Da Tang Shuang Long Zhuan

But this moment, the wind direction was changing indeterminately.

The multi-decked, huge Korean warship has caught up to about a li and a half, and was still closing in.

With grave expression Bu Tianzhi said, “If we can hold on to tonight, I have confidence we will be able to throw them off.”

Surprised, Kou Zhong said, “By saying that, Zhi Shu must have another reason. I thought that these two nights the moonlight was so bright, the day and the night are not much different.”

Brimming with confidence, Bu Tianzhi said, “Just by looking at the changes in the wind power, I dare say that the weather will turn nasty very soon. At that time, the ocean will change into a dark world with no moon and stars. In the surging and high waves, it would be very extraordinary if the ship is not sinking, let alone talking about trailing the enemy.”

Finding it hard to believe, Kou Zhong looked up at ten thousand li clear sky overhead, then he looked down at the surface of the sea, where the great waves silently passed through the seemingly serene you-chase-me-and-I-after-you situation, with only a layer of fine white foam on the crown of the waves. “I hope Zhi Shu’s expectation is correct,” he said, “Hey! We are not going to capsize, are we?”

Recalling the trip with Xu Ziling that time, where their boat unexpectedly crashed against the rock, he still had lingering fear.

Bu Tianzhi replied, “When the wind power is increasing, the only thing we can do is to adjust the course and to keep the wind coming from the stern. If we let the wind to blow on either side of the ship, the sail will be blown and the ship will spin, so much so that it will capsize. At that time, our comparatively smaller ship will have the advantage of rotating around more nimbly, unlike now, where we are being chased without being able to take a breathe.”

Kou Zhong looked up at the sun, which had just crossed over its zenith and was slowly going down toward the land on the west. Laughing, he said, “How much confidence does Zhi Shu have that the weather will turn nasty?”

Shaken, Bu Tianzhi replied, “Not even fifty-percent.”

Stunned, Kou Zhong looked over.

The top deck of the battleship appeared to be coming at them in straight line, but it was actually constantly turning, as if they wanted to completely capture all the sea breeze. Each subtle change of direction caused the ship’s speed to increase suddenly; it was a brilliant skill, something astonishing to see.

The enemy’s warship finally entered the dangerous one li range, brimming with threat, while their own counterattack weaponry, such as crossbow and arrow machines, trebuchets, and so on, were still collecting dust at the bottom of the hold.

Xu Ziling had the Overbearing Saber and the scroll Yue Shan left behind, all of it, buried in the hole he dug on the muddy soil and filled the hole with dirt. After making some marking that he could recognize later, his entire body relaxed.

He had some kind of intense rejection and resistance toward these inauspicious articles, which were soaked full of the reek of blood. He was even more reluctant to follow through Shi Feixuan and Shi Qingxuan’s scheme like a puppet on the strings.

He wanted to rely on his own style and method to exterminate the ‘Heavenly Lord’ Xi Ying, and then he would never have any reason to stay.

Xu Ziling did not blame Shi Qingxuan as being ruthless at all; he only blamed himself for overestimating his own capabilities and for being silly to think that this multi-talented beauty would look upon him with favor.

She played her flute for him showing her real face was no more than showing her appreciation for his willingness to pull his saber and render assistance [part of an idiom: to intervene when one sees an injustice]. In short, he just misunderstood her.

Thinking about this, he felt ridiculous.

However, whether it was when he arrived at Chengdu for the first time, or last night under the moonlight in the small building, he had felt an unprecedented emotion.

The ocean of love has no shore, the sea of bitterness sees no bound!

Even if the love between a man and a woman was a joy in life, but loving women like Shi Feixuan or even Shi Qingxuan would probably not bring any good result. Ouyang Xiyi, Wang Tong, and the others were good example.

Xu Ziling inwardly determined that henceforth he would not have any wild fantasy toward Shi Feixuan and Shi Qingxuan.

Thinking to this point, he felt more free [from worldly worries (Buddhist term)] instead; just like being pulled out from the mire where his feet were sinking deep, and was back to his usual confident and at ease, open-minded self. Once more his brains were working actively.

Since bidding farewell to Shi Qingxuan the previous night and returning to his inn, with his sleep eluding him all night, he looked at the scroll Yue Shan left behind at least three times through, and just now he read it again one time through. Relying on his extraordinary memory, he remembered the content of the scroll as ripe as a melon that rolls from its vine [idiom: knowing something inside out].

