DEMI GODS AND SEMI DEVILS Book 2 of 5 (Shrouding Screen In Suzhou) by Jin Yong

Sadness Remained At Yanmen, With No Words Left Part 2

He thought: 'A'Zhu has fallen into the hands of them. If she's dead, then she's already dead. If she's still alive, there's also no need for me to take care of her again. The most important and urgent thing at the moment is finding out what kind of man I am. Dad, mom and master passed away in 1 day so the mystery of my origin has become harder to clear up. I must go to the outside of Yanmen Pass to see the writing left behind on that stone wall.'

After calculating, he went northwest. When arriving in a town, the 1st thing he did was drinking 20 bowls of wine. In only 3 days, the remaining several taels of silver fragments were all changed into good wine, which he drank until nothing left.

At that time, Great Song was ruling the Central Plains. It divided the country into 15 regions. The main capital was Daliang; Dongjing (the eastern capital) was Kaifeng prefecture; Xijing (the western capital) was Luoyang in Henan prefecture; Nanjing (the southern capital) was Songzhou; Daming was Beijing (the northern capital, and NOT today's Beijing); in total, there were 4 regional capitals. For the moment, Qiao Feng was in Ruzhou in the Xijing region. That day, when he got to Liang County, his silver had been used up; hence he snuck in the county's office and stole several hundred taels of silver from the public treasury during the night. On the way he ate and drank a lot; chickens, ducks, fish, sorghum, and good wine all were paid by government officials of Great Song. One day, he arrived in Daizhou in the Hedong region.

Yanmen Pass was located 30 li (0.5 km) to the north of Daizhou on the rugged Yanmen path. Previously, when carrying out heroic deeds in jianghu, Qiao Feng had also been to here. But at that time, due to having important matters, he had gone past it without paying attention. When he arrived in Daizhou, it was already early 11 a.m. He had a quick meal and drank around 10 bowls of wine in the city then went out of it and headed north.

His steps were fast therefore he traveled these 30 li in less than 1 hour. When he had climbed up the mountain, he saw that both the eastern cliff and the western cliff were high and steep; the path between them was winding and rugged. This was really a very dangerous place. He thought: 'Wild geese travel south and return north can't fly over the high mountains, all of them gotta go between the 2 peaks, so this place is called Yanmen (Wild Geese's Gate). Today I came here from the south, if the writing on the stone wall states clearly that I'm really a Khitan then after I go out of Yanmen Pass this time, I'll forever become a man in the North of the pass and no longer enter the pass again. I'll be inferior to the wild geese that, once every year, go to the south from the north and return.' Thinking to here, he could not help but feel grieved.

Yanmen Pass was an important military post of Great Song's in the north. There were more than 40 passes in Shanxi, and Yanmen was the most imposing and secure one. Beyond several tens of li (0.5 km) outside the pass was the Liao Empire. Because there was always a large number of soldiers defending below the pass, Qiao Feng thought if he went out through it, he would unavoidably be interrogated and examined by the guarding officers and soldiers. Therefore he made a detour via the high ridge in the west of the pass.

After reaching the highest peak, he scanned widely around but saw nothing other than mountains and mountains, the towering Mt Wutai in the east, the Ningwu Mountain range in the west, Mt Zhengyang and Mt Shigu standing upright in the south, and in the north being Mt Shuozhou and Mt Mayi. With seemingly boundless long slopes and steep mountain sides combined with vast lonely cold forests, the scene was very gloomy. Qiao Feng remembered that while going past Yanmen Pass that year he had heard his comrades say that General Li Mu of the State of Zhao during the Warring States Period and General Zhi Du of the Han Dynasty both had garrisoned Yanmen to defend against Xiongnu invasions. If he himself was really Xiongnu and a Khitan descendant, then for the last thousands of years, the people who had been invading China all were his ancestors.

He looked at the terrain in the north and thought: 'That day when people such as Chief Wang and Zhao Qiansun ambushed the Khitan warriors outside Yanmen Pass, they must have chosen the most advantageous mountain slope within more than 10 li of here. No place has better terrain than the mountain slope in the corner to the northwest of here does. Ten to one they set up the ambush there.'

He quickly ran down the mountain and went to that mountain slope. Suddenly he felt a burst of causeless sorrow. He only saw that there was a large piece of rock on that mountain slope. Zhiguang dashi had said the extraordinary people of the Central Plains had hid behind a large rock and shot poisonous missiles out. It seemed it was this large piece of rock.

There was a deep ravine several steps outside the mountain path. Clouds and mists enveloped the ravine, making it impossible for anyone to see the bottom. Qiao Feng thought: 'If Zhiguang dashi's words are true, then after my mother was killed by them, my father jumped into the ravine to commit suicide from here. After jumping into the mouth of the ravine, he couldn't bear to make me die with him so he tossed me up onto the body of Chief Wang's. He... what did he write on the stone wall?'

Qiao Feng turned around and looked at the cliff on the right-hand side, only seeing that it was naturally flat and glossy, but right in the middle of the big stone wall, there were full of cuts caused by axes and chisels. Obviously, someone had deliberately scraped away the writing that had been left behind.

Qiao Feng stood in a trance in front of the stone wall then suddenly he could not refrain from getting furious. He only wanted to brandish a saber and raise his palms to massacre, but he suddenly remembered 1 matter: 'When I left the Beggar Society, I broke Shan Zheng's steel saber and vowed that it didn't matter if I was a Han or a Khitan, I definitely wouldn't kill any Han person. But at Juxian Manor, how many people did I kill in one go? Yet in this moment I wanted to kill again, wouldn't this seriously violate the vow? Alas, when things already became like that, if I hadn't offended other people, they would offend me. If I had passively waited for death and let other people cut and kill me, how could it be the action of a true man?'

He had run thousands of li to here because he wanted to find out about his own origin but from beginning to end he had not achieved the slightest result. Getting more and more irascible, he shouted loudly: 'I'm not a Han, I'm not a Han! I'm a Khitan barbarian, I'm a Khitan barbarian!' He then raised his palms and repeatedly hit the stone wall. He only heard the valley resounding with his shouts, each of which echoed back: '...not a Han, not a Han! ...Khitan barbarian, Khitan barbarian!'

Stone bits from the stone wall scattered all around. The grief and fury in Qiao Feng's heart could not be expressed, he kept striking out with one palm attack after another, it seemed he wanted to vent all kinds of grievances he had suffered for the past more than 1 month on the stone wall. Afterward, his palms bled, the marks of his gory fingers were printed on the stone wall one by one, but he kept on hitting.

While he was hitting, suddenly he heard the pleasing clear voice of a girl from behind: 'Great master Qiao, if you kept hitting, this mountain peak would be knocked down by you.'

Startled, Qiao Feng turned his head around and saw a young girl standing under a flower tree beside the mountain slope, leaning against it. The girl was wearing a reddish gown and was smiling. She was no one other than A'Zhu.