by Jin Yong
A few days later, at dusk, the three of them arrived at the foot of Mount Huashan. Linghu Chong had grown up at Huashan so he was very familiar with the area. He said, "We'll go up from a small path behind the mountain, we won't meet anyone there."
Between the five mountains, Mount Huashan was the most rugged. The small path behind the mountain was actually a steep cliff and there was no passable path. It was good that the three people's martial arts were very high and they were able to go up the rugged cliff. With this method, they arrived at Mount Huashan's mountaintop at around two in the morning. Linghu Chong led the other two towards the Hall of Qi Principle. They saw the place was dark with not a single candle to be seen. They hid underneath a window to listen but there was also no sound to be heard. Then they went to the disciples' residence but there wasn't a single soul to be found there as well. Linghu Chong pushed open a window, went in, and lit a candle to have a look. Inside the house was empty, the top of the table and the floor was all covered with dust. After going to a few other houses, they found all the houses were in the same condition. It was obvious the disciples of Huashan had not returned to the mountain yet.
Blue Phoenix felt something was amiss. "Where are those bastards who went up the mountain? They said they were coming to Mount Huashan, did they go somewhere else?"
Linghu Chong was surprised and hesitant as he remembered the day when he attacked Shaolin Temple. The temple was also empty and they repeatedly met with dangers afterwards. Could Yue Buqun be using the same tactic again? But at this time, there were only three of them. Even if they were surrounded, it would be easy to get away. He was just afraid that the Heng-Shan's disciples were being imprisoned in a very secretive place and they had been tarrying for the last few days, so they might not be able to find them anymore. The three of them strained their ears to listen but all they heard was the rustling of the pines and the whole mountain was strangely calm.
"Let's split up to look for them. After two hours, we'll meet here again," Blue Phoenix suggested.
"Ok!" Linghu Chong replied. He believed that Blue Phoenix's skill in using poison was very high and there would be no one who would dare to harm her. But he still advised, "You don't need to fear other people. But if you come across my master, his sword is really fast, you must be really careful!"
Blue Phoenix saw him speaking earnestly. Under the yellow flame, his concern was seen on his face. Her heart was moved on seeing this. "Big brother, I'll definitely pay attention to your advice." She then pushed the door to go out.
Linghu Chong took Yingying to investigate everywhere around there. They had even gone to Tianqin Gorge where the Yue Buqun's husband and wife resided in, but they still had not seen anyone yet.
"This is really fishy. During the past, our Huashan School's disciples were all over the mountain, there are always people left behind here to sweep the ground. But why isn't there anyone here right now?" Linghu Chong said.
At the end, they had finally arrived at Yue Lingshan's room. That room was on the side of Tianqin Gorge, and it was situated very close to the Yue Buqun couple's room. As Linghu Chong got to the front of the room, he remembered of the past days when he frequently came here to take his little martial sister to go out and play or to practice sword. But today, there was nothing to see and he couldn't refrain from shedding his tears. He extended his hand to push the door open but the planks were latched, in that moment he hesitated not knowing what to do. Yingying leapt over the wall, unlatched the planks and open the door. They went inside and lit the candle. The bed and table inside were covered by a layer of dust, and there was nothing on the wall. Even the common objects for girls like comb and dresses were not there.
Linghu Chong thought, "After Little martial sister and Martial Brother Lin got married, they must've moved to another new house and don't live here anymore. All her everyday items have all been taken with her." He then opened up the drawers and saw some small bamboo baskets, stone marbles, cloth dolls, little wooden horse and many other toys. Each of these things was not made by Linghu Chong, but they were the items the two of them had played with in the old days. She had neatly kept everything here. Linghu Chong felt sad and he couldn't bear it anymore, tears flowed and dripped down from his cheeks. Yingying quietly went out and slowly closed the door. Linghu Chong was reluctant to leave Yue Lingshan's room for a long time. Finally, he suppressed his feelings and blew the candle off and walked out of the room.
"Brother Chong, there's one place in Mount Huashan which has a great connection to you. Take me there," Yingying said.
