Ode to gallantry, p.15
Ode to Gallantry, page 15
The young man was stumped: When did I eat this kind of thing? Hence, he asked: "Is ... is this birds' nest?"
The girl replied with a snort of disgust: "So you can really act dumb." As she spoke, she took a step backwards. The expression on her face changed as she became alert and guarded.
Looking at her again, the young man noticed the short goose-yellow coat and matching trousers that she wore, as well as the two buns on her head. She had just woken up, so her hair was somewhat messy. She had not managed to put on her socks, so she stood with her bare feet in a pair of embroidered slippers. The young man had never seen a sight as beautiful as the snowy-white skin on the girl's feet, for his mother had always worn socks and never allowed him into her room. Hence, he expressed his appreciation at once: "Your ... your feet are really beautiful!"
The girl's face turned slightly red before anger took over. Putting the porcelain bowl down on the desk, she turned around, picked up the mat, blanket and pillow in the corner of the room, and walked towards the door.
The young man panicked at once: "Where ... where are you going? Are you ignoring me?" He sounded somewhat pitiful, for he seemed to be entreating her to stay.
"You were ill enough to be half-dead and barely alive," answered the girl, "but as soon as you make a small recovery, you begin talking nonsense all over again. Where do you think I can go to? You are the master, so how can lowly people like us even talk about ignoring you?" Then, she walked out of the room.
Although she appeared to have left in anger, the young man did not know how he had offended her. He thought: One girl jumped out of the window, while the other walked out of the door. I do not understand any of the things that they have talked about at all. Sigh, I really do not know what is happening.
As he sat lost in his thoughts and staring blankly into space, he heard a series of faint footsteps. The girl had returned to the room, but she still looked angry. There was a basin in her hands.
His heart responding in delight, the young man watched as she put the basin on the desk. Then, she took a steaming hot towel out of the basin and wrung it dry. Finally, she handed the towel to the young man and said in a cold voice: "Wipe your face!"
"Yes, yes!" answered the young man. He quickly reached for the towel, but as soon as his hands moved, his body was racked with a piercing pain. Undaunted, he gritted his teeth and took the towel into his hands. When he was about to wipe his face, his hands began to tremble. The towel was still a chi (33.33 centimetres) away from his face, but it refused to move nearer regardless of what the young man did.
The girl was only half-convinced. "You pretend very well," she said in a sceptical voice. Then, taking the towel away, she added, "I can wipe your face if you want me to. But if you stretch out your hands in mischief and touch a single hair on my head, I will never enter this room again."
"I do not dare," answered the young man. " Guniang(6), you do not have to wipe my face. This piece of cloth is snowy-white, but my face is very dirty. You had better not soil the cloth."
The girl found his voice rather low. His articulation was also different from what it used to be. Furthermore, the words he spoke did not seem to match the circumstances that he was in. Hence, she could not help but become suspicious: Could this bout of illness have damaged his brain? According to the discussions of Mr Bei and the others, he had overpractised and suffered an infatuation with power while cultivating his internal strength. Consequently, he had suffered injuries to the internal organs in his body. Mr Bei could not even tell if he would eventually escape with his life. If not, why would he speak in such an incoherent way?
Thus, she asked: "Young Master, do you remember my name?"
"You have never told me what it is," answered the young man. "So I do not know what you are called." He smiled in amusement before continuing: "I am not called 'Young Master'. I am Gouzazhong; that is what my mother calls me. Elderly Uncle says that it is an unpleasant term that is used to scold people. What are you called?"
The more the girl heard, the deeper her frown became. She thought: From the way he speaks, he does not seem to be making any frivolous jokes. He must really be confused. She cold not help but feel sad. "Young Master," she asked, "do you really not recognise me? Do you really not recognise Shijian?"
"You are called Shijian?" asked the young man in return. "All right, from now on I will call you Shijian ... no, Elder Sister Shijian. My mother says that I should address older women as 'Grandma' and 'Aunt'. For those who are about my age, I should call them 'Elder Sister'."
