by Jin Yong
Guo Jing swung his arm behind him toward the doorway in a Dragon Whips Tail. Thwack! His palm connected with a shoulder, sending the intruder stumbling back. He spun round to see who he had struck. The fisher.
Having lost his boat, he had had to take the circuitous land route to the temple, trekking more than twenty li up and around the mountain. He had learned of his teacher’s offer to heal the injured girl upon arrival, and had barged in, blinded by rage, ready to give his life to stop his Master. The fierce palm thrust did not deter him. He braced himself to charge again, but was restrained by his brothers.
“It’s done,” the scholar snapped. “There’s nothing you can do now.”
Sole Light had returned to his prayer mat, sitting cross-legged once more, his face as white as chalk, his robe soaked. Lotus was splayed on the floor, stock-still, showing no signs of life.
Terrified, Guo Jing scooped Lotus up and was assaulted by an awful stench of rot and gore. Her face was deathly pale, without a trace of color, though the charcoal undertone had also faded. He put his hand under her nose. Her breathing was deep and even. Relief washed over him.
The monk’s four disciples had gathered around their Master, hushed and grim-faced.
Guo Jing observed a rosiness returning to Lotus’s cheeks, but no sooner were his hopes raised than they were cruelly dashed, for the pinkish tint began to burn a fiery red. Beads of sweat formed along her hairline. The flush of flaming scarlet blanched into cadaverous gray again.
Twice, the blood rushed to her face and ebbed after heavy perspiration. Then she groaned, and her eyelids fluttered. “Where’s the fire? Where’s the ice?”
“Huh?” Guo Jing had lost the ability to form actual words.
Lotus scanned the room and shook her head. “It was a dream. A nasty one with Viper Ouyang, Gallant Ouyang and Qiu Qianren. They put me in a furnace, then in ice.” She shuddered at the memory. “I was burning then I was frozen. It was horrible … Uncle? Uncle, are you alright?”
Sole Light opened his eyes slowly and smiled. “Rest for a few days. Keep off your feet. Then you’ll be fine.”
“I haven’t got a drop of strength left inside me. I don’t even want to lift my finger.” Her impish humor had returned and she refused to let the farmer’s malevolent glare ruin her mood. “Uncle, you’ve worked hard to save me. You must be exhausted. I have some Dew of Nine Flowers that were made to my papa’s recipe. Would you like some?”
“That’s very kind of you. Your father shared this precious physic with us on Mount Hua when we were exhausted by the Contest. It has the most remarkable restorative effects.”
Guo Jing took out the ceramic bottle from Lotus’s knapsack. The scholar received it on his Master’s behalf and emptied the contents into his palm, while the logger ran to the kitchen for a bowl of water.
“I won’t need so many,” Sole Light said with a laugh. “These pills aren’t easy to come by. I’ll just take half.”
“But, Shifu!” the scholar implored. “All the world’s magical remedies still won’t be enough.”
With his store of internal energy depleted, the monk was too frail to argue. He swallowed them all with a few mouthfuls of water. Then he turned to Guo Jing. “Make sure she rests for a couple of days. When you wish to leave, you don’t need to come to me first, but there’s one thing I would like to ask of you.”
Guo Jing prostrated himself, knocking his head loudly on the floor four times to show his gratitude. Lotus also fell to her knees and bowed to Sole Light with a wholehearted deference that she had never demonstrated before, not even to her father or Count Seven Hong. “I shall never for a moment forget this gift,” she swore.
“No, no, no, forget it all, don’t let it become a burden.” The monk turned to Guo Jing. “Please don’t breath a word of this visit, including how you got here, to anybody. Not even your shifu.”
It was not a request Guo Jing was anticipating. In fact, he had been thinking how he might bring Count Seven Hong here for treatment. He was at a loss as to how to respond.
“And please don’t trouble yourself with thoughts of coming this way to see me again. We’ll be moving on quite soon.”
“Where to?”
Sole Light gave an enigmatic smile.
