Black Dragon, Black Cat

by Brian Edwards

  She met Jai-tien in the training area behind the old shed, and he quickly began the daily exercise routine. He hurried through it at a brisk pace, and stopped suddenly well short of the usual period of exercise.

  “Spring has finally come to our land and a fresh feeling of excitement fills me with the thoughts of a much younger man,” he said with apparent sincerity. “I am eager to see if you have learned any of the lessons I have taught you during the past few weeks. Let us begin!”

  With this declaration, Jai-tien launched himself into a series of kicks and hand strikes that caught Mao off guard and propelled her backward. The old man’s ferocity was so intense that the surprised pupil stumbled backward and fell to the ground with a jarring thud. In an instant Jai-tien had straddled her and began pummeling her face with his open hands, but she immediately covered her face and temples with her forearms, softening the blows from her master. She shifted her left hip sideways out from under the old man, and then brought her left leg over his head, hooking him around the neck. From this position, she was able to pry him easily off of her chest and roll him over onto the ground. The two rolled to their feet, and faced off again.

  Mao had been battered during the flurry of strikes to her head, and again felt a flash of anger; however, she recalled the past week’s events, and quickly turned her attention to strategy rather than let her anger run wild. Jai-tien attacked again with a flurry of fists and feet that forced her to retreat backward until she almost stumbled a second time. She was struck several times during this burst, and could feel the impact of the blows on her temples echo around in her head. Ignoring the sensation of vertigo these produced, she tried several times to mount a counter offensive, but could not perform more than two strikes in a row before Jai-tien interrupted her flow and resumed the offensive.

  Many times this sequence of events was repeated over the next hour, without a moment of relenting. Jai-tien constantly pressed his attack, and Mao fumbled around ineffectively to defend herself. With each passing minute she felt a rising sense of overwhelming frustration at herself for being unable to manage the simplest technique, and this led to an increasing feeling of anger. Several times she lashed out at her master with rage, but quickly brought it back under control before Jai-tien could take advantage of it. Many times they fell to the ground and Mao was forced to use every ounce of her energy to escape from her master’s wiry embrace. Each time she rolled him off of her, she would leap back to her feet and prepare to counterattack, but Jai-tien was always ready to defend himself and divert her futile attack.

  After an hour of this intense sparring, Mao was breathing heavily and sweating from the unaccustomed warmth of the east wind. Her stamina was rapidly being depleted, but Jai-tien showed no signs of weakening. Another thirty minutes passed and still the barrage of blows continued to rain down around her head, and she caught herself many times staggering one direction or another. Her frustration kept trying to lead her to anger, but she continuously managed to subdue it. Each time she fell to the ground, it became more difficult for her to escape from the clutches of her master, yet still she managed to find a slip or twist that would allow her to roll free.

  Still more time passed, and with each minute Mao’s stamina was reduced dramatically. At last she was thrown to the ground and could not get up. She bled from multiple cuts on her forehead and a constant throbbing drummed inside of her aching head. She tried to prop herself up with an elbow, but Jai-tien pushed her back to the ground with his foot to her chest. She lay on the still icy ground panting like a dog without the strength to push herself back up again. Jai-tien stared down at her for several seconds, then removed his foot from her chest and walked back toward the cottage.

  Mao was unable to arise for a long time. She did not know how long she lay there, but it seemed to her as if hours had passed. She was not even sure if she had fallen asleep for a while. Eventually, she managed to prop herself up again on an elbow, and from this position to lever herself upright and stagger back toward the house.

  Mao was depressed during the long and tedious walk up to the home of Mother Lu-chin that evening. Although the east wind had warmed the valley during the sunny daytime hours, the north wind was threatening to reclaim the night and avenge itself. Her body stiffened from the day’s exertions as she climbed upward along the winding path over the trampled snow, but the warm and soothing effect of the tea worked its magic over her senses and she left the hilltop cottage in a more relaxed state of mind than when she had entered.

