by Jin Yong
After single handedly winning against so many kids, Tolui was very proud of himself. That was why he stood quietly in the center of the surrounding kids, not even thinking about running away. Unknown to him, big trouble was coming.
From the distance, Tolui heard Guo Jing's faint shouts, “Tolui, Tolui, run away now. Dukhsh is bringing his leopards to eat you up!”
Tolui was shocked and tried to rush out of the circle. But the kids surrounding him kept blocking him; there was no way for him to escape. Soon the Six Freaks of the South, together with Dukhsh, arrived one after the other. Following them, the leopard handlers led the leopards there. Though the Six Freaks of the South could have prevented the oncoming danger by catching Dukhsh, they did not want to create more trouble. They also wanted to see how Tolui and Guo Jing faced the danger, so they did not offer any help.
Suddenly, they heard sound of numerous horses coming like the wind. Someone shouted at the top of their lungs, “Don't let the leopards go, don't let go of the leopards!” Muqali, Boroqul and the rest of the ‘Four Aces’ had arrived. When they heard the leopard handler's report, they didn’t have enough time to inform Temujin, and hurriedly rushed to the scene. Temujin, Ong Khan, Jamuka, Senggum and the others were at the Mongolian camp chatting with Wanyan Honglie and his brother. Hearing the leopard handler's report, they were shocked and ran out of the ger and leapt on their horses.
“Quickly inform them that I order Dukhsh not to do this. It is important that Temujin Khan's son is not injured,” Ong Khan ordered. His men rode their most spirited horses to where the trouble was.
Because Wanyan Hongxi was not able to see the leopards fighting against men yesterday, he was still feeling bored. Hearing this, he felt excitement rise and stood up exclaiming, “Let's all go take a look!”
Wanyan Honglie speculated, “If Senggum's leopards really kill Temujin's son, then their families will no longer be friendly. After that happens, they may start fighting. Who knows, maybe both sides will suffer terrible loses and be severely weakened. That will definitely be good fortune for my Jin country!”
The Wanyan brothers, Ong Khan, Senggum, Jamuka and the others arrived at the scene, only to see that the two hunting leopards' chains had already been unfastened. The leopards crouched on the ground with low growling noises coming from their throats. In front of the leopards stood two kids, Tolui and his younger sworn brother Guo Jing. Temujin and his ‘Four Aces’ raised their bows and pointed them at the leopards; they were ready for action. Although Temujin saw his youngest son in a dangerous situation, he also knew that those two hunting leopards were very precious to Senggum. Senggum had caught the leopards when they were young; he reared and trained them until they grew strong and ferocious. Since that could not be achieved easily and took much time, Temujin felt that if the leopards did not attack, he wouldn’t harm them.
Seeing the crowd arriving and relying on his grandfather's and father's adoration for him, Dukhsh felt even more courageous. He kept urging the leopards to attack.
Ong Khan then shouted, “Stop this now!”
The sounds hooves were heard as someone riding a red horse arrived. On the horse was a middle-aged woman, clad in leopard fur, and in her arms, a little girl. It was Temujin's wife, Tolui's mother.
She had been chatting in the camp with Senggum's wife. When she heard the news, she immediately rushed out with her daughter Hua Zheng. Seeing the danger, she was both shocked and worried. She shouted “Quickly, shoot the arrow!” With all her being focused on her son, she absentmindedly placed her daughter on the ground, forgetting about her safety.
As a little girl of four years, how was Hua Zheng supposed to know of the leopard's ferocious nature? She happily bounded over to her brother's side. Spotting the leopards with their pretty colored fur, she was reminded of her second brother Ogedai’s hunting dogs. She stretched her hand out, wanting to pat the leopard's head. The crowd was startled, and yelled at her to stop; but it was already too late. The two leopards, already nervous and agitated, growled at the same time, and leapt forward fiercely. Alarmed, the crowd called out in distress.
Although Temujin had already aimed his arrow, Hua Zheng's sudden appearance was something that no one had expected. In the blink of an eye, the leopards were in the air. Hua Zheng was blocking Temujin's aim at the strategic spot on the leopard's head where they have to be hit to ensure an instant kill. A shot by Temujin now would only injure the leopard, and that would aggravate it further. The ‘Four Aces’ threw down their bows and drew their knives. As they moved forward, they saw Guo Jing roll forward to pick up Hua Zheng; at the same time one leopard's front claws was on Guo Jing's shoulder. The ‘Four Aces’ raised their knives, only to hear several faint sounds. When the noises passed, the two leopards suddenly fell growling and rolling from side to side. After a short time they were motionless.
