Chapter 11
Underwater Message
Shen Wuhai still remembered catching fish in the creek when he was little.
It was the end of summer, the beginning of autumn and the water in the creek was just about used up by the watermill.
The water only came up to an adult’s knees and was as murky as a pot of muddy slush. The fish were all hidden in holes, all you needed to do was reach your hand in and it wasn’t hard to catch one.
Only the creek had fish to catch in it. He’d never caught fish in the fishpond.
He of course also didn’t catch fish in a fishpond that didn’t have any fish in it.
But now he squatted in a fishpond with no fish it in, feeling more excited and tense than the first time he went to catch fish in the creek.
Right now this new dungeon cell was really a lot like a fishpond.
Before he entered the Sword King Palace he assumed there could be a place like this, used to imprison people the palace considered special cases.
In the end he was right.
And because he was so stubborn, not willing to reveal a single word from beginning to end, and after undergoing unbearable torment, his wish was finally granted and he was transferred to a cell that looked exactly like a fishpond. The person who had designed this cell was really amazing.
A big three-stave square fishpond with just the right amount of water in it, coming just up to a person’s shoulders.
Directly across from the cell gate was a wooden plank higher than the water level extending out from the cell wall, about three fingerwidths above the water. It looked like a water bench that women would use in the creek when they washed clothes.
This was the place where the prisoner lived.
Sitting, lying down, eating, and drinking all took place on a plank of wood about two spans wide and seven spans long. The most remarkable feature of the wooden plank’s design was that it wasn’t as level and stable as a water bench but protruded in the center and dipped down at both ends like the character 八. The wood was also springy. If you weren’t careful you’d roll off into the pond.
For a martial artist this was no big deal.
But for a person who’s martial arts was not the best, eventually they would have to sleep, and when you slept you were unable to keep from tossing and turning in your sleep. How many when they tossed and turned in their sleep would think that it wasn’t a bed under them but a narrow plank or wood barely wide enough for them?
Shen Wuhai had only been here four days and had already fallen into the pond six times.
The cell’s feeble light made it so he couldn’t tell what color the water was. He only knew two things: the water was very cold, and very dirty.
Every time he climbed out of the water he shivered uncontrollably, but the most unbearable thing was the smell of the water made you want to throw up.
But even if you couldn’t bear it you had to bear it. Clothes soaking wet, you could only take them off and wring them dry and put them back on again.
Because the wooden plank was only seven spans long, and far from the cell gate, every day at mealtime it took a special method to deliver the food.1
The instrument used to deliver the food was a big wooden trough tied to the iron bars with a long rope. After the food was put in, it was pushed and floated along the water. If it wasn’t pushed hard enough it might overturn midway across and then the meal was over.
It could be said that Shen Wuhai had been locked up in this water dungeon willingly.
He knew he was already thin as a rail and knew that being hungry for so long had sapped his strength significantly. He had brought all this about intentionally, so no matter how much he had to suffer, he could stand it.
There was only one thing he couldn’t stand.
He wanted wine.
He really wanted wine, even just one sip, especially after climbing out of the pond after rolling into the water in the middle of the night.
He knew this was just wishful thinking.
Given his situation now, the thing he wanted more and more was further and further away the more he requested it.
Though he knew this, he still put in his request with Swordsman Yang. He didn’t request it with any hope of it being granted, he just wanted Swordsman Yang to sympathize with him and sneak him a sip of wine. This thought energized him and made his more more spirited.
Under the Sword King Palace’s mysterious Ma Jinjia’s orders, Swordsman Yang grabbed Hundred Flowers Dew, the palace’s second-best wine after Rose Dew.
Tempting him they thought was a brilliant masterstroke, but the actual results were in face completely the opposite.
Shen Wuhai simply didn’t entertain any hope of being able to drink wine at all.
When a person has no hope, of course he won’t feel disappointed. Ultimately, when he saw that wine was being delivered, just being able to smell its aroma was enough to satisfy him.
This night, the stimulation of the wine’s aroma made him ignore the waters frigid chill and it’s filthiness, and he searched the bottom of the pond in an area three times larger than he had the previous few days.
Shen Wuhai didn’t hesitate in throwing himself into this dangerous, potential trap. He had to know what could be found in a filthy water dungeon like this.
※ ※ ※
It all went back to twelve years ago, when he was twelve years old.
Though he had been living beyond the Pass for many years, he wasn’t from beyond the Pass.
His place of birth, if you can believe it, was none other than a small village in the mountains not far from the Sword King Palace.
When he was little he was a famous urchin in the village whom the villagers all called Lil Black Tiger.
