Continuing now with brief summaries of Chapters 3-7, which are all the summaries I wrote years ago when I first read this novel. I’m posting them here for posterity. Maybe some day I can get to summarizing the rest of it.

Chapter 3

This chapter won’t be as detailed, but there’s not a lot that actually happens anyway. Instead, it’s mostly background information on our main character, Zhuo Muqiu, who is referred to usually in the novel as “白衣客” (the white-clothed guest/traveler).

The chapter opens first with the lady from the end of the last chapter, who had looked at the rear wall and was shocked. The servant girl, “Little Ice”, returns having not found Old Tong, and the lady says that Old Tong is long gone because the rain cape is covered with dust. Old Tong has to go to the river every day to collect water because there is no well in the vicinity, so the fact that the rain cape has not been used (remember it’s been snowing heavily for days) is an indication that he has not been here for some time.

Little Ice points out that the stove has recently been used, and the lady recounts what she thinks happened with the four dead bodies in the room. She gets it right, that Dan Qingtian (the man who was blocking the doorway with the poison dagger) was killed from behind, and Ten Feet of Flying Red came in. Ten Feet then killed the other three with his red copper rings which have red cloths attached to them. He killed them as they were trying to escape out the back. But she says that Ten Feet did not kill Dan Qingtian, because the wound does not match the kind of wound Ten Feet’s copper rings would have inflicted. She concludes that “he” did it. The only thing she got wrong was that Ten Feet came from outside; actually, he was working at the hut.

The lady also says that “he” hasn’t really come back yet, even though Little Ice says that he must have returned if he killed Dan Qingtian. The lady says “he” carved the ninth mark in the willow tree, and that means he has not really returned (meaning he made the carving and left again).

The lady also points to the blank book and reveals that actually Old Tong had left the real Blood Flower Record with her, so that she could give it to Zhuo Muqiu when he returned, and then they could read the book together. So the lady is the one in possession of the Blood Flower Record. She notes that the last page has been torn out of the blank book.

Dejected that “he” has still not returned, she and Little Ice go back the way they came.

Now the scene changes, and we see Zhuo Muqiu sitting in a pavilion watching the snow fall. The tone is quiet and peaceful, and though outsiders may not be able to appreciate it, the cold and quiet are actually comforting. Zhuo Muqiu sits watching the snow melt off the eaves and land in his palm.

While he is caught up in his own thoughts, someone arrives in a horse carriage. It is a beautiful lady, and she calls to Zhuo Muqiu. It turns out that they know each other, though it is not clear exactly what their relationship is. The lady, whom Zhuo Muqiu calls “白娘子” (Lady Bai), is coquettish and teasing, talking in playful banter that Zhuo Muqiu is is no mood for.

So they talk and through this conversation we learn various things about Zhuo Muqiu, which I will briefly summarize here:

  • Zhuo Muqiu has an older brother who is sick all the time, confined to his bed often.
  • This brother has married the lady that Zhuo Muqiu liked, the same lady from earlier in the chapter.
  • Everyone knows about the marriage except Zhuo Muqiu. There was a big to-do about it, with a large celebration attended by everyone of any importance throughout the wulin.
  • Zhuo Muqiu did not know about all this because he was trapped in the desert for eight years, at an ancient lost city called “White Dragon Heap”.
  • Only two people know about the lost city, himself and another person called The Demon Blade.
  • There is someone else there who is super powerful, a human who does not act like a human; his martial arts skill is too great for Zhuo Muqiu to cope with, and Zhuo was lucky to make it out alive.
  • Zhuo’s father disowned him because he considered Zhuo Muqiu an unfilial son who never obeyed him.
  • A lot of people curse Zhuo now because he was not there when his father passed away.
  • His father passed away two years after Zhuo left home, and Zhuo’s leaving is part of the blame for his father’s death.
  • Zhuo considers himself to be an unfilial son as well, and he thinks it is right that people curse him.
  • Lady Bai claims to really know Zhuo, even though others curse him. She says that Zhuo lost the woman he loved because he doesn’t understand love/feelings, he doesn’t understand what women want, and he isn’t reliable enough for a woman to entrust her life to him.

