Black Dragon, Black Cat Read online

  Jai-tien paused in his remarks to let them sink into Mao’s consciousness. He resumed his steps down the pathway. After a few moments, he continued. “You must also understand that action is faster than reaction. No matter how quick you are, there will always be someone who is quicker. Therefore, you must learn to counteract this advantage. When you fight against someone who is quicker than you, you must always strike first and press the attack. Then his advantage of quickness is neutralized since he must react while you simply act. Learning to act first is another of the keys to success. Later I will teach you another technique to counteract quickness.”

  By the time Jai-tien had finished his lecture, the house was just around the final bend in the path and Mao was relieved to return to their home. Without further words, the two completed their evening tasks as the last vestiges of the sun’s light faded over Shai-lae Mountain to the west.

  Mao fell asleep quickly into the dreamless state of deep rest brought on by extreme exhaustion. Her first day of sparring had left her drained beyond her usual limit.

  Some hours later she felt a cold shock to her face and upper body, and sat up on her sleeping mat with a piercing scream of panic. She felt herself, her hair, her face, her nightshirt, and each was dripping with cold water. She looked around her in the dimly lit room, finally to focus on the beady eyes of her master staring back at her.

  “Are you still sleeping like a dead tree, Hei Mao?”, he questioned, shaking his head with disgust. “I thought that we had performed this exercise before. Am I mistaken, or have you failed to learn the lesson?” He stood there glaring at her with the empty bucket in one hand and the other on his hip.

  Mao did not say anything. She became angry, and pulled the wet blanket abruptly over herself in a huff as she curled up in a ball. Jai-tien shook his head and returned to his room.

  Under that blanket, Mao was shivering cold and seething hot. She had furious thoughts about the injustice of her master’s action, and the uselessness of what he called a ‘lesson’. What could possibly be the point of this sneaking up on her in the middle of the night? How could she possibly know that he was there? For that matter, how could he possibly know if she crept up on him while he was sleeping? He could not, of course. So what was the lesson in throwing water on her? How would he like it if she threw a bucket of cold water in his face at night? After several hours of fuming, Mao eventually calmed down enough to return to a deep sleep.

  Winter passed, then the spring, and Mao’s prowess at her art grew steadily. The daily hour of exercises after lunch became increasingly easy to bear, and the lessons in techniques became increasingly clear and meaningful. The sparring between Hei Mao and Jai-tien continuously grew in intensity, although Mao could never quite manage to strike her master. He would always somehow block or deflect her strike with a flick of his wrist or cause her to miss with a slight darting movement of his head, and then immediately strike back like a cobra with rapid blows that left her head spinning and perhaps a bruise or cut on her cheek or forehead. As time went on, these minor bruises and cuts on Mao’s face and limbs became larger and more prevalent, but never did she offer a word of complaint. When knocked to the ground, she immediately rolled to her feet and resumed fighting, whether or not she had suffered a cut in the process. Many times she fought on with a slow stream of blood from her forehead seeping into her eyes.

  Summer came and with it the dry season and the first hint of the stifling heat that would follow in several weeks. The first day was always warm and beautiful, however, and Mao arose that morning to the promise of the new season, eager to continue her training.

  The morning chores seemed effortless that day, and passed quickly as Mao thought about the techniques she would try during the afternoon sparring match with her master. She had something in mind to try that she had conjured up in her mind’s eye before she fell asleep the preceding night. Everything around her seemed fresh and new, and even the rice and beans at the lunch hour tasted less bland than usual. After an hour of exercises and stretching, and another of practicing kicks and blocks, it was time for the much-anticipated sparring match to begin.

  “Let us see what you have dreamed up for me today, Hei Mao,” Jai-tien said with mock sincerity. “Will today be the day when you finally manage to strike me?”

  Mao remained silent but nodded her head confidently: she would finally strike her master using the new technique she had dreamed up the night before. She bowed to Jai-tien, who returned the sign of respect.

  The sparring began in the usual fashion, with Mao throwing a series of rapid fist strikes followed by quick low kicks to Jai-tien’s legs. All of these the old master would easily block or parry, following up with a flurry of his own, propelling Mao backward behind his blazing hands. Mao would do her best to block his strikes, and then press forward with another series of rapid blows.

  These back and forth series of attacks went on for fifteen minutes until both fighters had begun to sweat in the first heat of summer. Then the intensity picked up dramatically, as each began to perform more complicated movements designed to penetrate the opponent’s defenses. During this period, Jai-tien struck Mao once in the forehead and once against her neck, sending a dagger of pain surging down her spine. She recovered immediately, while Jai-tien stepped back momentarily with his weight on his hind leg and his left leg bent forward. This was the stance that Mao had envisioned in her thoughts the night before, and she knew that she had a brief opportunity to perform the technique that she had imagined. She sprang forward, lifting her entire body into the air while rotating her hips so that her right leg, which had previously been closer to Jai-tien, was pivoted to the rear. This brought her left leg forward, which she thrust outward toward the old man’s chest.

