Kung-fu Heroes of Destiny

Chapter 1

In a courtyard of the Wudang monastery, high among the misty clouds, grew an ancient plum tree. The monks loved it for its great age and majesty, even though it no longer produced fruit and had not bloomed in living memory. They built a garden around it, with high white walls and a round door painted red, guarded by golden lions, and they called it Ying Xiong Shu De Ming Yun – the Hero Tree of Destiny – though they had forgotten why.

During the reign of the emperor Ningzong of the Southern Song Dynasty, the master of the Plum Tree Garden was a wise monk named Wu. Master Wu visited the garden every morning to oversee the work of the junior monks in his charge. They cared for the garden on a daily basis, sweeping leaves, polishing statuary, cleaning the meditation chambers that surrounded the courtyard, and tending to the other trees, herbs and plants that grew there. Master Wu taught herbalism, and he was the most skilled healer in the monastery.

One spring morning, Master Wu entered the garden quite early, as was his habit, bowing to the junior monks who were already busy at their tasks, and greeting them with a friendly smile. He paused to admire the delicate red flowers of a wolfberry bush and to smell the pungent earthy aroma of a stand of da ma plants.

But as he neared the center of the garden, he saw a thing he had never seen before, a thing that had never been seen by living eyes, not even by the oldest monk at Wudang. He stopped with his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide in wonder, for the Hero Tree of Destiny had blossomed. Bright pink petals blanketed its branches thick as winter snow, and the air hummed with bees darting between tiny, delicate blossoms. The light of the risen sun set the blooms alive with fire, so that they seemed almost to glow and pulse with strange and mysterious life.

As Master Wu stared at the wonderful sight, the junior monks gathered around to admire the tree that had stood unchanged at the center of their world for years beyond counting. They were both awed and frightened by its beauty, perhaps sensing that it was, even at that moment, drawing vitality up through deep roots that reached down through the waking earth to the sleeping realm and into the very heart of the Tao.

Master Wu searched his mind for direction. Never had such a thing happened. Or had it? When he was a junior monk in this garden, had he not heard his master speak of the blooming of the tree? And had he not, upon ascending to his current position, been given secret instructions by the former abbot, now many years dead, as to what he should do should the tree bloom? He grasped at half-remembered fragments of that mystic conversation. There was a bell somewhere that he must ring, but where? Not in the garden.

Somewhere else.

Somewhere high.

A shrine.

At the summit of Wudang Mountain!

He turned and raced from the garden. The junior monks stared after him in surprise for a moment, then dropped their tools and followed.

Master Wu sprinted across a broad, sunny courtyard where junior monks were busy washing uniforms. Close behind came his students, flying at his heels. The washing monks dropped their laundry and followed him into the training grounds where other monks were learning sword arts. As Wu dashed by, these monks ceased their practice and followed as well. No one knew why, yet they sensed that something important had happened, or was about to happen, and that their world would soon change forever.

Master Wu ran from chamber to chamber, climbing higher and higher through the temple as it rose, level upon level, up the side of the mountain. Everywhere he went, more monks followed, though none could catch up to him. Finally, he passed through a door in an exterior wall and flew up a steep path that climbed up above the clouds and into the bright morning sun. Behind him the monks began to straggle out along the narrow path, gasping and weary. Master Wu seemed to possess boundless energy. He scaled course after course of stairs cut into the living rock, and his feet hardly seemed to touch the earth.

Finally, he arrived at the top of the mountain, quite alone.

Before him stood a small wooden building, ancient and weather worn. He pushed open a pair of paneled doors, plowing aside centuries of dust and leaves, to find within the shrine a large iron bell hanging from a sagging beam. The bell was shaggy with rust and bird droppings. A pair of thin, corroded chains dangled beside it.

Master Wu touched the chains. The links at the end were broken. On the ground beneath them something lay hidden in the leaves. He lifted out a large wooden carving of a fish, it scarlet paint long since flaked away, leaving only a cracked, gray piece of wood that felt as though it would crumble to dust in his hands. A pair of short chains dangled from its spine. It had once hung beside the bell.

