by Jin Yong
Seeing his parents’ bodies, Lin Pingzhi threw himself onto them and began crying bitterly. All the fellow apprentices felt real sorry for him.
Yue Lingshan was gleefully surprised when she saw that Linghu Chong was all right. But seeing Lin Pingzhi’s bitter grief, she knew it wouldn’t be appropriate to express her cheerfulness out loud at this moment, so she walked by Linghu Chong and slightly pinched his right hand.
“Are…are you all right?” she whispered.
“I am fine!” Linghu Chong answered.
For the last couple of days, Yue Lingshan had been worried to death about her big apprentice brother, and now when she finally bumped into him all of a sudden, she could no longer control the excitement that had been growing inside her these days. She grabbed onto Linghu Chong’s sleeve and burst out crying.
Linghu Chong gently padded her on the shoulder. “Little apprentice sister, why? Did someone pick on you? I’ll go whoop his ass for you!” he whispered.
Yue Lingshan did not answer and went on weeping. After shedding some more tears, she finally felt better. Wiping off the tears with Linghu Chong’s sleeve, she murmured, “You are not dead. You are not dead!”
“I am not!” Linghu Chong shook his head.
“I heard that you took a palm strike from that Yu Canghai of the Qingcheng Sword School,” Yue Lingshan whispered. “That man’s ‘Heart Crushing Palm’ can kill without spilling blood. I’ve seen him kill many people with my own eyes. I was so scared that…that….” Remembering all the agonizing suffering and torturing she had to go through in the last couple of days, she could not help but start weeping again.
“I was really lucky that his palm strike missed me narrowly. It was such a cool scene earlier when the Master was fighting Yu Canghai and scared him so much that he ran away so fast. Too bad you missed that one,” Linghu Chong said with a smile.
“Let’s not mention this to any outsiders,” Yue Buqun ordered. Linghu Chong and the rest of the apprentices all complied in unison.
Yue Lingshan stared at Linghu Chong through her tearful eyes. Linghu Chong looked so wan and sallow. There was little color in his cheeks. Feeling very pitiful for him, she sniveled, “Big apprentice brother, this time…this time you are so badly wounded. You should have some good rest and recovery once we get back to Mount Huashan.”
Seeing that Lin Pingzhi was still sobbing bitterly by his parents’ bodies, Yue Buqun said, “Pingzhi, cry no more. We should make arrangements for the funeral now.”
“Yes, Master!” Lin Pingzhi stood up and answered. But seeing blood all over his mother’s face and forehead, he could not help but shed more tears. “When Mom and Dad passed away, they couldn’t even see me one last time. They must…they must have wanted to give me some last words of advice,” he murmured, sobbing.
“Apprentice brother Lin,” Linghu Chong said, “I was here when your parents passed away. The two of them wanted me to take care of you. That’s something I should be doing anyway, there’s not much to talk about that. Your father had some other words that he wanted me to pass on to you.”
“Big apprentice brother, at the time…when my mom and dad passed away, fortunately they had you as accompany. Otherwise, they would have had no one around them when they left this world. I…I am truly grateful!” Lin Pingzhi bowed.
“The rascals of the Qingcheng Sword School tortured your parents cruelly in order to force the whereabouts of the ‘Evil-Resisting Sword Manuscript’ out of them, but they never gave in. The torturing busted their heart arteries. Later that Mu Gaofeng also tried to force information out. Mu Gaofeng is a mean villain; doing what he did was not something out of his character. But Yu Canghai, as the Master of a big school, had acted in such a despicable way. Everybody will hold him in contempt for sure,” Linghu Chong said.
“If I cannot seek my revenge, I will be no better than a pig!” Lin Pingzhi vowed with his teeth gnashed. He punched hard on the column. Although his Kung Fu skills were ordinary, yet because of the great hatred, the punch carried much strength and even the dirt atop the cross beam in the temple started to fall down.
“Junior brother Lin,” Yue Lingshan said, “this matter really started because of me. When you settle your score later, as your senior apprentice sister, I definitely won’t just stand by with folded arms.”
“Many thanks, senior apprentice sister!” Lin Pingzhi bowed.
