The Legend of the Condor Heroes

"Right!" Huang Rong said, "We need to eat first." She untied Shagu and invited her to eat together. Shagu was not bashful; she smiled, held out her hands to take the bowl and ate.

Huang Rong told Hong Qigong everything she found in the secret room. Hong Qigong also thought it was peculiar, "It seems like that government officer surnamed Shi had killed your Martial Brother Qu; who would have thought your Martial Brother Qu had not breathed his last, he threw the blade and killed him."

"Most probably so," Huang Rong concurred. She took the blade and the iron 'ba gua' and showed them to Shagu. "Whose are these?" she asked.

Shagu's countenance suddenly changed, she leaned her head sideways to think; looked like she recalled something, but after a while her face turned indifferent. She shook her head and took the blade, not willing to let it go.

"Apparently she has seen this blade before," Huang Rong said, "But it must be a long time ago and she can't remember it anymore."

After eating she took care of Hong Qigong and let him sleep; then Guo Jing and she went back to the room to take a further look. They thought they key to this mystery must be hidden inside the iron chest; therefore, they removed the skeleton crouching on top of the chest and opened the lid up. Turned out the lid could be easily opened since it was unlocked. Under the torch light their eyes were dazzled by the gleaming of a chest full of pearl, jade, and all kinds of treasures and antiques.

Guo Jing only felt surprised, but Huang Rong knew each article was a very rare and precious treasure. Her father's collection was not as extensive as the content of this chest. She grabbed a handful of pearls and let her finger loosened; the pearl made nice clinking sounds as they fell back into the chest and hit the other pearls and jades. She sighed, "There must be history behind all these treasures; if father were here he would be tell us the origin of each." She took them one by one and explained what it was to Guo Jing; this one was a jade bracelet, this one rhino skin case, that one was cornelian cup, that one was emerald dish, and so on.

Guo Jing grew up in the desert; not only he had never seen this kind of treasures, he had never even heard of them; he thought, "People spent so much effort to collect these gadgets, don't know what they are going to do with them?"

While speaking Huang Rong continued to grope around in the box, and her hand touched a piece of hard board; she knew there must be another layer underneath. She moved the jewelry aside and saw rings around the board; she inserted her little fingers inside the rings and lifted the board up. Underneath were a bunch of greenish copper colored antiques. She had heard her father illustrated to her some antique copperwares, and she recognized some to be 'long wen ding' [imperial culture tripod], 'shang yi' [an article from the Shang Dynasty (16th to 11th century BC)], 'zhou pan' [plate from Zhou Dynasty (1027BC)], 'zhou dun' [an article from Zhou Dynasty], 'zhou ju lei' [tableware from Zhou Dynasty] and such. In the end she had to admit she did not know much about these articles. If the pearls and jades were considered treasures worth a fortune, then these bronze antiques were priceless.

The more Huang Rong looked at them, the more marveled she became. She lifted another board underneath the antiques and discovered rolls and rolls of paintings. She asked for Guo Jing's help and together they opened up the paintings one by one. She was shocked! The first painting was Wu Daozi's 'song zi tian wang tu' [send off a child heavenward]. The next painting was Han Ganhua's 'mu ma tu' [herding horse]; the other was Southern Tang Dynasty's Li Houzhu's 'lin quan du zhui ren wu' [crossing the forest spring]. Altogether there were more than twenty scrolls and not even a single one of them did not originate from the pen of a famous artist. Several scrolls were calligraphy and paintings from Hui Zong; several others were from the penmanship of contemporary artists, but each one of them was of the most exquisite and highest quality art. Among them were the handiworks of imperial court's artist Liang Kai's unique two-rolls splashing ink characters, with a very vivid image; a part of it reminded her of Zhou Botong.

Huang Rong only looked at about half of them and did not feel like continuing; she returned everything into the chest, closed the lid and sat on top of the chest, hugging her knees. She thought, "Father had amassed all kinds of treasures all his life, but the value of his collection maybe only one tenth of the content of this chest; how did Martial Brother Qu have this kind of ability to obtain these many rare and priceless treasures?" No matter how hard she racked her brain she could not think of any good explanation.

Every time Huang Rong was thinking hard, Guo Jing had never dared to disturb her train of thoughts. He stayed quiet until he heard Zhou Botong called out from outside, "Hey! Get out of there quick; we need to visit the old emperor's house for some 'yuan yang wu zhen kuai' [minced five-treasure mandarin duck]!"

"Tonight?" Guo Jing asked.

Hong Qigong replied, "The earlier the better. I am afraid I can't hold on much longer."

"Shifu, don't listen to the Old Urchin speaking a whole bunch of nonsense," Huang Rong said, "We can't go tonight; we will enter the city gate early morning tomorrow. If the Old Urchin has anymore weird ideas, we won't let him come to the palace with us."

"Humph!" Zhou Botong snorted, "Once again I am to be blamed." He sulked and refused to talk.

That night four people slept on the straw beds strewn on the ground. Early the next morning Huang Rong and Guo Jing prepared some breakfast; four people plus Shagu ate together. Huang Rong turned the iron bowl and closed the cabinet walls; and then put all chipped bowls and broken utensils back inside the cabinet. Shagu was indifferent to what was going on around her; she held the handle of the blade in her hand and played with it.

Huang Rong took a small ingot of silver from her pocket and gave it to her; Shagu took it and casually tossed in on the table. "If you are hungry you can take the money to buy rice and meat," Huang Rong said. It was hard to say if Shagu understood, since she only giggled foolishly.

Huang Rong felt sadness creeping into her heart; knowing this girl must have had some relation with Qi Lingfeng, if not his family member then she must be his disciple. Her six, seven stances of 'bi bo zhang fa' [jade-green waves palm technique] definitely came from Qu Lingfeng, even though she learned it carelessly. What Huang Rong did not know was whether she was retarded since birth, or did she experience some horrifying experience which gave her a shock and damaged her brain. She wanted to find some information in the village, but Zhou Botong kept urging them to move forward. Thereupon four people and one cart went straight entering the city of Lin'an.

Lin'an was originally the world's most bustling city. When the Song government moved south it was established as the new capital. All kinds of people converged into the city, and it became increasingly flourishing.

Four people entering the city via the east gate and went straight to the front of 'li cheng men' [beautiful portal gate] of the imperial palace. Hong Qigong stayed inside the cart, while Zhou Botong and the others looked around. They saw the golden nails on scarlet doors, painted beams and engraved railings, and copper tiles covering the roof; with sculptures of flying dragon and phoenix all in magnificent splendor, dazzling their eyes.