Huo Qingtong jumped to her feet. "Aha!" she exclaimed. "He wanted to escape via the Jade Pool!"
"Suddenly Ali ran in, and I flung myself into his arms. We embraced, and he called me many beautiful things. I had no tongue and could not answer him, but he understood the cry of my heart. Then that despicable Sanglaba, ten thousands times more evil than a thousand devils, struck him with an axe from behind...."
Princess Fragrance screamed and threw the scroll back onto the bed, an expression of horror on his face. Huo Qingtong gently patted her shoulder, then picked up the scroll herself and continued to read it out loud:
"....with an axe from behind and split my Ali's head in two. His blood spurted out all over my body. Sanglaba picked the child up off the bed, placed it in my hands and shouted: 'We must leave quickly!' I raised that bastard baby high about my head and threw it to the ground with all my strength, and he died in Ali's blood. Sanglaba was deeply shocked at the sight of me killing his son. He raised his golden axe, and I bowed my head, offering my neck to him, but he sighed and rushed back out into the Great Hall.
"Ali has gone to Allah's side and I will soon follow him. Our warriors are many, and with all his soldiers dead, Sanglaba will certainly not survive. He will never again be able to oppress us followers of Islam. I myself killed his only son, so we will be free of oppression from his descendants, because he has none. In the future, our people will be able to live peacefully in the desert and on the grasslands, young girls will be able to lie in their lovers' arms and sing. My brother, Ali, myself, we are all dead, but we conquered the tyrants. Even if their fortress had been stronger than it is, we would still have broken through eventually. May Allah, the True God, protect our people."
Huo Qingtong slowly rolled up the ancient scroll. The three of them sat for a long time without saying a word, deeply moved by Mami's courage and virtue. Finally Princess Fragrance, her eyes full of tears, sighed.
"To relieve the oppression of her people, she was willing to leave her loved ones, to have her tongue cut out and even to kill her own child," she said.
Chen started in fright, thinking of his own conduct compared to this lady of old. Faced with the task of recovering China for the Chinese people, he selfishly thought only of his own romantic problems.
Princess Fragrance noticed the sudden change in his expression. She pulled out her handkerchief and went over to wipe the beads of sweat from his brow, but Chen pushed her away impatiently. She stepped back, startled at his aggressiveness, and Chen's heart softened. Taking the handkerchief from her, he made up his mind that while the great endeavour of the Restoration remained unfinished he would pay no further attention to his romantic affairs, and would treat both sisters purely as friends, as his own sisters.
Huo Qingtong, meanwhile, was once more poring over the map and pondering phrases in the ancient scroll.
"It says here that Sanglaba came to this Jade Room and wanted her to escape with him to the Jade Pool," she murmured. "But this room is a dead end ... Afterwards, he returned the way he had come. He must have been extraordinarily strong. The Islam warriors failed to stop him and he forced his way through to the stone door and locked them all inside, condemning them to death. But the map clearly indicates another tunnel to the pool...."
"Then it must be in this room," Chen replied. He lit another torch and began to examine the walls closely for cracks, while Huo Qingtong looked at the jade bed. Chen remembered how Wen Tailai had been captured at Iron Gall Manor and said: "Could the tunnel be under the table?" He placed his hands beneath the round table top and tried to lift it, but it did not budge.
"There's something strange about this table," he said, pleased. Huo Qingtong brought the torch over to give him more light.
"Oh, look!" Princess Fragrance exclaimed. "There's a design carved onto the surface." They looked closer and saw that it was a herd of winged camels. They had not noticed it before because the carving was extremely shallow. But strangely, the heads and bodies of the camels were not joined, and were more than a foot away from each other. On an impulse, Princess Fragrance grasped the table edge and pulled it from left to right in an attempt to line up the heads and bodies, and it did indeed move an inch or so. Chen and Huo Qingtong joined her and slowly moved the rim round until the camels were whole again. Just as the carving was complete, a grinding sound began and a panel beside the bed slid back to reveal a row of steps leading downwards. The three shouted in triumph.
