the day they crossed the provincial border intofujian, the hills were covered in flowers and dancingbutterflies. chen thought of princess fragrance andhow she would have loved such a scene.

they were met at the shaolin monastery by lord zhou,who had come south to fujian with his wife andservants to meet the monastery's abbot, heavenlyrainbow. with zhou's great name in the fightingcommunity, the shaolin priests were happy to exchangeknowledge with him. heavenly rainbow insisted that hestay in the temple, and by the time the red flowersociety heroes arrived, several months had slipped by.

the abbot led his assistants, great insanity, heavenlymirror, great hardship and great idiocy into the greathall to meet the visitors. after they had introducedeach other, the abbot led them to a quiet antechamberwhen tea was served. he asked the reason for theirvisit.

chen knelt down before the abbot, tears glistening inhis eyes. greatly surprised, heavenly rainbow movedquickly to help him up.

"great helmsman," he said. "what need is there forsuch formality? please say whatever you wish.""i have an embarrassing request to make that accordingto the rules of the fighting community should not evenbe uttered," chen replied. "but, venerable sir, forthe sake of millions of souls, i boldly make thisappeal to you.""please speak freely," the abbot said.

"the former great helmsman of the red flower society,master yu wanting was my foster father..." heavenlyrainbow's expression changed immediately as he heardthe name, and he raised his white eyebrows.

chen told him in detail about his relationship withthe emperor qian long and about the plan to restorethe chinese throne and overthrow the manchus. then heasked why his foster father had been expelled from theshaolin school and whether it had anything to do withqian long's identity.

"please, venerable sir," he concluded, his voicealmost choked with sobs. "think of the commonpeople....."heavenly rainbow sat in silence, his long eyebrowstrailing over his closed eyes. he was in deepmeditation and no-one dared disturb him.

after a while, his eyes sprang open, and he said: "forseveral hundred years, it has been the practice of theshaolin school not to reveal to outsiders informationon members who offend against the school'sregulations. great helmsman chen, you have come agreat distance to our monastery to enquire into thebehaviour of our expelled pupil, yu wanting. accordingto the monastery's rules, this would ordinarily be outof the question..." the faces of the heroes lit upwith delight. "...but as this affair involves the fateof the common people, i will make an exception. greathelmsman chen, please send someone to the upholdingthe monastic regulations hall to collect the file."chen bowed to the abbot in thanks, and another monkled the heroes to guest rooms to rest.

chen was congratulating himself on his success when hesaw lord zhou looking worried. "what's wrong?" heasked.

"the abbot asked you to send someone to the hall tocollect the file. but to get there, it is necessary topass through five other halls, each guarded by a kungfu master and each one stronger than the last. it willbe difficult to make it through all five," zhoureplied.

"we could try and force our way through together," wensuggested.

zhou shook his head. "no, the problem is that oneperson has to win through all five halls alone. ifanyone helped him, the monks would come to theassistance of the guardians of the halls and it wouldturn into a brawl. that wouldn't do at all.""this is an affair involving my family," chen saidquietly. "perhaps buddha will be merciful and let methrough."he took off his long gown, picked up a bag of his'chess piece' projectiles, tucked the ancient daggerinto his belt, and let zhou lead him to the firsthall.

as they reached the hall entrance, zhou stopped.

"master chen," he whispered. "if you can't make it,please come back and we'll think of some other way.

whatever you do, don't try and force your way throughor you may get hurt." chen nodded.