Lotus understood the monk’s silence. With the benefit of hindsight, she could almost sympathize with his disciples’ desperation to thwart their endeavors to get here. This hermitage must have taken much planning to create and conceal. Now, because of her, the whole enterprise had gone up in smoke. They would have to abandon everything. Why on earth would they share their new location? Only now did she become conscious of the enormity of the kindness she had demanded of Sole Light and his followers. A debt she could never repay. Pangs of conscience weighed on her. Her eyes flitted to the four disciples. Perhaps she should apologize …
Sole Light swayed, then slumped to the floor, face down.
The six of them rushed toward the monk, crowding over him, aching to help, but all they could do was watch the muscles on his face convulse, watch him mask the great pain that was tearing up his insides. Nobody knew what to say or do.
After the time it takes to finish a pot of tea, Sole Light regained some of his faculties and gave Lotus a weak smile.
“Child, did your father make these Dew of Nine Flowers himself?”
“No, they were made by my martial brother Zephyr Lu, following Papa’s formula.”
“Has your father ever said that it is harmful to take too many?”
She felt winded by the question. Could something be wrong with the pills?
“Papa’s told me its benefits are more prominent in concentration, but, because they are so hard to make, he takes them sparingly.”
Frowning, Sole Light pondered and shook his head. “I’d never presume to divine your father’s thoughts. Could he have given your Brother Lu an erroneous prescription? Could there be any ill will between you and Brother Lu that may have caused him to mix in some impure pills?”
A chorus of gasps.
“Shifu, have you been poisoned?” the scholar asked.
“Remember, your uncle-in-faith is here.” The monk tried to calm his disciple. “He can find an antidote to the deadliest venom.”
The four men beset the young couple. The farmer roared in Lotus’s face: “How could you poison the man who saved your life?”
Guo Jing felt conflicted. Was he going to have to fight the students of Lotus’s deliverer?
Lotus was too intent on determining what had happened to take much heed of the agitated men. She cast her mind back to every interaction related to the Dew of Nine Flowers since she was first given them at Roaming Cloud Manor. In the intervening months, not only had she taken the pills, so had Guo Jing and Count Seven Hong. The last time was … at Madam Ying’s! The woman took the whole bottle to the next room, out of their sight …
“Uncle, it was Madam Ying!”
“Her?”
Lotus gave an account of that particular exchange. “She said they were bad for my injury and I shouldn’t take them anymore. It must have been because she had already put in the poisoned pills.”
“She was kind to you.” The farmer could not hold off the snide remark.
For once, Lotus was not in the mood to engage in a battle of tongues. The news that she had been the conduit of Madam Ying’s vile scheme was almost too much to bear.
“She wasn’t kind to me. She was using me to get to Uncle. If I were poisoned, her plot would have unraveled.”
“Sins of the past…” Sole Light muttered to himself. Soon serenity returned to his face and his voice grew in strength. “It is my fate to suffer. It has nothing to do with the two of you. This is between Madam Ying and me. Karmic retribution, bringing closure to entanglements of old. Now, be good, look after yourselves. Rest here for a few days, then leave this mountain and get on with your lives. I might well have been poisoned, but my brother-in-faith will find an antidote. There’s no need to worry.”
Guo Jing and Lotus took their leave, bowing on their knees once more. Sole Light waved away their gestures of obeisance and closed his eyes, turning his focus inward.
* * *
THE YOUNG couple edged out of the room, trying to create as little disturbance for the monk as they could. They found the novice waiting at the doorway and followed him to a small guest room furnished with two bamboo daybeds and a small table.
When they were settled, two elderly monks came in with a rustic vegetarian meal. “Please enjoy,” they said in unison, their voices unusually high pitched.
“Is the Reverend better now?” Lotus asked.
“I regret that we are not privy to such information,” one of them replied.
When they had left the room, Guo Jing said, “Judging from their voices, I’d think they’re women.”
“They must be eunuchs who once served King Duan in his palace. Like the rice merchant Old Yang at Peach Spring.”
Weighed down by the day’s events, they could find no appetite, so they sat in silence. The only sound in the temple was the occasional rustling of bamboo leaves stirred up by the breeze.
