A Snake Lies Waiting

by Jin Yong

  This silenced the young man. In fact, his heart was pounding with anticipation. He promptly left and went to find a pair of red candles, some wine and a chicken. Then, together, the young couple prepared a meal for their Grandmaster.

  2

  Apothecary Huang fell into a long silence. His thoughts had turned to his daughter. Lotus watched and knew that he was thinking about her. Several times, she nearly threw open the door, but she was afraid he might force her to accompany him back to Peach Blossom Island. Besides, she could see no way her beloved could survive the encounter. These thoughts drove her hand away from the door.

  Laurel and Emerald, meanwhile, glanced at their Grandmaster and then at each other. Their cheeks were flushed red with a mixture of happiness and embarrassment.

  Gallant Ouyang was listening from his bed of straw. His stomach ached from hunger, and he barely dared to breathe for fear of attracting attention.

  Gradually, the sky darkened. Emerald’s heart was nearly beating out of her chest.

  “Where’s that silly girl?” she heard Apothecary Huang mutter. “Why hasn’t she come back? Those traitors better not be giving her any trouble.” Then he turned to Laurel Lu. “Why don’t you light the candles now?”

  “Yes, sir,” Laurel Lu replied. He struck a flint and the wick flickered. There, by candlelight, he gazed at Sister Cheng’s wisps of hair as they caressed her temples. Her cheeks were as white as fresh snow and, in her expression, he sensed a pleasing bashfulness. Words failed him. The insects outside hummed and the evening breeze blew through the bamboo thicket. Was this all real?

  Apothecary Huang moved a wooden bench outside into the courtyard and lay down on it. Before long, his gentle snores filled the room. The young couple were frozen, they hardly dared move. They stayed like this until the candle burned down and, with a puff, the flame was out.

  One of them ventured to speak, and, in the darkness, they sought each other out with their words. Lotus leaned in closer, trying to hear what they were saying. Suddenly, she felt Guo Jing’s body tremble beside her. His breathing was quick. His qi had branched, she guessed, and quickly she gathered her inner energy to come to his aid.

  After some time, his breathing began to return to normal, and once again she turned her attention to the couple on the other side of the wall. A shaft of moonlight had burst through the window. Laurel and Emerald were sitting side by side on one of the benches.

  “Do you know what day it is today?” she heard Emerald whisper.

  “The happiest of our lives,” Laurel replied.

  “Of course,” Emerald said. “Today is the second day of the seventh lunar month,” she continued. “My third aunt’s birthday, on my mother’s side.”

  Laurel smiled. “You must have a large family,” he said. “How do you remember all those birthdays?”

  Your wife comes from a large Baoying clan, Lotus thought. Aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces … It would wear you out trying to remember all those birthdays, Master of Roaming Cloud Manor.

  Her thoughts drifted. If today was the second day of the seventh month, she realized, Guo Jing would need until the seventh to recover. The Beggar Clan was due to meet in Yuezhou on the fifteenth. Somehow, the timing was tight.

  Just then, she heard a loud whistle from outside, followed by laughter and then the shaking of the roof tiles above.

  “Old Venom!” Zhou Botong! “You have chased the Urchin all day and night from Lin’an to Jiaxing and back again, and still you cannot catch me. Victory is surely mine. What else is there to compete over?”

  From Lin’an to Jiaxing and back, Lotus said to herself in astonishment. That’s over five hundred li in the space of a day and a night!

  “I will chase you to the ends of the earth,” Viper’s voice replied.

  “Then let us have a competition. Who can run the fastest, and the longest? No breaks for eating, sleeping … not even shitting!”

  “Why not? Let us see who will be the first to collapse from exhaustion.”

  “Old Venom, I said no shitting.”

  She heard the two men laughing in the distance. It sounded as if they were already a hundred feet hence.

  Laurel Lu and Emerald Cheng looked at each other in shock, then joined hands and cautiously made their way toward the door.

  If the Urchin and Old Venom are holding a martial contest, then her father would want to watch, Lotus thought to herself.

  Sure enough, Laurel Lu said, “What about Grandmaster?”

  “Over there,” Emerald said, and pointed. “Three figures. The last one looks like your Grandmaster.”

