Havoc in the Jin palace.

Original translation by Foxs

Hong Qigong, Zhou Botong, Huang Rong, and Guo Jing took a small boat towards the west. Guo Jing sat rowing at the stern, while Huang Rong continuously pestered Zhou Botong with questions about riding sharks on the sea. Zhou Botong would think of ways to catch sharks in order to amuse Huang Rong. Guo Jing, seeing his master’s pale complexion, asked “Master, what are you thinking about?” Hong Qigong did not reply, he just panted hoarsely again and again. The strike he received from Ouyang Feng had penetrated to the bone; although the vital point had already been released, the internal injury had actually worsened. Huang Rong fed him nine of her nine ‘flower jade dew’ pills. Although the pain lessened somewhat, the asthma was still just as bad. Old Urchin, completely disregarding the suffering of others, continued to make a racket, shouting that they must catch the fish. Huang Rong knew his behavior was inappropriate, and tried to signal him with her eyes that he should be quite so as not to disturb Hong Qigong. Zhou Botong, not in the least understanding, simply continued to cause trouble. Huang Rong knit her brows and said: “You want to catch sharks, but you don’t have any bait to attract them with, so what are you going on about?”

The Old Urchin never acts like a respected senior. When juniors drink and swear in front of him, he’s never offended in the least. He suddenly said: “Got it! Brother Guo, I’ll hold your hands while you dip the lower half of your body into the sea.” Guo Jing respected his sworn brother; even though he did not know his intention, he immediately agreed. Huang Rong immediately called out: “Big brother Jing! Don’t listen to him! He wants to use you as bait in order to catch sharks.” Zhou Botong clapped his hands and shouted delightedly: “Exactly! When a shark comes, I’ll immediately beat it and pull it up! Otherwise, you hold my hands, and I’ll attract the shark.” Huang Rong replied: “You two deliberately cause so much trouble on this small boat; if it capsizes, we’ll only have you to blame!” Zhou Botong replied: “If this boat capsizes, that will be great! We can all play in the ocean!” Huang Rong replied: “Then what about our master? Do you want him to live or not?”

Zhou Botong held his head, at a loss for words. After a short time, he mentioned it was strange that Hong Qigong should be injured by Ouyang Feng’s attack. Huang Rong shouted: “If you talk nonsense again, we three will not speak with you for three days and three nights!” Zhou Botong stuck out his tongue and did not dare to say another word. He grabbed an oar to help Guo Jing with the rowing.

Although the land appeared to be close by, it was already dusk by the time they finally disembarked. That night the four of them slept on the sandy beach. The next morning, Hong Qigong’s illness had worsened considerably, and Guo Jing’s tears began to flow. Hong Qigong said with a smile: “Even if I were to live for another hundred years, I’d still have to die in the end. Good child, I only have one wish left. Using this old beggar’s last breath, I would ask that the three of you do something for me.” Huang Rong replied tearfully: “Master, please speak.” Zhou Botong interrupted: “That old poison I am always seeking is an eyesore. Now my senior is on the point of death; for the sake of old poison you have already played dead once before. For a person to die twice, wouldn’t you say that is delightful? Old Beggar, you go right ahead and die, don’t worry about anything, I will go and kill him in order to get revenge for you.” Hong Qigong replied with a smile: “Avenging a grievance still cannot be considered a final wish; what I want is to eat a bowl of minced five-treasure mandarin duck from the Imperial Palace kitchen.” Out of the three of them, who would have thought that his final wish was to eat a bowl of food? Huang Rong replied: “Master, that’s easy; here is not far from Lin An, I’ll steal several large pots from the Imperial Palace so that you can eat to your heart’s content.” Zhou Botong interrupted again: “I also want to eat.” Huang Rong gave him a displeased look and replied: “You also understand how to differentiate between good and bad food?” Hong Qigong said: “This minced five-treasure mandarin duck is hard to come by. Back in the day I hid in the Imperial Palace for three months, and only managed to try a tiny bit. Just recalling the flavour is enough to make one drool.” Zhou Botong said: “I have an idea, we’ll grab the old emperor’s chef, and make him prepare it.” Huang Rong replied: “Old Urchin, this idea is not bad.” Zhou Botong, hearing Huang Rong supporting him, was very pleased with himself.