"Ah, you're talking about the Cliff of Repentance. Alright, let's go have a look." He was slightly lost in thought, then he said, "But I'm not sure whether grand martial uncle Feng is there or not?"
He then led the way towards the Cliff of Repentance. Linghu Chong was very familiar with the path. Even though the place wasn't close, they got there very quick. On top of the cliff, Linghu Chong said, "I was inside the cave..." Suddenly they heard two noise of weapons clashing from inside the cave. Both of them were startled and they quickly walked nearer. Someone suddenly cried out, seemingly having been injured. Linghu Chong took out his long sword and rushed forward first. He saw the sealed front entrance to the cave with sword moves engraving had been opened up and there was flickering of flame coming from the inside. Linghu Chong and Yingying entered the cave and their hearts skipped a beat.
There were dozens of torches inside the cave and there were at least two hundred people in there. They were all concentrating on looking at the sword moves engraving on the cave wall. Every single one of them was so absorbed that there wasn't a sound heard. When Linghu Chong and Yingying heard that miserable cry, they were expecting that inside the cave would either be pitch black or there would be fierce fighting with blood spraying all over the place. But how could they have known that the back of the cave would be bright as day and it would also be filled with people. The back of the cave was quite spacious, so even though there were two hundred people there, they weren't too crowded. But with so many people being noiseless, just like corpses, they were really surprised to suddenly see this strange scene.
Yingying slightly leaned on Linghu Chong's left shoulder. Linghu Chong turned around and saw her face was snow white and there was fear in her eyes. So he extended his hand to softly embrace her waist. Then he saw each of these people had different clothes. After looking for a while, he realised they were the disciples from Songshan, Taishan, and Hengshan Schools. Among them, there were some middle aged people with grey hair, there were also some old people with long white beards. It was clear that many seniors from those three schools were also here. However, the people from Huashan and Heng-Shan Schools were not seen among them. The people from these three schools gathered in their own groups and did not mix with each other. The Songshan School's people were observing the wall where the Songshan School's sword moves were, while the Taishan and Hengshan Schools' people were also absorbing the part of the walls where their own sword moves were. Linghu Chong remembered that they had met with four Hengshan's disciples along the way. They mentioned they had gotten news and they were hurrying towards Huashan. That it was of the greatest luck. So it was all because they would have the opportunity to see the wonderful sword moves engraved on the wall at this cave. After some time, he saw among the Hengshan School's people was a lonesome person with white hair looking at the stone wall with no expression on his face. This person was Mr. Mo Da. Linghu Chong didn't know what to, whether he should go up to pay his respect to him or not.
Suddenly, a person from the Songshan School group angrily shouted, "You're not Songshan's disciple, why are you looking at the drawings?" The one who said this was an old person wearing a dust-yellow gown. He angrily glared at a middle aged person with a tall and strong stature, while the long sword in his hand was pointed at his chest.
That middle aged person snorted and said, "When did I look at the drawings?"
The old person from Songshan School ang
rily shouted, "You're still thinking of denying it? Which school are you from? If you want to steal Songshan's sword art then I don't care, but what are you doing looking at those moves to break the Songshan's sword art for?" At the same time that he shouted, four to five Songshan's people immediately surrounded that middle aged person and pulled their weapons out.
"I know nothing of your honourable school's sword art, so what's the use of looking at those breaking moves for?" the middle aged person argued.
"You must be harbouring some malicious intentions to be peering at Songshan School's sword moves," the old person from Songshan School replied.
That middle aged person put his hand on his sword handle. He said, "Five Mountains School's headmaster, Mr. Yue, is very kind and he's allowed us to come and have a look at the sword moves on the wall. But he didn't limit us to which moves we can look and which ones we can't."
That old person from Songshan School said, "You're thinking of harming my Songshan School, we won't allow you to."
