‘Old Heretic Huang is not worthy to be my friend!’ Qiu Chuji was taken aback, ‘Martial Uncle, why did you say Huang Yaoshi was not worthy to be your friend?’ I told him, ‘He went to get the book back from Western Poison without consulting me and did not give it back to me.’”
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“I think he intended to do it, but right after he got the book back it was stolen by his renegade disciples,” Guo Jing reasoned. “I know he was quite angry because of this, so he cut the ligaments in the legs of his other innocent disciples and expelled them from his school.”
Zhou Botong shook his head. “You are as naive as I was; if this affair happened to you, you would surely be bullied without knowing it,” he said. “That day Qiu Chuji discussed martial arts with me and we talked at length before he finally left. Two months later he suddenly reappeared. He had visited Chen Xuanfeng and Mei Chaofeng, the couple that had stolen the Old Heretic Huang’s book.
They were practicing the ‘Nine Yin White Bone Claw’ and ‘Heart Destroying Palm’, two evil martial arts. He took a big risk to eavesdrop on the ‘Twin Killers of the Dark Winds’ conversation and found out that Old Heretic Huang did not get the book from Ouyang Feng. Not at all … he’d stolen it from my hands.”
“You burned the book. Did Madame Huang swap the book and gave you a fake one?” Guo Jing asked.
“I guarded against that possibility from the beginning,” Zhou Botong said. “When Madame Huang looked at the book, I did not dare to move even half a step from her side. She did not know martial arts. Even if her hands and feet were swift she could not get away from we who practice hidden projectiles. No, she did not make a swap; she merely recorded it in her mind!”
Guo Jing did not understand. “How did she record it?” he asked.
Zhou Botong answered his question with another, “Brother, when you are reading a book, how many times do you have to read it until you commit what you read into your memory?”
“If it is easy … maybe thirty or forty times. If it is difficult or long, probably seventy or eighty times, or even a hundred times. Even after I read it a hundred times, I still cannot guarantee its accuracy,” Guo Jing replied.
“Speaking of brain power, I am afraid you cannot be considered smart,” Zhou Botong said.
“Your Brother is dumb by nature,” Guo Jing admitted. “It doesn’t matter whether I am studying literature or martial arts, I am always very slow.”
Zhou Botong sighed. “Let’s not talk about studying literature,” he said. “Just talk about practicing martial arts. When you learned a fist or palm technique, didn’t your masters have to teach you dozens of times before you could understand it?”
Guo Jing’s face was red with shame. “That’s true,” he said. “Sometimes I knew it but couldn’t recall it, and sometimes I remembered it but could not apply it.”
“But there are people in the world who, simply by watching other people do a stance, will be able to remember it forever,” Zhou Botong said.
“Totally correct!” Guo Jing exclaimed. “Island Master Huang’s daughter is just like that. When Benevolent Master [Enshi] Hong taught her martial arts, at most he would teach her twice; it was very seldom that he had to repeat the lesson three times.”
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“That girl is so smart,” Zhou Botong slowly said, “Let’s just hope she won’t share her mother’s short life! That day when Madame Huang borrowed my book she only read it twice, yet she did not miss a single word. After we bade farewell she wrote down everything for her husband to see.”
Guo Jing could not restrain his amazement. He was silent for a while only to say, “Madame Huang did not understand what she was reading; yet she was able to memorize the whole thing. How can there be such an intelligent person on the earth?”
“I am afraid your little friend, that Huang girl, is also capable of doing that,” Zhou Botong said.
“Anyway, after listening to Qiu Chuji I was ashamed. I immediately summoned the Quanzhen Sect’s seven first generation disciples to discuss this matter. Everybody agreed we should deal with the ‘Twin Killers of the Dark Winds’ and get the book back from them. Qiu Chuji said, ‘The ‘Twin Killers of the Dark Winds’ martial arts skills may be high, We are your juniors so Martial Uncle does not need to go into action personally; otherwise the heroes of Jianghu would say that the older generation bullied the younger one.’ I thought he was right, so I assigned one or two of them to find the ‘Twin Killers of the Dark Winds’ while the rest shadowed from out of sight to guard against the
‘Twin Killers’ escaping.”
