It was a hot summer's day in June, l754, the
eighteenth year of the reign of Emperor Qian Long. In
the inner
courtyard of the military commander's Yamen
in Fufeng in Shaanxi province, a fourteen-year-old
girl skipped towards her teacher's study, eager for a
history lesson. All was peaceful: not even a thread of
cool wind stirred. The girl hesitated, afraid that her
teacher had not yet woken from his afternoon nap.
Quietly, she circled round to the window, pierced a
hole in its paper covering with one of her golden hair
clips, and peeped inside.
She saw her teacher sitting cross-legged on a chair,
smiling. His right hand waved slightly in the air, and
there was a faint clicking sound. Glancing over to
where the sound came from, she noticed several dozen
flies on a wooden
partition opposite, all as still as
could be. Puzzled, she looked more closely and noticed
a golden needle as slender as a hair protruding from
the back of each fly. The needles were so small that
she was only able to see them because they reflected
the rays of the late afternoon sun slanting in through
the windows.
Flies were still buzzing to and fro around the room.
The teacher waved his hand again, there was a small
noise, and another fly was pinned to the
partition.
Absolutely fascinated, she ran to the door and burst
in, shouting: "Teacher! Show me how to do that."
The girl was Li Yuanzhi, the only child of the local
military commander, Li Keshou. Her fresh, beautiful
face was flushed with excitement.
"Hmm," said her teacher, a scholar in his mid-fifties
named Lu. "Why aren't you playing with your friends?
You want to hear some more stories, do you?"
Moving a chair over to the
partition, she jumped up to
look, then pulled the needles out of the flies one by
one, wiped them clean on a piece of paper and handed
them back to him. "That was a brilliant piece of kung
fu, teacher," she said. "You have to show me how to do
it."
Lu smiled. "If you want to learn kung fu, there's
no-one better at it within a hundred miles of here
than your own father," he said.
"My father knows how to shoot an eagle with an arrow,
but he can't kill a fly with a needle. If you don't
believe me, I'll go and ask him."
Lu thought for a moment, and then nodded. "All right,
come tomorrow morning and I'll teach you. Now go off
and play. And you're not allowed to tell anyone about
me killing the flies. If anyone finds out, I won't
teach you."
Yuanzhi was overjoyed. She knelt before him and
kowtowed eight times. Lu accepted the gesture with a
smile. "You pick things up very quickly. It is fitting
that I should teach you this kind of kung fu. However
..." He stopped, deep in thought.
"Teacher," said Yuanzhi
hurriedly. "I will do anything
you say."
"To be honest, I don't agree with much of what your
father does," he said. "When you're older, I hope you
will be able to distinguish between right and wrong,
good and evil. If you accept me as your teacher, you
must also accept the
strict rules of the Wudang
Martial Arts Order to which I belong. Do you think you
can?"
"I would not dare defy your orders," she said.
"If you ever use the skills I teach you to do evil, I
will take your life as easily as turning my hand
over."
His face and voice became stern and hard, and for a
moment Yuanzhi was frightened. But then she smiled.
"I'll be good," she said. "Anyway, how could you bear
to kill me?"
** 2 **
The Wudang kung fu sect to which Lu belonged, one of
the most famous, stressed the use of Internal Force
Kung Fu. In his prime, Lu had roamed China fighting
for justice, and had become a famous member of the
Dragon Slayer's Society, a secret anti-Manchu
organisation whose power and influence had been
widespread during the reign of Yong Zheng, the former
Emperor. But the society had been rigorously
suppressed, and by the seventh or eighth year of
Emperor Qian Long's reign, it had disintegrated. Lu
fled to the border areas of China. The Manchu court
dispatched men to look for him, but he was
quick-witted and a good
fighter and managed to avoid
capture. Working on the principle that 'small crooks
hide in the wilderness, middling crooks in the city
and big crooks in officialdom', Lu
eventually made his
way to Commander Li's household and set himself up as
a teacher.
From that day, Lu began teaching Yuanzhi the basic
techniques of the Wudang school's kung fu style, known
as Limitless Occult Kung Fu. He taught her control of
her emotions and thoughts, the ten Tapestries and the
thirty-two Long-arm Blows. He trained her to use her
eyes and ears, and showed her the use of hand darts
and other hidden projectiles.