Other than recording the particularly profound personal narrative in Yue Shan’s life, which consisted of mainly the reflection in his later years over the Overbearing Saber’s saber technique and the repeated examination of the ‘Huan Ri Da Fa’ that he has yet to master, it was full of helplessness and heartache, which made people who read it feel sad.

Although the aspiration was a thousand li away, but time was not on my side; what to do about it?

On a side note, the ruthless-beyond-human-comprehension forty-nine-style Overbearing Saber was completely not to Xu Ziling’s liking. But ‘Huan Ri Da Fa’ had touched him deeply, until later on it became the fantastic gongfa rolling around in the sea of his brain.

According to Yue Shan, this set of fantastic gongfa was the result of exchanging his Overbearing Saber’s secret with an Indian ascetic practitioner monk. Originally it had an Indian name, which Yue Shan renamed into ‘The Great Method of Changing The Day’.

If Yue Shan were able to master it, he would shed his mortal body and exchange his bones, wash his muscle and exchange his marrow – to be reborn. Not only his injury would be healed, he would also be able to, in a short period of time, recover his internal power.

Unfortunately, until his body died, Yue Shan had not mastered even ten-percent of it. Speaking about harboring regret to the end!

Through the scroll that Yue Shan left behind, Xu Ziling had the first contact with Shi Qingxuan’s mother, Bi Xiuxin. Every so often she would visit Yue Shan; oftentimes she even helped him studying the fantastic ‘Huan Ri Da Fa’, and Yue Shan dutifully recorded her view in his legacy scroll.

In general, ‘Huan Ri Da Fa’ could be divided into ‘Six-Direction [north, south, east, west, up, down] Accomplishment of Religious Practice’ [again, Buddhist term]. In sequence, step by step, it meant going through the [spiritual] cultivation of ‘qi, mai [meridian], lun [wheel or disk/ring/rotation ... anything round; Sanskrit: Chakra]’, as well as displaying the life potential, becoming one with the heaven and earth, seizing the creation [or ‘good luck’] of the heaven and earth; an unfathomable mystery.

One thing that attracted his attention the most was Yue Shan’s ‘broken and then stand, defeated and then succeed’, two formulas [or mnemonic chant]. Too bad that although he was broken and defeated, all along he did not obtain any gain. The mystery behind this, even Bi Xiuxin, whose intelligent surpassed others, remained puzzled even after pondering over it a hundred times.

But when looking at it the first time, Xu Ziling has been able to faintly grasping its crucial point; simply because other than Kou Zhong and Ba Fenghan, there has never been anybody else undergoing the fantastic experience from the Jade Annulus of He Clan.

He still had to ponder carefully.

Thinking to this point, his heart was moved, and he walked away.

With his sharp eyesight, Kou Zhong was able to see clearly the situation on board the enemy’s warship; even Ku Ge’s – who was standing on the bridge – expression brimming with hatred, did not escape his eyes.

By Ku Ge’s side stood several wearing butterfly-like wide robe huge garment, and tall hat on top of their head – Korean warriors, one of them was a woman.

But Bu Tianzhi’s attention was at the two trebuchets standing extremely menacingly at the bow.

The only reason to be happy right now was that the weather was gradually getting worse. The originally tranquil surface of the sea has turned completely into foaming, surging and splashing billows. It was as if roaring huge waves were attacking from four directions eight sides, the men at the helm of both ships had a bit of their hands tied, their feet bound – feeling, and could only navigate the ship following the wind’s direction, no longer able to steer the ships toward their desired direction.

The land on the west has already disappeared inside the dense clouds, all around them they could only see ocean waves full of dark green seawater and boiling white foam, the wind also felt icy cold to the bone, the wet salty air was brimming with danger.

‘Boom!’

The stone-throwing machine on the left side of the bow of the multi-decked huge warship, which was at least double their sailboat’s size, ejected a piece of boulder, weighed more than a hundred catty, shooting across the empty space between the two ships, continuously rolling toward them.

As luck would have it, the moment the rock shot out of the trebuchet, a huge wave happened to surge, so that the hull was leaning to one side, so that the powerfully destructive rock immediately lost its bearing and shuddering, it fell three zhang away starboard of the sailboat, provoking the men on Kou Zhong’s side that everybody broke in loud cheer.