Guo Jing nodded his head in agreement, “If all the Quanzhen Seven Masters went into action the
‘Twin Killers of the Dark Winds’ wouldn’t have a chance.” His mind wandered to the time when Priest Ma Yu along with his six masters masqueraded as the Quanzhen Seven Masters atop the barren Mongolian hill.
“They pursued the ‘Twin Killers’ as far as Henan, when the two unexpectedly disappeared,” Zhou Botong continued. “The Quanzhen Seven tried to get information and as it turned out another disciple of Old Heretic Huang, Lu Chengfeng had gathered dozens of heroes and valiant people of the Central Plains to fight those two with the intention of capturing them, sending them back to Peach Blossom Island and handing them over to the Old Heretic Huang. Nevertheless, they were still able to escape and vanished without a trace.”
“No wonder Village Master Lu hated his martial brother and martial sister so much; he was unjustly expelled from his school,” Guo Jing said.
“Since I couldn’t find the ‘Twin Killers of the Dark Winds’, naturally I looked for Old Heretic Huang. I carried the first volume of the ‘Nine Yin Manual’ because I was afraid I might lose this one as well. Upon arrival at Peach Blossom Island I scolded the Old Heretic Huang, but he said,
‘Botong, Huang Yaoshi always means what he says. I said I wouldn’t cast a glance at ‘your’ book and when did I look at it? The ‘Nine Yin Manual’ that I saw was the one recorded by my wife, certainly not your book.’ His words sounded reasonable, but I was furious so I spoke harsh words to him and asked to talk to his wife. He smiled bitterly and led me to the main hall. As soon as we were there I was shocked. It turned out Madame Huang had passed away. There in the main hall was her memorial tablet.
I was going to pay my respects to her spirit but Old Heretic Huang sneered and said, ‘Old Urchin!
You don’t have to be pretentious on my behalf. If not for your damned ‘dog fart manual’ [gou pi zhen jing] my wife wouldn’t have left me.’ I was startled, ‘What?’ I asked. He didn’t answer and only looked at me with angry eyes; then tears started rolling down his cheeks. After a long while, he began to tell me what really happened.
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Madame Huang wrote down the book the first time for her husband’s sake. Huang Yaoshi then found out that the book in his hands was the second volume which was harmful if used without knowing the first volume. So he decided to set the book aside while he was trying to get hold of the first volume. Who would have thought that the book would be stolen by Chen Xuanfeng and Mei Chaofeng? Madame Huang wanted to comfort her husband and she was quietly determined to rewrite the whole book.
First of all, she did not understand the meaning of what she wrote; she merely memorized the words. Secondly, it had been several years since she wrote it the first time; how could she remember everything? At that time she was entering the eighth month of her pregnancy. After much painstakingly hard thought she was able to re-write about seven or eight thousand words, but not every word was accurate. Her heart and mind were exhausted and because of that she gave birth to a baby girl prematurely. The baby was healthy, but her own condition was like a lantern that had run out of oil. Even though Huang Yaoshi’s medical skill is peerless, in the end, he was not able to save his beloved wife’s life.
Old Heretic Huang always loved to vent his anger and blame others; during this time after his wife passed away, he was like a madman and talked incoherently to me. I knew he was grieving so I did not want to argue with him. I simply smiled and said to him, ‘You are a pugilist, yet you invest so much feeling towards the husband and wife relationship. Aren’t you afraid you are becoming the laughing stock of other people?’ ‘My wife was different,’ he said. I told him, ‘Your wife died and now is the best time to train your martial arts. If it were me, that is exactly what I would expect of myself. The earlier your wife died the better. Congratulations! Congratulations!’”
“Ah!” Guo Jing gasped. “How could you say such thing?”
Zhou Botong eyes rolled, “I said what I was thinking; what’s wrong with that?” he snapped. “But that Old Heretic Huang got angry and without saying anything he struck me with his palm and we fought. In the end I had to stay in this stupid place for fifteen years.”
“Did you lose to him?” Guo Jing asked.