Not taking a little girl’s words to heart, Zhu Cong merely smiled. Looking at Huang Rong, he thought that her beauty was indeed peerless and none he had seen in his life could match hers – no 324
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wonder Jing’er was so crazy about her. Han Baoju, however, was absolutely furious; so much so that the moustache at the edge of his lips had curled. He yelled, “Get out, get out!”
Huang Rong started clapping and sang: “Shorty-gourd, tumbling ball, with one kick, rolls three times; with two kicks…”
Guo Jing exclaimed, “Rong’er, stop being discourteous! These are my Shifus.”
Huang Rong stuck out her tongue and made a face. Moving forward, Han Baoju struck out his arm to hit her. Huang Rong sang again: “Shorty-gourd, tumbling ball…” Sudden, she reached out and grabbed the cloth at Guo Jing’s waist. With a hard tug, both of them mounted the horse. With a lift of the reins, the little red horse bolted forward and away like an arrow leaving the bow. No matter how fast Han Baoju was, how could he possibly catch up with the lightning speed of a ‘Blood-Sweating Horse’? By the time Guo Jing had settled himself, he turned his head to see that the faces of Han Baoju and the others were already blurs; in the next instant they were reduced to little black dots. His own face was wrapped in the rushing wind and his ears enveloped in the sound of it. The little red horse continued to surge forward at an amazing pace.
Huang Rong held the reins in her right hand and held Guo Jing’s hand with her left. Though they had parted for less than half a day, they had just gone through an agonizing experience. Though one was inside the room and the other outside the window, both had similar feelings of anxiety. Now it felt like they had re-united after a calamity. Guo Jing’s heart was clouded with indecision – running from his Shifus like this was hugely wrong. Yet when he thought of giving up this girl in his arms, who was dearer than his own life, and never seeing her again, he would rather slice his neck and bleed to death.
Only after the little red horse had galloped more than ten li beyond the Jin Capital did Huang Rong pull back the reins and halt, leaping off the horse. Guo Jing followed. The little red horse kept rubbing its head against Guo Jing’s waist, displaying great affection. Guo Jing and Huang Rong held hands and gazed at each other in silence; each having a multitude of words to say but not knowing where to begin. But even in the absence of words, their hearts were linked and they were aware of each other’s thoughts. After a long while, Huang Rong lightly released her hand and retrieved a towel from the leather sack on the horse’s side. She wet the towel in a small stream and gave it to Guo Jing to wipe his face. Guo Jing was currently in a dazed state and did not take the towel but suddenly said, “Rong’er, we have to do it!”
Jumping in surprise, Huang Rong said, “What is it?”
“We’ll head back and see my Shifus.”
“Go back? Go back together?” She said, stunned.
“Yes. I want to hold your hand and tell my six Shifus, Priest Ma and the rest, ‘Rong’er is not a demoness’…” Holding Huang Rong’s little hand and lifting his head, he said firmly, as if Ke Zhen’E, Ma Yu and the rest were in front of him, “Shifus, you have shown me great kindness that I will never be able to repay even with my life. But, but, Rong’er is really not a demoness, she’s a very, very good girl, very, very good…” In his heart he had innumerable words and phrases in defense of Huang Rong, but when the words were in his mouth, he could say nothing but ‘very, very good’.
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Huang Rong found it funny at first but as Guo Jing went on she felt greatly moved. Gently, she said,
“Jing ge ge, your Shifus hate me to the core. Nothing you say will make a difference. Let’s not go back! I’ll follow you to the secluded mountains, to an island in the sea, to someplace where they’ll never find us and live there forever.”
Guo Jing’s heart gave a start, but he said seriously, “Rong’er, we must go back.”
“But they’ll surely separate us,” she wailed. “Then we’ll never be able to see each other, ever again.”
“Then we’ll just not separate, until death parts us.”
Huang Rong’s initial misery abated with these words; words that weighed more than a thousand vows and a million promises. Suddenly she was filled with such confidence, a feeling that their two hearts had long been stubbornly knotted together, so stubbornly that no person or force in this world could separate them. She thought to herself: 'Yes, that’s it. In the worst case we can only die; surely there can’t be anything worse than death?'
She said aloud, “Jing ge ge, I will abide by you forever. We’ll just won’t separate until death parts us.”
Guo Jing said with delight, “I’ve always said you were a very, very good girl.”