Bu Tianzhi and Kou Zhong, however, looked at each other, realizing that their boat was within the range of the enemy’s rock-throwing machine. If just one of the rocks hit its target, in this dangerous sea area, it could be guaranteed that their sailboat would immediately be wiped out without any chance of escaping.

‘Boom!’

A huge rock from the other trebuchet soared into the sky. This time it only missed their stern by a zhang. And this time nobody felt like cheering.

The worst thing was that they could not evade by going around a curve, simply because both ships relied on the tail wind to maintain their balance, so that the pursuit had become a straight line. The question was when the opponent’s boulder would hit the hull of their ship.

The sky gradually darkened.

“Can we release smoke?” Kou Zhong called out loudly.

Facing the wind, Bu Tianzhi replied, “The smoke would dissipate as soon as it was released, plus we are downstream from the wind force. Whether we are scattering ashes or releasing the smoke, it would only be blown back on our face.”

While they were talking, the enemy’s warship was several zhang closer, so that the distance between them was no more that twenty zhang. All the warriors on the deck of the enemy’s ship had strung their bows with fiery arrows. As soon as they were a bit closer, and these hundred arrows were released at the same time following the tail wind, the consequences would be unbearable to imagine.

The opposite party’s archers were teams of two men each; needless to say, the man who did not hold the bow and arrow must be in charge of igniting the oil cloth wrapped around the arrowhead, and that made them even more worried.

“Drop the sail!” Kou Zhong shouted loudly.

Bu Tianzhi shook his head resolutely, “The boat may capsize immediately,” he said, “We must think of some other ways.”

Kou Zhong suddenly pointed his finger like a halberd and shouted, “Ku Ge boy! If you have enough guts, come a little closer and see me, Kou Zhong, cut your bird head off.”

Ku Ge’s loud laughter came through, saying, “Little thief Kou Zhong, aren’t you being superfluous? Don’t tell me that unexpectedly you cannot see that we are about to become intimate with you?”

Another man with Korean accent unhurriedly said, “I’ve long heard Kou Xiong’s saber technique is unrivalled, Jin Zhengzong [lit. Korean Jin (Kim – gold/metal) Orthodox School; probably his name (Kim Jongzong?)] of Gaoli wishes to ask for advice.”

Kou Zhong and Bu Tianzhi’s countenance changed at the same time. Neither one knew Jin Zhengzong’s standing within Korean’s Wulin, but just by hearing him speaking, although he did not yell and shout loudly like Ku Ge, his voice entered their ears by penetrating the wind and passing through the waves as if it was across calm land – they immediately knew that this man has reached the great expert state of grand master level.

Kou Zhong laughed aloud and said, “May I ask, what weapon is Jin Xiong most adept at?”

The refined-in-manner, build-like-ancient-pine-reaching-high-to-the-sky, outstandingly-talented-above-the-crowd, middle age man standing by Ku Ge aboard the enemy’s ship smiled and replied, “Any weapon does not make any difference; using saber is not a problem either.”

Kou Zhong could only turn to Bu Tianzhi, smile wryly and say, “Turns out we really bump into stiff hands. I was thinking of charging onto the opponent’s ship and wreak havoc over there, but now it seems that this plan will not succeed. There is only one other plan.”

Surprised, Bu Tianzhi asked, “What plan?”

Kou Zhong smiled and said, “The small boat mine [as in ‘weapon’ (or thunder)] taught by Lu Miaozi.”

Under the setting sun, Xu Ziling again went to the Luohan Hall of the Great Stone Temple.

The hall still looked like last night, where rubble of gravel and fragments of wood were everywhere. The number of Luohan statues remained intact was no more than three hundred, but for Xu Ziling, this was already more than enough.

After reading Yue Shan’s legacy scroll, he gained another more in-depth view of these Luohan, and he began to have a bit more understanding of the significance of the word ‘Print’ in the Immortal Print Scroll.

Led by Bi Xiuxin, Yu Shan understood the interpretation of the ‘handprint’ in Buddhism.

Bi Xiuxin pointed out that on the outside, the ‘handprint’ goes through the universe; inside it pierces through the five viscera and six bowels, and the eight extraordinary channels.