  When they stepped out of the cottage and closed the door behind them, they were greeted with a cold slap to the face from the howling north wind, which had dropped the nighttime temperature well below the freezing point. The snow that had melted during the day had now turned to ice and the footing was very treacherous. Mao had to concentrate fully on each footstep lest she twist an ankle and fall to the ground. Jai-tien relied on his walking stick more than usual, and the pair made very slow progress down the hillside. Halfway down the winding pathway, the old man began to speak.

  “You fought like a true warrior today, Hei Mao. You did not give up until you were physically incapable of continuing to fight. You kept control of your emotions and expended every drop of energy in your body to continue to battle. A true warrior may not always win, but he will always lose like a warrior.” With these words, Jai-tien became silent and did not speak again during the remainder of the trek homeward.

  Upon arrival, Mao went directly to the stove and threw in a couple of logs. She stoked the embers into a fierce blaze that would warm the room for several hours. Jai-tien went to his room and prepared for bed, and Mao went to her mat and curled up under her blanket, wishing that the black cat was there to help generate heat. As soon as she stopped shivering from the arduous trip down the hillside, she fell asleep into a dreamless rest.

  Well after midnight in the darkest hour, Mao was awakened by a distant sense in her mind that something was not quite right. She forced herself into consciousness, and shook her head slightly on the pillow to clear her thoughts. Had she heard something? Or maybe just sensed something? She was not sure. Why had she awoken? She lay still and listened carefully, but could not discern any unusual sounds. She heard the scurrying of a mouse somewhere in the house, but this was not unusual. Nevertheless, she propped herself up silently on one elbow, and looked around the room just to be sure. She saw and heard nothing, and started to lie back down on her mat. Then she heard the scurrying again, and stared into the darkness in the direction of the noise. There she saw a large figure moving slowly toward the door of the house. The figure stopped momentarily, and then moved forward a few more inches with the sound of a scurrying mouse. After a full five minutes had passed, Mao watched the figure slide open the door and slip out of the house.

  By the time the figure had eased itself out the door, Mao was fully aware that her master was trying to slip out of the house without being detected; he was moving slowly, making only noises that she would not notice or give any attention. She wondered what he could possibly be doing. She tiptoed over to the door and slid it back just enough to poke her head out furtively to spy on him, and saw him moving quickly toward the well. Once there, he began to lower an old pail into it.

  Mao instantly realized that Jai-tien was planning on giving her another midnight shower. She pulled her head back into the house, and slid the door shut. She went back to her mat, and shoved her pillows and clothes under the blanket and fluffed them up to give the appearance that she was lying there asleep. Then she moved into the kitchen area, and removed the bucket of water that she kept there to clean the morning breakfast dishes without having to take a cold walk to the well to retrieve it. She hid in the corner under the table, and waited for her master to return.

  Almost immediately after she stooped under the table, the door to the house eased open and Jai-tien slithered back inside. Again, he moved very slowly in small steps with many pauses in between. He made only the sounds of a wandering mo
use as he crossed the floor. Once, he turned toward the table as if he sensed a presence there, and sniffed at the air before resuming his slow march across the floor. It was a full five minutes before he approached Mao’s mat, and then with a flourish, he emptied the bucket of water on top of the blankets.

  There was no reaction from the mat, and Jai-tien stood momentarily puzzled, staring down at the wet blankets. He bent over to take a closer look, and then instantly realized that he had been tricked. He turned around quickly, only to be hit in the face with a shocking blast of cold water. He blew water out of his nose and his nightshirt dripped on the floor. He looked into Mao’s smiling face, who was trying hard to stifle a giggle. He set down his bucket on the floor and went back to his room without saying a word.

