Chapter 7: 7

The Marquis of Wu Ancestral Temple was a famous historic site in Shu; there were many poems by famous people written on its walls. Zhou Chun browsed the walls and ended up at River Overlook Loft where he ordered wine and a dew dishes and ate by himself. He suddenly heard something coming from the stairs and up walked a person made up like a warrior in an opera. He was really handsome, though he had a dishonest look about him. He wore a blue satin warrior’s cap with a tottering pith-paper1 pink peony stuck in it. He sat alone and ordered wine and food and stared downstairs.

Zhou Chun watched him for a bit, curious, then he too looked down. There was a large boat moored by the riverbank, and there were many women on board, one of them quite pretty who was disembarking to get into a sedan chair. The warrior young master saw this and quickly threw down an ingot of silver to pay his bill, then hurried down the stairs.

Seeing that this person was up to no good, Zhou Chun paid his bill as well and followed him. Suddenly he saw a Daoist with a big red bottle gourd on his back walking slowly up ahead. He took a closer look and it was the Drunk Daoist that he had met that day on Mount. Emei. He wanted to go after that lecher, but it was not easy to run into that extraordinary person, how could he pass up this opportunity? But to give up his pursuit would be too selfish and not becoming of righteous chivalry. As he was hesitating, the the famous fleet-footed Chengdu sedan chair bearers had already run off somewhere and were nowhere to be seen, and the warrior young master was gone as well. He had no choice but to secretly follow the Daoist.

It seemed like the Daoist hadn’t yet noticed he was being followed and just continued on slowly. Zhou Chun was inwardly delighted and figured he wouldn’t lose this chance so easily this time, so he kept a close tail on the Daoist. The Daoist was just walking out in the open countryside, but no matter how fast Zhou Chun chased him, he could get no closer than ten or twelve staves away. Then Zhou Chun got anxious and blurted out, “Daoist sir up ahead, please wait up a moment, your disciple has something to say.” Who would have guessed that when the Daoist heard his shout he sped up, and even with Zhou Chun’s lightness skill he couldn’t catch up, and in the blink of an eye the Daoist was gone without a trace.

Zhou Chun knew the Daoist was unwilling to meet with him and could only hang his head in dejection and go back to the inn. At the beat of the first watch, he was getting ready to turn in for the night when a gentle breeze blew by and a strip of paper appeared on his previously bare table. Zhou Chun leapt up and went out. All was silent, all he saw was the stars in the sky. Far off down a long alley, the faint bark of a dog. He went back to his room and looked at the paper. There were three words written on it in large characters: Shi Family Lane. It was written in vigorous, flowing script. The handwriting looked really familiar, like he’d seen it somewhere before, but he just couldn’t think of where. He thought, “Shi Family Lane is full of wealthy families, what does it have to do with me?” He really didn’t get it. Then he thought, “Did something maybe happen there, and the person who sent the note is having trouble dealing with it on their own and so wants to ask me to come help? In any case, I’ll just go there and see.” And so he took up his weapon he always had with him and shut the door tight and leapt out and up through the window and scurried across the rooftops. Suddenly he saw a black figure sprinting ahead of him, but by the time he reached Shi Family Lane it was gone.

Zhou Chun thought, “Shi Family Lane is very long, which house am I supposed to go to? Whatever.” He went to the first house, but it was dead quiet. He went to the third house, a large compound, and he suddenly saw lamplight coming from the second floor. He quickly leapt up to take a look. He peered through the window and his hair bristled with anger. Turns out there was an extremely beautiful woman in there stripped naked and tied down to a spring bench.2 She was passed out. The warrior young master he had seen earlier that day was loosening his robe, getting ready to rape the woman. Zhou Chun couldn’t help but blurt out. “You lecher! Trying to rape a woman from a respectable family. Get out here and meet your death!”

The villain heard this and said, “Who’s that who’s got the guts to spoil his old man’s3 wonderful fun?” With that, he blew out the lamp and opened the door and threw a chair out. Zhou Chun knocked it to the side with his sword and was waiting for him to come out and fight when he heard a gust a wind approach the back of his head and knew that someone was ambushing him. Instead of turning around, he tilted away and shot forward and away. The villain followed with a chop of his sabre, which Zhou Chun quickly blocked and countered. This villain was really crafty. He had thrown the chair out, but then jumped through a window to and came around from behind to get the drop on Zhou Chun. If Zhou Chun hadn’t been so experienced facing tough enemies, he would have been a goner.

