Soaring Swallows Startle Dragons

Chapter 1

Shocking Turn in Peach Blossom Spring

Part 1 (1)

A fishing boat followed the waters to lovely hills in the spring,
On the banks peach blossoms pressed in on the old channel.
Watching the pink trees, unaware of the distance,
At the end of the green stream there was no one…

Back then only the memory of entering the mountain deeps,
And many twists and turns to the cloudy forest.
With the coming of spring everywhere were peach blossom waters,
Can’t tell where to find the transcendent’s abode.

The two folk ballads above are the work of the great poet Wang Wei of the Tang dynasty. They describe the world renowned Peach Blossom Spring.

This earthly paradise was located between Yuanling and Taoyuan in northern Hunan, from Dongting Lake one goes by boat up Yuan River, past Changde, Taoyuan, through Zhang Family Bay to a creek. Disembark and go ashore and a grove full of mountain peaches set off against a grand temple, what later generations of cultivators established as Mystic Metropolis Abbey.

It was the third month, spring, when peach blossoms were in full bloom. Along the bank of the Yuan River, outside Mystic Metropolis, the peach blossoms were in full bloom, like a tapestry of embroidered brocade. Suddenly, a girl dressed in white emerged from deep within the peach grove, a bundle of peach blossoms in her left hand, and in her right she lightly held her white silk gauze skirt up as she walked with lithe, mincing steps through the grove and slowly made her way to the riverbank.

The girl in white was beautiful to start with, now set off against her simple, elegant white garb, made her seem even more otherworldly, with clear, distinguished eyes, face bright as a flower, each shining in turn her fair face radiant as a pearl, an unsurpassed, dazzling visage. She was really like the Divine Consort of the Luo River, or Grand Perfected emerging from a bath.

The girl in white approached the riverbank and focused on the swift river current. The corners of her mouth turned up in a smile and with a satisfied look she suddenly plucked a few peach blossoms from her bundle and tossed them into the river, where they swirled in the current and drifted off downstream. She sighed lightly and her smile disappeared, a faint look of bottled-up bitterness appearing on her blushing face…

Just then a small fishing boat suddenly appeared, heading rapidly from upstream. The current was swift and the skiff shot like an arrow. Before long one could make out a benevolent-looking gray-robed monk of over sixty standing in the skiff. Once she got a good look at the person on the boat, the smile reappeared on the girl in white’s face. She called out in a sweet voice, “Shifu…“ and tossed her whole bundle of peach blossoms in the water, then pushed off with her lotus feet and her white garb fluttered and her delicate, nimble body shot straight toward the swift current. As soon as her feet ever so lightly touched the bundle of peach blossoms on the surface of the water, she extended her arms and once again leapt up, flying straight for the monk in the fishing boat.

The old monk chuckled. “How can a girl of seventeen or eighteen still be so naughty.”

With his right hand he grabbed the iron anchor and flung it to shore. The old monk’s arm strength was astonishing, the anchor flying out of his hand like a shooting star or a loosed arrow. The girl in white had only just set down in the boat when the anchor embedded itself deep into the bank. The hull was carried along by the swift current, pulling the anchor rope taut, extending in a straight line to the bank. The old monk spread the big sleeves of his robe and shot as fast as an arrow off the string and leapt over two and a half or so staves across the water.

The old monk turned to watch the girl in white, who also leapt to the bank. When she was halfway over she seemed to exhaust herself and she fell straight down toward the water. Just as she was about to hit the water, she stirred her arms up and flew eight spans up, her white skirt billowing out into a circle as big around as a carriage wheel, laughing sweetly, and landed beside the monk. “Shifu, has my Swallow Pierces the Clouds technique improved?”

The old monk nodded. “It has improved a bit, but it’s not quite there yet. If surrounded by a powerful foe you mustn’t become distracted, and you wouldn’t have such an easy time of it.”

The girl in white was not at all happy to hear the monk say she wasn’t there yet instead of praise her, and her petite face pulled taut and she pouted in silence.

The monk’s merciful brow wrinkled in irritation. He thought, It’s no good to keep indulging her like this. Best to take this opportunity to chide her a little and put an end to her unruliness. Only then can she be corrected. He looked over at her standing their sulking with a cross look on her fair face, fiddling with the end of her braid, so cute and innocent, just like her mother used to look when she was alive. Thirty years gone like a dream, the past surging up in his mind and a wave of pain with it. How could he be so hardhearted to scold her. His voice lowered and he said,”Lin’er, come here.”

The girl in white was sulking, but when she heard her sectfather call her she turned and saw the old monk tottering slightly, eyes glistening with tears, and she was alarmed and called out and rushed over and knelt before him, hugging onto her sectfather’s knees, choked with sobs. “Shifu, don’t be mad, Lin’er won’t make you angry ever again.”

The old monk took her by the right arm and helped her up. Smiling, he said, “The abbot of Mystic Metropolis, Dao Senior Master One Yang, is one of the three elders of the Kunlun School, his Split Second Swordplay is unrivaled. In order to help your training, I made a special arrangement with him, that each would teach the other’s student. He teaches you his Split Second Swordplay, and I teach his student my Eighteen Arhat Palm. I just hope that you can succeed and personally, on behalf of your parents…“

He suddenly stopped there, merciful brows knit, lost in thought, immersed in memories of the past.