More than two years passed. Yuanzhi, hard-working and
clever, made fast progress. Her father, Commander Li,
was transferred toGansu province as military commander
at Anxi, one of the major towns in the
northwestborder regions, bordering on the great desert of
central Asia. His family, including Lu, went with him.
Another two years passed as Lu taught Yuanzhi the Soft
Cloud sword
technique and the secret of the Golden
Needles. She did as her teacher had ordered, and did
not tell a soul that she was learning kung fu. Every
day she practised by herself in the rear flower
garden. When the young mistress was practising her
kung fu, the maids did not understand what they saw,
and the menservants did not dare to watch too closely.
Commander Li was a capable man, and he advanced
steadily through the ranks of officialdom. In 1759,
the twenty-third year of the Emperor Qian Long's
reign, he
distinguished himself in the battle of Ili,
in which the largest of the tribes in the Muslim areas
was defeated, and received an Imperial decree
promoting him to the post of Commander-in-Chief of
Zhejiang Province in the southeast.
Yuanzhi had been born and raised in the border areas
of the
northwest, and the prospect of travelling to
new and beautiful lands filled her with excitement.
She pressed her teacher to come as well, and Lu, who
had been away from the central areas for a long time,
agreed with pleasure.
Li Keshou went ahead with a small
escort to take up
his post and left his chief-of-staff and 20 soldiers
in charge of his family who were to follow him. The
officer's name was Deng, a
vigorous and
energetic man
in his forties who sported a small moustache.
The entourage consisted of more than a dozen mules and
a few horses. Madame Li sat in a mule-drawn carriage,
but Yuanzhi couldn't bear to be cooped up and insisted
on riding. Since itwould have been
improper for the
daughter of a high official to be seen riding in
public, she changed into boy's clothes which made her
look so
extraordinarily handsome that she refused to
change back into her normal
attire no matter what
anyone said. All Madame Li could do was sigh and let
her daughter do as she pleased.
It was a deep autumn day. Lu rode far behind the group
looking at the passing
scenery as the colours of late
afternoon merged into evening. But there was little to
see around the ancient road except yellow sand,
withered grasses and the occasional crow flying
homewards. A breeze sprang up from the west and Lu
began to recite:
"His body and name scarred by a hundred battles
The general approaches a
bridge across a river
And turns to look back 10,000 miles
At the dead men left behind.
Cold are the waters of the River Yi
And the whistling west wind,
Full of cloaks and crowns like snow.
The hero's song of
lament has not yet ended....."
"The poet Xin Jiaxuan could have been writing of my
own feelings," he thought. "He was much like me when
he wrote it, watching China fall to the barbarian
tribes, with no way of knowing when the old days would
return. No wonder he sang such a sad song."
The entourage crossed the
summit of a hill. Looking at
the darkening sky, the mulemen said that another three
miles would bring them to Twin Pagodas, a large town,
where they planned to spend the night.
Just then, Lu heard the sound of galloping hooves and
saw far in front two magnificent
chestnut horses
racing towards them through a cloud of dust. The two
riders flashed by, one on either side of the line of
mules, and were gone. Lu slapped his horseand caught
up with Yuanzhi.
"Did you get a good look at those two?" he asked in a
low voice.
"Were they bandits?" she replied excitedly. She would
have liked nothing better than for them to be outlaws
bent on
robbery, giving her a chance to display the
skills she had worked so hard to attain over the past
five years.
"It's hard to say," said Lu. "But judging by their
ability in the
martial arts, they wouldn't be ordinary
highwaymen."
"Are they kung fu masters?"
"From the way they ride their horses, I'd say it's
unlikely they are novices."
As the entourage neared the town, two more horsemen
galloped past.
"Mm, this is very strange," mused Lu. The country was
desolate and the evening mist was thickening. He
wondered why anyone would set out on a journey at this
time of day.
Not long after, the muletrain entered the town.
Officer Deng led them to a large inn and Yuanzhi and
her mother were shown to one of the best rooms. Lu was
given a smaller room, and after he had eaten dinner, a
servant lit the
lantern. All was quiet, and he was
about to go to sleep when a dog barked. From far away
he heard the faint sound of galloping horses
approaching and he thought again about the four riders
they had passed on the road.
The clip-clop of horses' hooves came closer and
stopped right in front of the inn. There was a knock
on the front door and Lu heard a servant open it and
say: "You've been riding hard. There's food and drink
prepared for you."