Shijian lowered her head, only to burst suddenly into tears. "Young Master," she cried, "you ... you are not deceiving me in pretense, are you? Have you really forgotten me?"
"I do not understand what you are saying," replied the young man, shaking his head. "Elder Sister Shijian, why are you crying? Why are you unhappy? Did I offend you? When my mother is unhappy, she will hit me and scold me. You had better hit me and scold me too."
Shijian became even more upset. She picked the towel up slowly and started to wipe his face. "I am your maidservant," she said in a quiet voice. "How can I hit you and scold you? Young Master, may the Heavens bring you quick recovery. If you have really forgotten everything, what will we do?"
When she was done wiping his face, the young man saw that the snowy-white towel did not become dirty at all. He started to thank Shijian repeatedly. He did not know that she had wiped his face several times a day when he was unconscious.
Shijian spoke quietly again: "Young Master, you forgot my name, but you must still remember the other things, do you not? Like, what clan are you leading?"
The young man shook his head and replied: "I am not a clan-leader. Elderly Uncle taught me to practise martial arts. Suddenly, half my body became boiling hot, while the other hald became unbearably cold. I ... I ... could not endure it any longer, so I fainted. Elder Sister Shijian, how did I get here? Did you bring me here?"
Shijian's heart ached again: In that case, he ... he really does not remember anything anymore.
"Where is Elderly Uncle?" asked the young man. "He taught me to practise martial arts according to the lines on the bodies of the clay figurines, so I want to ask him why my body became boiling hot and icy cold."
When Shijian heard him mention the 'clay figurines', she remembered something that had happened seven days earlier. At that time, a wooden box had fallen out of his shirt while she was changing his clothes. She had opened the box out of curiosity, only to find eighteen naked male figurines that were made of clay inside. She had turned red at once, for she had known her young master to be an incorrigible lecher. Hence, the unclothed figurines could not be anything good. Subsequently, she had closed the box and kept it away in a drawer. Now, she thought: Let me show him the figurines. Perhaps they will help him to remember the things that had happened before he overpractised and suffered an infatuation with power.
She opened the drawer and retrieved the box. "Are these the clay figurines?" she asked.
"Yes," answered the young man in delight. "The figurines are here, but where is Elderly Uncle? Where has Elderly Uncle gone?"
"Which elderly uncle?" asked Shijian.
"Elderly Uncle is Elderly Uncle," said the young man. "His name is called the Skyscraping Resident."
Shijian knew very little about the established figures of the martial arts circle, so she had never heard of the Skyscraping Resident Xie Yanke. "It is good that you have regained consciousness," she said. "It does not matter if you do not remember anything in the past. Dawn has not broken, so you can sleep for a while more. Sigh, perhaps it is better that you do not remember anything in the past." After gathering his blankets, she picked up the tray and began making her way out of the room.
"Elder Sister Shijian, why is it better that I do not remember anything in the past?" asked the young man.
"The things you did in the past ...," Shijian began, only to stop abruptly and hurry out of the room.
The young man was stumped. There seemed to be no answers to all the things that were happening around him. Just then, he heard the *du du* sound of the bamboo clapper, followed by three *dang dang dang* of the gong outside the room. He did not know that it was just the watchman sounding the night-watches(7). Instead, he thought: There are actually people playing with bamboo clappers and gongs in the middle of the night.
Suddenly, the Shang Yang acupoint on the index finger of his right hand became hot. Then, a heated stream of energy began travelling up his finger, through his wrist and along his arm.
"Oh no!" said the startled young man to himself.
Then, the Yong Quan acupoint in the middle of his left sole became terribly cold. Having suffered the collision of these hot and cold energy streams many times before, he knew that each attack was very painful. When the pain reached the point of unbearability, he would simply collapse. In the past, the attacks had come when he was in a daze, but now that it had struck when he was lucid, he was profoundly disturbed.
Just then, a stream of heated energy began moving upwards on the left side of his body. At the same time, a stream of cold energy began moving downwards on the right side. Both streams were headed slowly towards his heart and lungs.