“The tenet of our Huashan Sword School has always been ‘if others don’t offend us, we won’t offend them’.” Yue Buqun sighed. “Other than our deadly enemy the Demon Cult, there’s no grudge between any of the schools or clans in the Martial World and us. But starting from now on, the Qingcheng Sword School…the Qingcheng Sword School…Well, as a part of the Martial World, not offending anyone is so much easier said than done.”
“Little apprentice sister and junior brother Lin,” Lau Denuo said, “this misfortune wasn’t really caused by junior brother Lin, because he killed the wicked son of Yu Canghai to defend justice. It was really because Yu Canghai coveted the ‘Evil-Resisting Sword Manuscript’ of the Lin family. Many years ago, when the Head Master of Qingcheng, Evergreen, lost to junior brother Lin’s great grandfather’s ‘Evil-Resisting Sword Art,’ the root of the trouble was already planted.”
“That’s right,” Yue Buqun said. “Most martial people tend to scramble for supremacy and victory. So as soon as they hear about some kind of secret manuscripts of Kung Fu, not even bothering to check if it’s real or not, they would all try to secure it by force or by trickery, by hook or by crook. People like Master Yu or Hunchback of the North, who already have elite skills and fames, really have no need to covet the sword art manuscript of your Lin family.”
“Master, my family really do not have any kind of Evil-Resisting Sword Manuscript,” Lin Pingzhi said. “My dad taught me the seventy-two moves of the Evil-Resisting Sword Art personally and orally. He told me to memorize everything in my head. If there was some kind of sword art manuscript, of course my dad wouldn’t tell outsiders anything about it, but why would he keep it a secret from me? There’s no reason for that.”
Yue Buqun nodded in agreement. “I never believed that there was some kind of Evil-Resisting Sword Manuscript. Otherwise, Yu Canghai would be no match for your father. It’s just so clear and simple.”
“Junior brother Lin, your father wanted me to tell you: In the Xiang-Yang Alley of Fuzhou…,” Linghu Chong said.
Yue Buqun waved him off. “These are the last words of Pingzhi’s father. You can tell Pingzhi alone. There’s no need for others to hear about it.”
“Yes, Master!” Linghu Chong answered.
“Denuo, Gengming, you two go buy two coffins in the town of Hengshan.” Yue Buqun instructed.
After putting the Lin couple into the coffins, they hired some porters to carry the coffins to the river wharf. The group hired a big ship and headed north by water.
When they arrived at west Henan Province, they changed into traveling by land. Linghu Chong rested in a wagon through the trip, while his wounds slowly recovered. Days later, they arrived afoot the Jade Maiden Peak of Mount Huashan. The Lin couple’s coffins were temporarily placed in a small temple by the side of the peak, so an appropriate date for burial can be decided on later. Gao Gengming and Lu Dayou went up the peak ahead of everyone else to inform about the return of the group. Soon the rest of the Huashan apprentices that stayed on Mount Huashan, about twenty of them or so, came down to greet the Master. Lao Denuo introduced them to Lin Pingzhi one by one. Some elder ones were well over thirty years of age; some younger ones were only about fifteen or sixteen. Among them were six female apprentices. As soon as they spotted Yue Lingshan, they immediately went into chitchats. The rule of the Huashan Sword School’s apprenticeship was that seniority would be based on the date order when each one became an apprentice, so with even the youngest one Shu Qi, Lin Pingzhi had to call him senior apprentice brother. Yue Lingshan was the only exception. She was the daughter of Yue Buqun, so she c
ouldn’t be ranked using the same ordering system, and had to be called based on age. People older than her called her junior sister. She was really a couple of years younger than Lin Pingzhi, but she firmly insisted on being Lin Pingzhi’s senior apprentice sister. Since Yue Buqun did not object, so Lin Pingzhi called her “senior apprentice sister.”
After they all climbed up the peak, Lin Pingzhi followed behind all the senior apprentice brothers. The mountain was very precipitous, yet appeared to be graceful and elegant because of the many ancient trees. Bird tweeting and stream gurgling echoed, making the place a lively environment. Several big houses stood on the side of the hill, some tall, some short, built following the slope of the hill, and all with whitewashed walls.
A middle-aged, pretty lady slowly walked toward them, and as soon as Yue Lingshan caught the sight of her, she dashed into her arms and shouted excitedly.