"Five schools have become one. At this time, there's only Five Mountains School. How can there be Songshan School? If not for five schools becoming one, Mr. Yue would never have permitted you to look at the sword moves in this cave at Huashan," that middle aged person said and that old man was unable to reply back. A disciple of Songshan pushed the back of that middle aged person's shoulder and shouted, "You're very good in turning things over." That middle aged person reached back with his hand and flinged that person's hand away. That Songshan's disciple staggered and fell on the ground.
At this time, a person from the Taishan School suddenly shouted, "Who are you? Wearing our Taishan School's uniform and mixing with us trying to steal the Taishan School's sword art." A youngster wearing the Taishan School's uniform hurriedly rushed out. A person nearest to the exit immediately moved and shouted, "Stop, who are you making trouble here?"
That youngster stabbed out with his sword as he rushed forward. The person blocking the exit sent his left palm out towards his eye. That youngster quickly retreated a step. The person blocking the exit shot his right hand out like the wind, again stabbing at his eye. The youngster's long sword was on the outside so it was difficult for him to block and he was forced to step back again. The person blocking the exit swept his leg, the youngster leapt up to avoid it. Then with a 'peng' sound, his chest had been hit by a palm and he had fallen down on the ground. From behind, two Taishan School's disciples went up to detain him.
At this time, the four Songshan School's people surrounding that middle aged person had attacked with their long swords. That middle aged person swiftly and fiercely fought back, but his sword art didn't belong to the five mountains sword schools. A few Songshan's disciples watching on the side cried out, "This chap isn't from the five mountains sword schools. He's a traitor mixing in with us."
With two fights going on, the quiet mountain cave had turned chaotic. Linghu Chong thought, "My master told these people to come here, it's not because he has a good intention. I'm going to tell Martial uncle Mo and ask him to lead his people out of here. I'll tell him about the Hengshan School's sword art once we got out of the cave." He immediately leaned on the wall to stay in the shadow as he walked near to Mr. Mo Da. He had only gone for a few dozens feet when suddenly a big rumbling sound was heard. It was as if the mountain had cracked.
People were crying out in alarm. Linghu Chong quickly turned around and saw dirt and dust falling around the cave's entrance. He didn't care about finding Mr. Mo Da anymore and was just wishing to go to Yingying, but with lots of people chaotically running away, swords brandished everywhere, dirt falling down around the cave, he couldn't see where Yingying was. He flew out from the cluster of people towards the cave’s entrance while dodging swords slashed at him. He shouted desperately but he saw a massive rock which was around tens of thousands of catty heavy dropping on the cave's entrance, firmly shutting the cave in. In panic, he took a glance and it seemed there was no crack to get out.
"Yingying, Yingying!" Linghu Chong shouted. Yingying answered but it sounded like she was somewhere deep inside the cave. But with two hundred people shouting in confusion, he couldn't hear her clearly. He thought, "How come Yingying is inside?" He thought for a while and he understood, "Oh, yes. When that big rock fell down, Yingying was standing on the cave’s entrance and she wasn't willing to run by herself, but she was thinking of me. I rushed back to the entrance to look for her, but she was rushing inside to find me." He immediately turned around to rush inside.
Originally, there were dozens of torches inside the cave. But when the big rock fell down and with the confusion going on, there were some who threw their torches away. Thus, most of the torches had been extinguished. The whole cave was filled with dust and all he could see was fuzzy yellow. He heard people shouting in alarm, "The cave's entrance has been sealed up! The cave's entrance has been sealed up!" There were also people who angrily shouted, "It's that traitor Yue Buqun's plot!" Another person shouted, "That's right. That traitor deceived us to see his ***** sword art..."
Dozens of people tried to push the big rock. But this big rock was just like a small mountain, even though dozens of people were forcefully pushing it, how could they even move it for an inch? There was also someone who shouted, "Quick, quickly leave from the tunnel." A few people had thought of this earlier. Around twenty of them were pushing each other crowding the entrance to that tunnel. That tunnel was the one dug by the Devil Sect's elders years ago with hatchets and only one person could go through it at a time. So with twenty people crowding together, how could they manage to go in? With this confusion, ten more torches were extinguished.
