Return of Condor Heroes (62 page)

Li Mochou and Yelu Qi were both startled, “How can this horse gallop so fast?” There was a girl in red on the horse’s back; the girl and horse looked like an oncoming flame, the only thing that wasn’t red was the girl’s white face. Yang Guo saw the eagles and red horse and knew that it was the daughter of Guo Jing and Huang Rong, Guo Fu. He saw her reign in the horse, the horse immediately held its ground. The horse stopped after being ordered to, it didn’t make a sound and was composed. Yelu Qi grew up in Mongolia, he has seen countless spirited horses; but one with such a magnificent air he had never seen, he couldn’t stop himself from being surprised. He didn’t know that this horse was a blood sweating precious horse that Guo Jing obtained from the plains of Mongolia. Then it was just a foal, now it was grown up and could be said to be in its senior years; but this extraordinary horse was different from other horses in old age, its bones and muscles were extremely strong, it hadn’t lost any of its strength in its transition to old age.

Yang Guo hadn’t seen Guo Fu for a long time. He remembered she was an arrogant and bullying little girl; now she had grown into a young girl who was as pleasant as a spring flower. After riding urgently for a time, sweat had formed on her forehead; her cheeks reflected her red dress and looked even more glamorous. She looked at the eagles for a while and then glanced at Yelu Qi and the others. She saw Yang Guo dressed in the Mongolian uniform wearing the human skin mask; his face was extremely strange, she frowned, showing signs of disrespect.

Yang Guo and she had never got along since they were young. He saw her looking at him with disgust and his feelings of hate and humility were strengthened. He thought, “You don’t respect me but does that mean that I want you to look upon me with respect? Your father is a living hero, your mother is the chief of the Beggar Clan, your grandfather is one of the prominent martial artists in the world; there is no one who doesn’t look at the Guo family with respect. What about my father and mother? My mother was a country girl and I don’t know who my father was. He died without reason. I don’t want to compare myself with you; I was born into hardship, and suffered the abuse of others. If you try to insult me again I won’t care.”

He stood aside, feeling hurt and wretched; he felt that no one in the world looked upon him highly; there was no good reason to live on in this world. Only his Master Xiao Longnu treated him with love, but where is she now? Is there going to be a day in this lifetime when they will see each other again? His heart was filled with sorrow; he heard the sound of horse hoofs and two more horses rode arrived. One of the horses was grey, the other yellow, they both were good quality animals but there was a big gap when compared to Guo Fu’s red horse. On the horses were two young men, both of them wearing yellow.

Guo Fu called out, “Wu Brothers, it’s the evil woman again.”

The young men on the horse were the Wu brothers, Wu Dunru and Wu Xiuwen. Both of them saw Li Mochou; she was the person who killed their mother. In these past few years there wasn’t a day when they didn’t remember this. Who could have thought that they would meet again here; they quickly leapt off the horses, each drew out a long sword and attacked from the left and right.

Guo Fu called out, “I’m going as well.” She took out a precious sword by the horse’s reigns and leapt off the horse to help.

Li Mochou saw that the longer the battle went on the more enemies there were; even though they were young. As soon as the two young men came forward, their faces and eyes red, they fought fiercely with their lives; the sword techniques refined showing that they were under the tutelage of a famous Master. The young girl in red joined in as well; as soon as she attacked the tip of her sword quivered slightly, sparkling in the eye, the sword thrust forward. Buried within the stance was an extremely lethal secondary aim, though the internal energy was weak, the sword technique was profound and ingenious. Her heart shivered and she called out, “You are Peach Blossom’s Island Miss Guo?”

Guo Fu chuckled and said, “So you know me.” She unleashed two stances aiming to harm her chest.