The first stragglers arrived at the shrine just as Master Wu lifted the wooden carp and struck the bell a resounding blow. The fish did not shatter. Instead, the bell rang like a clap of thunder. The monks fell to their knees, hands pressed to their ears. In the valley below, farmers paused behind their plows, blacksmiths set aside their hammers, ministers gazed from their windows, a beggar woke from his drunken stupor, thirteen women in labor felt their bellies contract and they cried out in pain.

Rust fell from the bell like red snow. Master Wu struck it again. Further up the valley, a warrior was crossing a lake. He lifted his head at the tolling of the distant bell and stroked his dark beard thoughtfully. He ordered the boatman to turn his vessel around.

Master Wu struck the bell a third time, revealing in the rust below a curious design. On a distant battlefield, a female general turned away from the ordering of her troops. Even over the din of hammering swords and the screams of the dying, she heard the peal of a distant bell.

Master Wu sank to his knees with blood streaming from his nostrils. His arms sagged at his sides, while all down the mountainside junior monks lay on the ground, writhing in pain, their cries unheard for the continuing reverberations of the bell. Summoning the last particle of his strength and his courage, Master Wu struck the bell one last time. Four times it must be struck and four times he struck it, and with the last blow the carp shattered into dust.

Master Wu collapsed, clutching his head in agony. A shape was now clearly visible of the dark black surface of the bell. The light of the risen sun outlined a tree, its ancient, gnarled branches dripping with delicate star-shaped blossoms.

Chapter 2

The image of the tree on the bell was exactly like that of the tree in the garden. It was as though the sculptor who had forged the bell had foreknowledge of the day the tree would bloom.

Though the morning was half gone, already the blossoms had begun to fall like fragrant snow from the branches. Pale drifts of tiny pink petals chased each other across the paving stones or swirled in the corners of the garden. Master Wu sat on a stone bench nearby, holding a blood-soaked rag to his nose. The doors were closed and locked and all the junior monks sent to meditate in their chambers. Other than the quiet chirping of an unseen bird, Wudang monastery was utterly silent.

So, Chief Abbot Zhou Tong sighed with a shake of his head. The three most senior monks stood nearby.

Chief Abbot, what does this mean? one asked.

When the abbot didn't answer, Master Wu said, The previous abbot told me that if this tree should ever flower, I must climb to the summit and ring the bell four times. But he didn’t tell me why. He also said that the tree had never flowered.

It has flowered, Chief Abbot said. A thousand years ago. And seven hundred years before that, and almost two thousand years before that. This tree was ancient even during the reign of the Yellow Emperor. It is over five thousand years old.

But what does it mean? Master Wu asked.

*

That afternoon, a pair of huge red doors swung open and a hundred senior and junior monks filed out of Wudang monastery, led by the Chief Abbot and Master Wu. Down the thousand stairs, down the slopes of the steep mountain, the monks walked in single file to the valley below. As they crossed a dike between rice paddies, the farmers looked up from their work in amazement, for they had never seen so many monks come down from the mountain at one time.

Into the city of Shiyan, which stood in the valley below Wudang, through the gates which the soldiers opened without orders or questions, as merchants and peasants and laborers stopped to watch. People hung out their windows overlooking the street, and children hid in doorways, half in fear and half in delight. To the market at the center of town, where the abbot stopped and pointed south, east, north and west. The monks divided into groups and spread out across the city.

*

A dark room lit only by shafts of sunlight through cracks in the wall. Wheels and gears turned, lifting heavy hammers that fell again and again, rap, rap, rap, pounding rice into flour. The miller’s wife sweated, panted and groaned in labor in a bed near the turning wheels. A midwife mopped sweat from her brow.

The door burst open, flooding the dusky chamber with sunlight. Two monks entered.

*

A stonecutter, his arms white with stone dust stood outside his shack, surrounded by his relatives, including his aged mother and father. He had been called from the quarry. He paced anxiously, his eyes never straying far from the door. Suddenly, it opened and a woman appeared, holding in her arms a screaming child. It's a boy! she said.

A son! the stonecutter cried. He took the boy and turned to show him to his father. But the small crowd parted reverently as two monks walked toward the new father and his newborn child.

*

In the quiet of their bedchambers, a boxing master leaned over his young wife, who lovingly held their infant. He looks like his father, she said. Her face was flushed and damp, but her eyes shone with pride. He kissed her forehead.

There came a knock at the door. His eyes never leaving his small family, the master walked to the door and opened it. One of his senior students stood outside. He bowed. Two monks to see you, sir.

