Free The Book and The Sword by Jin Yong Page A

"You're not hurt, are you? Please come into the manor and I'll have a look at you. We have some excellent medicinal ointments."
    Tong was powerless to refuse. Meng helped him up and led him into an ante-room.
    "Please undo your clothes and let me examine your wounds," Meng said. He felt around Tong's body, testing him. When an enemy's fingers touch fatal spots, a kung fu initiate would be forced to flinch.
    "Heroic Uncle Tong is not afraid to die," Tong thought. "Act the lamb until the end!" Meng pressed the 'Solar Yuedao' points on his temples and toughed other Yuedao points on his chest and armpits, making Tong giggle.
    "Ai-ya! Stop that! I'm very ticklish," he said.
    They were all fatal points but Tong seemed unconcerned. Meng decided he really didn't know any kung fu. "From his accent, he isn't a local," he thought, still suspicious. "Could he be a petty thief, I wonder?"
    Meng could not detain Tong without authority, so he walked him back towards the gate. Tong peered about him as they walked through the manor, trying to discover to where Wen and the others were. Meng decided he must be a scout for a gang of thieves.
    "Be careful, my friend," he said. "Remember where you are."
    Tong looked around in mock awe. "Such a big place! It looks like a great temple. Except there's no Buddha."
    He asked Tong what his business was in the area.
    Meng escorted him over the drawbridge and laughed coldly. "Goodbye friend," he said, clapping Tong heavily on the shoulder. "Come and visit us again sometime."
    The pain from the blow went straight to Tong's marrow. Swearing profusely, he found his horse and galloped back to the Antong Inn in Sandaogou. As he entered the room, he saw Master Zhang, Officer Wu and the agency men together with seven or eight men he didn't know. They were in the midst of a discussion on where Wen Tailai might have escaped to. No one could think of an answer, and their faces were gloomy.
    Tong smugly related how he had followed Wen, naturally omitting the part about his encounter with Meng.
    Zhang was delighted. "Let's go," he said, adding with uncustomary warmth: "Brother Tong, you lead the way."
    The whole group immediately set out for Iron Gall Manor, rubbing their hands in anticipation as they went. Tong boasted extravagantly of how he had used Lightness kung fu, and of the risks he had taken in tracking Wen. "This is an assignment from the Emperor himself, so Uncle Tong went all out against the renegades," he said.
    Officer Wu, who had already employed a bone-setter to help mend his fractured shoulder, hurriedly introduced Tong to the newcomers. Tong started in fright as he heard their names: they were all top fighters employed by the court, famous martial arts specialists, both Manchu and Chinese, who had come specifically to arrest Wen Tailai.

8
    L u Feiqing galloped westwards, braving strong winds which whipped his face. Passing through Black Gold Gorge, he noticed the blood spilled during the previous day's battle had already been washed away by the rain. He covered about twenty miles in one stretch and arrived at a small market fair. Although the sky was growing dark, he was impatient to continue on his way but his horse was exhausted. As he considered what to do, he saw a Muslim at the edge of the fair leading two large, well-fed horses and looking around as if waiting for someone.
    Lu went over and asked if he could buy one of them. The Muslim shook his head. Lu reached into his cloth bundle and took out a large silver ingot, but the Muslim shook his head again. Anxious and impatient, Lu turned the bundle upside down and six or seven more silver ingots fell out: he offered them all. The Muslim waved his hand to indicate the horse was definitely not for sale, and Lu dejectedly began to put the ingots back into his bundle. As he did so, the Muslim glimpsed a dart amongst the ingots, which he picked up and examined closely. It was the dart Huo Qingtong had thrown at Lu after he followed her to the Muslim