by Jin Yong
“Guo Jing,” she said, her voice quiet and timid. He did not hear her.
“Please, you haven’t had any food all day.”
“I’d rather starve than eat anything from this island.”
Lotus was relieved to have elicited a response, but she also knew his character well—he would be as good as his word. She let the food box slide from her arm and sat down.
One standing on his feet, one sitting on the ground, both stationary. The only movement was the moon’s, as it crept over the waves and climbed through the sky, peering down from above.
Their hearts, like the meal Lotus had prepared, had gone cold.
A blood-curdling cry blew in with the breeze, breaking the monotonous lapping of the sea.
Lotus could hear pain and anguish in the voice, but she could not tell if it belonged to man or beast. It sounded like a howling wolf, a growling tiger and a groaning man, all at once.
When the wind died down, the wailing died with it.
She parted her lips to call Guo Jing, but thought better of it. Whatever it is, it doesn’t bode well. I shouldn’t add to his burden.
All her life, she had roamed the island alone at night. She had known every leaf on every tree and every blade of grass, and yet tonight she could barely master her nerves as she stepped into the darkness, heading in the general direction of that fearful sound.
A dozen paces later, a gush whipped past her. Guo Jing streaked by in a straight line, then began kicking and striking at trees and shrubs that stood in his path.
Watching him tear blindly ahead, Lotus sighed. Not only had he lost his way, he had probably lost his mind too.
“Follow me,” she said weakly.
Guo Jing trailed behind her, crying, “Fourth Shifu! Fourth Shifu!”
Woodcutter Nan, the fourth of the Freaks.
The moon provided enough light for Lotus to make out the harrowing marks along their meandering route. Branches crudely hacked and snapped. From time to time, they found the flower bed or the strip of lawn flanking the track trampled twice over. Whoever had passed this way before them had strayed from the trail, only to double back when they realized their mistake. Then, she saw, a hundred feet or so before them, a stake planted in their path.
Guo Jing recognized it immediately. Woodcutter Nan’s weapon—an iron shoulder pole. He barreled ahead and plucked it from the earth.
When Lotus had caught up with him, she pointed to the ground. “Three sets of footprints.”
“Apothecary Huang!” he rasped. “I’ll kill you for what you’ve done to my shifus!”
“You’ll have to kill me first.”
Ignoring her, Guo Jing knelt down to study the impressions. One set were heavy and haphazard, drifting off the path and wandering back. They must be Woodcutter Nan’s. The footprints of the other two, who were traveling in tandem, were swift and sure. They knew where they were going.
Only Apothecary Huang could navigate this island.
Only Apothecary Huang had the lightness qinggong to move this fast.
“Fourth Shifu’s prints have dried, but the others are fresh,” Lotus noted. “He must have gone down this path quite some time before they did.”
“My shifu has taken refuge in this quiet part of the island, but your father won’t let him be. He’s tracked him down and he’s going to kill him. Go on, lead the way!” he hissed, before projecting his voice: “Shifu, Guo Jing’s coming!”
Lotus knew that, when they reached Woodcutter Nan’s hiding place, he would ask for her head, but what could she do—nay—what did she care? She was aware that, with each step she took, she was one step closer to meeting her end. She had made peace with that. But what if she found Papa there, as Guo Jing had predicted? What would she do then?
Then they saw him. A man writhing and thrashing around under a peach tree.
Guo Jing rushed forward and threw his arms around the man, overjoyed that his Master was alive. Woodcutter Nan looked up, a manic grin plastered on his face. An eerie noise—hoorrrrr-hoooorrrrrr—rasped from his throat.
“Fourth Shifu! Fourth Shifu!” Guo Jing burst into tears.
Nan answered with a palm strike and the same painful growl.
Out of instinct, Guo Jing ducked, only to find a fist hurtling his way.
After a split second’s reflection, Guo Jing decided the blow was a teacher’s chastisement for his pupil, and he welcomed it. He held still and allowed the punch to connect. Thump! His feet left the ground and he flipped head over heels in a backward roll.
Guo Jing thought he was familiar with his mentor’s strength, having sparred with him countless times since childhood, but the raw power in this blow took him by surprise.