Hong Qigong, shaking his head in disapproval, replied: “No way, to make this flavourful mince five-treasure mandarin duck, the kitchen implements, charcoal fire, and dishes all must form a complete set. If even one is missing, the taste will be off. We still need to go to the Imperial Palace.”

Seeing that the three still had some scruples, he said “It will be really excellent, if we go, you will all gain valuable experience.” Immediately Guo Jing carried Hong Qigong on his back and set off towards the north. Upon reaching a small town, Huang Rong exchanged some of her jewellery and purchased a small mule cart in order to let Hong Qigong relax and recover from his wound. Eventually they passed the Qiangtang river, and arrived at the outskirts of Lin An, seeing nothing but the vast misty sunset, and hearing the intermittent cawing of a crow. By nightfall they still had not reached the city, and were forced to seek lodgings for the night. Looking around, they saw only a small village of several households by the riverbank. Huang Rong called out: “This village is good, we can rest here.”

Zhou Botong replied sullenly: “What’s so good about it?” Huang Rong replied: “You look, doesn’t this scenery look sort of like a painting?” Zhou Botong replied: “How does it resemble a painting then?” Huang Rong stared blankly, having difficulty coming up with a response. Zhou Botong said: “This painting must be very ugly, what scenery would it have if similar to Old Urchin’s painting, I’m afraid it must be inferior.” Huang Rong said with a smile: “Want Heaven to create a landscape, just like Old Urchin’s random scribbling of a painting, Heaven also has this ability.” Zhou Botong, extremely pleased with himself, replied: “Are you certain? If you don’t believe, then I’ll make a painting right now, and you can call Heaven to look.”

Huang Rong replied: “Of course I believe it, you already said this place is not good, so don’t rest here, us three won’t leave.” Zhou Botong replied: “The three of you won’t go, why on earth would I want to go?”

In the midst of this chatter, they arrived at the village. The village center looked very desolate and dilapidated, with only a wine shop banner hanging off a pole at the eastern corner of the village, looking approximately like the village inn. The three people arrived in front of the inn, and saw two desks under the eaves, on top of which lay an extremely thick lair of dust. Zhou Botong yelled “Hey!” loudly several times, and a young girl of indeterminate age with dishevelled hair and clothing came out from the inner hall. She opened her eyes and gave the three a blank, lifeless stare. Huang Rong ordered wine and food, but the girl just shook her head continuously. Zhou Botong said: “Here you have neither wine nor food, what kind of shop are you running?” The girl shook her head and replied: “I don’t know.” Zhou Botong replied: “Ai, you really are a silly girl.” The girl grinned and laughed, saying: “That’s right, I’m called Silly Girl.” The three of them laughed and understood. Huang Rong went to take a look at the inner hall and the kitchen, finding it full of dust and cobwebs, with a few pots and other old stuff. On the bed was a torn mat. One couldn’t help but feel sympathy and sorrow. She returned outside and inquired: “Is it just you living here?”

Silly Girl smiled and nodded. Huang Rong asked again: “What about your mother?” Silly Girl replied: “Dead!” and wiped her hands across her eyes in imitation of somebody grieving. Huang Rong asked again: “What about your father?” Silly Girl shook her head, indicating she didn’t know. They saw her face and hands were filthy, with long fingernails filled up with black crud. Who knows how long it had been since she had washed her face and hands. Huang Rong said sadly: “Even if she were to cook, we wouldn’t be able to eat it.” She asked: “Do you have any rice?” Silly Girl smiled and nodded, producing half a jar of unpolished rice. Huang Rong immediately washed the rice and began preparing the meal. Guo Jing returned to the west side of the village and bought two fish and a chicken. By the time everything was prepared, it was already dark. Huang Rong brought out the food and placed it on one of the tables, and searched for an oil lamp, but Silly Girl again shook her head, indicating there was none.

