The Legend of the Condor Heroes

Guo Jing also laughed, "If he really practice according to the altered manual, not only he will waste his time and energy, but he could suffer some internal injury as well," he said.

"Now quickly think carefully how you are going to alter the manual; once he is suspicious, our plan will be foiled," Hong Qigong said with a smile; then he added, "The content of the second volume had been read and rewritten by Huang Yaoshi's wife, moreover, that little rascal had read it on the Peach Blossom Island; hence this part you can't change too much, just add some incorrect words here and there; I am sure that little rascal won't know the difference."

Guo Jing silently recited the manual in his head, trying to think which sentences he could alter, where he could insert some misleading sentences. He replaced hold with move, above with below, and other simple altering that did not require him to recompose the whole sentence; in short, he was following his master's instruction to make subtle changes every where in the manual. For example, he changed the sentence 'hand and mind toward the sky' to 'foot and buttock toward the sky'; or 'feet firmly on the ground' into 'hands lightly moving on the ground'. On the internal energy cultivation he changed 'concentrate 'qi' in the pubic region (dan tian)' into 'concentrate 'qi' in the chest and throat'.

While thinking about all these changes he could not restrain from heaving a heavy sigh and said in his heart, "Playing practical jokes like this is Rong'er and Big Brother Zhou's delight. It's a pity that one is nowhere near, the other is already died. Someday I will see Rong'er again, but I will never be able to tell this story to Big Brother Zhou."

Early morning on the next day Hong Qigong called Ouyang Ke and proudly told him, "The Old Beggar's martial art is already unique; I don't need to see all kinds of Nine Yin Manual. As a matter of fact, even if you show the manual in front of my face I won't even cast a glance to it. Only some bird brain whose martial art is useless would be dying to steal all kinds of gold and silver [play of words here: shen jing – divine scripture, shen jin – pure gold, shen yin – pure silver]. Tell your dog uncle that the manual will be written just for him. Tell him to shut himself up and train hard; and when he's done, to come to the Old Beggar to test his newfound skill. The Manual naturally is a good thing, but I don't want to look at it even with one eye. I want to see if with the Manual's help he would be able to defeat the Old Beggar. I want to see whether after he has painstakingly practiced the martial arts from the manual he wouldn't just 'ban jin ba liang' [the same, equal to] with the Old Beggar? I'll say he's just taking off his pants to fart; totally useless!"

Ouyang Feng was actually standing behind his cabin door, so he heard everything, but he was delighted instead of getting angry. "It's a very good thing the Old Beggar is very proud, he doesn't mind letting me have the manual," he thought, "Otherwise, even if I fight him, threaten him with snakes or poison, or I starve him to death, it would still be difficult to force him."

"Uncle Hong, you are wrong!" Ouyang Ke said, "My Uncle's martial art has reached perfection. With Uncle Hong's ability, you could not gain even half a move advantage; so why would Uncle want to learn the Nine Yin Manual? My Uncle once told Little Nephew that he is convinced the Nine Yin Manual had enjoyed undeserved reputation. Otherwise, when Wang Chongyang won the book, why didn't he learn anything from it and demonstrate it in front of everybody? My Uncle wants to take a look at it to point out the errors and prove that the manual is actually a hoax. Wouldn't you say that it will benefit the Wulin world tremendously?"

Hong Qigong burst out in laughter, "You are blindly blowing your horn too hard!" he mocked. "Jing'er, go ahead and write the manual from your memory. If the Old Poison can point out any error in the Nine Yin Manual, the Old Beggar will kowtow to him."

Guo Jing said yes and came out. Ouyang Ke led him to the big cabin where there was a stack of paper and some ink stick; he even prepared the ink himself and respectfully waited on the side.

Guo Jing's school years were not too many, his handwriting was shoddy; oftentimes he had to think the characters he had to write; so he worked very slowly. More than once he did not know how to write certain character, so he had to ask Ouyang Ke to write it for him. Working until noon that day he barely finished the first half of the first volume.

Ouyang Feng did not show himself at all, but every time Guo Jing finished writing a page Ouyang Ke would take that page and gave it to his uncle. Ouyang Feng looked at them carefully. Some sentences did not make any sense to him, but even though shoddy, the characters were clear. He thought those sentences must have very deep meaning behind them, so when he's back to the west he would slowly digest the manual. He believed with his intelligence and ability he would eventually understand the manual thoroughly; and after a dozen of years or so he would master the entire martial arts from the manual. He could not help but feeling elated. He knew Guo Jing was dumb, he also noticed Guo Jing's handwriting was so plain and naïve, almost child-like. He believed this kind of person would not be able to fabricate a complex manual such as this one. Besides, his nephew had told him that many characters Guo Jing knew the sounds, but did not know how to write, so his nephew had to teach him or write the characters himself, so without a doubt this was the real manual. How would he know that this dumb kid had conspired with his master to deliberately alter the manual and so deceive him? As for the confusing sentences, he blamed that on Guo Jing's inability to remember the text correctly.

Guo Jing did not stop writing even though the sky had turned dark; he had finished more than half of the second volume. Ouyang Feng did not allow him to return to his cabin for fear that Hong Qigong would influence him to change his mind and make things difficult for him. Even though he had already had most of the manual in his hands; he wanted to have the complete manual. So he arranged for a sumptuous meal and wine to be brought to Guo Jing, let Guo Jing continue to write without interruption.

Hong Qigong waited until about the end of the eleventh hour, early twelfth hour [about 9 pm] but did not see Guo Jing came back. He felt queasy, afraid that Ouyang Feng had discovered their scheme and his dumb disciple might suffer the worst. He sneaked out of his cabin and quietly walked toward the main cabin. There were two snake shepherds stood guard in front of the main cabin. Hong Qigong sent his left palm forward creating a gust of wind making the sail rope moved. Those two snake shepherds heard the noise and looked around while Hong Qigong had already moved to the right. His movement was so quick that those two did not see anything; they thought it was a ghost or something. Very soon Hong Qigong was at the starboard of the main cabin.

Hong Qigong could see a faint glow coming out of the main cabin's window. He took a peek inside and saw Guo Jing was still crouching on the desk, writing. Two white-dressed maidens stood beside him, busily serving tea or lighting some incense or replenishing some papers or preparing some more ink. Guo Jing was well taken care of. Hong Qigong was relieved; but then his nostrils caught a scent of the wine. He fixed his gaze for a long time and saw in front of Guo Jing a cup of amber brown aged wine, the color is almost rouge, the sweet fragrant attacking his nose mercilessly.