Chapter 57

"Bang!"

Under the silver moon, on the dim open ground of Baiquan Mountain, a body was smashed flying by a spear-shaft, and struck a green stone, and the green stone shattered, throwing up a cloud of dust. A moment on, and out of the broken rubble there slowly crawled a grave-faced Qi Qian'er, an iron collar about her neck.

Before you learn to hit others, first you must learn to take a hitting, such was Old Xin's understanding of the martial arts. Lineage, forms, the marrying of qi to technique? Every fancy thing of that sort simply did not exist, where Old Xin was concerned.

The Beggar Sect had, from of old, been beaten more than most. They scraped a living out from under dog-driving cudgels, and so, come Old Xin's generation, he'd worked out how, in the thick of a fight, to use footwork and body-carriage to bring the harm down to the least.

As for that Yuede Thirty-Six Forms of Qi Qian'er's, it too was of no use whatever here. Old hands of the martial world never met form against form. A bout was only give and take, back and forth, you strike, I block, you press, I lift, you chop, I parry, long since boiled down from the many to the few.

What Old Xin taught Qi Qian'er was very simple: to hit others, first learn to take a beating. And she might only dodge, never strike back, and she might dodge by body-carriage alone, and never once by the lightness-art.

And so Qi Qian'er's image as a little immortal-lady was, before Zhou Wujiu and Xie Liuhao, utterly demolished.

In the old days, when Qi Qian'er thrashed those two, it was that the gap was simply too wide, like a child of three setting on a grown man. However many moves the child might have, one hand would lift it up and spank its little monkey-rump. But now Qi Qian'er faced Pang Tu, an even match, and that hopping skill of hers would suffer badly for it. Pang Tu was no motionless target. Brute force alone was a thing that came off very much the loser.

Zhou Wujiu and Xie Liuhao were both true disciples of a southern school, else they'd not have caught the Jiusi Hall's eye and been made junior wardens on their very entrance. So it was no wonder they knew a little spearcraft, it was only groundwork, no more. That first night, when Old Xin had let them down from the tree and laid the matter out, the two of them had wanted, first of all, to run. But there was no telling how the old beggar had talked them round behind the scenes, for when Qi Qian'er came piously up the mountain with wine on her back and sheep in tow, what she found was a pair of door-gods gripping long spears, resigned to death itself.

Ten days yet to the third of the third month.

Qi Qian'er crawled out from among the broken stones, wiped a smear of blood from her nose, spat a mouthful of bloody spittle, and sat cross-legged on the ground. Looking up at the moon, she began, for the how-many-thousandth time, to grumble.

"Have I gone mad? I'm the mistress of a house, am I so sick of being the wife who sits the main hall? I've the key to the money-chest, the key to the great storehouse, the key to the grain-store. The young mistress, keeping her house, basking in the sun with an embroidery-hoop in her lap, chatting of this and that, is that not sweet enough? Do I lack for land, or lack for shops? Why must I bring wine and meat to a man's door to get myself beaten?"

Half-reclining on a high stone slab nearby, Old Xin held back his laughter. He drank his old wine and grumbled too: "This is a benefactor, this is a benefactor. I can't bear to look, can't bear to look. Little immortal-lady! Or, shall we take a rest?"

Xie Liuhao kicked at Zhou Wujiu with his foot: "Chief, can she truly bar Pang Tu's way? If my five elder brothers find out I got myself tangled into this, they'll beat me to death!"

Zhou Wujiu glared at him: "Just keep that stinking mouth of yours shut and it'll do. If you don't tell, no one will ever know. Whether she can bar Pang Tu I can't say, all I know is she's a thousand times stronger than me! And ten thousand times stronger than you!"

Xie Liuhao nodded in agreement: "That's true enough! At any rate, I'd never dare take a beating like that."

That said, Qi Qian'er was standing on the open ground again, glaring at Xie Liuhao and shouting at them: "Come on!"

Zhou Wujiu looked at the blood-blisters in his palm, and then at the little immortal-lady whose divine standing was so thoroughly wrecked. He spat, and said to the tearful-faced Xie Liuhao: "Then, you, go first!"

