Eagle Shooting Hero 1(144)

Lu Chengfeng was stunned. “Is that true?” he asked anxiously.

“Why would it not be true?” Qiu Qianren answered. “He was surrounded and killed by the Quanzhen Seven Masters, Wang Chongyang’s disciples.”

Before he finished speaking Mei Chaofeng and Lu Chengfeng had called out loudly. With a loud thud Huang Rong fell backwards from her chair…unconscious. The others initially did not believe that with his expertise, Huang Yaoshi would easily be killed by anyone; but since it was the Quanzhen Seven Masters, they had to believe it. They knew very well the combined power of Ma Yu, Qiu Chuji, Wang Chuyi and the others would be difficult for Huang Yaoshi to defeat.

Guo Jing, frantic, hugged Huang Rong and called out, “Rong’er, wake up!” He saw Huang Rong’s face was deathly pale and her breathing uneven; he was even more anxious and called his masters,

“Master…Master…help!”

Zhu Cong immediately came over and held his hand beneath her nose. “Don’t worry,” he said. “She was only shocked…she is not going to die.” Then he rubbed her ‘Fatigue Palace acupoint’ [lao gong xue] while slowly transferring internal energy.

Huang Rong slowly recovered. “Father…Father! I want my Father!” she cried.

Lu Chengfeng was surprised, but immediately realized, “She is Master’s daughter. No wonder she knew about the ‘Nine Flower Jade Dew Pill’.” He shed some tears and loudly called out, “Little Martial Sister, let us go after those scoundrel Quanzhen priests to seek revenge. Mei Chaofeng…are you coming or not? If you don’t come, let me fight you to the death right now! It … it was because of you that Master met his fate.”

Lu Guanying knew his father was too deep in sorrow to speak coherently. He quickly supported him and urged, “Father, please don’t be so sad. We need to consider it further.”

Lu Chengfeng ignored his son and cried louder. “Mei Chaofeng! You bitch! You have caused me much harm! You are shameless! You ran away with your man, which was all right with me, but why did you have to steal Master’s ‘Nine Yin Manual’ as well? In his anger he smashed the ligaments in the legs of us four martial brothers. Not only that, he expelled us from Peach Blossom Island. I was hoping Master would change his mind and have compassion on us who hadn’t done anything to deserve such punishment. Now that he’s passed away, my hope is shattered …”

“I always thought you were spineless,” Mei Chaofeng scolded, “and you are still spineless.

Three…four times you lead other people to deal with us, forcing us – husband and wife to be Eagle Shooting Hero

419

without shelter; we had to run for our lives and ended up suffering on the Mongolian Steppe. Now you don’t have guts enough to seek revenge for our Master, but keep nagging about settling your own old debts with me. I say we go and find those seven scoundrels and deal with them. If you can’t walk, I’ll carry you!”

All this time Huang Rong was still weeping, “Father! I want my Father!”

Zhu Cong intervened, “Let us ask about this more directly,” he said, walking towards Qiu Qianren.

He brushed some dust from Qiu Qianren’s clothes and apologetically said, “My young disciple was ignorant and has offended you; he has no regard for seniority.”

Qiu Qianren was angry, “I am old, my eyes are not clear, I let it slip by. Come, let us fight again!”

Zhu Cong patted his shoulder and pulled his left hand gently, then persuasively smiled, “Senior is an expert; there is no need to fight with him.” As soon as they got to the table, Zhu Cong picked a wine cup up with his left hand, while his right hand covered the cup’s mouth. Then he revolved it around, just like Qiu had done, and flicked the cup to the table. With a clanking sound the wine cup landed on the table, broken into two parts: the cup bottom and about half an inch of porcelain ring.

Exactly like Qiu Qianren demonstrated earlier. Everyone was amazed!

Zhu Cong smiled and said, “Senior’s skill is extraordinary. Junior has stolen it from you. Please forgive my offense and many thanks to you.”

Qiu Qianren’s face changed color immediately. Now everybody knew there must be some kind of trick, but nobody really knew what was going on.

“Jing’er, come here!” Zhu Cong called, “Let me teach you a trick and later on you can use it to deceive other people.”

Guo Jing came near and Zhu Cong showed him a ring on his left middle finger. “This is Senior Qiu’s; I borrowed it from him a moment ago. Go ahead and put it on,” he said while taking the ring off his own finger.