I will surely die this time! he thought.
In the past, the energy streams had either met in the abdomen or the back. But now, they were about to meet in the vital organs of the heart and the lungs. How was he going to withstand their onslaught?
Aware of the gravity of the situation, he forced himself into a sitting position as quickly as he could. He wanted to sit cross-legged, but his legs simply refused to bend themselves. After much struggling, he thought: When Elderly Uncle learnt this skill years ago, did he suffer like this as well? Come to think of it, being able to put two sparrows on my open palm without them flying away is not really a fun thing to do. If I had known this earlier, I would not have taken up the skill.
Suddenly, a man spoke in a low voice outside his window: "Clan-Leader, your subordinate from the Hall of the Victorious Leopard (Bao4 Jie2 Tang2), Zhan Fei, has a great secret to report."
Unable to make even half a sound, the young man watched as the window opened slowly and a shadowy figure flashed across it. A man in a mottled robe had leapt into the room. Dashing forward, the visitor found the young man sitting up in bed. The sight shocked him greatly, for he had not expected to see it at all. Thus, he quickly took two steps backwards.
By then, the hot and cold streams of energy were already surging around the young man's heart and lungs. His heart was thumping so quickly that he felt it would stop at any time and cause him to die. Yet, despite the extreme pain, he was unusually lucid. He heard the man in the mottled robe announcing his name as 'Zhan Fei from the Hall of the Victorious Leopard', and saw him jump into the room through the window. He did not know what the man wanted to do, so he simply opened his eyes wide and stared at him.
When Zhan Fei realised that the young man was not reacting to his presence, he spoke in a soft voice: "Clan-Leader, I heard that you overpractised while training in martial arts. You have not been well, but now, you must be much better."
The young man's body trembled several times, but he was still unable to speak.
Zhan Fei's expression turned into delight. "Clan-Leader," he said, "you have not recovered, so you cannot to move, can you?"
Although he had been speaking softly, the unexpected noise created by his presence had already been heard by Shijian from the room next door. Walking in, the girl noticed the wicked and savage look on Zhan Fei's face at once. "What are you doing?" she asked in surprise. "You have entered the room of the Clan-Leader without his summons. Do you want to defy your superior and start a rebellion?"
With a sudden shake of his body, Zhan Fei dashed over to Shijian and struck her on the waist with his right elbow. Then, he added another strike to her shoudler with the fingers of his right hand. Shijian sank into a chair, unable to move after her acupoints were sealed. Zhan Fei practised a form of external martial arts, so he could only restrain a person's arms and legs when he blocked their acupoints. Since he could not stop a person from speaking with his skills, he took out a handkerchief and stuffed it into Shijian's mouth. Panic gripped the girl at once, for she knew that he intended to do the clan-leader harm. Yet, she could not call out for help.
On his part, Zhan Fei remained very wary of his clan-leader. Gesturing with his palm, he said in a quiet voice: "I think it will not be difficult to kill your little maidservant with a stroke of my Iron-Sand Palm Technique (Tie3 Sha1 Zhang3)!" Then, he sent his palm towards the top of Shijian's head, thinking: If the brat has not lost his martial arts abilities, he will definitely come to her rescue.
However, when his palm was less than half a chi (1 chi = 33.33 centimetres) from Shijian's head, Zhan Fei noticed that his clan-leader remained seated and still. Delighted, he withdrew his palm at once. Turning to the young man, he grinned hideously and said, "Little thieving lecher, you have done all kinds of evil throughout your life, yet today, you will die in my hands." Then, he took two steps towards the bed and continued in a softer voice: "You do not have any strength to resist me right now, so if I kill you, I will not be acting in accordance to the ways of heroic men. But my grudge against you is as deep as the ocean, so the rules of the jianghu are no longer applicable. If you understand the code of brotherhood that is used in the realm of the rivers and lakes, you will not seduce my wife!"
Although the young man and Shijian could not move, they could hear the man's words clearly.
Why does he hold a grudge against me that is as deep as the ocean? the young man asked himself. And what does 'seduce his wife' mean?
