Huang Rong was on the point of cutting up the chicken when they heard a voice behind them:
"A third portion, I will take the tail portion!"
The two youngsters started: how had somebody been able to approach them without them realizing his being there? They turned and beheld a beggar, old, but forceful. The man had a rectangular face, a goatee beard, and vigorous but rather massive limbs. His clothes, frayed on all sides, were however very clean. He held with one hand a green cane, made from translucent bamboo like jade, and carried on his back a large red gourd. He looked so greedy and impatient, one had the impression that if his portion were not given, he was going to seize some by force! Before the two young people had time to answer, he had already sat down in front of them, without further ado. He took his water-bottle and opened it, and a heady alcoholic perfume spread itself in the air. He gluttonously swallowed several mouthfuls before tightening the water-bottle.
To Guo Jing:
" A drink, little urchin," said he, "with you!"
Guo Jing found the man rather impolite, but sensed distinctly that he was no ordinary individual, so he did not dare to show disrespect:
" No, thank you," he said courteously, " I do not drink alcohol, but you doing so causes me no inconvenience."
" And you, little girl," asked the beggar of Huang Rong, " Do you drink?"
Huang Rong shook her head. Suddenly, she saw that the hand which held the water-gourd had only four fingers: the index had been severed at the root. She started and thought of the conversation between the Taoists and the Odd Ones, whom she had overheard behind the window of the inn the other day, concerning the Divine Beggar with the nine fingers. "Would this be a stroke of luck," she wondered, " that we fall thus, by chance, on that Elder one? Let us try to probe him a little... " The eyes of the beggar were fixed on the chicken held in his hand and he salivated with greediness. She could not stop secretly laughing.
He then cut out the bird into two and the tail portion was tended to him. Captivated, the beggar seized some and took a full bite. While devouring it, he did not cease praising:
" Delicious! Delicious! Even I, who am the ancestor of all the beggars, I could not improvise such a delicious "Beggar's Chicken"!"
Huang Rong traced a smile and tended the other piece to him.
" But no," protested the beggar, " you have not eaten yet, you all!"
This attempt at manners was in vain, purely for form's sake, as that did not prevent him from seizing what was offered to him: in a flash, there remained nothing any more but bones!
He tapped his belly then and exclaimed:
" Ah, my belly! My belly! Hasn't it been a long time that you have been starved of such a good chicken?"
Huang Rong burst out laughing:
" By the greatest good chance, I prepared a "Beggar's Chicken" and here it has entered the majestic belly of the ancestor of the beggars! It's a true honor!"
The beggar burst out laughing:
"Little girl, you are quite brave!"
He withdrew from his pocket several gilded projectiles:
" Yesterday," he explained, " I saw several individuals brawling... The missiles which one of them launched shone like gold. I was the one who benefited from it, I took some of them. In fact, inside, it is cheap metal, but outside, to look good, it is genuine gold. Hold, little urchin, take them and have fun. Where necessary, you can draw some funds from them."
Guo Jing shook his head:
"We regard you as a friend, and when one invites a friend to eat, one does not accept gifts in payment!"
In doing so he honored the rules of hospitality of the Mongols.
The beggar, feeling thwarted, scraped his head:
" Then, I am also embarrassed! I have no trouble begging for scraps from people, but today, you provided me such a good chicken! Such a benefit, that I cannot return it, that..."
"Why speak about benefit and repayment, for such a small chicken?" Guo Jing said. " And, to be honest, we stole this chicken too..."
" We took this chicken in passing," confirmed Huang Rong, you ate it while you passed here, very well done..."
The beggar still burst of laughing:
"You two," said he, " funny enough, I like you well. Good, if you have a wish to formulate, tell it to me."
Guo Jing, understanding that he proposed to help them, which again infringed the rules of hospitality, shook his head again. But Huang Rong intervened:
" In fact, this "Beggar's Chicken" is really not a great thing, I have other small favourite dishes, that I would readily make for you to taste. Why won't you come with us?"