After all this talk, it begins snowing again, and Lady Bai asks Zhuo Muqiu to come back to her place to have some wine or tea and get out of the cold. Zhuo Muqiu refuses because he does not owe her anything and does not want to owe her anything. He does not want to owe anyone anything; he does not want to be involved with the affairs of others.

Zhuo Muqiu rejects the hint that Lady Bai made, that he should come be with her. Zhuo Muqiu says that he can only love one person in the world, the other lady, whose name is Yan Hanzhen, the girl who married his older brother. Even though Yan Hanzhen is with another, he can not love anyone else. So since he lost her, that’s it for him when it comes to love. Lady Bai tries to reason with him, yet he still refuses, and eventually Lady Bai leaves and Zhuo Muqiu is left at the pavilion by himself, the snow having started to fall heavily again.

The scene changes again and Zhuo Muqiu is sitting at a small stall down a side street drinking wine by himself. The sky is grey and overcast so that one cannot even tell what time of day it is, though the storm lanterns have been lit for some time. Suddenly a burly person with a beard past his chest shows up. We are meant to think this is an enemy, yet when he enters the stall he bows and begs forgiveness to Zhuo Muqiu for being late. Zhuo Muqiu tells the shopkeep that his friend has arrived.

Commentary

What is not apparent through the summaries are the little things that make Zhuo Muqiu more than a stock character. Whenever someone tells him something that bothers him, he doesn’t show it on his face, except that his lips twitch. He also coughs violently at times, a sign of some illness.

Also, the scene with Lady Bai is not adequately described by the summary. Although Chapter 3 is mainly just these two talking, yet the reader gets a sense of the history between them through the way they talk to each other. Zhuo Muqiu has changed, but Lady Bai does not believe it at first. Only gradually does she realize that he is not the same person as before. She wants him as a lover, yet this is never actually stated. Yet, the feeling is clear, that there is something unrequited on her part, and she is deeply disappointed when he will not come to her place for wine or tea. She openly admits to being jealous of Yan Hanzhen, yet she does not badmouth her. Instead she criticizes Zhuo Muqiu, yet at the same time the reader knows she actually cares deeply for him.

But Zhuo Muqiu is a sulking husk, and the tone of the novel shows that. At one point Zhuo Muqiu feels the snow melt on his hand and feels that the snow is warm, at least warmer than his heart. Yan Hanzhen too, at the end of Chapter 2, is described as carrying with her a deep melancholy, and that returns in Chapter 3 when she leaves, dejected. The snowy landscape serves to highlight the state of Zhuo Muqiu’s heart, and the resulting overall mood of the story is bleak and desolate, yet also moving. The scene with he and Lady Bai shows this feeling especially well, and Chapter 3 serves to show the reader more about who Zhuo Muqiu is, this awesome swordsmen who finally knows who he is and who finally understands things, but it also no longer interested in the only life he has known.

A good read so far. Dugu Hong does not beat the reader over the head with obvious descriptions, whereas some authors will describe something, then say the same thing right after only using different words, as if the reader is too stupid to get what the author means. But Dugu Hong does not do this here. He shows instead of telling. Though he does tell us a character’s feelings, at times he lets description do the talking for him, and the result is an easy flowing read that is not tedious and does not insult the reader’s intelligence.

Chapter 4

Chapter four starts off with us finding out who this person is who is kneeling down. It turns out he is the old servant of the Zhuo family. Zhuo Muqiu had invited him over to talk to him. The servant is of course surprised to see Zhuo Muqiu after so many years, and they talk about what has been going on. Eventually Zhuo Muqiu gets to the point, the real reason he asked the old servant to come. He wants to ask the servant where his father was buried. The servant tells Zhuo Muqiu that his father is buried at Dongshan. Zhuo Muqiu tells the servant to get on home because it is New Year’s Eve and everyone will be waiting for him back home because there is a lot of preparation involved in making the meal and other things. So the family will need him there. Before the servant goes, Zhuo Muqiu tells the servant to look after his older brother and serve him well.

