The Return of the Condor Heroes

Chapter 33 – Conversations at night in Fengling, Part 5

The young girl said, “Uncle Song, what you say is naturally true.”

The man drank the wine, saying with a smile, “I’ve consumed much of the lady’s wine and meat, how can I not tell all? If I had not lost all my money last night due to three confounded dice, I would really repay the lady. You keep addressing me as Uncle, how can I disappoint you? How did I get to know the Eagle Hero? It was similar to young General Wang; it was also the Eagle Hero who saved my life. But this time he actually didn’t use his Wugong (martial arts), he used money to buy my life back.” The young girl said with a smile, “Well, this is curious; he used money to buy your life? Eh, how much is it worth?”

That man laughed aloud and said, “My worthless body actually cost more than beef and pork because the Eagle Hero unexpectedly forked out 2,000 taels of silver for it. More than five years ago, I tried to uphold justice in Shandong and I killed a crook. Since murder carries the death penalty, I was sentenced to death so there was nothing for me to say. Who knew several days later, the Licheng county magistrate interrogated the local evil tyrant and later brought me forward for a torture session accusing me of crimes that local tyrant committed, murder, extortion, rape; all the blame was pushed onto me and the tyrant was acquitted. Afterwards the Prison

Warden told me that the tyrant bribed the County Magistrate with 1,000 taels of silver, so the County Magistrate transferred all his capital charges to me. A capital offence is punished with death; ten capital offences were also punished with death, so I was made a scapegoat. When I heard such injustice, I shouted loudly in my cell, scolding the corrupt official, but what use was that?”

“After several days, the corrupt official called for a retrial and that local tyrant was also kneeling next to me. I shouted, ‘You corrupted dog, you accepted bribes and distorted justice, you will not have a peaceful death!’ That corrupt official grinned, ‘Song Wu, you do not have to speak thus, I investigated closely and found that you were sentenced unjustly. That crook was not killed by you but by this tyrant!’ After saying that, he ordered the Yamen attendants to hit him hard, and used the bamboo torture method (something like squeezing the fingers between bamboo sticks) on him, forcing him to confess that he killed that crook and pushed the blame on me. I wasn’t able to figure this out; that crook was obviously killed by me, how could this charge be transferred to someone else?”

The young girl heard this and smiled, saying, “This magistrate must be really blind.”

Song Wu said, “He was definitely not blind; when I got home, my mother told me after I was sentenced to death, my mother bitterly wept daily on the street. One day she happened to meet the Eagle Hero passing through who asked her what was wrong. The Eagle Hero asked around and discovered the truth; he said he had a matter at hand and didn’t have the time to find this corrupt official to settle the score, so he gave my mother 2,000 taels of silver to buy my life. After three months, everyone in the town said the County Magistrate, late one night, was robbed of 4,000 taels of silver and got into a fit of anger. He was so mad he coughed up blood ever since. I knew this surely must be the Eagle Hero’s doing, so I didn’t dare continue living there and moved to Jiangnan. After more than a year, some people told me, a great master with a missing arm was by the seashore with a big queer bird and he was looking blankly into the sea, and had been doing so for the past few days. I hastily hurried up to him and kowtowed to him as an expression of gratitude.”

The young woman suddenly said, “Thank him for what? He paid 2,000 taels of silver but stole 4,000 taels of silver; so he made a profit of 2,000 taels of silver. How could this Yang scum do business in such an unscrupulous manner?” The young girl said, “Yang? The Eagle Hero is named Yang?” The young woman said, “I don’t know, I didn’t say his name is Yang.” The young girl said, “I clearly heard you say so.” The woman said, “Surely you heard wrongly.”

The young girl said, “OK. I won’t argue with you. Even if the Eagle Hero gained 2,000 taels of silver, it must also have been used for helping the poor and needy people. He is a generous and chivalrous hero, how would he use the money for his own personal gain?” Many people cheered with one voice, all saying, “The lady is right!”

The young girl asked, “Uncle Song, why did the Eagle Hero stare at the sea? Is he waiting for someone?” Song Wu shook his head, “I don’t know, I didn’t dare to ask about this.”

The young girl took up two pieces of firewood and threw them into the fire, looking at the dark flame turn bright red, gently saying, “Although Eagle Hero is ever eager to help the distressed; perhaps he actually has a problem of his own? Otherwise why does he always stare at the sea?”

A middle-aged woman sitting in a western corner suddenly said, “I have a younger female cousin who has seen the Eagle Hero before. She also once saw the Eagle Hero blankly looking at the sea with a strange expression, and so she personally asked him about it. The Eagle Hero replied, ‘My beloved wife is at the other end of the sea, so we can’t meet.” The people all said “Ohh” at the same time.

The refined young girl said, “So he has a wife, why did she end up at the other end of the sea? He has such excellent abilities, why doesn’t he cross the sea to look for her?”

The middle-aged woman said, “My younger female cousin also asked him that. He said, “The Sea is so vast, I don’t know how we can meet.”

The young girl gently sighed, “I expected that such a character would have such a personality, so it’s actually true.” She also asked, “Is your younger female cousin very pretty? In her heart she secretly likes the Eagle Hero, is it not so?”

The beautiful young woman shouted clearly, “Younger sister, are you fantasizing again?”

The middle-aged woman said, “My younger female cousin may be considered to be beautiful. The Eagle Hero killed her father in order to save her mother. Whether or not my younger female cousin secretly liked the Eagle Hero, nobody knows. She has since married an honest farmer. The Eagle Hero gave her a great sum of money and now her life is pretty good.”

The young girl said, “The Eagle Hero killed her father in order to save her mother? How strange!”

The beautiful woman said “This person has a very strange temperament, when he’s good he saves lives, when he’s wicked he murders people. Yes, he was like that since he was young.”

That young girl curiously asked “He was like that since he was young? How do you know?”

The woman said, “I just know.”

The young girl persistently asked about the matter but the young woman refused to say. The young girl said, “Fine, since you won’t say, then I don’t want to hear. Even if you did say, I may not believe you.” She turned her head to the middle-aged woman and said, “Madam, please tell me about your younger female cousin’s story.”

The woman said, “Alright. My younger female cousin and I have an age gap of seventeen years, and her mother is my aunt…” The young girl said with a smile, “And her father is your uncle.” That woman replied with a smile, “Oh, I’m droning non-stop again, causing the lady to be impatient. My uncle is from Henan; in that year the Mongolians invaded our lands and captured my uncle to work as a slave. My aunt led my cousin, begging for food along the way, and went to Shandong from Henan. Then they went to Shanxi from Shandong, looking for my uncle’s whereabouts.”

Young General Wang sighed, “Traveling thousands of li to find her husband; that is really rare.”

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