by Jin Yong
As soon as he finished speaking, he cupped his hands in salute towards the two people, turned around and left.
Xiang Wentian still had words to say but Linghu Chong was already far away. As Linghu Chong ran out of the Plum Manor, he felt the cold air brushing his body and he felt unrestrained in his heart. As he sighed and raised his head, he saw the crescent moon hanging from the tip of a willow branch. In the middle of the lake, he could see reflections of the bright moon and the clouds on the water. When he reached the bank of the lake, he stood there quietly for some time and thought, "Chief Ren must now be going to Dongfang Bubai to settle the matter concerning the position of Chief. He wouldn't search for Huashan School straight away to bring them trouble. But, Master, Master-wife, and martial brothers and sisters didn't know about this matter. If they meet him, they may suffer under his violent hands. I must tell them as soon as possible so that they can be prepared. But I don't know whether they've returned from Fuzhou or not. From here, it's not that far to Fuzhou. I don't have anything else to do. I'll just go to Fuzhou for a trip. If they're on their way back, then maybe I'll meet them on the way."
His thought immediately turned to the letter his master wrote to the Wulin world. In that letter, his Master announced that he'd been expelled from Huashan school. A sour feeling rose up in his heart as he remembered this. He thought to himself, "I'm going to report to Master and Master-wife about Chief Ren compelling me to join his sect. They will understand that I didn't intentionally make friends with people from Devil sect. Maybe Master will take back his command and will only punish me to spend three years on top of that cliff thinking about my fault. If that's the case, then it's going be good." Thinking that there may be a chance to re-enter the school, his spirit rose.
He immediately started off to look for an inn to stay overnight. He felt that he would be able to sleep long until noon this time. Then he thought that as he hadn't seen Master and Master-wife, it would be better to hide his original appearance. Furthermore, Yingying gave orders to those people to take his life. So, he felt it'd be best to disguise himself and not look for trouble. But what appearance should he take on for his disguise?
As he was deep in thought, he arrived at an inn. He walked slowly into the inn. Just as he entered the courtyard, he suddenly heard the sound of a door being opened and a basin full of water splashed towards him. He evaded quickly as the basin emptied out. In front of him was an angry looking military officer glaring at him, holding a wooden wash basin. The officer rudely shouted, "Did you not bring your eyes? Didn't you see grandfather throwing water out?"
Linghu Chong was feeling angry. He couldn’t believe that such an unruly and unreasonable man existed. With a fine thick beard, this military officer looked like he was around forty years old. He was wearing a full body military gown and there was a Yaodao saber on his waist. Linghu Chong thought that he was probably an officer from a military school. With his chest flat and his belly bulging out, he looked accustomed to the good living.
That military officer loudly shouted, "What are you looking at? You don't recognise your granddad?"
Linghu Chong suddenly got an inspiration, "Why don't I disguise myself as this military officer? He's quite interesting. I'll be walking around Jiang Hu in an impressive disguise. People in Wulin won't even give me a second look."
That military officer shouted loudly again, "What are you laughing at? Your granny6, what's so funny?"
Linghu Chong unconsciously smiled, feeling proud of himself. When he went to the counter to pay for a room and meal, he whispered to the innkeeper, "What's the background of that military officer?"
The shopkeeper frowned at his question, but he still answered, "Who knows where he comes from? He came from Beijing and has stayed here for one night. The servants served him three meals already. He’s also ordered a good quantity of good wine and good meat. Don't know if he's going to pay or not."
Linghu Chong nodded and walked into the teahouse. He brewed a pot of tea and slowly drank it. After waiting for an hour, he heard the sound of a horse trotting. That military officer was going out of the inn on a red jujube-coloured horse. While lashing his horsewhip making a "Pai, pai" sound, he was loudly bellowing, "Make way! Make way! Your granny, hurry up and get away!" A few people were too slow getting out of his way and got lashed by the whip.
Linghu Chong already paid for his tea, so he got up and followed the horse. He saw the officer exiting from the west gate and galloping away on the southwesterly road. After a few li, there were less and less people on the road, so Linghu Chong quickened his steps. He rushed to the front of the horse and raised his right hand. The horse was frightened and reared at him causing that officer to almost fall from the horse.