Xie Liuhao bound his two hands with cloth strips, reached out and hoisted up the awl-spear planted in the ground, gave the shaft a snapping shake in the air, and pointed the tip at Qi Qian'er: "Then! Immortal-lady, then, here I come!"

That said, without waiting for Qi Qian'er's nod, he loosed one of the long-spear's sixteen worn-out forms, the phoenix-dips-its-head, also called the great neck-coil: using the drawing-back push of the thrust, over and over, the shaft driving the head in small circles at the other's head and neck.

When two armies fight, spearmen make up nine parts in ten of the ranks. Their whole aim in battle is to find every means to make the enemy die far off, and so there came to be long-spears of every kind, and of them all the awl-spear is the most vicious. Once it stabs home, it leaves a man no road to live. Shaped like an ear of wheat, with a blade-point at the butt so that a stab in and a hook out brings something along with it, and its two side-edges shaped like the sides of a wheat-ear, each honed to a thin blade, it is a wicked, spiteful weapon indeed.

And this was how Pang Tu's byname, the First Spear, had come about: he was a master of the phoenix-dips-its-head coiling the neck, and a few great neck-coils, and a man's throat was a red line of cut flesh, with no road to live at all.

On the field, Qi Qian'er dodged with difficulty, which was already something! The first two days she'd all but stood and taken it. The first few times she'd hug her head and squat, near shocking the eyeballs clean out of the three men's heads. Soon the awl-spear's iron edge crossed the guard-plate at Qi Qian'er's neck and struck sparks. When Qi Qian'er had at last struggled free of the coil, a cold wind came driving in at her waist, and with a "Bang!" she was smashed flying out again, and far.

An old hand of the martial world could never be all phoenix-neck-coils. He would be swift and telling, freely joining together the stab, the block, the lift, the snap, the roll, the smash, the shake, the coil, the brace, the jolt and the parry into one great flow of skill.

And so came the pairing of Zhou Wujiu and Xie Liuhao, striking from two different angles.

Seeing Qi Qian'er flung out once more, Old Xin slowly sat up and scratched his head: "Little immortal-lady, what's the use of watching only the spearhead? When we poor folk take our beatings, it's always the great lord's eyes we watch. Wherever he means to strike you, however deep he hides the thought, he'll always take one glance first at where he's going to hit, and only after that glance does the arm move, and then it carries down to the thing in his hand..."

He gestured it out, one by one, from the eyes, to the arm, to the hand.

Qi Qian'er stood, felt at her waist, felt at her neck, then looked at Old Xin and nodded.

Old Xin went on: "It's not that I'm flattering you, everything's got its pattern. The little immortal-lady's eyes and ears, and the sinew and bone of you, are surely all sound, and your root-bone finer than fine! That Pang Tu and I have a passing acquaintance too, oh, he doesn't know me! At his duels, with all the crowds, all the rich lords and ladies, this old man went to beg and watch the fun. Believe me: by nature you're three parts the stronger, he's old!

"Now mark it: from the eyes, to the arm, to the thing in the hand. And if you can't get out of the way, you're bound to take one, so don't fight it. Go with what the other wants, and follow the momentum. Lean into it! Stick to it! Cling in close! Just those three phrases. Watch me..."

That said, he sprang down off the stone, stood facing Xie Liuhao and Zhou Wujiu, and nodded.

Xie Liuhao put out a reluctant hand, and at Old Xin gave another shake and drive. The wind whistled apart, the spearhead shivering, and Zhou Wujiu, from the flank, brought his spear round in a level sweep, whsst, wrapped in wind, smashing across.

And there Old Xin: his neck riding the very edge of the blade to shed its force, three times over the leaf-beneath-the-flower, a thing worn out on the martial roads that every man alive can do. When the three great neck-coils had passed, a side-step back on his right leg turned his body clean out of the coil. A man of seventy-odd, and that frame of his went with the run of the rising spears, and followed the momentum into a hang-the-waist-and-hold-up-the-sky, and never looked so very nimble at it, just laid the upper half of him flat, exactly so, in the gap between the two spears, and the two long shafts, high and low, swept past over him.

No very complicated a set, three moves in all, and yet Qi Qian'er had taken three days' beating over them.

