Tugging at Guo Jing’s hand, she chattered away endlessly. Huang Rong, seeing the manner between Huazheng and Guo Jing so intimate, was already somewhat unhappy. Even more uncomfortably, Huazheng was speaking entirely in Mongolian, which Huang Rong couldn’t understand a single word of. She had become an outsider.
Huang Yaoshi noticed the odd expression on his daughter’s face. “Rong’er,” he asked, “who’s this barbarian girl?”
“Brother Jing’s wife-to-be,” answered Huang Rong, morose.
Hearing this, Huang Yaoshi almost couldn’t believe his own ears. “What?” he asked, insistently.
Huang Rong hung her head. “Dad,” she said, “go and ask him for yourself.”
Zhu Cong, nearby, had recognised in advance that things were getting inauspicious, and hastened forward. Delicately, he raised the circumstances of Guo Jing’s already having gotten engaged with Huazheng earlier in Mongolia.
Huang Yaoshi, unable to restrain his anger, cast an accusing glance at Guo Jing. Icily, he said: “So it turns out that, before coming to Peach Blossom Island as a suitor, he’d already set on an engagement in Mongolia?”
“We ought to think of a…think of a way to satisfy both parties,” stuttered Zhu Cong.
“Rong’er,” said Huang Yaoshi sharply, “dad’s going to do something, and you’d better not get in the way.”
“Dad, what is it?” asked Huang Rong, her voice trembling.
“That disgusting boy, that worthless girl – I’ll slaughter both of them together!” said Huang Yaoshi.
“How could we allow anyone to disgrace the two of us, father and daughter?”
Huang Rong dashed forward a step and grabbed her father’s right hand. “Dad,” she said, “Brother Jing said wholeheartedly that he really, really loves me – that he’s never taken this barbarian girl to heart!”
“Well, fine,” snorted Huang Yaoshi. Raising his voice, he shouted: “Boy, hurry up and kill the barbarian girl, to display evidence of your own feelings!”
Eagle Shooting Hero
799
Guo Jing had never in his entire life met with such an awkward situation. Naturally hesitant in his thoughts, he heard what Huang Yaoshi just said and felt totally at a loss; standing there in a daze, dumbfounded, he didn’t know what to do.
“You’d already set on a marriage beforehand,” continued Huang Yaoshi frostily, “yet you still came to me in suit! Whoever heard of such a thing?”
Seeing Huang Yaoshi’s ashen expression, the Jiangnan Freaks knew that Guo Jing was one sudden flick of a palm away from fatal misfortune; furtively, each of them went on guard. But with their ability so far inferior by comparison, they’d actually be helpless to assist should the fighting get serious.
Guo Jing had always been unable to tell lies. Having heard these questions, he answered with the plain truth: “All I hoped for was to be with Rong’er for the rest of my life. Without Rong’er, there’s no way I can live.”
Huang Yaoshi’s expression softened slightly. “Very well,” he said. “If you don’t kill this girl, that’s fine; but from now on, you cannot ever see her again.”
Guo Jing, faltering, had yet to respond, when Huang Rong asked: “You definitely need to see her, don’t you?”
“I’ve always treated her just like a dear sister,” said Guo Jing. “If I can’t see her, sometimes I’d worry about her.”
Huang Rong gave a beautiful smile. “Just see who you’d like to see – I don’t mind!” she said. “I have faith that you don’t really love her. And how could it be that I don’t compare to her?”
“Fine!” said Huang Yaoshi. “I am here. The barbarian girl’s family are here. And your six teachers are here, too. Now you better say it loud and clear: the one you want to marry is my daughter, and not that barbarian girl!” It was already greatly against his nature to concede repeatedly like this; but out of respect for his beloved daughter, he restrained himself with all his might, and tolerated it. His heart had also softened briefly since Mei Chaofeng lost her life while shielding her teacher.
Lost in thought, Guo Jing hung his head. Stashed around his waist, he glimpsed both the golden blade granted to him by Genghis Khan, and the small dagger gifted to him by Qiu Chuji.
“Going by the will of father,” he pondered, “Yang Kang and I should be good brothers, not changing through life and death. But how can I keep faith in this tie if he acts like he does? And going by the will of Uncle Yang Tiexin, I should take Sister Mu as a wife. But that obviously can’t be right. It looks like I don’t always have to follow the orders laid down for me by elders. The engagement between myself and Sister Huazheng was made by Genghis Khan. How can it be that, because some person said a few words, Rong’er and I have to spend our lives apart?” Having thought this far, he’d already made up his mind. He raised his head.
