by Jin Yong
Stung on the fingertip, he howled in pain and slumped to the ground.
Sniggering, Madam Ying continued on her way to the temple.
“Your Highness, stop, please!” the fisher cried.
She halted at the foot of the small stone bridge spanning the lotus pond. At the far end was the temple’s front gate.
“Or else?” She turned to face him. Her ice-cold glare cut through the darkness. “The Chancellor and the Captain have both been stung by my Needle of Seven Dooms, and nobody in this world can save them now. Do you wish to share their fate?” With those words, she strolled onto the bridge, unconcerned that she had left her back open to her enemies.
5
Just as Madam Ying was about to step off the bridge, she heard a greeting.
“Master.”
The faint outline of a man emerged from the shadows. He put his hand over his fist in respect, but he was standing in her way.
Madam Ying was shaken. How did I fail to hear him approach? It only took me twenty paces to cross this bridge. If he had launched an attack instead of cupping his hands, I would be dead or maimed by now. She peered at the shrouded form. Tall, broad shoulders, thick eyebrows, large eyes. The boy she had directed to this mountain sanctuary.
“Is the girl any better?” she asked.
“Thanks to Master’s guidance, my martial sister was healed by Reverend Sole Light,” Guo Jing replied.
“Then why isn’t she here to thank me personally?” Madam Ying pressed ahead as she spoke.
“Master, please turn back.”
She ignored him and pushed forward, swiveling slightly at the last moment to avoid running square into him. Deft and undaunted, she slipped past him in the blink of an eye.
Her maneuver put Guo Jing on the back foot, even though he had been anticipating it. He swung his arm in an ungainly arc behind him and sent forth a burst of internal power. Zhou Botong’s Luminous Hollow Fist.
Madam Ying had already skimmed past the young man using her Weatherfish Slip technique, but now she was forced to scuttle backward, for there was a tenacity in the supple strength coming toward her that she could not counter. The retreat reminded her why she had come. There was no going back—come what may.
“Hey!” Guo Jing cried as Madam Ying pushed into him. In the shock of this unforeseen close contact, he felt her foot hooking his ankle. The next thing he knew, the two of them were tumbling into the lotus pond in a tangle of limbs.
Even as they were falling, Madam Ying snaked her arm under his armpit and grabbed him by the shoulder. She curled her middle finger and pressed down with her thumb. A Throat Sealer. Once her fingers locked onto his windpipe, she could cut off his breathing with one squeeze.
Acting on instinct, Guo Jing folded his arm over Madam Ying’s neck and held her in a stranglehold. His counterattack, Neck Choker, also came from the Miniature Grapple and Lock repertoire she was drawing on.
Unable to match for brute strength, she released the clamp over his throat and threatened him with a pressure-point jab instead. He swiped his arm into her wrist, knocking her outstretched finger off target.
The bridge was no more than half a dozen feet above the pond. Three times she had tried to disable him as they fell, and three times he had parried with the same quick-fire, hand-to-hand combat technique.
Plop! They plunged chest-deep into muddy water.
Madam Ying scooped a handful of slush and made to smear it over Guo Jing’s face. She had drawn him into this quaggy pond for the tactical advantage it would offer her—though she was the weaker party, she had lived on marshland for more than a decade and her fighting style was inspired by the slithery movements of weatherfish gliding through the mire.
Guo Jing managed to duck away from the handful of mud, but his footwork was hampered by the three feet of clay lining the pond. Madam Ying, meanwhile, was at home in her natural environment, skimming, skating, sliding over the silt. Her already speedy onslaught was now swifter than ever, a blur of stabs and slaps as she scooped up sludge to sling in her opponent’s face.
They had barely exchanged five moves, but Guo Jing was struggling. He would have been in a better position if he let more strength flow into his strikes, but he did not want to hurt her. His sight stolen by the night, his feet bogged down by the mud, he had to rely on his ears to pick out the buzz of her blows and his nose to sniff out the handfuls of stinking sludge coming his way. He slogged this way and that, dodging two clumps of slurry by a hair’s breadth. When he thought he was in the clear, a third slapped into his face, covering his eyes, nose and mouth.