"Again!"

"Bang!"

"Bang bang!"

"Bang bang bang!"

Nine days yet to the third of the third month.

A night of blows, and Qi Qian'er came down off Baiquan Mountain in her veiled hat. Her sinews and bones had been tempered, a beating only hurt for a while, and she always mended fast, and yet she cried all the same.

She thought: this hurts far worse than Madam Qiao's spite ever did, it truly hurts! A beating's a beating, how is a body not to cry?

Only when the others had all gone did she pack up her things, put on her hat, and walk down off Baiquan Mountain, weeping without a sound.

She went very slowly, as though she carried three millstones on her back. By now the sky was just coming clear. Qingfeng, half in ruins and watched by no one, stood with its four gates wide open, and the water-hauling ox-carts and donkey-carts came and went slowly through.

Qi Qian'er walked a while, and came upon a stall setting out its early hu-cakes. The old cake-seller gave his palm a hard slap, and while the sting of it still held, dug a hot cake out of the fiery pit and dropped it, steaming, on his board.

Seeing Qi Qian'er coming from afar, the man greeted her ahead of time, smiling: "Ho! The little sister-in-law's here!"

Qi Qian'er went over and nodded, and took two bits of broken silver from her purse and handed them across: "Trouble you, uncle, a bean one for me to eat here, and make me two hundred to take away."

"Right you are! One moment, little sister-in-law!"

Of late this little sister-in-law came to buy two hundred hu-cakes every day, a fine free-spending customer.

The man set to. Before long the door-curtain at the back of the stall lifted, and a tousle-haired woman came swaying out, yawning, a basket in her hand and a child of four or five in her arms.

Coming up to the stall and seeing so free a spender, the woman greeted her at once, smiling: "Madam's here, off to the temple again with the cakes?" That said, she set the child down and groped under the counter for coppers to go buy vegetables.

Lucky Qi Qian'er wore her veiling-hat. Else, by that greedy look of hers, the woman would surely have taken her for a child-snatcher.

Set down on the ground, the little boy, shy of a stranger, hugged his father's leg, and, hiding his small self, peeped out to study Qi Qian'er.

"Take five or six coppers more, and buy madam a carrying-basket to hold her cakes in on the way back."

The man kept about his work and gave the charge without looking up. The woman answered again, groped out five or six coppers, slung her basket over her arm, and went.

Qi Qian'er gave her thanks, and went on watching the other family's child.

It was only these few days that she'd found it out: the cake-seller's son was five or six parts the very likeness of her An'er, the brows and eyes above all, truly the same, a beauty of the very first order, the eyes of the first order round and bright. Once he was used to you, he'd even come creeping a little way out from behind his father, and stamp his foot in pretend-fierceness to scare you, and then dart quick back again. It was more than a heart could bear for love of him.

Seeing Qi Qian'er looking at his boy, the man smiled: "A right little handful, he is."

Qi Qian'er shook her head and praised him: "The young master's brow is full and his chin square and round, a handsome face, and a quick, bright eye. Send him early to his letters, and one day he'll surely win you back a licentiate and lift your family's standing."

The man was delighted to hear it, and pulled the very cake-rounds a size bigger, laughing: "It's never so fine as the young madam says, ha! but may your good words come true, may they come true!"

By full daylight Qi Qian'er was out of the city already, a great basket of hu-cakes on her arm. At the gate she took the donkey-cart the little beggar had been watching for her, and left the little beggar fifty hu-cakes besides.

At which the little beggar went off overjoyed.

To cover her tracks, Qi Qian'er had packed off every last soul of the household up the mountain to wait on the old lady, She Jixiang and his wife over all of it, the page-boys lending the carpenters a hand. Since they couldn't lodge in the nunnery, they rolled up their bedding and bunked in the sheds with the carpenters.

To make a show of her devotion, Qi Qian'er drove a hundred and fifty hu-cakes up the mountain every day, to feed the nuns, and the elders, and the carpenter-masters at their heavy work besides.

Hu-cakes were fine grain. This was an open-handed mistress indeed.

And she and the old lady only looked at one another each morning across the distance, the one on the mountain and the other below it. The old lady, seeing her go out in her veiling-hat, was easy enough in her mind.

