Qigong was very gluttonous and always grinning but he was not stupid; he had seen through her act all along!
The old beggar, muttering to himself, left without a backward glance. The two young people stood silently for a long moment.
“Rong’er,” Guo Jing finally said, “this Elder has a rather unique character!” Huang Rong heard a light rustle in the foliage above their heads and realized that Qigong had made a loop before returning, discreetly, to the top of the tree.
“He's a really kind person,” she then said. “And his kung fu is much stronger than my father's.”
“He hasn't shown his skills,” Guo Jing wondered aloud, “how do you know that?”
“My dad told me so.”
“What exactly did he say?”
“He said that, in today's world, there was only one person who could beat him, and that was the Divine Nine-Fingered Beggar, Hong Qigong. Unfortunately, since this Elder is always wandering, he has seldom had the occasion to see him and exchange pointers.”
In fact, after he had moved away, Qigong had used his incomparable qinggong and had returned to the top of the tree, high above the heads of the young people. He wanted to hear their conversation and to assure himself that they had not been sent by Huang Yaoshi to steal his skills. The words of Huang Rong filled him with pride. “So,” he said to himself, “Huang Yaoshi never wanted to accept my superiority; but deep within himself, he admires me nonetheless!” How could he have guessed that it was all pure and simple invention by the girl?
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“I didn't learn great things from my father,” Huang Rong went on, “but that's my fault. I enjoyed having fun too much and never wanted to apply myself! Having had the good fortune to meet Elder Hong and had he wanted to give me some lessons, it would have been much better than learning from my father! What a shame I offended him without intending to!” Then she started to sob. At first she pretended and Guo Jing tenderly tried to console her. Then she thought about the death of her mother, the intransigence of her father and started to truly weep. Qigong, atop his tree, was nearly convinced.
“I heard father say,” Huang Rong continued while sobbing, “that Elder Hong had an exceptional skill of incomparable power that even Wang Chongyang feared. It's called... It's called... What is it called? I can't remember... Anyway, I had it on the tip of my tongue all this time and I wanted to beg him to teach it...to you- it's called...it's called...” Indeed, she did not know of any such skill and talked in a rambling way.
Hearing her hesitate, seemingly searching for the name without finding it, Qigong could not hold back and cried as he jumped to the foot of the tree, “It is called the ‘Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms’!” Guo Jing and Huang Rong bounded up in surprise, one's surprise was real, the other's was feigned...
“Ah, Elder Hong,” Huang Rong cried, “how did you get up in the tree? By flying? Yes, that's it, the
‘Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms’! Exactly! How could I have forgotten it? Father often told me that the kung fu that he admired most in the world was the ‘Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms’!”
Qigong was delighted. “Then your dad knows what the truth is! I believed that, after the death of Wang Chongyang, he considered himself to be the most powerful in the world!” He turned towards Guo Jing. “Indeed, your kung fu isn't inferior to that of your little friend. The problem is that your palm technique is not at all up to the mark. Little girl, you return to the inn!”
Huang Rong realized that he was going to give a lesson to Guo Jing and she went away, well satisfied. Qigong addressed Guo Jing solemnly, “You will kneel down and promise me that, without my permission, you will not transmit my kung fu to anyone else, not even to your crafty little woman!”
Guo Jing was greatly embarrassed. “If Rong’er insists that I teach her,” he said to himself, “how can I refuse?” “Sir,” he said, “I do not want to learn from you. What does it matter if she is more skilled than me?”
“And why not?” Hong asked.
“If she wants me to teach her, I cannot refuse without offending her and I cannot accept without offending you...”
“Simple-minded though you are,” Hong Qigong said, laughing, “you have a good heart and you speak directly. That is good. Very well, I will teach you a stroke called ‘The Proud Dragon Shows Remorse’. I would imagine that Huang Yaoshi has enough pride that he won't, although he would desire to, copy my superior skills. In any case, our schools are completely different; I cannot learn his kung fu and he cannot learn mine...” At that, he bent his left knee, pivoted and straightened his arm, made a circle with the upright hand and pushed outwards with the other. His palm touched a great pine and ‘craack’, its trunk snapped! Guo Jing stood petrified, shocked by the power contained in this blow.
