THE SMILING PROUD WANDERER by Jin Yong

Meditation Part 4

Suddenly, a drawing on the rock wall caught his attention. The swordsman in the drawing thrust his sword out, and the way he thrust the sword out and the route of the sword greatly resembled the move of Madam Yue's – Unrivaled and Unmatched, The Thrust of Ning. Linghu Chong was astounded. He thought, "This move of Master-Wife clearly was created by her. How come it was carved on the rock wall way ahead of time? How could this have happened?"

He looked at the drawing more closely and then found out that the thrust drawn on the rock wall and the move created by Madam Yue were actually quite different. The sword move on the rock wall was bold and vigorous, simple and unadorned, apparently executed by a man. Once the thrust was out, there was only one thrust, not like how Madam Yue's move had all those extra hidden techniques. But because it was simpler, it was also more swift and fierce. Linghu Chong nodded as he thought aloud, "It's actually not surprising at all. The sword move created by Master-Wife used an idea that matched with earlier people's idea. Since both moves came from the basic theory of the Huashan style sword arts, and the two creators had about the same level of Kung Fu and comprehension, of course the creations would have been alike with only minor differences." Then he realized, "In that case, even Master and Master-Wife didn't know many of the sword moves drawn here. Didn't Master learn the entire set of the advanced sword arts of our Huashan Sword School?" The opponent's staff also thrust out straight with the staff tip aiming right at the sword tip. The staff and the sword made a perfect straight line.

Seeing the straight line made, Linghu Chong cried out loud, "Oh, no!" The torch in his hand fell down to the floor and the cave was instantly covered by complete darkness. He was completely taken by terror and could only murmur, "What do I do? What do I do?"

He could see clearly that since the staff and the sword were in a tit-for-tat fight, and the staff is rigid and solid while the sword being flexible, when the two fighters both thrust out with all their strength, the long sword would have no choice but to break from the middle. In this move, both fighters would have continuous energy flow going together with the thrust, and the staff would be taking the advantage of the situation and keep going forward while the energy on the sword would come right back to haunt the swordsman. There was really no way out of it.

A thought suddenly flashed by his mind, "Is there really no way out of it? I guess not. After the sword breaks in half, and when the opponent's staff jabs by, the swordsman can either drop the broken sword, kneel down with both legs, or he can dive forward to avoid the strike from the staff. But Master and Master-Wife are both well-known sword masters in the Martial World, how could they even consider using such body positions? They would rather die than take on such humiliation. Alas, what a crushing defeat! What a devastating defeat!"

He stood there silently for a good while, and then finally took out the flint stone and lit the torch again. He continued studying the rock wall and saw that the sword moves were getting more and more exquisite and intriguing, especially the last dozens of moves simply fluctuated unpredictably and appeared to be mysterious and profound. But no matter how brilliant each sword move was the opponent's staff would always have an effective way to counter it. At the end of the Huashan sword move drawings, pictures of the swordsman kneeling on the floor in front of the staff wielding man, heading down, sword being thrown away, were carved on the rock wall. Feelings of anger and rage had slipped away from Linghu Chong's mind long ago. All there was left was the deep feeling of despair. Although the picture was totally arrogant and harsh, there was no doubt that Huashan style sword art had been completely defeated by him, and the swordsman would never be able to compete with him. It was sadly so very true.

That night, he wandered around the back cave back and forth for countless of circles. He had never been hit with such a devastating strike before in his entire life. He kept thinking, "Huashan Sword School is a member of the Five Mountains Sword Alliance. It is a world-renowned big sword school with great fame in the Martial World. But the Kung Fu of our sword school is actually so pathetic. Among those sword moves drawn on the rock wall, there were at least over a hundred moves that even Master and Master-Wife didn't know about. Even if I could master the entire most advanced sword moves of the Huashan Sword School, and become way better than my Master, what difference would it make? As long as the opponent knew about the counter moves, even the best and toughest swordsman of Huashan Sword School would still have to throw down his sword and surrender. If he didn't want to surrender, then the only other choice was to commit suicide."