Zhou Chun and the villain fought a dozen rounds. He felt this villain’s movement and sabreplay was really familiar. He shouted, “Lecher, what school are you from? What’s your name? State your name and meet death. I, Soaring Crane Among the Clouds, will not put nameless devils to death under my sword.”

When the villain heard this he couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “Are you Zhou the Third? My master figured you wouldn’t come to Chengdu, but who would have thought you’d actually turn up to seek death. Your old man here is Eight Fingers Marvelous Conduit of Zen—the disciple of whom layman call Many-Armed Bear Mao Tai. Now I’m called the Shadowless Divinewalker Pink Peony Zhang Liang.”

Zhou Chun was scared to learn he had run into his enemy and was afraid Mao Tai would come forth to help. He would be no match for them then, so he put to use his most consummate skills putting his whole body into it, sword blossoms4 dancing in a circle, binding the villain up tight. Zhang Liang’s martial arts was strong, but in the end he was no match for Zhou Chun. But the house’s owner, surnamed Wang, was also a martial artist. Startled by the sound of fighting, he first saw two people fighting and figured one of them must be a good guy, but he couldn’t tell who was good and who was bad. He just held the door tightly and didn’t dare step forward to come help. Till he heard the villain state his name, then he knew who was who, and he led his servants out to come help.

The villain realized he was at a dead end and leapt into the air and up onto the wall. Zhou Chun said, “Where are you going?” He flew after him with his sword and with one stroke cut the villains feet off, who fell headlong and crashed in terrible pain. A crowd converged and trussed him up and invited Zhou Chun inside to have a seat to thank him for coming to the rescue.

Zhou Chun said, “Although the villain has been captured, you all mustn’t let word get out. He has a teacher called Mao Tai who has already become a sword transcendent. If he finds out, your whole family’s lives will be in danger.”

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The man of the house was called Wang Chengxiu. He was shocked by what Zhou Chun said and asked Zhou Chun to help. Zhou Chun said, “I’m no match for him. Just have to make sure he doesn’t know about this; in a few days someone will arrive to take care of him. So for now you all mustn’t say anything about this. Tomorrow morning, take this person and stuff him in a leather trunk and quietly turn him into the authorities and have him locked up and wait for Mao Tai to be captured, then they can deal with him. Me staying around here won’t help, it will just make things worse.” Wang Chengxiu knew he couldn’t keep him and so just did as Zhou Chun instructed. But no more of this.

Zhou Chun followed the original road and quietly went back to the inn. Because of this righteous act on his part he had inadvertently deepened his enmity with Mao Tai. He knew full well that Drunk Daoist with the bottle gourd would be a big help, but he had unfortunately narrowly missed his opportunity. The next day he ate lunch at the inn and went into the city for a stroll and to ask around about where Drunk Daoist lived. For several days he did this but saw no trace of him.

One day on a stroll outside the city, he walked into a forest and suddenly saw through the foliage the corner of a whitewashed wall and knew it was a temple. Zhou Chun was getting thirsty about now and headed over to the temple gates to visit enter the temple and ask for a drink of water. When he got close to the temple he suddenly heard the tinkling of harness bells and saw a cloud of dust kicked up on the main road. It was a dozen or so riders galloping toward the temple gates. Zhou Chun was a careful person and hid off to the side. There were thirteen or fourteen of them, one dressed as a Daoist the others in layman’s clothes, all of them looking very fiendish. Each of them shouldered a bundle that seemed to contain a weapon.

At first the temple doors were shut tight as the group made their way over. The leader was a tall man and after three cracks of his whip on the doors they were soon opened. The dozen or so riders and their horses went in without another word. After they’d gone in, the doors were shut tight again and all was quiet. Zhou Chun knew they were no-gooders, but the temple was not far from the city, so it probably wasn’t harboring bandits. Wanting to get to the bottom of it, he went up to the doors. The temple was mighty and impressively built, and the plaque above the gates read “Built by Imperial Decree Cloud of Compassion Zen Temple” in large gold characters.