Linghu Chong shouted loudly, "Your granny, didn't you bring your eyes? Your horse almost kicked this old man to death!"
That officer didn't open his mouth but he looked indignant and snorted three times. He waited till his horse's front foot dropped back down before he selected a whip and lashed out towards Linghu Chong's head. He saw that it's inconvenient to settle this matter on the main road so he shouted, "Ai yo!" and staggered into the forest. That officer wasn't willing to just let Linghu Chong go like that. So he dismounted his horse and quickly tied the horse's rein on a tree. He was madly impatient to start chasing.
Linghu Chong shouted, "Ai yo! I want my mommy!" as he fled into the forest.
That military officer started pursuing and raised a clamor as he was running through the forest. Suddenly he felt a tingling sensation on the side of his body and fell down on the ground. Linghu Chong's left foot stepped on his chest and laughingly said, "Your granny, your skill isn't good. How can you march to war?" He searched the officer's bosom and took out a big envelope. On the envelope was the "Seal of the Ministry of War Office" on red vermillion and a written word "Announcement" in big letters. He opened the letter and took out a thick paper. It was the ministry of war office's appointment order. Written on it was the promotion of Hebei’s Cangzhou prefecture's officer Wu Tiande to become Fujian's Quanzhou prefecture’s general.
Linghu Chong laughed and said, "Oh, it's big general, so you're Wu Tiande?"
That officer was pinned underneath Linghu Chong's foot and his face starting to turn purple.
"Let me get up! Quickly! You… you... very daring. Insulting a government official, not… not afraid of the law?" shouted that officer. Although he was shouting, his anger had long been exhausted.
Smiling, Linghu Chong said, "Your old man doesn't have anything to tie you up with but I want to borrow your clothes to try on,” After saying so, he knocked out the officer by hitting him on the head with his palm.
He then quickly took the officer's clothes off. Thinking that this guy was hateful, he decided to teach him a lesson and took off all his underwear, leaving the officer buck-naked on the ground. He then picked up the officer’s bundle and opened it. Inside, there were several hundreds silver taels and three gold coins. He thought, "This must have been taken away from good and honest people. It's going to be hard to return these to the owners. I’ll just have to use it to buy wine for my General Wu Tiande." He chuckled as he thought of this. Immediately, he took off his clothes and put on the officer's clothes, leather boots, and Yaodao saber. He also took the bundle with him. Afterwards, using a strip of his own clothes, he tied the officer's hands to a tree and stuffed his mouth full with mud. He thought for a while and took his knife out to shave the officer's beard and put those shaved beard in his bosom. He smiled and remarked, "You've changed into a pretty face now. You’ve become much more beautiful."
When he got back to the main road, he untied the horse’s rein and mounted it. He lashed out with the whip and shouted, "Make way! Make way! Your granny, didn't you bring your eyes? HaHa, HaHa!" Laughing loudly, he galloped away to the south.
That same night, he arrived at an inn at the border area of Hangzhou. The shopkeeper and servant at that inn greeted him with "Army officer, army officer"
. At daybreak, Linghu Chong asked the shopkeeper the road to Fujian. After receiving 5 taels of silver, the shopkeeper and his servant accompanied him while bowing all the way to the door. Linghu Chong thought, "You guys are fortunate that you met my general; if you had actually met the real General Wu Tiande, you would certainly have suffered." After leaving the inn, he went to a store and bought a face mirror and a bottle of glue water. Once he got outside the city, he looked for a desolated place. Once he got there, he took out the mirror and carefully glued the shaved beard on his face. This took him around an hour. When he checked himself in the mirror, his cheek was full of fine thick beard and couldn't help but laughed at himself.
On the way south, he reached Jinhua prefecture and arrived at the prefecture office. In this area, he found it hard to understand the southern accent. But it was good that he was dressed in military attire because people started talking to him in a more formal manner, which made him able to understand them much better. In his whole life, he's never had this much money before, so he kept ordering wine and drank to his heart's content.