It was merely a three-sentence interpretation, but it has broadened Xu Ziling’s understanding of the opponent’s ‘handprint’ indefinitely. In the past, when he was confronting the enemy, he would automatically bring out the true qi within his body and combine it with all kinds and sorts of handprint. At that time, he just knew that it was so, but he did not know why it was so. Now that he obtained Yue Shan’s comprehensive review from the scroll he left behind, he began to know the so-called ‘body, mouth, mind’, three secrets in cultivation method.

The handprint was precisely the most important link in the ‘body print’.

The fingerprints, from the pinky finger to the thumb, are ‘earth, water, fire, sky, and wind’; the five greats. The right hand represents ‘intelligence’; the left hand represents ‘decision’. Passing through both hands’ ten fingers, together with ‘qi, mai, lun’, linked together inside and outside becoming the ‘jing’ [channel] that is cultivated and trained within the body, advancing as ‘Six Achievements of the [Religious] Practice’ – was precisely the essence of ‘The Great Method of Changing The Day’.

The ‘Day’ here referred to ‘Da Ri Ru Lai’ [the Great Day of the Tathagata; or Vairocana, Buddha of supreme enlightenment]. ‘Changing the Day’ had the meaning of exchanging the Great Day of the Tathagata, implying the deep meaning that the body will become a Buddha [i.e. attaining enlightenment].

Naturally Xu Ziling did not have the intention of becoming an immortal, of becoming a Buddha. It’s just that he was very interested in this secret method that came from Tianzhu [the Indian subcontinent]. The most wonderful thing was that it would match perfectly like seamless heavenly clothes with the path/channel of his own cultivation of martial way.

Yue Shan was accustomed to the Overbearing Saber; learning the Hand Print was as difficult as splitting the mountain, observing the ox. Moreover, how could changing the usual practice of one’s own internal energy method be easy?

But in this aspect, for Xu Ziling it was like an easy drive on a familiar path, outstanding and very fitting.

The ‘qi, mai, lun’ of ‘The Great Method of Changing The Day’ refer to ‘five qi, three mai, seven lun’, which was the Tianzhu’s internal energy cultivation system, which was of different-tune, same-skill, but was also vastly distinct from the Central Plain Wulin’s Eight Extraordinary Channels.

The Five Qi were ming gen [lifeblood], shang xing [going up (against the current)], ping [flat/level], bian xing [going on an angle], and xia xing [going down(stream)], the five qi, referring to the internal qi and external qi passing by the three-meridian seven-chakra channel.

The Three Mai were middle, left, and right, three meridians. The middle meridian followed haidi [seabed] to the top of the head, by means of spinal cord link, similar to the Central Earth’s Du Meridian.

The left and right, two meridians both started at the gaowan gong [testicle palace], running parallel with the middle meridian, linking up with the seven chakra.

The Seven Lun were similar to the Central Earth’s acupoints; from the top going down were dinglun [sahasrara, the crown or fontanel chakra, residing at the top of the skull], meijianlun [ajna, the brow or third-eye chakra, residing on the forehead], houlun [visuddha, the throat chakra, residing in the neck], xinlun [anahata, the heart chakra, residing in the chest], qilun [manipura, the solar plexus chakra, residing in the upper abdomen], shengzhilun [svadhisthana, the navel or libido chakra, residing in the genitals], and haidilun [muladhara, the root or Saturn

chakra, residing in the coccyx (tailbone)]. The last one, haidilun, was the Central Earth’s huiyin [perineum] acupoint.

As soon as Xu Ziling saw this complex and abstruse method of cultivation, he understood; the only remaining problem was how to put it into practice.

Not only these statues inside the Luohan Hall were designed according to the drawing scroll by the Indian Holy Monk Kumarajiva, they actually corresponded wonderfully with The Great Method of Changing The Day.

With his hands behind his back, Xu Ziling slowly walked toward one of the revered Luohan’s side, which he carefully looked at. This statue had a total of six arms. Two arms were stretched left and right with the palms put together above its head, two arms made fists intersecting with each other in front of the pit of its stomach, and the last pair of arms was placed between its eyes in such a way that the thumbs were touching the space between its eyes.

The face of the statue showed a deep contemplative expression. If it were in the past, Xu Ziling might have brushed it off as some kind of Buddhist image’s pose. But now naturally he knew that it passed through different handprints, linking up the meijianlun, the xinlun, and the dinglun, three qi.