“Mom, I’ve got a new junior apprentice brother!” She pointed at Lin Pingzhi, smiling.
Lin Pingzhi had heard from his senior apprentice brothers that Madam Yue, Ning Zhongze, or Master-Wife, as how all the apprentices called her, was really a junior apprentice sister of the Master under the same master, and her sword skills were really no less than the Master. So he rushed forward and kowtowed.
“Lin Pingzhi here shows his respect to Master-Wife.”
“That’s wonderful! Get up, get up!” Madam Yue said with a bright smile. She turned to Yue Buqun with a grin. “Every time when you go down the mountain, you always seek a couple treasures to satisfy your craving. This time when you headed for the Hengshan Meeting, I figured that you’d be getting at least three or four new apprentices. How come you only came back with one?”
“Didn’t you always say quality is more important than quantity? What do you think about this one?” Yue Buqun grinned.
“This one is way too handsome. He doesn’t look like the kind of material for Kung Fu training. Why don’t you have him study the Four Books and the Five Classics48 from you, so he will pass the Xiucai49 test someday, and maybe become a Zhuangyuan50 later?” Madam Yue said with a big smile.
Lin Pingzhi blushed. “Master-Wife is not taking me seriously because I look gentle and frail. I’ll have to work extra hard, so I won’t be looked down upon because my performance is inferior to the other senior apprentice brothers,” he told himself.
“That’s a wonderful idea. If the Huashan Sword School could actually produce a Zhuangyuan, then we would be creating legends for our descendents,” Yue Buqun answered with a grin.
Madam Yue glared at Linghu Chong. “You got into fights with others and got wounded again, didn’t you? How come you don’t look too well right now? Were you severely wounded?” she asked.
“It’s already much better now. If I hadn’t been lucky this time, I probably wouldn’t even make it back to see you again,” Linghu Chong replied with a light smile.
Madam Yue gave him another glare. “It’s a good lesson for you to learn that there’s always stronger than the strong. Did you think you lost in a fair fight?”
“I couldn’t fend off the fellow Tian Boguang’s fast knife chops. Master-Wife, will you please give me some pointers?” Linghu Chong requested.
Hearing that it was Tian Boguang who had injured Linghu Chong, Madam Yue nodded, while a big smile blossomed on her face. “So you were fighting the villain Tian Boguang. That’s great! I thought you stirred up dispute and got into trouble again. How were his fast knife chops? Let’s think it over and refine your techniques, so you can fight him again.”
During the trip back home, Linghu Chong had asked several times for advice from his Master about techniques to counter Tian Boguang’s fast knife chops, but Yue Buqun had not said any word in regard, and simply told him to ask his Master-Wife once they were back to Mount Huashan. Sure enough, as soon as Madam Yue heard about it, she got so excited that she almost wished she could get onto it the very moment.
The bunch went into the house Yue Buqun lived in – “House of Integrity,” and talked about events that had happened since the two groups separated. The six female apprentices really envied Yue Lingshan when they heard about her adventure in the town of Fuzhou and in the town of Hengshan. Lu Dayou, on the other hand, really bragged about how the big apprentice brother had fought the fierce fights with Tian Boguang and how he had slain Luo Renjie, to the bunch of junior apprentice brothers. He added many inflammatory details to the story, and it sounded as if big apprentice brother had defeated Tian Boguang instead of suffering a crushing defeat. After they had some snacks and tea, Madam Yue asked Linghu Chong to emulate Tian Boguang’s knife moves and also inquired about how he had countered them.
“That chap Tian Boguang’s knife skills are excellent. I was simply dazzled just looking at the chops, having a hard time fending them off. How could I have countered them?” Linghu Chong answered with a grin.
“If you couldn’t fend them off, then you must have used all kinds of tricks in a slick way to cheat your way through,” Madam Yue concluded. She had raised Linghu Chong up, so of course, she had a very good idea of Linghu Chong’s character.
Linghu Chong blushed. “When I fought Tian Boguang outside the cave, the apprentice sister of the Heng-Shan Sword School had left, and I no longer had any scruple, so I fought the chap Tian Boguang with all my heart. But not far into the fight, he started using his fast knife chop moves. After fending off only two of those moves, I was already groaning inwardly: ‘Looks like I am dead meat!’ So I started laughing loudly.