" Splendid!" exclaimed the beggar, enchanted. "Splendid!"
" What is your honorable name?" asked Guo Jing.
" My name is Hong, the beggar. And as I am the seventh in my fraternity, you can call me "Qi Gong" ("The Seventh Elder")."
"It is indeed him!" Huang Rong said. " The Divine Beggar with the nine fingers! But it seems to be younger than the Taoist Master Qiu, how could he be a contemporary of the master of the Quanzhen Seven? Hmm...actually, my dad himself isn't old, but yet he is a peer of Qi Gong! That must be explained by the incompetence of these seven old Taoists, who wasted their time! " She always held some resentment against Qiu Chuji for his having wanted to force Guo Jing to marry Mu Nianci.
They went towards the South and arrived in a small town, where they took a room in an inn.
" I'll go to the market," said Huang Rong. "You men, it's better for you to rest a little."
" She...isn't she your little wife? asked Qi Gong of Guo Jing while watching her depart with a smile.
The young man reddened, not daring to agree nor to disagree. Qi Gong burst of laughing, and started to drowse on a chair. More than one and a half hours later, Huang Rong returned finally and settled in the kitchen. Guo Jing wanted to help her but the girl closed the door while laughing. Another half an hour passed. Qi Gong yawned, stretched, and inhaled deeply:
" That smells jolly good," he said. " But what could that be, well? It's odd..."
He stretched his neck, trying to look through the door of the kitchen. Looking at him, both impatient and greedy, Guo Jing could not stop himself from secretly laughing. Delicate aromas emerged from the kitchen, but Huang Rong remained always invisible.
Qi Gong did not hold still any more, he scratched his head, rubbed his cheeks, rose, sat down, stood up, as if he were on burning coals.
" I am like that," he confided to Guo Jing, " I have this unpleasant vice of greediness: when I think of eating, I forget everything else!
He tightened his right hand and showed its four fingers:
The old man said: "The index finger moves because of greediness." It was completely true! Each time I see or feel a dish that is original or exquisite, the index of my right hand cannot prevent itself from quivering. Once, because of my greediness, I ruined an extremely important business. Then, I was so much in anger against myself that, with a blow of a knife, I sliced off my index finger!"
Guo Jing started, but Qi Gong sighed:
" But I cut off my finger in vain, because my gluttony remained.."
At this time, Huang Rong entered, smiling, carrying a large wooden plate, which she poised on the table. On the plate, were three bowls of white rice, a cup of wine and two large bowls containing the principal dishes. Guo Jing felt a delicious aroma, extremely appetizing, escaping: in one of the large bowls were laid out the beef sticks roasts which, apart from their odour, did not seem exceptional The other contained a clear soup the colour of jade, in which floated many red cherries and ten pink petals; on the bottom lay young fresh bamboo shoots. The association of the three colours, red, white and green, formed a multi-coloured whole that was extremely pleasant to the eye. The sense of smell was also engaged because the soup emitted a delicate scent of lotus.
Huang Rong poured wine in the cup which she placed in front of Qi Gong while smiling:
" Qi Gong, taste my dishes and tell me what you think of them!"
Hong didn't need to be told twice: without even drinking the wine, he brandished his chopsticks and seized two meat sticks that he engulfed voraciously. An exquisite taste filled his mouth: this was not merely beef! Whenever he chewed, different sensations struck him; sometimes an oily and juicy flavour, sometimes a succulent freshness. Scents succeeded themselves in complex and unpredictable variations, like the blows of a martial arts expert. Startled and delighted, Qi Gong examined the sticks more closely, and saw that each of them was formed by four small different intertwined sticks. He shut his eyes to savour the taste better:
" Hmm," he said, " there is mutton thigh on one stick, another of pig ears of milk, a third one of calf kidney, and the last one...the last one..."
" If you guess," said Huang Rong with a grin, "you're really fantastic..."
She had barely finished her sentence before Qi Gong cried:
" Deer thigh mixed with rabbit!"
" Bravo!" applauded the girl. " Well guessed! "
Guo Jing was completely stunned: " These meat sticks needed so much work!" he said to himself. " And Qi Gong is truly astonishing to have known to distinguish the five different meats! »
" There are only five meat types," Qi Gong went on, " but the blend of pork and mutton gives a certain taste, the deer with beef another... how many variations there is in all, that, I wouldn't like to say..."
" If one does not count the order of the variations," said Huang Rong with a smile, " there are some twenty-five, corresponding to the five times five petals of the plum flower. As the meat stick resembles a flute, then this dish has a name. It is called "Plum flowers fall to the jade flute's song" The « that » in the question means that there is a placement sort to the test. Qi Gong, you passed the test, you are the champion of all the gourmets!"
" Bravo!" the beggar cried to himself.
No one knew whether he applauded the name of the dish or his own skilfulness in discerning the tastes. Then he placed two cherries in a spoon and says while laughing:
" This bowl of lotus-leaf soup, with those bamboo sprouts and cherries, is so pretty to look at, one regrets almost to have to eat it!"
He swallowed and cried: « Ah! », Then he said to himself, astonished: « Eh? ». He took two more and exclaimed again: « Ah! » The freshness of the leaf of lotus, the taste of the bamboo sprouts, sweetness of the cherries, all that, obviously, leaps to the tastebuds, but what's more, the cherries, after having been pitted, had been stuck something..."
" In the cherries," says Qi Gong while hesitating, " what's there?"
He closed his eyes again, trying to recognise the taste:
" This is lark's meat!" he mumbled to himself. " No...if this is not partridge, this is turtledove! Yes, that's it, this is turtledove!"
He opened his eyes, saw that Huang Rong raised her thumb and was all to trust to have found:
" So what's the complex name of this soup with lotus leaves, bamboo sprouts, cherries and turtledove?"
" Elder," said Huang Rong, " you haven't mentioned one more ingredient."
" Ah yes?" Hong said, astonished.
He regarded the soup again:
" Yes," he agreed, " there are these flower petals..."
" Exactly!" confirmed Huang Rong. " The name of this soup, can you imagine it from these five ingredients?"
" If this a riddle game, I declare I've lost. Tell me quickly..."
" I'll give you a clue," said Huang Rong, it suffices you to think about the Book of the Odes!"
" Ah no!" Qi Gong protested, " I know nothing in the books!"
" The flower hints at a beauty's complexion," explained Huang Rong, the cherries to her small mouth, isn't that right?"
" Ah, this is therefore the «Beauty's Soup»?"
" No, said Huang Rong while shaking the head, the bamboo is a symbol of modesty, it therefore characterises a gentleman, just as the lotus is the most eminent of the flowers. Thus, bamboo and lotus relate to a gentleman."
" Oh," said Qi Gong, " this is therefore the «Gentleman and Beauty's Soup »?"
" What about the turtledove?" said Huang Rong. Indeed, all these elements meet again in the first poem of the Book of the Odes, that finishes thus: "The gentleman is in good company". Thus, this soup is called the "Soup of Good Company"!"
Qi Gong burst out laughing:
" Since there is such a complex and strange soup, it's good that it has such a complex and strange name. Very well! Very well! You're a complex and strange little one yourself, I would like to know which complex and strange father that sired you...In any case, this soup is truly exquisite, much better tasting than the soup with cherries that I ate, approximately ten years ago, in the kitchen of the Imperial Palace."
" You have a pass to the imperial kitchen?" asked Huang Rong. " Tell me, and see if I'll try to prepare something that will please you just as well."
Qi Gong devoured literally, and didn't have time to reply. He halted himself when he had reached the bottom of the bowls:
" In the imperial kitchen," he explained, " there are lots of good things of course, but nothing is worth the two dishes that here... Ah, if, there is well a «Five-flavoured slices of Mandarin duck » that was delicious, but I don't know how it was prepared."
