Ouyang Ke snapped open his fan and looked over it at Huang Rong. Laughing, he recited, “My distant heart held no one within, but today I have met its princess.”
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Huang Rong made a funny face at Ouyang Ke and laughed. “I don’t need your compliments, just as much as I don’t need you to miss me,” she said.
Ouyang Ke was speechless: He was enthralled by the goddess-like Huang Rong and her pleasant expression.
“Your uncle rules the western region tyrannically, so obviously no one has disciplined you,” Hong Qigong shouted. “So you’ve come into the Central Plains with the idea of doing as you please.
Well, today, I will give your uncle face and leave you alone. Get out of my sight right now.”
Ouyang Ke stopped himself from spitting out hateful words. Knowing himself to be no match for Hong Qigong, he began to retreat obediently, though his heart was full of distaste. “Junior bids you farewell. If senior makes it through the next few years without suffering any serious illness, please come to the White Camel Mountain for a visit.”
Hong Qigong laughed. “Little punk, you dare challenge me to a duel? If I do come, it will have nothing to do with an agreement. Your uncle isn’t afraid of me and I’m not afraid of your uncle.
Twenty years before yesterday, in the early morning, a group of us fought one another and found ourselves to be evenly matched. We need not ever fight again.”
His face abruptly changed. “You are still here in front of me instead of being far away!” Hong Qigong shouted.
Ouyang Ke was startled again. “I’ve only learned thirty percent of uncle’s kung fu,” he thought.
“This man doesn’t seem to be lying. I’ll accept this loss of face for now and get back at him later.”
Ouyang Ke didn’t respond, and the three men, with their chins still aching, made no sound. Casting a glance at Huang Rong, Ouyang Ke turned and walked back into the forest.
The three men then made strange noises to direct the snakes, but because of the injury to their jaws, their voices at their loudest only came out as a weak rasp. Like a wave, the snakes moved back into the forest, leaving a trail of gleaming slime across the ground.
“Master Qigong, do you know where these snakes come from?” Huang Rong said. “Were they raised?”
Hong Qigong gave no response. He took a swig from his gourd, used his sleeve to wipe off the sweat from his brow and let out a sigh of relief. “So dangerous; so very dangerous!” he said.
“How so?” both Guo Jing and Huang Rong asked.
“Those poisonous snakes were only temporarily blocked by my efforts,” Hong Qigong said. “They would have soon been able to cross over. With so many snakes, they would have been like a flood.
How would we be able to stop them? Luckily, those people were inexperienced and didn’t realize my ruse since I frightened them so much. If the ‘Old Poison’ had come, you two kids would have been in a terrible position,” he added.
“We wouldn’t stay — we’d run away,” Huang Rong said.
“This senior wouldn’t be afraid, but you two kids would run away,” Hong Qigong laughed. “But how would you flee if the ‘Old Poison’ sent out one of his palms?”
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“Is that man’s uncle really that powerful?” Huang Rong said.
Hong Qigong laughed. “Powerful? ‘Eastern Heretic,’ ‘Western Poison,’ ‘Northern Beggar,’
‘Southern Emperor’ and ‘Central Divinity’: Your father is the Eastern Heretic, and Ouyang Feng is the Western Poison. The number one martial artist, Wang Zhenren [Wang Chongyang], passed away. The remaining four of us, who fought against one another in eight pairs, were found to be equal. Is your father not fierce?” he added. “Is my own ability negligible?” [Note: Zhenren is a title for respected for Taoist priests.]
Huang Rong had secretly pondered these points before and was not able to put the pieces together.
“My father is a good person, so why is he called ‘heretical’ and ‘evil?’ I don’t like his nickname.”
“Privately, your father probably likes his nickname,” Hong Qigong said with a laugh. “That man possesses a strange spirit. He follows his own unorthodox way — is that not perverse? I am convinced that the proper ancestry of all orthodox kung fu is through Quanzhen’s teachings.”
“You’ve learned Quanzhen’s neigong haven’t you?” he said to Guo Jing.
“Ma Yu taught me at length for over two years,” Guo Jing said.
