Return of Condor Heroes (26 page)

Grandma Sun had brought up Xiao Longnu for the last eighteen years, and she had a desire to bring up a boy. Yang Guo was warm towards her like she was towards him; she was extremely pleased. She made up her mind and thought, “Whatever they say, they are not going to take the child away.”

She then called out. “You insist on taking the child, how exactly are you going to torture him?”

Zhen Zhibing was startled, and said, “This disciple here and his father are from the same sect, I wouldn’t dare to harm a friend’s son, senior you can relax.”

Grandma Sun shook her head, “This old woman never listens to outsider’s words, leave me.” As she said this she continued on her way into the forest.

Zhao Zhijing was lying on the stretcher, the wounds from the Jade Bees were unbearable but he knew what was going on. He heard that Zhen Zhibing couldn’t argue with Grandma Sun and the more he heard the angrier he got, he suddenly leapt off the stretcher, chased after Grandma Sun and shouted, “He is my disciple, if I want to beat him and insult him, it’s my choice. Not letting the master order his disciple, where is there such a rule in Wulin?”

Grandma Sun saw his face had swollen so much that he looked like a pig. When she heard these words, she knew that he was Yang Guo’s master, she didn’t have anything to say at the moment and could only make her way forward thinking, “I won’t let you order him, what can you do?”

Zhao Zhijing shouted, “What relation is that child to you? How can you stick your nose into this matter?”

Grandma Sun was startled, and shouted, “He isn’t a member of the Quanzhen sect anymore. He is now a member of our sect and has elected my master Xiao Longnu as his master; under heaven only Xiao Longnu can command him. There’s no need for you to meddle.”

When she said this, the Taoists were shocked. According to the rules of Jianghu, without the consent of your teacher, one must not have another teacher, even if that other teacher is ten times more skilled than their teacher. You are not allowed to do as you please and spread your wings whenever you want; to do so, they will have committed one of the worst offences there is. They will be despised by their peers in the Jianghu world.

When Guo Jing took the Jiangnan Seven Freaks as his masters, and later learned from Hong Qigong, he didn’t call him master. Only later did Ke Zhen E and the others allow this and he and Hong Qigong had a master disciple relationship.

Because Zhao Zhijing had made Grandma Sun speechless, and because she had never associated with people of Wulin she didn’t know any rules. When she said what she said she didn’t know she had broken a major rule.

Most of the Taoists originally felt sorry for Yang Guo, and felt that Zhao Zhijing had not done the right things. But when they heard that Yang Guo had openly expelled himself from the sect…well, there hadn’t been such a thing since the founding of the Quanzhen sect and they were incensed.

Zhao Zhijing’s wounds reacted to his anger and he was in pain; it was difficult for him to bear and he felt like dying, but he suddenly said, “Yang Guo, is this the truth?”

Yang Guo did not know how high the sky was or how deep the earth was, he only knew that Grandma Sun was arguing with Zhao Zhijing to protect him. Even if she said he did thousands or millions of wrong things, he would have said he did them. Now it’s just a matter of changing sects and it was what he had wanted. She said he had made Xiao Longnu his master. Even if he was going to take a pig or a dog his master he wouldn’t delay, he said, “Rotten Taoist, scoundrel face, dog brain, bull nose old goat, you hit me; why should I acknowledge you as my master? It’s correct, I have already kowtowed and accepted Grandma Sun and Miss Long as my masters.”

Zhao Zhijing’s temper flared up, he flew over, his hands aiming to grab his shoulders.

Grandma Sun insulted, “Scoundrel, you want to die?” Her right arm came out, aiming for Zhao Zhijing’s wrist. Zhao Zhijing was Quanzhen’s third generation’s highest skilled fighter, when it came to martial arts he was above Zhen Zhibing; although he had a serious injury, he was still able to produce a fierce attack. The two clashed, and both took two steps back.

Grandma Sun gave a ‘humph’ sigh, and said, “Scoundrel, you’re not weak either.”

Zhao Zhijing’s first attack failed, and so launched a second. Grandma Sun didn’t dare to clash with him and stepped aside, her leg came out of nowhere from under her skirt. Zhao Zhijing heard the wind sound, and tried to dodge but his wounds from the Jade Bee stings started to itch, he called ‘ai’, held his head and crouched down. Before he finished his shout he was kicked by Grandma Sun in the side of his body. Zhao Zhijing flew into the air; whilst in the air he called out ‘ai’ again because of the itching pain.

