by Jin Yong
"That's right! After that, I'm afraid he'll want to become the emperor. After he's become the emperor, then he would want to have a long life. May you attain boundless longevity! This is called 'Human's greed is like a snake trying to swallow an elephant'. It's been like that since the ancient times. Of all the heroes in this world, there's not many who can escape the trap of 'power and influence'," Chongxu said.
Linghu Chong was silent. He couldn't help from shivering as the cold northern wind swept through. "We humans only live for dozens of years, and the most important thing in life is to be happy. Why do you have to attain power, influence, and all that? Zuo Lengchan wants to exterminate Kongtong and Kunlun, and annex Shaolin and Wudang. How many people would he kill? How much blood would be shed?"
Chongxu clapped and said, "That's right, the three of us have this heavy responsibility to prevent Zuo Lengchan from succeeding in order to avoid a bloodbath."
Linghu Chong became alarmed. "Priest is making junior terrified by speaking like that. Junior's knowledge is shallow; I will listen to seniors' plan."
"That day when you led so many heroes to go to Shaolin to meet young lady Ren, you didn't damage a single grass or tree in Shaolin temple. Great Master Abbot received your compassion on that day," Chongxu said.
Linghu Chong's face turned scarlet. "I'm afraid Junior had really made a big disturbance."
Chongxu went on, "After you went away, Zuo Lengchan and the others also left one by one while I stayed on at Shaolin temple for seven days to have many long talks with Great Master Abbot. We talked deeply about our worries regarding Zuo Lengchan's wild ambition. That day, just as Ren Woxing used deceit to gain the upper hand on Great Master Fangzheng, Zuo Lengchan also used deceit to subdue Ren Woxing. Originally, this would not have been a big deal, but those ignorant disciples in Wulin would say: 'Great Master Fangzheng isn't Ren Woxing's match, while Ren Woxing isn't Zuo Lengchan's match...'"
Linghu Chong continuously shook his head and disagreed, "Not likely, not likely!"
"We all know that it's unlikely. But Zuo Lengchan's reputation is likely to increase greatly because of this fight, and he will become even more conceited and his wild ambition will grow even more. Later on, we separately received news of Brother becoming the headmaster of Heng-Shan School. We both decided to personally come to Heng-Shan to attend the ceremony to give our congratulations and to discuss about
this big matter," Chongxu said.
Linghu Chong said, "Junior doesn't deserve all the favours that seniors have shown me."
"That Yue Hou came to convey Zuo Lengchan's order. He said that on the fifteenth of the third month, everyone from the five mountains sword schools would gather at Songshan to elect the headmaster of the Five Mountains School. This act has long been predicted by Great Master Abbot, but we never thought that he would do this so soon. When he said that it was to elect the headmaster of the Five Mountains School, he made it sound as if the merging of the five mountains sword schools were a sure thing. Actually, Hengshan's Mr. Mo Da's temperament is peculiar and it's unlikely that he would be attached to Zuo Lengchan. Taishan's Priest Tianmen is very firm and he also would never bend to other people's wishes. Your master Mr. Yue looks relaxed on the outside but he's actually very serious on the inside and very strict about preserving the tradition of Huashan School. Mr. Yue would definitely fight against Zuo Lengchan seeing that Zuo Lengchan would wipe out the reputation of Huashan School. This leaves Heng-Shan School. The three senior Shi Tai have all passed away and this left the female disciples powerless to fight against Zuo Lengchan and therefore they probably would've surrendered. Who would've thought that Dingxian Shi Tai would break with custom and hand the headmaster position into Brother's hand. Brother Great Master Abbot and I have talked about Dingxian Shi Tai's foresight, and we really admire her. It was all the more difficult for her to think about this especially when she was already injured heavily. But she still managed to think it through. This shows just how much Dingxian Shi Tai had trained herself that even as she was a breath away from dying, she still had a clear mind. If Taishan, Hengshan, Huashan, and Heng-Shan Schools ally together and do not permit the forming of this Five Mountains School, only then would Zuo Lengchan's plot be foiled," Chongxu said.