“Indeed, indeed — you didn’t learn that in any short span of time,” Hong Qigong said. “Had you not, how would you be able to learn my ‘Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms’ if you didn’t possess a good neigong basis?”
“Who is Southern Emperor?” Huang Rong said.
“Southern Emperor is indeed an emperor [huang di],” Hong Qigong said. Guo Jing and Huang Rong were surprised.
“Do you mean the emperor of the Song?” Huang Rong said.
Hong Qigong erupted in laughter. “That kid emperor is only strong enough to eat from a golden rice bowl. If there are two, he wouldn’t be able to pick it up! Southern Emperor is not the Song emperor.
No, this Southern Emperor possesses very powerful kung fu. Between the three of us, your father and I were slightly inferior. But the ‘southern fire overcoming the western gold’? Indeed, the ‘Old Poison’, Ouyang Feng, was unable to overcome his star.”
Guo Jing and Huang Rong wanted Hong Qigong to finish his story but the beggar was lost in thought and fell into silence. They didn’t press him. Hong Qigong looked skyward. His eyebrows creased as if he were pondering some sort of difficult problem. He walked back into the inn alone.
Suddenly, Huang Rong and Guo Jing heard the sound of tearing. As Hong Qigong passed through the gate into the inn, a nail got caught on his sleeve and tore a large hole into it. Huang Rong gasped in surprise. But Hong Qigong didn’t notice. He kept walking as if he were in a daze.
“I’ll mend it for you,” Huang Rong said. Huang Rong went to the proprietress of the inn and borrowed a needle and thread. Then she fixed the hole in Hong Qigong’s sleeve.
Hong Qigong shook himself from his reverie when he saw Huang Rong with the needle in her hand.
He abruptly snatched the needle and ran outside the inn’s gate. Curious, Guo Jing and Huang Rong Eagle Shooting Hero
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followed, only to see Hong Qigong throw the gleaming needle out. Huang Rong watched the needle arch and pierce a grasshopper. She shouted in delight.
“This will do,” Hong Qigong said, looking satisfied. “This style will do nicely.”
Guo Jing and Huang Rong waited for Hong Qigong to continue.
“Ouyang Feng, the ‘Old Poison’, loves to raise poisonous snakes and poisonous insects,” Hong Qigong said. “Coming up with a way to deal with all those blue snakes is not an easy thing.” He paused before continuing. “When I saw that young Ouyang and found him to be no good, and knowing his uncle who opposes everyone, I realized that you two needed some way to disperse the snakes since I might not always be around to save you.”
Huang Rong clapped her hands. “You would use the needles to pin the snakes to the ground.”
Hong Qigong smiled at Huang Rong. “This girl is so clever,” he said. “You say one sentence, and she already knows the next one.”
“You don’t want to use the yellow herb anymore?” Huang Rong said. “You just spit it out with the wine and the poisonous snakes will refuse to cross it.”
“That will only work for so long,” Hong Qigong said. “I have to practice this stance ‘Blossoms Rain from the Sky’, which uses needles. The snakes will approach in the future, and I will throw out these needles, hitting each snake, one by one. After I get enough needles, I will go and kill all those snakes in about a fortnight.” Both Guo Jing and Huang Rong laughed.
“I’ll go get you your needles,” Huang Rong said, before immediately heading off in the direction of the town market.
Hong Qigong sighed in admiration. “Jing’er, why don’t you have her split her intelligence and cleverness in half and give one half to you?”
“Split in half her intelligence and cleverness?” Guo Jing said. “You can’t split those apart.”
Huang Rong returned from the market around the next meal time. She removed from a food basket two packages of sewing needles, and, smiling, said, “I bought every single needle in town.
Tomorrow, all the men are going to get an earful from their women.”
“Why?” Guo Jing said.
“Yelling at them would be useless!” Huang Rong said. “There’s not a single needle left to buy in the town.”
Hong Qigong burst into laughter. “Didn’t you two kids want me to teach you projectile kung fu?
Let’s see how hard you can work You two kids won’t get another opportunity to learn from this old man. It turns out this old beggar was smart after all! By not marrying, I’m spared the torment of dealing with women” Laughing, Huang Rong followed him out.
“I don’t want to learn Master Qigong,” Guo Jing said.