Just when he had steadied himself, a second strike came, more potent than the first. No, he would not shy from it. A burst of stars and sparks clouded his vision, and he almost blacked out.
Woodcutter Nan picked up a large chunk of rock and lifted it high above Guo Jing’s head.
Lotus could tell that Guo Jing would not evade his shifu’s wrath, nor raise a hand against him. He was waiting for the rock to fall, for his skull to be smashed in, his brains splattered on the mud.
She could not stand by and let that happen. She lunged, striking Woodcutter Nan on the arm. He teetered, then crashed to the ground, yowling, flailing, unable to get up again.
“Why did you push my shifu?”
Lotus may have been heavy-handed in her desperation to save Guo Jing, but she was not prepared for the Fourth Freak to be so unsteady on his feet. She extended her hand to pull the man up and, as she bent low, she saw his face clearly for the first time.
Dyed white by the cold moonlight, his smile was forced and unnatural.
She gasped in fright and recoiled at the spine-chilling sight, unwilling to touch him.
The man threw a jab, hitting her square on the left shoulder.
A dull pain spread through Lotus’s chest, throwing her back by a couple of steps. Woodcutter Nan howled as his fist was torn by the Hedgehog Chainmail.
“Fourth Shifu!” Guo Jing pleaded, while Lotus and the Freak shrieked.
For the first time, a flicker of recognition flashed in Nan’s eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came, despite the visible exertion that was making his facial muscles twitch and twist as sorrow and frustration mounted in his eyes.
“Take your time, Master. Who did this to you?”
Woodcutter Nan threw his head back, desperate to speak, but this time he could not even move his lips.
“Shifu!” Guo Jing screamed.
“He wants to write.”
Following Lotus’s gaze, Guo Jing saw that his mentor was dragging a trembling finger through the earth, making a cluster of disjointed slashes and strokes.
Lotus’s heart thumped, fearful of the revelation to come, then something occurred to her. Wait, he’s on Peach Blossom Island. Any idiot would assume it was Papa who did this. So why is he wrestling so hard with death for one extra moment to set down the name of his killer? Could it … could it be someone else?
Her eyes followed the jerking finger. She could tell the little strength he had left was seeping away fast.
Write it down quickly, please! she prayed.
The Fourth Freak pulled his finger across, then down, before looping it upward. Then a tremor ran through his hand and it moved no more.
Guo Jing had been holding his teacher’s body while he tried to write. He felt, through his chest, the final spasm as Woodcutter Nan’s life was snatched away. Now all that remained was an inanimate shell in his arms.
“Shifu, I know what you’re trying to write.” Guo Jing squinted at the incomprehensible mark. “The character dong, for east. Eastern Heretic. Apothecary Huang. This is his island and there’s no one else as evil and cutthroat as he.”
He cast himself on Woodcutter Nan’s body, bawling his eyes out and beating his chest.
* * *
A DAZZLING light prised open Guo Jing’s
eyes. It took him a little while to register that it was now morning and the sun had risen fully. He had a vague memory of crying over Woodcutter Nan’s body, but he did not know that he had passed out in exhaustion over the corpse. He looked around. No Lotus. Just an empty vessel in the form of his teacher and a pair of vacant eyes gazing into nothingness.
Eyes staring in death.
The old saying brought on another downpour of tears. He could now understand what it meant to depart unwillingly and with grievances, unable to find peace as one drew one’s final breath. He reached out with unsteady hands and placed his fingers on his fourth shifu’s eyelids, renewing his vow of vengeance, before guiding them shut.
The physical signs of Nan’s last struggle—particularly that sinister smile—were seared on Guo Jing’s mind. What kind of injury had caused them? He unknotted the ties that held his Master’s robes together and examined his body. Other than the little bloodstained pricks on his knuckles from punching the Hedgehog Chainmail, he could not find a single scratch on his skin and there was no sign that he had been struck by inner neigong power.
It must be the Divine Flick! Guo Jing told himself. I’ve seen enough of that kung fu to know that it can kill without drawing blood. I’ll hunt you down and kill you, Heretic! For my shifus!