Boroqul went forward to find out what had happened. He saw blood running from the leopards’ foreheads. It was obvious that a kung fu master had used a hidden weapon to hit the leopards’ brains. He turned around and saw six calm, composed Han people standing to one side watching the on-going scene. He knew that the hidden weapons had been thrown by them. Temujin's wife hurriedly picked up the now bawling Hua Zheng from Guo Jing's arms and pulled Tolui to her bosom as she tried to comfort Hua Zheng.
Senggum asked angrily, “Who killed the leopards?”
The crowd remained silent and no one answered. Ke Zhen’E had heard the leopards’ growls, and fearing that the leopards would harm Guo Jing, had thrown four projectiles with poisonous tips. Since that action only took a wave of the hand, and since everyone had their eyes focused on the leopards, there was no one who actually saw who fired them.
Temujin smiled and said, “Brother Senggum, I'll repay you with four good leopards when we get back, and I'll add eight pairs of black eagles.”
Senggum was seething with anger when he heard that, but he remained silent. By now, Ong Khan was angrily scolding Dukhsh. Humiliated at receiving this treatment in front of the crowd, he tried to deflect the blame from himself. In a fit of temper he lay down on the ground and began rolling and hitting, crying and shouting. Ong Khan loudly commanded him to stop, but he did not care.
Because Temujin was still grateful for what Ong Khan had done for him in the past, he felt that it would be a pity to break up the two families' friendship over such a small matter. He smiled and bent over to pick up Dukhsh. Dukhsh was still crying and yelling and tried his best to struggle, but could not. Still smiling, Temujin tried to salvage the situation, “Step-father, the kids were only playing, there's no need to get worked up. I think he is a good boy and I'm thinking of betrothing my daughter to him. What do you think?”
Ong Khan saw that Hua Zheng had eyes like glistening dew, and skin like a baby lamb, fair and cute, and felt happy in his heart. Laughingly, he said, “What could be wrong with that? Let's have an even closer relationship; I'll betroth my eldest granddaughter to your son Jochi.”
Temujin agreed, “Thanks Step-father!” He turned around and said to Senggum, “Brother Senggum, we are now in-laws!”
Senggum had always felt that he was of a higher status than Temujin. He was already jealous of Temujin, yet looked down on him. Although he was not happy about becoming in-laws with Temujin, he could not go against his father's wishes. He could only smile weakly.
At this point, Wanyan Honglie noticed the ‘Six Freaks of the South’, and he was shocked. “What are they doing here? I'm sure they are chasing me. I wonder if the temperamental Taoist priest with the surname Qiu is around here as well?” he asked himself. Since he currently had the protection of numerous soldiers, he was not afraid of them. But if he gave the command to capture them, he was afraid that it might cause trouble. The ‘Six Freaks’ were listening to Temujin’s and the others' conversations and had not even noticed him. He turned and moved behind the crowd of soldiers, while at the same time thinking of ways to handle the matter. As for Ong Khan and Temujin's families' e
ngagement, he did not think much of it.
Temujin knew that it was the ‘Six Freaks of the South’ that saved his daughter's life, and he waited for Ong Khan and the others to leave, before commanding Boroqul to reward them richly with furs and gold. He then reached his hand out to stroke the top of Guo Jing's head and repeatedly praised him for his courage and valor. Temujin said that risking his own life to save another, is something that not all adults will do, much less a small child. When he asked Guo Jing why was he so brave, Guo Jing just stood there dumbly since he could not find an answer. After pondering for some time, he said, “Leopards will eat people.”
Hearing that, Temujin laughed loudly. Tolui then told why he started fighting with Dukhsh. When Temujin heard how Dukhsh kept mentioning embarrassing events from his past, anger boiled deep in his heart. He said nothing about it, only saying, “In the future, don't bother with him.” Temujin then turned to Quan Jinfa and asked, “How much gold do you want to stay in my camp to teach my son kung fu?”
Quan Jinfa thought, “We were thinking of finding a place to teach Guo Jing kung fu. If we can teach him here, there would no better place.” He replied, “The Great Khan's willingness to accept the six of us is something we could not have asked for. You can pay us whatever you decide is suitable, we wouldn’t dare to discuss or argue about the amount.” Temujin was pleased and he told Boroqul to look after them; after that, he left to see off the Wanyan brothers.