Shen Wuhai was a name he adopted himself after moving beyond the Pass.
He was the leader of the village’s group of urchins, he was involved in just about every bit of mischief that went on. Even the kids two or three years old than him had to obey his orders. If they didn’t, he would beat them without fail.
This village was called Blessings Come Village. It was his maternal grandmother’s home.
The year he turned three, his parents went out to buy stuff for New Year, but the ferryboat they were on capsized and they both drowned. After that he went to live with his maternal grandmother.
No child is spoiled more than by his maternal grandmother, especially an orphan with no father or mother. No one could bear to get on him for even the most minor of infractions, so his childhood was especially free and unrestrained.
His maternal grandfather was an old failed scholar who had set up a private school in the village. This old scholar was very strict with his students. When they saw him, the schoolchildren were all scared to death, but the old scholar couldn’t control his own grandson.
However, be that as it may, Shen Wuhai was a beloved child in the village.
Though he acted up, he was a good student. He was exceptionally gifted and had finished the Five Classics by the time he was twelve, and he excelled at calligraphy.2
His maternal grandfather was a prolific collector of books, and Shen Wuhai not only handled his lessons with ease, more than half of his grandfather’s books were browsed through by him.
Of course these books were read on the sly.
So he was not only more strongly-built than other kids his age, he was a fast learner, even having more street smarts than other kids his age.
That one summer the water in the creek behind the village was shallow again.
One day he feigned a stomachache and lazed about in bed, refusing to get up, waiting till his grandfather left, then he immediately assembled several buddied who’d he’d made an appointment with beforehand and they stealthily slipped away behind the village to catch fish in the creek.
Unexpectedly, as soon as he stepped foot in the water, before he even touched a fish, his hand touched a small iron case.
The iron case was still new, just a bit of rust on the surface. Clearly it had been tossed into the creek no more than a few days prior. He knew something was fishy about this but said nothing about it then, waiting till dark, running over and taking the little iron case back with him alone.
He tried all kinds of things till he finally forced the case lid open.
There was only one thing inside the case, a sturdily-bound booklet, like a notebook, wrapped in sheepskin.
Besides some messy handwriting, the little booklet contained some pictures he didn’t understand.
On the one hand he was disappointed, but he was also found it odd. Why would someone put a little booklet like this in an iron case and toss it in the creek?
He spend the whole night, out of curiosity, reading the entire contents of the little booklet, and on the last page he discovered a line of cursive writing and he no longer found it odd.
The last line was: “Whoever is destined to obtain this case and has the ambition to eradicate evil in the martial world shall be the fifth-generation secthead of the Gold Sabre Sect.”
Followed by a signature in a strong, vigorous hand:
Ge Weiyi!
※ ※ ※
The next day, he left a note and secretly left Blessings Come Village.
In the note, he told his maternal grandfather and grandmother that he was grown up now and was going out to seek his own livelihood, that he would take good care of himself, and he asked the two of them not to worry about him. Once he had achieved success, he would hurry back.
The first few days it was hard on him.
Everyone in the village, every fingerwidth of land, especially his aged grandparents, all made him attached and loath to part from. Many times he woke from a dream and still thought he was back sleeping in his bed at home.
For a child just twelve years old, resolutely leaving home was really a painful decision to make.
But he had to do it.
He had a natural inclination to help victims of injustice, he couldn’t allow a respected old man’s wrongs remain unredressed. And he really couldn’t allow the hypocrites named in the old man’s little booklet to wear the false mask of chivalric righteousness, selfishly feather their own nests, and harm the martial world.
※ ※ ※
Three months later, braving hunger and cold, suffering untold hardships, at dusk with snow falling thick and fast, he finally made it to the secluded valley outside the Pass that the little booklet had directed him to, and found Sabre Grandmaster Ge Weiyi’s dwelling.
It was a little three-room stone hut against the mountains.
Inside the stone hut everything was a mess. The body of a male servant lay in the main room, having died brutally, an unbearable sight.
It was obvious that someone had beaten him here.
But he wasn’t the least bit surprised, because the old man had already mentioned in the little booklet that something like this might happen.
What was gratifying was that although the intruder had searched all three rooms, they hadn’t found the two booklets—a Gold Sabre sabreplay and Gold Sabre cultivation method manual—hidden at the bottom of a flowerpot behind the hut.
He followed the old man’s instructions in the booklet and only took the Gold Sabre sabreplay and cultivation method manuals. Everything else he left as it was and quickly left the valley.
