The Return of the Condor Heroes

Chapter 19 – The underground old lady, Part 4

Lu E saw that he was concerned for her and couldn’t bear to refuse, so she opened her mouth.

This Spirit Fungus had been grown for hundreds of years; not long after the two ate it, they felt an extremely comfortable warmth throughout their bodies, a boost in their energy and they felt sharper.

Lu E suddenly said, “Father must have known that Zhou Botong had stolen the Passionless Pill. He was lying to Miss Long when he said he was going to cure you; and when he was forcing me to hand over the Passionless Pill, he was acting then as well.”

Yang Guo had thought about this awhile ago but he didn’t want to make her sadder so he kept quiet about it. When he heard her realizing this on her own he said, “When your father let’s you out, you need to be extremely careful; the best thing for you to do is leave the valley as quickly as possible.”

Lu E sighed, “You don’t know my father; since he’s pushed me down here into this crocodile pit he will never change his mind and rescue me. He was already worried about me; after this event, how can he allow me to live? Brother Yang, will you let me die with you?”

Yang Guo was about to say a few words to comfort her when he suddenly heard another crocodile climbing onto the rock face, its front foot stepping onto sheepskin from the package. Yang Guo had a thought, “That sheepskin looked kind of strange.” He picked up the dagger and stabbed it between the eyes of the crocodile; a ‘pu’ sound was heard as it went straight through. The dagger that he was holding was actually extremely sharp and was capable of chopping gold and cutting jade. The crocodile struggled a little bit before falling back into the pool on its back, dead. Yang Guo said with delight, “Now that we’ve got this dagger, those crocodiles in the pool have run out of luck.”

He picked up the sheepskin with his left hand and brought the dagger over, using the faint light from the pearl to carefully study it. The sheepskin was coarse on one side and there was nothing odd about it; but turning it over revealed drawings of many buildings, rooms, rocks and the like.

Yang Guo looked at it for a while but didn’t find anything strange about it, he said, “This sheepskin is of no use to us.”

Lu E had been looking over his shoulder all along and suddenly said, “That’s a map of our Narcissus Manor of the Passionless Valley. Look, that’s the brook that led you here, that’s the main hall, that’s the sword room, that’s the fungi room and that’s the pill room…” She pointed to the map as she said this.

Yang Guo suddenly called out and said, “Look, look.” He pointed to a drawing of water underneath the pill room.

Lu E said, “That’s the crocodile pool. Ah… there’s a passageway here.”

The two could see that there was a passageway drawn next to the crocodile pool and their spirits rose. Yang Guo matched the map to the crocodile pool and said, “If the map’s right, after passing through the passageway there’ll definitely be an exit. But…”

Lu E interrupted, “But what’s strange is that the passageway is going downwards; this crocodile pool is already deep underground; where will the passageway lead if it keeps on going further down?” The passageway on the map finished at the edge of the sheepskin, they didn’t know where it leads.

Yang Guo said, “Has your father or senior apprentice brother ever mentioned this crocodile pool before?”

Lu E shook her head and said, “I only learned today that there were so many terrifying things hidden underneath the pill room; even senior apprentice brother may not know about it. But… but to keep all these crocodiles alive will require regular feeding, why does father…” She trembled all over as she thought about how evil her father was.

Yang Guo took a look around and noticed a dark circular shape behind the rock face; it appeared to be the entrance to a tunnel but it was too faraway. He wasn’t really sure; he thought, “Even if that is the passageway, I don’t know what other kinds of vicious creatures might be lurking around in there. If we come across them it might be even more dangerous for us than the situation we are in now. Even so, we can’t sit here and wait for death; we’re going to die anyway, so we might as well take the risk in trying to find a way out. All I want is for Miss Gongsun to get out of this danger and pass the antidote on to Gu Gu.” So he passed the dagger into the hands of Lu E and said, “I’ll go take a look; be careful of the crocodiles.” His right foot touched the rock face and he flew away into the pool. Lu E called out in alarm. Yang Guo’s right foot landed on the stomach of the dead crocodile and used it to leap forward; he then landed on the back of a crocodile with his left foot. The crocodile sank into the water while Yang Guo leapt to the other shore; he pressed his body against the rock and searched the surface with his hand. He called out, “There’s a large cave over here!”

Gongsun Lu E’s lightness kung fu was not anywhere as good as his; she didn’t dare to leap over to the cave like he did. Yang Guo thought that if he went back to carry her on his back, their weight will increase. Not only will their leaping be inconvenienced, they will not be able to use the crocodiles as supports. But since it had come to this he had to risk it and called out, “Miss Gongsun, soak your gown and throw it over to me.”

Lu E did not know what he was going to do but did as she was told; she took off her gown and gave it a quick soak in the pool then hurriedly pulled it back up. She made two knots in the gown, forming a ball; she called out, “Its coming!” She circulated her internal energy and shot it over.

Yang Guo caught it and untied the gown. He found a place to secure his footing and used his left hand to grab tightly onto a piece of jutting rock. His right hand swung the wet gown and he said, “Listen carefully.”

He swung the wet gown forward and waved it about, a ‘pai’ sound was heard as he struck the mouth of the cave. He struck it three times in a row and asked, “Can you tell where the cave is?”

Lu E had listened and could tell where it was, she said, “Yes.”

Yang Guo said, “Jump forward and grab the gown, I’ll pull you over.”

Lu E opened her eyes wide and tried to see but all she saw was darkness; she was really frightened and said, “I… I can’t…”

Yang Guo said, “There’s no need to be scared. If you miss the gown and fall into the pool, I’ll dive in immediately to save you. We were afraid of the crocodiles when we first came here; but now we’ve got this dagger which can slice metal like butter, what have we got to fear?”