Guo Jing threw three consecutive palm thrusts, not in retaliation, but to push Madam Ying back by at least five feet and give him time to wipe his face. This instinctive response had been drilled into him by the Six Freaks of the South. To allow oneself to be paralyzed by an injury mid-fight, especially one from a secret weapon, would be to invite a lethal follow-up.
6
Madam Ying had not come all this way to fight guo Jing. Once she had temporarily blinded him with mud, she hopped back onto the bridge.
If it were not for the pond, I wouldn’t have a hope of subduing that boy, she thought as she rushed toward the entrance to the temple. The Lord of the Heavens is granting me my revenge.
She thrust her hands into the temple doors. Creeeeaaak! They flew open.
Not bolted? She halted, in case someone lay in ambush.
Nothing. No movement at all.
She stepped across the threshold, her eyes drawn to the main hall of worship. The Buddha’s serene face glowed warmly, illuminated by a single oil lamp. She felt a pang in her heart and knelt on the prayer mat before the deity to ask for a blessing.
Then came the sound of light musical laughter. Right behind her.
Madam Ying swung her arm backward to shield herself as she pressed her hand down on the mat to propel her to her feet, spinning midair to face her opponent.
“Lovely kung fu!” A young woman dressed in a green robe fastened by a red belt grinned at Madam Ying. The golden hoop in her hair glistened in the dim light. She held a glossy green bamboo stick in her hand.
Madam Ying recognized her at once.
“I thank you for saving my life.”
“No need to thank me. I sent you here to hurt another, not for your own good.”
“The line between friend and foe is never clear cut. Papa held Zhou Botong on Peach Blossom Island for five and ten years, but it couldn’t bring Mama back to life.”
Madam Ying twitched at the mention of the Hoary Urchin’s name. “What has he got to do with your mother?”
Lotus noted Madam Ying’s jealous tone. So, she still has feelings for him. Why else would she assume there was a dalliance between him and Mama? I’ll toy with her a little first.
Lotus bowed her head and sighed. “He was the reason she died.”
Madam Ying eyed the girl, her suspicions confirmed, it seemed. Such smooth, unblemished skin. Such grace and beauty.
My looks, even in the full bloom of youth, would seem homely by comparsion, she thought bitterly. If she takes after her mother’s appearance, he might well …
“Don’t get any ideas. My mother was celestial and that Zhou Botong is as boorish as a bull. Only a blind woman would fall for him.”
The insult set Madam Ying’s mind at ease, but she could not resist a caustic remark. “Since love has favored that boy of yours, thick as a pig as he is, why would it not smile on a boorish bull? How did … How did he cause your mother’s passing?”
“I’m not talking to you anymore. You’re mean!” Lotus flicked her sleeve and stormed off.
“Wait! I take it back. He’s very, very smart.” Madam Ying would do anything to appease the girl if it meant a chance to learn more about Zhou Botong’s fate.
Lotus turned her eyes on Madam Ying. “He’s not smart at all, but he’s honest and true-hearted. He’ll always be good to me, even if the heavens come crashing down. The Old Urchin didn’t set
out to hurt Mama, but if it weren’t for him she wouldn’t have died. My father shattered the Urchin’s legs and locked him up, but later he regretted it. A culprit to every wrong, a lender to every debt. Who killed your child? You should go to the ends of the world to seek them out. What’s the point of shifting the blame onto another?”
The words hit Madam Ying like a blow to the head. She stood on the spot, dazed, utterly lost for words.
“Papa came to understand that, and freed the Hoary Urchin—”
“So, I don’t need to rescue him…”
“You think you could free him if Papa didn’t want to let him go?”
After Madam Ying had left Dali and made a new home for herself in the dark swamp, she had searched high and low for Zhou Botong without any luck. One day, the whispers reached her—he might be imprisoned by Apothecary Huang on Peach Blossom Island.