The girl in white couldn’t help but be anxious at the sad look on her sectfather’s face. She pulled on the old monk’s hand and like a pampered child said, “Shifu, don’t be sad, Lin’er already said she won’t make you angry anymore.”

She suddenly thought of something and asked, “Shifu, you just mentioned my parents. That’s something that’s been lingering in my mind for a many years, but Shifu won’t tell Lin’er about her past. Poor me, I don’t even remember what my dad and mom look like. If Shifu doesn’t tell me, Lin’er will really be heartbroken.”

With that, tears rolled down her fair face one after the other.

The old monk’s solemn face now showed a look of sadness> he stroked her beautiful hair. “I was always going to tell you about that, but now’s not the time. You have to train diligently and learn Junior Sectuncle Master One Yang’s Split Second Swordplay…“

The old monk glimpsed a handsome young man walking down the secluded path out from the peach grove. He wore a long glue-green silk robe and thin white-soled shoes. Within his refined appearance was vigor, fair faced like jade and bright eyes, splendid as a shining flower as he strode through the grove, sleeves fluttering in the wind. When he was before the old monk he bowed courteously. “My teacher knew Senior Sectuncle Clear Karma was coming, so he sent his disciple to come meet you outside the abbey. I didn’t expect you to arrive so early.”

The old monk chuckled. “For three months Lin’er has been bothering your precious abbey, not only hampering your sectfather’s cultivation, but also impeding your own martial arts advancement I’m afraid.”

The young man hurriedly put his hands down at his sides respectfully. “Junior Sister Xialin is extremely clever and has already learned Senior Sectuncle Clear Karma’s superb martial arts. My teacher says there will be no limit to what she can accomplish. His student is dull and inferior. These three months I have benefited greatly from sparring with Junior Sister Xialin. How could she be a bother?”

The girl in white was elated to hear the young man praise her and she was soaring. A smile reappeared, wiping away the long face she wore before. She lovingly looked askance at the blue-clad young man, but his eyes were pointed straight ahead, hands at his side standing still, a picture of reserve.

The old monk noticed this and sighed inwardly. He thought, Ever since Lin’er met him last year she’s been pestering me to come to Mystic Metropolis. Though she says she likes the peach blossoms here, that’s just an excuse. It seems she’s in love with him, but this one looks indifferent, as if he’s not interested in Lin’er at all… He recalled the surging waves of love of his own youth, how it almost got him buried on a desolate mountain. By chance he happened to meet a master and so reaped benefit from misfortune and learned some extraordinary martial arts. But recalling the past, it was like a nightmare, and upon waking he realized those feelings hauntingly lingered, impossible to shake off. Twenty years facing the wall in meditation and prostrating himself before Buddha, yet he could still not dispel these foolish notions. Every time he woke in the dead of night, her face and voice were still in his mind… Now she was murdered, and before dying she confessed her love, pouring her heart out, and with tears in her eyes entrusted this orphan to him. Lin’er was her sole flesh and blood. If she were to follow the same disastrous path and nurse a grudge the rest of her life, how could he face her mother’s spirit in Heaven?… Thinking of this, he felt sweat drip from the crown of his head. He looked up and the spring sun was setting in the west, penetrating through the peach grove and shining on Lin’er’s face, her brow and mouth smiling faintly, lovely and innocent, regarding the young man spellbound. But his face was stony, unknowing. He thought, Master One Yang really did take on an out of the ordinary person for a student. Lin’er is a peerless beauty, jade face like a flower, yet he doesn’t see it. This person really is a rare boy.

As the old monk was rapt in thought, the blue-clad young man bowed respectfully and said, “My teacher awaits your gracious presence in the Cinnabar Chamber. Senior Sectuncle, please come inside the abbey!”

The old monk nodded and turned down the secluded path through the peach grove toward Mystic Metropolis.

The three of them had only taken a few steps when they suddenly heard several shrill wails, the sound like a wounded bird angrily squawking or an owl crying plaintively, shrill and ear-piercing to make one’s hair stand on end. Greatmaster Clear Karma frowned and turned to see the blue-clad young man and Xialin stop in their tracks, standing side by side. He thought for a moment, then continued on toward the abbey.

The wails got closer and they could now hear shouting, then the cries ceased suddenly and there was the faint clang of metal clashing. Presumably it was two sides fighting.

The blue-clad young man’s swordlike eyebrows knit. He thought, The Yuan River by Mystic Metropolis is always so peaceful. This sounds like it’s coming from the riverbank. Could there really be bandits brazen enough rob traveling merchants right outside Mystic Metropolis? I can’t not go take a look. And with that he immediately turned and headed for the riverbank.

Xialin’s childlike innocence still remained, she loved nothing more than a good show. When she saw the blue-clad young man head for the riverbank, how could she resist? She called out sweetly, “Senior Brother Yang, wait for me, we’ll go together!”

The blue-clad young man heard her call him so intimately, and stopped and turned to see her racing toward him, delighted, so cute and innocent, and he sighed inwardly with feeling.

Just at that moment, a man covered in blood ran out of the peach grove from the secluded path, sabre in hand, and behind him two older men in hot pursuit, the three of them coming on fast as a shooting star or a loosed arrow, and before long they closed in on the two of them. The old pursuer in the lead raised his hand and a clump of silver awns of light shot into the sabre guy’s back. Though hit with hidden weapons, he still ran for his life. When he saw the boy and girl standing in the way ahead he called out loudly, “Hurry and get the abbot of Mystic Metropolis.”