Alone again, save the shopkeep, Zhuo Muqiu finally decides to leave the stall. But he is very drunk, and his walking is unsteady, his vision blurry. As he is walking he sees a figure approaching. When they close in it turns out this person, wearing black, is none other than “Demon Blade” Ximen Li, the man who invited Zhuo Muqiu out to White Dragon Heap out in the desert. Being enemies, Ximen Li is there to kill Zhuo Muqiu. He says that he wants to kill Zhuo’s older brother and then Zhuo Muqiu himself, to show his supremacy over the Zhuo family, whose swordplay is considered the best among the wulin. Ximen Li’s own reputation is not that outstanding yet, so defeating the Zhuo family will make him famous.

Ximen Li says he shouldn’t attack the older brother because the latter is an invalid, always sick and bedridden. He would win no honor from that. So Ximen Li makes do with killing Zhuo Muqiu. Ximen Li takes out his sabre and strikes. Although Zhuo Muqiu is too drunk to defend himself, he can still dodge, and he dodges the first strike. But because he is drunk he is unsteady on his feet, and he falls over into the snow. Ximen Li is about to finish him off there, but as the blade comes down it is blocked by a smooth walking stick. An old man has intervened just in time to block the strike.

Blocking the sabre strike is no big deal, but for the sabre to not slide down at all, but remain motionless as if it were glued to the staff, that is exceptional indeed. And the force of the block has caused Ximen Li’s whole body to vibrate. Startled by this amazing ability from an old man who can barely walk and who talks softly, Ximen Li departs quickly.

The old man berates Zhuo Muqiu for drinking and damaging the body his parents gave him. He scolds him as a father would scold his child, and Zhuo Muqiu eventually gets up and thanks the old man for saving his life. They are about to go their separate ways, but the old man is afraid Zhuo Muqiu will not be able to make it anywhere, since he is so drunk and walking so unsteady. So he invites Zhuo Muqiu to come back to his place to sleep off the alcohol, and then leave the next morning. Zhuo Muqiu agrees.

It takes a long time to get to the old man’s house, which is positioned at the foot of a small mountain. They sit down inside and the old man serves Zhuo Muqiu tea. They get to talking and the old man reveals his name to be Diwu Gong. He scolds Zhuo Muqiu again, telling him everything that is wrong about his life, how he has wasted it. Zhuo Muqiu is shocked to discover that Diwu Gong knows so much about his life, and he wanders who this old man really is. The old man’s face seems familiar somehow, but Zhuo Muqiu just can’t place it.

Finally they go to sleep, and the next morning Zhuo Muqiu slips out to go visit his father’s grave. After he is gone, Diwu Gong wakes up and calls out to Ximen Li, who has been hiding in wait the whole time. He tells Ximen Li that Ximen Li is sick and needs to see a doctor, that his greed and evilness will do him in. He warns Ximen Li to turn away from his evil ways to save himself.

Diwu Gong says that he has sworn to never kill again, but he can still injure people. He wants to get revenge on Ximen Li for killing Tong Fu (Old Tong from the thatched hut). They were old friends, and Diwu Gong knows the kungfu from the Blood Flower Record. He plans to use Zhuo Muqiu to get his revenge for him because he cannot kill anyone because of his oath.

Diwu Gong and Ximen Li fight one round, but it is clear that Ximen Li is no match for Diwu Gong. Ximen Li leaves, Diwu Gong calling after him to mend his ways and save himself (the old man feels Ximen Li’s plans to destroy the Zhuo family will only bring ruin upon himself).

Chapter 5

At the cemetery we see Yan Hanzhen standing there, waiting for Zhuo Muqiu to show up. As she is looking around there appears suddenly a figure ascending the slope, but it turns out to be Demon Blade Ximen Li instead. Ximen Li proceeds to scold Yan Hanzhen for her behavior, calling her unchaste, basically, because she loves Zhuo Muqiu, yet she married his brother, Zhuo Mulan, instead. He basically does to her what Diwu Gong did to Zhuo Muqiu in the previous chapter: he exposes her for who she is, down to her deepest feelings. At first, Yan Hanzhen fights back, but in the end his words sting too much and she is speechless.

Then Ximen Li tells her how he wants her to be his, that she really should be his, that Zhuo Mulan is not worthy of her, and he tells her that he will not only make her his, but it will be Yan Hanzhen’s own will that makes it so; he says she will give her body and her heart to him of her own accord, that he will not have to force her to do so. Yan Hanzhen replies that Ximen Li is not capable of doing that, but Ximen Li asks her why she won’t look him directly in the eyes. He says that actually he is quite sure his plan will work.

