Da Tang Shuang Long Zhuan Volume 2 Chapter 5 part1

Book 2 Chapter 5 - Madame Dong Ming

‘Splash! Splash!' One after another the two boys fell into the water.

The moment just before they entered the water, they saw three fast boats speeding toward them. There were several thugs on each boat, each one had a long punting pole equipped with sharp hook in his hand, they were shouting curses and swearing cuss words at the two boys as they came.

In the water, Kou Zhong knew that Xu Ziling's water skill was not as good as his, so he desperately pulled him to dive toward the bottom of the big ship. Only by using the big ship as shield would they be able to evade the enemy's punting poles. As for how to take a breath, at this time he still did not bother about it.

By the time the two boys reached the depth where the bottom of the ship was, the oxygen in their lungs had been depleted. They wanted to float up, but were hitting the keel. Being unprepared, they nearly died of suffocation; while they were at a loss, suddenly a stream of qi erupted. The two were pleased beyond their imagination; together they swam toward the stern.

By the time this new qi was also depleted, another stream of qi was automatically generated from within their body. This time the two boys noticed that this strange qi was not dropped from the sky at all, but rather, it was generated by their body's true qi. It grew and multiplied unendingly that the two boys enjoyed its tremendous benefits. At this moment, they had already forgotten about how to deal with the enemy on the surface.

Xu Ziling felt strange heat appeared from the sole of his right foot, while cold stream steeped in from the sole of his left foot. The true qi surged and continuously circulated within his body, causing him to automatically channel his true qi according to the diagram in the ‘Secret to Long Life'. At the same time his vision brightened considerably that he could see the dark shadow of the hulls above him, big and small, different from each other, as if it was a pattern.

Kou Zhong's experience was virtually the same; it's just that the true qi originated from the Tian Ling acupoint on the top of his head.

The two of them moved about slowly in the deep water, approximately four zhang below the sea surface. Each time they stretched out their limbs, the true qi in their body circulated one time in perfect harmony [orig. seamless heavenly clothes].

The true qi was self-generating perpetually, without giving them the feeling of suffocation.

After swimming for nobody knows how long, they crawled up onto the beach far away from the docks.

The sun was about to set, the two boys lying side-by-side on the sandy beach, laughing heartily.

Gasping for breath, Kou Zhong said, "I didn't know our internal strength is that formidable, without taking a breath we could swim that far, perhaps we could even swim to the other side of the ocean, without even have to pay for the ship fare.”

Xu Ziling was enjoying the glow of the setting sun; stretching lazily, he said, "Right now I feel my body in full of energy. This is a good time to steal.”

Kou Zhong sat up excitedly and looked around. He saw the dock in the distance, about four, five li away, hidden behind the towering sail masts, while where they were was a wild, mountainous country, with no man in sight for as far as they could see. He laughed and said, "Tonight we will swim back toward the dock behind the salt warehouse and think of a way to get in to steal some salt. And then we will transport it by boat. If anybody catches up with us, ‘splash!' we will jump into the water, and play hide-and-seek with them underwater.”

Zu Xiling also sat up, stretched out his arms and legs, and said, "If there are tigers right now, I feel like I can kill a few. That Madame is so strange; we were talking nicely, suddenly she drove us out. Humph! Does she think we are ugly? Why is it that other than Susu Jiejie, other women always think that our appearance is not pleasing to the eye?”

Kou Zhong wrapped his arm around his shoulder and said with a laugh, "The reason is very simple: because they are afraid they can't help falling in love with us, to such an extent as they won't be able to extricate themselves. Ha!”

By the time they finished laughing hard to console themselves for a while, the sun has not disappeared behind the western hills yet. But during that time the two boys' clothes have dried out.

Upon looking at each other, they both realized that their hair was disheveled, their clothes in disarray, and they looked exactly like a couple of beggars. Suddenly both realized that they did not wish to go back to the water.

Kou Zhong quickly found an excuse, "Tomorrow we'll figure out which water route to take before stealing the salt. Right now while the city gate is not closed yet, let's return to the city to find a decent hotel and then have a good dinner, and then we can slowly think about our first big endeavor to make a fortune.”