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“This tree could not move,” Qigong said, “if it were human, it would obviously try to avoid the blow. The difficulty of this technique is to strike precisely so that your opponent cannot, no matter what, avoid it and so well that once you land your blow, ‘craack’, the enemy will collapse like this pine!” He repeated the demonstration twice, explaining in detail how to concentrate and project the internal energy. It was only one stroke, but the lesson took more than an hour.
Guo Jing was not clever but he had a good basis in neigong. To learn a move such as this, made with simple movements but having unequaled power, suited him perfectly. He trained conscientiously and, at the end of two hours, had grasped the majority of this technique...
“In that little imp's technique,” Hong said, “there are many more feints than real attacks. If you try to follow her, she will run around you as if you were a donkey and you will always fall. You will never be as quick as her. You will think that, after all these feints, the next blow will be real, but no, it will be a feint! And the blow following you will believe to be a feint, but she will strike a real blow and you will be in trouble!” Guo Jing nodded his head in agreement.
“Therefore, to fight her, the clever way is to completely put the thought of whether it is a feint or not out of your mind. When she attacks you with a palm blow, whether it is a feint or not, return it with a blow of ‘The Proud Dragon Regrets’. Against the power of your attack, she will be forced to withdraw and defend herself; so much so that all her tricks fall into water!”
“And after that?” Guo Jing asked.
“What do you mean, ‘and after that’?” Hong replied, his face suddenly darkening. “You great idiot, do you think she is able to withstand this blow that I taught you?”
“But if she can't withstand it,” Guo Jing said, very worried, “won't she be injured?”
Qigong shook his head and sighed. “If, in such a blow one seeks only to send out the force and not to keep it, if one cannot somehow control its lightness or its power, firmness or softness, how can one consider himself a master of these unique 'Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms'?”
Guo Jing was eager to agree, but he had made a mental decision. “Since I haven't learned to control my force perfectly, I won't fight with Rong’er!”
“You don't believe me?” Hong Qigong said. “In that case, try it!” Guo Jing took up the position, imitating his senior's posture, picked a pine with a particularly slender trunk and struck it with a violent blow. The pine shook but was not at all broken.
“You big fool,” Qigong said, “Why are you shaking this tree; to catch squirrels or to drop pinecones?” Guo Jing, red with shame, laughed with an air of denial, not knowing how to reply.
“I already demonstrated it for you.” Hong Qigong said. “It is necessary to put the opponent in a position such that it cannot back up or get away. Your blow just now had enough force, but all the pine needed to do is shake itself a little for it to escape the full force. It is necessary that you learn to approach and strike in such a way that the tree cannot budge, in order to be able to break it in one go.”
This was, for Guo Jing, enlightening. “Then,” he cried joyously, “It’s necessary for the force to be particularly swift, delivered in such a way that the opponent has no time to defend himself!”
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Qigong shot him a bleak look. “Absolutely! That goes without saying! You’ve sweated blood for such a long time and you only now understand this truth? One really can say that you aren't clever!
For this stroke, known as ‘The Proud Dragon Shows Remorse’- it's essence is not found in the word
‘Proud’ but rather in the word ‘Remorse’. If one concentrated only on pure violence, brute power, a little force in the muscles would suffice. If that were true, how could this technique be admired by Huang Yaoshi? As the old saying goes: ‘The Proud Dragon itself regrets, the surplus will not last a long time’. This is the reason that if there is transmission, there must be retention. When you send out a force of ten, it is necessary to preserve within yourself a force of twenty. The day when you know to appreciate the full meaning of the concept ‘Remorse’, then you will be able to say that you have understood thirty percent of this stroke. Just as a fine old wine that has had time to age at first tastes not very strong, but afterwards it releases its full heady flavor, that explains the concept