lu feiqing galloped westwards, braving strong windswhich whipped his face. passing through black goldgorge, he noticed the blood spilled during theprevious day's battle had already been washed away bythe rain. he covered about twenty miles in one stretchand arrived at a small market fair. although the skywas growing dark, he was impatient to continue on hisway but his horse was exhausted. as he considered whatto do, he saw a muslim at the edge of the fair leadingtwo large, well-fed horses and looking around as ifwaiting for someone.

lu went over and asked if he could buy one of them.

the muslim shook his head. lu reached into his clothbundle and took out a large silver ingot, but themuslim shook his head again. anxious and impatient, luturned the bundle upside down and six or seven moresilver ingots fell out: he offered them all. themuslim waved his hand to indicate the horse wasdefinitely not for sale, and lu dejectedly began toput the ingots back into his bundle. as he did so, themuslim glimpsed a dart amongst the ingots, which hepicked up and examined closely. it was the dart huoqingtong had thrown at lu after he followed her to themuslim camp site. he asked where the dart came from.

in a flash of inspiration, lu said huo qingtong washis friend and that she had given the dart to him. themuslim nodded, placed the dart back in lu's hand andpassed over the reins of one of the horses. delighted,lu pulled out an ingot of silver again, but the muslimwaved his hand in refusal and walked away.

"i would never have guessed that such a flower of agirl would have such great influence among themuslims," lu thought.

he rode off, and in the next town, came across moremuslims. he pulled out the dart and was immediatelyable to trade his mount for another strong horse.

lu continued to change horses the whole way and,eating dry provisions as he rode, he covered twohundred miles in a day and a night. towards evening onthe second day, he arrived at anxi. lu was a man ofgreat strength, but he was getting on in years, andgalloping for so long without rest had exhausted him.

as soon as he entered the city, he took out the redflower wen had given him and stuck it in his lapel.

only a few steps later, two men in short jacketsappeared in front of him, saluted and invited him toaccompany them to a restaurant. once there, one of themen sat with him while the other excused himself andleft. lu's companion was extremely courteous, andordered food and wine without asking any questions.

after three cups of wine, another man hurried in, cameover to them and saluted with his fists. lu quicklystood up and returned the salute. the man, aged aboutthirty, wore an ordinary gown. he asked lu for hisname and lu told him.

"so you are master lu of the wudang school," the mansaid. "we have often heard our third brother zhaospeak of you. i have great admiration for you. ourmeeting today is very auspicious.""what is your honourable name?" lu asked.

"my name is wei.""please take a seat, sir," lu's first companion said.

he saluted both lu and wei, and then left.

"our society's young helmsman and many of our brothersare here in anxi," said wei. "if we had known you werecoming, they would certainly have all been here togreet you. in a moment, if you don't mind, we will goand everyone can pay their respects to you."they left the restaurant and rode out of the city.

"you have met our fourth brother wen tailai and hiswife," wei said.

"yes. how did you know?""the flower you are wearing is brother wen's. it hasfour green leaves."lu was surprised at how openly wei talked about theirsociety's secret signs, treating him not in theslightest like an outsider.

after a while, they arrived at an imposing taoistmonastery surrounded by tall, ancient trees. over themain gate was a wooden tablet inscribed with fourlarge characters: "jade nothingness taoist monastery".

two taoist priests standing in front of the monasterybowed respectfully. wei invited lu inside, and a youngapprentice priest brought tea. wei whispered in hisear, and the apprentice nodded and went inside. lu wasjust about to raise his cup when he heard someone inthe inner hall shout: "brother lu! i've been worriedto death about you..." it was lu's old comrade, zhaobanshan.

zhao's questions came thick and fast. "where have youbeen all these years? what brings you here?"lu brushed the questions aside. "there is an urgentmatter to be discussed first. your honourablesociety's brother wen is in serious trouble."he outlined the predicament of wen and his wife. evenbefore he had finished, wei ran inside to report.

while he was still talking, lu heard wei arguingloudly with someone in the courtyard.

"why are you holding me back?" the other shouted. "imust go to help brother wen now!""you're too impatient," wei replied. "it must bediscussed by everyone first, and then it is up to theyoung helmsman to decide who goes." the othercontinued to protest.

taking lu by the hand, zhao walked into the courtyard,and lu saw the hunchback who had severed the tail ofyuanzhi's horse.

wei gave the hunchback a push. "go and pay yourrespects to master lu," he said. the hunchback walkedover and stared dumbly at him for a moment. lu knewthe hunchback remembered his face and, uneasy at thethought of how yuanzhi had laughed at him that day, hewas about to apologise when the hunchback said:

"you have ridden more than two hundred miles in anight and a day to report on behalf of brother wen. i,hunchback zhang jin, thank you!" he knelt down, andkowtowed to lu four times, his head banging on theflagstones.

lu wanted to stop him but it was already too late, soall he could do was to kneel down and return thegesture.

the hunchback stood up. "i am leaving now," heannounced. as he passed through the circular doorway,a very short man coming in the other way caught holdof the hunchback. "where are you going?" he asked.