Yan Hanzhen is afraid to look in his eyes, it seems, and Ximen Li says as much. He says that if her intentions, her relationship with Zhuo Muqiu is really pure as she says it is, if she is really free of guilt and shame and has a clear conscience as she says she does, then looking him in the eyes will have no effect on her. She is still hesitant, but she resolves to herself that her intentions really are pure, that she has nothing to be ashamed of, and she looks at Ximen Li. But as she does she feels her thoughts changing, and she begins to think that Ximen Li is not such a bad guy really, and he would not be so bad to be with, and she leans into him. Then she feels his hand on her cheek and she knows what is happening.

She backs away at that moment, realizing she has been caught in his trap. Ximen Li really does have the power to make her want him. She wonders about this, and Ximen Li says that of course he has this power. He isn’t called “Demon Blade” for nothing. All his life he has studied the black arts.

But abruptly, Ximen Li say he will not make her his at this moment. He wants to wait until later, so confident he is in his powers. He says he has already proven to himself through this incident that his plan is working. With that, he walks away, leaving Yan Hanzhen crying and fuming.

Chapter 6

Yan Hanzhen returns home, to the Zhuo residence, which is called “Sword Manor”. She is dejected, not having met Zhuo Muqiu as she had intended. In chapter 5 she told Ximen Li that she had come to the cemetery to tell Zhuo Muqiu that she belonged to his brother.

She enters her husband’s room, which is permeated with the smell of medicine. Zhuo Mulan lays in bed, and he calls out “Who is it?” in a weak voice. Only when he knows it is his wife does he find some vitality and energy. What comes next is a long conversation about how he doesn’t deserve her, how she waits on him all the time and he loves her so much, and how he is afraid of losing her, afraid she will get tired of looking after a sick person all the time and will leave him. Over and over again, Yan Hanzhen reassures him that she will not leave him, that she loves him. They go on like this for a bit, crying in turns, and then Zhuo Mulan hints that they should have sex. He lunges at her and she protests, saying the door has not been bolted. Zhuo Mulan replies that it is dark now, so who would enter?

The scene shifts to the cemetery, where Zhuo Muqiu is standing, looking at the grave. Suddenly four men show up, two in front of him, two behind. He seems not to notice as he walks away from the grave, but a man wielding a spear jumps out and they start fighting. Zhuo Muqiu makes quick work of the man, but he does not kill him. Instead, he uses his short sword to slash open the man’s shirt, leaving the man’s chest uninjured. The other three men are scared out of their wits and they all take off, but Zhuo Muqiu calls them back.

He asks them how they knew he would be there, and they say that Ximen Li told them. He lets them off and goes on his way, and suddenly Ximen Li shows up and questions the four men. The four men had told Zhuo Muqiu that they had met with Ximen Li in a thatched hut in the woods a few li away, and so that is where Zhuo Muqiu was headed. The four men tell this to Ximen Li, who apparently has had this plan all along.

We shift back to the bedroom, where Zhuo Mulan and Yan Hanzhen lay after making love. She brings up the notion of not having sex anymore (a topic brought up and then discussed in a very roundabout way), and Zhuo Mulan disagrees quite adamantly. Yan Hanzhen says they are still young and there is still plenty of time, but Zhuo Mulan goes into this speech about how he loves her and doesn’t want her to get tired of this life and leave him.

Then we’re back outside, in the woods, as Zhuo Muqiu approaches the thatched cottage the four men told him about, where he is expecting to find Ximen Li. But there appears to be no one around, though there is a lamp lit on the table inside the cottage, its wick long, having not been trimmed, and is emitting black smoke. Puzzled, Zhuo Muqiu wonders where Ximen Li is. Ximen Li would know he would be coming and would be prepared for him, so where could he be? He stabs his short sword into the thatched roof and down comes Ximen Li, unscathed of course, revealing himself to have been hiding in the rafters the whole time.

