A Snake Lies Waiting

by Jin Yong

  Guo Jing nodded and left. Lotus reached for the last bowl and was surprised to find that it felt cold. Colder than normal. She tried to grab it, but it refused to move, as if nailed to the shelf. Afraid to break it by yanking too hard, she tried one more time, gently, before giving up. Could it have been in there so long that the dirt had glued it stuck? She looked more carefully and discovered it was covered in rust. The bowl was made of metal.

  Lotus chuckled to herself. She had seen rice bowls made of gold, silver and jade, but never in her life had she seen one made of steel. She gave it another tug, but still it would not move. She was intrigued. Given her strength, surely the shelf would crack, at the very least? Maybe it, too, was made of steel? She tapped it with her middle finger, only to find that it was indeed made of metal.

  Her curiosity piqued, she pulled with all her strength. Still, nothing. She tried turning it right, then left, and felt it loosen somewhat. She tried again—harder, this time—and the bowl moved. She heard a cracking sound, and then the two sides of the cupboard opened to reveal a large, dark opening. This was the source of the sour smell, strong enough to turn her stomach.

  Lotus cried out and quickly leaped to one side. The sound drew Guo Jing and Zhou Botong. Together, they peered inside. What is this place? Is the girl just pretending to be a fool?

  She passed her makeshift torch to Guo Jing, approached the young woman and reached for her wrist. The woman, in turn, shook herself free and sent a palm at Lotus’s shoulder.

  Something told Lotus her intentions were not good, but the move was straight out of the same school of martial arts that she had herself trained in, and this surprised her. She made a hook with her left and grabbed with her right. Since she had learned the Transforming Muscles, Forging Bones chapter of the Nine Yin Manual, her speed and strength had improved immeasurably.

  “Ow!” The young woman cried out as her arm was hit, but she followed with two moves in quick succession. They exchanged a few more blows. Lotus was astonished to watch her opponent perform Jade Ripple Palm, one of the basic techniques of Peach Blossom Island kung fu. Lotus held back, hoping to goad the young woman into revealing more about where she had studied. But it soon became apparent that she only knew these six or seven basic moves, in much the same way that Guo Jing had fought Graybeard Liang with only Haughty Dragon Repents. She was not as strong as Guo Jing, of course, and she had no variation in her technique.

  They were all astonished to find a poor, filthy girl in an abandoned inn out here in this benighted village able to fight Lotus for more than ten moves.

  Zhou Botong, of course, found the whole thing amusing. The girl kept crying out “Aiya!” as she felt the force of Lotus’s swift and unrelenting attack.

  “Lotus!” the Urchin cried out eventually. “Be gentle. Let me fight her instead.” Having noticed that she did not seem to mind Count Seven and Guo Jing calling her by her first name, he had long since abandoned any sense of caution or feelings of propriety that might have encouraged him to call her Miss Huang.

  Guo Jing’s thoughts had turned to the idea that the girl might have friends nearby, watching and waiting to attack. He stuck close to Count Seven.

  Lotus struck the girl on the shoulder and her left arm hung limp. At this point, Lotus decided to show mercy. “Kneel and I will spare you.”

  “Only if you kneel too!” the girl replied, swishing her palm in another display of Jade Ripple Palm. Lotus could see that it was the very same technique as taught on Peach Blossom Island, but the wave-like motion of her hand lacked finesse. Lotus’s suspicions only grew deeper.

  “How do you know Jade Ripple Palm? Who is your Master?”

  The young woman smiled. “You can’t beat me!”

  Lotus raised her left, struck right, jabbed with her left elbow and dipped her right shoulder, all feigned attacks, before sending both hands curving out. This too was an empty attack, but it provided cover for a swift kick. This one was real. As the young woman fell to the ground, she cried out, “A nasty trick!” She scrambled to her feet. “That didn’t count! Let’s go again.”

  Lotus would not let her stand, and instead leaped forward, pushing her down. She tore a piece of cloth from the girl’s robes and quickly tied her hands behind her back. “I think I just beat you.”

  “You tricked me!” she kept calling out in reply.