His resolute departure was branded on her memory, and she knew that, without a seismic change of circumstances, he would not consider a reunion. Though she was afraid for him, the rumors gave her hope. Of course, she did not wish ill on the love of her life, but this could be a chance to turn his heart toward her. If she rescued him, surely he would look back on their brief moment of bliss …
So, she set off for Peach Blossom Island and found herself trapped in the mazelike landscape for three days and three nights. Far from freeing him, she almost starved to death and needed rescuing herself—by mute servants sent by Apothecary Huang, who guided her safely off the island.
When she returned home, she focused her mind on learning the art of reckoning, so she could overcome the complex defenses that protected the island. The news that Zhou Boutong had been released shook her to the core. Her heart was tugged in all directions by a conflict of emotions—a simultaneous assault of sweet joy, bitter pangs, sour stings and fiery rage.
“The Urchin has always done what I ask of him without question,” Lotus said with a smirk. “If you want to see him, come with me. I will act as your matchmaker as a thank-you for saving my life.”
Heat rushed to Madam Ying’s cheeks as her heart hammered in her chest.
A loud clap snapped Lotus out of her self-congratulatory mood. She thought a few well-chosen words had turned bloodshed into wedlock, but the hard frost on Madam Ying’s face and the violence with which she struck her hands together behind her back said otherwise.
“A half-grown wench like you has his ear?” Madam Ying scoffed, her voice shrill. “Why does he listen to you? Because you’re pretty? I’ve done you no kindness, and I seek nothing from you in return. Step aside, now. If you drag your feet—”
“Oh dear, you want to do away with me!”
“Old Heretic Huang might intimidate a lot of people, but not me—I fear nothing and no one. Not the heavens; not the earth.”
“If you kill me, who will give you the answer to those three questions?”
Madam Ying had lost sleep and appetite over the reckoning problems Lotus had left her with. She first came to her studies as a means to save Zhou Botong, but soon, it was sheer curiosity that was propelling her forward, even though she knew her ability to solve such puzzles was of little use, for Apothecary Huang’s understanding would always be heavens beyond hers. At Lotus’s prompting, the questions returned to her, word for word, and she was once more overcome by the urge to get to the bottom of them.
“I’ll explain, if you let me live.” Lotus reached for the oil lamp by the Buddha and placed it on the ground. Then she took out one of her throwing needles and scratched its point against the floor tiles.
Madam Ying watched in awe as Lotus arrived at the solution, step by step, to “The Sindhu written calculation of the seven brilliances and nine luminaries.” She then moved on to the second, more complicated, puzzle: “The problem of distributing silver and issuing rice to soldiers whose numbers are conscripted in cubic multiples.”
“Wondrous!” Madam Ying gushed as Lotus scratched out the equation. “The answer to the last question is twenty-three, but, however hard I tried, I could not come up with the formula that leads me to that number.”
She repeated the question under her breath:
“Here are objects whose number is unknown: counted by threes two remains, counted by fives three remains, counted by sevens two again remains. How many are there?”
“Let me show you,” Lotus said. “Reckon, here, means divide. Divide by three, then multiply what remains by seventy. Divide by five, then multiply what remains by twenty-one. Divide by seven, then multiply what remains by fifteen. Add these three numbers together; if it’s not larger than one hundred and five, then it’s correct. With larger numbers, you can then minus one hundred and five or a multiple of one hundred and five.”
Madam Ying mumbled Lotus’s explanation under her breath as she tried it out.
“You don’t have to swallow that whole, there’s a poem that explains it:
Three walk in the rare age of seventy,
Five plum trees with twenty-one sprigs,
Seven sons united at half-moon,
Take five and a hundred and you shall see.”
Madam Ying fumed as she listened. This imp must have learned my past and composed this verse to mock me. The first line is insinuating that I have served two men, and the third line is a swipe at the fact that I only spent half a month with Zhou Botong … She was wary of anything that could be construed as a reference to her ignominious past.