  “Yes. Oh, they’re already so far away. I wonder who the other two are? What a shame we will never know.”

  The Hoary Urchin is one thing, Lotus said to herself, but I wouldn’t desire a meeting with Old Venom.

  Laurel and Emerald assumed they were alone now, and their inhibitions began to melt away. Laurel placed his arm around his wife’s waist and whispered, “My dear, what is your given name?”

  “Guess,” she replied with a smile.

  “Little Kitten? Or else Little Puppy?”

  “No,” she said, and laughed. “My name is Caterpillar.”

  “Then I must hunt you down, Caterpillar!”

  Emerald wriggled free and leaped over the table. Laurel laughed and gave chase. Giggling, they ran hither and thither around the inn.

  The stars in the sky provided only the dimmest light, so Lotus was unable to see the young couple clearly, but their laughter was loud enough.

  “Do you think he will manage to catch Sister Cheng?” Guo Jing whispered suddenly in Lotus’s ear.

  “Of course,” she replied with a gentle chuckle.

  “And then what?”

  Lotus’s heart skipped a beat. She did not know how to answer him. At that moment, the young couple collapsed onto one of the benches, Emerald locked in Laurel’s arms. They started murmuring to one another.

  Guo Jing’s left hand was touching Lotus’s right. She could feel his palm growing hotter, his body shaking from side to side. Fear for him gripped her heart. “Guo Jing, what’s happening? Let’s stop.”

  The laughter, the beautiful young maiden by his side. These devilish thoughts were dangerous to one who had suffered such injuries, especially while practicing Nine Yin breathing techniques. His blood was nearly at boiling point. He turned and reached for her shoulder. The feel of his burning palm and the rush of his hot breath startled Lotus.

  “Be careful, Guo Jing,” she breathed. “Steady your qi.”

  “I can’t…” he panted. He was visibly shaken. “I … I…” He moved as if to stand.

  “No, stay still!”

  Guo Jing forced himself to stay seated and fought to control his breathing. But it felt as if his chest was about to burst. “Lotus, help me,” he pleaded. Once more, he made as if to stand.

  “Sit! If you move, I will lock your pressure points.”

  “Yes, do it. I can’t control myself.”

  But if she sealed his points, Lotus realized, she would also be blocking his qi, and the last two days would be wasted. And yet, in this state, he was in mortal danger. She gritted her teeth and made a circle with her left arm, in a display of Orchid Touch technique. Then she struck at his Camphor Gate pressure point, located on the left side of his eleventh rib.

  Just as her finger made contact, however, one of his muscles contracted, deflecting her touch. She tried again, but the same thing happened. When she reached to try once more, he grabbed her wrist.

  Lotus looked into Guo Jing’s eyes, now just visible in the first dawn light. They were bloodshot and red, as if on fire. He gripped her wrist tighter and seemed to mumble something incomprehensible. It was as if he had gone mad. Scared, Lotus jabbed her shoulder against his arm. The spikes of her Hedgehog Chainmail pricked his skin, and the pain sent a shock wave through him.

  Just then, a rooster crowed. His mind was suddenly clear, as though he’d been struck by lightning. He drop
ped Lotus’s wrist and looked back at her. His embarrassment was obvious.

  Lotus saw beads of sweat pouring down his forehead. His cheeks were pale, and he looked exhausted. But she knew that he was safe.

  “Guo Jing, we’ve already managed two days and two nights.”

  Slap! Guo Jing struck his cheek. “Stupid!” He was about to hit himself again, but Lotus stopped him and smiled.

  “All is well. Remember Old Urchin? With all his years of training, he still couldn’t resist my father’s flute. You? You’re injured. Don’t blame yourself.”

  In the heat of the moment, they had forgotten to lower their voices. Laurel and Emerald were aware only of each other in their lovers’ confusion, so they heard nothing.

  But Gallant Ouyang, still lying in the corner, had picked up on it. Had he even recognized the young Huang girl’s voice? He listened attentively, but there was no sound now.

  As both legs had been crushed by the giant rock, he shifted his weight onto his hands and managed to “walk” himself out of his hiding place.