They begin to fight and it ends up outside, where they stop for a moment so Ximen Li can talk. Ximen Li tells him there is still time to back out of this fight, but Zhuo Muqiu says that he has come to this hut especially to kill Ximen Li, so he won’t be doing that. Zhuo Muqiu has come to kill Ximen Li because he knows that as long as Ximen Li lives, the “Sword Manor” and its inhabitants, meaning his brother and Yan Hanzhen, will not be safe. So he wants to get rid of Ximen Li once and for all.

Ximen Li says that actually the “Sword Manor” belonged to the Ximen family, and that Zhuo Muqiu’s father took it over by force. So Ximen Li plans to take it back. They fight again, but this time Zhuo Muqiu can’t fight back. His muscles are weak suddenly, and it is difficult to move. He thinks back to the lamp in the cottage and it is all clear.

Ximen Li confirms his suspicions and says that is it poison from the “Cape of Red Mansions”, a poison called “Dragon Saliva Incense”. Ximen Li is impressed that Zhuo Muqiu can make any movement at all, as Zhuo Muqiu has just deflected a strike. Zhuo Muqiu manages to block one more strike before he falls down.

Ximen Li is just about to finish him off when suddenly someone calls out “It’s here” and they both see a woman in red appear. Her feet do not touch the ground. Ximen Li stops in mid-action and, to Zhuo Muqiu’s surprise, he leaves as fast as lightning. Zhuo Muqiu can only make the woman out as his eyelids get too heavy and he loses consciousness.

The scene changes to Ximen Li, standing in the woods, his sabre sheathed. Someone calls to him from within the mysterious woods, and he has a conversation with this “person”, referring to this person as a the head of a religious sect. Ximen Li has failed in his task to kill Zhuo Muqiu, who the person in the woods has said is his/her mortal enemy. Ximen Li says he did not kill Zhuo Muqiu because the woman in red suddenly showed up, and he knew this person was from the Cape of Red Mansions. So he reported back, because he did not want this woman to find the Sword Manor.

The person in the woods says that if Ximen Li kills himself, then the woman in red will not know that he used the Dragon Saliva Incense, which apparently has not been used by anyone outside of the Cape of Red Mansions, which is supposedly an imaginary place, a place that only Zhuo Muqiu’s father knew the whereabouts of.

At the end of the chapter, Ximen Li accepts his fate and stands there as a beam of light shoots out from the woods and hits him in the chest, knocking him back a step. The person in the woods tells him he has a little time left, and tells him to go find a suitable place. Ximen Li thanks the person in the woods for his/her mercy, and he turns around and leaves.

From out of the woods rises a cold, ghastly, fearful laugh.

Chapter 7

This chapter opens with Zhuo Muqiu waking up after having lost consciousness from the Dragon Saliva Incense in the previous chapter. His limbs are still weak to the point where he can’t move. He wakes up to find the woman in red there. He asks who she is but she says not to talk to him, that her superior is coming soon and she can talk to her. Then that woman comes, along with three others. This new lady in red begins to question him about who poisoned him with the Dragon Saliva Incense.

Zhuo Muqiu says he won’t tell, because that person is his enemy and he does not want to sell him out. The lady in red threatens to kill him if he does not say, but Zhuo Miuqiu says he is not afraid of death and calls her bluff. The red-clothed women in the room with him (we are still at the thatched cottage where Zhuo Muqiu was drugged) are all from the Cape of Red Mansions, a mythical place where only women are allowed. No one knows where the Cape of Red Mansions is located, and they are the only ones who use the Dragon Saliva Incense. They use it every day to make themselves stay beautiful. For them it is not a poison, but to outsiders it is. They are looking for the person who stole a vial of the Dragon Saliva Incense.

The lady in red tells Zhuo Muqiu that she hates all wulin people within the Central Plains, and Zhuo Muqiu protests that is is not everyone who has wronged her, but only one person (she hates them because the Cape of Red Mansions was wronged by someone in the past). So she tells Zhuo Muqiu the story of how they were wronged.

Eighteen years ago a man came to the Cape of Red Mansions. He was injured, and the women there at that time harbored no hate for the people of the Central Plains. So they nursed him back to health, and during that time one of the women fell in love with the man. Their love became so deep that the two decided to marry, the man agreeing to stay at the Cape of Red Mansions forever. But just before the ceremony, they discovered the man had left, leaving behind a note saying he had a wife and children back in the Central Plains (China) and he could not abandon them. He also left behind the woman he was to wed, leaving her pregnant in his absence. Before he left, the man also stole a vial of Dragon Saliva Incense.