“Uncle Sole Light’s kung fu is really remarkable,” Guo Jing said eventually. “I don’t think anyone we know could best him. Not Shifu, or your papa, or Brother Zhou. Not even Viper Ouyang or Qiu Qianren.”
“So you think he’s the greatest of them all?”
“Hmm … I can’t tell. They each have a powerful signature kung fu, but none of them can get the better of the others’ supreme moves.”
“Then who has the most rounded comprehension overall?”
“Your papa, of course.”
A smile bloomed on Lotus’s face, but it soon withered away. “I don’t get it.”
“What?”
“Think about this. Uncle Sole Light is nigh on unbeatable. His disciples are no joke either. Why do they hide up this mountain? Why do they blanch at the mere mention of visitors? Of the greatest Masters in the world, Viper Ouyang and Qiu Qianren might be his enemies, but I doubt those two would work together to defeat him.”
“Even if they do come at the same time, we don’t have anything to fear from them.”
“Really?”
Guo Jing felt his face burning up.
“Oi, what’s going on? Why are you acting shy all of a sudden?” Lotus said, laughing.
He collected himself and explained. “Uncle Sole Light’s martial prowess is equal to Viper Ouyang’s. At worst, they would draw in a fight. Uncle has this backhanded way to lock pressure points … it looks to me like it could neutralize Exploding Toad kung fu.”
“What about Qiu Qianren? The scholar and his fellows are no match for him.”
“True. I could probably hold him back for fifty moves, but, by a hundred, I’d struggle too. Anyway, Uncle Sole Light’s method of tapping your pressure points—”
“You’ve learned it? You can beat Qiu’s rusty Iron Palm now?”
“You know how slow I am—I can’t remember a move after seeing it once. Besides, Uncle hasn’t agreed to teach me. It would be wrong to try to grasp it without his permission. What I’m trying to say is, observing Uncle Sole Light makes some of the passages in the Nine Yin Manual seem more comprehensible. I still won’t be able to come out on top against Qiu Qianren, but I’ll be able to hold out a bit longer. And you can join in to give that old fossil a good drubbing.”
“You’ve forgotten one thing.”
“What?”
“Uncle’s been poisoned. We don’t know when he’ll get better.”
That silenced Guo Jing for a good while. “Madam Ying is so unforgiving … Oh, noooo!”
Lotus’s heart skipped a beat. “What?”
“You promised to live with her for a year. Are you going to keep your word?”
“What do you think?”
“If she didn’t point us this way, we’d never have found Uncle Sole Light, and you might not—”
“Might not? Just say it as it is: I’d be dead! Unquestionably so. And since you’re a great man and your word is as steady as a mountain, I dare say you want me to keep the promise.” She turned away, recalling how Guo Jing had refused to renounce his betrothal to Khojin—even though he had no desire to marry the Mongolian Princess—just because he had given his word.
Guo Jing was hopeless when it came to matters of the heart, especially the intricacies of a girl’s emotions. He was blind to the subtle shifts in Lotus’s mood, and had not grasped that the conversation had moved on. “I don’t understand why she wanted you to stay for a year. You could spend all that time teaching her, but she’d barely scratch the surface of your father’s knowledge. Why bother?”
Lotus, by now, was cradling her head in her arms. Receiving no answer, the oblivious Guo Jing asked again.
“You know nothing! Blockhead!”
“I asked because I am a blockhead.”
His pleading tone made Lotus rue her harsh words. She buried her face in his chest, fighting back tears.
Thoroughly confounded, he patted her lightly on the back.
“I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I won’t call you that again.” She dried her eyes on his sleeve as a hint of a smile returned.
“I am a blockhead. I know it.”
“You’re a good soul. Kind. I’m neither.” She sighed. “Madam Ying, well, it’s obvious there’s bad blood between her and Papa. She said so herself—she wanted to go to Peach Blossom Island to seek redress. Now she’s seen with her own eyes that her reckoning skills are inferior to mine, and her kung fu weaker than yours, she must know she’ll never get vengeance in the way she’s been dreaming of. What she’s going to do now is to hold me hostage to draw Papa out when he comes to my rescue. That way, she’s in control, she can choose the ground and set a trap to snare him.”