"Go and feed the horses quickly," said a rough voice.
"We must start out again as soon as we've finished
eating."
Lu considered the situation. Groups of men hurrying
northwest, and judging by the way they rode, all of
them experts in the
martial arts. In all his years in
the border areas, he had never seen the like of it. He
slipped quietly out of his room, crossed the
courtyardand went round to the back of the inn.
"All right, you say the Young Helmsman is very young,"
he heard the rough-voiced man say. "Do you think he
will be able to control all the brothers?"
Lu followed the voice and stationed himself underneath
the window.
"He'll have to," he heard the other say. "It was the
old master's wish whether the Young Helmsman likes it
or not."
The man had a deep, sonorous voice, and Lu could tell
his Internal Strength was
profound. Not
daring to make
a hole in the window paper to peep through, he
continued to listen from where he was, breathing as
lightly as he could.
"Of course," the rough-throated one replied. "But we
don't know if the Young Helmsman will be willing to do
it."
"You don't have to worry about that," said the other.
"He'll follow the old master's wishes."
He said the word 'follow' with a peculiar southern
Chinese accent, and Lu's heart jumped. "Where have I
heard that voice before?" he thought. He sifted
through his mind, and finally remembered that it
belonged to his old friend Zhao Banshan, whom he had
known 20 years before in the Dragon Slayers' Society.
Zhao was about 10 years younger than he, but the two
had often trained together, and had a great respect
for each other. Lu had heard no news of him since the
Dragon Slayers' Society had broken up and he was
delighted at chancing upon an old friend in such an
unlikely place. As he was about to call out to Zhao,
the light in the room was suddenly doused and a dart
shot out of the window.
But it was not aimed at Lu. A figure shifted in the
shadows nearby and caught the dart, then stood up,
about to challenge the dart thrower. Lu leapt over and
whispered fiercely: "Don't make a sound! Come with
me." It was Yuanzhi.
No one chased them. Lu pulled Yuanzhi into his room,
and under the light saw an expression of such
eagerness on her face that he was both angry and
amused.
"Yuanzhi, do you know what sort of men they are? What
were you doing
trying to pick a fight with them?" he
asked sternly.
"What were they doing shooting a dart at me?" she
replied defiantly.
"If they aren't outlaws, then they are secret society
men," he said. "One of them I know, and his kung fu
would not be weaker than mine. Travelling through the
night as they are, they must be on very urgent
business. That dart was not meant to injure you, it
was just telling you not to be nosy. If he had really
wanted to hit you, I doubt if you would have been able
to catch it. Now go and sleep."
They heard a door open and the sound of horses' hooves
as the two men galloped away.
The next morning, the muletrain started out again, and
travelled ten miles in just over two hours.
"Look, teacher," said Yuanzhi. "There's someone
coming."
Two
chestnut horses galloped towards them, and because
of theprevious night's incident, they paid particular
attention to the riders. The horses, fine and
spirited, were
identical. Even stranger, the two
riders were also
identical. Both were aged about 40,
tall and thin with faces as yellow as wax,
sunken eyes
and long slanting eyebrows: the effect was
frightening.
As they passed by, the two men glanced at Yuanzhi with
their strange eyes. She reined in her horse and stared
back belligerently, but they took no notice and raced
on westwards.
"Where did that pair of ghosts come from, I wonder,"
she said.
Lu glanced back at the receding figures. "Aha, it must
be them," he cried.
"You recognise them?" she asked excitedly.
"They must be the Twin Knights of Sichuan. Their
surname is Chang, but everyone calls them Black Death
and White Death."
Yuanzhi laughed. "They've got good nicknames. They
look like a couple of skeletons."
"Little girls shouldn't make jokes about other
people," said Lu. "They may be ugly but they are
skilled
fighters. I've never met them, but from what
I've heard, they travel the country fighting evil and
doing justice. They are widely known as outlaws, but
they steal only from the rich and help the poor. They
have made a great name for themselves."
"But if they are
identical, why are they called Black
and White?"
"From what I've been told, the only difference between
them is that one has a black mole in the corner of his
eye, and the other doesn't. There's probably no one
better at Black Sand Palm Kung Fu than those two."
关键字:
书剑恩仇录生词表: