If you looked at his face, the man appeared to be in his thirties. He was, however, a cripple. His four limbs were atrophied to the point they looked like those of a child, and the skin of his exposed forearm was so wrinkled, it seemed shriveled up. In contrast to his body, his head looked humongous; it lolled to the side as if he couldn't hold it upright. Seated in a wooden wheelchair, he made a nearly inhuman, gruesome sight.
Slowly, the fellow guided his mobile seat into the hall.
As he eyed the newcomer, Ye Baiyi frowned.
"You're not Long Que," he said.
The Lord of the Marionettes Manor had become a jianghu legend some thirty years ago. He couldn't be that young. The fellow in the wheelchair emitted a shrill laugh.
"Of course, I'm not."
The fellow's eyes were enormous. Wen Kexing leaned toward Zhou Zishu.
"Check out those eyeballs," he whispered into his ear. "Don't they look like they're about to fall out from their sockets?"
Zhou Zishu inwardly remarked on how inane Wen Kexing was. It was as if wherever he went, he had to say something pointless to recoup his travel expenses. Hence, he ignored him.
The fellow in the wheelchair spoke again in his piercing voice. "And who are you a lot to dare intrude on the Marionettes Manor?"
The more he observed him, the more Ye Baiyi found that fellow unpleasant — he didn't look like someone trustworthy at all.
"I've come to see Long Que — we need to discuss something," he replied, making his tone patient only with great effort.
By Ye Baiyi's standards, he had indeed spoken rather courteously. Yet everyone else only heard an arrogant bully ordering people around.
The crippled fellow's enormous eyes shifted up and down as he gauged Ye Baiyi before he snorted.
"Long Que, that old goat, has long since turned into a pile of decomposing bones. What business can you have with him?"
The crease between Ye Baiyi's brows deepened. "Long Que is dead?" he asked. "How did he die?" A smug air crept across the crippled fellow's face. "I bumped him off, naturally."
The outrageous statement stunned everybody present. Between Zhou Zishu, Wen Kexing, and Ye Baiyi, the three of them had quite some skills. Yet, they still had ended up battered by the Marionettes Manor — almost dying in the process — as they joined forces to break in. How did someone who couldn't even walk manage to find his way into the Manor? To say nothing of killing its lord.
Ye Baiyi had never heard of the word "tact". He glowered at the fellow in the wheelchair.
"Bullshit. You killing Long Que is akin to a slug cutting down a tree1. Preposterous. Unless you're his son and he lay down to let you chop him up as you please."
As soon as he heard those words, Wen Kexing sensed that shit would hit the fan presently. "Get out, quick!" he told Zhang Chengling.
The echo of his voice was yet to dissipate when the fellow in the wheelchair's furious bellow thundered in the room:
"Trying to die, are you?!"
With that, the crippled fellow slammed his hand on the armrest of his wheelchair, and rows upon rows of human-shaped silhouettes emerged from the walls all around.
Bald and faceless, a dozen of the summoned marionettes pounced towards their little group at once.
Zhang Chengling was running to the exit as instructed; he didn't have time to dodge and smacked into one face first. The automaton he ran into was rather uncouth; it raised its arm to crack his skull open right away.
Zhou Zishu flicked his finger and hit the back of Zhang Chengling's knee2, making the boy topple to the ground with a thud.
Having evaded the blow thusly, Zhang Chengling scrambled back posthaste. He peered at their surroundings with his mouth hanging open in bewilderment
"Shifu, is this hell?" he asked.
Zhou Zishu sighed, reflecting that he'd probably remain a stranger to the expression "being coddled" his whole life. He wrenched himself from Wen Kexing's grasp and yanked Zhang Chengling closer. Then he turned to stand back to back with the other man, sandwiching the boy between them.
"Those marionettes are tough and can't die," he whispered to Wen Kexing. "But they still present some advantages."
"Advantages?" Wen Kexing repeated.
"Yes. For one, they can't jump, and for another, they are quite stupid."
As Zhou Zishu spoke, two automatons surged at them from different sides. Wen Kexing grabbed Zhang Chengling and acted as if he had read Zhou Zishu's mind: they both leaped in opposite directions at the same time.
Having lost their targets, the two marionettes crashed into one another, tumbling to the floor in a tangle of mechanical limbs.
Wen Kexing took a glance at them and giggled obnoxiously.
"The way they are going at it," he said while covering Zhang Chengling's eyes with his hand, "it's like watching erotic pictures3, but in motions."
On Zhou Zishu's end, as soon as he landed back on the floor, another automaton swung its huge club at his head.
Zhou Zishu dodged with a front flip, but he felt as if a column of fire had ignited from his lungs to his throat. With great effort, he forced himself not to cough as he suspected that he'd be spitting blood again.
The automaton wouldn't let it rest; it gave chase, whirling its club in a horizontal swipe. Zhou Zishu bent backward to evade the blow.
Wen Kexing clocked the move.
"Such a flexible waist," he sighed.
Thereupon, before the automaton could land the third hit, Wen Kexing flung Zhang Chengling across the room. As he hurtled through the air, the terrified boy flopped his four limbs like a giant toad affected by cramps. Wen Kexing saw that move too.
"What happened to the sword patterns I've taught you? Did you eat them with breakfast?" he sniped.
"Huh?" Zhang Chengling uttered as he crashed, limbs akimbo, into the marionette charging at Zhou Zishu. Hit from above, the automaton lost its balance, and the boy and machine toppled to the floor.
His head dizzy, Zhang Chengling bounced to his feet.
"Sir, which... which stance should I use?" he stammered a-tremble whilst rubbing at his sore behind. Meanwhile, Zhou Zishu had used the brief reprieve to get his breath back.
"You coming here to add more trouble is the last thing I need," he grumbled.
With that, he grabbed Zhang Chengling by the collar and tossed him back toward Wen Kexing.
Yet, although Zhang Chengling danced on the breeze, the three of them were only collateral damage, so to speak. They didn't have it too bad. Ye Baiyi, who had directly insulted the master of the house, on the other hand, got it properly handed to him.
Dense rows of automatons encircled the man in white in an impregnable siege.
No doubt because he was ancient and had grown set in his ways, the old freak stubbornly met the machines head-on. "Whoosh, bang, whizz," the pitter-patter of battle sounded from his side, in a ruckus comparable to fireworks
on new year's eve.4
Zhou Zishu pressed his fist against his chest and swallowed down a mouthful of cloying blood that had welled up within his throat.
"We won't last long like this," he said to the approaching Wen Kexing. "Who knows how many more puppets this hellhole has got in reserve."
"The place is called 'Marionettes Manor'," Wen Kexing replied. "I'd say that him on the chair is the only living soul in the vicinity. The rest are all marionettes."
Zhou Zishu narrowed his eyes.
"You're right," he replied. "He's the only one we can kill."
They glanced at each other with identical evil glints in their eyes5 and acted in perfect unison:
Once again, Wen Kexing seized Zhang Chengling and flung him out as if he were The Mountain's meteor hammer.
Zhang Chengling screeched like a banshee as he flattened another marionette upon landing, and Zhou Zishu leaped toward him, picking him up before the fallen automaton could cudgel him to death.
Then, immediately after tossing Zhang Chengling aside, Zhou Zishu tapped the floor with the tip of his shoe and surged up like a sparrow taking flight in the direction of the fellow in the wheelchair.
"Another one seeking death," the latter scoffed.
With that, the crippled fellow leaned back into his seat, and a dozen metal chains with spears attached to their ends flew out from the bottom of his wooden wheelchair. They hurtled at Zhou Zishu from every direction.
Zhou Zishu drew in a sharp breath and used the "Thousand Pounds Plunge"6 to dive toward the ground. Upon touchdown, he found his way behind a marionette's back with a few swaying steps.
One of the chains barely missed him and smacked right into the automaton behind which he had taken cover. The point of its spear was bent askew while the length of metal links wrapped itself around the marionette-like a string
tied around a zongzi -cake7.
Zhou Zishu tossed his long sleeves with a jerk of his arms.
"Did you think I wouldn't use concealed weapons?" he called out.
The strange fellow in the wheelchair gave a start and immediately slammed his hand on his armrest, making a metal umbrella spring out horizontally in front of him.
But then, seconds elapsed, and nothing happened.
Zhou Zishu had learned the trick of scaring people from Gu Xiang. Dirty or not, it came in handy, so he used it, with no consideration to spare for style or lack thereof.
When he understood that he'd been hoodwinked, the strange fellow got only more furious. He made the metal umbrella retract, but when he looked up again, Zhou Zishu had already vanished.
Forgetting all about Ye Baiyi, he scanned all around, only to hear someone jeer at him from the ceiling.