Qiu Qianren was startled, then fuming mad. He did not understand how the ring on his finger had moved to Zhu’s finger. In the meantime Guo Jing had already taken the ring. Zhu Cong explained,

“This ring has a diamond chip on it, the hardest material on earth. Put the diamond’s tip on the wine cup and rotate the cup with your right hand.”

Guo Jing did so. Now Lu Guanying and the others began to understand. They were unable to restrain a smile and softly murmured amongst themselves. Guo Jing turned the cup in his right hand and sure enough, the cup was smoothly broken into two parts. If one looked carefully, the diamond had left a deep mark on the porcelain pieces; it wasn’t profound internal energy at all.

Huang Rong was amused and she was smiling through her tears; then the memory of her father came flooding back and she cried again.

“Don’t cry, Miss,” Zhu Cong comforted her, “This Senior Qiu loves to deceive people and his words may not be necessarily true.” Huang Rong was puzzled and she looked at him with a questioning look.

420



Eagle Shooting Hero

“Your father’s martial arts are so profound; how could he be killed by other people easily?” Zhu Cong said with a smile. “Also, the Quanzhen Seven Masters are respectable people and they have no enmity towards your father. Why would they kill him without a reason?”

“Perhaps it was because of Qiu Chuji and the other ox-noses [derogatory term for Taoist priests]

Martial Uncle Zhou Botong,” Huang Rong said, expressing a guess.

“What about him?” Zhu Cong asked.

“You wouldn’t know about it,” Huang Rong said, crying again. Even with her intelligence, she was not really sure what really happened. First of all, it had something to do with her mother and Huang Yaoshi did not want to talk too much about it. Second, the business between her father and Zhou Botong was more complicated than her young mind could grasp. She did not want to believe the Quanzhen Seven Masters would attack her father, but the fact was….she was not sure.

“Whatever it was, I’d say this old man’s word is a little bit smelly,” Zhu Cong said.

“You mean he was only … only …,” Huang Rong stuttered.

“Yes, he was just farting!” Zhu Cong laughed. “He has so many tricks stored in his pocket and guess what he would do with them.” Then he groped into his pocket and produced some things which he placed on the table. Among those things were two bricks, some dry grass, a piece of cloth to light a fire, a knife for the same purpose and a piece of flint.

Huang Rong took a brick and as soon as she tightened her grip she could feel the brick was soft. She gripped it harder and, without too much effort, the brick crumbled into powder. After listening to Zhu Cong’s words her sadness was greatly reduced. Her face broke into a smile, showing her two dimples. “This brick is made from bread flour. He used it to demonstrate his profound internal energy earlier.”

Qiu Qianren’s face turned from pale to red and back to pale. He was greatly ashamed. He thought that with the news of Huang Yaoshi’s death, everyone’s attention could be diverted and he would find an opportunity to escape. Who would have thought that his scheme would be revealed by Zhu Cong? He flicked his sleeve and turned around to walk out. But Mei Chaofeng reached backwards, snatched him, and then threw him on the floor.

“You said my Master passed away, did you tell the truth?” she asked menacingly. Qiu Qianren was in too much pain to say anything, he only whimpered.

Huang Rong noticed that the grass was half burnt and immediately realized what had happened earlier. “Second Master, light the grass, put it inside your sleeve, then inhale and exhale.”

The Six Freaks of Jiangnan initially had some problems with Huang Rong, but Qiu Qianren’s trickery had united them in facing a common enemy. Zhu Cong happily complied. Actually he liked Huang Rong’s cunning mind and her eccentricity. Now that Huang Rong called him ‘Second Master’ he liked her even more. He did what was asked and while doing that, he even closed his eyes and swayed his head solemnly.

Huang Rong clapped her hands in delight. “Jing ge ge,” she said laughing happily, “Didn’t we see this old man practicing his internal strength a while ago exactly like this?” She walked to Qiu Eagle Shooting Hero

421

Qianren’s side and said, “Stand up!” As she pulled him up, she suddenly struck his ‘Holy Way’

[shen dao] acupoint under the fifth rib on his back with her left hand, using the ‘Orchid’ acupoint sealing technique [lan hua fu xue shou]. She shouted loudly, “Tell me, did my father die? If you say he did, I will take your life away!” With a flip of her hand she placed a shiny butterfly shaped steel piece on his chest.