The most brilliant was that he clearly understood the relationship between different handprints and different acupoints and chakras.

Nearly three hundred revered Luohan, because among them there were more than a dozen multi-armed Luohan, there were up to four hundred different handprints, none of them were identical. To Xu Ziling, it was like someone who was poor most of his life suddenly had someone had him to carry a treasure. This kind of excitement really could not be explained clearly with words.

Suddenly, The Great Method of Changing The Day was reduced to some kind of rudimentary skill that one has to learn as one entered a school; or perhaps like opening up the key to a certain Buddhist school’s secret keyhole. These Luohan were the real treasure.

Shi Qingxuan’s expressing her true feelings, Shi Feixuan’s appearing to have no affection at all, everything became insignificant and had no related importance.

Unconsciously he put his palms vertically together, the hollow of his palms slightly empty like blooming lotus flower. And then both palms faced upward to form a well, as if he was scooping up water. Suddenly the two palms were put together with the fingers intertwined with each other, changing into all kinds of different handprints.

Ten thousand thoughts returning to one.

While everything became illusory, his mind turning blank, fuzzy, deeply distant and indistinct, the division between the inside and outside thoroughly crumbling, extremely empty and seriously still, one by one the falun [Eternal Wheel of life in Buddhism] inside his body was turning. The Secret to Long Life, the Jade Annulus of He Clan, and the Great Method of Changing the Day, by means of different handprints, fused together, entering me, and I am inside, the man and the Heaven became one.

The skiff from the ship, carrying Kou Zhong, was dropped into the waves-surging-forth, the angry sea. When it looked like it was about to flip sideways, Kou Zhong, standing on the stern, suddenly sent out his power. The bow immediately rose up and the skiff regained its balance, from the trough of the wave it powerfully dashed to the peak of the wave, and then changed direction horizontally across and swept away, as if it was flying on top of the waves, gliding at an angle straight toward the enemy’s warship.

The people of both sides were dumbstruck to watch this marvel.

Actually, not even in his dream did Lu Miaozi ever think of this ‘small boat mine’ scheme. It was purely Kou Zhong’s invention, while no strategy left to try – to break away from being trapped in difficult situation. At first he did not have any confidence; he was only relying on his familiarity with the property of the sea waves when a huge wave was crashing against the beach, and obtaining a the-heaven-opened kind of marvelous method on how to counterstrike.

This moment he discovered that he was able to really utilize the small skiff to glide over the waves, immediately his courage soared. The leg he put on the back applying the power, the bow immediately changed direction, slipping out from the gap outside the bottom of the wave, swift like a speeding horse it slid through the trough of the wave and dashed toward the crest, coming at an angle toward the multi-decked huge warship approaching fast due to the tail wind, rapidly gliding along the top of the waves toward the starboard of the warship like a shooting arrow.

It was only then did Ku Ge come to his senses; he understood Kou Zhong’s bad intentions.

If the skiff – filled to the brim with Kou Zhong’s true power – borrowing the momentum of the waves crashing into their ship, it would be disastrous.

Someone, it wasn’t clear who, shouted some order that Kou Zhong was unable to make sense of – presumably it was in Korean, and the archers on the side facing Kou Zhong shouted in chorus and simultaneously shot the powerful arrows strung on their bows.

Kou Zhong laughed aloud and said, “You must have forgotten that those are arrows wrapped in oilcloth!”

Unexpectedly he did neither dodge nor hide, just by relying on the true qi protecting his body he let the arrows hit the skiff and his body, without even wrinkling half of his eyebrows.

On Bu Tianzhi’s side, everybody watching wiped the cold sweats from their brows on his behalf. Seeing him remaining calm without suffering any damage, they exploded into shaking-the-heavens cheer.

When the skiff was two zhang away from ferociously crashing onto the port side of the bow of the enemy’s ship, from the enemy’s warship came a loud shout, which covered all the sound of the wind and the waves. That man Jin Zhengzong unexpectedly dropped from the sky like a deity, with a long spear in his hands, as if he wanted to attack Kou Zhong directly, but actually he was stretching out his right foot, with the intention of changing the direction of the shooting skiff before its bow collided with the warship.

Kou Zhong roared in laughter and said, “Too late!”

Adding power to his foot, the skiff suddenly sped up, while he himself sprang off the skiff to meet Jin Zhengzong, who was still flying in the air toward him – head on.