  Jai-tien seemed to be in a very good mood the next morning when Mao awoke. Both he and Mao moved briskly through the morning chores, and ate heartily at the lunch hour. The old master seemed very eager to get to the training field, and was waiting there impatiently when Mao arrived. After an abbreviated round of exercises, Jai-tien declared that the sparring would begin. He and Mao took places opposite each other in the training area and bowed to each other.

  Jai-tien launched into a blistering attack immediately, forcing his pupil to give up ground to defend herself. After a series of several strikes and kicks, he finished with a spinning kick that struck Mao in the temple and knocked her backward. She rolled to her feet, momentarily touching the spot of impact to determine if she had been cut. Jai-tien attacked again, and the end result was the same: Mao ended up being struck to the side of her face with his fist and knocked to the ground. She sprang back up, and immediately began her own series of attacks.

  This series of events continued for several hours, with Mao throwing every technique she had learned at her master, without success. She could not manage to touch him, let alone hit him with a solid strike. She grew increasingly frustrated as the afternoon passed with her inability to strike him and the apparent ease with which he was able to strike her.

  Again she made a series of kicks and hand strikes at her master, but he successfully blocked each one and turned her momentum to his advantage. As she finished her flurry of blows with a high arching windmill kick, he slipped sideways, darted under her extending leg, and caught her with the back of his fist on her right ear as she brought her foot back down. She fell to the soggy ground of melting snow and ice, and rolled up to a sitting position.

  Jait-tien cocked his head to the side and looked down at Mao. “I can see that you are thinking, Hei Mao. Do you have something to say?” He put his hands on his hips and stood waiting for a reply.

  “Master, you always manage to hit me, even though you claim that I am quicker than you.” Mao’s pent up frustration caused her to question Jai-tien’s teachings. “You always said that action is faster than reaction, but even when I strike first you are able to block my attack. How is it not possible that your reactions are faster than my actions?”

  Jai-tien let out a deep sigh and shook his head vigorously. “Hei Mao, you still have much to learn. My reactions are slower than your actions. What you do not realize is that my movements are actually actions, and not reactions.”

  An expression of disbelief flashed across Mao’s face. “Master,” she pleaded, “why do you play games with me? I do my best to follow your teaching, but you speak to me in riddles and never answer my questions.”

  “The answers are there, Hei Mao, but you do not yet possess the wisdom to search for them. I cannot give you all of the answers; you must find them yourself. You will remember most what you learn for yourself, not what you learn from others. My answers to your questions are meant to provide only direction for your personal search. Why do you never seek the answers for yourself? Why do you always expect me to tell you everything there is to know?”

  Mao reflected on this for a few minutes as Jai-tien sat down on the wet ground to wait. Eventually an idea entered her mind for the first time. “But if your movements are actions rather than reactions, then you must know what I am going to do before I actually begin to do it. How can you do this, Master? Can you read my mind?”

  Jai-tien smiled to himself at Mao’s response: for the first time, she had applied her brain to find the solution, rather than relying entirely on him for an explanation. “No, Hei Mao, I cannot read your mind,” Jai-tien replied, “but I can read your body.”

  Mao thought about this new puzzling answer to her latest question. “Are you able to tell what I will do from clues that my body provides, Master?”

  Jai-tien stood up quickly with a satisfied expression on his face. “Yes, Hei Mao, that is it! Your posture and stance tell me what you will do before you are even sure of it yourself. Then I am prepared to counteract it. Your body posture also tells me when you will strike, and I therefore act, not react, to your movements. My blocks are actually beginning before your strikes. You must learn to disguise your body posture and stances. You can even use them to your advantage to fool your opponent into believing your attack will be one thing, when it is actually another. You must also learn to judge your opponent’s stances, while remembering that he might be trying to fool you as well. With time, you can even learn to tell the difference between these as well. This is what I meant earlier when I said that you must use your wits to overcome a skillful opponent. Now that you recognize it, this ability will come with experience, and you will thus learn how to make you own luck!”