Zhen Zhibing rushed forward two steps, stretched out his arms, caught Zhao Zhijing and passed him on to the other disciples. He saw that the ugly old woman’s skills were extremely strange, he was up against a strong opponent, he made a signal, and six disciples came up and circled them, and formed a “Big Dipper Formation”, with Grandma Sun and Yang Guo in the middle.

Zhen Zhibing called out, “Apologies!” As the ‘Tian Shu’ and ‘Yao Guang’ Taoists on either side of him attacked. Grandma Sun didn’t know the formation, after just a few stances she knew she was dealing with something powerful. She could only fight with one hand; the danger became evident after twelve or thirteen moves. Every attack she made was neutralized by Zhen Zhibing’s command of the formation, and the attack of the formation was relentless. Ten moves passed then Grandma Sun’s right palm was trapped by two Taoists; from her left another two Taoists attacked, she had to drop Yang Guo and fend them off with her left hand. A whistle came from within the formation; two Taoists burst forward and grabbed Yang Guo.

Grandma Sun was alarmed and thought, “Those rotten Taoists do have some skill, and this old woman here can’t handle it.” She kicked away two of them, and a low ‘weng’ moaning noise was produced from her mouth. That moaning noise was initially quiet, and the Taoists did not take any notice of it, but after this noise, she made an opposite sound, high and low, the sound became louder.

Zhen Zhibing raised his hands against Grandma Sun to guard himself. He knew the senior that used to live in the tomb had great skills and had competed with his sect’s founder to see whose were greater; he knew that her descendants must not be ordinary. When he heard the noise, he knew that this was a type of resonating sound skill, he quickly prepared himself in case the enemy tried anything; he listened for a while and her sounds were getting louder, he didn’t feel anything was wrong with himself and thought that this was strange. He suddenly thought of something and immediately became pale with fright. He was about to order the Taoists to leave, when he heard a ‘weng’ noise from far away, similar to the noise coming out of Grandma Sun’s mouth, and then immediately called out, “Run quickly!”

The other Taoists all stopped, and thought, “We have the upper hand here, we have captured the young and old in a short time, the old woman is just calling out madly, what is there to be afraid of?”

Suddenly a grey blur emerged from the forest, out came a swarm of Jade Bees, all aiming to land on the Taoists’ upper body. The Taoists had all seen the suffering of Zhao Zhijing, they all were frightened out of their wits, and immediately scattered and ran away. The swarm of bees chased after them.

When Grandma Sun saw that the Taoists could not escape, she laughed loudly. She suddenly saw an old Taoist dashing out of the forest, his hands holding two torches; thick smoke came out of the flames and he waved them at the swarm of bees. The black smoke smothered the bees, their formation became disorganized, and they couldn’t hold together and flew away.

Grandma Sun was alarmed, she looked at the old Taoist, and she saw that he had white hair and eyebrows, his face was long and he looked like one of the highly skilled fighters of the Quanzhen sect. She shouted, “Hey, who are you old Taoist? You scattered away my bees.”

The old Taoist laughed and said, “This old Taoist is Hao Datong, greetings Grandma.”

Grandma Sun did not associate with any people of the Wulin world. But because she lived a stone throw away from Chongyang Palace, she knew that Hao Datong was one of the seven disciples of Wang Chongyang. She thought how Zhen Zhibing, Zhao Zhijing and the other Taoists’ abilities were not below hers, but now that old Taoist came and it would be troublesome. She smelled the thick smoke from the torches, it stank and almost made her vomit, and she then realized it was made from herbs that are used to kill insects. She saw that there were no bees around so she had to leave while she could, she shouted, “You’ve harmed my Mistress’s bees, you’ll pay for the damage, I’ll resolve this with you later.” She picked up Yang Guo and entered the forest.

Yin Zhi Pin said, “Martial Uncle, shall we follow or not?”

Hao Datong shook his head and said, “Our founder had set a strict rule, no one can enter the forest, we’ll return to our palace and discuss what’s to be done there.”

Grandma Sun held Yang Guo’s hand and took him back inside the tomb. The two had just shared a difficult situation and had become closer. Yang Guo was worried that Xiao Longnu will not allow him to stay. Grandma Sun said, “Don’t worry; I’ll be able to convince her to let you stay.” She then ordered him to rest in a chamber, and then went to look for Xiao Longnu to inform her of the situation.