The intruder wasn’t just after the Gold Sabre cultivation method and sabreplay manuals, but also the pictures in the little booklet Shen Wuhai had. But although the two martial arts manuals were not much use to the intruder, they were incomparably valuable to a beginner disciple of the Gold Sabre.
It was tantamount to a bridge. If one did not first practice these foundational martial arts, one could not understand the innermost recesses of the newly created profound techniques the old man had recorded in the little booklet.
For the next three years he roamed around outside the Pass and made a living helping people herd cattle.3
These were three arduous years.
During these three years, he truly grew up.
He learned the foundational martial arts in the two Gold Sabre manuals, but no one around him knew this secret.
This followed the old man’s warning.
If anyone were to identify him before he had mastered the profound techniques, he would not only be letting down the old man, his own life might not be safe either.
After the three years had passed he left his life as a herdsman and went back inside the Pass, because he needed a stable living environment to be able to practice the old man’s still-unnamed profound techniques.
After returning within the Pass he changed his name to Shen Wuhai and got himself a job filling the ranks as a runner4 for the Good Faith Escort Agency.5
Because aside from needing a stable environment to practice these profound techniques, he also needed experience roaming the jianghu.
In the blink of an eye, five years passed.
During these five years, just like the three years outside the Pass, no one anywhere he went knew that the little guy they called Lil Shen possessed astonishing martial arts ability.
Even when the Twin Treasures of Yunmeng delivered the 4,000 taels of gold, the chief escort, Golden Whip Zhao Zhongyuan, couldn’t think of where he’d ever met the Killer Star, and how could he know that the Killer Star was Lil Shen, the runner he’d once employed at his agency?
For those five years, due to the escort agency’s continuous development, all his colleagues treated him well. Every half a yeah, Shen Wuhai took the silver he’d saved up and took it all back to Blessings Come Village to fulfill his filial feelings.
Once he’d mastered the profound techniques he quit his job at the escort agency at once and once more went beyond the Pass. Now, he had no more misgivings.
The three-room stone hut was just like he’d left it five years ago, only the male servant’s body had become white bones.
He sadly buried the bodied and swept out the stone hut, then erected a spirit tablet for his late solicitous master before leaving the valley.
He set up the spirit tablet because he couldn’t be sure if his solicitous master had been murdered or not.
The old man had given an exhaustive account in the little booklet. Once he had understood the mysteries of the profound techniques, he had no intention of keeping the secret to himself and spared no effort making the trek back within the Pass, intending to tell the good news to his respected sworn brother, the Sword King so that they could study it together and at the same time see if they could find a gifted disciple to pass this rare knowledge onto.
Because he felt the two of them were at an advanced age, and when they first swore brotherhood they took an oath that, in order to curb the ever-increasing slaughter and bloodshed in the martial world, the two brothers would set an example and henceforth, for the rest of their lives, never kill again.
By his words his brothers a trace of his brother’s intentions were revealed. He saw in the Sword King’s eyes a greed that chilled his heart.
He knew at once that he had made a grave mistake!
Fortunately, the Sword King was still a bit afraid of his senior sworn brother, and at the same time he could not be sure whether the profound techniques had been written down or not. It was carried on him at all times, so for the moment, he could not take the first step.
But one night he discovered someone crouching outside his window, spying on him.
The old man knew this could not be dragged out any longer.
The next day, he pretended to compose a poem and went to the study to hurriedly write it down, then on the pretext of going out, he tossed the record into the river.
The old man said in his account that he could have just packed up and left, only he felt that wasn’t a way to solve the problem, so he risked his life and remained in the palace as before, hoping that he could reform his junior sworn brother by setting a good example.
※ ※ ※
Was the old man now still being held prisoner in the Sword King Palace?
Shen Wuhai had to think of a way to learn whether the old man were alive or dead and his whereabouts, and the best method, was to let himself get locked up in the palace.
Three years ago, Shen Wuhai once again returned within the Pass.
Coming back this time, he at once heard the news about the Good Faith Escort Agency, and of course he was worried, but there was nothing he could do.
Because he was in dire dilemma at the moment himself.
How could he get into the Sword King Palace?
He soon had an idea.
He believed the best way was to think up a plan to attract the Sword King Palace’s attention.
He couldn’t let the Sword King know that he was the inheritor of the Sabre Grandmaster’s newly-created masterful art, but he had to make the Sword King suspect he was the inheritor of the Sabre Grandmaster’s newly-created masterful art.
As a result, he used his respected master’s recorded listed and surreptitiously looked into the words and deeds of every person listed in the booklet.
The first people listed in the booklet was the Four Gentlemen.
