CH 1.5

Chapter 1

Shocking Turn in Peach Blossom Spring

Part 5 (5)

Greatmaster Clear Karma arched his brows, eyes twinkling. “In that case, this old monk will have to go out and fight Qi Yuantong on her behalf.”

Master One Yang smiled. “If you fight Qi Yuantong I trust you won’t lose. The problem is the Heavenly Dragon Gang has strength in numbers, and Sky and Sea Elder Li Canglan really is an outstanding talent recently emerged in the martial world. You’ve probably heard about how he subdued the Four Uglies with his cane! The Four Uglies of Sichuan are tough customers of the Greenwood of the Hubei and Shu regions. Time and again Wudang, Emei, and Qingcheng disciples have tried to surround and annihilate them, and each time failed, and not a few masterhands have been wounded in the process. Li Canglan happened to be passing through western Hubei and unexpectedly ran into the Four Uglies and in the span of one night subdued the four fiends and enlisted them in his Heavenly Dragon Gang. This matter spread through the Central Plains martial world three days ago. Given current developments, the Heavenly Dragons really do seem to be heading toward surpassing the nine schools. If I’m not mistaken, within ten years there will be a huge change in the martial world. Perhaps the elites of each school will be wiped out in this great catastrophe. There’s no need to be anxious about Miss Shen’s vengeance. If she joins Kunlun, us three Kunlun masters naturally won’t just sit by and watch.”

The old monk heaved a long sigh. “I used to be a person beyond the mundane world. But I got tangled up with a grudge related to that girl, and it’s been impossible to extricate myself from it. Looks like cultivating to a point of being beyond emotions is easier said than done. Since I can’t avoid the turmoil of the mundane world, why talk about drifting along beyond it? I’ll go back to Sunshade Monastery and get things in order. Should this old monk die on Mount Kuocang, I mustn’t allow Sunshade Monastery to be without an abbot. In three days I’ll return to Mystic Metropolis and take the opportunity to pass down my final move of my Eighteen Arhats Palm to your student.”

With that, he quickly left, his wide sleeves fluttering, and he was out of the Cinnabar Chamber, and with a great soaring step he took to the air like an enormous bird and was gone.

~*~

Three days later, sure enough Greatmaster Clear Karma came back, only now he had with him a zen staff. For half a month the monk and the Daoist transmitted the Soul Seeker Twelve and the Eighteen Arhat Palm to Yang Menghuan.

The Soul Seeker Twelve was the cream of Kunlun’s moves, so because Shen Xialin had not yet been admitted to the Kunlun School, Master One Yang could not teach it to her.

Miss Shen had learned the Eighteen Arhats Palm long ago, so during this half a month the busiest person was Yang Menghuan. During the day he practiced his palm techniques, at night he practiced the sword. The Soul Seeker Twelve consisted of only twelve moves, but they were unusually complex. When one move was used, the variations of the other eleven moves were contained in that move. In half a month Yang Menghuan just managed to force himself to learn it.

Master One Yang was anxious to hurry on to Mount Kuocang, he didn’t have time to wait for his student to become more proficient. He called Menghuan and Xialin into the Cinnabar Chamber and took out two letters and gave them to Menghuan. “You’ve been with me now for twelve years, it’s high time you take a trip back to see your parents. After your visit there’s no need to come back to Mystic Metropolis looking for me. Take this letter and go to Three Clarities Palace on Gold Crest Peak on Mount Kunlun and deliver it to your two sectuncles for them to read.”

Yang Menghuan received the letters, kowtowed in the Cinnabar Chamber. The favor received from his teacher these past twelve years was as vast as the sea, and now that he was leaving he couldn’t help but get emotional, and tears fell nonstop as he prostrated himself.

Master One Yang laughed and boomed, “In all the world there’s no such thing as a banquet that doesn’t end. Where’s your manliness, blubbering on like that. Get up!”

Yang Menghuan could only rise and stand quietly to the side with his hands at his side.

Greatmaster Clear Karma stroked Xialin’s hair and said, “Your Senior Sectuncle Master One Yang sympathizes with your plight as an orphan and has permitted you to join the Kunlun School. Once you get to Gold Crest Peak and pay your respects to your teacher, you must practice your martial arts diligently.”

After saying this, his merciful brow knit slightly, a dejected look on his face.

Shen Xialin was surprised to hear this and tears gushed out of her big round eyes. “What, Shifu isn’t going with Lin’er?”

Greatmaster Clear Karma forced a smile. “It’s your great good fortune to be able to join Kunlun, how can a big kid like you not understand the world at all?”

Xialin asked, “So then, Lin’er is going to Mount Kunlun alone?”

Master One Yang smiled and cut in, “You’re going with your Senior Sectbrother Yang!”

A smile broke out on her face when the young girl heard she was going with Menghuan, and she stood to the side and said no more.

Master One Yang took a small white cloth bundle from Greatmaster Clear Karma and handed it to Menghuan. “You must take very good care of this and deliver it to your Third Sectuncle.”

Yang Menghuan put it in his robe and Master One Yang once again instructed, “Once you get home you can stay there for a month, then hurry on to Three Clarities Palace on Gold Crest Peak on Mount Kunlun. Along the way, make sure you take good care of your Junior Sectsister Shen.”

Yang Menghuan bowed in response, and Master One Yang urged the two of them to get going at once, and they left Mystic Metropolis that very morning.

Not long after Yang Menghuan and Shen Xialin left, Master One Yang called the Daoists in the abbey to the Cinnabar Chamber. Mystic Metropolis was large, but it wasn’t very popular with people coming to burn incense. Aside from the peach blossom blooming season and the occasional random traveler, there were rarely any visitors here. Aside from Master One Yang and Yang Menghuan, there were only four or five Daoist attendants doing odd jobs. The abbot explained things to the attendants, then he and Greatmaster Clear Karma flitted out, heading straight for Mount Kuocang in southern Zhejiang.

