The Silver Sword Grudge is the first novel in Hong Kong wuxia author Huang Ying’s 黃鷹 Legend of Shen Shengyi 沈勝衣 wuxia series, which ran from 1974 to around 1984. The series was adapted in 1979 into a TV drama in Hong Kong under the title Shen Shengyi (known in English as The Roving Swordsman). It adapted eight of the Shen Shengyi novels, including the first one, the one I’m going to translate here, The Silver Sword Grudge《銀劍恨》.
It’s a short novel, only two chapters, but they are long chapters. I will post it as I translate it, beginning with the first part below.
Huang Ying (1948-1991) is best known for continuing Gu Long’s Six Tales of Fright series of horror wuxia novels. The first one, Blood Parrot《血鸚鵡》, has a partial translation (see the translation list in the main menu. Only the first three chapters. Gu Long began the novel but only wrote the first four chapters. Huang Ying was selected to take over and continue beginning with chapter 5 and he finished the novel. The other five novels in the series were entirely written by Huang Ying.
Huang Ying was one of the main writers at Wuxia World Magazine《武俠世界》during the 70s and 80s, and along with Long Chengfeng 龍乘風 and Ximen Ding 西門丁, they were known as the Three New Swordsmen. They dominated Wuxia World Magazine during this time period. A number of Huang Ying’s novels were adapted to film and TV. His most famous novel series are Reincarnated《天蠶變》(lit. Silkworm Metamorphosis) and The Legend of Shen Shengyi.
His writing style was heavily influenced by Gu Long. I wrote a bit about Gu Long imitators in the past, but I didn’t give any examples of Huang Ying at the time. Now we can see what his writing is like. In this first part translated below, Huang Ying does a good job setting the mood, something Gu Long was very good at.
And now here is The Silver Sword Grudge, the beginning of a series wherein an assassin becomes a xia…
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: A Rainy Night, Bleak and Chilly Wind, Awns of Frigid Silver Sword Light
Chapter 2: Upstairs an Aggrieved Wife, A Killer Looses a Thunderclap