Chapter 2.3: Indelicate

As they were striking camp, Upright Tiger found an interesting creature under his bedroll. It was like a scorpion, but not an ordinary one: its carapace was contorted so it looked like a warrior's mask, and it had two tails, each tipped with a glossy sting. He cradled it in his hand and stroked the shell gently. "Master Stork, I found this—"

"No, don't touch it!"

Surprised, Tiger jerked away from the creature, which fell to his leg and immediately clamped on with its claws, so that it would be able to strke freely with its tails. The first few strikes did not penetrate the thick fabric of his pants, but the fifth found a place where they were torn, and a drop of unwholesomely dark blood welled out before he had managed to grab a knife and use it to pry the creature off. Wizard Stork's dao came down and severed the creature from head to tail.

"That was a Devil Face Ultimate Demise scorpion," said he. "We will have to have an acupuncturist drain the poison out, or you will die."

"Die? Hah! My qigong is too strong to be defeated by such an insignificant creature."

"You are young and proud, Upright Tiger. Do you remember the mysterious death of Silver Governor?"

"I was young. They told me that insects swarmed out from every direction and sucked out every drop of his blood and other humours; when the guard had finally scattered them with Wind Sweeps Away Clouds kung fu, there was nothing left of him but bones and desiccated flesh, as dry as paper."

"This is the effect of the Devil Face Ultimate Demise toxin; you will begin to emit a fragrance that sends insects into a frenzy of hunger." He grasped the younger man's leg and prodded several nerve points. "There, I have sealed your chi vessels, so that the poison will not spread or reach your lungs; for now, you are safe as long as your leg does not touch the ground." The leg collapsed, hanging limply. Tiger tried to move it and discovered that he could not.

"How am I going to do that?"

"I suggest that you walk on your hands. Do you need a pair of gloves? I have one but I did not see any in your pack."

"You are cruel, Wizard Stork."

"Were I less cruel, you would be in the belly of a thousand mosquitoes!"

"I cannot disagree with this."

"Now come, quickly. We shall have to travel faster; my nerve sealing technique is not indefinite, and we will need to remove the poison before you recover from it."

They went on for a while, Upright Tiger ridiculously on his hands, with one leg swinging crazily, and Wizard Stork leaping forward and back to find an easy path for his impeded companion. "I have begun to wonder," said Zhao Peng.

"That is a good pastime; occasionally, I also wonder," returned Wizard Stork.

"Indeed?"

"Yes, certainly."

"Then that is good."

"I have also," the master replied, "begun to wonder."

"Having agreed that wondering is excellent, only one thing remains to concern me."

"What is that, master Zhao?"

"What is it that you wonder about?"

"That is it."

Tiger attempted to stuff an interesting rock into his inverted pocket as he passed it by. He made a face which Yan Enlai found difficult to read, perhaps by virtue of its unorthodox position. Some moments later, he asked, "Do you mean to say, then, that you have begun to wonder what I had originally begun to wonder about?"

"That is a way of putting it."

"Then I will tell you; it is this. I wonder where you, a warrior of a reputable, wealthy family, comes across knowledge of rare venomous creatures and the effects of their venoms."

"That is not a difficult question." He picked up another interesting rock and balanced it idly on the sole of Tiger's good foot.

They walked some more and came to a stream. "I will have to leap across this," said Upright Tiger. "hold the rock." Wizard Stork took the rock and watched as Upright Tiger pushed off the ground and bounced himself off a tree branch, landing on his hands on the other side. "For a difficult question," he observed, "it is a long time in answering."

"I am a scholar of medicine, you see."

"Ah."

"Consequently I have learned a small amount of things regarding the use and properties of various herbs and pharmacological vermin."

"I am a scholar of history."

"Is that the case?"

"Yes. Unfortunately, this does not afford me with such immediately applicable knowedge."

"It is a shame."

"I understand that my betrothed had three children in the time that I was at university; made gravid by the sheer Yin energy of her grief."

Wizard Stork raised a greying eyebrow. "Taoists say that deepest Yin begets Yang as a natural consequence of itself."

"I have heard this saying myself."

"What do you make of it?"

"Only this; my betrothed, in my absence, became a mannish, overbearing wretch of a woman, and it seems that she married some military fellow after obtaining our parents' permission to break off our engagement."

"Then perhaps the Taoists are correct."

Upright Tiger pushed a fallen branch out of his eyes. "I find it surprising."

"You do?"

"That such greybeards should have this insight into the makings of love."

"In Tao, all things are undifferentiated at their essential level," Enlai explained. "so their insights regarding the bloom and wilt of the chrysanthemum apply equally to the bloom and wilt of young romance."

"How excellent! Tell me, what do you think of this plan?"

"How, you have a plan?"

"Only just now. I will become a Taoist!"

"I do not think," replied Wizard Stork, "that you will be completely pleased."

"Please explain."

"Taoists are celibate."

Upright Tiger almost fell. "What madness is that? Is not the Yin of woman necessary to nourish a man's Yang energy?"

"The explanation is indelicate."