A Bond Undone Read online

  “You think my father is a martial master?”

  “He is certainly formidable, but perhaps not quite the greatest in the world.”

  “You must be the greatest, then.”

  “Not necessarily. It was years ago, now, when the five of us sparred at the summit of Mount Hua. We fought for seven days and seven nights, and, in the end, we all had to admit that Central Divinity was foremost among us.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Didn’t your father tell you about him?”

  “He only told me a little. Whenever I pressed him for more, he’d say that the martial world was full of ill dealings not fit for a girl’s ears, and then he’d clam up. He rarely spoke to me about the wulin, and then one day he shouted at me to be gone, so I ran away . . .” Lotus trailed off and lowered her head, once again upset by the memory of her last encounter with her father.

  “That old monster.”

  “Hey, he’s still my papa!”

  Count Seven chuckled. “It’s a shame no nice girl wanted to marry me, because I’m a beggar. If I had a good daughter like you, I’d never throw her out.”

  “That’s for sure; otherwise, who’d cook for you?”

  “That’s true.” He sighed, suddenly lamenting that he had no-one in his life to help him satisfy the epicure within. After a pause, he resumed his tale. “Central Divinity was the founder of the Quanzhen Sect. His name was Double Sun Wang Chongyang. It’s hard to say who is the greatest, now he’s gone.”

  “I knew three Quanzhen monks: a Qiu, a Wang and a Ma. Useless old cow muzzles! They’re utter shams. They all got poisoned after a couple of moves.”

  “Really? They’re Wang Chongyang’s disciples. I’ve heard that Qiu Chuji is the strongest martially, but I doubt any of them could match their martial uncle, Zhou Botong.”

  “Elder Ma did speak of a martial uncle once, but he never mentioned the Venerable Elder’s title,” Guo Jing said.

  Neither Count Seven nor Guo Jing had noticed Lotus’s reaction to the name Zhou Botong. She was about to speak, but then thought better of it.

  “He hasn’t got a title, because he’s not a monk! Heavens, you are a fool, aren’t you? I bet your genius of a father-in-law isn’t keen on you.” Count Seven Hong’s jibes reduced Guo Jing to tongue-tied splutters. It had never crossed the young man’s mind who his father-in-law might turn out to be, and he knew he had better keep his mouth shut for now.

  “Papa hasn’t met him yet. But, if you’d give him some guidance, I’m sure Papa will like him,” Lotus said, before adding coyly, “As a courtesy to you.”

  “You can’t sweet-talk me into teaching your stupid husband anything! Only you would treat this dullard like some treasure! Trying to lick my boots to get your way!” The beggar was just warming up. “Let me be clear. I don’t take on students, and who wants to teach such a dumb lad? You little knave! You haven’t picked up one-tenth of your father’s kung fu, but you’ve inherited every drop of his connivance.”

  Lotus blushed and lowered her head, embarrassed to see her ploy exposed so easily. She had not expected the glutton to be this sharp and she did not like being lectured, so she walked away.

  She had never been that interested in kung fu training; she had not even bothered to learn much from her own father, so why would she be interested in the martial tricks of this beggar? She had been thinking of Guo Jing. She was angry his shifus had called her a she-demon and it had upset her to see him cowering before the Freaks and those smelly monks, like a mouse among cats. She had thought, perhaps, Count Seven Hong could toughen him up by teaching him some new martial skills.

  “He’s quite a character,” Guo Jing said when he caught up with her.

  Lotus heard the rustle of leaves overhead. Count Seven must have skimmed around the woods and hidden himself up a tree to eavesdrop on us, she thought. She answered Guo Jing, projecting her voice more than usual. “He’s a good man. His kung fu is much stronger than Papa’s.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Papa told me. He said the only person that could overpower him was the Divine Vagrant Nine Fingers, Count Seven Hong. He said that he much desired another chance to spar with Master Hong, but it was impossible to track him down.”

  Count Seven Hong suspected they had been sent by Apothecary Huang to steal his martial secrets, but he could not help but feel a little pleased with himself at the news that the Heretic regarded his skills so highly. He had no idea Lotus was making it all up.