The Six Freaks of the South rode slowly behind the others while they discussed the matter.
Han Baoju said, “The skin on the chest of Chen Xuanfeng's corpse was removed by someone; it must have been an enemy of his.”
Quan Jinfa replied, “The ‘Twin Killers of the Dark Winds’ are cruel and ruthless; having many enemies isn't something to be surprised at. But I don't understand why his enemy didn’t simply chop up his body, or slash him all over. Why only slice off a large piece of skin from his chest?”
“I have been thinking of that all this time, but I still cannot figure out the reasoning behind it,” Ke Zhen’E replied. “The most pressing task at hand is to find out where ‘Iron Corpse’ is.
“Precisely! If that person is not killed, she will bring much danger to us in the future. I'm afraid that she will not die from the poison,” Zhu Cong agreed.
Eagle Shooting Hero 131
With tears in her eyes, Han Xiaoying spoke up, “Fifth brother's dead, how could we not avenge him?”
So Han Baoju, Han Xiaoying and Quan Jinfa, rode their fast horses to try to find ‘Iron Corpse’. But after numerous days of searching, they were not able to find a trace of her. Han Baoju considered, “The woman's eyes were hit by elder brother's poison projectiles. The poison must have worked on her by now; she probably died in some mountain valley." The rest of them agreed. Ke Zhen’E knew in his heart that the ‘Twin Killers of the Dark Winds’ were very smart and devious. Unless he could touch her corpse with his own hands, it would always remain a heavy weight on his heart. He did not want to bother his younger brothers and sister with his worries and did not tell them of his concerns.
From then on, the Six Freaks of the South remained on the steppe, teaching Guo Jing and Tolui kung fu. Temujin knew that kung fu is for protecting oneself in close contact with an opponent. He wanted Tolui and Guo Jing to learn these techniques briefly, and to spend most of their time learning riding, shooting with their bows and arrows, and learning other important skills of the battlefield. The ‘Six Freaks of the South’ were not familiar with these Mongol skills so Guo Jing and Tolui learned these from Jebe and Boroqul.
In the evenings, the ‘Six Freaks of the South’ taught Guo Jing alone, teaching him fists, sword, hidden weapons, and lightness kung fu. Although Guo Jing was slow by nature, he knew that he had to avenge his father in the future using kung fu, so he did not complain and worked as hard as he could.
Zhu Cong, Quan Jinfa and Han Xiaoying's kung fu was a bit too hard for him to comprehend. With Han Baoju and Nan Xiren's basic kung fu, he just followed their directions exactly and slowly but steadily learned it. This basic kung fu strengthened bodies but was not designed to overcome an enemy and win a fight.
Han Baoju often said, “Training you is like training a camel. Strong is strong, but can a camel be victorious over a leopard?”
Whenever he heard that, Guo Jing only showed a silly smile. When the Six Freaks taught Guo Jing, they only supervised his learning, instead of explaining it to him. Of the ten moves they tried to teach him, he couldn't learn a single one; they could not help feeling discouraged. Whenever they talked about it, they would only sigh and shake their heads. Although they knew that their chances of being victorious over Qiu Chuji’s disciple were almost non-existent, an agreement had been made so they couldn't give up. As a business man, Quan Jinfa’s talents lay in the field of intricate calculations. He often said, “For Qiu Chuji to find the Yang family widow, I figure he has about an eighty percent chance of success. That improves our chances by twenty percent. Whether the Yang family widow gave birth to a boy or girl, who knows? The chance that she gave birth to a boy is only half, with that, we potentially gain another forty percent. If it's a son, maybe he won’t survive to adulthood, we then gain another ten percent. Even if he manages to grow up, maybe he'll be as stupid as Jing’er. Therefore, I’d say that we still have an eighty percent chance of winning.”
The other five ‘Freaks’ thought that what he said wasn't wrong, however, saying that the Yang family's son’s aptitude for learning martial arts might be the same as Guo Jing’s, they had to know that Quan Jinfa was trying to console them. Luckily, Guo Jing had a good heart and he is exceedingly obedient, so the ‘Six Freaks’ really liked his character a lot.
