ReignWulin:Nine Yin

History

• "The Emperor Hui Zong in the year of Zheng He wanted to compile Taoist books and scriptures from all over the world. He wanted to publish the work, which consisted of 5481 Chapters altogether. They were called the 'wan shou dao zang' [the Everlasting Life Taoist canon]. The Emperor commissioned someone to do the work; he was called Huang Shang …" "He was also surnamed Huang?" Guo Jing asked. "Bah! What's so special about the family name Huang?" Zhou Botong spat. "This person had nothing to do with the Old Heretic Huang Yaoshi; don't you have any wrong ideas. There are numerous people surnamed Huang in this world; that 'huang' [yellow] dog or yellow cat also surnamed Huang."
• "This Huang Shang was very afraid he might make any mistake in the writing of the canon; because if the Emperor found out later, he would surely lose his head. Therefore, he read and re-read each volume to make sure his work was error-free. Unexpectedly after several years of studying the scriptures he became very proficient in the Taoist doctrines; he had found the profound truth of martial arts. He did not have any master; he trained himself in internal and external energy cultivation and became a grand master in martial art. Brother, this Huang Shang was many times smarter than you are. I don't have his kind of intelligence, and I don't think you do too."
• "That Huang Shang had mastered the martial art, yet he still held an office in the government," Zhou Botong continued. "There came a time when suddenly there arose a religious movement in the kingdom; they called themselves 'ming jiao' [Ming Cult] something. The Emperor Hui Zong only believed in Taoism; so as soon as he found out he issued an imperial decree assigning Huang Shang to eradicate this devil cult. Unexpectedly there were many martial art masters among the members of the cult. They were fearless of death and fought Huang Shang and his troops, rendered them useless. After several battles Huang Shang and his troops suffered big loss. Huang Shang was indignant. He went out and challenged the Devil Cult's martial art masters on one-to-one combat. He personally killed several 'fa wang' [reverends] and some envoys. Who would have known that the people he killed were disciples of well-known Wulin characters, some were their martial uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters; or their immediate families. Of course these people were enraged and they came together to face him. They scolded him as not handling the affairs according to the Wulin custom. To which Huang Shang replied, 'I am a government officer, and am not part of the Wulin world; what do I know about your Wulin custom?' Those whom family or relative was killed argued, 'If you are not part of the Wulin world, then how did you know martial art? Are you saying that your master only taught you martial art, but did not tell you anything about the Wulin custom?' Huang Shang replied, 'I don't have any master.' Of course they did not believe him; so they were involved in heated argument. What do you think happened?"
• "They began to fight each other," Guo Jing said. "Without question, wasn't it?" Zhou Botong said. "Huang Shang's martial art was strange; none of his enemies had seen it. Because of this he could kill some of them quite easily. However, his enemies were numerous; he was also injured from the fight, so in desperation he ran away. Those enemies of him then wiped his parents, wife and children clean."
• "That Huang Shang fellow had ran away to a deserted place and hid himself there," Zhou Botong continued. "There he tried to remember his enemies' martial art one by one. He painstakingly pondered on how to defeat each and every one of them. He thought that as soon as he succeeded in developing the martial art, he would go back and seek his revenge. A long time passed; finally he was able to master the new martial art. He was very happy; expecting that very soon he would be able to avenge his family. Thereupon he left the mountain to seek his enemies. But unexpectedly the people he was looking for had disappeared. Can you guess what happened to them?"
• "That Huang Shang looked everywhere before he finally found one of his enemies. She was a woman. When they fought, she was only about sixteen, seventeen years old young girl, but when Huang Shang found her, she was some sixty-year old granny …When you are absorbed in learning martial art, forty years will pass quite easily. I have been here for fifteen years yet did not feel like it was that long. Huang Shang saw that young girl turned into an old granny; his heart was heavy with emotion. That old lady was sick to the bone; she was bedridden and was dying. Without him moving his hand she would die in a few days. His heartache and hatred for dozens of years just vanished without a trace."
• "That Huang Shang thought, 'I realize I am old now, but do not have too many years of good works.' He had taken these several dozens years in pain to master the martial art technique of almost every martial art schools in the world. But after all this years who would enjoy his works? How could he let his long-life's work wasted just like that? Therefore, he decided to compile the techniques he had mastered into a two-volume book. What would that be?"
• "After compiling the Nine Yin Manual, Huang Shang wrote it disguised as a literary book; my martial brother later found out. Huang Shang had hidden the book in a very secret place that for dozens of years nobody knew its existence. For some reasons later this book appeared and the Wulin world was troubled. Everybody wanted to get hold of the book. It was a dog-eat-dog situation. My martial brother said that the heroes who fought over this book and lost their lives came from all sides of the Wulin world; the number was over a hundred people. Every time someone got hold of it, before one could practice for half-a-year or a year, somebody else would find that person and snatched the book away. This cycle had repeated don't know how many times; don't know how many lives. The one who got it would try to avoid others, but the pursuers were so many and in the end they would always find that person. Sometimes they used force, sometimes used trickery; but I don't know how many times the book had changed hands."
• The first volume only contained the method to cultivate internal energy, as well as the basic of swordsmanship; there was no real profound martial art to defeat opponent. It was useless if one did not train the second volume.
• The Nine Yin Manual contained various martial art techniques which were different from each other.
• Earlier Guo Jing was bound tightly by the braided steel wire and cowhide rope; he could not move even the slightest bit. His eyes kept looking up to the Big Dipper constellation. He recalled the Quanzhen Seven Masters' movements he saw at the Ox Village and compared it to the Nine Yin Manual he memorized so well, which was difficult to understand. He pondered it in his heart, and one by one those passages became clear to him. The Nine Yin Manual was the result of a highly-skilled senior's comprehension of the Taoist Canon; it was closely interlinked with the Quanzhen Sect's internal energy cultivation technique Ma Yu had passed on to him and with the Quanzhen Seven Masters' Big Dipper Formation. It was just that the technique was profoundly deep and Guo Jing's comprehension was rather shallow so even after several months he still had not understood the correlation. This time, looking at the Big Dipper constellation he vaguely saw the link between what he memorized and what he saw.
• Huang Shang, the person who compiled the manual was not only highly skilled, he was also well-versed in the Daoist canon, skilled in the internal energy cultivation, and understood Sanskrit. When the manual was complete, the last chapter was actually the essence of it. Suddenly he realized that if this manual falls into the hand of criminals, they would be able to turn the world upside down without anybody controlling them. But he was also unwilling to destroy this last chapter; thereupon he rewrote the chapter in Sanskrit, but with Chinese transliteration. He thought that it was difficult to say whether the Manual could be passed on to the future generation; the people of Central Plains who knew Sanskrit was very few, and even more rare was the number of people who were well-versed both in martial art and Sanskrit literature.

