Guo Jing had guessed earlier it must be Huang Rong; but on hearing her voice he was overjoyed nonetheless. He restrained himself from coming out to see her. He thought that since Huang Rong liked to play around, he would surprise her later that evening. He slept soundly until about the second hour, quietly got up and went tiptoeing to scare Huang Rong in her room. Then he saw a shadow flashing on the roof; it was Huang Rong. “Where is she going in the middle of the night?”
Guo Jing wondered.
Quickly using his lightness kungfu he followed behind. Huang Rong ran without looking around to the outskirts of town; oblivious that somebody was following her. She stopped at the bank of a small creek and sat beneath a willow tree. She took something out of her pocket and bent down to play with it.
The moonlight shone on her beautiful face as a cool breeze swayed the willow branches and her clothes gently fluttered. The creek whispered softly and the insects chirped quietly. It was a beautiful scene to behold. Guo Jing was about to come near when suddenly he heard Huang Rong quietly say, “This is Jing ge ge, this one is Rong’er. You two sit down nicely face-to-face. Yes, like this …”
Guo Jing tiptoed behind her. He could not see clearly in the dim moonlight, but he saw in front of her two clay figurines, one resembled a man, the other a woman. These figurines were made in the famous Wuxi city; they were round, fat and really cute. During their stay at Returning Cloud Manor Guo Jing had learned from Huang Rong that although mere toys, Wuxi’s products were the result of very high quality craftsmanship. The locals called them ‘da a fu’ [big lucky]. Huang Rong owned several such figurines on Peach Blossom Island.
Guo Jing came nearer and saw in front of the figurines tiny clay bowls filled with flower petals, leaves, and so on. He heard her saying softly, “Jing ge ge can eat this bowl, Rong’er will have this one. Rong’er cooked them herself. Aren’t they delicious?”
“Delicious, very delicious!” Guo Jing said as he stepped out.
Huang Rong was startled. She turned her head and smiled sweetly; rushed into Guo Jing’s arms and hugged him tightly. They sat shoulder-to-shoulder beneath the willow tree busily talking about what had happened during their few days of separation [which felt like years to them]. Actually it was 450
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Huang Rong who busily talked; Guo Jing was content with simply looking at her face and listening to her chatter.
Huang Rong told him how that night after her father threatened Guo Jing’s life she had jumped into the lake. After hiding for some time she figured out her father must have left, so she came back to the village. She saw Guo Jing was safe and sound and was greatly comforted; but recalling how she had been so harsh with her father she felt really bad. The next morning she saw Guo Jing and Yang Kang heading north to Beijing; thereupon she preceded them and arranged for meals along the way.
They talked all through the night in the warm sixth month’s weather. The weather was pleasant and Huang Rong’s heart was happy; after a while she became sleepy, her speech became fuzzy and not too long afterward fell asleep against Guo Jing’s chest; her jade-white skin felt cool and her breath blew softly. Guo Jing was afraid he might awaken her, so he sat motionless against the willow tree and after a while he too dozed off.
Guo Jing did not know how long he slept, but by the time he opened his eyes he could hear the birds chirping merrily and he smelled the sweet fragrance of the wild flowers. The sun was rising; but Huang Rong was still asleep. With her eyebrows creased, her ruddy complexion, her graceful smile, she looked like she was having a sweet dream.
“Let her sleep a bit longer; I must not make any noise,” Guo Jing thought. He looked like he was counting her long eyelashes when suddenly a voice was heard, coming from about twenty feet to his left.
“I found the Eldest Miss Cheng’s room; it is on the second floor of the building surrounded by a flower garden behind the Tong Ren pawnshop,” the voice said.
“Good! We will work tonight,” another voice replied, it sounded like an older man. Both men spoke in low voices, but in the quietness of the morning Guo Jing could hear every single word clearly. He was startled; they sounded like some ‘flower picking thieves – rapists’ [cai hua yin zei], naturally he could not let them do all kinds of evil things.
