Yang Guo sighed and said, "My adoptive father has died. Martial Grandma and Sun Po Po have died. Master Chongyang and Ancestor Grandma have died. Hatred, love, and death were all written off by God. It was like my Martial Grandma could see the future so she was not willing to say my adoptive father's name..." But suddenly he shouted, "Oh…that must be it!"
Xiao Longnu asked, "What have you figured out?"
Yang Guo replied, "Li Mochou didn't unseal my adoptive father's pressure point that Martial Grandma hit. Actually, it was because Martial Grandma didn't hit the mark in the first place!"
Xiao Longnu said, "She didn't hit the mark? That was not possible. My master's accupoint sealing skill was really remarkable."
Yang Guo said, "My adoptive father had two of the world's strange martial skills. In his whole body, the vital energy could circulate against the normal flow. The opposite circulation shifted all his pressure points so sealing the pressure point actually meant missing the point."
Xiao Longnu said, "There is something that strange?"
Yang Guo said "Let me try it for you to see." Having said that, he flipped up-side down and used his hand to prop himself up on the floor, his head down and legs up in the air. Then he quickly spun himself, making a few rounds, and then breathed in a few times. Suddenly he jumped up and bumped his head into a pointed corner of the table in front of the bed. Xiao Longnu cried out, "Ai yo, be careful!" only to see the "Hundred Meetings" point [Bai Hui] on his head hit the corner of the stone table hard. This "Hundred Meetings" point was right on top of the brain, where the vertical line from the front to the back of the head and the horizontal line from the left ear to the right ear intersect, and hence the name "hundred meetings point." This was a vital pressure point, which controlled all the veins. Doctors usually compared it to the North Star, as in the saying "Bai Hui [Hundred Meetings] is sky, Xuan Ji [Jade Pearl -chest] is man, and Yong Quan [Bubbling Spring -legs] is earth," which was to say that these "three big pressure points" were the most critical in a human body. Knowing this, Yang Guo bumped it right into a table corner and then turned around to stand erect. With a laugh he said, "You see, as the energy flew in the opposite direction, my Hundred Meetings point changed its position!" Xiao Longnu clucked her tongue in approval and said, "How very strange. And he came up with that!"
Hitting himself this time, even though Yang Guo didn't seal his pressure point, he used quite a bit of force and his brain couldn't help becoming confused. In his daze, he seemed to have figured out something important all of a sudden but couldn't quite say what it was. Xiao Longnu saw him looking dazed and disoriented so she said with a smile, "Dumb kid, a gentle demonstration would have been enough. Nobody told you to crash into the table so hard. Does it hurt?" Yang Guo didn't reply just waved his hand for her to stop talking. He concentrated on his thoughts but felt like there was a fuzzy shadow flashing in his brain, barring him from getting a clear picture. It seemed he needed to recall something from the past, yet it was also like he'd suddenly discovered something new. He wished he could have just taken it out from his brain, stopped that moving shadow, put that thought before his eyes and clearly look at it.
He thought for a while. Still he couldn't grasp the main points and couldn't give up thinking either. He grabbed his head. Quite vexed, he asked Xiao Longnu, "Long'er, I've figured out an extremely important matter but I don't know what. Do you know?" When a person got his thoughts mixed up like entangled threads and he himself didn't have a clue, asking another person what he was thinking was quite ridiculous. But for the two of them who had lived together for a long time and understood each other very well, their guesses would be correct most of the times. Xiao Longnu said, "This is a very important matter?" Yang Guo replied, "Yes." Xiao Longnu asked, "Is it related to my injury? Delighted, Yang Guo said, "Good, very good! What matter is that? What have I figured out?"
With a chuckle, Xiao Longnu said, "You just talked about your adoptive father Ouyang Feng. You said he could direct vital energy to circulate in the opposite direction. Is this related to my injured condition? I'm not the person he injured..."
Yang Guo suddenly jumped up and shouted out loudly, "Got it!"
These two words "Got it!" were brightly loud. The doors of the stone chambers inside Gu Mu were not closed so each and every word spoken echoed back, "Got it, Got it..." Yang Guo grabbed Xiao Longnu's right arm and repeatedly cried out, "You could be saved! You could be saved! You could be saved!" He couldn't restrain his happiness; nor could he really find words to express it. Seeing him all excited, Xiao Longnu was infected with this joyous feeling. She sat up.
Yang Guo said, "Long'er, you listen to my words. Right now you are seriously injured so you can't use our sect's Jade Maiden skills. And this makes it difficult for you to recover from the injury. But if you can circulate your vital energy against the flow to heal yourself, the Chilled Jade Bed will precisely be a marvelous aid."
Xiao Longnu had yet to understand. She mumbled, "Vital energy against the flow... the Chilled Jade Bed..."
Happily, Yang Guo said, "Would you say this is fate? You've practiced the Jade Maiden skill, which was good enough. On top of that we have the Chilled Jade Bed."
Xiao Longnu became confused so she said, "I still don't quite understand."
Yang Guo then explained, "The Jade Maiden skills follow the Yin energy but the reverse flow skills are pure Yang. When I talked about my adoptive father's reverse energy flow skills, I vaguely felt that your injured condition could be healed. Then I hit my head and, afterwards, recalled what Master Chongyang mentioned in his letter about the Chilled Jade. And it all became clear."
Xiao Longnu said, "So is that to say our Ancestor Grandma, who used the Chilled Jade Bed to treat her injury, could reverse the energy flow as well?"
Yang Guo said, "That's not likely. Our Ancestor Grandma would definitely not know this reverse energy flow technique. But I suspect that she was injured by the Yin's soft internal energy. Your injury, on the other hand, was caused by the opposite force of the hard Yang." Xiao Longnu smiled and nodded. Then with a joyful feeling, she put her mind at ease.
Yang Guo said, "We'd better not wait. Let us do it now." He then went into the firewood room and took out a bunch of firewood. He lit them up in the corner of the stone room. Then he taught Xiao Longnu the most basic elements of the reverse energy flow skills and helped her sit up on the Chilled Jade Bed. He sat by the fire. As he used his left hand to press against Xiao Longnu's right palm, he said, "I'll push this heat through each of your pressure points and you use your internal energy to circulate it against the normal flow. We'll do it one point at a time and when the heat comes back to the Chilled Jade Bed, your injured condition should improve a little bit." With a smile Xiao Longnu said, "Do I have to get down and spin myself just like you did?" Yang Guo said, "Nah, that's not necessary. Spinning is for shifting pressure points. It's only good when fighting enemies. We are slowly healing your injury; sitting down here is just as good."
Xiao Longnu stretched her hand to hold his left palm and with a smile she said, "Come to think of it, that Guo Guniang wasn't too mean. She didn't cut off both of your arms." The two people had been through so many near death incidents that the matter of missing an arm became trivial. And Xiao Longnu was even joking about it. Yang Guo also laughed and retorted, "If both of my arms got cut off, I'd still have two feet. Only that using my soles to help you circulate the energy would be hilariously smelly and not quite elegant." Xiao Longnu scoffed and then silently recited the principle of reverse energy flow. After a while, she said, "I've got it!"
Yang Guo saw that the fire was burning too intense so he got up to slow it down. And just when they were about to begin circulating the energy, he suddenly called out, "Ai yo! I almost missed one important detail! Xiao Longnu said, "What is it?" Yang Guo pointed to Guo Xiang who was sleeping at the foot of the bed and said, "At a critical moment, if this little devil cries out, it will be quite a disaster!" Xiao Longnu then murmured, "Very dangerous!" When one was circulating and cultivating energy, the most evil taboo was a disturbed mind. Quite some time ago, Xiao Longnu and Yang Guo were practicing their Jade Maiden skills and were discovered by Zhen Zhibing and Zhao Zhijing. Xiao Longnu's anger caused her to spit up blood and she almost died. In addition to that, at that time her body was normally healthy. Today she was heavy injured, how would she be able to withstand any bit of distraction?