Demon-Subduing Palm

• The ‘yang’ness [from yin-yang: yin – soft, cold, yang – hard, hot] in Zhou’s fist and palms gradually surfaced.

Heart-Destroying Palm

• Does not require the internal skills contained in the first half of the Nine Yin Manual.

Nine Yin Internal Skills

• The words “Unsealing Pressure Points Technique” caught her eye. She shivered, and looked at the words and was delighted, almost too delighted in fact as she almost forgot to hide her joy by calling out. The technique shows how to unseal one’s pressure points, if one fire deviates when refining their kung fu, and the pressure points are sealed, they could use this technique to unseal it themselves.
• Air Sealing Technique: for holding your breath
• Yang Guo was startled; he immediately laughed out loud, “Ha-ha-ha-ha, hei-hei-hei-hei, hu-hu-he-he”, and circulated the profound internal energy of the “Nine Yin Manual”. Although he hadn’t refined this internal energy to a good level that could be used to fight off skilled fighters, the three band five beggars were just run of the mill fighters. When they heard this strange laugh, they couldn’t stop their heads from shaking and eyes from being dazzled; their bodies shook a few times and they fell down onto the ground. Every person has a moon shaped small object in their ear which controls the person’s balance, if this object is forced to shake, headaches and feeling light headed will be unavoidable. Eventually they won’t be able to stand upright. Yang Guo’s laugh was created by his strong internal energy, everyone’s eardrums were being shaken continuously, and it was like the earth and sky were flipping over. Lu Wushuang felt faint and urgently grabbed onto the carriage to support herself. Calls of ‘ai ya’ and thudding noises all sounded together, the well wishers of the wedding, the bride and groom all fell onto the ground.
• The final stage of the “Nine Yin Manual” is superior to the “Contrary Nine Yin Manual”.
• But Guo Jing had been practicing the “Nine Yin Manual” diligently for the last twenty years; at first his real power did not show but tens of stances later, the “Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms” suddenly became powerful and then suddenly gentle, from great hardness came softness.
• Guo Jing thought the internal energy cultivation method was similar to the one he learned from Ma Yu, only this one was deeper and more difficult.
• The 'treating injury' of the Nine Yin Manual explained how a highly skilled martial artist would use his own internal energy to treat the injury, how to circulate the energy in internal injury treatment. As for the broken bones or weapon-inflicted wounds or other external injury treatment, it was assumed that the person who practiced the Manual did not need further instructions.