Huang Rong took some firewood and lighted a fire in the furnace; then tried to find some bowls and chopsticks in the cupboard. She opened the cupboard’s door and a foul stench attacked her nostrils. She took a lighted wood and saw there were about seven, eight tattered bowls. Inside and around the bowls were dozens of died insects off all kinds. Guo Jing helped her fetch the bowls.

“Wash them thoroughly then get some tree branches to use as chopsticks,” Huang Rong said. Guo Jing mumbled his compliance and took the bowls outside.

Huang Rong stretched her hand to pick the last bowl, and immediately she felt a difference. This bowl was cold, colder than regular porcelain bowls; she tried to pick it up, but the bowl did not budge, liked it was nailed to the cupboard. Huang Rong was astonished. She was afraid she might break the bowl, so she did not dare to use too much strength. She tried it one more time, the bowl still refused to move. “Could it be that it has been too long that the dirt made the bowl stuck to the cupboard?” she wondered in her heart. She took a closer look and saw the bowl was covered with layers of rust; turned out it was an iron bowl.

Huang Rong let out a soft laugh, she thought, “I have seen rice bowl made of gold, silver and jade; but I have never even heard of rice bowl made of iron.” She exerted her strength and lifted the bowl up, but still the bowl did not move. She was more surprised, she thought that with her strength, even if the bowl was nailed down to the shelf, the shelf would be cracked. Then she had another thought, “Could it be that the shelf is also made of iron?” She stretched her middle finger to tap the shelf, she heard a metallic sound; the shelf was indeed made of iron.

Her curiosity was piqued and she tried lifting the bowl again but the bowl was still motionless. She tried turning the bowl to the left, still she did not perceive any movement; she tried turning it to the right, and felt some looseness. She tried turning it harder, the bowl moved. Suddenly she heard a cracking sound, the cupboard opened to both sides, revealing a dark hole behind it. An even fouler stench came out of the hole; making her almost threw up.

Huang Rong let out an “Ah!” and quickly leaped to the side. Guo Jing and Zhou Botong heard her cry and immediately came in to see the dark hole.

Huang Rong thought out loud, “Is it possible that this is a clandestine inn? That Shagu could be just pretending to be insane.” She handed over the lighted branch to Guo Jing, then walked to Shagu, trying to grab her hand. Shagu waved her hand trying to avoid her grab, and counterattacked by sending her palm toward Huang Rong’s shoulder. Even though Huang Rong had guessed she did not have a good intention, but she had never expected this incoming palm carried a powerful technique. She could not help but feeling slightly startled. Her left hand formed a hook and her right hand grabbed forward, she launched two strikes in succession.

Ever since she mastered the ‘yi jin duan gu bian’ [chapter on changing muscle forging bone] from the Nine Yin Manual, her speed and strength increased tremendously. With a loud slap Shagu cried out for her right arm was hit, but her attack did not slow down; she counterattacked with two stances one after another. After several more stances Huang Rong was secretly astonished; Shagu’s movements were actually the Peach Blossom Island’s basic skill of ‘bi bo zhang fa’ [jade-green waves palm technique]. Although it was somewhat shallow, but it was actually the foundation of all Peach Blossom Island’s martial arts; every disciple had to learn it. Huang Rong intensified her attacks in an attempt to identify Shagu’s martial art school. But Shagu came and went and was able to resist her for six, seven stances.

The situation was almost like when Guo Jing fought Liang Ziweng with only one stance, namely The Proud Dragon Repents; but actually her strength was greatly inferior to Guo Jing; moreover, her palm technique was so straightforward and did not have the simplest variation. It was beyond everybody’s expectation that in this remote village there was a clandestine wine shop with a filthy and poor girl who could fight Huang Rong for more than ten stances.

Zhou Botong found all these things were very amusing; he saw the gust of wind from Huang Rong’s palm was swift and fierce, while Shagu repeatedly cried out, “Aiyo!” while resisting Huang Rong’s attack; Zhou Botong shouted, “Hey! Rong’er, don’t harm her life; let me fight her.” Ever since he heard Hong Qigong and Guo Jing were calling her ‘Rong’er’ along the way, while Rong’er herself did not seem to mind, he thought he did not need to be polite by calling her ‘Huang guniang’ or ‘Huang xiaojie’ [both mean Miss (or Lady) Huang].

