half kettle of wine down his throat, and then tore a chicken leg off and shoved it into his mouth. Not very long after, he had already emptied the wine kettle and picked the chicken clean. Giving a satisfied pat to his belly, he declared approvingly.
“Excellent wine! Excellent wine!”
Mr. Black-White let out a big smile. “Now that the revered mister has enjoyed the tasty chicken and great wine, will the revered mister start the teaching please?”
Linghu Chong noticed that Mr. Black-White no longer mentioned anything with regard to the proposed Master-Apprentice relationship and ceremony. “He probably thought I was too busy drinking wine and eating chicken, and I’d completely forgotten about it,” Linghu Chong thought. So he didn’t mention it either.
“Okay. Here are the four segments. You’d better remember them well. ‘Inside the unique channels and eight passages, there exist inner energy streams. Gather them in your Dan-Tian. Join them in your Dan-Zhong5.’ Do you understand?”
The original text on the steel plate actually read, “Inner energy streams inside Dan-Tian, disperse them into four limbs. Inner strengths inside Dan-Zhong, dissolve them into the eight passages.” Linghu Chong actually deliberately reversed the meaning in his teaching. When Mr. Black-White heard these, he found them to be just as plain as any ordinary inner energy cultivation methods out there, so he quickly replied.
“I got these four segments. Will the revered mister please teach me the next four segments?”
Linghu Chong thought to himself, “After I made the changes, those four segments sounded quite ordinary. Naturally he wanted something more unique. I must find four peculiar segments to give him a good scare!” So he said, “Since today is the first day, I might as well teach you four more. Remember these: ‘Split Yang-Wei Passage with shock. Shut down Yin-Qiao Passage with clog. Once all Eight Passages are broken, the Divine Art will succeed.
Mr. Black-White was stupefied.
“If…if…one’s unique channel and eight passages are broken, how could he stay alive? These…these four segments are really beyond my understanding!”
“Do you expect just any ordinary person to understand such powerful divine art easily? If so, what would be so unique about it? Of course there are many profound and subtle theories in the divine art so no ordinary person could have understood them,” Linghu Chong said with a snort.
As Mr. Black-White listened on, he became more and more suspicious. The manner of speaking and the phrases the “revered mister” used seemed to be quite different from the Ren-named person he had known. In the first two meetings, Linghu Chong had only spoken very few words and also muffled his voice. This time, since Linghu Chong was quite high in spirit after he drank a good deal of wine, he spoke a lot more. Mr. Black-White was a very scrupulous man and these unusual signs quickly brought suspicion to his mind – the “revered mister” must be making up formulas to make fun of him.
“You said, ‘Once all Eight Passages are broken, the Divine Art will succeed.’ Are the unique channel and eight passages of the revered mister all really broken?” he demanded.
“That’s of course,” Linghu Chong acknowledged.
From the tone of Mr. Black-White’s voice, he could sense suspicion developing and building, and he dared not to speak too much. So he quickly concluded.
“That’s all. Comprehend well and you’ll understand.”
After these words, he set the wine kettle back down on the wooden tray and then handed the tray back through the square-shaped opening. Mr. Black-White reached forward to receive the tray, but all of a sudden, Linghu Chong let out a cry and then fell forward. A loud clank echoed as his forehead banged against the iron door.
“Why!” Mr. Black-White uttered. People in his caliber with extraordinary Kung Fu skills always had very quick reflexes. In no time he had reached his hands forward through the square-shaped opening and grabbed hold of the wooden tray, making sure the wine kettle would not fall and smash on the ground. At that split second, Linghu Chong turned his left hand swiftly and grabbed onto Mr. Black-White’s right wrist.
“Black-White! Do you know who I am?” He grinned.
Mr. Black-White was astounded! “You…You…,” his voice trembled.
At the time when Linghu Chong was handing the wooden tray out, the idea of grabbing Mr. Black-White’s wrist hadn’t crossed his mind. However, when he saw Mr. Black-White’s palms moved under the dim light of the oil lamp, ready to receive the wooden tray from him, an insuppressible urge all of a sudden overwhelmed his heart. It was all because of this person’s sly and calculated tricks that resulted in his many days of imprisonment. If he could break Mr. Black-White’s wrist, it would be a great way to vent some of his anger and hatred. Besides, this out of the blue seize of his wrist would definitely give him a good fright. For such a treacherous man, such a fright was the least punishment he could think of. He wasn’t even sure if it was the feeling of revenge or his childlike mischievous nature that led to the fake fall, which tricked Mr. Black-White into reaching his hands in, which in turn made the grabbing successful.