For this was, after all, the country round Yanjing, guarded by heavy troops, and home truly not far off, a matter of some ten li out of Qingfeng.

The old lady had not the least notion there could be any danger in Qi Qian'er's going out and about. She was one to run about everywhere herself. And besides, that grandson's-wife of hers. It was well enough if the girl didn't go bullying others, with that born beast-strength in her, who under heaven could keep her in check?

Today the luck ran ill. Coming back from the Qingque Nunnery to Qingfeng, she was blocked at the city gate.

Outside Qingfeng it was all bustle: a few hundred people gathered there in a splendid to-do, flying the banners of the great guilds and escort-agencies, and tying up the colored horses at the gate.

Colored horses, that is, bright cloth of every hue made up into flower-balls and set round the beasts' necks.

Qi Qian'er, curious, and unable to get through besides, reined in the donkey-cart to watch the fun.

"That's an old rule of the escort-agency guilds." An aged voice came from behind her. Turning to look, Qi Qian'er found it was Old Xin, gnawing at half a hu-cake, edging over to the side of her donkey-cart even as he chewed, and sitting himself down cross-legged where he stood.

"Escort-men walk the martial world, and eat a bitter bread. They haul their escort-carts over hill and dale, and to travel smooth they must attach themselves everywhere, and dare offend no home-port. Yuegong Mountain, with all its many peaks and all its disciples out walking the roads, these eaters of wind and sand must fawn on every one of them."

A few crisp whistles, and several strong men, the marks of their agencies on their backs, mounted up, and each cried out:

"The Feiyan Escort Agency, five hundred li to welcome the immortal!"

"The Sihai Escort Agency, five hundred li to welcome the immortal..."

"The Yanjing Ma-family Escort, five hundred li to welcome the immortal..."

Their cries done, dozens of stout young men swung their long whips, and at the open ground, crack! crack! crack!, snapped out the ringing lash.

And with one long whistle, several lead-horses, their bells jingling grandly, went whinnying and calling together clean through the city.

Old Xin said, with a soft laugh: "In an hour five more will pass, ten runs in all. And so it goes every day, until the man himself comes. This is what's called the martial-world roll-call, and only a great grandmaster or above rates the like. Five horses abreast is nothing. This old man's seen twenty go out together! This, now, this is the thing Liuhao and his sort set their hearts on, the one aim of a whole life!

"Heh, the young ones. My fear is they'll not so much as own a donkey, and lie down their bones in a strange land. A wild goose passing at least makes some sound of it, honks a few honks. But these lads think it a fine thing! A rare flavor! How grand a show, the crowd of high and low all cheering them on. And I'll not fear the little immortal-lady's laughing at me, in the reckless green of my own youth, this old man once savored it too..."

The old man gnawed at his cake a while, and asked, low: "Does the little immortal-lady envy it, then?"

Qi Qian'er blinked, and, fighting down her sleepiness, said: "No!"

This old dame's one aim in a whole life was a brat called An'er, and she'd not swap him for a throne.

Old Xin chuckled at that: "Then do you know whose coming you're here to meet?"

Qi Qian'er nodded: "I know, Pang Tu!"

"Are you afraid?"

Qi Qian'er flew into a rage: "Afraid of his egg! Blocking this old dame from getting home to her sleep!"

Old Xin sprayed out a mouthful of cake-crumbs, and turned, a shade shocked: "The little immortal-lady's a wife of good family, you must never learn that rascal Xie Liuhao's foul talk!"

Qi Qian'er nodded, and said no more.

She watched the young onlookers about her, their eyes shining with a strange light, gazing hot and envious at the colored horses in the distance, and she thought, oh! So this was the martial world.

And she grew the angrier for it!

How old was Chen Scabby this year? Twenty-one at the very outside, and with no notion at all of what the martial world so much as was. And Pang Tu, how old was he, how long had he had his name? The man came forth with a fanfare like this, no common soul, that was plain! Why come a thousand li to Yanjing to bully Chen Dasheng? Whoever stood in the way of her An'er's future, master of the arts or no, she'd crush the lot of them to bits!