"everything is arranged!" zhou shouted, and thenstepped to one side.

chen pushed open the door and walked inside. under thebright candle-light, he saw a monk seated on a mat,and recognised him as one of the abbot's chiefassistants, great hardship.

the monk stood up and smiled. "so you have comeyourself, great helmsman chen. that is excellent. iwould like to ask you to instruct me in a few martialarts moves."chen saluted him with his fists. "please," he replied.

great hardship bunched his left hand into a fist andswung it round in a great arc while his right palmswept up. chen recognised it as the 'drunken boxing'

style kung fu. he had once studied the style, butdecided not to reveal the fact by using it now. heclapped his hands together and countered with the'hundred flowers' kung fu style. great hardship wastaken off guard and only avoided being struck bydropping to the floor. he rolled away and stood up,and the two continued to fight closely, each a masterof his own style.

great hardship aimed a blow at chen's legs. chen leaptup, and as he landed, hooked his right leg round,tripping the monk up neatly. as fast as lightning,chen bent over and stopped him from falling. greathardship's face flushed red with embarrassment and hepointed behind him.

"please proceed," he said.

chen saluted once more and walked through into anotherhall, seated in the middle of which was the seniormonk, great insanity. as chen entered, the monk roseand picked up a thick staff lying beside him. hecasually tapped the floor with its tip, and the impactshook the very walls of the hall, bringing a shower ofdust down from the rafters. the monk lightly flippedthe staff from left hand to right, then attacked usingthe 'crazy demon' staff style of kung fu. chen knew itwould be folly to underestimate the power of thisopponent, and he drew his dagger. great insanity sweptthe staff across and chen ducked down to avoid it thencountered with a thrust from his dagger. the twofought round and round inside the hall, their weaponsapparently greatly mis-matched.

rather than attack, chen concentrated instead ontrying to tire the monk out. but great insanity'sinner strength kung fu was profound, and as timepassed, chen could discern no hesitation in the monk'sactions. on the contrary, the staff seemed to whirland dance with ever-increasing speed, forcing chenback into a corner of the hall. seeing chen could notescape, great insanity grasped the staff in both handsand swung it down at his head with all his strength.

chen stood stock-still until the staff was no morethan two inches from him, then grabbed its end andcarved a deep line across the middle with his dagger,snapping it in two.

great insanity was furious, and charged at chen again.

but with the staff only half its former length, hewielded it with much less dexterity. a moment later,chen snapped another piece off the end, then dodgedpassed the monk and ran towards the rear of the hall.

with a roar of anger, great insanity threw what wasleft of his staff to the floor and sparks flew in alldirections.

as he entered the third hall, chen's eyes were struckby a bright glare, and he saw both sides of the hallwere full of burning candles, several hundred of themat least. in the centre, stood the monk great idiocy.

"master chen," he said, a welcoming smile on his face.

"let us compete using projectiles."chen bowed. "as your reverence wishes," he replied.

"there are nine candles and eighty-one incense stickson each side of the hall. whoever can extinguish allthe candles and incense sticks on his opponent's sideis the winner." the monk pointed to the altar table inthe centre of the hall. "you will find darts andprojectiles of all kinds over there. when you haveused up all the ones you have, you can go and getmore."chen pulled a pile of chess pieces from his pocket andwished he had spent more time in the past learning thefiner points of dart kung fu from the red flowersociety's dart expert, 'buddha' zhao. "after you," hesaid.

great idiocy smiled again. "guests first," he replied.

selecting five chess pieces, chen threw themsimultaneously at the foot of the opposite wall andextinguished five incense sticks.

"excellent kung fu," great idiocy praised him. he tooka string of prayer beads from around his neck, snappedthe chord and let five of the beads fall into hispalm. with one movement, he slung them away, snuffingout five incense sticks on chen's side.

chen quickly extinguished another five sticks ofincense. great idiocy replied by knocking out all ninecandles on chen's side, and in the darkness, theburning tips of the incense sticks became much easiertargets for the monk.