"i am going to find brother wen and mistress luo bing.

come with me." without waiting for an answer, thehunchback pulled him along by the wrist.

the hunchback zhang jin had been born with a deformedbody, but his strength was frightening. when talkingto others, he often referred to himself as 'hunchbackzhang', but anyone else calling him a 'hunchback' wascourting disaster. he ranked 10th in seniority in thered flower society; his travelling companion was xutianhong who ranked seventh. xu was very short andslight in build, almost the size of a dwarf, but hiswisdom and resource made him the red flower society'schief tactician, and the fighting community had dubbedhim 'the kung fu mastermind'.

one by one, the other members of the red flowersociety came out and were introduced to lu. they wereall famous heroes and lu recognised most of them afterhaving passed them on the road several days before.

the formal greetings were kept to a minimum, and aftera moment the one-armed taoist priest, who rankedsecond within the society, said: "let us go and seethe young helmsman."they went through to the rear courtyard and entered alarge room. on one of the wooden walls a huge'encirclement chess' board had been carved.* (* thegame, wei qi, is best known by its japanese name -go.) two men were sitting on a couch about thirty feetaway, fingering chess pieces and throwing them at thevertical board, each piece lodging itself in the lineswhich formed the squares. in all his wide experience,lu had never seen chess played in such a manner.

playing white was a young man with a refined facewearing a white gown who looked like the son of anobleman. his opponent, playing black, was an old mandressed in farmer's clothes.

"i wonder who this old hero is," lu thought. "neverhave i seen anyone with his strength and accuracy." hecould see black was in a dangerous position, and thatwith just one more move by white, all the black pieceswould be lost. the young man threw a piece, but hisaim was slightly off: the piece failed to embed itselfin the intersection of the lines and fell to thefloor. the old man laughed.

"you missed," he said. "admit defeat!" he pushed thechess pieces aside and stood up.

his opponent smiled. "we'll have another game in awhile, teacher," he said. the old man saw the groupentering, and strode out of the room without so muchas a greeting.

"young helmsman," zhao said. "this is brother lufeiqing of the wudang school." and to lu: "this is ouryoung helmsman. i hope you will get to know oneanother well."the young man brought his two fists together insalute. "my name is chen jialuo. i would greatlyappreciate your honoured counsel."lu was surprised to find that this young helmsman gaveevery appearance of being a dissolute young man from awealthy family, the complete opposite of the rest ofthe bandit-like bunch.

zhao informed the young helmsman of how wen had takenrefuge in iron gall manor, and asked him for a plan ofaction. the young helmsman turned to the taoistpriest. "priest wu chen," he said. "please give usyour advice."a large, fat man, whom zhao had introduced a momentbefore as 'iron pagoda' yang, stood up and shouted:

"fourth brother is badly wounded, someone we havenever met before has ridden hard for a day and a nightto report to us, and we are still deferring to eachother. we will kill fourth brother with all thisdeference! can we stop this nonsense? who dares todisregard the wishes of the old master? younghelmsman, if you do not respect the dying wish of yourfoster father, you are unfilial. if you despise usbrothers so much that you are unwilling to become ourleader, then the red flower society's seventy oreighty thousand members may as well go their separateways."everyone began talking at once: "we cannot remainleaderless like this! if the young helmsman continuesto defer, our devotion will be finished! fourthbrother is in trouble! we must follow the younghelmsman's orders and go to save him!"the young man, chen, looked greatly distressed. hiseyebrows drew together in a deep frown as he silentlypondered the problem.

"brothers!" shouted one of the twin knights ofsichuan. "since the young helmsman obviously despisesus, we two intend to return to sichuan as soon asfourth brother has been rescued."chen saw he had no alternative and saluted the heroeswith his fists. "brother wen is in trouble and we canwait no longer. all of you insist that i becomehelmsman, and because of the respect i have for you, iwill do as you say."the heroes of the red flower society shouted andapplauded with delight and relief.

"well then," said the taoist priest. "the greathelmsman should now pay his respects to hispredecessor and accept the flower of authority."lu knew that each society had its own special ritesand ceremonies of which the initiation of a new leaderwas by far the most important. as an outsider, lu feltuncomfortable about being present during such aceremony, so he congratulated chen and immediatelyexcused himself. he was extremely weary after hisjourney, and zhao led him to a room where he washedand slept. when he awoke, it was already night.

"the great helmsman has left with the others for irongall manor," zhao said. "but he left me here to keepyou company. we can follow on tomorrow."and then, after two decades apart, the two men talked.

they talked of the doings of the fighting communityover the years, the good and the bad, the living andthe dead, until the east grew light.

"your great helmsman is so young," said lu. "he lookslike nothing more than just another rich man's son.

why are you all willing to follow him?""it would take a long time to explain," zhao replied.

"you rest for a while longer and we can talk againlater when we're riding."