On the prairies of Outer Mongolia, the coming of green summer grass and the brilliant white of winter snows, ten years quickly went by. Guo Jing had become a sturdy youth of sixteen. There were only two years left until the martial arts competition, so the ‘Six Freaks’ stepped up their supervision. They ordered him to stop practicing riding and shooting temporarily, and from dusk to dawn, concentrate on practicing fists and the sword. During these ten years, Temujin had many battles and had swallowed up numerous other tribes into his own. He commanded his subordinates strictly, and all his soldiers were courageous and excelled in fighting. He was both courageous and resourceful and knew when to attack using force or attack using strategy. In all of Mongolia, no one could be compared to him. As the livestock bred and numbers grew, the population also increased, so that the differences between Temujin and Ong Khan’s tribes became smaller.
The violent winds gradually stopped and the heavy snows began to decrease, but the outer prairies of Mongolia still remained bitterly cold. A certain day arrived; it was the Pure Brightness Festival. (Note: Qing Ming Festival. A day for paying respects to the dead. The Chinese pay their respects at their ancestor’s / family's graves, and may clean up the grave and pull out the weeds etc.) The ‘Six Freaks of the South’ arose early and Guo Jing with them; they took cows and sheep as sacrificial items to Zhang Ahsheng's grave and swept it. Since the Mongolians are nomads, they move around more or less continuously. They have no fixed place to stay. At this point in time, the Mongolian camp was quite far away from Zhang Ahsheng's grave. Even riding fast horses, it took them more than half of a day to get there. The seven of them climbed the barren hill and swept away the piled up snow from the grave. They then lit candles, burned incense, and knelt in front of the grave praying.
Han Xiaoying secretly prayed, “Fifth brother, for the past ten years we’ve given all of our energy and our hearts to teaching this child. His gift for learning isn't good and he can’t learn our martial arts properly. I hope that fifth brother's spirit in the heavens will watch over him now and at the Jiaxing martial arts competition in two years time. Do not let this child spoil the prestige and name of the ‘Seven Freaks of the South’!"
The ‘Six Freaks’ were born and lived their lives in the south, with its warm
hills and waters. During the time they stayed in the Mongolian desert with its cold winds, they had become weaker and frailer and their faces looked lean and somber. The hair at their temples had started turning white. Although Han Xiaoying's charisma and attractiveness had not lessened, she was no longer the pinkcheeked young girl of yesteryear.
Zhu Cong surveyed the graveside piles of skulls. After ten years of enduring winds and snow, the skulls had not started to decay. In his heart, there was a feeling that he could not express. Throughout these years, he had searched all over the surrounding country for hundreds of li with Quan Jinfa. They searched in every mountain valley and in every cave, trying to find Mei Chaofeng. Had she died from poisoning, there should be a skeleton left behind. If she did not die, it would be very hard for a blind woman to live in seclusion for a long time and not leave a trail of some kind. Nonetheless, she had vanished into thin air like a spirit. On this lonely hill in the wilderness, in this grave and the piles of white bones, lay the only marks that the ‘Twin Killers of the Dark Winds’ had left behind in the desert. The seven stayed in front of the grave to have a memorial meal and drink; then returned to their dwellings. After a short rest, the ‘Six Freaks’ took Guo Jing to the hillside to practice his martial arts.
One day his fourth master, ‘Wood Chopper of the Southern Mountains’ Nan Xiren and he practiced using the ‘Open Hills Palms’ Technique (Kai Shan Zhang Fa). Nan Xiren intended that he use as much martial arts as he could. They sparred for around seventy or eighty moves continuously before Nan Xiren suddenly pushed his left palm outwards and flipped his body in the move ‘The Hawk Hunting Rabbits’ (Cang Ying Bu Tu), aiming the palm at Guo Jing's back. Guo Jing bent over to avoid his move; then moving his leg in a circular motion with the move ‘Autumn Winds Sweeping the Fallen Leaves’ (Qiu Feng Sao Luo Ye), he swept his leg towards his teacher's lower body. Nan Xiren countered using ‘Iron Bull Tilling the Land’ (Tie Niu Tian Di), attacking with his palms. Guo Jing had just started to withdraw his leg to change his stance, when Nan Xiren suddenly shouted “Remember this move!” His left hand swiftly moved out and tried to hit Guo Jing's chest from the front. Guo Jing's right palm hurriedly moved to block, because this palm is considered rather fast. Then Nan Xiren's left palm flew out, and with a slap, both palms connected. Although Nan Xiren only used about thirty percent of his power, Guo Jing could not help falling over. Both his hands hit the ground, but he immediately jumped up, with a look of shame showing on his face.