Linghu Chong said, "But judging from the tone of voice Yue Hou used when he gave that order today, it seems that Taishan, Hengshan, and Huashan Schools are already under Zuo Lengchan's control."
Chongxu nodded and said, "Yes. Lately, when we think of your master Mr. Yue, Great Master Abbot and I have become really confused. We heard that Fuzhou's Lin Family has a son who has taken your master as his master, is this right?"
"Yes. This martial brother Lin's name is Lin Pingzhi," Linghu Chong answered.
"His great grandfather has passed down a book called the 'Evil Resisting Sword Manual'. This rumour has been going around in Jianghu for a very long time. Everyone said that this book contains a very powerful sword art. Brother must surely have heard of this," Chongxu said.
"I have," Linghu Chong answered. Then he immediately told them of the search for the Buddhist robe in Fuzhou's Xiangyang Lane, how Songshan School sent people to snatch it, and how he himself got injured.
Chongxu hummed deeply after listening to his story. He then said, "It is reasonable to suppose that your master found this Buddhist robe on you and gave it to your martial brother Lin."
"Yes. But later on, martial sister chased me and asked for this 'Evil Resisting Sword Manual'. I find this problem really hard to solve and as Junior has already been wrongly blamed for this for a long time, I didn't pay further attention to this problem. But what's really the truth behind this Evil Resisting Sword Art, could seniors please tell me?"
Chongxu looked at Fangzheng and said, "Great Master Abbot, please tell Brother Linghu the whole story."
Fangzheng nodded his head a few times before saying, "Headmaster Linghu, have you heard of the name 'Sunflower Manual'?"
"I've heard Junior's master mentioned it before. He said 'Sunflower Manual' is a secret which contained a supreme martial art study, but it has been lost for a long time and no one knows of its whereabouts. Later on, Junior heard Chief Ren saying that he passed this 'Sunflower Manual' down to Dongfang Bubai. So this item 'Sunflower Manual' is currently in the hands of Sun Moon Sect."
Fangzheng shook his head and said, "The book Sun Moon Sect has is incomplete and isn't the original."
"Yes," Linghu Chong responded. He felt that if these two seniors didn't know of this secret in Wulin then no one else would know of it. He also felt that Great Master Fangzheng was on the verge of revealing this really big secret.
Fangzheng lifted his head and longingly looked at the floating white clouds. "During the days that Huashan School was separated into two, the Qi faction and the Sword faction, Huashan School's seniors were killing each other because of this division. Do you also know about this?"
"Yes. But my master didn't talk about this in detail," Linghu Chong answered.
Fangzheng nodded. "Internal fighting in the school is really not a good thing so Mr. Yue didn't want to talk too much about it. The reason why Huashan School was divided into Qi faction and Sword faction was said to be because of this 'Sunflower Manual'." He paused for a time before slowly continuing, "For a long time in Wulin, it has been said that this 'Sunflower Manual' originated from the previous dynasty, created by an official of the Imperial Court."
"A government official?" Linghu Chong asked.
Fang Zheng went on, "The government official was a eunuch. The name of this master is forever lost. In addition, just why exactly such a highly skilled master became a eunuch in the imperial court will never be known to us now. What we do know is that the martial arts inscribed in that manual are deep and profound to the extreme. For the past 300 some odd years, no one person has been able to take possession of the manual and master its arts. About a hundred years ago, the manual came into the possession of the Putian Shaolin Temple. At that time, the abbo
t of that Shaolin temple was Reverend Hongxie. He was an extremely wise and intelligent person, which was reflected in his vast understanding of martial arts. Reverend Hongxie was the perfect candidate who possessed enough talent to master the Manual's profound martial arts. But it has been claimed by Reverend Hongxie's students that their master never mastered the Sunflower Manual. Moreover, they have even said that after studying it for quite some time, Reverend Hongxie never even began to practice it at all."
Linghu Chong reasoned, "It must be because there was some secret part of the Manual that was missing, that even such a talent like Reverend Hongxie wasn't able to fully comprehend the Sunflower Manual without it."
Fang Zheng nodded and answered, "That might be a possibility. However, the Old Taoist and I have never had the fortune of encountering this Manual. Not saying that we would dare to practice its arts, but perhaps seeing what kind of profound and mystical writings are in it would be interesting."