Suddenly Huang Rong opened her eyes; she leaped out of Guo Jing’s arms and called out, “Jing ge ge, catch me!” She ran toward a big tree. Initially Guo Jing was perplexed, but Huang Rong kept beckoning him to come. Finally he understood. They were pretending to be a young couple playing hide-and-seek in the morning. He pursued her while laughing and joking loudly, intentionally made his footsteps heavy to conceal his lightness kungfu.
The two men were not expecting anybody else to be around that early in the morning. They were startled, but upon seeing a young man and a young woman noisily playing, their suspicions vanished. However, they did not continue talking and left immediately.
Huang Rong and Guo Jing could see their backs. They were dressed in rags and looked like they were beggars.
“Jing ge ge, what do you think they are going to do to that Eldest Miss Cheng?” Huang Rong asked after they had walked far enough.
“Most likely not a good thing,” Guo Jing answered. “Do you think we should help her?”
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“For sure,” Huang Rong answered with a smile. “Only I don’t know if they belong to Hong Qigong’s clan or not?”
“I don’t think so,” Guo Jing said. “But then Qigong said that all beggars under the heaven are in his care … Hmm … perhaps those two are impostors.”
“There are tens of thousands beggars in the world; certainly some of them have turned bad. I don’t care how good Qigong is, he will not be able to manage each and every one of them. Looks like these two are the bad ones. Hong Qigong has been so kind to us that it is impossible to ever repay him. I think he will like it if we take care of these bad ones.”
“You are right,” Guo Jing agreed. Even though he was a little bit tired, the thought of repaying Qigong’s kindness lifted his spirits.
“Those two men’s bare legs were covered with boils. I am sure they are not false, so those two were real beggars. Other people would not disguise themselves like that,” Huang Rong said.
“You really are very observant,” Guo Jing said admiringly.
The young couple went back to town for some breakfast; then they walked idly down the street toward the west end of town. There they saw a very big pawnshop with four characters painted on the white wall, ‘Tong Ren Pawnshop’, with each character taller than an average man. Behind the shop was a garden and in the middle was a two-story building. There was a dark green bamboo curtain covering a big window on the second floor. Guo Jing and Huang Rong looked at each other and smiled. Hand-in-hand they walked away to play elsewhere.
After dinner that evening they retreated to their respective rooms for some rest and meditation.
About one o’clock that night they ran toward the western part of the town; leaped up on the garden wall and saw the dark shadow of the big building. Silently they climbed to the roof and swung their bodies down from the eaves. It was a summer night, so the window was open. They looked around the big room and to their surprise there were seven young girls, all about eighteen or nineteen years of age. One beautiful girl was sitting next to a lamp, reading. They thought she must be Miss Cheng. The other six were dressed as servant girls, all holding unsheathed weapons in their hands; they looked stern yet graceful, obviously they knew martial arts.
Guo Jing and Huang Rong initially intended to help this young woman, but, seeing she was well prepared, they thought they would wait and see. So they quietly climbed back to the roof and waited.
Not too long after they heard a faint call from outside the wall. Huang Rong immediately pulled Guo Jing and they looked down to see two shadows leaping the wall and walking toward the building. The shadows looked like the two beggars they’d seen earlier. One of the beggars whistled softly. A servant girl drew back the curtain and asked, “Have the hero brothers from the Beggar Clan arrived? Please come up.” The two beggars leaped up and entered the room.
In the darkness outside Guo Jing and Huang Rong looked at each other in surprise. Earlier they thought that as soon as the beggars arrived there would be some fighting or something interesting; who would have thought that they knew each other?
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Miss Cheng immediately stood up, paid her respects, and uttered some pleasantries. “Would you tell me your honorable names, please?” she asked.
“My surname is Li,” the older beggar answered, “And this is my martial nephew Yu Zhao.”
“So you are Senior Li and Elder Brother Yu,” Miss Cheng said. “The valiant heroes of the Beggar Clan always uphold justice and are admired by the people of the martial arts world. It really is an honor for me, young disciple, to finally meet two revered role models. Please, sit down.” Although what she said was common Jianghu pleasantries, her facial expression was shy. She paused a lot in between sentences; which showed she was not used to this kind of talk. She said ‘admired by the people of the martial arts world’ with sincerity, but sounded like she was not sure what she was talking about. When she finished speaking her head hung low and her face blushed.