The many different internal energies that he had were circulating throughout the meridians in his body, not a trace of it was leaving his body. When suddenly, an energy stream rushed towards his Dantian region making him dizzy, seeing stars, and wanting to vomit. This was Mr. Black-White's qi. He felt the pain was even more unbearable than before. Whenever this happened, he only had to follow the method written by Ren WoXing on the iron panel and expel the qi out from the Dantian region. After the qi in the Dantian was emptied, then his qi would become smooth and he would feel vigorous immediately. If he followed this practice every time this happened, he knew that his energy would also increase by a level but he would also be deeper in trouble by one level. He was always upbeat in his thinking. "I already got my life back. Living for one more day, even for one more minute is already good." He calmed down straight away.
That afternoon, he entered the Xianxia mountain range. The area was rugged and as he went on, he got higher and higher and could see less and less smokes from the mountain people’s habitation. He rode on for another 20 li and no house was around anymore. He knew straight away that he had made a mistake by going past the last inn so now he had to stay the night on the road with robbers around the area. The night was getting darker as he picked a fruit up and ate it. Then he spotted a small cave underneath the cliff. It looked dry and seemed as if there were not many bugs inside to bother him. So he tied his horse's rein on a tree and let it eat some grass, while he went to collect some dry grass to spread inside the cave.
He felt that the qi in his Dantian wasn't relaxed so he sat down to meditate. With more practice, Ren Woxing's divine martial art was going to get even harder to restrain and he was going to feel uncomfortable more often. When he finished meditating, his whole body felt relaxed and light. It was as if he was on a cloud. He then expelled the breath in his mouth, stood up, and smiled bitterly. " That day when I asked Chief Ren, how come he still wanted to learn the Art of Essence Absorbing when he already had "Sunflower Manual" in his possession, he didn't answer willingly. But now, I understand why. This Art of Essence Absorbing, after you practiced it, you won't be able to give it up." After reaching this conclusion, he couldn't help but feel frightened. "I heard Master-wife said before about Miao people raising poisonous evil things. Even when they knew it was evil, it was hard to give up. If they don't use those poisonous bugs to harm people then the bugs would harm the host's body. In the future, will I become just like those Miao people?"
When he walked out of the cave, he saw a lot of stars in the sky and heard the chirping of insects. Suddenly, he heard people coming towards the mountain. It seemed that they're still quite far away but his internal energy allowed him to hear further. Immediately, he went to his horse, loosened its rein, hit its back to make the horse move into the cave. He then hid himself behind a tree. After some time, he heard the steps coming closer. The light from the stars allowed him to see many people with black gowns and yellow waistbands, walking along. From the outfits, he reckoned they were people from the Devil Sect. There were more than thirty people in the group and none of them spoke a word. Linghu Chong thought, "They seemed to be going south towards Fujian. I wonder if they have anything to do with my Huashan School. Have they received orders from Chief Ren to cause trouble for Master and Master-wife?" He waited until those people were gone far enough before he quietly followed.
After he had walked for several li, the mountain road became really steep. Then he saw the two mountain peaks besides each other with a very narrow mountain road going through the middle. It would be impossible for two people to go up side by side on this road. Those thirty people were climbing through the pass in a single file. Linghu Chong thought, " If I were to follow them up now, it's possible that once they reached the top, one of them might accidentally turn his head around and see me." So he quickly hid himself in the bushes to wait for them to finish climbing the slope and to start going down on the south slope before he started chasing again. But when these people reached the peak of the slope, they suddenly scattered and hid themselves behind the mountain rocks. Not a single shadow was seen.
Linghu Chong was frightened. The first thing that entered his mind was, "They saw me." But he knew immediately that he was wrong. He considered further, "They're going to ambush people who will go up the slope. That must be it! This is the perfect place to plan an ambush. Whoever climbed up here would have trouble escaping. Who are they trying to ambush? If Master and Master-wife had gone back to the North, what urgent matter do they have to go back to Fujian that they would be walking through here at night? Will I see my little martial sister tonight?" As his thought turned to Yue Lingshan, his whole body became hot. He quietly stepped away from the bushes. After he had gained a bit of distance away from the mountaintop, he quickly dashed down from the mountain. After several bends, he turned around and couldn't see the mountain slope anymore. Then he headed back north away from the mountain pass. He scampered along the road while trying to listen if anyone was coming towards him. After 10 more li, he suddenly heard voices from a hillside on the left. "Linghu Chong is a dirty rascal. You're still defending him!"
