Eagle Shooting Hero 2(85)

After eating, Hong Qigong lay down to rest. Guo Jing asked Zhou Botong to go out and play, but he was still angry and ignored Guo Jing. Huang Rong chuckled and said, “Then you’d better look after my Master nicely and when I return, I will buy some fun things for you to play with.”

“You are not lying?” Zhou Botong asked, delighted.

Huang Rong smiled, “‘When a word has already left the mouth, it is difficult for four horses to chase it’ [yi yan ji chu, si ma nan zhui].”

During the spring when Huang Rong left home to go north, she visited Lin’an for one day, but that city was too close to Peach Blossom Island and she was afraid her father might find her. She did not dare to stay too long so her visit was a quick one. This time the days were long and nothing burdened her mind. Hand in hand with Guo Jing they went to the West Lake (xi hu).

She noticed Guo Jing’s countenance showed anxiety and knew he worried about their master’s injury. “Master said there is one person in this world who can heal his injury,” Huang Rong said.

“But he would not allow me to ask. From the way he talked, it must be that Emperor Duan, but we don’t know where he is. We must find a way to ask him to heal Master.”

“That’ll be great,” Guo Jing said happily. “Rong’er, do you think we can ask him?”

Huang Rong replied, “I am still thinking of how to ask. During our meal today I tried to fish some information from Master. He was just about to say something when he realized it and stopped talking immediately. I must get this information from him eventually.” Guo Jing knew her abilities very well so he was greatly relieved.

They were still talking as they arrived at the Broken Bridge by the lakeside. That ‘duan qiao can xue’ [the broken bridge where people can see the remnants of the snow] was one of the West Lake’s more famous sights, but it was summer so all they saw were the lotus under the bridge. Huang Rong saw a neat little wine shop by the lakeside. “Let’s drink a cup of wine while we enjoy the lotus,” she said.

“Very good,” Guo Jing agreed. The two went in and sat down. The shopkeeper delivered some wine and dishes of meat which tasted very good. They drank wine while enjoying the scenery and were in a good mood.

Huang Rong saw a screen by the eastern window, covered with jade-green muslin. Obviously the shop owner regarded the screen as a very precious object. Her curiosity was piqued, so she went over to take a closer look. It turned out that beneath the muslin there was a poem inscribed on the screen. It was the ‘Wind Entering the Pine’ [feng ru song], which read,

‘Spring time is always spent wasting money, drinking daily by the lakeside. Riding a buckskin horse along the road toward the West Lake, proudly passing in front of a tavern. Singing and dancing amidst the sweet fragrance of red apricots, swinging in the shadow of green willows. Warm winds embraced ten ‘li’ of beautiful women and sky, crushed flowers adorned the sides of their temples. Picturesque boats carrying incense going back and forth are like smoke covering the water.

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Comeback tomorrow supporting the remnants of drunkenness, seeking the fancy golden inlay on the pathway.’

Huang Rong said, “This poem is a good one.”

Guo Jing asked her to explain the meaning of the poem. The more he listened, the more upset he became and he said, “This is the capital of the Great Song Dynasty and these government officials spend their days drinking wine and enjoying flowers. Don’t they care or even pay attention to the affairs of the country?”

Huang Rong replied, “Exactly, these people talk shamelessly!”

Suddenly someone behind them said, “Humph! What do you two know enough about to talk such nonsense?”

They turned around and saw a man dressed as a scholar, roughly forty years of age, sneering at them. Guo Jing greeted the scholar by cupping his hands and said, “Junior does not understand and would like to ask Mister for advice.”

The man replied, “This is the most splendid work of Yu Guobao in the year of Chun Xi. That year the retired Emperor Gaozong came to drink wine, saw the work and praised it greatly. That very same day the emperor granted Yu Guobao a government position. This is a scholar’s lifelong dream, and the two of you ridicule absurdly it!”

“So it is because the Emperor saw this screen that the innkeeper covers it with jade-green muslin?”

Huang Rong asked.

The man laughed coldly and said, “How can it be so? Look at the sentence ‘Comeback tomorrow supporting the remnants of drunkenness’ on the screen. Did you notice that this one sentence has two revised characters?”