" And it was the emperor that invited you?" asked Guo Jing.
" Absolutely," said Qi Gong while laughing, " the emperor treated me, but he didn't know that! I lived hidden on a big beam of the imperial kitchen for three months, while tasting each of the dishes intended for the emperor. If I found it to my taste, I kept it for me, otherwise, I left it to him! The cooks believed that there were ghosts!"
" This person really is excessively greedy, " thought Guo Jing and Huang Rong to themselves, " but he is also insanely audacious!"
" Little chap," said Qi Gong while laughing, your little girlfriend is the best cook in the world, your happiness is assured! Goodness! Why didn't I meet such a woman when I was young?"
He seemed sincerely sorry.
Huang Rong, with a hint of a smile, prepared the remainder for Guo Jing and for her. One bowl of rice was more than enough for her, while the young man put away four big bowls. As for the exquisite placement, it did not seem to make a difference to him. Qi Gong shook his head while sighing:
" Like a bull chewing on peonies! What a shame! What a shame!"
Huang Rong put a hand in front of her mouth to prevent herself from laughing.
"Bulls... do they like peonies?" Guo Jing asked himself. " There are many bulls in Mongolia, but no peonies, then indeed I have never seen bulls eating peonies. But why does he keep saying 'What a shame'?"
Qi Gong patted his stomach and says:
" Good, you are both practitioners of the martial arts, I clearly saw that right away. The little one, that went to such trouble to prepare such exquisite dishes for me, certainly has bad intentions, such as, for instance, to persuade me to give you some instruction. Is that not correct? Good, I recognise that, after having so well eaten, I would have scruples to leave me without giving something in return. Come, come with me!" He took up his gourd, his bamboo cane, and went out.
Guo Jing and Huang Rong followed until they reached outside of town.
" What would you want to learn?" Qi Gong demanded of Guo Jing.
" Martial arts are so varied," said the young man to himself, "if I want to learn something, how is he sure that he'll be able to teach it to me?"
While he reflected, Huang Rong had begun to speak:
" Qi Gong, his gongfu is inferior to mine, and so he gets angry often, because he's always trying to beat me."
" When do I get angry?" protested Guo Jing.
Huang Rong glanced at him, telling him to be quiet.
" For my part," said Qi Gong while laughing, "I have the impression that all his movements are firm and assured, this that means that it has a good basis of neigong. How would he be inferior to you? Good, why don't you match skills a little?"
Huang Rong moved aside some steps and cried:
" My Jing, come on!"
Guo Jing hesitated again.
" If you don't show what you're capable of," said Huang Rong, " how do you expect this Elder to correct you? On guard!"
She jumps on him and attacked with a palm stroke, Guo Jing blocked the blow, but she already had changed tactics, and attacked with a kick.
" Well done, little one!" Qi Gong said. "Pretty blow!"
" Fight seriously," advised Huang Rong in a low voice.
Guo Jing itself concentrated and executed conscientiously the powerful " Southern Mountain Palm" taught by Nan Xiren. Huang Rong defended herself nimbly, jumping upwards and downwards. Then suddenly, she modified his technique and executed the « Palm of the divine sword falling the hero », created by his father. This palm technique resembled its name, « divine sword », for it was adapted from a sword technique. She shook her arms in all direction, her opponent was encircled by the palm shadows, incapable to determine if they were feigned or real. It was as though if the wind had got up in the wood of fishings, dropping a thousand flowers: the beauty of the gestures resided in their lightness and their aerial grace, so well that Huang Rong resembled a butterfly taking flight. As her neigong lacked again power, its blows were not as violent and also as terrifying as they should have been. It was of little importance, for Guo Jing, stunned by the multiplicity of the shadows in front of his eyes, had lost all means to resist: in some seconds, he received four palm blows, on the two shoulders, on the chest and on the back, but he was not injured, since Huang Rong had not struck with force. She stepped back with a smile.