Chen led the way into the hole, torch in hand. The passage twisted and turned for a while and then ran straight for more than a hundred feet. Then, around a corner, they burst out into daylight. Looking around they saw they were in a small basin surrounded by high mountains. In the centre was a circular pool, the water in which was as green as jade. They were immediately enraptured by the beauty of the scene before them.
"The scroll said that if beautiful people washed in the pool they would become even more beautiful," Huo Qingtong said to her sister with a smile. "You should go and wash."
Princess Fragrance blushed. "You are older than I, you go first," she replied.
"Ai-ya! But I will become more ugly," Huo Qingtong protested. "Are you going to wash or not?" Princess Fragrance shook her head.
Huo Qingtong walked to the edge of the pool and put her hands in the water: it was intensely cold. She cupped her hands and scooped up some water and saw it was very clear: the water appeared green only because of the jade all about. She took a sip and found it extraordinarily cool and tasty. They all drank their fill. The white peak towering above them reflected off the surface of the pool in a picture of loveliness, and Princess Fragrance lazily moved her hand about in the water, unwilling to leave such an enchanting place.
"The thing to do now is to think of a way to avoid those four devils outside," said Huo Qingtong.
"First, let's bring Mami's remains out and bury them beside the pool," Chen suggested.
Princess Fragrance clapped her hands in delight. "It would be best if we buried her and Ali together," she said.
"Yes. I expect the skeleton in the corner is Ali's."
They returned to the Jade Room. As they were collecting Ali's bones, they found amongst them some bamboo slivers used in China in ancient times for writing. Chen picked them up, and saw they were thickly covered with Chinese characters written in red ink on a black background. Glancing through them, he recognized the writings of the Chinese philospher Zhuangzi. He had thought it might be some special book and was rather disappointed to find it was instead something he had read and memorized as a child.
"What is it?" Princess Fragrance asked.
"It's an old Chinese book, but it's not much use except to archaeologists." He threw the slivers back on the ground, and as they scattered, he noticed one which looked slightly different from the rest. Beside every character, were circles and dots and Muslim writing. Chen picked the sliver up and saw it was a section entitled 'The Butcher Dissects the Cow' from the philosopher Zhuangzi's lecture, 'The Secret of Caring for Life.' He pointed to the Muslim characters written alongside.
"What does this say?" he asked Princess Fragrance.
"'The key to smashing the enemy is here'," she replied.
"What can that mean?" he wondered out loud, greatly surprised.
"Mami's last testament said Ali got hold of a Chinese book and had learned kung fu from it. This could be it," Huo Qingtong suggested.
"Zhuangzi taught that one should be oblivious of emotion in adversity and obedient to one's superiors," said Chen. "It has nothing to do with kung fu." He threw the sliver back down again, then picked up the pile of bones and walked out. They buried the remains of Mami and Ali beside the Jade Pool and bowed respectfully before the graves.
"Let's go now," said Chen. "I wonder if the white horse managed to escape the wolves?"
"What is the section of that book about?" Huo Qingtong asked.
"It's about a butcher who is very good at his job. The movements of his hands and legs, the sound of his knife chopping, are all perfectly coordinated. The sound has the rhythm of music, the movements are like dancing."
"It would be useful to have such skill when facing an enemy," Huo Qingtong commented.
Chen stared at her in surprise. Every word of Zhuangzi was familiar to him, but suddenly he felt as if he had never read it before. The words of 'The Butcher Dissects The Cow' ran through his mind: 'When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years, I no longer saw the whole ox. And now -- now, I go at it by spirit and don't look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants.'
"If it really is like that," he thought, "I could kill that traitor Zhang with my eyes closed with just a slight movement of the knife..." The two sisters stared at him, wondering what he was thinking about.
"Wait a moment," he said, and ran back inside. A long time passed and still he did not re-emerge. Feeling worried, the two sisters went in as well and found him prancing about among the skeletons in the Great Hall, his face wreathed in smiles. He danced around a pair of skeletons for a moment and then stood stock-still staring at another pair. Princess Fragrance glanced to her sister in fright, afraid that he had lost his mind.