“Enough of your prattling!” Madam Ying barked. Though she could see little through the gloom, she had gained a sense of the temple’s layout and concluded that King Duan’s chamber must be in a courtyard beyond this one. She had also realized the girl’s aim was to slow her progress, and she had no desire to dally with Apothecary Huang’s daughter, who, despite her tender years, was as full of tricks as her father.
Why am I wasting time on these stupid reckoning problems when I’ve got a much more important task to attend to? She marched forward, stepping around the Buddha and making for the doorway behind the altar.
Pitch black. Not a speck of light.
“Duan Zhixing, come and meet me. Why hide in the dark?” Madam Ying shouted. Deep in hostile territory, she would rather err on the side of caution.
It was Lotus, not Sole Light, who replied. “He had the lamps extinguished so you wouldn’t be nervous.”
“Huh!” Madam Ying narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “I am destined for hell. Why would I cringe from a little light?”
Lotus took out a tinderbox from her dress and bent down by Madam Ying’s feet, cradling a flickering flame.
A clay teacup, half filled with oil and with a twine of cotton for a wick. Next to it, a bamboo stick jutted out of the earth, its end filed into a spike. Madam Ying had not anticipated anything like this.
While Lotus flitted around the courtyard kindling the makeshift lamps, Madam Ying was counting. One hundred and thirteen cups, each accompanied by a spike. The ground glowed like the starry night sky.
Madam Ying was mystified. What is this configuration? The Plum Blossom Stakes? But that kung fu is usually practiced with either seventy-two or one hundred and eight spikes. These aren’t organized in any discernible order. Not the Nine Halls. Not the Eight Trigrams. Not the Five Petals of the Plum Blossom. Could she be wearing shoes with metal soles? That must be it. How else would she be able to walk among them without getting hurt? I can’t outmaneuver her when she’s so well prepared … I’ll push my way through, pretending I haven’t noticed them.
Madam Ying strode forward, but it was difficult to avoid the stakes.
“What’s all this? I haven’t got time to play.” A swipe of her foot knocked over five or six spikes.
“Hey! You can’t do that!”
She took no notice of Lotus and continued kicking left and right.
“Fine, if you’re going to be a brute, I’ll extinguish the lamps. I hope you can remember where the spikes are.”
This gave Madam Ying pause. What if they all
come out now and attack me? she thought. They know the layout of the stakes, but I’ll be skewered alive! I need to cross this courtyard now! She summoned her qi, urging herself on.
“You really know no shame.” Lotus planted herself in Madam Ying’s way, armed with the Dog Beater.
The bamboo cane, wielded sideways, whirled toward Madam Ying’s face in an emerald blur. The older woman chopped a palm down, expecting to split the flimsy weapon in two. She had never considered the teenage girl a martial threat, yet, little did she know, she was facing a move from the Block permutation of Dog-Beating kung fu, which would morph into a ruthless counterattack the second it was challenged.
The tip of the cane rapped sharply on the back of Madam Ying’s hand. Although no acupoint of note was hit, it was a painful blow, and her fingers were instantly numbed. But she would not let this momentary setback cloud her judgment. Assuming a defensive stance, she appraised her opponent.
How come this waif is so skilled? Her father must have taught her all he knows, she said to herself, as she recalled the trip to Peach Blossom Island and how she had been pushed to the brink of death without ever setting eyes on the Master himself. She did not know that Lotus was tapping in to a repertoire known only to the chiefs of the Beggar Clan, and that, if Apothecary Huang were on the receiving end, he too would be stumped by its intricacies.
In this short moment while Madam Ying stayed on the defensive and deliberated her next move, Lotus had been maintaining the Block variation with her hands, while flitting between lamps and spikes like a butterfly, kicking out more than half of the one hundred and thirteen lights with the tip of her shoe. It was a marvelous display, for she extinguished the flames without toppling the cups, spilling the oil or dislodging the bamboo stakes.
This fleet footwork was one of Apothecary Huang’s cherished inventions, Swirling Leaf Kick. Lotus’s demonstration was neat and tidy, but Madam Ying could tell that the girl had yet to harness the technique’s full potential, for these movements were more predictable and straightforward than her work with the cane.