Li Mochou raised her fly whisk and blocked the stances, thinking, “This little girl is very arrogant; attacking me without respect with your lowly skills. If I wasn’t afraid of incurring your parent’s wrath, even if there were ten of you, I’d kill you all.” The fly whisk flipped around, she wanted to take away her long sword, when suddenly the sounds of wind came from each side; the Wu brothers thrust forward at the same time. Guo Jing taught the Wu brothers and Guo Fu martial arts personally; the three lived and played together on the island, their sword skills were the same. The three sword skills were tightly matched, the advance and retreat complimented each other, although it wasn’t some kind of formation. As the swords came forward, the force of it wasn’t weak. The three and the pair of eagles continuously attacked, placing Li Mochou in their confinement. With the ability of the three, in a little while longer Li Mochou could definitely hurt one of them and the other two would not be able to protect themselves. But in front of her were many enemies, if she attacked forward it still wouldn’t be easy for her. And if she forced the Guo couple to come out and attack, she wouldn’t be able to escape; she took back her fly whisk and chuckled, “Little babies, watch how the ‘Scarlet Serpent Deity’ fights monkeys.”

She unleashed six stances in a row, every stance aimed to harm, forcing Guo Fu and the Wu Brothers to scurry, leaping and jumping around to avoid the stances, they did look a bit like monkeys jumping around.

Li Mochou stood on her left leg and laughed, she turned around and called out, “Lingbo, let’s go!” The two of them hurried away in a northwest direction.

Guo Fu called out, “She’s scared of us, go after them!” She ran after them. The Wu brothers utilized their lightness kung fu and followed.

Li Mochou waved and brandished her fly whisk behind her, carefree and smoothly. Not an ounce of dust rose from beneath her feet and she lightly floated away as though walking slowly. Hong Lingbo ran hurriedly.

Guo Fu and the Wu brothers increased the energy in their legs but the distance between them and the Li Mochou Master and disciple was getting greater and further away. Only the pair of eagles were faster; they repeatedly attacked. Wu Dunru saw that they would not be able to take their revenge today so he whistled and called the eagles back.

Yelu Qi and the others were afraid that the three of them would lose the battle and hurried to meet up with them; only to see Guo Fu and the others returning. They went forward and greeted them. All of them were young, and in just a few words they spoke with great joviality. Yelu Qi suddenly thought of something and called out, “Where’s brother Yang?”

Wanyan Ping said, “He left by himself. I asked him where he was going but he ignored me.” She hung her head after she said this.

Yelu Qi hurried to a hill and took a look all around, only to see the girl in blue green walking shoulder to shoulder with Lu Wushuang faraway. There wasn’t a trace of Yang Guo. Yelu Qi felt at a sense of loss; the first time they met they fought together to repel an enemy, though it was for just a short time; but their lives were on the line so many times and both shared a bitter hate for the enemy. Now he had suddenly disappeared without a trace, it was as if he had lost an old friend.

When Yang Guo saw the Wu brothers arrive with Guo Fu, they attacked Li Mochou; the three of them were very close, the sword skills they used were refined and in a few moves they had driven Li Mochou back. But he didn’t know that Li Mochou left because she was worried about the Guo couple. It was not because buried within the sword stances were extremely strong internal energies that forced her to flee. That day when Guo Jing took him to Mount Zhongnan to learn martial arts, he had seen him show his might, defeating countless Quanzhen Taoists. His martial arts were extremely high. This was etched into Yang Guo’s young mind, and he thought that disciples of Guo Jing would be ten times better than him. He thought of worrying about himself first. When he saw Guo Fu and the Wu’s unleash their superb stances, he assumed that there must be some kind of ingenuity and mastery behind it. He was getting angrier as he watched. He remembered how he had fought with the Wu brothers when they were younger, with Guo Fu by the side calling out, “Hit him harder, harder!” And remembered how Huang Rong deliberately chose not to teach him martial arts and Guo Jing with his great skills did not dare to pass on any martial arts to him. Instead he sent him to Chongyang Palace to suffer torture and abuse. He felt anger and hatred in his chest, he couldn’t stop himself; then he saw Wanyan Ping, Lu Wushuang, the girl in blue green, Yelu Yan all looking at him. They looked surprised and he thought, “You believe the insults that Li Mochou called out at my Gu Gu. It doesn’t matter if you look down on me but how can you dare to look down on my Gu Gu? My face is angry because I’m angry at Guo Fu, the Wu brothers, Uncle Guo and Auntie Guo. You think that I’ve done unspeakable things with my Gu Gu and that’s why I look like this, is that it?” He suddenly ran away; he didn’t follow the main roads and just ran without thinking into the wild lands. Right now he couldn’t pull himself together; he thought that everyone in the world was against him. He didn’t remember that he was wearing the human skin mask, although there was jealousy, hate and anger on his face, how could Wanyan Ping and the others see this? Why would others laugh at him for no reason at all? Li Mochou’s infamy is well known throughout the Wulin world, who could believe what she says?