Yang Guo mixed half a bowl of the bee honey, picked up Guo Xiang, and fed her before moving her to a distant stone chamber. He shut two doors between them so even if she cried out, they wouldn't hear her. Then he came back to stay by the chilled jade bed and said, "To clear the thirty six major pressure points your body, I think at best it will take ten days and at worst about half a month. Originally it should have taken many, many days because it's hard to avoid distraction. But our Gu Mu is completely isolated from the outside world, making it the best place on earth for recovery. Even the most remote wild mountain or valley won't be as good because there will always be the sound of birds or the smell of flowers to disturb one's mind."
Xiao Longnu smiled and said, "My injury was caused by the Quanzhen Taoists but it was their founding master who gave us the tomb chamber and the Chilled Jade Bed for me to rest and recover in. So their merits and crimes actually cancelled out each other."
Then Yang Guo said, "What about that Jinlun Fawang? We can't let him get away with it."
Xiao Longnu sighed and said, "So long as I can live, what else do you have to be unhappy about?"
Yang Guo held her hand and said, "You are right. This time after you've recovered, we'll never fight with people again. God is so kind to us. Hmmm..."
Xiao Longnu gently said, "We'll go south to become farmers and we'll raise a lot of chickens and ducks..." As she was saying that, she felt the heat energy passing into her body. With a trembling heart, she used the reverse energy flow technique that Yang Guo taught her to circulate that energy.
This healing method of using the reverse energy flow technique and the Chilled Jade Bed to complement each other was really strange but the result was also very effective. Years ago, Reverend Yi Deng had used the "Divine One Yang Finger" to cure Huang Rong's injury by circulating energy and clearing all her pressure points in pretty much the same way. The difference was that using the One Yang Finger to cure an illness ravenously consumed a lot of Reverend Yi Deng's internal energy but hence lead to a quick recovery. Yang Guo's method would take many days to see results. And more than that, for a non-martial person who was heavily injured, a master of the One Yang Finger would use his profound internal energy to help the injured circulate the Yang energy and thus bring him back to health. In Xiao Longnu's case, she didn't have a very deep internal energy foundation but she and Yang Guo were from the same sect, yet could use different techniques. Not even Ouyang Feng coming back from the grave or Huang Yaoshi arriving could create a harmony between the helper and the helped like this. And nor would they be able to help Xiao Longnu to reverse her energy flow without innumerable difficulties.
Three times a day, Yang Guo would go out to feed Guo Xiang with honey and boiled pumpkin. Other than that he rarely left Xiao Longnu's side. To clear major pressure points, sometimes it would take four or five hours during which their hands could not be separated. At the time Guo Jing was injured, Huang Rong spent seven days and seven nights helping him cure the injuries. Compared to Guo Jing's sturdy body, Xiao Longnu's was far more delicate and so her injury was many times more serious.
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That day at the outskirts of the woods, Huang Rong used her "Orchid Brushing Accupoint" skills to defeat Li Mochou. Then she looked everywhere but still couldn't find her baby Guo Xiang. She was filled with anxiety and sorrow. As she came out of the forest, she shouted at Li Mochou, "What kind of tricks did you use? Where did you hide my baby?"
Surprised, Li Mochou said, "Isn't the little girl tucked behind the thorn fence?"
Huang Rong was so worried that she almost broke down in tears. She shook her head and replied, "She's disappeared."
Li Mochou had been fostering Guo Xiang for many days and was quite attached to her. Suddenly hearing that she was missing, her heart skipped a beat. She quickly said, "Must be either Yang Guo or Jinlun Fawang."
Huang Rong then asked, "How do you know?"