~*~

Now let’s turn to Yang Menghuan and Shen Xialin, who bid farewell to Master One Yang and Greatmaster Clear Karma and left Mystic Metropolis and took a skiff down the Yuan River. The river here was narrow and its current swift and the skiff shot like an arrow, Yang Menghuan sitting in the back manning the helm, looking down at the peach blossoms drifting along on the waves. Shen Xialin stood beside him looking back at the gradually receding grove of myriad peach trees, a smile on her face, though her eyes were drowned in tears. It was like she was infinitely happy but also infinitely sad.

Till they reached Jian Family Creek and Mystic Metropolis was completely gone from sight. Only then did she slowly turn and look at Yang Menghuan and ask, “Senior Brother Yang, have you been to Mount Kunlun before?”

Yang Menghuan shook his head. “These past twelve years I haven’t left Mystic Metropolis except for twice when Shifu took me back home to see my parents.”

Shen Xialin murmured in response and sat close to him. “Before I was old enough to remember anything I was taken by my sectfather to Sunshade Monastery. All these years I haven’t been anywhere besides Sunshade Monastery and Mystic Metropolis Abbey. And Shifu would never tell me about my family. I think my parents didn’t want me, otherwise why have they never come to see their own daughter all these years?”

She looked up and watched the leisurely white clouds and two lines of tears streamed down her face.

The boat was like a galloping horse, the strong wind brushing against their faces. Miss Shen’s faint scene assailed Yang Menghuan, and he had all sorts of feelings welling up in his mind facing this beautiful jade person. He couldn’t help but be moved by the pained look on her face. He really wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t know what to say, so for a while he just sat there saying nothing.

Shen Xialin slowly looked down and saw Yang Menghuan staring blankly and she was startled. She hurriedly said, “Senior Brother Yang! Did I say something wrong?”

Yang Menghuan was taken aback, then he chuckled and said, “No.”

Xialin asked, “Then why are you just sitting there lost in a daze?”

Menghuan said, “I wanted to make you feel better, but I don’t know what to say.”

Xialin smiled winsomely, the melancholy gone from her face. She wiped her tears with her sleeve and reached out and took the helm. “How about you take a break and let me handle the helm?”

Yang Menghuan couldn’t bear to reject her good intentions and gave way.

It was rapidly approaching dusk when they reached Dongting Lake and saw a multitude of sails among the vast misty waters. There were fishing boats anchored in the middle of the lake, wisps of kitchen smoke rising and curling among the rosy sunset clouds, fisher girls walking around barefoot in cotton clothes, sitting on the bows of the boats mending nets and talking and laughing. Shen Xialin had never seen such a sight and she was enraptured. Her jade wrist worked the scull and they wound through the thickest clump of fishing boats. She looked at them and their eyes too were fixed on her, wondering how a young gentle beauty like her had such arm strength. the scull split the waves and they were flying. When Miss Shen was little she was taken by Greatmaster Clear Karma to Sunshade Monastery and rarely had contact with others, so her heart was as pure as jade. Even though a myriad eyes were on her she was not the least bit afraid and continued sculling through the water, winding through the fishing boats and away.

Suddenly, two shuttle-shaped skiffs sailed rapidly toward them from the left and right, heading straight for Shen Xialin and Yang Menghuan’s little boat. The young miss had just been playing happily and was taken by surprise, the skiff on the right about to collide with their boat. Yang Menghuan shot his right arm out and connected with the charging skiff. He inwardly concentrated his perfected force and with a block and a deflection the shuttle-shaped skiff was knocked away by the force and spun off to the side. Shen Xialin was on the alert now and her right wrist forcefully worked the scull, churning up a spray of water and the little boat surged up eight spans and split a line through the water to avoid the skiff on the left. She heard someone sneer on the skiff and it cleaved the waves and swiftly and left.

Shen Xialin watched the skiffs leaving and became more and more angry. She turned the bow around wanting to give chase, but Yang Menghuan said softly, “Forget about it, their boars are fast, we’d never catch up to them.”

Shen Xialin, at a loss, asked, “We didn’t do anything to them, why did they want to bully us like that?”

The question left Yang Menghuan staring wide-eyed, unable to answer. Why? He didn’t know himself. After a moment of stupor he said, “I’ve often heard Shifu say that there’s nothing too bizarre for the jianghu. This was nothing, let’s get going!”

Xialin nodded with a smile and hung up the sail. “Big Brother Huan, where are we going?”

Yang Menghuan felt awkward with the way she was becoming more and more intimate with how she called him, Senior Brother Yang now cut straight to Big Brother Huan. He thought, She seems to be getting more and more affectionate toward me. Shifu told me to take good care of her, with some strong implications in his words. This young junior sectsister has always been so spoiled and unruly, not even afraid of her sectfather Greatmaster Clear Karma, yet she’s always accommodating to me, never disobeying me in the slightest. But I have another lover in my heart, I will certainly let her down in her deep affection for me… Thinking this, he looked up to see Xialin staring at him, boundless affection within those pretty eyes, and he felt a wave of sadness and said softly, “Head east. If the wind is good tonight, we’ll reach home tomorrow.”

Shen Xialin turned the helm and hoisted the sail, and the little boat cleaved the waves eastward. She sat next to Menghuan, frowning. “Big Brother Huan, who all’s in your family? I wonder if your mom will like me? Since I was little I’ve never had any parents to discipline me and have become an unruly girl.”