He originally was heading from northwest to southeast, but he wanted to get away from these people as far as possible so turned and headed northwest instead. His heart was in a mess, he loathed the world; he took off his mask and ran madly in the wild hills and mountains. When he was hungry, he plucked some wild fruits and vegetables to ease his hunger. He traveled further and further; within a month, his hair was wild and unkempt, his clothes old and torn, and reached a tall mountain. He didn’t know that this was one of the most famous five mountains in the world, Mount Hua. He saw the mountain was dangerous and rugged; he became mad and climbed up the mountain furiously. Though his lightness kung fu was good, Mount Hua is a dangerous place, one could not climb it on a whim. By the time he was halfway up the mountain, the weather suddenly became cold, the ground became hard, and the north wind gradually blew stronger and flakes of snow began falling from the sky. He was angry; he wanted to torture himself and did not try to find a place to avoid the snow. The stronger the wind and snow, the further he traveled. He carried on until it became night, the snow was heavy, the ground was slippery, and it became harder to recognize the paths. If he stepped into an empty space, he would definitely fall down to his death in the deep valley. He didn’t care and took his life lightly; he looked up and walked forward.

After a while, he suddenly heard a light ‘chi’ ‘chi’ sound, it sounded like some kind of beast was traveling in the snow; he immediately turned around and saw the image of a person flash past, darting into a valley. Yang Guo was startled and quickly went over to take a look in the valley. He saw someone hooking his three fingers into the rock, hanging in midair. Yang Guo saw that the three fingers supported the whole body above the valley; this person’s martial arts were extremely high and had reached an unimaginable level. So he politely said, “Old senior please come up!”

The person laughed, his voice shaking the valley, his fingers pulled up and he leapt up from the side of the mountain. The person suddenly shouted, “You are with the Five Clowns of the Tibetan Border aren’t you? What are you doing sneaking around here in the middle of the night during a snowstorm?”

Yang Guo was scolded for no reason and thought, “What am I doing sneaking around here in the middle of the night during a snowstorm?” This disturbed his thoughts and he suddenly let out a cry; remembering how unlucky he was, suffering the abuse of others, and his most respected and loved one Xiao Longnu blamed him for not understanding and had disappeared. They would probably never meet again in this lifetime. As he cried about this, all his life’s worries and all the resentment and abuse he had suffered surfaced in his mind.

When that person saw him cry he was shocked; he heard him getting more pitiful as he cried, and was even more surprised. When the person saw that his cries weren’t going to end he suddenly laughed, the laughter and crying joined together and shook the snow down from the mountaintops.

When Yang Guo heard the laugh, his crying stopped and he angrily said, “What are you laughing at?”

The person laughed and said, “What are you crying about?”

Yang Guo was about to reply hatefully when he remembered this person’s martial arts were extraordinary; he calmed down his anger and politely bowed and said, “Junior is Yang Guo, I hereby greet Senior.”

The person held a bamboo rod in his hand, and he lightly pushed him on the arm. Yang Guo did not feel any greet force yet his body couldn’t stop from falling backwards. With the force of that push, one would fall down and have to struggle to get up. But he had learned the “Toad Stance” where one’s legs are above their head; he flipped over in the air and remained upright.

Neither of them could have guessed what had just happened. With Yang Guo’s present abilities, making him fall in one push wasn’t easy, even Li Mochou or Qiu Chuji and the like couldn’t do this to him. The other person saw him standing up steadily after flipping over in midair, he widened his eyes and looked at him and asked, “Why are you crying?”

When Yang Guo examined him, he was a white haired and bearded old man; the clothes on him were old and torn. It appeared that he was a beggar. Although it was dark, the white snow reflected off him, there was a red glow to his face, yet he looked graceful. Yang Guo’s respect for him became evident and he replied, “I’m a person with a life full of despair, there is no point in living, I should just die.”