“Ahhh!” Guo Jing slapped his thigh. “You can’t keep this promise.”
“No, I have to.”
“Huh?”
“Think about it. She planted the poison for Uncle Sole Light in the Dew of Nine Flowers. How many steps ahead does she have planned out? That’s how calculating she is. As long as she lives, she’ll be a threat to Papa. She wants my company. She’ll get my company. She can scheme all she likes, but she’ll never outsmart me.”
Madam Ying doesn’t know what she’s got herself into! Guo Jing stopped himself from saying the thought out loud in case Lotus took it amiss.
“But it’d be like living with a tiger!” he protested.
They were interrupted by the sound of loud voices, coming from the direction of Sole Light’s meditation room.
Exchanging glances, Guo Jing and Lotus tried to make out what had caused the commotion, but no further sound was forthcoming.
“I wonder how Uncle Sole Light is feeling,” he said.
Lotus shook her head.
“Go on, have a bite to eat, then lie down and rest.”
She repeated the gesture, then whispered, “Someone’s coming.”
Footsteps. Crossing the courtyard. Heading their way?
“The wench is full of tricks. Kill her first.” It sounded like the farmer.
Guo Jing and Lotus had not expected so much vitriol from the monk’s disciples.
“Don’t be so hasty. Let’s find out more.” That was the logger.
“What more is there to find out? They’re sent by Shifu’s enemies. We’ll kill one and keep the other alive. If you have questions, ask that simple-minded fellow.”
The fisher, the logger, the farmer and the scholar were now outside their room, blocking the doorway. They were making no effort to conceal their presence.
Guo Jing launched a Haughty Dragon Repents against the back wall, which crumbled outward with a thunderous thud. He then lifted Lotus on his back and made to hop over the rubble. Just as he leaped up, Lotus sensed someone grabbing at their legs from the left. There was little Guo Jing could do to protect himself midair, so she flicked her wrist in an Orchid Touch, her fingers glancing the Y
ang Pool pressure point on the back of the attacker’s hand.
The farmer jerked away into a defensive block, startled by the breezy precision and lightning speed of Lotus’s counterattack, though she lacked the internal strength to do him any real harm.
Her intervention allowed Guo Jing to hurdle the rubble, but moments later he was howling in frustration. An insurmountable barricade of thorns lined the perimeter wall. He turned to face his pursuers.
“Your honorable teacher gave us permission to leave, which you heard with your own ears. Why are you defying his wishes?” he asked Sole Light’s four students, who had spread out in a line, cutting off any escape.
“Our shifu gave his life to save hers, and yet, you—”
Lotus interrupted the fisher. “What do you mean he gave his life?”
The ill-tempered man spat on the ground, refusing to dignify her with an answer.
“Can you truly be ignorant of the fact that our shifu exchanged his life for yours?” the scholar asked, incredulous.
“No! How?” Lotus exclaimed. “Tell us. Please!”
The scholar hestitated. The shock on their young faces seemed genuine. He cast a fleeting glance at the logger, who inclined his head to indicate that he was of the same opinion.
“Miss, your internal injury was healed by Yang in Ascendance imbued with Cosmos neigong,” the scholar explained. “The damage was so acute that only the combination of those two kung fus could restore the flow of your qi and pull you back from the brink of death.
“Since the passing of Immortal Double Sun of the Quanzhen Sect, our shifu is the only person in command of both arts. The process sucks dry the healer’s primal life force, to the point that he loses all his martial ability for five years.”
The monk’s selflessness took Lotus’s breath away.
“For the next five years, Shifu would have needed to train rigorously night and day. A small mistake would not just have cost him a lifetime’s cultivation of kung fu; he would also have suffered a crippling disability. A more serious misstep would mean death. Shifu sacrificed the most cherished part of his life to revive yours. How could you be so ungrateful? How could you repay his altruism with malice?”