Two big men from the crowd used their strength to push the people away as they rushed towards the tunnel's entrance. The tunnel's entrance was very narrow and they hit each other, preventing each other from going in. The person on the right hand side swiped his left hand and the big man on the left cried out, a dagger was sticking out of his chest. The big man on the right hand side pushed him away and entered the tunnel. The rest of the crowd pushed and shoved, all of them wanting to enter. Linghu Chong had not seen Yingying yet and he was feeling very worried. He also thought, "The Devil Sect's ten elders had very high martial arts. But because of this plot, they were all buried in here. Today, I'm not sure if Yingying and I can get out of this difficulty. This would be very dangerous if my master is the one who arranged all this."
He saw the crowd was at the tunnel's entrance pushing and shoving. They were all anxious and frightened. Suddenly, a murderous intention popped into his head, "These chaps are blocking me, I must kill them all then Yingying and I can escape from here." He lifted his long sword wanting to start killing people. But he saw a youngster crouching on the ground with both his hand clutching his hair and his whole body shuddering. His face was ashen. It was obvious he was scared to death. Linghu Chong took pity on him and he pondered, "He and I are friends in difficulty and we've both fallen in this trap. We should cross the river in a boat together, why should I kill him in anger for?" He pulled back his long sword and put it across in front of his chest.
Then he heard the twenty odd people at the tunnel's entrance shouted, "Quickly go in!" "Why aren't you moving?" "Not crawling in?" "Drag him out!" That big man's two feet were still outside and it seemed the tunnel was blocked, but he wasn't willing to crawl back out. Two people stooped down to grab that big man's feet and pulled him out. Suddenly, dozens of people called out in alarm because they had pulled out a headless corpse. The neck was covered with blood. This big man's head had unexpectedly been cut off by someone in the tunnel.
At this time, Linghu Chong saw a person sitting in the corner of the cave, and under the dusky flame, he recognised that person to be Yingying. He was jubilant and quickly rushed there. But after only taking two steps, seven to eight people blocked his way. Currently, the cave was in chaos and everyone looked like they had lost their reasoning just like headless flies flying all over the place. There were some who cra
zily slashed their swords at random, some were beating their chests crying, some were wrestling each other, and there were some who were crawling on the ground going here and there.
Linghu Chong had squeezed out a few steps when he suddenly felt both of his legs being firmly embraced. He powerfully hit the top of that person's head causing that person to cry out but he still didn't let go. Linghu Chong shouted, "If you don't let go, I'll kill you." Suddenly, the top of his calf hurt as he had unexpectedly been bitten. Linghu Chong was angry and surprised. He saw everyone was acting like they were crazy, and the torches inside the cave were getting less and less. Now, only two torches were still burning but they were already fallen on the ground. Linghu Chong called out, "Pick up the torches, pick up the torches."
A fat Taoist laughed and stepped on a torch extinguishing it. Linghu Chong lifted his long sword and beheaded that person biting on his calf. Suddenly, everything was dark and nothing could be seen. The last torch had been extinguished.
With the torches extinguished, everyone in the cave suddenly became quiet as they were stunned by this change in situation. But after a short moment had passed, the mad shouting began again. Linghu Chong thought, "We have no chance of getting out of here alive today. It's lucky that I can die here together with Yingying." Thinking up to this point, he felt happy instead of afraid and started going towards where Yingying was. After walking for a few steps, someone suddenly came towards him and powerfully hit him. This person had high inner energy and the hit was swift and fierce. Linghu Chong staggered back for a couple of steps after being hit and turned around for half a circle. He quickly turned back and slowly continued on his way to where Yingying was sitting at. With his ears straining to listen, he heard crying and shouting and dozens of weapons colliding. In the dark, with so many people frightened, most of them were like half crazy and everyone was afraid so they were slashing their weapons about to protect themselves. Some of them had a lot of experience or high internal energy, and they originally remained calm, but with the people besides them randomly swiping their weapons and the mountain cave so crowded, also with no place to dodge in the darkness, besides wielding their own weapons, there was no other way. He heard weapons clashing, people crying out in pain around them, also injured people moaning and cursing.