This caused the woman so much grief, which bled over to the rest of the Cape so that it was changed from that point on, becoming a place of grief and sorrow, and the women there from that point on hated the people of the wulin of the Central Plains.

The lady in red reveals that this wronged woman was none other than her own mother. Zhuo Muqiu agrees that the man deserved death, but he also points out that the man must have had a conscience, because he could not bring himself to abandon the family that he had back home.

So the lady in red is looking for this man, so her and her cohorts have come to the Central Plains in search of him. He should be easy to find because the scent of the Dragon Saliva Incense can be detected by them no matter the distance. They have tracked the man to here, where the Saliva was used on Zhuo Muqiu. But Zhuo Muqiu knows that Ximen Li cannot be the man they are after because the age would not be correct, since the vial was stolen eighteen years ago.

At this point, one of the red-clothed girls comes in and reports that a body has been found, the same man that absconded when the first woman in red showed up. That woman has identified the body as belonging to that man: Ximen Li (though she does not know his name). She has brought back a blood-soaked dagger that has been plunged into Ximen Li’s chest. On the dagger they discover the words “Number One Sabre” engraved.

They wonder who the “Number One Sabre” is, and Zhuo Muqiu says he has never heard of anyone with that nickname.

The lady in red reveals that the man from eighteen years ago gave his name as Ximen Piao, but Zhuo Muiqiu has never heard of such a name. The lady says the name could be a fake. Zhuo Muqiu reveals the name of the one just killed as Ximen Li, and they wonder if he could be the one they were after. But because of the age difference, they conclude that Ximen Li must be a descendant of Ximen Piao.

They need to find Ximen Piao, and since Zhuo Muqiu can’t help, they leave and go out in search of him.

Zhuo Muqiu wakes up again to find the women gone and he has regained his strength. He leaves the thatched cottage. On his way out he sees the body of Ximen Li. He too is puzzled at how such a top martial artist could have been killed with a dagger to the heart.

The red-clothed women from the Cape of Red Mansions are out in search of the “Number One Sabre”. They see tracks in the snow and follow them into the woods, but the tracks stop. The lady in red shoots out a concealed weapon that covers a large span of the woods, intending to root out whoever is there. But there is no one there. Yet a few minutes later they see an old man appear.

He says his name is Sima Cao, and he claims himself to be the “Number One Sabre”. He says he killed Ximen Li because of past hate for Ximen Piao. Sima Cao and Ximen Piao both once belonged to the Heavenly Demon Sect, where Ximen Piao was the leader. But Ximen Piao revealed his true evil nature over the years and Sima Cao grew to hate him. So he wants to do away with Ximen Piao because he deserves death and it would be like putting a severe criminal to death, doing a good deed for the world. But he says that Ximen Piao is a cripple now, his four limbs paralyzed. Getting to him would be easy since Sima Cao knows where he lives (which he says is not far), but Ximen Li guards his father Ximen Piao very well, so in order to get to Ximen Piao, he must take care of Ximen Li first. That is why he killed Ximen Li.

Sima Cao agrees to take the red-clothed women to Ximen Piao’s hideout, since they both want to kill him, and Sima Cao says it does not matter who kills him. He leads the way there and they discover the place is a big mausoleum, such as an emperor might have been buried in. But Sima Cao says the hideout is actually underneath the tomb, and he leads them to a stone slab that is the entrance to the tomb. The lady in red lifts up the stone slab and sees stone steps leading down into the dark, just as Sima Cao said. She asks him how far down the hole goes, and Sima Cao says he doesn’t know.

END CHAPTER 7

At this point I stopped writing chapter summaries as I continued to read (I don’t remember why), and I read to about Chapter 12 or 13. I will try to find time to make a summary of the rest of the novel, at least a short one, to provide some closure and structure to the rest of the synopsis. Reading through these summmaries again after so many years makes me interested to know what happpens, but at the same time the story really does take a lot of abrupt turns from Chapter 4-7, which makes me suspect the story probably goes downhill as it goes on. I can’t remember what happens after that except that Ten Feet of Flying Red does show up again. Welp, until next time…