Now? the master angrily said. He looked past his student to find a pair of Wudang monks standing in his hall.

*

Minister Shi, an important city official, leaned nervously from the edge of his chair. Before him stood the Chief Abbot and Master Wu. Please forgive me, Your Holiness, but I'm only a civil servant. I don’t understand such mystical affairs, he said as he stroked his beard. What is it that you desire?

We must find all the children born in this city between sunrise today and sunrise tomorrow, the abbot said.

The minister leaned back in his seat and gripped one arm of the chair. But why?

The Hero Tree of Destiny has bloomed, the abbot said.

I see, the minister said, nodding sagely. It was clear to both monks that the minister did not, in fact, understand, but as they needed his help, they dared risk no offense.

Master Wu said, As you are aware, Minister, there is a prophecy which states that on the day of the flowering of the Hero Tree, any child is born in the city of Shiyan shall be a Child of Destiny.

Of course, a Child of Destiny, the minister said. As it so happens, my wife bore a son this morning, my fifth son, as the bell was ringing on the mountaintop. I said to her then, this boy shall be a great leader, perhaps the abbot of Wudang.

You are indeed blessed to have so many strong sons, the abbot said, adding politically, any one of whom will, no doubt, prove a wise leader some day.

Minister Shi smiled and inclined his head graciously. My office is at your disposal, Chief Abbot. You shall have whatever you need to conduct your search. The Children of Destiny must be found.

*

A town crier banged a small gong as he walked down a street lined with poor residences, peasant hovels, warehouses, and brothels. People stared out their windows and doors as he passed, shouting, All newborn children must be brought to the local tax collection station!

In one of the doors stood in the owner of a cheap brothel. He was poor, having only three girls in his employ, not including his wife. Tax collector? he said as the crier passed.

What are we going to do if they start taxing babies? his wife asked.

With hard faces, they turned and stared into the room behind them, where a young woman, little more than a girl, sat on the edge of a rickety bed. Her eyes shadowed with pain, she panted and massaged her swollen belly.

*

Three couples arrived together, just after dark, at the city's main tax collection station. A clerk sat at a table beneath an awning, a small lamp beside his hand, a blank scroll spread before him. To either side of him stood a pair of stone-faced Wudang monks.

He dipped his brush in ink and asked the first couple, Occupation?

Blacksmith, said the father. His wife stood beside him, cradling a fat baby boy in her arms.

Behind them waited a merchant and his wife. Two of his servants carried a pair of children bundled in thick blankets. My wife has borne twins, but they are both girls, he said anxiously. Will the tax be reduced for girls?

This is not a tax. It is simply a registration, ordered by Minister Shi, the clerk said as he wrote.

Oh, that’s lucky, the third man said to the merchant. He was a professional gambler. Ours is a boy.

*

The cook at the Gou Bu Li restaurant looked up from his wok to find a pair of monks standing just within the back door. Three city guards were already inside his kitchen. He jerked a cleaver from a chopping block and brandished it with a trembling hand. There are no children here! he cried. This is a restaurant!

The soldiers drew their swords, but the monks stepped between them and the cook. He edged toward a small door half-hidden by a blanket and a stack of rice bags. One monk stepped quickly forward and disarmed the man before he knew what was happening to him. The other monk lifted the blanket and opened the door. Inside the tiny bedchamber beyond, a woman screamed and tried to hide her newborn child. The baby began to wail.

*

Minister Shi, Master Wu and the Chief Abbot sat in a parlor of the minister's official residence, while monks, clerks and other officials brought a steady stream of reports. Minister Shi sipped some rice wine from a cup. A servant offered wine to the Chief Abbot, but he declined. During a quiet moment, Master Wu nodded off.

It’s getting late, Chief Abbot. Perhaps you would care to retire for the evening? I would be honored... the minister began.

We are not sleepy, the abbot said. He nudged Master Wu, who sat up with a start and almost fell from his chair. Ignoring this, the abbot asked in a quiet voice, How many so far?

Wu stuck a fist in his mouth to stifle a yawn, then glanced at the scroll in his lap. Ten, sir, he said.

The abbot nodded. A moment later, a door opened and a junior monk entered, bowing. Farmer Zhang's wife has given birth to a boy.

