The Return of the Condor Heroes

Chapter 10 – The young hero, Part 14

The old beggar said, “If you haven’t got one, you haven’t got one, what need is there for crying? Do you know the Five Clowns of the Tibetan Border?”

Yang Guo said, “I don’t know them.”

The old beggar said, “I saw you alone in the dark and thought that you were the friend of the Five Clowns of the Tibetan Border, since you aren’t then that’s good.”

This person was the “Nine-Fingered Wondrous Beggar”, Hong Qigong. After he passed on the position of the Chief of the Beggar Clan to Huang Rong, he traveled alone, savoring the world’s finest foods. The weather in Guangdong was pleasant and the amount of exquisite foods endless. Afterwards he went to Lingnan and he had all the food he wanted; for the last ten years he had not returned to the central plains.

In the lands of Guangdong, poisonous snakes were used in soups, tough cats were used in stews, fishes were like mice, the prawns were like dragons, fat snails were fried, dragon lice were steamed, the roast piglets had crisp skin and the flesh of simmered fruit was red. Hong Qigong was in heaven, his pleasure boundless. Whenever he saw injustice, he would secretly help; he killed evil doers and punished traitors with his abilities. No one knew where he was or where he went. Sometimes he would listen in on some Beggar Clan members talking; he knew that under the orders of Huang Rong and Lu Youjiao, the Beggar Clan was calm. The internal fight between the ‘dirty’ clothed and ‘clean’ clothed factions was subsiding; so had the outside force of the Jin and the Iron Palm Clan. He had no worries; everyday he would just open his mouth, chew and swallow.

This year, the second clown of the Five Clowns of the Tibetan Border killed some innocents in cold blood, killing numerous people. Hong Qigong wanted to take revenge; he was going to kill that clown, but thought killing one person is easy, finding the other four would be hard. So he secretly followed the second clown, waiting for him to meet up with the other four and then he would kill them all at once. But he didn’t predict that he would have to follow him north for thousands of li, eventually winding up at Mount Hua. Right now, four clowns were present, only the first one had yet to arrive. In the middle of the night, Hong Qigong bumped into Yang Guo in the snow.

Hong Qigong said, “Let’s stop chatting, I can see you are hungry, let’s cure our hunger first and then we’ll talk some more.” He cleared the snow, found some firewood and made a fire. Yang Guo helped him pick up some firewood and said, “What are you going to cook?”

Hong Qigong said, “Centipedes!”

Yang Guo knew he was joking and he gave a chuckle and didn’t ask again.

Hong Qigong laughed and said, “I’ve chased the Five Tibetan Border Clowns from Lingnan to Mount Hua, if I don’t have something good to eat, how can I say I’m sorry to this?” He patted his stomach. Yang Guo saw that his bones and muscles were distinguished; only his stomach was a bit paunchy.

Hong Qigong continued, “Mount Hua is the world’s most cold and shady place; centipedes that are born here are soft and tender. Guangdong is a warm place, living things grow quickly, the centipedes there have tough and coarse flesh.

Yang Guo heard that he was serious; it seems that he wasn’t joking, Yang Guo was confused.

Hong Qigong surrounded the fire with four stones, he took a pan from his back and placed it on the stones, he took two lumps of snow and placed them in the pan and said, “Follow me to catch some centipedes.”

After some ups and downs, they came across a twenty foot tall cliff. Yang Guo saw the cliff was extremely steep and didn’t dare to leap up.

Hong Qigong called out, “Useless boy, come up quickly!”

Yang Guo hated people who looked down on him, when he heard this he clenched his teeth, his spirit rose and thought, “What’s there to be scared of? If I fall to my death then so be it.” His courage grew and there was more intent in his lightness kung fu when he used it. He followed close to Hong Qigong, in an extremely dangerous and slippery place; he actually managed to pull himself up.

In a short while, the pair climbed up to a peak where there were traces of human activity. Hong Qigong saw that he possessed much courage and lightness kung fu and was very pleased. With his experience he couldn’t tell the boy’s martial arts origins, he wanted to ask but remembered about his food so he went over to a rock and dug the soil with his hands. Not long after a dead chicken was revealed.

Yang Guo was curious and asked, “Hey, how come there’s a chicken here.” He immediately understood and said, “Ah, Senior must have buried it here.”

Hong Qigong gave a chuckle and picked up the chicken. Yang Guo could see clearly in the reflection of the snow; he saw over a hundred centipedes, each about seven or eight inches long, biting into the chicken. The centipedes were large, had red and black stripes and were wiggling about. He had wandered around the world of Jianghu since he was young, he wasn’t afraid of poison but when he suddenly saw the large centipedes he couldn’t refrain from being afraid.

Hong Qigong was pleased with himself and said, “Centipedes and chickens are of an opposite nature; I buried this chicken yesterday and indeed it has lured centipedes from all over.” He took out a bundle of cloth and wrapped it around the chicken and centipedes, he descended the peak delightedly.

Yang Guo followed behind wondering, “Could it be that you can actually eat centipedes? But judging from his actions, it doesn’t seem like he’s trying to scare me.”

The lumps of snow in the pan had now turned to boiling water; Hong Qigong opened his bundle and picked up the centipedes by the tail, and threw them into the pan. The centipedes struggled for a second or two but were soon boiled to death.

Hong Qigong said, “Before it dies, the centipede excretes all of its poison, the poison in that pan is incomparable.” Yang Guo threw the pan of poisonous water down the valley. Hong Qigong took out a small knife and chopped off the heads and tails of the centipedes. He took the shell off to reveal the flesh; it was white as snow and was like a large shrimp, quite an attractive sight.

Yang Guo thought, “Using this method, I’m afraid that you really can eat them.”