  “I’ve barely scratched the surface of Papa’s kung fu,” Lotus continued. “You know me: anything to avoid hard work. I’m sure if Master Hong gave me some pointers, it would be even better than being taught by Papa. I feel so bad that I upset him.”

  She started to weep. It was all an act, at first, but soon her mind drifted to her mother’s early death and the estrangement from her father, and all at once she found that she was really crying. Guo Jing’s attempt to comfort her only made the tears flow faster.

  “I remember Papa once said that . . .” Lotus choked out the words between sobs. “That Master Hong has gained incomparable kung fu skills . . . on a level unheard of before or since . . . and that even Wang Chongyang of the Quanzhen Sect was wary of him. His speciality is called . . . It’s called . . . It’s on the tip of my tongue. Anyway, I was going to beg him to teach you it . . .”

  Lotus was making everything up. She assumed that Count Seven Hong would have such a particular martial move in his repertoire.

  The beggar could not stand it any longer and jumped down. “It’s called the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms!”

  Startled, the young couple stumbled back a few steps.

  Guo Jing was genuinely surprised, while Lotus continued to spin her tale. “Count Seven, how did you end up in that tree? I can’t believe I’ve forgotten the name of your kung fu. Papa always talks about it! It’s the martial technique he admires the most.”

  “I thought your papa considered himself the greatest, now that Wang Chongyang is dead, but I guess even he has to speak the truth from time to time!” Count Seven said gleefully, before turning to Guo Jing. “Your kung fu foundations are as good as the girl’s; you lose out when it comes to technique. Lass, go back to the inn.”

  Now that everything was going according to plan, Lotus left the two men, with a spring in her step.

  2

  “KNEEL!” COUNT SEVEN POINTED TO THE GROUND. “SWEAR you’ll never teach anyone anything I’ve taught you, without my permission. And that includes your clever little wife.”

  Guo Jing knew he could deny Lotus nothing she asked of him, so he said, “Count Seven, I don’t think I should learn from you.”

  “Why?” Such a refusal was a first.

  “I would be doing you wrong if I taught her at her request, but I’d be doing her wrong if I refused.”

  “You may be slow, but your head’s screwed on right.” The beggar chuckled in approval. “I’ll teach you one move: Haughty Dragon Repents. Anyway, I doubt Apothecary Huang would come down from his high horse for long enough to learn from you. The foundations of our kung fu are polar opposites: I could never master his and he could never master my palm strikes.”

  Count Seven Hong bent slightly from the left knee and raised his right arm, keeping it a little crooked at the elbow. He drew a circle with the right palm, exhaled and thrust it forward. His hand swept in the direction of a nearby pine tree. The trunk snapped with a loud crack.

  Guo Jing was amazed by the force contained within this one simple movement of the arm.

  “The tree can’t move, but people can. The key is to make sure your opponent has nowhere to turn, no way to block. Then, one little push. Crack! They will snap like the tree.”

  The beggar repeated the movement twice before explaining patiently the breathing techniques vital to summoning internal strength, how to convert this strength into the external force of the palm thrust, and how to initiate and conclude the move. He stressed that the key to it, and its
most difficult aspect, was not the expulsion of energy, but its retrieval.

  Guo Jing was not a quick learner, but the simplicity of the movement suited his character, and his solid foundation in neigong inner strength was of great help. After about four hours, he began to grasp the basics.

  “Your lass fights mostly with feints. You can never guess whether the next move is real or not. And you can’t win if you’re running blindly after her. She’ll always be faster. The only way is to ignore whatever she’s doing. Every move that comes your way – feint or real – you answer with a Haughty Dragon Repents. She’ll see its power and she’ll have to drop her charade.”

  “And then?”

  “You think she can block it?”

  “I don’t want to hurt her!”

  Count Seven rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Do you know why this kung fu is so special? Because it doesn’t just blunder forward, it can be pulled back. It can be a blow or a caress!”

  Guo Jing made a mental note not to show Lotus the move until he had mastered how to pull it back.

  “If you don’t believe me, try it yourself!”