Nine Yin White-Bone Claw

• Does not require the internal skills contained in the first half of the Nine Yin Manual.
• Then she plunged her hand into the poor wretch’s chest and withdrew the internal organs one by one, which she examined attentively in the moonlight. Afterwards she threw them on the ground. Even from a distance, the six could see that all the organs, heart, lungs, liver, spleen, had been completely destroyed. They now understood the intent of this practice: she had hit the body of this man with nine palm strokes and had succeeded in smashing the internal organs without breaking the bones of the skeleton. By examining the damaged internal organs, she could see the progression of her strength.
• Her bare hands, with which she tried to seize their weapons, appeared as efficient as claws made out of steel.
• In a fight between experts, the murderous strokes were often avoided by one or two inches. Nan Xiren had thought that the extension of his adversary’s arm had reached its extreme, yet it had stretched still farther!
• While training in the ‘Nine Yin White Bone Claws’ the spouses had, for about ten years, absorbed arsenic acid in small quantities regularly. They neutralized the toxic effects with their internal energy. Using this dangerous method was the only way that Chen Xuanfeng had found to increase their internal and external strength. With time, Mei had been partially immunized against poison; otherwise the poisoned projectiles of Ke Zhen’E would have killed her long ago.
• The front piece of Ouyang Ke's jacket was torn, his fan broken into two, and his four concubines collapsing to the ground. He took a quick look around and saw that all four women had been violently killed, their spirits left their bodies as soon as they were hit. The tops of their heads were covered in blood and brain matter gushed out of the five holes at the center. The swiftness and viciousness of the move was extremely rare.
• One day Zhou Botong was teaching the 'jiu yin shen zhua' [nine yin divine claw]; he instructed Guo Jing to use his ten fingers to practice against the stonewall. Guo Jing had practiced several times when suddenly he realized something. "Big Brother," he said, "I think Mei Chaofeng also trained this kind of martial art, only she practiced against human. She would insert her five fingers inside somebody's skull. It was very cruel." Zhou Botong was startled, "That's true," he thought, "Mei Chaofeng did not know the first volume, so she followed the instruction literally. The second volume only mentioned 'concentrate the energy on the five fingers, firmly attack the enemy's head.' She did not know that 'the enemy's head' means the enemy's vital point; not literally insert five fingers on the enemy's skull."
• It was fortunate that Mei Chaofeng was dead and therefore unable to unleash the 9 Yin White Bone Claw form, and that the fierce poison on her nails had dissipated with the exhaustion of her qi. Otherwise, this one claw would have been instantly fatal.

Soul-Altering Spell

• The “Nine Yin Manual” has a technique called the “Soul Altering Spell”, using the power of the heart and soul to subdue the enemy and achieve victory.
• So his body continued avoiding the attacks, in his mind however he was purging his thoughts, following the method stated in the manual, from ‘controlling the limits of the mind’ to ‘the limits of the real body’; everything became one, there weren’t any other thoughts in his mind.
• As he’s using the “Soul Altering Spell”, his body and mind have become one, whatever stances his hands and feet are using, then the face will reflect whatever feeling and aura the stances exude.
• The “Soul Altering Spell” uses the power of the heart and soul to affect the opponent; if the opponent’s mind and will was strong and still, it would not be effective. If the opponent’s internal energy was higher as well, the attack would be reflected back towards the user and they, instead, would fall under the control of the other person. When two people are dueling, if the user’s martial arts were better than the other person’s, then they could defeat them through weaponry, fists and kicks. There would be no need to resort to this technique. If on the other hand the user’s internal energy was weaker, they wouldn’t dare use this technique hastily. Though this technique is deep and profound, it didn’t have much use when facing a superior enemy.

Tendon Altering Sutra

• Quickly seven days had passed; Guo and Huang had made some progress in term of their energy cultivation. When Guo Jing used his strength to pull the rope, it snapped and broke. He thought the rope was not made strong enough. He tried pulling another rope, but as soon as he exerted a little strength, it also broke easily. Guo Jing was baffled, he stared blankly at the rope and did not know what to do. From the other side of the hill Huang Rong came shouting with a wild goat in her hands. When going out to hunt for the goat she carried some pebbles to shoot the goat with; who would have thought that with only several jumps she had already overtook the goat. She turned around and grabbed the wild goat. Her body movement was so swift that she surprised even herself.
• Guo Jing had trained the Changing Muscle Forging Bones to the second stage, although he did not learn any new fist of kick techniques, his original strength was actually increased by at least 20%.

Miscellaneous

• Only then did Guo Jing realize that Zhou Botong was moving according to the 'she xing li fan' [snake slithers, wild cat flips] from the Nine Yin Manual. He watched with a rapt attention. Every time he saw an exquisite move he would cheer, "Good!"
• He did remember, however, that there was a technique in the manual called ‘fei xu jin’ [flying cotton strength], which would allow him to strengthen his back and render Ouyang Feng’s attack useless.