  Having finished his lecture, Jai-tien resumed an offensive stance. “You are now making great progress! Come! Let us continue!”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, he launched into another blistering attack. It caught Mao by surprise, and she was hard-pressed to deflect the blows as she strategically gave up ground before his advance. She was able to duck under his final spinning kick: she had realized that she had anticipated from his foot placement after his previous kick that he would spin on the next one for a powerful strike designed to knock her out. In fact, it became immediately obvious to her that his whole series of strikes was merely intended to set up his final kick.

  As his spinning kick failed to find its target, Jai-tien quickly returned to a defensive stance expecting Mao to counterattack immediately. She hesitated only a moment, however, as her mind raced over what she had just learned. She realized that from this position she would always deliver a sidekick or an inside windmill kick to begin her attack. This time, however, she gave the slightest hint of performing the usual sidekick, but held it back at the last instant, while Jai-tien’s arm extended downward to block it. At the same time, the back of her fist shot outward and struck him on the bridge of the nose as he lowered his guarding arm to block the expected kick.

  The old man was momentarily stunned by the impact, but then a smile of pleasure wrinkled his face as he gave up ground to ward off Mao’s following series of strikes. However, the initial deception had thrown off his timing only slightly, but to a skilled opponent, this was a window of opportunity. Mao pressed her advantage, and her final kick arched downward and struck him on the temple, sending him reeling to the ground.

  Jai-tien rolled over and up immediately, but then put down his hands and let out a loud and contented laugh. Mao stood in disbelief at what had just transpired. She had never before managed to knock down her master! “Did this really just happen?”, she thought to herself.

  “That is the power of thinking, Hei Mao,” he exclaimed. “Now that you have found it, you must continuously make use of it. You must make your own luck!”

  Evening was approaching and Jai-tien clasped his hands behind his back and walked toward the house. Mao sat down cross-legged on the ground and reflected on the day’s lesson. After a few minutes, she followed him into the house to prepare their evening meal.

  After their supper, Jai-tien and Mao set out on their ascent up the hill to the house of Mother Lu-chin. Jai-tien seemed very lively and spry, almost joyous. Mao had never before seen him in such a state. He walked
vigorously up the hill, only rarely leaning on his walking stick. It appeared to her that Jai-tien had mysteriously taken ten years of life from his body. Mao could not explain the change in him, but was very happy to see her master in such apparent good spirits and health.

  As the two visitors entered the house, each gave the customary deep bow of respect to Lu-chin, who remained motionless in her chair, but this night her slight smile appeared very different than normal. Usually, the smile was barely discernable at all, yet this night her smile appeared almost broad, which made her face appear more wrinkled than ever. Jai-tien went over to his mother’s right side, and sat down in his customary chair and awaited the tea service.

  As she walked by Lu-chin’s chair to prepare the tea service, Mao bumped into an object that she had not noticed upon entering, being as it were that nothing had ever changed within the dwelling. She was momentarily startled, and then looked down for the cause of the impact. There, next to the chair of Lu-chin, was a third chair on the old woman’s left side. Mao was completely taken aback. She closed her eyes and looked again, and yes, the chair was really there. She stared momentarily at Lu-chin, and over to Jai-tien, but the two of them stared impassively ahead without noticing her. Mao stepped around the chair and went over to the corner to retrieve the tea service.

  She returned with the tea tray, and passed tiny teacups to both Jai-tien and his mother. Then she timidly moved over to the third chair, and very slowly lowered herself onto it, watching from the sides of her eyes to see if there was any protest from her elders. They remained motionless and stoic, so Mao let her full weight down upon the chair and relaxed.

  How truly wonderful this was! Sitting in her chair, Mao experienced the elation of the moment, the euphoric sensation brought on by the thought of what this event might signify. Was this something that would continue henceforth? Did it mean that they now considered her to be a true warrior in the art of kung fu? Did it signify that her two elders now considered her as an equal? Was there some other way to interpret it?