Guo Jing was afraid Shagu had other companions waiting in the dark ready to ambush; he stayed closed to Hong Qigong and did not dare to leave.

Several moves later Shagu’s left shoulder was hit, which made her left arm limp; she was unable to move. If Huang Rong wanted to injure her, all she needed to do was continue her attack; but she showed mercy and called out, “Quickly kneel down, I’ll spare your life.”

“You kneel down too!” replied Shagu as she sent out two palms, the ‘jade-green wave’ palm technique, toward Huang Rong. However, only the first two stances were executed repeatedly and the technique was clumsy.

This incomplete ‘jade-green wave’ palm attack lacked sending power but is continuous like a wave flowing in water, truly the martial art style of the Peach Blossom Island. Huang Rong suspicion of Shagu’s martial art root became deeper. She called out “how did you learn the ‘jade-green wave’ palms? Who is your master?”

Shagu responded with a smile “You can’t hit me no more, ha … ha …”

Huang Rong raised her left hand, sent on her right hand to the side, feigned an attack with her left elbow, and slanted her right shoulder forward. These four moves were fake attacks. Huang Rong followed with the fifth move sending both hands curving inward. This fifth attack was still false; the next move, a kick, however, was real. Shagu was unable to stand still. She fell to the ground and called out, “You used a trick, that does not count, let’s fight again,” as she was crawling up.

Huang Rong would not allow her to stand up, she pounced and push her down, tearing her clothes down and bind her hands behind her back. “My palm technique is clearly better than yours,” she said.

Shagu turned around and shouted in dissent, “You tricked me, unacceptable, you tricked me, unacceptable!”

Guo Jing saw that Huang Rong was able to control Shagu, he walked out from the inn and jumped on the roof. He looked around for any trace of people but found none. He went back down and walked around the building and noticed that this desolate inn was a standalone building; a few ‘zhang’s apart from other houses in the area, There were no other people hiding around, now at last he felt relieved.

When he walked inside the inn, he saw Huang Rong held a dagger in front of Shagu’s eyes, threatening her, “Who taught you martial arts? Quickly tell me or else I will kill you”. While saying that she made two stabbing moves with the dagger.

With the light from the candle, Shagu’s smile can be seen. But looking at her expression, it was not like either she was brave or mad; it was more like a stupid smile, completely oblivious of the danger, like she was thinking Huang Rong and she were just playing around. Huang Rong asked her again, Shagu laughed and said, “You kill me, I also will kill you!”

Huang Rong raised her eyebrow and said “This stupid girl is not telling us anything, we should take a look inside the room, Big Brother Zhou, please take care of master and keep an eye on this girl, Brother Jing, let’s go in.”

Zhou Botong shook his hands and said, “No, I am going in with you.”

Huang Rong told him, “I don’t want you to come in with me.”

Although Zhou Botong was a Senior with higher level of martial arts, for some reason he did not dare to defy Huang Rong’s order, he could only beg, “Good Miss, next time I won’t argue with you.”

Huang Rong smiled slightly and nodded her head. Zhou Botong was very happy; he found two pine branches, lighted them up and fumigated the dark hole for a long time. The fumigated hole emitted a very foul odor. Huang Rong picked up a pinewood torch and threw it into the hole. There was a clatter as the torch hit the far side wall and fell to the ground. Turned out the hole was not deep at all.

With the light from the torch she looked inside. The room was quiet; there was no trace of people. At that moment, Zhou Botong became impatient and sneaked pass Huang Rong inside the room. Huang Rong followed Zhou Botong cautiously. The size of the room was not large. In fact, it was quite small. Zhou Botong cried out “We are fooled, we are fooled, this is no good!”

Huang Rong then let out an “ah!” sound as she spotted a skeleton of a dead person lying on the ground. The skeleton lied upward and the clothes had already decayed. Two rows of ribs of the skeleton were broken. There was another skeleton on the east corner of the room. This skeleton lied on top of an iron chest. There was a long blade penetrating the skeleton in between the ribs and pierced through the iron chest’s lid.

