The sounds hooves were heard as someone riding a red horse arrived. On the horse was a middle-aged woman, clad in leopard fur, and in her arms, a little girl. It was Temujin's wife, Tolui's mother.
She had been chatting in the camp with Senggum's wife. When she heard the news, she immediately rushed out with her daughter Hua Zheng. Seeing the danger, she was both shocked and worried. She shouted “Quickly, shoot the arrow!” With all her being focused on her son, she absentmindedly placed her daughter on the ground, forgetting about her safety.
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As a little girl of four years, how was Hua Zheng supposed to know of the leopard's ferocious nature? She happily bounded over to her brother's side. Spotting the leopards with their pretty colored fur, she was reminded of her second brother Ogedai’s hunting dogs. She stretched her hand out, wanting to pat the leopard's head. The crowd was startled, and yelled at her to stop; but it was already too late. The two leopards, already nervous and agitated, growled at the same time, and leapt forward fiercely. Alarmed, the crowd called out in distress.
Although Temujin had already aimed his arrow, Hua Zheng's sudden appearance was something that no one had expected. In the blink of an eye, the leopards were in the air. Hua Zheng was blocking Temujin's aim at the strategic spot on the leopard's head where they have to be hit to ensure an instant kill. A shot by Temujin now would only injure the leopard, and that would aggravate it further. The ‘Four Aces’ threw down their bows and drew their knives. As they moved forward, they saw Guo Jing roll forward to pick up Hua Zheng; at the same time one leopard's front claws was on Guo Jing's shoulder. The ‘Four Aces’ raised their knives, only to hear several faint sounds. When the noises passed, the two leopards suddenly fell growling and rolling from side to side. After a short time they were motionless.
Boroqul went forward to find out what had happened. He saw blood running from the leopards’
foreheads. It was obvious that a kung fu master had used a hidden weapon to hit the leopards’
brains. He turned around and saw six calm, composed Han people standing to one side watching the on-going scene. He knew that the hidden weapons had been thrown by them. Temujin's wife hurriedly picked up the now bawling Hua Zheng from Guo Jing's arms and pulled Tolui to her bosom as she tried to comfort Hua Zheng.
Senggum asked angrily, “Who killed the leopards?”
The crowd remained silent and no one answered. Ke Zhen’E had heard the leopards’ growls, and fearing that the leopards would harm Guo Jing, had thrown four projectiles with poisonous tips.
Since that action only took a wave of the hand, and since everyone had their eyes focused on the leopards, there was no one who actually saw who fired them.
Temujin smiled and said, “Brother Senggum, I'll repay you with four good leopards when we get back, and I'll add eight pairs of black eagles.”
Senggum was seething with anger when he heard that, but he remained silent. By now, Ong Khan was angrily scolding Dukhsh. Humiliated at receiving this treatment in front of the crowd, he tried to deflect the blame from himself. In a fit of temper he lay down on the ground and began rolling and hitting, crying and shouting. Ong Khan loudly commanded him to stop, but he did not care.
Because Temujin was still grateful for what Ong Khan had done for him in the past, he felt that it would be a pity to break up the two families' friendship over such a small matter. He smiled and bent over to pick up Dukhsh. Dukhsh was still crying and yelling and tried his best to struggle, but could not. Still smiling, Temujin tried to salvage the situation, “Step-father, the kids were only playing, there's no need to get worked up. I think he is a good boy and I'm thinking of betrothing my daughter to him. What do you think?”
Ong Khan saw that Hua Zheng had eyes like glistening dew, and skin like a baby lamb, fair and cute, and felt happy in his heart. Laughingly, he said, “What could be wrong with that? Let's have an even closer relationship; I'll betroth my eldest granddaughter to your son Jochi.”
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Temujin agreed, “Thanks Step-father!” He turned around and said to Senggum, “Brother Senggum, we are now in-laws!”
Senggum had always felt that he was of a higher status than Temujin. He was already jealous of Temujin, yet looked down on him. Although he was not happy about becoming in-laws with Temujin, he could not go against his father's wishes. He could only smile weakly.