"Hey, idiot. Are those bricks you have instead of brains to believe everything people say to you?"8
The strange fellow looked up to the sight of Wen Kexing nose-diving towards him; he was brandishing a large club he had purloined from one of the fallen marionettes and was aiming straight at his head.
The strange fellow immediately activated another mechanism, and an explosive ball launched from his wheelchair.
Wen Kexing cursed under his breath at meeting his old nemesis again. Not paying mind to where he aimed, he hastily swung his club at the ball and sent it flying away.
Ye Baiyi's angry roar was heard the next second.
"Wen, you little piece of shit, are you trying to get your ass kicked?!"
Wen Kexing flipped through the air and, upon landing, he turned to the sight of Ye Baiyi with a face covered in soot.
His spirits instantly lifted.
"Quick, give me another one of those!" he hollered at the man in the wheelchair.
At that, the strange fellow was so flummoxed, the smoke seemed to come out of his ears. But before he could do anything about it, a faint whistling noise sounded in his ear.
When he turned his head around, a sword that shone coldly was flying toward his throat.
The danger was real this time. Not daring to be remiss, the crippled fellow deployed the metal umbrella from his wheelchair again and made it to escape from the hall. In the next instant, however, he froze on the spot.
His uncommonly large eyes grew yet bigger as he glanced downward in utter disbelief: he hadn't predicted that his opponent's weapon was a soft sword — one that could bend at the wielder's will.
Which was his last thought. "Baiyi" had pierced his throat.
Zhou Zishu had hit home in one stroke, but he didn't linger. From the commotion, he knew marionettes were charging at him from behind. He surged up into the air and hopped over the wooden wheelchair without even glancing back.
Met with an obstacle, the automatons swung their clubs, splintering the wheelchair of wonder that was blocking their way in a resounding fracas.
Gears littered the floor, whilst — as if they had been put under a spell — every automaton in the room came to an abrupt halt.
Shaky from the effort he had exerted, Zhou Zishu stumbled upon landing. Wen Kexing, who'd been lying in wait, readily reached out to catch him. Then, tilting his head to the side, he planted a kiss on Zhou Zishu's cheek. "What an epée !" he exclaimed in admiration.
Zhou Zishu wiped at his face as if ridding himself of dog saliva and shoved the guy away.
"What a roué !" he exclaimed in consternation.9
With gloom written all over his face, Ye Baiyi picked up Zhang Chengling from the floor where he had sprawled himself after tripping on a fallen marionette and marched towards the other two. Without a word, he aimed a punch at Wen Kexing.
Wen Kexing evaded the blow.
"Gosh, venerable elder!" he said, grinning as he continued to dodge. "Must you be so vindictive towards a junior because of a little joke?"
Zhou Zishu sighed at them. Exhausted, he flopped down to sit on the back of a fallen marionette. After hacking a few coughs, he said:
"Give it a rest, you two, will you? Say, a venerable elder who is definitively not a rice tub, how about using your amazing skills to have a look at the mechanisms over here instead? So you can come up with a way to get us out of this place."
Ye Baiyi cast a sidelong glance toward the disintegrated wheelchair.
"'Have a look', my ass," he replied. "You've already smashed the thing into pieces. "
With that, he turned around and strode toward the hole in the wall from which the strange fellow in the wheelchair had come.
Zhang Chengling hurried towards Zhou Zishu. "Shifu, are you all right?" he asked in a small voice.
Although he'd been flung around like a bag of rocks by both men several times, the kid didn't appear at all resentful. The only thing he cared about was his shifu's condition. Under his innocent and worried gaze, Zhou Zishu felt quite the jerk. He, therefore, responded in a rare display of mellowness:
"I'm fine. Nothing's the matter."
Zhang Chengling turned around and crouched down with his back to Zhou Zishu.
"Shifu," he said. "Let me carry you."
Zhou Zishu didn't know whether he should laugh or cry. He patted the boy on the shoulder as he got up by himself.
"Come off it," he said. "I don't expect anything from you."
He hadn't made it two steps when Wen Kexing approached in turn. Allowing no room for protest, the guy grabbed him by the waist and drew him close.
Zhou Zishu reflected that Wen Kexing was making a right habit of taking advantage; he was about to elbow him in the ribs when the guy jeered at him.
"Come on, how about you save some energy? If the glutton messes up with the mechanisms, you'll still be expected to fight later on."