Chong Xu smiled slightly and said, "Great Master, you are being affected by worldly desires. We are practitioners of the martial arts. Because we haven't had the chance to see the Manual we can say we won't practice. But if we actually did get to see it, most likely we would be losing sleep and not eating, tirelessly studying the Manual's words and meaning. The result would be that not only would we mistakenly waste our cultivation, but it would lead our mind to endless troubles and confusion. Because we haven't had the fortune to have seen the Manual, I would say that we are the ones who are truly fortunate."
Fang Zheng laughed. "Old Taoist you are right. Old monk is still not free of worldly longings. How shameful it is." He then turned his head back around to Linghu Chong and continued, "Huashan School had two martial brothers who happened to be visiting the Shaolin Temple at that time and they caught sight of the Sunflower Manual there."
Linghu Chong thought, "Because the manual was so important, Shaolin must have taken measures not to allow anyone to see the Manual. Those two martial brothers of Huashan must have secretly peeped at the Manual."
Fang Zheng continued, "Because of the urgency of the situation, those two brothers couldn't spend time to study the Manual in depth during their stay at Shaolin. So the two divided up the work and each read and memorized half of the Sunflower Manual. Afterwards, they returned to Huashan and together studied and discussed each part that they read. But what happened was that the two martial brothers disagreed on a lot of what was written in the Manual. When they tried putting their parts together, a lot of it did not make sense. Each believed what he read and memorized was correct, what he interpreted was correct, and the other person was mistaken. However, from the individual parts that each of them had memorized, neither one could come up with or practice anything substantial either. The two brothers used to be very close and were the best of friends. However after this clash of interests, they became very heated rivals and this was the cause of the split of Huashan into Qi and Sword factions."
Linghu Chong added, "Those two senior martial brothers, are they Huashan School's seniors Yue Su and Cai Zifeng?" Yue Su was the founder of Huashan's Qi branch and Cai Zifeng was the founder of Huashan's Sword branch. The splitting of the two sects of Huashan was a thing of the distant past.
Fang Zheng went on with his story, "Yes. The incident with Yue and Cai was soon discovered by Reverend Hongxie. He understood that although the martial arts philosophies inside the Sunflower Manual were profound and deep, they were also brutal, ferocious and dangerous. He stated that the first step was the most difficult step in learning the arts of the Sunflower Manual. After the first step, learning the rest was relatively simple. All the martial arts in this world are relatively easy to learn in the beginning and get increasingly difficult as one progresses further. The Sunflower Manual was the exact opposite. The first step was extremely difficult and if even a small mistake was made when training, if one didn't die from it one would certainly be severely injured. So therefore he sent his disciple Reverend Duyuan to try to convince the two Huashan brothers to stop trying to practice the Sunflower Manual as it could be extremely harmful to them."
Linghu Chong said, "This martial art was unexpectedly very hard to learn in the beginning. If no one gave you any direction, and you only learn from the book, then of course it would be very dangerous. But could it be that the two Huashan martial brothers didn't listen to his advice?"
Fang Zheng answered, "That wasn't the case. That would be wrongly blaming the two of them. Looking at a person like me who's been practicing martial art for my whole lifetime, if one day I had the chance to take a peek at a deep and profound martial art's secret, how could I not be willing to study it? Old monk has cultivated my study
in Buddhism for tens of years, but if one day I managed to get my hands on the Manual, I would definitely still read it. Priest Chongxu laughed at this earlier. So how can a secular martial art master refuse it? Unexpectedly, this was exactly what happened to Reverend Duyuan when he went up to see them."
Linghu Chong asked, "Could it be that the two Huashan brothers had ill intentions toward Reverend Duyuan when he tried to coerce them into giving up the Manual?"
