The Legend of the Condor Heroes

All the guests looked at each other without fully understanding exactly what was being asked. They all thought, "Charging enemies and fighting valiantly, taking cities and seizing territory, truly all of us can do, but could it be that he actually (only?) wants us to go and kill the Southern Song palace's general (Yuan?)?

Wanyan Honglie's face showed self importance (de2 yi4). His voice was slightly trembling, "A couple of months ago, this humble prince was looking through some old files in the palace when I stumbled across a letter left behind by the former emperor. It was actually a few lines written by Yue Fei, the phrasing of which was most peculiar. I puzzled over this for a few months until at long last I figured out it's hidden meaning. It turns out that when Yue Fei was languishing in prison he realized that he had no hope of leaving with his life. His loyalty towards serving his country was so great that he wrote down his entire life's learnings regarding battle tactics and other secret military arts in this letter in the hope that it could be passed on to other loyal countrymen who could use put them to use in defending China against the Jin invaders. Luckily Qin Gui was very clever and feared that Yue Fei would try to communicate with people outside of prison so he was very careful to prepare against such an event. Every guard assigned to watch over Yue Fei was personally selected by Qin Gui as to be known as completely trustworthy and loyal to him (Qin Gui). If the troops formerly under Yue Fei were to get word from Yue Fei and rise up in rebellion against the court, who would stop them? At that time the only reason that there was not such a rebellion was in fact entirely due to Yue Fei not being willing to rebel against his emperor. If he changed his mind and decided to do so he would have certainly succeeded. What Qin Gui did not know though was that Yue Fei didn't have any desire to save his own life, only to save the rivers and mountains of the Song Empire (i.e. his country). Fortunately this letter never left the palace even after his execution."

Everyone was listening intently to this story so intently that they forgot to drink their wine. Huang Rong hanging outside the window was also listening mesmerized.

Wanyan Honglie continued, "Yue Fei had no way to communicate his military strategies except through hiding them in his writing. He wrote four pieces entitled 'Pu Sa Man' (Buddhist Barbarian), 'chou nu er' (Shameful Slave), 'He Sheng Zhao' (Congratulating the Sage Imperial Court) and 'Qi Tian Yue' (Level Heaven Music/Happiness). Each piece of writing appeared to be nonsense. The style did not follow the proper rules and the tonal sequence was all wrong. The sentances were jumbled to the point of incoherence. Qin Gui, who was said to have wisdom and talent the size of the oceans, was not even able to figure out what meaning lay in these pieces so he dispatched some men with these letters to the Jin. Many years later these four pieces of nonsense writing found their way into the secret files of the Jin palace. No one was able to comprehend the meaning of these letters. Everyone thought that Yue Fei, who was near execution at the time he wrote these letters, was giving vent to his anger and frustrations by writing such disjointed and sensless verse. Nobody guessed that apparantly nonsense verse was in fact a riddle hiding a very great secret!

This humble prince though continued to work on these letters until I finally discovered it's secret. It turns out that if you took every third word in a piece and put them together then reversed the order a the hidden message was revealed. In these four letters Yue Fei instructed his successors/followers in the arts of military strategy, to continuously attack along the Yellow River and wipe out our Jin armies. But for all of his dilligent work for his emperor, it turned out to be all in vain. Ha Ha!"

All the guests gasped in surprise, then one after another began praising Wanyan Honglie's intelligence for cracking such a difficult code.

Wanyan Honglie said, "Yue Fei's military abilities were supernatural, when he attacked the was no one more formidable or successful. Imagine if we were to have his book of secret military strategies, the whole empire would be ours for the taking!"

(Note: from the above context it seems that Yue Fei's letters refer to a book that is hidden in his tomb. I must have missed that in the above translation, but can't see where in the Chinese text)

Everyone suddenly realised what was being asked, "Prince Zhao invited us here to do a bit of grave robbing!"

Wanyan Honglie went on, "This humble prince thinks that this great book must be with Yue Fei in his tomb." At this point he paused before continuing, "Honoured Guests you are all brave heros and now you must be wondering how I could be asking you to rob a tomb? Further more, although Yue Fei is the Jin's sworn enemy, but his spirit and loyalty is something that is world renown, we couldn't possibly disturb is resting place. Humble prince searched through the historical reports from spys of the Southern Song to look for further clues. It turns out that the day Yue Fei died he was buried near by beside "Zhong An Bridge." Later Emperor Xiaozong moved his body to Xi Hu (Westlake) in a temple he had built for him. His 'cloth cap' however was buried at another place, and this must be where his book is. This other place is near LinAn." As he spoke this last sentance he watched his guests intently. Everyone was listening intently for him to reveal the exact location of the book.

Wanyan Honglie however suddenly changed the topic, "Humble prince again had another thought: since someone moved Yue Fei items then I fear that the book must have been taken by them as well. But after some very detailed research I know that this could not be possible. The people of Song venerated Yue Fei so much that they would not have dared interfear with his belonging. We are certain to find the book at this place. However in the south there are many martial people of high ability. If we are to succeed we cannot allow the slightest word of this to get out or else some of them my try to search for the book themselves which would cause no end of trouble! This task concerns the fate of two nations and it is not something I would lightly undertake unless I had the help of the greatest heros of the Wulin world."

Everyone nodded their head at this.

Wanyan Honglie then said, "Although the location of this book is no small matter, because this affair is indeed difficult to speak of however with the presence of people of such great ability it is easy to speak (???) The location of the book is…" At this point the door to the hall was suddenly pushed open and one man rushed in, his face all swollen and pale. He rushed forward to Liang Ziwong and called out, "Master…" everyone recognised him as the dwarf dressed in green that Liang Ziwong sent to fetch the medicine.

When Guo Jing went with the caretaker and dwarf to fetch the medicine, he used his left hand to not only support the caretaker and help him walk, but also to ensure the caretaker would not dare try warn the dwarf in any way about Guo Jing. The three of them went along a long corridor past some rooms before arriving at Liang Ziwong's storeroom. The dwarf lit a candle, opened the doors and entered.

Guo Jing stepped close to the room where he smelt the pungent scent of various medicinal herbs. He also saw that the table, couch, floor and everywhere else was covered with all types of dried herbs, bottles big and small, jars, bowls, vats and so forth. It seems that although Liang Ziwong was a guest here, he still couldn't help but play around with different medicinal herbs and concoct different drugs. The dwarf seemed to be well versed in the nature of herbs as well as he quickly selected portions of four different herbs and wrapped them up in separate packets of white paper which he gave to the caretaker.