He scooped up the Fourth Freak and tried to retrace his steps back to where he had buried his other teachers. But, within a few dozen paces, he could no longer pick out the footprints on the indistinct path. Deflated, he gave up, burying Nan under the peach tree where he had found him.
Guo Jing then hurried down the first track he stumbled upon, determined to make his own way to the shore to find passage back to the mainland, but, before long, he found himself turned around and around, robbed of his sense of direction.
He sat down to rest and collect himself. It had been a whole day since his last meal and his stomach was complaining loudly.
I’ll ignore the paths and head east, following the sun, he decided. That way, I’ll get to the sea at some point.
Yet, he was soon faced with a dense forest, one that he could not force his way through, for barbed vines were choking every branch of every tree.
Onward! No turning back! he told himself, climbing up the nearest tree. As he leaped forth to take the first step of this treetop march, he heard fabric ripping and felt a burning pain in his calf.
The thorns had shredded the legs of his trousers. Angry red lines appeared on the exposed skin.
Undeterred, he braced himself and jumped. Once, twice, but he could not make a third spring. The creepers had coiled around his ankles. He pulled out the golden dagger and hacked them away. He looked ahead to map out a route, but the jungle of spikes spread as far as the eye could see, layer upon layer, into the horizon.
“I’ll cut my legs off to leave this damned island!” he yelled at the forest as he prepared to vault to the next tree.
“Come down. I’ll take you to the shore.”
He could see Lotus looking up at him through the canopy, by a row of trees to his left, and he jumped down to join her. He had made up his mind not to speak to her again, but, when he saw her bloodless pallor, he wanted to know if there had been a set back in her recovery. His lip quivered—images from the day before flashed by—and he bit his tongue and twisted his head to look the other way.
Lotus, of course, could read his conflicted emotions from his features. She waited, hoping that he would turn to meet her eyes, but he kept his face averted.
“Let’s go,” she breathed out with a heavy heart.
The dreadful discovery had struck Lotus as hard as it had Guo Jing, especially since she was yet to wholly regain her strength after the internal injury caused by Qiu Qianren’s Iron Palm kung fu. She had not managed to snatch a moment’s rest all night, and her insides were still twisting in knots as she tried to come to terms with that fact that she could not blame anyone for what had happened. Not Guo Jing. Not Papa. Not even the Six Freaks of the South. But why did the Lord of the Heavens insist on punishing her so? Why her, of all people? She had never done anything particularly bad or wrong. Why? Was He jealous? Could He be resentful of the happiness she had found?
With each step she took, she knew the rift between her and Guo Jing was getting wider. To the point where it could never be bridged. When they arrived at the shore, they would part for the last time. Never would she see him again in this life.
With each step she took, she felt a part of her heart crumble away.
Still, she forced herself to walk on.
Out through the trees and onto the beach.
The sea. She had nothing left inside to hold herself together. She swayed, planting the Dog Beater for support, but her arm was as drained and spent as the rest of her body.
Guo Jing reached forward to steady her, but, just as his fingertips grazed her shoulder, he recalled whose daughter she was, and swung his other arm.
Thud! A punch to the helping hand. Zhou Botong’s Competing Hands kung fu.
While his heart, his mind and his two palms struggled between love and hatred, Lotus fell facedown in the sand.
A rush of remorse and anguish filled Guo Jing’s bosom, even though it might have been forged from iron and stone right now. He caved in at the sight of her so helpless, and scooped her up. He looked around to find somewhere soft to set her down, and saw a green cloth flapping in the wind amid an outcrop of rocks to the northeast of where he was standing.
Lotus opened her eyes to find herself in Guo Jing’s arms as he peered at something in the distance. She turned to see what had captured his interest.
“Papa!”
Upon hearing her cry, Guo Jing started to run, still carrying her. As they drew near, they realized the green robe was caught between two rocks, and next to it lay a mask made from human skin.
Apothecary Huang’s disguise.
Guo Jing lowered Lotus onto the rock with a gentleness he had not shown since this wretched affair had come to light, and held on to her hand while she reached for the robe.