Zhang, you say? Wu asked as he picked up his ink brush.

That makes eleven, the abbot said pleasantly.

As the junior monk turned to leave, the door burst open and a nobleman stormed into the chamber, sword drawn. His bright red pao robe was disheveled and his hair hung loosely from his black leather guan hat. Even so, everyone in the room recognized him as an important official from the court. Minister Shi vaulted from his chair and sprawled on the floor at the nobleman's feet. Master Wu slipped more ceremoniously from his seat and kneeled, while the Chief Abbot remained where he sat, only bowing his head.

Minister Shi, what is the meaning of this? Lord Jiao demanded.

A thousand pardons, lord, the minister said with his face in the rug.

Monks bursting into the birthing chamber, disturbing my wife at her labor! the nobleman roared, his burning eyes fixed on the Chief Abbot.

An affront! Unheard of! They shall all be punished! Minister Shi cried.

I demand an explanation! The emperor will hear of this!

Perhaps I can explain, Lord Jiao, the Chief Abbot said as he rose from his chair.

Nobleman Jiao waited for a bow of respect that was never offered. Finally, he slammed his sword into its sheath and tossed the weapon onto a side table.

The Chief Abbot said, This morning, a thing happened that has not happened for many generations. The Hero Tree of Destiny has blossomed.

Well? And so?

It is written that on this day and this day alone, all the children born in the city of Shiyan shall be Children of Destiny, the abbot said.

Jiao stepped over Minister Shi's prostrate body and sat in the minister's chair. Is that so? He sampled the minister's wine, then spat it out on the floor. And what exactly is that supposed to mean?

*

The street was dark, silent and empty, the town crier long gone on his way, and even most of the brothels had closed their doors for the night. One door, however, remained open. The brothel owner peered out, looking both ways, as he clutched a small, linen-wrapped bundle to his chest. With no sign of soldiers or late wanders about, he closed the door behind him and hurried away. The street was silent and empty once more, except for a single, muffled cry. The door opened again, briefly, and then slammed shut, and a young girl began to weep behind it.

The brothel owner slinked along a side street, keeping to the shadows. Hearing male voices ahead, he ducked into an alley and hid behind a stack of empty crates. Two Wudang monks passed. One of them said, She’s in one of these establishments, where the men sell their women to strangers. When they were gone, he continued on his way.

The street ended at a wall and an open gate, which let into a wooded park. Paper lanterns hung at either side of the entrance, but they were dark, allowing him to slip inside unseen. Towering trees bordered the path and led him to a small bridge over a bubbling stream. He turned aside and entered the woods.

Off the path, the undergrowth was thick and confusing. He stumbled along, bumping into trees, tripping over stones, tearing his clothes. The bundle he clutched to his chest began to whimper. Be quiet! he hissed at it.

He came to a pile of boulders and stopped, staring up at the moon through the trees. After glancing back to make certain he hadn't been followed, he set the bundle on the ground, squatted, and started digging between the rocks, scooping out piles of dead and rotting leaves. The bundle squirmed and whimpered.

He grabbed it and shoved it into the crevice he had cleared. Then he shoveled leaves and dirt on top of it. Its tiny thrashing limbs uncovered its face and its sudden cries pierced the dark, still night. The man jumped to his feet, kicked a last few leaves over the tiny newborn, and fled into the darkness.

The baby continued to cry.

After a few moments, a dark figure dropped down from an overhanging tree limb and dangled by one hand like a monkey, silhouetted against the stars. It was a man, his face almost black with muck, his clothes hanging in rags from his body. With his other hand, he lifted a small bottle to his lips and drank convulsively, then tossed the empty bottle into the bushes. Who’s there? he belched. The baby uttered a shrill scream.

The beggar dropped lightly to the ground and stumbled a few staggering steps before collapsing beside the boulder pile. He leaned his head against several of the larger rocks, listening and squinting, then reached into the crevice. With a cry of surprise, he lifted a naked screaming baby from the leaves, holding it before him by one leg.

A troll! he exclaimed.

The baby shook its fist, twisted up its face, and shrieked.

The beggar drew it up close to his face. It's a… a baby! He tossed it into the air and caught it under its arms. In its terror, the baby loosed a stream of piss that soaked the beggar's beard. A baby boy! he laughed as he cuddled the child to his chest.

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