Legend of Condor Heroes Book 2

by Jin Yong

  Behind her was another person no less peculiar than ‘Iron Corpse’. That person was tall and rather thin and wearing a dark green robe. His countenance was pale and expressionless. Other than his

  Eagle Shooting Hero 417 eyes, the rest of his face seemed frozen like a wooden statue. He stood still and stiff like a standing corpse. As soon as everyone saw this person, a chill crept down their spines. They immediately turned their gaze away from this person, not daring to look at his face any longer with their hearts thumping.

  Master Lu was perplexed. He would never have thought that the world famous Qiu Qianren would collapse unexpectedly from the first blow of his opponent. He was about to smile but, seeing Mei Chaofeng’s arrival, his smile froze.

  Wanyan Kang saw his master and was very excited. He immediately stepped forward to pay his respects. Everybody could see that these two, master and disciple, were actually similar in appearance and could not help but be astonished.

  Master Lu raised his cupped fists and said, “Martial Sister Mei, it’s been twenty long years and we finally meet here. How is Martial Brother Chen?”

  The Six Freaks exchanged glances with Guo Jing. They clearly heard Master Lu calling her ‘Martial Sister’ and could not help but feel dismayed. Ke Zhen’E was upset. “We fall into a trap today,” he said. “Mei Chaofeng alone is not easy to deal with, now she has her martial brother at hand.”

  Huang Rong on the other hand secretly nodded her head. “This Master’s martial arts and literary knowledge, as well as his general conduct and manner of speaking, resemble those of my father. I suspected he must have a martial relationship with us. But who would have thought he’s my father’s disciple.”

  Mei Chaofeng replied coldly, “Is the speaker my martial brother Lu Chengfeng?”

  “Yes,” Master Lu answered. “Has Martial Sister been well since our last meeting?”

  “Why do you ask?” Mei Chaofeng answered. “Both of my eyes are blind. Can’t you see it? Your Martial Brother Xuanfeng was murdered a long time ago. That was your expectation, was it not?”

  Master Lu was both pleasantly surprised and shocked. The ‘Twin Killers of the Dark Winds’ had roamed Jianghu and turned it upside-down...how could ‘Copper Corpse’ have been murdered? But he was also relieved because he had one less formidable enemy and moreover, the one left behind was blind. However, he recalled their apprenticeship together on Peach Blossom Island and could not help but feel sad. “Who killed Martial Brother Chen?” he sighed and asked. “Has Martial Sister sought revenge?”

  “I have wandered everywhere looking for them,” Mei Chaofeng answered.

  “Let Little Brother help you,” Master Lu said. “Afterward we can sort out our own business.” “Humph!” Mei Chaofeng sneered.

  “Mei Chaofeng!” Han Baoju could not hold himself. He slapped the table and shouted, “Your sworn enemies are here!”

  He was going to pounce on her, but Quan Jinfa quickly pulled him back. Mei Chaofeng, on the other hand, was taken aback. “You ... you ...” she stammered.

  At that time Qiu Qianren, who had been silent because of the chest pain from Guo Jing’s punch, felt the pain subsiding. He opened his mouth to say, “What is it you were talking about.. .revenge? Why, your own master was killed and you don’t know it? What kind of hero are you?”

  “What did you say?” Mei Chaofeng almost screamed. She tightly crushed Qiu Qianren’s hand so that he cried out in pain, “Let go.. .let go!”

  Mei Chaofeng ignored him, “What did you say?” she repeated.

  “The Master of Peach Blossom Island has been killed!” Qiu Qianren answered.

  Lu Chengfeng was stunned. “Is that true?” he asked anxiously.

  “Why would it not be true?” Qiu Qianren answered. “He was surrounded and killed by the Quanzhen Seven Masters, Wang Chongyang’s disciples.”

  Before he finished speaking Mei Chaofeng and Lu Chengfeng had called out loudly. With a loud thud Huang Rong fell backwards from her chair.. .unconscious. The others initially did not believe that with his expertise, Huang Yaoshi would easily be killed by anyone; but since it was the Quanzhen Seven Masters, they had to believe it. They knew very well the combined power of Ma Yu, Qiu Chuji, Wang Chuyi and the others would be difficult for Huang Yaoshi to defeat.

  Guo Jing, frantic, hugged Huang Rong and called out, “Rong’er, wake up!” He saw Huang Rong’s face was deathly pale and her breathing uneven; he was even more anxious and called his masters, “Master.. .Master.. .help! ”

  Zhu Cong immediately came over and held his hand beneath her nose. “Don’t worry,” he said. “She was only shocked.. .she is not going to die.” Then he rubbed her ‘Fatigue Palace acupoint’ [lao gong xue] while slowly transferring internal energy.

  Huang Rong slowly recovered. “Father.. .Father! I want my Father!” she cried.

  Lu Chengfeng was surprised, but immediately realized, “She is Master’s daughter. No wonder she knew about the ‘Nine Flower Jade Dew Pill’.” He shed some tears and loudly called out, “Little Martial Sister, let us go after those scoundrel Quanzhen priests to seek revenge. Mei Chaofeng.. .are you coming or not? If you don’t come, let me fight you to the death right now! It ... it was because of you that Master met his fate.”

  Lu Guanying knew his father was too deep in sorrow to speak coherently. He quickly supported him and urged, “Father, please don’t be so sad. We need to consider it further.”

  Lu Chengfeng ignored his son and cried louder. “Mei Chaofeng! You bitch! You have caused me much harm! You are shameless! You ran away with your man, which was all right with me, but why did you have to steal Master’s ‘Nine Yin Manual’ as well? In his anger he smashed the ligaments in the legs of us four martial brothers. Not only that, he expelled us from Peach Blossom Island. I was hoping Master would change his mind and have compassion on us who hadn’t done anything to deserve such punishment. Now that he’s passed away, my hope is shattered ...”

  “I always thought you were spineless,” Mei Chaofeng scolded, “and you are still spineless. Three.four times you lead other people to deal with us, forcing us - husband and wife to be without shelter; we had to run for our lives and ended up suffering on the Mongolian Steppe. Now you don’t have guts enough to seek revenge for our Master, but keep nagging about settling your own old debts with me. I say we go and find those seven scoundrels and deal with them. If you can’t walk, I’ll carry you!”

  All this time Huang Rong was still weeping, “Father! I want my Father!”

  Zhu Cong intervened, “Let us ask about this more directly,” he said, walking towards Qiu Qianren. He brushed some dust from Qiu Qianren’s clothes and apologetically said, “My young disciple was ignorant and has offended you; he has no regard for seniority.”

  Qiu Qianren was angry, “I am old, my eyes are not clear, I let it slip by. Come, let us fight again!”

  Zhu Cong patted his shoulder and pulled his left hand gently, then persuasively smiled, “Senior is an expert; there is no need to fight with him.” As soon as they got to the table, Zhu Cong picked a wine cup up with his left hand, while his right hand covered the cup’s mouth. Then he revolved it around, just like Qiu had done, and flicked the cup to the table. With a clanking sound the wine cup landed on the table, broken into two parts: the cup bottom and about half an inch of porcelain ring. Exactly like Qiu Qianren demonstrated earlier. Everyone was amazed!

  Zhu Cong smiled and said, “Senior’s skill is extraordinary. Junior has stolen it from you. Please forgive my offense and many thanks to you.”

  Qiu Qianren’s face changed color immediately. Now everybody knew there must be some kind of trick, but nobody really knew what was going on.

  “Jing’er, come here!” Zhu Cong called, “Let me teach you a trick and later on you can use it to deceive other people.”

  Guo Jing came near and Zhu Cong showed him a ring on his left middle finger. “This is Senior Qiu’s; I borrowed it from him a moment ago. Go ahead and put it on,” he said
while taking the ring off his own finger.

  Qiu Qianren was startled, then fuming mad. He did not understand how the ring on his finger had moved to Zhu’s finger. In the meantime Guo Jing had already taken the ring. Zhu Cong explained, “This ring has a diamond chip on it, the hardest material on earth. Put the diamond’s tip on the wine cup and rotate the cup with your right hand.”

  Guo Jing did so. Now Lu Guanying and the others began to understand. They were unable to restrain a smile and softly murmured amongst themselves. Guo Jing turned the cup in his right hand and sure enough, the cup was smoothly broken into two parts. If one looked carefully, the diamond had left a deep mark on the porcelain pieces; it wasn’t profound internal energy at all.

  Huang Rong was amused and she was smiling through her tears; then the memory of her father came flooding back and she cried again.

  “Don’t cry, Miss,” Zhu Cong comforted her, “This Senior Qiu loves to deceive people and his words may not be necessarily true.” Huang Rong was puzzled and she looked at him with a questioning look.

  “Your father’s martial arts are so profound; how could he be killed by other people easily?” Zhu Cong said with a smile. “Also, the Quanzhen Seven Masters are respectable people and they have no enmity towards your father. Why would they kill him without a reason?”

  “Perhaps it was because of Qiu Chuji and the other ox-noses [derogatory term for Taoist priests] Martial Uncle Zhou Botong,” Huang Rong said, expressing a guess.

  “What about him?” Zhu Cong asked.

  “You wouldn’t know about it,” Huang Rong said, crying again. Even with her intelligence, she was not really sure what really happened. First of all, it had something to do with her mother and Huang Yaoshi did not want to talk too much about it. Second, the business between her father and Zhou Botong was more complicated than her young mind could grasp. She did not want to believe the Quanzhen Seven Masters would attack her father, but the fact was.. ..she was not sure.

  “Whatever it was, I’d say this old man’s word is a little bit smelly,” Zhu Cong said.

  “You mean he was only ... only .,” Huang Rong stuttered.

  “Yes, he was just farting!” Zhu Cong laughed. “He has so many tricks stored in his pocket and guess what he would do with them.” Then he groped into his pocket and produced some things which he placed on the table. Among those things were two bricks, some dry grass, a piece of cloth to light a fire, a knife for the same purpose and a piece of flint.

  Huang Rong took a brick and as soon as she tightened her grip she could feel the brick was soft. She gripped it harder and, without too much effort, the brick crumbled into powder. After listening to Zhu Cong’s words her sadness was greatly reduced. Her face broke into a smile, showing her two dimples. “This brick is made from bread flour. He used it to demonstrate his profound internal energy earlier.”

  Qiu Qianren’s face turned from pale to red and back to pale. He was greatly ashamed. He thought that with the news of Huang Yaoshi’s death, everyone’s attention could be diverted and he would find an opportunity to escape. Who would have thought that his scheme would be revealed by Zhu Cong? He flicked his sleeve and turned around to walk out. But Mei Chaofeng reached backwards, snatched him, and then threw him on the floor.

  “You said my Master passed away, did you tell the truth?” she asked menacingly. Qiu Qianren was in too much pain to say anything, he only whimpered.

  Huang Rong noticed that the grass was half burnt and immediately realized what had happened earlier. “Second Master, light the grass, put it inside your sleeve, then inhale and exhale.”

  The Six Freaks of Jiangnan initially had some problems with Huang Rong, but Qiu Qianren’s trickery had united them in facing a common enemy. Zhu Cong happily complied. Actually he liked Huang Rong’s cunning mind and her eccentricity. Now that Huang Rong called him ‘Second Master’ he liked her even more. He did what was asked and while doing that, he even closed his eyes and swayed his head solemnly.

  Huang Rong clapped her hands in delight. “Jing ge ge,” she said laughing happily, “Didn’t we see this old man practicing his internal strength a while ago exactly like this?” She walked to Qiu

  Qianren’s side and said, “Stand up!” As she pulled him up, she suddenly struck his ‘Holy Way’ [shen dao] acupoint under the fifth rib on his back with her left hand, using the ‘Orchid’ acupoint sealing technique [lan hua fu xue shou]. She shouted loudly, “Tell me, did my father die? If you say he did, I will take your life away!” With a flip of her hand she placed a shiny butterfly shaped steel piece on his chest.

  Everybody was amused hearing her threat. She asked him for the truth but she didn’t want him to say Huang Yaoshi was dead.

  Qiu Qianren was writhing in pain and also suffering from an itch. “I am afraid he is not dead yet. I don’t know .” he said, trembling.

  Huang Rong beamed from ear to ear. “Very good!” she said, “I will spare you.” She struck his ‘Open Basin’ [que pen] acupoint to ease his suffering.

  Lu Chengfeng thought, “Little Martial Sister’s question was one-sided and really missed the point.” So he asked, “You said my Master had been killed by the Quanzhen Seven Masters, did you see it with your own eyes, or did you just hear it from somebody else?”

  “I heard it from somebody else,” Qiu Qianren replied.

  “Who was it?” Lu Chengfeng pursued.

  Qiu Qianren hesitated, but finally said, “It was Hong Qigong.”