According to the old man’s account, the four brothers on the surface did some minor good deeds and seemed like gentlemen, but in fact there was no evil they didn’t commit. They were four crafty villains worse than any petty man.6
The old man wrote ruefully that it was a shame that he had pledged an oath, otherwise he said he would never allow such people to go on living in the world.
Because the Four Gentlemen lived deep in the interior, Shen Wuhai could not handle them in the order it was written in the little booklet. He only went where the Four Gentlemen lived after he had eliminated the ninth name on the list, the Hu Brothers of Yueyang, using the old method to eliminate the four hypocrites.
Sure enough, after the Four Gentlemen, he only got the Amazing Doctor of the Great Plains, the Lordson of Jinling, the Fisherman Recluse Jiang Pingbo, and The Three Heroes of Nanyang, and the Sword King was on the alert.
In fact, the list in the little booklet was quite long, the many listed above was just a portion of it.
Had the Sword King really taken action out of a sense of justice for the martial world?
That was something only Shen Wuhai knew.
Because the eliminated people mentioned above were all takes out by the same method, so they all died the same way, making it so most people, aside from being alarmed and perplexed, probably wouldn’t think of anything else, but the Sword King had another opinion on it entirely.
The first thing he thought was that the Sabre Grandmaster had certainly accepted a disciple in secret before entering the Pass. And the Killer Star had come from beyond the Pass, so he could definitely not relax.
If his guess was not mistaken, before departing, the Sabre Grandmaster must have informed his beloved disciple where he was going to go. In other words, if the Killer Star was not swiftly captured, his repulsive visage would one day be exposed.
Finally, the 10,000 taels of gold reward was posted.
In order to save the Good Faith Escort Agency from going bankrupt, Shen Wuhai was forced to put an early end to his villain punishing operation. Finally, by the grace of Heaven, he’d just gotten an idea when he happened to run into his dear brother Sheng, Dagger Within a Smile, in Changsha.
Shen Wuhai was now worried about only one thing.
He didn’t know if the way the Sword King had dealt with the old man was the same way as he was dealing with himself now?
He firmly believed that he was not the first person to be locked up in this water dungeon. The question all rested on whether the old man’s martial arts had been crippled or not when he was locked up here?
If the old man’s martial arts had already been crippled when he was locked up here, then that was all there was to it. Otherwise, he was convinced that he would find some message left behind by the old man in this water dungeon!
The range of his search was getting smaller and smaller.
Shen Wuhai’s frame of mine became more and more ambivalent.
When he first entered the water dungeon, Shen Wuhai searched the dungeon floor in an area of three staves. Now he only hoped that floor continued on, best if he never reached the end of it.
He was afraid of searching the entire dungeon floor and coming up empty.
The pondwater seemed even colder.
His hands never shivered, but now they trembled nonstop. Because the only place he hadn’t searched yet was the corner by the cell gate.
All he had to do was take another breath of air and dive to the pond floor and he would know right away if there was anything there or not.
But, as he gasped for breath, the breath would not go into his belly.
He stood there blankly, completely submerged in cold, filthy pondwater. He forgot it was dirty water, he forgot the cold, he wanted to divert his attention, think of past events, but his mind was blank. He couldn’t think of anything.
He was completely unaware that his legs were slowly moving.
Suddenly, in a daze, he nearly jumped up in the pond.
It was a feeling he’d never had before, like stepping on sackcloth, the bottom of the pond no longer smooth.
It was words.
A lot of words.
Words that a person had used a lot of finger strength to write.
“To later prisoners, please maintain your body. If you can escape this palace, there is an iron case hidden in a willow tree near the creek behind Blessings Come Village. Its contents you will know when you open the letter. Ge Weiyi’s last words, _ year _ month __ day.”
Shen Wuhai’s hope of rescuing his gracious master from the Sword King Palace were now completely dashed.
For the first time he shed tears.
Notes
- The raws say six spans here but I changed it to seven to match what it said earlier.
- The Five Classics are the Book of Changes, the Book of Odes, the Book of Documents/History, the Book of Rites, and the Spring & Autumn Annals.
- I should have explained this earlier, but the “Pass” refers to the pass leading outside China proper. So when he’s outside the Pass he’s outside of the Central Plains.
- Runners, 趟子手, literally means trip hand. They are ranked below escorts 鏢師 and run alongside the carts carrying the goods to be escorted. The escorts either walk or ride horses.
- Note: Shen Wuhai here is written with different characters, 沈吾海. Ordinarily it’s written 申無害.
- ”Petty man” is a reference in contrast to the Confucian gentleman, the gentleman’s opposite.