Smiling gaily, Huang Rong retrieved a large piece of raw beef from the sack and coated it with moist earth. Gathering some dry twigs and branches, they started a fire. She said, “Let the little red horse rest for a bit. We’ll set off after we eat.”
After they had finished the beef and the little red horse had had its fill of grass, the two of them mounted the horse and went back the way they came. Not long after passing a sign they arrived at the inn. Guo Jing held Huang Rong’s hand and together, they stepped inside. The shopkeeper had once been recipient of Guo Jing’s silver and looked joyous at seeing his return. Hurrying forward, he welcomed Guo Jing, saying, “Good day to you, sir! All the other guests have left the city. What would you like to eat?”
Guo Jing said, surprised, “They’ve all left? Did they leave any messages?”
“No, they didn’t. They headed south and haven’t been gone for more than four hours.”
Turning to Huang Rong, Guo Jing said, “We’ll catch up with them.” They left the inn, mounted the horse and headed south in pursuit, but failed to catch sight of the three priests or the ‘Six Freaks’.
So they turned back once again. The little red horse, spirited as ever after having done two trips, still showed no signs of weariness and continued galloping relentlessly. Along the way they made inquiries about the three priests and ‘Six Freaks’ but no one had seen anyone like them and Guo Jing was thoroughly disappointed.
Huang Rong said, “All of them will be gathering at the ‘Pavilion of the Drunken Immortal’ during the Mid-Autumn Festival, so you’ll definitely be able to see your Shifus then. It still wouldn’t be too late to tell them that I’m ‘very, very good’.”
“Mid-Autumn Festival is a whole six months away,” he replied.
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Smiling cheerfully, Huang Rong said, “Then for these six months we’ll have fun and be merry, wouldn’t that be great?”
Besides being adventurous by nature, Guo Jing, like all young people, was also playful.
Furthermore, he would be accompanied by the girl he loved and couldn’t ask for more. Applauding the idea, the pair hurried to the nearest town to spend the evening. The next day they bought a white horse; Guo Jing insisted on riding it, letting Huang Rong ride the little red horse. With reins in hand, they traveled leisurely and enjoyed themselves along the way. Sometimes they slept beside each other in the wilderness, other times they shared a room at an inn. Despite their deep love for each other, they were young and innocent and did nothing licentious. Huang Rong did not think this situation was unusual; Guo Jing, however, felt that this was how things were meant to be.
One day they arrived in Xiqing Prefecture, which was east of Jingdong Road and was controlled by the Taining military. As it grew closer to noon, the weather became increasingly humid. Having ridden with haste for nearly half a day, trickles of perspiration formed on their foreheads and backs as the bright, orange sun shone directly on them. Sand and dust from the trail scattered all around them as they rode, the particles sticking to their sweating faces. The discomfort was unbearable.
“Let’s not hurry anymore. We’ll find a cool and breezy place to rest,” Huang Rong suggested.
Guo Jing replied, “Sure. Let’s have a pot of tea in the next town before doing anything else.”
As they spoke, their horses caught up with a sedan chair with a scrawny donkey leading. Riding the donkey was a big fat man clothed in yam-colored gauze robes, continuously fanning himself with a big white fan. The donkey staggered under the weight of his 227 jin [113kg / 250lb] body, with every step proving to be a hurdle. As for the sedan chair, its screens were lifted for cooling purposes and within it sat a fat middle-aged woman in pink robes. Coincidentally, the two sedan-bearers were also thin and frail and both were panting heavily. Beside the sedan was a servant girl with a sunflower-fan, relentlessly fanning the fat woman. Huang Rong urged her horse forward and overtook this group of people and passed them by seventy or eighty feet. She then reined in and turned around to face them.
Curious, Guo Jing asked, “What are you doing?”
“I want to see what this madam looks like,” came her reply. Peering into the sedan, she saw that the fat woman was forty-odd years of age. She had a gold hairpin in her hair, and at the edge of her temple was a large, red velvet flower. She had a broad mouth, beady eyes, two flapping ears and a nose so flat it looked like it wasn’t there. Her plump face was as round as a plate with a thick layer of powder slapped on. However, streams of perspiration from her forehead had already washed streaks of powder to create several ridges on her face. Hearing Huang Rong’s words, she raised a pair of bushy eyebrows and glowered fiercely at her.