Old Xin, what skill he had, could he not have lived well enough himself? And yet through last winter he'd sheltered the orphan-beggars with his old worn body, and he'd surely known of that elm-grove, and yet for the sake of a vow would not set one foot on Baiquan Mountain. And Zhou Wujiu and Xie Liuhao, in their own words: it's a new dynasty! Things are different! A man's got to grow himself a head! We're all of us in the martial world, but we mustn't let the Emperor and his ministers come to loathe us. We've got to do a few real things, and win the martial world some face. All of them going soberly about their work, and then these other martial-world folk, at the crack of dawn, block up the common people's own city gate. A new emperor newly on the throne, whose face was this a slap to? Foolish past all folly!

And if it were as Old Xin had it, that every man must be seen two ways, then the martial world must divide into the sort that was Old Xin, and the sort that flaunted itself on horseback.

The horse-bells faded at last past hearing, and the gate was cleared through. Old Xin stood, and said to Qi Qian'er, all smiles: "Never mind the sheep, this old man can't run to such extravagance! Tomorrow trouble the young madam to buy a few more of the bean-paste hu-cakes. The little ones love them, and their bodies are just growing!"

Qi Qian'er smiled at him: "Done! And I've a bit of elm-bark paste left at home, will you have it?"

Old Xin nodded: "Of course I will! In this early spring, with a body touching neither heaven above nor earth below, anything that fills the belly and keeps you alive is a good thing."

That said, they parted, easy as you please.

Qi Qian'er drove the donkey-cart home, and saw from afar Madam Qiao, still busy with a knot of women at the ancestral hall gate.

Seeing her come back, they hailed her from the distance: "The young Lady's home?"

"Home!"

"Is the old Lady well up on the mountain?"

"Very well! She's even put on flesh, by the look of her!"

"We few have talked it over, in a few days we'll go up to the nunnery to burn incense, and look in on the old lady!"

"Then my thanks to you, aunties..."

The donkey's bell rang crisp, and the cart went on past, like another world entirely, quiet, and at peace.

Madam Qiao kept her head down, and neither asked nor spoke. She was used to such days now.

Home again, Qi Qian'er unhitched the donkey from the cart, and stood in the yard and coughed a few times.

Before long, from next door, a small white-porcelain medicine-vial came flying over.

Qi Qian'er went into the side room, and tossed a big piece of smoked meat back over.

Each was satisfied.

When she'd got back to her room on heavy feet, Qi Qian'er slowly let out a breath, and, sitting on the edge of the kang, began slowly to strip off her outer robe, and her lined jacket, and at the last laid bare a strange garment, from head to foot all made of long rectangular pockets.

With the dull clash of block on block of metal, the various pieces of the thing came off and were dropped on the kang. Last of all Qi Qian'er undid her cloth shoes, and there in the thick soles were set two bright golden gold-cakes.

That outfit of hers must have run to several hundred jin.

Old Xin would not let her strike back, nor let her fly, only dodge! At first Qi Qian'er couldn't hold herself in, and kept on hitting Zhou Wujiu and the rest. And then she'd hit on a clumsy method: gold was heavy, she thought. So she'd gone back to the Plague God's temple and taken a good quantity, and pinched out a whole suit of thin rectangular gold-plates, and sewn the heaviest garment in all the world. And now, at last, she could hold herself in, and stand there and take her beating.

Never in the world had she thought that the hoard in the Plague God's temple, of which she'd scarcely spent a coin, would in the end come to be used for a thing like this.

With the weight off her, Qi Qian'er felt now the full, unbearable ache of the blows. She began again, silent, to shed her tears, and, weeping, set to putting the medicine on herself.

At the foot of Xiaonan Mountain, some hundreds of li from Qingfeng, several martial-world men let fall their weapons. A single red line was drawn across each throat, and the heavy bodies dropped, and only then did the blood at their necks come spurting out.

One middle-aged man's breath was not yet clean gone. He glared at the one before him, his mouth working out a bloody foam, and then his body went rigid all at once, and he died with his eyes unclosed.

It was the work of an instant. Of the two watching bands, the one broke into a cheer with a single voice, and the other, silent, began to put on hempen mourning, and quietly led forward from one side a few horse-carts laden with coffins.

