by Derek Dorris
“You know I belong to the Jade Tiger Sect but do you know what they are famous for?” she asked.
“Of course, they're an organisation for hire.” Bai Feng responded. “They offer their martial skills to people from the criminal underworld.”
Tu Ling searched his face for signs of disapproval but it betrayed none. She was more than surprised. “You've known all this time? You never said anything.”
“I don't know why it doesn't bother me, I guess I liked you and I wasn't about to hold you responsible for your sect’s actions,” Bai Feng answered, wondering why she was so nervous.
In truth, Bai Feng really didn't know just how despicable the Jade Tiger Sect’s reputation was nor did he realise the extent to which their cruelty and viciousness went. He thought they merely acted as bodyguards for criminals. His knowledge of them came entirely from what Wu Chen and Li Jing told him when he was eleven years old.
In actuality, he had just lulled Tu Ling into a false sense of security. She spilled everything. How she had bumped into him only because she was being paid to follow his party—and how she originally tagged along with him and Liao Quan to maintain a watch on them. While this didn't seem to bother him too much, when she began to recount her history with the house they were currently staying in and the family who lived there, she noticed his face turn ashen.
“You… you murdered them?” he asked in disbelief.
“I didn't. My master and his brothers did. I merely watched,” she said with feigned blamelessness—in truth, her heart wasn't in it.
“But you helped track them down!” Bai Feng pointed at her accusingly. “You helped surround the house!”
Of course, Tu Ling knew she was as guilty as the rest of her sect. Her upbringing had left her callused. But living here under such happy circumstances had thrown up a contrast with her original memories of the place, a contrast that had eaten through that callus. This was the reason for her spontaneous crying over the last few days. But on hearing Bai Feng voice those internal doubts out loud, they surfaced sharply and she began to shake. She had never truly considered the consequences of the things she had done and had been trained since she was a child to avoid empathising with her victims. In the last few weeks, she had identified with Bai Feng and shared all his thoughts and feelings. Now he was demonstrating such repulsion at what she had done, it was like she was feeling it herself. It hit her like a wall. Her entire life and the countless cruel deeds she had partaken in. Crumbling emotionally, she fell to her knees with her head in her hands. “You're right. I'm a rotten villain. I've been rotten all my life.” She cried miserably, unable to move.
When Bai Feng saw the genuineness of her grief and guilt, he softened. At length, he spoke, calmer than before, “Look Ling’er. The important thing is you have realised it. It's never too late to change your life and make up for things you've done wrong.” Being raised by the Earthly Three and Eight Guardians, Bai Feng was possessed of a less hypocritical morality than most people. To him, ego was at the heart of all the bad things people do and that's something everyone must grapple with. He had divine training in the Five Yin Elementals and Five Yang Modulations, so he was more immune to the ego’s urges than anyone else. He wasn't about to hold that over Tu Ling too.
She sobbed uncontrollably for another couple of hours but later that evening she quietened down and fell asleep. Bai Feng sat in the corner looking over at her. He found it impossible to imagine that this same sweet, beautiful girl who had shown so much kindness to him and Liao Quan had come from such a malevolent sect. From then on, he decided to accept her as a new person and to not hold her to those crimes. He intended to do many good deeds in the future and if she was by his side, they would be her deeds too.
In the following weeks, Bai Feng advanced his martial skill to ever increasing levels through an intuitive combination of the Five Yin Elementals, the Five Yang Modulations and Liao Quan's Twenty-Five Lightning Arms Style. In that latter style, he was convinced he had found the final piece to the Earthly Dragon puzzle and it was only a matter of time, most likely years, before he could become the living embodiment of his sect’s ideals.
Like Tu Ling, he didn't want to leave this hideaway, a place that had provided him so much comfort and happiness, in the company of the woman he loved. However, he knew Wong Shi Hong and Xun Da would be facing a dangerous series of battles against the Qui army and their despicable accomplice Yu Guo Wei. He had to leave.