Huo Qingtong took her sister's hand. "Don't be afraid, he's all right," she said. "Let's go and wait for him outside."
The two returned to the Jade Pool. "What's he doing in there?" Princess Fragrance asked.
"I think he's worked out some new kung fu moves after having read those bamboo slivers and he's now practising them by copying the positions of the skeletons. It would be best if we didn't disturb him."
Princess Fragrance nodded. After a while, she sighed. "Now I understand." she said.
"What?"
"All those people in the Great Hall must have been very good fighters. Even after their weapons had been snatched from them, they still fought on with Sanglaba's guards."
"Yes, but they weren't necessarily very good at kung fu," Huo Qingtong replied. "I would guess they just learned a few really formidable moves which allowed them to take their enemies with them."
"Ah, they were so brave ... But what is he learning them for? Does he want to die with his enemies too?"
"No, a martial arts master would not be killed along with his opponent. He is just studying the finer points of the moves."
Princess Fragrance smiled. "Well I won't worry any more, then." She looked out over the surface of the pool. "Sister," she said. "Let's bathe in the water."
"Don't be ridiculous. What if he should come out?"
"I really want to go and bathe," Princess Fragrance replied. She stared out at the cool water once again. "Wouldn't it be nice if the three of us could live here together forever!" she said softly.
Huo Qingtong's heart jumped. She blushed, and quickly turned her head away towards the White Jade Peak.
A long time passed and still Chen did not emerge. Princess Fragrance took off her leather boots and put her feet in the water. Resting her head on her sister's lap, she gazed up at the white clouds in the sky and slowly fell asleep.
** 3 **
'Scholar' Yu and Yuanzhi understood why Xu had sent them out together to look for Huo Qingtong. Yu was greatly moved by Yuanzhi's obvious love for him, and by the fact that she had saved his life several times. But the more infatuated she became, the more he shrank away from her, for what reasons, he didn't himself understand. As they travelled, she laughed and chattered with him, but he remained cool to her advances.
One day towards noon, they spied a small donkey hobbling towards them across the desert, its rider nodding from side to side as he snoozed. As they got closer, they saw it was a Muslim with a large saucepan slung across his back and a donkey's tail in his right hand. The donkey, they noticed, was tail-less and was wearing an Imperial Guard officer's cap. The rider looked about forty years of age and had a luxuriant beard covering his face. When he saw them, he smiled warmly.
Yu knew Huo Qingtong's name was known across the length and breadth of the desert. "Excuse me," he said. "Have you seen Mistress Huo Qingtong?"
The man laughed. "Why are you looking for her?" he asked.
"There are several bad men after her and we want to warn her. If you see her, could you give her the message?"
"All right. What sort of bad men?"
"Two are big Chinese, and the third is a Mongol," Yuanzhi answered.
The man nodded. "Yes, they are bad. They wanted to eat my donkey, but I stole this hat from them." Yu and Yuanzhi glanced at each other.
"There was someone else with them?" Yu asked.
"The man wearing this cap. But who are you?"
"We are friends of Master Muzhuolun," Yu replied. We must stop the men from finding Mistress Huo Qingtong. Take us to where you met them and we will give you some silver."
"I don't need any silver. But I'll have to ask the donkey if he's willing to go first," the Muslim replied. He leant over close to the donkey's ear and mumbled into it for a while, then placed his own ear near the donkey's mouth, and nodded repeatedly. Yu and Yuanzhi grinned at his clowning.
The man listened intently for a moment and then frowned. "This donkey has had a very high opinion of himself ever since he got the official cap," he said. "He's rather contemptuous of your horses and doesn't want to travel with them for fear of losing face."
Yuanzhi looked at the skinny, lame animal, it's body covered in dirt, and burst out laughing.
"You don't believe me?" the Muslim exclaimed. "Well then, my donkey shall compete with your horse."