Then Li Mochou told her about her fight with Yang Guo and Fawang over the baby outside the walls of Xiangyang. As she talked about the dangers, Huang Rong couldn't keep her indifferent appearance. Seeing Li Mochou's worried expression, Huang Rong was then convinced that she didn't know where Guo Xiang was and so she stretched out her hand to unseal the "Jade Pearl" pressure point [Xuan Ji] on her chest. With Huang Rong's technique, Li Mochou could move round but she wouldn't be able to hurt anyone for a twelve-hour period.
With a forced smile, Li Mochou straightened up her body and brushed away the dirt. She said, "If it was Yang Guo who took her, she wouldn't be harmed. I'm only afraid that Fawang snatched her." Huang Rong asked again, "Why is that?" Li Mochou replied, "Yang Guo was extremely good with the little baby girl. He quickly protected her from harm. That was why I blindly thought she was his daughter." Having realized what she just said, she suddenly shut up for fear that Huang Rong would get angry again.
But really Huang Rong's mind was occupied by another matter. She was thinking about how Yang Guo and Li Mochou battled with Jinlun Fawang to protect Guo Xiang, while she herself and Guo Fu wrongly accused him of abominable crimes, and how Guo Fu had cut off his arm. Deep down in her heart was a grim regret. She blamed herself, "Alas, Guo'er has saved Jing Ge Ge [Brother Jing]. He's saved me. He's saved Fu'er. And this time he's saved Xiang'er... First impressions always stuck in my heart. I thought about his terribly evil father and then concluded that the son had to be like the father. I've never trusted him... Occasionally I treated him nicely and then I'd suspect him of doing something again. Rong'er… Rong'er... You've prided yourself on being intelligent. You've spoken of confidentiality and righteousness. You are really nothing like Jing Ge Ge [Brother Jing]."
Seeing tears brimming in her eyes, Li Mochou thought she was worried about her daughter's safety. So she urged, "Guo Fu Ren [Madame Guo], your daughter is only a month old. She's gone through quite a catastrophe but not even a single hair on her head is damaged. She was born as pretty as a doll [jade snow]. Even a she-devil, who killed people without batting an eye like me, likes her very much. She must have been born with a lucky life... the life that will change misfortune into fortune. And for all that, you can be at peace. Let the two of us go look for her together."
Huang Rong wiped away the tears with her shirt sleeve and thought that what Li Mochou said was quite right. She also thought, "Honesty is the best way. Later on, I'll let people think badly of me but I won't think badly of people." Then she stretched out her hand to unseal Li Mochou's "Jade Pearl" point [Xuan Ji] again and said, "Li Dao Zhang [Sister Li] is willing to go find my daughter with me, I'm very grateful. But if you have an important matter to attend to, I can see you later."
Li Mochou said, "What important matter? The most important thing is to find this little baby. You wait a minute!" Having said that, she rushed to the big hole inside a big tree and untied a rope on a leopard's foot. Then she slapped its behind and said, "Off you go." That leopard let out a low roar and quickly disappeared into the long grass. Puzzled, Huang Rong asked, "What did the leopard do?" With a laugh, Li Mochou said, "That was your daughter's 'wet-nurse'."
Huang Rong smiled faintly and the two people headed back into town. Then they saw Guo Fu standing at the road that led into town. She was waiting impatiently for her mother.
Seeing Huang Rong, Guo Fu jumped up with joy and called out, "Ma [Mother], little sister was..." She cut herself off in mid-sentence when she unexpectedly saw that standing behind her mother was Li Mochou and she couldn't help being frightened. She prepared herself to fight. In past times, she'd heard Wu Di Xiong [The Wu Brothers] say that Li Mochou killed their mother, so in her heart this was the most evil person on earth.
Huang Rong said, "Li Dao Zhang [Sister Li] is helping us search for your little sister. What did you say about your sister just now?"
Guo Fu replied, "Mei Mei [Sister] was kidnapped by Yang Guo. And he also snatched my little red horse. You look at this sword." Having said that, she raised a bent sword to show her mother and said, "He used his empty shirt sleeve to strike it. The sword hit the corner of a wall and it turned out like this."