  Guo Jing picked the smallest tree and settled into the starting stance. Exhaling, he pushed. The tree began to shake a little.

  “Why are you shaking the tree? Are you trying to catch squirrels? Pick pine cones?”

  Guo Jing blushed and laughed nervously at Count Seven’s frustration.

  “I told you already, you need to make sure your opponent has nowhere to turn, no way to block. It’s not that your thrust was weak, but it shook the tree and that took the sting out of your attack. Work on how to hit the tree without it shaking, then practise how to snap the trunk.”

  “So, I have to do it so quickly and suddenly that my opponent has no time to react,” Guo Jing said out loud to himself, in a moment of epiphany.

  “Obviously! You’ve been sweating over the move for half a day and you only just realised? You really haven’t got much in there, have you?” Count Seven tapped the side of his skull in exasperation. “Remember the name: Haughty Dragon Repents. The essence of the move is not about being ‘haughty’, it’s in the ‘repent’. Anyone with a few muscles can muster up fast, brute force. Do you think that’s enough to win Apothecary Huang’s approval?

  “‘The haughty dragon repents, what waxes must wane.’ Propel and withdraw. For each palm thrust you launch, you must have at least twice the strength reserved in your body. When you understand what ‘repent’ means in action, then you will have grasped about a third of what this move is about. It’s like a vintage wine: smooth on the palette, a powerful kick at the end. This is ‘repent’.

  “It’s the same with everything in this world: once at the peak, the only way forward is down. Dragon-Subduing Palm is rooted in the I’Ching: ‘From prosperity’s peak, adversity grows; from adversity’s trough, prosperity climbs.’ That’s the theory underlying Haughty Dragon Repents. You reserve your strength for the descent, before you even reach the climax. That is why it is a technique that can never be defeated. How often do you hear that? Even if you lose, it’s no big deal, because you’ve got plenty of power left in reserve.”

  Seeing confusion etched on Guo Jing’s face, Count Seven Hong changed tack. “When I first started, I thought, if I put more energy into the thrust, surely it would make it better, so I channelled more and more strength into it. Suddenly, my shifu slapped me very hard in the face and said, ‘The spirit of this move is the exact opposite of a bull running into a wall. You may be able to summon a force of tens of thousands of jin in one move, but you will always reach your limit. A skilled opponent will attack you the moment your strength is drained. Then all it takes is a nudge to overpower you.’

  “Haughty Dragon Repents is the cornerstone of the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms. If you master this, the rest will come naturally. The character ‘haughty’, here, means fearsome, mighty, spirited. A dragon soaring high in the sky. Fangs and claws glistening. It can’t possibly be more frightening, more majestic. And therefore, from this point, it can only dwindle, slow down, fall.

  “The character ‘repent’ is a reminder of the saying, ‘After might and hardiness, decline and weakness come.’ A ship sailing at full speed, say. It may be fast, but it’s also at its most vulnerable should it collide.

  “I’m teaching you this because I can see that you are honest and loyal, I can tell you always put others first. This is not a move used to intimidate or subjugate, but rather to get you out of a tight corner, to save yourself.”

  “I don’t want to kill anybody, but I would like to avoid getting killed!” Guo Jing said.

  “Good lad.” The beggar patted the young man on the shoulder. “You may not be the smartest, but your temperament is perfect for my kung fu. As you have no desire to hurt or kill, you will always hold something back when you channel your strength. This is what ‘repent’ means, and this is also why, the stronger the enemy, the stronger you will become, to the point where you can even subdue dragons, the strongest opponents of all. This kung fu can also be called Tiger Taming Palm, because the rationale behind it is the same. The hardest part is to find the balance between propelling and reserving. You can’t hold back everything. There has to be something behind your strike.”

  Hong continued his explanation, but he doubted Guo Jing was grasping much of what he was saying. It took him years, after all.

  “The theory behind this kung fu extends to how we live our lives. In our actions and our dealings, we should always leave room to turn, to retreat. You probably can’t understand it fully, right now. That’s fine. Just learn these passages. Their meaning will come to you eventually.