A bloody palm print marred the fabric.
Nine Yin Skeleton Claw! Guo Jing saw Ryder Han’s gory end in his mind’s eye again. That fiend was wearing this robe when he butchered Third Shifu!
A rush of hot blood flooded his chest. He flung Lotus’s hand away, tore the robe from her grasp and ripped it in two. That was when he noticed a strip of fabric missing from the garment’s hem. About the same shape and size as the piece that had been tied around the condor’s foot.
Before he could give much thought to that, his eyes were once more drawn to the gruesome handprint.
So crisp was the impression that even the lines on the skin were preserved. It was reaching out of the cloth, slapping him in the face.
Rage boiled and bubbled within him.
He tossed away the vile garment, bunched up his own robe over his abdomen and jumped into the sea.
A boat was moored nearby. He waded toward it and vaulted aboard. The crew were long gone, but it did not matter. He could work out what to do. With the golden dagger gifted to him by Genghis Khan, he cut the dock lines and weighed anchor.
He did not look back.
Lotus watched the sail billow as the wind carried Guo Jing westward. She clung to the hope that he would turn back and take her with him, but, as the vessel pulled away, resolutely and without hesitation, her heart succumbed, bit by bit, to a biting frost until it was frozen into one solid block of ice.
She watched the craft disappear into the horizon, where the sea blended into the sky. Then it struck her. She, abandoned here, on her own. Guo Jing, gone. Papa might not come back. This, her present, her future. Never-ending days on this island, alone, forsaken …
Am I to stand here by the sea for eternity? she asked herself, as a small voice inside implored, Don’t, Lotus, don’t.
4
In no time at all, Guo Jing was a dozen li west of Peach Blossom Island. Suddenly, condors’ caws cut through his black mood and broug
ht him back to the here and now. They were winging his way and soon they were perched on the yard.
We’ve left Lotus behind, without a living soul to keep her company. The thought of her standing alone on the shore compelled him to turn the boat around.
As he rode the waves, making slower progress with the wind no longer in his favor, his mind drifted back to the scene outside the cave, when they were reunited with Zhou Botong, Count Seven Hong and Ke Zhen’e. I know now, I know now, Guo Jing said to himself, remembering how Ke Zhen’e had swung his staff at Lotus. First Shifu was on the island. His eyes can’t see, but his ears are keen. He heard Apothecary Huang carrying out his evil deeds. Somehow, he survived and escaped unharmed. That’s why he tried to take Lotus’s life. That’s why he wants me to take her life. That’s why he told me to bring him her head as well as her father’s. Because he was here. Because he knows the truth. But I can’t do that to Lotus. She didn’t hurt anyone. She has nothing to do with … And yet, how can I ever be with her again? Wait … When we found Fourth Shifu, he was still alive … so that monster couldn’t have gone far. I’ll catch up with him. I’ll cut off his head. I’ll bring it to First Shifu. I’ll die trying!
Now he had a clear sense of what he needed to do, he pulled the tiller and turned west toward the mainland again, with vengeance at the forefront of his mind.
* * *
BEFORE GUO Jing went ashore, he scuttled the boat by swinging the anchor into the hull. He could not bear the sight of anything associated with Peach Blossom Island now that his Masters were lying cold in the ground. The vessel rolled onto one side. He watched it for a long time from the beach as the waves dragged it under, as though it were carrying the last traces of his five shifus to the seabed with it. When no trace of the boat was left above the surface, he set off on foot, heading west, until he came upon a farm. There, after asking for directions to Jiaxing, he bought some rice and had his first meal in more than a day.
When he reached the Qiantang River, he decided to stop for the night. A glorious moon, almost completely full, shimmered on the water. As he gazed at it, humbled by the grandeur of nature, a thought suddenly occurred to him. Could it be Moon Festival already? Had he missed the contest at the Tower of Mist and Rain? He asked the innkeeper for the date and was relieved to hear that it was only the thirteenth day of the eighth month. He would make it in time, but he decided to travel through the night to be sure. He crossed the river and purchased a horse, arriving at Jiaxing just after noon the following day.