  3

  Laurel and Emerald were sitting side by side on a bench, his left arm draped over her shoulder. Just then, they heard a rustling from the area around the pile of firewood. They turned, only to see a man walking across the room on his hands. They jumped to their feet and drew their weapons.

  Gallant Ouyang’s weak state had only been made worse by the hours of hunger he had endured. The glint of a blade dazzled him, and he collapsed onto his stomach. Laurel Lu instantly registered the paleness of his cheeks. He rushed forward and helped the injured man up onto the bench, where he could lean against the table.

  At that moment, Emerald let out a gasp of recognition. It was the awful man who had kidnapped her in Baoying.

  Laurel could not miss the fear in her eyes. “Don’t worry, his legs are broken.”

  “He’s a bad man. I know him,” Emerald replied.

  Surprised, Laurel turned to look at the injured man just as he came to.

  “Rice. I’m starving.”

  Emerald observed how sunken his cheeks had become. His eyes were dull. This was not the same man who had insulted and attacked her. Her heart was moved, perhaps because she was in love, and so she went to the kitchen to fetch him a bowl of rice.

  Gallant ate it and immediately asked for another one. Upon finishing the second bowl, he felt his strength returning. He looked at Miss Cheng and felt a stirring in his loins. But then he remembered Lotus. “Where is Miss Huang?”

  “Which Miss Huang?” Laurel asked.

  “The daughter of the Lord of Peach Blossom Island, Apothecary Huang.”

  “Do you know my martial elder personally? I heard she is no longer of this world,” Laurel said.

  “Don’t lie to me,” Gallant sneered. “I just heard her speak.” He placed his left hand against the table and suddenly flipped himself over it. The injury to his right arm already felt better.

  Continuing on his hands, he circled the room. The voice had come from the eastern side, but there was no door to be found. There must be a hidden chamber, accessed from the cupboard, he surmised. He pulled the table toward it and then flipped himself up on top. From there, he opened the door. He was disappointed, however. Far from finding a secret passage, he saw only a few dirty shelves. Indeed, it was intolerably filthy. He looked carefully, and saw some handprints in the dust. And some more on a metal bowl. He reached out and grabbed it, but it was stuck. He tried twisting it loose, only for a door inside the cupboard to creak open.

  Inside, Lotus and Guo Jing were sitting cross-legged, facing each other.

  The sight of the young man with Lotus dampened his joy. In fact, he felt intensely jealous. “Are you training in here?” he said, after a short pause.

  Lotus had been watching his movements and had known that they were soon going to be discovered. As the door to the cupboard was opened, she whispered in Guo Jing’s ear: “I’ll draw him in, you kill him with your Dragon-Subduing Palm.”

  “I don’t have the strength.”

  Just as Lotus had been about to reply, the door to their secret chamber began to open.

  Panicked, Lotus tried to come up with a plan. How can I get him to leave us alone, so that we might have another five days and nights?

  Gallant Ouyang was normally wary of Guo Jing, but the young man’s pale cheeks reminded him of his uncle’s words in the Imperial Palace. If he ever found the boy in a weakened state, he should use Exploding Toad kung fu. If that did not kill him, it would at least leave him severely injured.

  “Sister,” he said, “why don’t you come out? The air is very stuffy; you don’t want to sit in there for any length of time.” He reached out to take her sleeve.

  With a whoosh, Lotus brought her stick down toward his head. It was one of the deadliest moves in all of Dog-Beating Cane technique and she had employed it with devastating speed. The rush of air as it came toward him was enough to force Gallant to move aside. But the staff was suddenly coming at him in a horizontal sweep. Startled, Gallant somersaulted over the table.

  Had she been better positioned, Lotus could have followed with a Jab the Dog’s Buttocks. It would have been a deadly move, but tricky to launch while sitting cross-legged, and she was unwilling to risk leaving Guo Jing alone.

  Laurel and Emerald, meanwhile, watched in astonishment. By the time they realized who the two people inside were, Lotus had already launched her attack on Gallant.

  Gallant spun out of his somersault and was heading toward the ground when he reached out, pushed both hands against the floor and rebounded back onto the table. Then he made a grab for Lotus.