These people did not weep, nor rage. Silent and still, they walked to the several corpses, and cut their clothes from them where they lay, and, while the bodies were yet soft, stanched their blood and dressed them in grave-clothes, and lifted them, all together, into the coffins.

The coffins closed, a middle-aged man in plain, close-fitting dress faced the official road, and, holding down a breast full of grief and wrath, cupped his hands and cried out clear: "The Five Manors and Twelve Gates of Xiaonan Mountain! Sent seven able young men! And failed to bar Peak-Master Pang of Yuegong Mountain from entering the capital to his duel! Good folk who pass this way! Hear it, and see it! And let every household know!"

He recited it a dozen times over, and only then turned and cupped his hands to the one who sat on a low couch wiping his spear: "And so, we take our leave!"

The one kneeling on the low couch looked forty-odd at the most. His hair was jet-black, the temples standing high, an eagle's nose and a long beard, and his eyes rested with a tender, lingering fondness on his own killing-spear.

This man was none other than the First Spear of Yuegong Mountain, Pang Tu.

Holding a mouthful of strong wine, he sprayed it over the spearhead three times running to drive off the ill luck, and then said to the middle-aged man: "A matter of the martial world is a matter of the martial world. Since when, since when did you people turn into the court's running-dogs?"

The middle-aged man laughed cold: "The realm in chaos, and never a martial-world man to be seen! The two rivers in flood, and still not one martial-world man! A thousand li of bare red earth and the starved dead lying everywhere, and no martial-world man! All in a headlong scramble, those that shut their gates shutting their gates, those that took to the hills taking to the hills, each guarding his own and his own only! It was other men who came forth and held up the sky! Who set their feet on the earth! And now that the ten thousand people have only just got themselves a road to live, can we not grow a little conscience? At a time like this, what do you come into the capital for! Take a few lives fewer, and you'll not die of it! Go one meal hungry, and you'll not even slim for it..."

But the man never finished. From the cheering band there flew a sharp spear, and the middle-aged man dodged it by instinct, then, with a cold laugh, turned to meet it, and there came a "Puff," and he was run through the breast and pinned to the ground.

Before long, out from the rear of that band came a handsome young man robed all in red. Coldly he walked up to the middle-aged man, set his foot on the body, and drew the spear.

A fountain of blood spurted up, and Xiaonan Mountain lost yet another gate-master.

And still the others came up in silence to gather the corpse, and lifted him, and went.

When he'd done spraying his wine, Pang Tu, in no hurry at all, wound the red silk about his awl-spear's head and said: "Fanjiang was rash. They've lost so many men, why grudge the fellow the finishing of his say?"

The red-robed youth was Pang Tu's chief disciple, Shen Fanjiang. Hearing his master's rebuke, Shen Fanjiang gave a light snort: "This whole road, how many have there been, and only these so long-winded of them all! And now it's me you scold?"

Pang Tu laid the spear, all set to rights, across his lap, and, kneeling, looked out at the official road before him: "A man living under the very feet of the Son of Heaven must pitch his voice high, that his stand may be made plain. Each has his own hard case. As for the likes of us, from of old we have taken our keep in payment for our skill, and so we have our own duty to it! This matter of barring a duel has its difficulties on every side, and no grudge in it! But that you should strike so rashly..."

He glanced at the coffin-bearers in the distance, who glared at him still with a savage hatred, and sighed, helpless: "I fear the line of Xiaonan Mountain will be your blood-enemy from this day on!"

But master and disciple were only saying it, no more.

Shen Fanjiang gave a light laugh: "As if I feared them!"

The words were scarcely out when, in the distance, there came a jangle of horse-bells.

The eyes of master and disciple brightened a little. Shen Fanjiang stood, and listened a while, then turned and said to Pang Tu, cold-laughing: "Master, now I've seen it for myself, what it means, that manners are in ruin and the hearts of men not what they were of old. Only five horses? Hmph! One day..." He raised the spearhead and leveled it toward Yanjing: "Sooner or later I'll run that Meng Dingchen clean through! I'll teach these bastards not to lay out the dishes to suit the diner!"