  Seeing that Lotus had the girl under control, Guo Jing went outside and jumped up onto the roof. He looked around them, but saw no sign of any other people. He dropped back down and went round the back of the building. The inn stood apart from the other buildings in the village. There was no one else around. He was flooded with relief.

  He walked back inside, only to find Lotus holding a dagger before the girl’s face. “Who is your Master? Tell me, or I’ll kill you.” She jabbed the dagger closer as she spoke.

  By the light of the candle, it was possible to see a smile trace across the girl’s face. It was not bravery or defiance. No, it was a stupid smile, as if she was unaware of the danger she was in. Did she think Lotus was just playing? Lotus repeated her question, but the girl laughed and said, “If you kill me, I’ll kill you back!”

  Lotus raised an eyebrow. “This girl really is a fool. Let’s go and look inside. Brother Zhou, you look after Shifu and keep an eye on her. Come on, Guo Jing.”

  Zhou Botong waved his hands in protest. “No, I’m going with you.”

  “I don’t want you to come,” Lotus said firmly.

  Despite his seniority in age and martial capabilities, Zhou Botong did not dare defy the young woman. “That’s fine, miss. You decide.”

  Lotus smiled and nodded. Zhou Botong found two pine branches, lit the ends and waved them in the entrance to the dark hole. The smell from inside was overwhelming. Lotus took one of the smoldering branches and threw it into the darkness. They heard a clatter as it struck a wall on the far side and crashed to the ground. The space was quite small, as it turned out.

  Holding up the other torch, she peered inside. All was still, there was no trace of any movement. Unable to help himself, Zhou Botong slipped past Lotus and went inside. Cautiously, Lotus followed behind. The room was cramped.

  “I’ve been tricked!” Zhou Botong cried out. “Not fun!”

  Lotus gasped. There, on the ground, lay a skeleton. It was lying face up, its clothes half disintegrated. The ribs were in full view, and two of them had been broken. There was another skeleton in the far corner. It was slumped over an iron chest, a long blade standing tall between its ribs, having penetrated the chest’s lid.

  Zhou Botong looked around the small, dirty room and appeared unconcerned by the corpses. He waited impatiently as Lotus examined them more closely, but he was too scared to interrupt, lest he anger her. After a while, however, his impatience got the better of him and he asked gently, “Miss Lotus, fine maiden, may I go outside?”

  “Fine. Get Guo Jing for me.”

  The Old Urchin happily retreated and said to Guo Jing, “Come, it’s most interesting in there.” He did not want to be called back in to keep Lotus company.

  Guo Jing entered the darkness. Lotus raised her torch to show him the skeletons. “How do you think they died?”

  “Looks like this one died in a surprise attack while trying to open the chest,” he said, pointing to the one in the corner. “The other one has two broken ribs, so he was probably attacked by someone with considerable internal strength. A palm attack.”

  “Yes, but there are some things that don’t make sense.”

  “Like what?”

  “The fool out there was using Jade Ripple Palm, a technique from Peach Blossom Island. She only knew six, maybe seven of the moves, but, while she was clumsy in her execution, she clearly knew the theory. Why did these two die here, in this room? What’s their connection to her?”

  “Let’s ask the girl.” Having frequently been referred to as a fool, slow and worse, he refused to use the words against her.

  “The girl really is a
fool—I don’t think we will get any sense out of her. Maybe we can make our own investigations, based on the evidence we find here,” Lotus suggested. She lifted her torch again and noticed something shiny close to the chest. She picked it up and examined it. It was a small gold plaque, inlaid with a piece of agate the size of a thumbnail. She turned it over. There was an inscription on the back: Bestowed by Imperial Decree upon the Loyal and Great Master of the Martial Arts responsible for defending our Great State, Shi Yanming.

  “If it belonged to him, this was a man of great rank,” Lotus said.

  “A high-ranking official, dying here? That’s strange,” Guo Jing said.

  Lotus went back to the other skeleton, where she noticed something sticking out from between its ribs. She used the end of her torch to prod it, and it fell in a cloud of dust, which died down to reveal a round, flat sheet of metal. She gasped as she picked it up.

  Guo Jing looked down at the object in her hand. “Wow.”