Mr. Black-White had always been vigilant, but this attack came so sudden and abrupt without any prior signs of warning. By the time he sensed something was not right, his wrist had already fallen into Linghu Chong’s grip. The grip was so strong that, to him, Linghu Chong’s fingers almost felt like an iron claw and clasped firmly onto the Inner-Pass and Outer-Pass acupoints in his wrist.
Without thinking, Mr. Black-White reflectively rotated his right wrist and executed an anti-grappling stance. A loud clank echoed when three toes of his right foot suddenly broke, and he cried out loud in painful groans.
How did Mr. Black-White end up breaking his toes on his left foot when his right wrist was been held? How strange? Turned out that Mr. Black-White always had great fear of the “revered mister.” As soon as his wrist fell into the grip, he desperately feared for his life, and in a rush, used a move named “Flood Dragon Rising above the Deep Pool.” This move worked particularly well when one’s wrist fell into the enemy’s grip by quickly pulling the arm inward while swiftly and unexpectedly kicking outward with one’s left foot. Such a powerful and fierce kick would land squarely on the enemy’s chest. The enemy would usually end up spitting blood from severe internal injuries. If the enemy were also a skilled Kung Fu master, he would have easily chosen to let go of his wrist in avoidance. Otherwise, he would have no way of dodging the kick right to the chest. Unfortunately, in the moment of extreme distress, eager to break free, Mr. Black-White completely forgot about the thick iron door right between him and his opponent. He had executed the move “Flood Dragon Rising above the Deep Pool” perfectly, and the kick had also been very accurate, powerful and fierce. Sadly, he kicked right into the iron door and the only positive effect was a loud echoing bang.
Only when Linghu Chong he
ard the loud bang did he realize how lucky he had been. If it weren’t because of the protection provided by the iron door, there was no way he could have escaped Mr. Black-White’s extremely formidable kick. He couldn’t help but burst into loud laughter.
“Kick again! If you kick as hard as the first time, I might just let you go,” he said sarcastically.
Mr. Black-White suddenly felt his inner energy gushing out continuously through the Inner-Pass and the Outer-Pass acupoints on his right wrist, and could not but remember the one thing he feared the most his entire life. Instantly, he was scared out of his wits! He tried his best to slow down the inner energy loss and at the same time begged in sorrow.
“Revered…revered mister, I beg…you….”
As soon as he spoke, his inner energy gushed out in even larger waves. He had no choice but to stop speaking. But the inner energy just kept flowing out of him rapidly.
Ever since Linghu Chong started practicing the Kung Fu techniques carved on the steel plate, his Dan-Tian region felt like a bamboo that was empty inside and a valley that was always void. At the moment when he felt some inner energy appearing in his Dan-Tian, he didn’t pay much attention to it. Instead, he noticed that Mr. Black-White’s wrist quivered continuously as though he had seen something terrifying. Since he had great grudges against Mr. Black-White, he decided to give him a good scare. So he yelled loudly.
“After I teach you the secret art, you have become an apprentice of mine. You have been caught deceiving your master. Shouldn’t I punish you for your crime?”
Mr. Black-White could feel that the inner energy inside him was rushing out even faster now. If he tried hard to hold his breath, the gushing could be temporarily stopped. But he simply had to breathe once a while, and in between the exhaling and inhaling, great amount of his inner energy would continue to flow out. At the moment he had completely forgotten about the pain from his injured toes. He only wished to be able to free his right hand out of the square-shaped opening. Even if he had to lose an arm or an leg, he would have no complaints. At that thought, he immediately reached for his sword by the waist. As soon as made the move, two large gaps seemed to have opened up at the Inner-Pass and Outer-Pass acupoints by his wrist, and all the inner energy from his entire body spurted out like river water bursting through dikes, and impossible to stop the flow ever again.