Fangzheng shook his head. "That wasn't the case. They were actually very courteous to Reverend Duyuan and admitted that they had actually looked at the 'Sunflower Manual'. On the one hand, they apologized and one the other hand, they asked for Duyuan's advice on the writings of the Manual. But they never expected that even though Reverend Duyuan was Reverend Hongxie's precious disciple, he had never once before heard or encountered the Manual at all. Because Hongxie himself never
really understood the writings of the Manual so he couldn't teach it to his disciple. But the two brothers, Yue and Cai, were certain that Reverand Duyuan was proficient in the martial arts study of the Manual, so they wanted to get his opinion on it. At the time, Duyuan didn't really understand the verses from the Manual that they recited to him either. He just casually explained the writings as they recited, and couldn't help but secretly memorize what they recited. Reverend Duyuan was also an exceptional martial arts master as well as an extremely wise and intelligent person. Through his logical deductions of what the two brothers recited, the explanations he gave actually fit and made sense."
Linghu Chong said, "So it turns out that Reverend Duyuan was learning the script of the Manual from two brothers as they recited it."
Fang Zheng nodded his head. "Correct. But originally, what the two brothers recited was not very much. But after hearing how the explanations Reverend Duyuan gave them made sense, they couldn't resist the temptation and invited him to stay at Huashan for 8 more days. But after this visit, Duyuan never returned to the Shaolin
temple."
Linghu Chong was surprised, "Never returned? Where did he go afterwards?"
Fang Zheng replied, "At that time, no one knew. But not long afterwards, Reverend Hongxie received a letter from Reverend Duyuan stating that his attachments to the world were too great that he decided to leave the Buddhist realm and renounce his monkhood. He was also very ashamed and couldn't face his master anymore." Linghu Chong felt that this was very strange and that there must be another reason for this.
Fangzheng continued, "After that incident, there was much suspicion and distrust between Shaolin and Huashan. The news that Huashan disciples had secretly studied the Sunflower Manual leaked to the public and soon after, the ten elders of the Devil Sect attacked Huashan." Just then, Linghu Chong remembered the bones and skulls inside the cave behind the Cliff of Contemplation. He also recalled the engravings of the various sword arts on the cave wall and couldn't help from uttering an 'ah' in acknowledging his comprehension.
"What is it?" Fangzheng asked.
Linghu Chong's face turned red and said, "I've interrupted Abbot's story, please forgive me."
Fangzheng nodded his head and continued, "This incident happened before your master was even born. The Elders of the Devil Sect attacked Huashan with the intention of stealing the Sunflower Manual. It was
because of this incident that Taishan, Songshan, Huashan, Hengshan and Hengshan formed an alliance. After receiving word, the other four schools came to Huashan's aid. A bloody battle occurred on Huashan, and all ten of the Devil Sect Elders were badly wounded. Yue and Cai also lost their lives in this battle and as a result, the version of the Manual that they penned was snatched away by the Devil Sect. That's why it's hard to say who had actually won this battle. Five years later, the Devil Sect returned to attack, but this time the ten elders came prepared. They had managed to understand the sword arts of the five mountains sword schools comprehensively and thought up counter moves to break all the sword arts of the five mountains sword schools. Priest Chongxu and old monk believe that even though the martial arts of the Ten Elders were great already, to be able to comprehend and counter all the sword arts of the five mountains sword schools, the Sunflower Manual must have played some role in giving them such insights into martial arts theories. At this second battle, the five mountains schools actually suffered great losses. Many great masters lost their lives and since that day many of the intricate and complex sword arts of those schools were lost as well. However, those ten Devil Sect elders were also unable to escape Huashan. Thinking of the fighting that happened at that time, it must've been ferocious and bloody."
Linghu Chong said, "Junior saw the remains of these ten Devil Sect's elders inside a cave in Huashan's Cliff of Contemplation, and I also saw a number of inscriptions engraved on the stone wall."
"Did you? What was written on the wall?" Chongxu asked.
"The inscription was written in big letters and it says: 'THE FIVE MOUNTAINS SWORD ALLIANCE, YOU SHAMELESS AND DESPICABLE BUNCH, CAN'T
WIN IN A FAIR FIGHT, DIRTY TRICKS ARE YOUR SPECIALTY'. Besides it were more sentences written in small letters cursing and swearing at the five mountains sword schools, like shameless, etc, etc," Linghu Chong told them.
"How could Huashan School let these slanders remain on the stone wall? This is really strange," Chongxu pondered.
