As the three rode along, the land about them gradually
became more rocky and a
crooked path appeared. It grew
dark, and the White Jade Peak began to tower over
them.
"According to the map, the Secret City was built
around the base of the mountain," said Huo Qingtong.
"It doesn't look as if it would be more than three or
four miles from here." The three
dismounted and gave
their two horses some water.
Chen stroked the white horse's mane lovingly, knowing
that without it, he would never have been able to
rescue Princess Fragrance. He also knew he would not
have left without her.
They rested for a while until the horses had recovered
some of their strength and then continued on, the
cries of the wolves already
vaguely discernible in the
distance. Chen rode the
chestnut horse alone and the
two sisters rode together on the white horse.
The night was cool and the snow on the peak glistened
brilliant white under the moon, looking almost close
enough to touch. The path became rough and treacherous
and suddenly split a dozen or so ways, with no
indication of which was the correct one.
"With so many paths, it's not surprising people get
lost," said Chen. Huo Qingtong pulled out the map and
examined it under the moonlight.
"It says: `left three right two'," she said.
"What does that mean?"
"It doesn't explain." In the distance, they heard the
wolves howling in unison.
"It's about midnight," Huo Qingtong said. "They must
have stopped to howl at the moon. When they've
finished, they will be after us again. We must choose
the path and go quickly."
"There are five paths on the left here," said Chen
pointing. "The map says left three right two, so let's
take the third."
"If it's a dead end, we won't have time to come back
again," replied Huo Qingtong.
"In that case, the three of us will die together,"
said Chen.
As Chen spoke, Huo Qingtong felt a sudden warmth in
her breast and tears welled into her eyes. She raised
her horse whip and led them into the middle path.
The track narrowed into a stone-walled
corridor which
had obviously been hacked out of the mountainside by
men. After a while, they came to another crossroads
from which three paths branched out to the right.
"We're saved! We're saved!" Huo Qingtong shouted with
joy, and they spurred their horses up the middle path
with renewed energy. But the track had not been
traversed for many years, and in some places, it was
completely overgrown by grasses taller than a man,
while in others, it was blocked by sand drifts. The
three had to
dismount and lead the horses over the
obstacles. Chen also moved rocks onto the top of the
drifts to slow the wolves' pursuit.
Less than half a mile further on, they came upon three
more paths forking to the left. Suddenly, Princess
Fragrance screamed and pointed to a pile of white
bones at the mouth of one of the paths. Chen
dismounted to
investigate and found they were the
remains of a man and a camel.
"He must have been unable to decide which path to take
and ended up dying here," he sighed.
They entered the third path and found it suddenly
steepened sharply. The cold and darkness became
oppressive. A short while later another skeleton
appeared by the side of the path with jewels
glistening
amongst the bones.
"He was rich but he couldn't get out," Huo Qingtong
said.
"But it means we're on the right path," replied Chen.
"There must be even more skeletons on the wrong
paths."
"When we leave, none of us must take any jewels, all
right?" Princess Fragrance said.
"You're afraid the ghosts won't let us go," said Chen
with a smile.
"Promise me!"
He heard the pleading tone in her voice and hurriedly
replied: "I won't take anything, don't worry." All the
jewels in the world could not match having you two
sisters as companions, he thought, and suddenly felt
ashamed. Why did he include them both together?
They continued up the twisted path the whole night,
and by morning, they and the two horses were
exhausted.
"Let's rest a while," said Huo Qingtong.
"We must concentrate on
finding shelter first and then
we can all sleep easily," Chen replied firmly.
** 10 **
A short way further on, the path opened out into a
wide, flat valley of extraordinary beauty. The sun was
just rising and the white mountain soared up into the
sky from the valley floor. Around its base was a city
that looked as if it had once been very prosperous.
But now, the thousands of houses that they could see,
although magnificent in scale and design, were in
various stages of ruin and
collapse. Not a sound was
to be heard, not even the twittering of birds. The
three had never seen a place that was at once so
beautiful and so terrible. They stood for a moment,
over-awed by the crushing silence, hardly
daring to
even breathe, then Chen urged his horse forward and
they entered the city.
The area was extremely dry, so dry that there was
virtually no
vegetation on the ground. The contents of
the houses had stayed
undisturbed for
countless years
and most appeared to still be in good condition. They
entered the first house they came to and Princess
Fragrance noticed a pair of ladies' shoes on the
floor. Their colour was still fresh, but as soon as
she touched them, they disintegrated into dust, and
she jumped in shock.
"This city is in a basin surrounded by high mountains
which protect it from rain and wind," Chen said.
As they continued through the streets, they found
skeletons everywhere and swords and other weapons
thrown about at random.
"It doesn't look as if the city was buried in a sand
storm as the story says," Chen commented.
"No," Huo Qingtong agreed. "It looks more like there
was a big battle and all the people were killed."
"But there's so many paths outside the city," Princess
Fragrance objected. "How would the enemy find their
way in?"
"There must have been a traitor," Huo Qingtong
replied.