  “The first one: ‘Perceive before the heavens, and the skies shall not intervene; conceive after the heavens, and the celestial times will decide.’

  “The second one: ‘Haughty knows only of advance but not retreat, of existence but not demise, of gain but not loss. Is this the basis of a sage? Knowing when to advance, retreat, persist and desist, to be simultaneously upstanding and unerring – is that not the basis of a sage?’ ”

  Count Seven Hong recited the passages slowly. When Guo Jing had memorised them, the older man said, “My clan’s martial interpretation is different from Taoist understanding of these phrases. Laozi wrote, ‘A master of warcraft once said, “I would rather lead a defence than launch an attack, I would rather retreat a foot than advance an inch.” ’ Taoist martial arts suggest a practitioner should first guard and protect, not attack. They believe in using suppleness to overcome firmness and toughness.

  “Whereas, my clan, we adapt, we become firm or supple as the situation requires. It is about noting an opponent’s flaws before they are revealed through the moves. Haughty Dragon Repents should be aimed at the cracks that are about to surface. If your opponent has already shown their weaknesses, then you must exploit their vulnerability.

  “And when you launch a move, you don’t just think about attacking, you must also keep your retreat in mind. You may be alive now, but you could be dead within moments. You must never forget that, though this one move may win you the fight, it can also cost you everything. We all want to come out on top, but losing is not the real catastrophe.

  “After all, Haughty Dragon Repents will make sure you never end up screaming ‘Mercy!’ as someone pins you down and punches you in the face.”

  Guo Jing committed Count Seven’s words to memory, without understanding much. He had always learned kung fu this way, cramming what he had been told into his head without questioning its purpose or meaning. He also knew that what would take an average person one morning to learn would take him ten days.

  When he tried the move again, he paid special attention to reserving and retrieving his strength. The pine tree continued to sway after his first dozen palm thrusts, but, as he gained more control of his energy, the trunk only quivered. His palm was now red and swollen, especially along the sides, but he was not one to be deterred by a little pain.

&
nbsp; Meanwhile, the tedium had put Count Seven Hong to sleep. The beggar was lying on the forest floor, snoring loudly.

  Guo Jing drew a deep breath into the Elixir Field in his lower abdomen, thrust his hand forward then pulled back his strength immediately. He could feel the reserved energy in his body. Nothing happened. The tree did not move. He repeated the movement, keeping the force focused on the edge of his palm.

  Crack! The tree fell.

  “Wow!” Lotus Huang had appeared with a tiffin on her arm.

  “Hmm . . . Delicious!” Count Seven Hong sniffed theatrically before he had even opened his eyes. He leapt up, snatched the food box and ripped off the lid, exclaiming with joy at the contents: smoked frogs’ legs, eight-treasures duck and silver-thread rolls. His hands shuttled back and forth between the carrier and his mouth, making grunts of pleasure and praise as he swallowed the delicious meal. By the time he remembered Guo Jing, nothing but a pile of chewed bones remained.

  “The rolls are delicious . . . Even better than the duck!” he said sheepishly.

  “You haven’t tried my best dishes yet,” Lotus said.

  “Tell me more!”

  “There are too many to name. Stir-fried pak choi, steamed tofu, egg stew, slow-cooked white radishes, sliced belly of pork . . .”

  Any connoisseur knows that it is only through the simplest dish that a chef’s true skill is revealed. The same goes for the martial arts – a true master can perform magic in the most ordinary move. The dishes Lotus named were enough to make the glutton hungry again. “I’ll get the ingredients for you right now. I’ve always said this lass is my favourite person.”

  Lotus chuckled at Count Seven’s eagerness. “It’s alright – you don’t know what I need, anyway.”

  “Of course, of course,” he said humbly.

  Lotus went over to examine the tree Guo Jing had snapped in two. “I saw him break it with just a thrust of his palm. He’s much too strong for me now.”

  “He will need a lot more practice. The trunk should break neatly. Look how it’s all bent and splintered. This tree is tiny. Like a chopstick. No. More like a toothpick. He’s still got a long way to go.”