“Tian Boguang pulled his knife back. ‘What’s so funny?’ he asked. ‘Do you think you can fend off my thirteen stances of ‘Wind Storm’ knife chops?’
“I said, ‘Aha, so the well-known Tian Boguang is actually an expelled apprentice of our Huashan Sword School. I had no idea! Really no idea! I got it. You must have been kicked out of our school because of your dreadful personal character.’
“Tian Boguang said, ‘Expelled Huashan apprentice? What kind of nonsense is that? My Kung Fu is of its own style. What the hell has it got anything to do with your Huashan Sword School?’
“I said, ‘This set of knife moves has a total of thirteen stances, right? ‘Wind Storm?’ Did you just pick a nice random name for it? I’ve seen my Master and Master-Wife use those during practices before. My Master-Wife created those out of a sudden inspiration when she was embroidering. You must know that we’ve gotten a Jade Maiden Peak in Mount Huashan, don’t you?’
“Tian Boguang answered, ‘Yeah. Everybody knows there’s a Jade Maiden Peak in Mount Huashan. What about it?’
“I answered, ‘This set of sword art created by my Master-Wife is called ‘The Thirteen Stances of Jade Maiden’s Golden Needle.’ One of them is called ‘Threading the Needle;’ another one is called ‘Seamless Heavenly Robe;’ there’s also another one called ‘Late Night Embroidering of the Loving Birds.’
“Then I started counting with my fingers as I spoke. I said, ‘That’s right, the two moves you just used were evolved from the eighth move created by my Master-Wife: ‘Weaving Goddess Throwing the Shuttles.’ Why would a valiantly and hefty fellow like you imitate the manners of my affectedly sweet Master-Wife and throw the shuttle with the pretty hands from left to right, then right to left, like how the gorgeous looking Weaving Goddess would have when she is sitting by a weaving loom. Don’t you think that’s just hilarious…?’” Before he even finished, Yue Lingshan and the bunch of female apprentices all started giggling.
“That’s too mischievous!” Yue Buqun scolded, yet could not help but grin.
“Bah,” Madam Yue spat at Linghu Chong. “Why couldn’t you use some other materials for your nonsense, and had to get your Master-Wife involved? You really deserve a good beating.”
“Master-Wife, you don’t understand.” Linghu Chong grinned. “That Tian Boguang is rather conceited. When he heard that I was comparing him to a woman and that my Master-Wife created her own magical knife moves, he had to argue about it and definitely wouldn’
t just kill me right away. Sure enough, he started to show me the moves of that set of knife chops one by one slowly. Each time when he was demonstrating one, he would ask, ‘Did your Master-Wife create this one?’
“I pretended to be very secretive about it and kept my silence while secretly memorizing his knife moves. I waited till he was done demonstrating all thirteen stances and then said, ‘This set of knife art of yours only has very slight deviations from the one created by my Master-Wife, but the majority of it is still the same. This is really odd? How did you steal it from our Huashan Sword School?’
“Tian Boguang said angrily, ‘You couldn’t fend off this set of knife art of mine. That’s why you simply made things up to stall time so you can investigate the moves of my knife art. Did you think I am stupid? You said your school has the same set of knife art, then please show them to me and help me broaden my horizon.’
“I said, ‘First of all, our school uses swords, not knives. Secondly, this set of ‘Jade Maiden’s Golden Needle Sword’ of my Master-Wife is only taught to female apprentices, not male apprentices. If we hefty guys had to use such sissy looking sword art, wouldn’t we become the laughing stocks of the entire Martial World?’
“Tian Boguang became even more angry. He yelled, ‘Whether I become the laughing stock or not, I am going to make you admit that the Huashan Sword School does not have this set of Kung Fu. Brother, I admire your courage, but you shouldn’t wag your tongue so freely and make fun of me.’”
“Who cares if such a shameless villain admires you or not? He deserves to be made fun of,” Yue Lingshan interrupted.
“But in that circumstance,” Linghu Chong said, “if I did not demonstrate this made-up set of ‘Jade Maiden’s Golden Needle Sword’ in front of him, I’d be dead by now. So with no other choices, I had to add some affectedly bashful moves at random based on his knife art and demonstrated the moves.”