Huang Rong and Guo Jing examined it more closely and found the character ‘fu’ [carrying or supporting somebody] was formerly ‘xie’ [bringing/carrying along], and the character ‘zui’

[drunkenness] was actually ‘jiu’ [wine].

The man then said, “Yu Guobao originally intended to write ‘Comeback tomorrow bringing the remnants of the wine’.” The retired Emperor smiled and said, ‘Although this phrase is good, it is rather simple-minded.’ Hence he took a brush to revise those two characters. That was truly heaven sent wisdom and farsightedness, like transforming iron into gold.” He swayed his head and sighed as if he was enjoying it tremendously.

Guo Jing listened and became angry. He yelled loudly, “This emperor Gaozong put Qin Gui in an important position in order to harm and kill Master Yue [General Yue Fei]!” His leg flew out and kicked the screen, smashing it. He reached backwards to catch the scholar and pull him forward.

With a splashing sound wine spilled everywhere as that man, head up feet down, sank into the wine vat.

Huang Rong loudly applauded and laughed, “I too will make correction to those two sentences.

They are, ‘Today standing upright spoiling the wine, the gentleman sank into the vat drunk.”

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As the scholar’s head emerged from the wine jar with wine dripping from it, he said, “The oblique tone of ‘drunk’ does not rhyme well.”

Huang Rong replied, “‘Wind entering the pine’ does not rhyme well. My poem ‘Man entering the jar’ rhymes better!” She extended her hand and firmly pressed his head down inside the wine jar, and then flipped the table over, causing an outburst. The customers and the wine shop keeper scrambled out of the shop. Guo Jing and Huang Rong stood up and pounded and smashed all the wine vats, pots and cauldrons. Finally, using the ‘Eighteen-Dragon Subduing Palms’, Guo Jing exerted all his strength to strike the main support pillar of the inn, causing the roof to collapse. In a brief moment, a large restaurant was transformed into a pile of wood that hardly resembled anything.

Guo Jing and Huang Rong laughed loudly. Holding each other’s hands, they walked north. Nobody knew where this mad young man and young woman came from but who dared pursue them?

Guo Jing laughed, “That was such a good trashing that all the bad air in my chest went away completely.”

Huang Rong replied happily, “Whenever we see anything unsightly, we will smash it.”

Guo Jing replied, “Good!”

Since leaving Peach Blossom Island, the two had gone through many unfavorable situations.

Although they were reunited, their Master had suffered a serious and difficult to heal injury and this made their hearts heavy with worry. At this time they unexpectedly had the chance to break up a restaurant and it had helped to vent their frustrations. The couple leisurely walked along the lakeshore and saw poems everywhere…on rocks, on trees, on pavilions and on the walls. They were written either by travelers bidding their farewells, or young men expressing their love.

Guo Jing did not understand the poems, but when he saw the words ‘wind’, ‘flower’, ‘snow’ and

‘moon’ he sighed and said, “Even if we had a thousand pairs of fists, we can’t break them all.

Rong’er, you have learned literature and art…what are all these for?”

Huang Rong smiled. “There were some good ones among these poems,” she said.

Guo Jing shook his head. “I still think fists and kicks are more useful,” he said.

While walking and talking they reached the ‘Flew in Peak’ [fei lai feng]. There was a pavilion built on that peak. Above the gateway there were three characters ‘Jade-Green Small Pavilion’ [cui wei ting] in Han Shizong’s handwriting. Guo Jing knew Han Shizong’s reputation. Upon seeing the handwriting of the general who resisted the Jin army he was delighted. He quickly walked into the pavilion. There was a stone monument inside, with a poem inscribed on it reading:

‘With the passing years dust has settled on the battle uniforms, especially seeking some fragrant jade-green wine, not enough to only see good mountains and good rivers, taking advantage of the bright moon light the return of horse hoofs.’

This seemed to be the handwriting of Han Shizhong as well.

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“This is a good poem,” Guo Jing praised. Actually, he did not know a good poem from a bad one, but he believed this poem was Han Shizhong’s. It also contained words like ‘battle uniforms’

[zheng yi] and ‘horse hoofs’ [ma ti], so it must be good.