Zhou Chun thought, “I’ve long heard that Cloud of Compassion is a famous monastery in Chengdu, and its abbot Penetrating Wisdom maintains strict discipline, and its monks follow monastic rules very well, so how can they have dealings with bandits? Even if they’re just pilgrims passing by, something seems not right.” He was just thinking to pretend like he was going to the temple to look around so he could get to the bottom of things when there was a plop and a clump of dirt landed on Zhou Chun’s face, startling him. He hurriedly looked around, but not only was there no one around, there wasn’t even so much as a bird, so he had no idea where the dirt had come from. Though he was really surprised, in the end his curiosity won out, and he plucked up his courage from being a highly-skilled adept and still went up to go knock on the door. As soon as he raised his hand he felt a gust of wind at the back of his head.

Zhou Chun wasn’t careless this time like he had been earlier and quickly ducked. Another clump of dirt plopped on the ground. He hurriedly looked over to where the dirt had come from and saw a figure standing about twenty or so staves away. In a flash the figure zipped into the woods and was gone. Curious, he dropped the idea of entering the temple and sped into the woods in pursuit, ready to search for that person and ask why the person had played pranks on him so uncalled-for like that? Once he entered the woods he looked around, but there was no sign of anyone. He was about to give up the chase when another clump of dirt came flying at him.

Zhou Chun was ready for it this time, dodging out of the way as he fixed his eyes straight ahead. He saw the person from before, very thin and short, running out of the woods. Zhou Chun struck his qi up and took off after them. The person moved fast, feet not even touching the dirt, and no matter how long Zhou Chun pursued, he could still not catch up. He gave chase like that for a long while, covering ten or so miles.

As he chased, he thought, “I’ve never met this person before, why are they pranking me? If it were an enemy I would have been ambushed at the temple gates. And by the looks of his walking speed and movement, his martial arts couldn’t be below mine. Why is he leading me into these deserted outskirts?” Just as he thought to ask, it suddenly dawned on him, and he stopped and shouted, “Honorable Brother up ahead, please stop for a moment and let me, Zhou Chun, have a word.” But no matter how much he shouted, the person paid no heed. Suddenly, the person stopped before a tree. Zhou Chun was delighted and hurried over. When he got close, the person suddenly took off running again like a bolt of lightning, and in no time was nowhere to be seen.

Zhou Chun approached the tree and saw a paper wrapping on the ground. He picked it up and opened it. There were two pills inside and on the wrapper was a line of text that read, “Keep these for later, a hundred poisons can’t invade”. Zhou Chun didn’t know what this was all about but just put them in his robe. He was more and more coming to know that that temple was not a good place and that that person was leading him away from danger. He also knew that’s hard to clap with only one hand.5 For now he just had to let it go, and dejectedly went back the way he had come.

He had only walked four or five miles when he suddenly saw a large bell hanging from a tree by the side of the road. He thought, “I didn’t see this bell here when I passed by earlier. It must weigh at least six or seven hundred catties. Whoever was able to hang that up there must have the strength of three or four thousand catties, or else how did they hang it up there?” Not far from the bell he saw a house and went over to ask about it. Who would have imagined that when he got to the door he would hear the faint sound of someone crying for help. Zhou Chun was naturally chivalrous and daring, so he couldn’t keep himself from going around to the back and leaping up to take a look. What he saw made him tremble with fear.

 

NOTES

通草 is called rice paper in Chinese-English dictionaries, but it is actually made from the stem pith of the Tetrapanax papyrifer plant. A long wooden bench with a wide surface. More or less like a Western picnic table bench. 太爺, grandfather. Often in webnovels you see this or variants such as 老子 rendered “I, your father”. This is an accurate translation but sounds a bit awkward. Since “old man” also means one’s dad in English, I used that instead. In the sense of “Your old man’s gonna teach you a lesson.” This kind of insult is common in Chinese, just like “I’m gonna make you my son” in English colloquial usage. Rather than put the other person down, the speaker instead builds themselves up, thereby insinuating that the other person is inferior to them. Sword blossoms translates 劍花, literally “sword flower”. It’s a common term for a circlular, figure-eighty kind of waving around of the sword, the light reflecting off the blade as it moves around making afterimages that look like flowers with multiple petals. The blade is moving so fast you can see the afterimage of several strokes at once, looking like a flower. Like the swordsman is drawing flowers in the air with his sword. Very common description throughout wuxia fiction. Meaning it’s hard to achieve something by yourself, without support.

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