Yang Guo waited a long time, but still did not see her return, he became anxious and thought, “Long Gu Gu most probably decided not to accept me, even if Grandma Sun forced her to accept, there would be no point in me staying here.” He thought for a long while and eventually made up his mind, he quietly went outside.

As soon as he left the room, Grandma Sun came over and asked, “Where are you going?”

Yang Guo said, “Grandma, I’m going now, when I get a bit older, I’ll come and see you again.”

Grandma Sun said, “No, I’ll take you to a place, and tell people not to bully you.”

When Yang Guo heard those words, he knew Xiao Longnu had not allowed him to stay, he was disappointed and sad, he lowered his head and said, “There’s no use. I’m a mischievous child, where ever I go, no one will want me. There’s no need for Grandma to waste your energy.”

Grandma Sun had argued with Xiao Longnu for half a day, she saw that she will not be moved, she was troubled and didn’t know what to do. She felt sorry for Yang Guo, her blood rose and said, “Child, if no one wants you, Granny wants you. You follow me, where ever you go, Grandma will follow you.”

Yang Guo was delighted, he extended his hand and grabbed her’s, the two of them exited the tomb. Grandma Sun was still angry and did not turn back to collect some luggage, she scoured around in her pockets and touched a container, and remembered she had to give Zhao Zhijing the antidote for the bee stings. She thought that the Taoist was detestable but death was maybe a bit too extreme and she didn’t want to leave the trouble behind in case it caught up with them. So she took Yang Guo, and headed for Chongyang Palace.

Yang Guo saw that they were hurriedly heading for Chongyang Palace, he was frightened, he quietly said, “Grandma, why are you going there?”

Grandma Sun said, “I have to give your rotten master the antidote.” After a few paths, they had arrived. She leapt onto the roof, and was about to go for the courtyard, when suddenly the bell started to ring in the darkness, and she heard whistle sounds near and far. In a second noises came from everywhere, and knew that she was heavily surrounded; she became alarmed.

The Quanzhen sect is Wulin’s number one orthodox sect, they were normally well guarded, but things had happened recently and so they were more alert. There were lookouts everywhere and when they saw someone enter the palace, they sounded the alarm. The palace’s disciples all came to repel the foe. Another group of Taoists scattered around, one, so they surrounded the enemy, and secondly, so they can repel any reinforcements that the enemy might have brought along.

Grandma Sun quietly cursed, “This old woman here has not come to fight; who are you trying to scare?” She loudly called out, “Zhao Zhijing, quickly come out, I have something to say to you.”

Someone called out from the main hall, “Coming here in the middle of the night, what do you want?”

Grandma Sun said, “This is the antidote for the bee stings, take it!” She threw over the container.

A Taoist caught it, and believed her but then thought, “Does she have good intentions in coming back to give us the antidote.” He called out clearly, “What medicine is this?”

Grandma Sun said, “Don’t ask so many questions, just give it to him to drink, and you’ll see the results.”

The Taoist called out, “How do I know whether you’ve come with good or bad intentions, and how do I know if this is actually medicine not poison. Apprentice brother Zhao has been tortured enough by you, when did you gain the heart of Buddha?”

Grandma Sun heard his words, her good intentions had turned into some evil intent, she was furious and put Yang Guo down on the roof, then quickly jumped in front of the Taoist and snatched the bottle back. She opened the bottle, and said to Yang Guo, “Open your mouth!”

Yang Guo didn’t understand but did as he was told. She tipped the bottle and poured the bee honey into his mouth and said, “Fine, just in case you think its poison. Guo’Er lets go!” She held Yang Guo’s hand and ran to the edge of the roof and jumped down.

That Taoist was called Zhang Zhiguang, and was Hao Datong’s second disciple, he was cursing himself. He regretted his words when he realized that she had bought along the real antidote, Zhao Zhijing now had no antidote and it would be difficult for him to survive, he quickly followed and blocked them with his hands. He smiled and said, “Old Senior, why are you so furious? I was just joking, there’s no need to take it seriously. We are neighbors, and have seen each other a few times, ha-ha, please bestow the medicine to us.”

Grandma Sun did not like his smooth talk, she stopped, and chuckled, “There is only one bottle of medicine, if you want some more, there isn’t any. You can find your own way to cure Zhao Zhijing’s wounds!” As she said this she sent out her hand and said, “Since you don’t greet a senior, I’ll teach you a lesson.” The palm was extremely quick, Zhang Zhiguang couldn’t avoid it, a clashing sound was heard, he was struck on the cheek, and his face was stinging.