By now, Tuolei had clarified with Zhu Cong what had been spoken about in the exchange between Huang Yaoshi and Guo Jing. He saw Guo Jing dithering and ruminating, seemingly embarrassed; and he realised that he truly felt no sentiments towards his sister. Bursting with rage, he took a long, wolf-fanged-and-vulture-plumed arrow out from his quiver, and gripped it in both hands.
800
Eagle Shooting Hero
“Brother Guo Jing!” he called out. “Everywhere under heaven, ‘One’s word is one’s bond’ is the conduct of the true man! Now that you’ve treated my sister heartlessly, how could the heroic sons and daughters of Genghis Khan seek sincerity from you? The brotherly tie between you and me…from now, I demand it severed! As for the bond of life and death the two of us had when we were children, and also your saving the lives of father and me – let’s keep kindness and grievance clearly separated. Because your mother’s in the north, I’ll certainly provide for her, properly and respectfully. But if you want to see her come south, I’ll be sure to send people in escort. There won’t be the least bit of neglect – no way! A real man’s words are set in stone. You put your mind at rest!” Done with talking, there was a loud crack as he snapped the arrow in two, flinging the shards before the horse. Tuolei had spoken with a steely finality and an iron will. Deep down, Guo Jing felt in awe, and he suddenly recalled all kinds of heroic deeds that him and Tuolei had got up to during their youth in the great desert.
“He said: ‘A real man’s words are set in stone,’” thought Guo Jing. “The agreement to marry Sister Huazheng was from my own mouth. To go back on one’s word – how is that the way to behave?
Even if Master Huang kills me today and Rong’er hates me for the rest of her life, I can’t be seeing it like that.”
Immediately, he raised his head high. “Master Huang, my six kind teachers, Brother Tuolei, and masters Zhebie and Bo’erhu,” he announced, “Guo Jing really isn’t the type who has no honour, no virtue. I have to marry Sister Huazheng.”
He made this announcement in Chinese, and separately, in Mongolian. For everyone, it was far off what they’d expected. Tuolei, Huazheng, Zhebie and Bo’erhu were surprised but delighted; the Jiangnan Freaks privately praised their disciple for being a true man of hard backbone; and Huang Yaoshi, casting him a sideways glance, gave a cold sneer.
Huang Rong was deeply heartbroken. After a moment’s pause, she took a few steps towards Huazheng, and assessed her carefully. She noticed Huazheng’s athletic figure, her large eyes and dashing eyebrows, her features everywhere noble; and she couldn’t help giving a long sigh.
“Jing gege,” she said, “I understand. You and her are the same. The two of you are a pair of white eagles rising over the great desert. But I’m just a little swallow, sitting under a willow branch in Jiangnan.”
Guo Jing stepped over to her. “Rong’er,” he said, grasping her hands, “I don’t know if what you said is right or wrong. In my heart, there’s only you – and you know it! Who cares what others say we should or shouldn’t do? They can burn my body ‘til the ashes blow away, but I’ll only be thinking of you!”
“Then why did you say that you’ll marry her?” said Huang Rong, tears welling in her eyes.
“I am a fool,” said Guo Jing. “I don’t know about any reasoning. I only know this: the promises that you make, you just can’t take back. But I’m not lying when I say that, no matter what, you’re the only one in my heart. There’s no way I can be apart from you. I would rather die!”
Huang Rong felt confusion inside – feelings of love and of pain. After a moment, she gave a faint smile. “Jing gege,” she said, “if I’d known things would be this way, we’d never have returned from the ‘Island of Rubicund Clouds’. Wouldn’t that have been great?”
Eagle Shooting Hero
801
Huang Yaoshi, raising an eyebrow, suddenly shouted: “That’s easy!” With a flap of his robe sleeves, he swung out a hand chopping at Huazheng.
To Huang Rong, her old dad’s intentions had been plain to see. Spotting a cold glint in his eyes, and knowing an attempt to kill was imminent, she’d pre-emptively dashed to obstruct him before he’d thrown out his hand. Huang Yaoshi, afraid of harming his beloved daughter, at once stopped his hand’s momentum. Huang Rong had already grabbed Huazheng by the arm and pulled her off her horse when Huang Yaoshi’s hand struck the horse on the saddle, making a loud noise.