" Well done, Rong-er!" Guo Jing exclaimed in genuine admiration. " What a beautiful palm demonstration!"
" Your father is so powerful," said Hong in an icy voice. " Why do you want me to give lessons to this simple-minded one?"
Huang Rong was startled. " According to Father," she said to herself, "since he created this « Palm of the divine sword falling the hero », he not some again never is served himself, how the Venerable Seventh recognised it? »
" Qi Gong," she demanded, "you know my father?"
" Indeed, he is the « Eastern Heretic», and I, «The Northern Beggar », don't you think that we lacked occasions to match skills?"
" He matched blows with Father," Huang Rong said to herself, " and managed to survive, that's really astonishing. Now I understand how the « Northern Beggar » can be ranked alongside the « Eastern Heretic»!"
" And how did recognise you me?" she demanded again.
" Just look at yourself in a mirror!" replied Hong. " Your nose and your eyes, are they not even as those of your father? At first, I did not think about that, I felt only that your face appeared familiar to me, but next your demonstration unveiled the jar to the roses! You believe that this old beggar does not recognise the gongfu of the Peach Blossom Isle? Even if I again never had not seen this Palm, I doubted myself well that alone a crafty fellow as your dad would have been able to invent it. Hehe...and the names of your two dishes, what were they? "Plum flowers fall at the Jade Flute's song", and the « Soup of Good Company", it was doubtless your dad that invented them?"
" You really can read minds," said Huang Rong while laughing. " Then, according to you, my dad is very strong, isn't that right?
" Of course he is powerful," said Qi Gong coldly, " but he is not the most powerful in all the world!"
" Then, surely you're the most powerful in this world?" Huang Rong exclaimed while applauding.
"Not necessarily," Qi Gong said. " Twenty years ago, we met all five of us, Eastern Heretic, Western Venom, Southern Emperor, Northern Beggar and Central Divine, at the summit of Huashan (Mount Hua), to match ourselves. The confrontation lasted seven days and seven nights. Finally, Central Divine revealed himself to be the most powerful, and we all gladly recognized it."
" Who then is this Central Divine?" asked Huang Rong.
" Your father never told you?"
" No. Father said that, in the martial arts world, there are more bad things than good, and that there was no point for girls of good family to hear to speak, then it about it speaks me. And then after, he scolded me very strongly, he didn't love me anymore, so then I ran away. And he doesn't want anything to do with me..."
Her eyes fell, her face sad.
" Ah, that old monster!" Qi Gong swore. " What ...!"
" I won't allow you to insult my father!" Huang Rong exclaimed.
" What a pity that I was always too poor!" exclaimed Qi Gong, while laughing. " No one ever wanted to marry me! Otherwise, I would have a kind girl like you, and never would I have left you..."
" Indeed!" said Huang Rong while bursting out laughing. " If I left, what would you do to eat?"
" Fair enough!" Qi Gong agreed with a sigh. " Well, to answer your question, the Central Divine is Wang Chongyang, master of the Quanzhen Sect. But, after his death, it's difficult to say who's the world's most powerful."
" The Quanzhen Sect?" Huang Rong said. " There is a fellow called Qiu, another called Wang, and yet another named Ma. This are all of the Taoist obtuse one, but I find their gongfu rather pathetic: they fought with people, and in two times three movements did to spread themselves!"
" Ah yes? They were doubtless disciples of Wang Chongyang. It seems that, among his seven disciples, Qiu Chuji is the most powerful... But, it is certain than they are not even close to their martial uncle, Zhou Botong."
Upon hearing this name, Huang Rong was startled; she was about to say something then stopped herself.
Guo Jing, who was himself just satisfied to listen their conversation, interrupted:
" It's true, Master Ma said that they had a martial uncle, but he did not mention the name of this Taoist master."