Zhou Zishu mulled it over and concluded that the guy wasn't wrong. Thus, he let himself lean against Wen Kexing. Only then, as he let go, did he find that his body felt like it was ready to fall apart. He almost failed to draw in his next breath.
At that moment, Ye Baiyi spoke. "Come over here, all of you."
The three of them made their way through the hole in the wall and arrived in a chamber that seemed to be from another dimension. Dense and complex lines that sketched out the map to the Marionettes Manor covered an entire wall.
Dumbstruck, Wen Kexing raised his head to scrutinize the peculiar sight.
"Even if... you gave that to me," he said after a long while. "I couldn't make sense of it." "What a relief. That makes two of us," Zhou Zishu said with a large grin.
Ye Baiyi stared at the pair, rendered speechless at long last. He turned to Zhang Chengling. "Come with me."
Zhang Chengling darted towards him at once and witnessed the man in white rummage around the map. The mysterious tinkering went on for a while before, suddenly, the wall parted in its middle, revealing a slew of moving gears within.
As he perused the amazing machinery with his head tilted back, Zhou Zishu sighed. "The person who built the Marionettes Manor is quite an extraordinary man," he said.
Zhang Chengling played assistant to Ye Baiyi. The old man and the young boy fiddled around for at least an hour before, with a resounding rumbling noise, the ceiling itself along with another face of the wall, split open. A flight of stairs came into sight.
The four of them went over and climbed up with caution. None of them could have said how long their ascension lasted, but they ultimately re-emerged above ground.
There was wind, there was a sun, and there were plants — they had arrived in a cozy little courtyard. "This would be the true Marionettes Manor," Ye Baiyi said.
The man in white glanced around before he strode off towards a small pavilion the door of which had been blocked off with iron bars. Erected under a gigantic tree, the shaded building had an eerie sense of gloominess to it, its tightly sealed door and windows making it look like a jailhouse.
Ye Baiyi channeled energy into his palm and tore down the metal fence. Then, he pushed the door open and walked in with the confidence bestowed upon those who were secure in their skills.
The three others followed a step behind. However, they soon all froze on the spot.
In that small jailhouse lay a bed upon which someone had been tied down with metal chains.
It was an old man with a headful of white hair who looked around with sightless eyes, doubtless rendered blind from remaining in a dark chamber for too long.
Upon hearing the commotion, the old man turned his head towards the door whilst a shudder jostled his emaciated body.
Silence stretched before Ye Baiyi asked, "Are you... Long Que?"
1. idiom (lit. "ants shaking up a tree") in the original.
2. Small inconsistency here. The text doesn't mention whether Zhou Zishu flicked out a pebble or flicked at the air with some kind of energy blast thing. Both are equally likely so I left it as is.
3. (lit. "pictures of the spring palace"). As a side note, I find it hilarious that the Chinese Wikipedia entry insists on the fact that they were sex-education manuals, instead of just good ol' porn. Though it seemed attested that erotic books were sometimes part of a woman's dowry, to teach her how to please her husband.
Interestingly, erotic albums were also believed to have the properties of warding off fires and thus kept in kitchens: rain is associated with sex because the earth is fertilized by its fall in the Chinese imagination. Hence, the representation of the sexual act symbolizes the water element which, according to wuxin (the five elements), counteracts the fire element. That or it was an excuse for people to have a stash of porn in their houses.
The Japanese term for a similar art form is (shunga or "spring drawings").
4. Fireworks on Chinese new year's eve is a festive tradition because, amongst other reasons, the racket they make is believed to scare ghosts/devils away. Every household used to buy fireworks for the occasion and set them off on the streets/in their backyard/balcony. The practice was banned due to fire hazards some thirty years ago.
5. ZZS and WKX are described as "not being good jujubes" in the original.
6.same technique as the one used against the giant dog in the cave.
7. filled glutinous rice cakes wrapped in bamboo leaves and tied up with lengths of strings.
8. The original pun is "being handed a baton and taking it for a needle". The word "needle" is homophonous with "truth" so the alternative meaning of the phrase is "(you can't) take a baton for a needle/the truth"
9. The original pun is WKX saying ("Greatsword move!"), pronounced "hao jian", and ZZS saying ("What a sleazeball.") also pronounced "hao Jian".
A misc. note how the author did a "Disney" with the murdered man in the wheelchair: one instant he is pierced by a sword, and the next his corpse seems to dematerialize as it's never mentioned again. I thought it was a clever way to not make the text too gory.