For her part, Tu Ling knew this day would come and she voiced neither dissent nor disappointment when Bai Feng asked to return to Gongsum. She had only one request. “I want to visit the graves of the family and kowtow to each of them. Maybe their ghosts might find rest if I beg their forgiveness.”
Bai Feng nodded in satisfaction and so, after they packed, they went straight to the graveyard outside the compound. They bowed at the entrance to the small clearing and then entered. Suddenly, something struck Bai Feng. “Ling’er, you said your sect left nobody alive here. But if that's true, who buried these bodies?”
“I've been wondering that myself since we arrived here. It must have been someone we… someone my sect missed.”
They kowtowed to the graves while Tu Ling spoke to the ground in a low voice. Bai Feng tried not to listen but he sensed her sincerity and it gave him a good feeling. Truly, she is repentant. How could their spirits not forgive her?
After exiting the clearing, they heard some rustling coming toward them. Ducking for cover they wondered who else could've known about this place. Ling’er had half expected a visit from someone since the moment she arrived. After all, someone buried those bodies. That someone might return.
As she guessed, a short but stern looking man, aged around sixty years of age, and dressed in yellow monk’s robes appeared out of the rocks, and walked straight for the clearing. He kowtowed at the entrance as they had done and then entered. One by one, he kowtowed to each of the graves as if he had known everyone of the people buried there. Suspecting the monk was crying, Bai Feng peered closer to see his face. What he saw shocked him to his core.
“Uncle!” he blurted as he sprang from their vantage point.
The monk turned at the sudden appearance of the young man but maintained his composure. Actually, on closer inspection, the monk looked rather unflappable. It was the very monk who had raised Bai Feng at the Lowly Sea Monastery—his father's cousin, the Sitting Lotus.
“Uncle, it's me Bai Feng, Bai Shen’s son!” Bai Feng said with so much excitement he could barely think.
Mah Lok was an unusual monk from an even more unusual sect—a pacifist sect founded two centuries earlier after a group of holy men travelled by sea from the southern tip of the southern continent to the east coast of the Liu Empire. In his early years, Mah Lok had travelled far and wide and had developed an admirable reputation as a man of great learning and intelligence; and while Bai Feng had always respected his uncle, he had remembered him as a particularly cold person.
“Feng'er? You’re alive!” Mah Lok exclaimed, running to embrace the young man. “You're alive!”
Bai Feng wasn't used to seeing any feeling on the monk's face let alone the gamut of emotions that were consuming it right now. In the space of a second, he had transformed from stoic priest to blubbering mess.
Mah Lok continued to embrace Bai Feng while talking to nobody in particular. Only after several minutes did he calm down and recomposed himself. “Feng'er, I'm sorry. I’m sorry I lost my head there. It's just the shock of seeing you alive and here of all places.”
“That's exactly what I was wondering, what are you doing here Uncle?”
“What do you mean? If you're here, you must already know why.” Mah Lok sounded confused.
“I don't know anything, I'm here by happenchance.” Bai Feng sounded even more confused.
Mah Lok stared at him and then opened his mouth to speak. What Bai Feng heard sounded like it was said to him from another world. It echoed low and dull in his head.
/> “Feng’er, this was your parents’ home.”
A Family’s Fate
Bai Feng felt like he had been enveloped in a thick cloud of hot air. He attempted to compose himself, if for no other reason than to confirm with a clear head what he just heard. But it was to no avail. His knees buckled and he swayed forwards onto his hands and knees. With a great degree of concern on his face, Mah Lok rushed to support him. Bai Feng could see the monk's lips moving but couldn't hear a word. A numb whistling occupied the space within his ears. He felt like his body was going to split in two. Soon enough, blood spurted from his mouth.
Automatically, his training took over. He sat on the ground, crossed his legs and breathed. Assuming the same position opposite him, Mah Lok reached his right arm out towards Bai Feng and placed his palm on the younger man's chest. Bai Feng felt a warm wave of energy flow through his body. A sensation of lightness invaded his being as his bones and muscles expanded.