Zhou Botong saw the room was small and dirty. He thought those two dead corpses were not that interesting. While Huang Rong carefully examined the two skeletons, Zhou Botong got really impatient and wanted to interrupt her inspection, only to fear that Huang Rong might get angry. He did not dare to say anything and behaved normally, while, inside, his mind was going crazy. He tried asking her, “Rong’er, Good Miss, I can go out now, can’t I?”

Huang Rong said “Fine, you can go, get Brother Jing for me.”

Zhou Botong happily ran out and said to Guo Jing, “Come in quickly, it’s very interesting here,” He was afraid Huang Rong might call him back to accompany him, so he found a ‘scapegoat’. Guo Jing went in.

Huang Rong raised her torch to show Guo Jing the skeletons and asked, “How do you think these two people died?”

Guo Jing pointed to the skeleton on the iron chest; “Looks like this person died while trying to open the iron tank, died of sneak attack in one stab, while another person had two rows of ribs shattered, so he probably was attacked by a palm of great internal strength.”

Huang Rong said, “I think so too, but there are some things I don’t quite understand.”

Guo Jing replied, “What things?”

“Shagu obviously used the peach blossoming island’s technique ‘jade-green wave’ palm, although she only knew six, seven moves and was not proficient, her technique was good and correct,” said Huang Rong, “The two dead people here, I wonder what is their relation to Shagu.”

Guo Jing responded, “I will ask the girl”. Oftentimes he was called ‘stupid kid’ by others so he was not willing to call that girl ‘Shagu’ [meaning stupid aunt].

“I think that girl is truly retarded, it would be difficult to get any information from her, perhaps we can investigate on our own with the small evidences we have here,” Huang Rong suggested. She lifted her torch and slowly examined the skeleton and noticed a shiny object by the iron chest. She picked it up and looked carefully. It was a gold emblem. In the middle, there is a marking of a gate engraved into the gold. On the backside of the emblem, there are several engraved characters that read ‘by royal decree bestowed to loyal martial art master responsible to defend the state, special guard Shi Yanming’.

Huang Rong said, “If this emblem is his, this government officer’s rank was not low.”

Guo Jing replied, “A high-ranking official died in here, this is strange.”

Huang Rong checked the skeleton on the ground again and she noticed something sticking out around the rib area. She used the torch end to push on it. The object fell, dispersing the dust and revealing a sheet made of iron. She called out in a shocked low voice and picked up the object.

Guo Jing also saw the object in her hand, “Ah!” he also exclaimed.

“Do you recognize this?” Huang Rong asked.

“Certainly,” Guo Jing replied, “This is the iron ‘ba gua’ [Eight Diagram] of Village Master Lu of the Cloud Village.”

“It is an iron ‘ba gua’ alright, but it doesn’t necessarily belong to Martial Brother Lu,” Huang Rong said.

“That’s right!” Guo Jing said, “Certainly not. These two men’s clothes and flesh have been decomposed clean; they have been here for at least ten years.”

Huang Rong was silent for half a day; suddenly a thought came into her heart. She pulled out the blade stuck on the iron chest’s lid and brought it close to the fire; she saw a character ‘Qu’ was engraved on the blade. She could not help blurting, “The one lying on the ground was my martial brother, Qu Shige [older martial brother Qu].”

“Ah!” Guo Jing exclaimed in surprise.

“Martial Brother Lu said that Martial Brother Lu was still alive, who would have thought he had already died in this place … Brother Jing, look at his legs bones,” Huang Rong said.

Guo Jing stooped down and looked, “Both of his legs were broken. Ah, it was your father who broke them,” he said.

Huang Rong nodded her head. “He was indeed Qu Lingfeng. My father once said that among his disciples, Martial Brother Qu had the strongest martial art, he was also my father’s favorite …” Speaking to this point she suddenly dashed out the room. Guo Jing followed.

Huang Rong quickly went over to Shagu and asked, “Your surname is Qu, isn’t it?” Shagu giggled but did not answer.

Guo Jing gently asked, “Miss, what is your surname?”

“Surname? (Giggle) Surname!” Shagu said.

Two people wanted to ask further, but Zhou Botong had already called out, “I am starving! I am starving!”

“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 establi