Huang Rong and Li Mochou asked at the same time, "Using his shirt sleeve?"
Guo Fu replied, "Yes, it was really weird! Who would have thought he'd learned a devil Kung fu."
Huang Rong and Li Mochou looked at each other in amazement. The two of them naturally knew that a person with extremely profound internal energy could definitely turn silk into a stick, or use a soft material to strike a hard object. However, even if such a renowned and talented master could be found, he would still need thirty or forty years of practice to reach that level. At a very young age, Yang Guo surprisingly had reached this high stage. And this was extremely rare. As Huang Rong heard that her daughter was taken by Yang Guo, she felt quite relieved. Li Mochou, on the other hand, thought to herself, "This boy's marvelous Kung Fu must be the result of learning from my master's Jade Heart Manual. Right now I have Guo Fu Ren [Madame Guo] with me. If I help her get her daughter back, she will help me snatch the manual. I'm the first disciple of the sect. Even though Shi Mei [Apprentice Sister] was Master's favorite, she'd already broken the sect's rule. How could I let the manual fall into a man's hand?" And with this thought, she felt herself quite righteous.
Huang Rong had tracked down Yang Guo's direction and said, "Fu'er, you don't have to go back to the Peach Blossom Island anymore. We'll go find Yang Da Ge [Big Brother Yang] together."
Guo Fu was very pleased, and said, "Okay, Okay!" But then when she thought that she would have to see Yang Guo, her face turned completely pale.
Huang Rong's face was grim and she said, "When you see him again; don't ask him if he's forgiven you. You have to sincerely take the blame and apologize."
In her heart, Guo Fu didn't want to submit so she said, "Why do I have to do it? Isn't he the one kidnapping Mei Mei [Sister]?"
Huang Rong simply rephrased Li Mochou's words and said, "If he really had an evil intention, do you think your sister would still live today? Also, if he didn't just hit your sword but rather aimed at your small head, don't you think right now this would be quite a pretty scene?"
Hearing her mother's words, Guo Fu still couldn't help but shiver inside. She secretly thought, "Is that to say he's really shown mercy?" But since she had been spoiled since she was little she still argued, "He's snatched my sister away; naturally he is on his way to the Passionless Valley!"
Huang Rong shook her head and said, "No, he would definitely go back to Mount Zhongnan."
Guo Fu pursed her lips and said, "Ma, you are actually helping him! If he really had a good intention, why wouldn't he bring Mei Mei back to us in Xiangyang? For what reason would he have to take her to Mount Zhongnan?"
Huang Rong sighed and said, "You and Yang Da Ge [Big Brother Yang] grew up together. For all that you still don't understand his character! He's always been arrogant and he's never taken kindly to insults. You cut off his arm. He could have taken your life but he didn't have the heart to. But for this matter, he also wouldn't back down. He took your sister away to make us worry. When time passes and his anger disappears, he'll just bring your sister back to us. Have you understood? You accused him of stealing your little sister so he simply did it to show you that he could!"
Huang Rong returned to the small restaurant that they just visited. She borrowed stationary and penned a short letter. Then she gave the store partner two silver coins for him to deliver the letter to Guo Jing in Xiangyang.
That man said, "Guo Da Sha [Hero Guo] protects our borders and keeps our mind at ease. He really is our people's Buddha. If we little people can help in anyway, we'll not hesitate." He was not willing to take the money. He picked up the letter and happily left. Guo Fu saw that many people revered her father like this; she was very pleased in her heart.
The three people bought mules and set out toward Mount Zhongnan. Guo Fu didn't like Li Mochou and they rarely talked on the way. When she bumped into Li Mochou by chance and couldn't avoid talking, her expression would turn cold. They started traveling in the morning and stopped at night to rest. The journey was smooth. But this afternoon, while the three of them rode in a line, they saw someone speeding her horse towards them.