Bai Feng opened his eyes and could see clearly again. He saw the monk sitting in front of him, looking like deity. Has he always been this powerful? Bai Feng wondered before the image of his father and mother recurred, threatening to crush his consciousness again.
Mah Lok was deeply concerned. I wasn't wrong, he thought. Feng’er has grown immensely strong. But it's all happened too quickly. And now, the news of his parents’ fate has stirred up his insides. A torrent of inner strength is swaying back and forth uncontrollably within him and it is liable to hurt him. However, after a while, he saw the colour return to Bai Feng’s face.
“Uncle,” Bai Feng said with a sudden calm. “Tell me everything about my parents.”
Mah Lok was more than reticent. This could be the last thing he needs. But if I don't, he'll ruminate on it and probably make things even worse.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Stay seated and I’ll tell you.”
Bai Feng knew very little about his family other than his father was a local official in the provincial district of Baiyun Mountain. Bai Feng’s family had lived there for generations and his father, Bai Shen, was well respected until an incident occurred in which he and his wife were forced to flee their home. Bai Shen was the eldest of four brothers who were forced to flee with him and while one other was married, none except Bai Shen had a child. He and his wife Sun Jun didn’t want to leave their precious son behind yet the journey that lay at their feet was going to be dangerous and arduous. They left him under the care of Bai Shen’s cousin, a renowned monk who Bai Shen respected more than anyone. When the time was right, he’d return for his son.
The incident which provoked his family’s flight was complicated but involved Bai Shen discovering some sordid details about a senior government official who would rather see Bai Shen and his entire family dead than risk the possibility of it ever getting out. Bai Shen and his family were proud martial experts but too small in numbers to escape eventual defeat at the hands of this rich official’s hired killers. So they chose the prudent option which, in the martial world, was not always the correct one. They ran. Mah Lok was a famous monk of a notoriously pacifist sect of Buddhists so it was not surprising that his cousin also held unorthodox views on what was right and wrong. Although Bai Shen wasn’t of the same mind as his son would be years later—that fighting for honour was a pointless and self-defeating exercise—he was clever enough to know that fighting a losing battle was.
They fled west to the central plains’ Kiu prefecture where, years earlier, Bai Shen had holed up on a military expedition. He knew its unexplored rocky terrain would offer them a place to avoid detection while they bided their time. There, he and his brothers constructed a marvellous compound hidden in the sheer rocks and spent their days perfecting a unique type of kung fu that their father, Bai Tengfei, spent his life developing after witnessing an epic battle between two grandmasters. Although Bai Tengfei created a profound martial skill, he still couldn't perfect it in his lifetime so, before he died, he passed it onto his sons in the hope they would.
Bai Shen was the eldest and the most proficient of the four sons but, more importantly, he possessed the same kind of genius his father had—an ability to understand the principles of personal combat and the essence of hand-to-hand fighting. Within the hidden confines of their rocky compound, Bai Shen, with the help of his brothers, further refined their father's skill into one of the most unusual martial skills the world would ever know—a martial skill that involved no defending whatsoever; a martial skill that brought the fighter closer to his opponent than any other. A martial skill based entirely on close-quarter attacking and constant contact with your opponent. They called it the “Soaring Palm Kung Fu”.
Despite their successes in practice however, they encountered problems when applying the Soaring Palm Style to real-life fighting. No matter how easy it was in sparring, in actual combat, against a belligerent opponent, they couldn't maintain constant contact with their opponent.
As the eldest son, Bai Shen detailed the principles of the imperfect style in a manual which he secreted away in the compound telling nobody about it with the exception of one person, his cousin Mah Lok, whom he visited a number of years later with the intention of bringing Bai Feng back to his family. On hearing that Bai Feng had ran away, he told Mah Lok of this manual and its whereabouts and asked the monk to ensure that, if anything ever happened to him, his son would receive it one day. After all, it was his family’s legacy.