Chapter 23 Ambush
Yilin turned around hurriedly and stuck out her hand. Linghu Chong reached over and held on to her hand. Yilin pulled hard upwards, and after several embarrassing stumbles, Linghu Chong finally regained his balance. Several female apprentices behind him simply could not help giggling.
Linghu Chong was alarmed to suddenly hear someone calling his own name on a desolated mountaintop in the middle of the night. His first thought was, "It's master!" But it was the voice of a female and it wasn't master-wife or Yue Lingshan. This outburst was followed by a softer and quieter female's voice, which he could not hear clearly. Linghu Chong went towards the hillside and saw the shadows of thirty-four people standing up. His heart turned sour. "Who scolded me? Is it really HuaShan School's party? If martial sister heard someone scolded me like that, I wonder how she would react?"
He lowered his body to hide beside a shrub on the side. He crouched and circled around the hillside to get closer to the group and hid himself behind a big tree. He heard a female's voice said, "Martial uncle, Martial brother Linghu is an upright and heroic... " Hearing this half sentence, the picture of a delicately pretty face came into his mind. His chest became slightly constricted as he realised that the person saying this was Yilin, the little nun from Heng-shan school. He was disappointed to learn that these people were not from Huashan School. As his mind was somewhere else, he missed the next two sentences said by Yilin. He only heard the sharp voice of the previous speaker saying angrily, "You still dare to argue with your elder? Then that letter from Mr. Yue of Huashan School is fake? Mr. Yue sent this letter to the entire realm, telling everyone that Linghu Chong had been expelled from HuaShan because he's involved with Devil Sect's people. What wrong can we do to him? When Linghu Chong saved you before, he pro
bably wants to depend on this small favour to plot against us..."
"Martial uncle, it wasn't a small favor, Martial brother Linghu disregarded his own life... " answered Yilin.
"You're still calling him martial brother? This person is most probably a shrewd and wicked scheming thief. Putting on airs and deceiving young children like you. In Jiang Hu, there are all sorts of sly and crafty people, swindling young people like you because you have never experienced meeting them," the elder shouted in reply.
Yilin answered, "How can disciple not listen to martial uncle's order? But.. but.. martial… Linghu ... " and the word "brother" wasn't said. She stiffly stood there enduring the lecture.
That elder asked, "But what?" Yilin appeared to be frightened and didn't dare to speak anymore.
"This is a message from SongShan's Alliance Chief Zuo. Devil Sect is conducting a large-scale operation in Fujian to rob the Lin family of Fuzhou of their Evil Resisting sword art. Alliance Chief Zuo wants the Five Mountains Sword Alliance to help in preventing the demon people from having the sword art manual. When great masters from the Five Mountains Sword Alliance stepped in, it is unavoidable that people will die without being buried. That child from FuZhou's Lin family has already entered Mr. Yue's school so it seemed that HuaShan School has obtained the sword art manual but actually they have not. We fear that the Devil Sect will have many traps. Also, when you add that ex-disciple of Huashan School, Linghu Chong, into the equation, our plight becomes even more unfavourable because the Devil sect may have inside information. Alliance Chief has put the responsibility of handling this matter on my shoulder and ordered me to lead us into Fujian. This matter concerns the fortune of both the orthodox and Devil Sect. We can't allow any careless or indiscreet acts. Thirty li from here is the border between Zhejiang and Fujian. Today, everyone has worked hard and had been hurrying along at night. We'll rest when we get to Nianbapu town. We'll then hurry along so we can be in front and wait for the Devil Sect people to launch their operation. By then, we would have waited at ease and have the advantage of waiting for an exhausted enemy. But you must still be on your guard," that elder announced. All the female disciples (numbering in scores of ten) complied with one voice.