  Jai-tien had always been careful to avoid causing serious injury to Mao, but her abrupt, unexpected, and counterintuitive movement had caught him completely by surprise. He moved quickly to block the expected kick from Mao’s right leg by raising his left leg and turning it outward. But when the strike came in with the left foot, he quickly hopped onto his left foot and raised his right leg, while lowering his right arm to deflect Mao’s kick into his blocking leg. His movements were so fast that Mao was completely shocked to find that he had blocked her attempt. As Jai-tien’s arm swept downward, she was knocked off balance since both her feet were off the ground. She fell to the earth on her side, with her left arm bent unnaturally behind her. A loud snap sounded and a gasp of pain escaped Mao’s lips at the moment of impact.

  Mao writhed on the ground in excruciating pain, holding the arm that had just been broken to her chest with the other one. She cried out from the throbbing waves of fire that flew up and down the length of her arm, flailing her legs on the ground. Tears of pain flowed from her eyes, which were clenched tightly shut, and her teeth ground together with numbing force.

  Jai-tien had experienced broken bones before, and knew what to do. He bent over Mao and reached for her arm, but she instinctively turned away to keep him from touching it. “No, please!”, she pleaded through her tears. “Don’t touch it! It hurts so bad!”

  “I must!” Jai-tien reached for her arm again, and she relented. He felt up and down her upper left arm to locate the breaking point. As his fingers touched the broken area, she gave another yelp of pain and tried to wrench her arm out of his grasp.

  “Hold still or you will make it worse!”, Jai-tien scolded her. He worked his fingers gingerly further into her arm, and then declared, “We are lucky! It is a clean break!”

  “What great fortune!”, Mao thought sarcastically to herself, but the words of her master did help her to gain some measure of control over the pain. She steeled herself to the pain, and stopped crying and regained her composure.

  “Wait here and I will return shortly.” Jai-tien stood up and hurried into the house. He came back moments later carrying a bucket of dried powder and long swaths of cloth. He took the bucket to the well and added cold water, and then swirled the bu
cket vigorously.

  When he returned to the prone figure on the ground, he crouched on his knees next to her and again fingered the broken area of her left arm. Another intense bolt of pain surged through her body.

  “Hei Mao, you must be very brave now. I am going to set the bone in your arm, but I need your help to do it. I am going to pull your arm outward by the elbow, and you need to resist with all the force you can muster. This will be very painful, but afterward the pain will begin gradually to subside.”

  Mao clenched her teeth into her lower lip and closed her eyes. As her master began to pull her arm outward, she felt the searing pain pulse through her arm and her body convulsed.

  “Hei Mao, be still!”, Jai-tien commanded.

  Mao bit down harder on her lip, and spent every ounce of self-control she had built up in her lifetime to remain motionless.

  Jai-tien pulled her arm back slowly with one hand, while feeling the breakage point with the other. When he felt the ends of the broken bones move past each other, he gave a sharp pull and then aligned the two pieces and let them merge slowly back together. Mao let out a loud howl of pain, but remained still.

  “There now!”, he said, “The worst part is over! Just remain still or the bones might separate again.”

  Jai-tien next took a short stick from the ground and stirred the substance in the bucket for several minutes until he was satisfied with the consistency. He took up some of the thick, tan glue from the bucket and rubbed it over Mao’s arm, and then wrapped a long swaddle of cloth over it tightly. This process he repeated five more times until her arm was covered with a thick coating of cloth and paste.

  “The glue will dry slowly, Maome, and will become hard in a few hours. I have stretched the cloth tightly and it will encase your arm in a firm cast that will allow the bone to heal without danger of separating again. However, you must move this arm as little as possible. I will tie it to your side with the remainder of the cloth so that you do not try to use this arm by accident. Please remain here and do not move your arm until the cast hardens.”

  Jai-tien stood up and went to the well to wash the excess paste from his hands. Mao lay as still as possible on the ground, and slowly the pain lessened to a bearable degree.

  By late afternoon, the cast had hardened and Mao was able to stand up with the careful aid of her master. She walked into the house and sat at the table without his help, and the two ate a filling supper of rice and vegetables, washed down with plenty of milk from the cow. She sat dejectedly through dinner, and although she ate heartily, she was feverishly worried about the consequences of the serious injury she had suffered. Would it heal properly? Did Jai-tien really know what he was doing when he set her arm? How long would it take to heal? But mostly, her thoughts were very dark and focused on the single question of profound importance to her: would this injury prohibit her continued training and smash her dreams into shards of broken glass? Several times, she felt as if she would burst into tears at this thought, and she barely managed to keep the salty water from streaming out of her eyes.

  “You must drink extra milk while your arm is healing,” Jai-tien told her. “The nutrients in it are necessary to mend your broken bone.”

  After finishing the meal, Mao walked gingerly over to her mat, and lay carefully down on her back. The softness of the bed and the comfort of the feather pillow felt almost heavenly after the day’s cruel event.

  Jai-tien walked over and stared down at her with a quizzical expression on his wrinkled old face. Mao’s eyes met his, but his facial expression did not change.

  After several moments, Mao felt a stinging sensation in his stare, and asked “What is it, Master? Why are you staring at me?”