When Mah Lok hadn't received word from Bai Shen for some time, the monk set off for the Kiu prefecture to investigate. What he found would stay with him forever. Even a wise man of the world wasn't ready for the sight of his family massacred in their own home and left strewn across the entire compound to rot in the open air. Mah Lok spent the next few days tending to the family’s remains and saying prayers over the graves. Only on the final day did it occur to him to look for the Soaring Palm Manual. He dug it out from under some floorboards and opened the first page. Written in his cousin’s handwriting was the following inscription:
“This is my modest attempt to commit the Bai family’s ‘Soaring Palm’ Kung Fu to writing. It has not yet been perfected. My spirit will be forever indebted to the person who ensures it enters the possession of my son and heir, Bai Feng.
Bai Shen...”
Mah Lok was an expert practitioner of deep breathing and other meditative techniques so his internal strength was deep. This would've provided a tremendous basis to external kung fu but he had no interest in fighting. Nonetheless, he couldn't help shed a tear at the life’s work of his dear cousin. Ever since, his son had run away from the Lowly Sea monastery, Mah Lok felt he had failed Bai Shen. As such, he would do what he could to get the manual to his son.
Now sitting here in the Bai family home, he was able to do just that. Mah Lok took the manual out of his robe where he kept it night and day and finally handed it to Bai Feng. Bowing reverently as he did so.
Bai Feng sat there on the ground absorbed in the story of his family. He still wasn't thinking straight. His mind and body were in turmoil. Foremost among them was this Soaring Palm Style. He reached out and received the manual. The cover was coarse and there was little craft in the writing but to Bai Feng, it was the most precious of treasures. He never knew his father was inclined toward the martial arts nor that his family were the heir to a unique kung fu style, that… and then it hit him, for the first time. Ling’er!
Springing to his feet, he darted towards the compound but she was nowhere to be found. He kicked his way up to the top of the rocks and screamed at the top of his lungs.
“TU LING!”
* * *
Mah Lok didn't know how to react to the news that Bai Feng had fallen in with a girl from the very sect who had wiped out his family. Needless to say, Bai Feng didn't either. The monk sat quietly while Bai Feng paced back and forth all night before finally asking the young man to accompany him for another round of meditation. Bai Feng didn't want to stop moving. He felt if he went to sleep or even sat down
for a second, he would implode. Mah Lok was getting worried so he dramatically changed his manner.
“Feng'er!” he roared. “Sit down and tend to your breathing.”
Bai Feng stopped as if his feet were nailed to the ground, the commanding power of the monk’s voice was as astonishing as it was subduing. Without further hesitation, he sat down and faced the Sitting Lotus one more time. Soon, he was once again feeling that warm energy flowing into his chest. At that moment, something about Mah Lok reminded Bai Feng of his Earthly Dragon grandmasters—three men completely unschooled in kung fu but with profoundly strong internal energy. Within minutes, Bai Feng felt settled again.
Without taking his hand off his chest, Mah Lok said calmly, “Feng'er, tell me about you. Where did you go after you left the Lowly Sea?” The monk had been struck earlier at how strong Bai Feng had become. After all, he was only twenty-one years old. He had clearly been trained to a high level but nothing could've prepared him for what he was about to hear.
As Bai Feng recounted everything to an increasingly amazed Mah Lok, the monk would nod approvingly at nearly every juncture and gasp at the more dramatic turn of events. Bai Feng was surprised to see how satisfied the devout pacifist was to hear he had elected a martial path but the monk’s feeling towards fighting were far more complex than the young Bai Feng, sharp as he was, could grasp. To hear that Bai Feng was taken in by the Earthly Dragon Sect filled the monk with immense gratitude. This more than anything would've pleased his father. Suddenly, those years anguishing over the boy’s safety were now viewed my Mah Lok to be worth it.
A more serious expression crossed the monk’s face when mention was made of the Divine Alchemist and the Qui army but, on hearing that the Majestic Wanderer had taken Bai Feng under his wing, his expression became far more positive. Bai Feng noticed the curl of a small smile when he spoke of Liao Quan which was subsumed by deep sadness when he came to the part where Liao Quan died. Bai Feng purposefully omitted any direct reference to Tu Ling.