  “You know what this is?”

  “Yes, I do,” Guo Jing said. “It’s an Eight Trigram throwing disc, belonging to the head of Roaming Cloud Manor, Squire Lu.”

  “It’s an Eight Trigram throwing disc, to be sure, but it doesn’t necessarily belong to him.”

  “You’re right. The clothes on the bodies have disintegrated. They must have been here for at least ten years.”

  Lotus did not reply. She was thinking. Suddenly, an idea came to her. She approached the body in the corner, pulled out the blade from the lid and approached the torchlight. There was a character engraved on the blade: Qu.

  “The one lying on the ground is my martial brother, Tempest Qu.”

  “Oh,” Guo Jing said, unsure what to say next.

  “Brother Lu said that Brother Qu was still alive. But, all this time, he was lying here, dead. Guo Jing … look at his legs.”

  Guo Jing bent down. “They were both broken. Was it your father who did this?”

  Lotus nodded. “Tempest Qu. My father once said that, of all his disciples, it was Brother Qu who had the strongest technique. He was a talented writer, too. He was the one who studied the most with my father…” At that, she ran out of the room. Guo Jing hurried after her.

  Lotus ran to the young woman. “Is your last name Qu?”

  The girl giggled, but did not reply.

  “Miss,” Guo Jing tried, more gently, “what is your family name?”

  “Family name?” She giggled. “Family name!”

  “Hey!” Zhou Botong called out, interrupting them. “I’m hungry!”

  “Yes,” Lotus said. “We need to eat.” She untied the young woman’s hands and invited her to eat with them. Unabashed, the young woman smiled and held out her hands to take the bowl.

  Lotus told Count Seven about all that she had found in the room. “It looks like some official by the name of Shi killed Brother Qu,” Count Seven concluded. “Just before he died, he threw the weapon and killed his assailant.”

  “Yes, it seems so,” Lotus agreed.

  Then she presented the blade and the Eight Trigram disc to the young woman. “Whose are these?”

  The girl’s expression suddenly changed. She tilted her head, as if she was trying to recall something. Then, suddenly, her face turned blank. She shook her head, took the blade and refused to give it back.

  “She’s seen this before,” Lotus said. “But it must have been a long time ago. She doesn’t seem to remember where.”

  After they had finished eating, Lotus settled Count Seven to sleep. Then she and Guo Jing went back into the hidden room to examine the scene further. The key to the mystery would be found in the chest. Carefully, they removed the skeleton on top of it and opened the lid. It had not been locked and was easy to lift.

  They held up the torch and peered down. The chest gleamed and shone with pearls, jade and all kinds of other expensive treasures.

  Guo Jing was surprised, but only Lotus realized the true value of the objects inside. This collection went far beyond that of her father’s. She reached for a handful of pearls and let them pour through her fingers, making a delightful tinkling as they clinked against the other rare items inside.

  “There must be quite a story behind all these different treasures. If father were here, he could tell us the origins of each piece.” She lifted each one, explaining to Guo Jing what they were. This one is a jade belt loop, this one is a case made out of rhino hide, this is a cup made from agate, a jadeite dish. And so on.

  Guo Jing had grown up in the desert, and never in his life had he seen riches like this. People put so much effort into making and collecting these trinkets, but what were they for?

  Lotus reached into the chest again and dug down until her fingers touched a piece of solid wood. There was another layer beneath. She pushed away the jewelry to reveal a series of rings, into which she inserted her fingers and lifted the board. The bottom layer contained old objects made of green oxidized copper. She had heard her father describe the history of bronzeware, so she recognized the traditional three-legged Shang dynasty ritual cauldron, decorated with a dragon pattern, as well as the wine vessel from the same era, not to mention the various-shaped vessels characteristic of the Zhou. Her knowledge was scanty at best, but she knew that, if the top layer was worth a fortune, these items were priceless.

