Jin Yong - The Book and The Sword

"Your honourable society's Master Chen is very young," said Zhou. "What style of kung fu does he use?"

"A style invented by his teacher," Xu replied. "When he was fifteen years old, Master Chen was sent by our former Great Helmsman Master Yu to the Muslim regions to become the pupil of 'The Strange Knight Of The Heavenly Pool', Master Yuan, and he never returned to southern China. Only Priest Wu Chen and some of the other senior members of the society saw him when he was young."

"Master Chen is certainly a remarkable man," said Zhou. "Truly: 'A man's worth cannot be measured by his looks'."

Xu and Luo Bing were very pleased to hear Zhou praising their leader in such glowing terms.

"In these last few years, the fighting community has produced many new heroes," Zhou continued, addressing Xu. "The rear waves of the Yangtse push forward the front waves', as the saying goes. It is rare to find someone who combines the qualities of intelligence and bravery as you do. It is important that such skills are not wasted, but are used to achieve something worthwhile."

"Yes," said Xu, agreeing with Zhou's view that his skills should be used to good purpose, but Zhou Qi grunted and thought: "My father praises you and you agree! Such modesty!"

Zhou drank a mouthful of wine. "I once heard that old Master Yu of your honourable society was a member of the Shaolin School of kung fu, very similar to my style," he remarked. "I had long wanted to meet him and learn from him, but with him in southern China and myself in the northwest, my wish was never fulfilled and he has now passed away. I enquired about the origins of his martial arts skills, but everyone had a different story, and from beginning to end I never heard a reliable report."

"Master Yu never talked about who he studied under, and it was only just before he died that he said he had once learned kung fu in the Shaolin monastery in Fujian province," Xu said.

"What illness did Master Yu die of?" Zhou asked. "He would have been a few years older than me, I think?"

"Master Yu was sixty-five when he passed away," Xu replied. "The cause of his illness is a long story. There's a very mixed bunch of people here and we might as well travel on another few miles this evening. We'll find a deserted place and talk at length there."

"Excellent!" Zhou said. He asked the cashier to make up the bill.

"I'll just go downstairs for a second," Xu said.

"I am the host," Zhou warned. "Don't you snatch the bill away."

"All right," he replied, and went down to the ground floor.

"He's always so furtive!" Zhou Qi said with a pout.

"Girls must not talk such ill-mannered nonsense," Zhou scolded her.

"Brother Xu is always full of strange tricks," Luo Bing told her with a smile. "If you make him angry, you will have to be careful he doesn't play some of them on you."

"Huh!" she said. "He is no taller than I am. Why should I be afraid of him?"

Zhou was about to berate her again, but hearing footsteps on the stairs, he said nothing.

"Let's go," Xu said, walking up.

The four covered ten miles at one go. They noticed a spinney of a dozen or so large tree to the left of the road screening rocks and boulders behind.

"What about here?" Zhou asked.

"All right," said Xu. They tied their horses to the trees and sat down, leaning on the trunks. The moon was bright and the stars sparse, and the night air was as cool as water. The wind blew through the grass with a low whistling sound.

Xu was about to speak when he heard the muffled sound of horses galloping from far off. He lay down with his ear to the ground and listened for a while, then stood up.

"Three horses coming this way," he said.

Zhou waved his hand and they untied their horses and led them behind the boulders. The sound of hooves came gradually closer, and three horses passed heading east. In the moonlight, they could see only that the riders all wore white turbans and long striped gowns, the clothing of Muslims, while sabres hung from their saddles. They waited until the riders were a long way off, then sat down again. Zhou asked why the Manchu court had arrested Wen.

"The authorities have always considered the Red Flower Society to be a thorn in the eye," Luo Bing replied. "But there is another reason for them dispatching so many martial arts masters to catch our Fourth Brother. Last month, Master Yu went to Beijing, and Fourth Brother and I went with him. Master Yu told us that he intended to break into the Imperial Palace and see the Emperor Qian Long. We were very surprised, and asked what he wanted to see the Emperor about, but he wouldn't say. Fourth Brother warned him that the Emperor was very dangerous and cunning and advised him to enlist our best fighters and to get Brother Xu here to devise an absolutely fool-proof plan."

Zhou Qi studied Xu. "Is this dwarf so talented that others come to him for help?" she thought. "I don't believe it!"

"Master Yu said that he had to see the Emperor on a matter of great importance, and that only a small number of people could go with him or there could be problems. So Fourth Brother agreed. That night, the two of them crossed the wall into the palace while I kept watch outside. I was really frightened. More than two hours passed before they came back over the wall. Very early next day, the three of us left Beijing and returned to the south. I asked Fourth Brother if they had seen the Emperor and what it was all about. He said they had seen him, and that it concerned driving out the Manchus and restoring the throne of China to the chinese people. He said he couldn't tell me more, not because he didn't trust me, but because the more people who knew, the greater the danger of the secret getting out."

"After we returned to the south, Master Yu parted from us," Luo Bing continued. "We returned to the Society's headquarters at Tai Lake, while he went on to Haining. When he returned, his whole appearance had changed. It was as if he had suddenly aged more than ten years. He never smiled, and a few days later he contracted the illness from which he never recovered.

"Just before he passed away, he called together the Lords of Incense and said that it was his last wish that Master Chen should succeed him as Great Helmsman. He said this was the key to the restoration of the throne to the Han people. He said it was not possible to explain the reasons then, but said we would all find out one day."

"What was Master Chen's relationship with Master Yu?" Zhou asked.

"He was the old Master's foster son," Luo Bing said. "Master Chen is the son of the Emperor's former Chief Minister Chen from Haining. When he was fifteen, he passed the provincial civil service examination, and soon after that, the old Master took him to the Muslim regions to learn the martial arts from the Strange Knight Of The Heavenly Pool, Master Yuan. As to why the son of a Chief Minister would honour a member of the fighting community as his foster father, we don't know."

"I imagine one of the reasons Master Wen was seized is that he knows something about all this," Zhou said.

"Perhaps," Luo Bing replied. "At the time of old Master's death, there was one important piece of unfinished business on his mind and he wanted very badly to see Master Chen once more. When he first got back from Beijing, he sent a messenger to the Muslim border areas with instructions for Master Chen to go to Anxi and wait there for orders. The Old Master knew he wouldn't last long enough to see his foster son again, so he urged us all to hasten to Anxi to work out a plan of action together with Master Chen. He entrusted all the secret information to Fourth Brother to pass on personally to the Young Helmsman when they met. Who would have guessed that he…" Her voice choked with sobs. "If anything should happen to Fourth Brother…no-one will ever know what the old Master hoped to achieve."