  Lotus had nowhere to go, and she was mindful that she could not exert too much inner strength herself, for fear of hurting Guo Jing. Even with no legs, Gallant was a stronger fighter than her. She was in trouble.

  Laurel and Emerald drew their weapons and launched themselves at Gallant. He merely laughed, however, and struck out at Guo Jing’s face with his palm. Unable to defend himself, Guo Jing closed his eyes and waited.

  Lotus blocked with her staff; Gallant flipped his hand and grabbed the end of it. Lotus was no match for his strength, and so she was pulled with it. Fearing that her palm would lose contact with Guo Jing’s, she let go of the Dog-Beating Cane. Instead, she reached into her robes, pulled out one of her throwing needles and hurled it at him.

  He threw himself back, bending at the waist so that he was almost lying across the tabletop.

  Laurel regarded him as if he was a piece of meat laid out for sacrifice. He raised his saber high and aimed at his neck. Gallant rolled right. The blade bit deep into the wood. Just then, Laurel heard the swish of another needle above his head. Suddenly, his back went numb. He was paralyzed down one side of his body, and someone was holding him, from behind, by the arm.

  Emerald ran forward to help.

  “Excellent!” cried Gallant as he grabbed the front of her robes.

  Emerald swung her blade at his hand, jumping back at the same time, leaving a scrap of fabric in his grasp. Afraid, she nearly let go of her weapon. The blood drained from her cheeks and she retreated to the corner.

  Still keeping hold of Laurel Lu, Gallant took a seat at the table and turned toward the cupboard. The door to the secret chamber was, once more, closed. A shudder went through him as he thought of how close Lotus’s needle had come. The young girl was not an easy opponent. But he could toy with the Cheng girl loudly enough for Lotus and Guo Jing to overhear. They would be unable to concentrate on their practice, and he might be able to draw Lotus out into a less defensible position.

  He turned to Emerald Cheng. “Miss Cheng, do you want this young man to live, or die?”

  With her husband still in this man’s grip, she knew it would be unwise to act rashly. “He has done you no wrong. Please, let him go. There is no acrimony between you. Were you not hungry, just a moment ago? Did I not bring you rice to eat?”

  At this, Gallant laughed. “Two bowls of rice? Is
that sufficient payment for a life? I’m sure you disciples of the Quanzhen Sect never imagined having to beg a hero from another school for mercy.”

  “He … He is a disciple of Peach Blossom Island. Don’t hurt him.”

  “Who instructed him to come at me with his saber? Had I not been so quick, I would no longer have a head upon my neck. Don’t threaten me with Peach Blossom Island. Lord Huang is my father-in-law.”

  Emerald stared back at him. She did not know if he was lying. “Then you are his martial elder. Let him go and he will plead your forgiveness.”

  “Ha! Since when was anything in life that easy? If you want me to let him go, you must first do as I tell you.”

  There was no mistaking the lascivious smirk on his face. His intentions were surely villainous. Emerald lowered her gaze and did not reply.

  “Watch!” Gallant cried, then smashed his palm down on the corner of the table, cutting a piece from it as neatly as if he had used an axe.

  Emerald was stunned. Not even my shifu is capable of something like that, she thought.

  Gallant had been training under his uncle since he was a small boy, so it was no wonder that his martial skills had surpassed those of the Sage of Tranquility, who had only started her practice in adulthood.

  Emerald’s frightened expression boosted Gallant’s confidence further. “You must do exactly as I say. Otherwise, I will perform the same move, but on his neck.” Then he swung his palm in the air.

  Emerald shivered and gasped.

  “What do you say?”

  Emerald nodded, reluctantly.

  “Excellent. That’s a good girl. Now, go over there and close the door.”

  Emerald did not move.

  “What? You are not obeying?” His tone was furious.

  Emerald trembled. She had no choice. She rose to her feet and went to close the door.

  “You two were joined in matrimony last night, I witnessed it all. It was your wedding night, and yet neither of you undressed. I have never heard of such a couple in all my life. If you don’t know how to be a good bride, let me teach you. Take off your clothes. All of them. If you leave so much as one thread of silk, I will send your husband to meet the heavens, and you will be known as a wanton young widow!”