  At that moment, she realized there was another layer to the chest. She removed the board covering it, only to discover a collection of scrolls. Together, Guo Jing and Lotus unrolled each one. To her amazement, she realized she was looking at the master of Buddhist art Wu Daozi’s God Sending a Son. The next was the Tang painter Han Gan’s Herding Horses. Together, they unfurled a majestic work by Li Yu, the last Emperor of the Southern Tang, entitled Man Crossing a Secluded River. There were more than twenty scrolls and each one was a treasure by one of China’s most famous artists. There were several examples of both calligraphy and painting by Emperor Huizong. Some were by contemporary masters, including painter-in-attendance at the Imperial Court, Liang Kai.

  After unrolling a dozen or so, Lotus wished to see no more. She returned the items to the chest, closed the lid and sat down on top, hugging her knees. Father has been collecting all his life, and yet he has nothing like the treasures in this chest. How did Brother Qu get hold of such priceless pieces? And why did he keep them here? She could think of no reasonable explanation.

  Guo Jing watched her in silence, not daring to interrupt her thoughts.

  “Hey!” Zhou Botong’s voice came from outside. “Come out! It’s time to visit the Emperor for some of that Contrast of the Five Treasures!”

  “This evening?” Guo Jing asked.

  “The sooner, the better. I’m not getting any stronger,” Count Seven called back.

  “Shifu, don’t listen to the Old Urchin’s nonsense,” Lotus replied. “We can’t possibly go tonight. We can enter the city tomorrow morning. Any more ridiculous ideas from him and he won’t be coming with us to the palace.”

  “Huh!” Zhou Botong snorted. “Once again, I’m to blame,” he said, falling into a sulk.

  3

  That night, the four of them slept on straw beds laid out on the floor. Early the next morning, Lotus and Guo Jing got up to make breakfast, which they ate with the young woman. Lotus turned the iron bowl to close the cabinet doors, and returned the broken tableware to the shelf. The young girl watched on indifferently as she played with the blade. Lotus gave her a piece of silver, which she took and then tossed onto the table.

  “If you get hungry, use that to buy yourself some rice and meat,” Lotus suggested.

  The young girl just grinned back at her.

  A sadness was creeping into Lotus’s heart. She must be related to Brother Qu—if not by blood, at least by the bonds of master and disciple. He had definitely taught her those half a dozen moves of Jade Ripple Palm, even if she had not practiced them with care. Had she been this way since birth, or was some traumatic experience, some terrible shock to blame? Lotus was tem
pted to ask around the village, but Zhou Botong urged them on, and so the four of them climbed up onto the cart and headed for the city of Lin’an.

  Lin’an was the largest city in the world, at the time. When the Song court was forced south, it chose the city as the Empire’s new capital, bringing all kinds of people and goods from far afield, causing it to flourish even more.

  Together, Lotus and the others entered by the East Gate, from where they headed straight for the main entrance to the Imperial Palace.

  Count Seven stayed on the cart while the others went to look around. They saw golden nails banged into scarlet doors, painted columns, engraved beams, copper tiles on the roof, and sculptures of flying dragons and soaring phoenixes in all their splendor.

  “Wonderful!” Zhou Botong cried, before striding toward the door.

  The guards had been watching the old man and the young couple, clutching their weapons. Now, they strode forward to arrest the troublemakers.

  Zhou Botong loved to make mischief and he was itching to fight with the sturdy men in their glinting armor.

  “Come, let’s go!” Lotus cried.

  “Why?” Zhou Botong said, staring at her wide-eyed. “What harm can these babies do to the Old Urchin?”

  “Guo Jing,” Lotus continued, “let’s go. The Old Urchin always does as he pleases. We’ll ignore him.”

  Back on the cart, she lashed the whip and the mule lurched forward, pulling them westward. Guo Jing followed behind.

  Concerned that he might be about to miss out on something interesting, Zhou Botong ran after them.

  Taking them for simple villagers on their first visit to the city, the guards laughed and did not give chase.

  Lotus drove the cart to a quiet part of the city and checked they had not been followed, before stopping at last.

  “Why didn’t we try to get into the palace? Those sacks of rice wouldn’t have stopped us!” Zhou Botong said.

  “Are we here for a fight, or are we after the food? Our presence would cause chaos in the palace, and then do you think the chef would calmly agree to make some Contrast of the Five Treasures for Shifu?”