  “Have you forgotten the tea ceremony, Hei Mao? It is time for us to leave.”

  Mao stared back at him incredulously, with her mouth gaping open. “What?” she blurted out impulsively. “The tea ceremony! Are you joking with me, Master? Surely you do not expect me to walk up the hill this evening to visit Mother Lu-chin!”

  “Why not?”, he responded with an equally incredulous expression. “What has happened today to your legs? Do you use your arms to walk up the hill? Come! It is time to go.” He turned and walked to the door, and waited there for Mao to follow with his back turned to her, facing outside.

  Mao was completely exasperated and let out a long audible sigh. She carefully sat up and regained her feet, and then followed Jai-tien out the door.

  The climb to the top of the hill seemed never ending, and Mao walked very gingerly with her left arm lashed to her side. Every footfall sent a slight shiver of pain through her arm, and several times she paused along the way as Jai-tien waited for her. After the eternal climb, they finally arrived at the house of Lu-chin, and entered in the customary fashion after removing their sandals.

  Jai-tien bowed to his mother, but Mao could barely bend with her arm bound tightly to her side. The old woman smiled ever so slightly, as usual, and displayed no hint of notice of Mao’s injury. Jai-tien walked directly to his mother’s side, and sat down in his chair, staring straight forward.

  Mao hesitated for an instant. She glared directly at Jai-tien, but he continued to stare stoically forward and did not appear to notice. An expression of disbelief crossed her face. Did he really intend to make her serve the tea this evening? Surely not! Even he could not be so cruel!

  She stood still for several moments, waiting to see if he stirred. After a full minute had elapsed, she became angry and opened her mouth to complain but then choked off her words before she could utter them. “What is the use of complaining?”, she thought to herself in irritation. “If I ask him to serve the tea, he will only say ‘Why can you not do it? What has happened today to your other arm?’”

  Mao let out a disgusted breath and then walked over to the corner table to prepare the tea. She used her right arm to place the tealeaves into the cups, and then filled them with hot water. She carried the first cup to Mother Lu-chin, and then went back to the table and returned with the second for her master. The final cup she held in her right hand, struggling to sit down on the floor in her usual place, and began to sip her tea.

  As the tea seeped into her body and mind, its soothing effect slowly worked its magic. She felt the warmth of the tea raise her spirit, and the events of the day eased themselves into a secluded corner of her mind. The tea had never before seemed as soothing or wonderful as it did on this evening, and the pain and suffering she had experienced earlier sank into a distant memory in these brief moments. The ceremony ended far too soon to suit Mao, and it was with great reluctance that she levered herself off the floor and returned the teacups to the corner table.

  She and Jai-tien then made their customary departure from the house of Lu-chin, and began the slow sojourn down the hill. As she walked slowly behind her master, she again felt the stresses of the day weigh down upon her. Foremost in her dark thoughts was the horrific question of whether or not she would still be able to continue her training. The thought of giving it up felt like death to her, and she could feel its chilling fingers reaching into the depths of her soul. What would she do if she could not fulfill her dreams? Could she go on living? As she continued on the downward path, her thoughts became darker and darker, but never once did the thought creep into her mind of giving up. Her life was focused on nothing else, and despite the pain and suffering of the day, she had not the slightest thought of quitting unless forced to do so.

  Halfway down the hill, Jai-tien began speaking over his shoulder to the following girl, without looking back at her. “I will not apologize for your injury today, because it was an unfortunate accident. However, I am saddened that this will cause a setback to your training. Nevertheless, once your arm has healed properly, it will not lessen your skills and agility to any degree. If your spirit does not fail you, you may still achieve your dreams.”

  Had her master sensed her hidden thoughts? Mao was desperately relieved to hear these words, and her spirit soar
ed immediately out from its depression. She almost felt like leaping down the hill, so great was her relief. She had heard the one sentence, the only words, that could have saved her from a sleep filled with dreadful nightmares, and a lifetime of unfulfilled dreams.

  Immediately after returning to their house, the pair went directly to their sleeping quarters. Mao lay down gingerly on her mat, and felt the gentle softness of the feather pillow envelop her tired head. Surprisingly, she fell almost instantly to sleep.

  The next morning Mao awoke later than usual to find Master Jai-tien staring down at her with the old broom in his hand. She groaned audibly and rose from bed. She had gone to bed suspecting that she would not be able to escape the morning chores just because she had broken her arm the day before. She stood up and took the broom from Jai-tien and began trying to sweep the floor with only one arm. Her broken arm ached terribly this morning, and she wondered if she had accidentally rolled over onto it during the middle of the night. After some concerted effort and concentration, Mao began to make a little progress toward sweeping the area around the iron stove.

  All of the morning chores were much more difficult and required more time than usual on this morning. By the noon hour, Mao was physically drained from the exertion of performing normally easy tasks in complicated ways to avoid using her broken arm. Often a simple process like feeding the chickens became a complex process since she could not carry the feedbag and strew the feed on the ground at the same time. Eventually, she devised clever ways of overcoming these difficulties, but she became very appreciative of the relative ease of effort that two arms brought to any task.