  “When did he tell you that?” asked Huang Rong.

  “About a month ago,” Qiu Qianren answered.

  “Where did you two meet?” Huang Rong asked again.

  “At the summit of Mount Tai [Taishan],” Qiu Qianren answered. “We were having a match and he lost to me. He unintentionally mentioned it.”

  Huang Rong was ecstatic. She hopped around like a little kid. Her left hand grabbed his chest, her right hand pulled away some of his beard. Giggling she said, “Hong Qigong lost to this old scoundrel? Martial Sister Mei, Martial Brother Lu, don’t listen to him, he was just . just .” Being a girl, she didn’t have the heart to use vulgar language.

  Zhu Cong continued for her, “He was just farting!” then he covered his mouth, laughing.

  Huang Rong continued, “A month ago Hong Qigong was with Jing ge ge and I. Jing ge ge, give him another blow!”

  “Right!” Guo Jing said, moving towards Qiu Qianren.

  Qiu Qianren was frightened and he turned around to escape, but Mei Chaofeng was standing in the middle of the doorway. He turned around again, but this time Lu Guanying blocked his way. He quickly pushed until Guanying staggered and fell. Even though he had gained his fame by deceiving people, Qiu Qianren still possessed some real martial arts skill. If he did not, he would not recklessly dare to challenge the Six Freaks and Guo Jing. Lu Guanying was certainly not his match.

  Huang Rong jumped to block him. “You carried an iron cauldron over your head and walked on water, how did you do it?” she asked.

  “That was my special skill,” Qiu Qianren answered. “My title is ‘Iron Palm Floating on Water’; that was the ‘Floating on Water’.”

  “You are still boasting,” Huang Rong said with a smile. “Aren’t you going to tell me the truth?”

  “I am old, my martial arts are not as they used to be,” Qiu Qianren answered. “But my lightness kungfu has been trained to perfection.”

  “Very well,” Huang Rong said, “There is a large cistern containing gold fish outside in the courtyard. Why don’t you demonstrate your ‘Floating on Water’ so that everybody can see your skill? Just go out of the hall, turn left beneath the sweet-smelling ‘osmanthus’ [gui hua] tree.” [Note: A fragrant evergreen tree/shrub native to China.]

  “How can someone train in a cistern ...?” Qiu Qianren had not finished speaking when something flashed brightly in front of his eyes and, without him realizing it, his foot had been grabbed and he was hanging upside down.

  “Your death is imminent,
yet you still open your big mouth!” Mei Chaofeng shouted. Her ‘Poisonous Silver Dragon Whip’ [du long yin bian] curled in midair and hurled him toward the cistern, following Huang Rong’s directions.

  Huang Rong quickly moved to the cistern, waving her butterfly shaped steel piece menacingly. “I won’t let you out of the cistern unless you explain to me your ‘Floating on Water’!”

  Qiu Qianren kicked the cistern’s bottom, trying to leap up, but Huang Rong’s steel punctured his shoulder. He fell back into the cistern, soaking wet. With face showing much pain he said, “In that cauldron was laid a thin sheet of iron which was sealed; above it I put three inches of water. In that creek I hid some wooden poles about five to six inches below the surface to make them invisible.”

  Huang Rong laughed, then re-entered the hall, not paying Qiu Qianren any more attention. He quickly leaped up from the cistern and hastily ran out of the manor without looking back.

  Mei Chaofeng and Lu Chengfeng smiled in embarrassment. They had fought and cried over nothing. Their master had not been killed. Now that this matter was made clear, they felt uneasy towards each other. Mei Chaofeng hesitated for a moment, then clearing her throat she said, “Lu Chengfeng, let my disciple go. For the sake of our Master I won’t remember our past differences any longer. As for the fact that both husband and wife had to flee to Mongolia . oh well, that was our fate.”

  Lu Chengfeng heaved a deep sigh. He said in his heart, “Her husband has died, her eyes blinded and she is alone and forsaken in this world. Both my legs are crippled, but I have a wife and a son. I have a family and I have a business. Actually my condition is a hundred times better than hers. Both of us are decades older than we were then, why would I keep holding resentment towards her?” Therefore, he answered, “You can take your disciple away. Mei Shijie [older martial sister], your younger brother will leave for Peach Blossom Island to visit our benevolent master tomorrow. Will you come with me?”