On the other hand, Shijian thought: Young Master does not know how much he has accummulated in terms of debts of evil passion. Today, retribution has finally come upon him. Sigh, this man is really going to kill Young Master. The thought brought Shijian so much anxiety that she struggled with all her strength to regain mobility. However, her aching arms and legs were so limp that she fell almost immediately to the ground with a thud.
Meanwhile, Zhan Fei growled ferociously at his clan-leader: "My wife lost her chastity to you. Hmmph! Do you really think that I had my eyes closed? That I was a cuckold who did not have the slightest knowledge of what was going on? Although I knew, I could not do anything against you, so I swallowed the insult and submitted to the humiliation like the mute who eats the rhizome of the Chinese goldthread (huang2 lian2) without being able to speak up about its bitterness. Little did I realise that the Heavens have eyes, for you, the little thieving lecher who has done all sorts of evil, have finally fallen into my hands." As he spoke, he positioned his feet firmly according to the Riding Stance (ma3 bu4) and took a deep breath. Then, he exercised his strength until his right arm started to creak, before sending a palm out with a *hu* towards the young man's chest.
Zhan Fei was the Incense-Master of the Hall of the Victorious Leopard, one of the five outer halls of the Clan of Eternal Happiness. He had more than twenty years of practice in the Iron-Sand Palm Technique, so the depth of power that could be produced was not something to be trifled with. He had used all his strength in striking the young man, hitting the latter right between the nipples on the Shan Zhong acupoint.
A loud crack was heard. Zhan Fei's right arm broke. He flew backwards, crashed through the window and landed outside the room. The energy channels in his body were sealed off at once, knocking him out cold.
There was a flower garden right outside the room, where members of the Clan of Eternal Happiness went on patrol. That night, the Hall of the Victorious Leopard was in charge of the patrols, so Zhan Fei could enter the private quarters of the clan-leader.
After Zhan Fei crashed through the window, he fell into a bed of rose bushes, snapping many of the plants with his weight. The noise alerted the patrolling clan-members at once. Someone soon appeared with a flaming torch in his hand and found Zhan Fei lying completely still on the ground. Not knowing if Zhan was dead or alive, he quickly deduced that a formidable enemy had invaded the room of the clan-leader. Greatly shocked, he blew his bamboo whistle to alert his colleagues. At the same time, he pulled his sabre out and stuck his head through the broken window for a look.
The room was pitch-dark, without even so much as half a sound to be heard. The man raised the torch in his left hand so that the light would shine into the room, while waving the sabre in his right hand protectively in front of his chest. Peering through the gaps that were created by the movements of the sabre, he saw the clan-leader sitting cross-legged on the bed. A girl, who appeared to be his maidservant, was slumped on the floor in front of him. There was no one else in the room.
Just then, the clan-members who had been alerted by the whistle appeared.
Qiu Shanfeng, the Incense-Master of the Hall of the Ferocious Tiger, brandished his iron mace and asked in a loud voice: "Clan-Leader, are you safe and well?" Lifting the door-curtain, he stepped into the room and found the clan-leader shaking from head to toe.
Suddenly, a loud *wa* was heard. The clan-leader opened his mouth and threw up so much purplish blood that several bowls would have been needed to contain it. As Qiu Shanfeng dodged to the side and avoided being hit by the stinking vomit, he was both surprised and bewildered to see that the clan-leader had already left the bed and begun helping the maidservant up from the floor.
"Elder Sister Shijian, did he ... he hurt you?" asked the clan-leader, pulling out the handkerchief that had been stuffed into her mouth earlier.
Shijian took a breath as quickly as she could. "Young Master," she said, "you ... you have been hit. How ... how do you feel?" She was so alarmed by the incident that she could not speak coherently.
The young man smiled. "He struck me with his palm," he answered, "but I feel extremely comfortable."
Footsteps sounded outside the room. Moments later, many more people arrived. Bei Haishi, Mi Hengye and a few others hurried into the room, while those who were positioned lower on the clan hierarchy waited outside the door.