They went into another house, and she spread the map
out on a table and leaned over to examine it. But the
table was completely
rotten despite its apparent
sturdiness, and it
collapsed under the weight of her
arms. She picked up the map and
studied it for a
moment. "I'm afraid these houses wouldn't
withstand an
attack by the wolves for very long," she said. She
pointed at a place on the map. "This is the centre of
the city, right at the foot of the mountain. There are
a lot of markings around it, which probably means it
is a place of importance. If it's a palace or
fortress, it is bound to be very sturdily built, so
let's go there."
"Right!" said Chen. The three continued on their way,
following the path indicated on the map. The roads in
the centre of the city were like a maze, twisting and
turning until their head's swam. If they had not had
the map, they would surely have lost their way.
After an hour or so, they came to the place marked on
the map as the city centre, but were disappointed to
find no sign of any palace or
fortress. From close up,
the White Jade Peak looked even more beautiful than
from a distance. It was completely white, pure and
shining. A jade carver who found even a small piece of
white jade would never go hungry for the rest of his
life, but here was a whole mountain of the precious
stone. They looked up at the
towering peak and felt a
sense of spiritual upliftment. Their cares and worries
dispersed and they reflected on the wonderful mystery
of creation.
Then,
amidst the silence, they heard far off the howls
of wolves drifting towards them.
"They're coming!" cried Princess Fragrance. "Could it
be the wolves have a map as well?"
"Their nose is their map," Chen replied. "We have left
our scent wherever we have gone and by following it,
they will never make a mistake."
Huo Qingtong pointed at the map. "Look," she said.
"There is the mountain, but there are many roads
marked inside."
"They must be tunnels," he said.
"Yes. Now how do we find them?" She looked at the
explanation on the map and slowly deciphered it. "To
enter the palace, climb the tall tree and call out
"Ailongabasheng" three times towards the sacred
mountain."
"What is Ailongabasheng?" Princess Fragrance asked.
"It must be the password," Huo Qingtong replied. "But
where is the tall tree? And could this really be a
magic spell?"
"Of course it could," said Princess Fragrance, who had
always believed in spirits and fairies.
"In the old days, there would have been people in the
mountain who would have pushed a
switch when they
heard the password, opening a cave entrance," said
Chen. But after so many years, everyone in there is
certainly dead."
The howls of the wolves sounded closer. "Let's go and
hide in one of the houses," Huo Qingtong suggested.
The three turned and ran towards the closest of the
buildings. As they ran, Chen tripped on a bulge on the
ground and saw it was the stump of a huge tree. "The
tree's here!" he called.
Princess Fragrance examined the sheer face of the
mountain above and pointed. "That must be the cave
mouth there. Look, aren't those footholds?" Chen and
Huo Qingtong looked up and saw with delight that there
were indeed notches in the rock face.
"I'll go up and have a look," said Chen. With the
dagger in his right hand, he bounded up the cliff. He
made it up about a dozen feet then used his Inner
Strength Kung Fu to lodge the
dagger in the rock face
for an instant and race up further. Finally, he
reached the point where the footholds began. The two
girls cheered from below, and Chen waved to them
before turning his attention to the cliff above. Over
the years, the cave mouth had become blocked by sand.
Chen grabbed an outcrop of jade rock with one hand and
started to shift some of the sand with the
dagger. He
pulled broken slabs of rock out one after another, and
let them drop to the ground, and in a short while had
made a hole large enough to
wriggle through. He
crawled in and sat down. Then, pulling his Pearl
Strings from his pocket, he undid them all, tied them
together end to end and dangled the resulting rope
down the cliff face to the girls waiting below.
Huo Qingtong tied the rope round her sister's waist
and Chen slowly pulled her up. Just as she reached the
cave mouth, she screamed, and Chen quickly helped her
inside,
saying: "Don't worry, you've made it."
Her face was deathly pale. "Wolves!" she cried.
Chen looked down and saw seven or eight wolves had
already arrived at the base of the cliff. Huo Qingtong
was
valiantly fighting them off with her sword. The
white horse shook its mane and neighed loudly then
galloped off through the streets of the ancient city.
Chen hastily grabbed some large rocks from around the
cave mouth and threw them down, forcing some of the
wolves to back away, then dropped the rope down again.
Huo Qingtong was afraid that in her weak condition,
she would be unable to hold on long enough, so she
transferred the sword to her left hand, and tied the
rope round her waist as she continued to fight off the
wolves.
"Right!" she yelled. Chen yanked on the rope and she
flew into the air just as two wolves threw themselves
at her. One of them bit deeply into her boot and
refused to let go. As Princess Fragrance screamed in
fright, Huo Qingtong bent over in mid-air and chopped
it in half across its belly. The top half of its body
accompanied her up to the cave mouth.
Chen helped her inside and tried unsuccessfully to
pull the half-wolf off her boot.
"Did it bite into you?" he asked quickly.
"I'm all right," she replied. She took the
dagger from
his hand and cut open the wolf's mouth, revealing the
serried ranks of teeth sunk deep into her boot. A
small
trickle of blood oozed out of one of the holes
in the leather.
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