At this point, Wanyan Honglie noticed the ‘Six Freaks of the South’, and he was shocked. “What are they doing here? I'm sure they are chasing me. I wonder if the temperamental Taoist priest with the surname Qiu is around here as well?” he asked himself. Since he currently had the protection of numerous soldiers, he was not afraid of them. But if he gave the command to capture them, he was afraid that it might cause trouble. The ‘Six Freaks’ were listening to Temujin’s and the others'
conversations and had not even noticed him. He turned and moved behind the crowd of soldiers, while at the same time thinking of ways to handle the matter. As for Ong Khan and Temujin's families' engagement, he did not think much of it.
Temujin knew that it was the ‘Six Freaks of the South’ that saved his daughter's life, and he waited for Ong Khan and the others to leave, before commanding Boroqul to reward them richly with furs and gold. He then reached his hand out to stroke the top of Guo Jing's head and repeatedly praised him for his courage and valor. Temujin said that risking his own life to save another, is something that not all adults will do, much less a small child. When he asked Guo Jing why was he so brave, Guo Jing just stood there dumbly since he could not find an answer. After pondering for some time, he said, “Leopards will eat people.”
Hearing that, Temujin laughed loudly. Tolui then told why he started fighting with Dukhsh. When Temujin heard how Dukhsh kept mentioning embarrassing events from his past, anger boiled deep in his heart. He said nothing about it, only saying, “In the future, don't bother with him.” Temujin then turned to Quan Jinfa and asked, “How much gold do you want to stay in my camp to teach my son kung fu?”
Quan Jinfa thought, “We were thinking of finding a place to teach Guo Jing kung fu. If we can teach him here, there would no better place.” He replied, “The Great Khan's willingness to accept the six of us is something we could not have asked for. You can pay us whatever you decide is suitable, we wouldn’t dare to discuss or argue about the amount.” Temujin was pleased and he told Boroqul to look after them; after that, he left to see off the Wanyan brothers.
The Six Freaks of the South rode slowly behind the others while they discussed the matter.
Han Baoju said, “The skin on the chest of Chen Xuanfeng's corpse was removed by someone; it must have been an enemy of his.”
Quan Jinfa replied, “The ‘Twin Killers of the Dark Winds’ are cruel and ruthless; having many enemies isn't something to be surprised at. But I don't understand why his enemy didn’t simply chop up his body, or slash him all over. Why only slice off a large piece of skin from his chest?”
“I have been thinking of that all this time, but I still cannot figure out the reasoning behind it,” Ke Zhen’E replied. “The most pressing task at hand is to find out where ‘Iron Corpse’ is.
“Precisely! If that person is not killed, she will bring much danger to us in the future. I'm afraid that she will not die from the poison,” Zhu Cong agreed.
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With tears in her eyes, Han Xiaoying spoke up, “Fifth brother's dead, how could we not avenge him?”
So Han Baoju, Han Xiaoying and Quan Jinfa, rode their fast horses to try to find ‘Iron Corpse’. But after numerous days of searching, they were not able to find a trace of her. Han Baoju considered,
“The woman's eyes were hit by elder brother's poison projectiles. The poison must have worked on her by now; she probably died in some mountain valley." The rest of them agreed. Ke Zhen’E knew in his heart that the ‘Twin Killers of the Dark Winds’ were very smart and devious. Unless he could touch her corpse with his own hands, it would always remain a heavy weight on his heart. He did not want to bother his younger brothers and sister with his worries and did not tell them of his concerns.
From then on, the Six Freaks of the South remained on the steppe, teaching Guo Jing and Tolui kung fu. Temujin knew that kung fu is for protecting oneself in close contact with an opponent. He wanted Tolui and Guo Jing to learn these techniques briefly, and to spend most of their time learning riding, shooting with their bows and arrows, and learning other important skills of the battlefield. The ‘Six Freaks of the South’ were not familiar with these Mongol skills so Guo Jing and Tolui learned these from Jebe and Boroqul.
In the evenings, the ‘Six Freaks of the South’ taught Guo Jing alone, teaching him fists, sword, hidden weapons, and lightness kung fu. Although Guo Jing was slow by nature, he knew that he had to avenge his father in the future using kung fu, so he did not complain and worked as hard as he could.
Zhu Cong, Quan Jinfa and Han Xiaoying's kung fu was a bit too hard for him to comprehend. With Han Baoju and Nan Xiren's basic kung fu, he just followed their directions exactly and slowly but steadily learned it. This basic kung fu strengthened bodies but was not designed to overcome an enemy and win a fight.