Xu Ziling did not want to go back to the water any time soon either, he nodded in agreement.

The two boys walked back toward the city gate. They felt their body was lighter than usual, at least by half; their speed was also increasing, also by half. Their eyes and ears were a lot more keen than usual, they did not feel that the darkness was too much different than daytime.

Naturally they did not know that when they were underwater just now, they had accidentally entered the realm of endless qi circulation of Taoist internal energy cultivation, and had had an early glimpse of first-class qigong [system of deep breathing exercises] mystery.

Although the number of people practicing Taoism is too many too count, those that are able to achieve fine internal breathing state are actually not too many.

It was called ‘external qi not exhausted, internal breathing not generated'.

If they were not in such a special situation like being underwater, without the guidance of a good master, the two boys might not be able to make such a break through this period of difficulty even if they tried hard their entire life. But by lucky coincidence, they had taken the most important step in martial art study. From uncultured stone into fine jade, far surpassing the limitation of their age.

The two boys took a cold bath in the hotel. When they got back to the street, they realized for the first time that nightlife in this town was more lively than that of Yangzhou. There was endless stream of horse and carriages, a sign of thriving city.

The women on the street were even more gorgeously dressed [orig. lovely scene of blossoming flowers swaying in the breeze], they did not appear to be afraid of men's gaze. The two boys feasted their eyes endlessly with unspeakable delight.

After having their stomach filled, the two boys' excitement grew, they went out to join the crowd.

Kou Zhong was craning his neck to look into the inside of one of the pleasure houses when Xu Ziling suddenly pulled him toward a nearby alley. He pointed to the street and said, "It's the Ol' Liu! Ah! Isn't that the Fu Duozhu of the Haisha Gang Tan Yong by his side?”

Stunned, Kou Zhong looked at the direction he indicated. Sure enough, he saw a group of men gathered inside a store across the street, each one carried a weapon, and two of the men were precisely Tan Yong and the Ol' Liu, who were standing next to each other, the former was giving instruction to the latter, while Ol' Liu nodded his head continuously. The ones called Xie Feng and Chen Gui were standing behind these two.

Upon looking more clearly, they found out that the store was actually an external-injury clinic; it appeared that this place must be one of their hideouts.

"What are they talking about?” Xu Ziling wondered aloud.

The two boys could not resist straining their ears trying to listen. Suddenly Tan Yong's voice ringing faintly in their ears, "Boss [orig. long tou, dragon head] will arrive on the third watch [midnight, between 11pm-1am] tonight. Strange thing is, why couldn't we find the bodies of those two little demons?”

Kou Zhong and Xu Ziling jumped in shock; they did not expect to really be able to hear Tan Yong. The two sides were separated by more than three zhang distance, plus the street was clamoring with all kinds of noises jumbled together; yet they were clearly able to hear Tan Yong's voice.

The two boys were very excited. But when they wanted to listen further, they could not hear anything.

Kou Zhong happily said, "It seems that our skill is improving tremendously. But I wonder: Ol' Liu and Tan Yong have been in collusion from the start to frame us. Apparently Ol' Liu pretended to be the bad guy, and then Tan Yong posed as the good guy who helps us out of trouble. But later on Tan Yong incited Ol' Liu to kill us.”

Xu Ziling's thought process was more meticulous. "At that time they still did not know what we are Wulin's martial art masters who are able to hit Ol' Liu until he could not crawl back up; so why did they pay particular attention to us?” he wondered.

Even with Kou Zhong's quick-thinking, he was still at a loss. "It doesn't matter what they are going to do, the point is that they want to harm us,” he said in a low voice, "Jianghu people live by the rule, ‘enmity must be avenged'. Tan Yong might be difficult to deal with, but Ol' Liu is very easy to beat. We simply need to stalk him, as soon as we find he is alone, we can strike both to teach him a lesson and to rob his mother's purse; as well as to help us buy a couple of sharp sabers. Henceforth we need not be afraid to meet and fight those guys.”

Not only Xu Ziling was not afraid, he found it very amusing instead.

Chapter end