"of course, why didn't i think of that?" chen thought.

he chose nine chess pieces and threw them three at atime at the candles on the monk's side of the hall.

but the flames were untouched. he had heard a seriesof clicks coming from the centre of the hall and herealised that great idiocy had knocked each of hisnine projectiles down with his prayer beads. as chengaped in surprise at such skill, the monk extinguishedanother four incense sticks. chen waited for the monkto throw another wave of prayer beads, and then aimedchess pieces to intercept them. but with the candleson the opposite side still burning he found itdifficult to spot the small beads clearly and onlymanaged to hit two of the five. the other three struckhome.

great idiocy, already nine candles and two incensesticks ahead, concentrated on protecting his owncandles, while extinguishing more of chen's incensesticks whenever the opportunity arose. in a shortwhile, he had snuffed out another fourteen, whilechen, putting his all into the task, only managed toextinguish two of the candles. suddenly, he rememberedone of 'buddha' zhao's tricks and threw three chesspieces at the side wall with great force. theyricocheted off and two of them struck their targets.

great idiocy, who had thought the throw was a show ofchildish petulance on chen's part, let out a cry ofsurprise.

chen continued in this way, bouncing chess pieces offthe wall. great idiocy had no way of protecting thecandles, but he was already several dozen incensesticks ahead, and without taking any further notice ofhis opponent, he redoubled his efforts to knock outthe rest. as the last of the monk's candles went out,the hall was plunged into darkness. chen counted sevenincense sticks left on the monks side while his ownwas still a mass of red dots, perhaps thirty or forty.

just as he was coming to the conclusion that he hadlost, he heard great idiocy shout: "master chen, i'veused up all my projectiles. let us stop for a momentand get more from the altar table."chen felt in his bag and found he only had five or sixchess pieces left.

"you go first," the monk added. chen walked over tothe altar table and with a flash of inspiration,stretched out his arm and swept all of the projectilesinto his bag. he jumped back to his place and greatidiocy ran over to find the table top was empty. chenthrew a shower of projectiles at the remaining fieryspots, and in a moment had extinguished them all.

great idiocy let out a hearty laugh. "i have to handit to you, master chen," he said. "that was more of abattle of wits than a trial of strength. you win.

please continue.""i apologise," chen replied. "i had already lost, andonly used such a trick because of the importance ofthe matter. please forgive me.""the masters guarding the next two halls are mymartial uncles. their kung fu is very good. you mustbe careful."chen thanked him and went on to the next hall. thishall was also brightly lit with candles, but it wasmuch smaller than the previous three. two rattan matslay on the floor in the centre of the hall, and thesenior monk heavenly mirror was seated on one of them.

as chen entered, he monk stood up in greeting.

"please sit down," he said, gesturing to the otherother mat. chen wondered how he wanted to compete, buttook his seat in silence.

heavenly mirror was an extremely tall man and veryformidable to look at. even seated on the mat, he wasnot much shorter than an ordinary person. his cheekswere two deep hollows, and there appeared to be noflesh on his body at all.

"you have passed through three halls, which is greatlyto your credit," he said. "but you are still junior tome, so i cannot compete with you on equal terms. letus do it this way: if you can go ten moves with mewithout losing, i will let you go through."chens bowed to him. "thank you for your kindness, yourreverence."heavenly mirror grunted. "now parry this!"chen felt a force striking towards his chest andraised his hands to counter it. their palms met andchen was forced to make use of his full strength tokeep from falling backwards. the shock of the impactcaused a dull ache to grow in his left arm.

"now the second move!" heavenly mirror called. chendid not dare to counter his hand directly again. heleant to one side, then hit out at the monk's elbow.

heavenly mirror should have responded by withdrawinghis arm, but instead he swept it across in attack, andchen only just managed to parry it. a bell close tothe hall began to chime, and as it resounded, chen hadan idea. he switched to the kung fu style he hadlearned in the white jade peak, synchronising hismovements to the sound of the bell. heavenly mirrorgasped in surprise and fought back carefully.

when the bell ceased, chen withdrew his hands. "icannot continue," he said.

"all right. we have already exchanged more than fortymoves. your kung fu is very good. please pass."chen stood up, and was about to walk off when hesuddenly swayed and stumbled and hurriedly leantagainst the wall for support. heavenly mirror helpedhim to sit down again.

"rest here for a moment and catch your breath," hesaid. "it won't affect matters."chen close his eyes and did as the monk said.

"where did you learn that style of kung fu?" heavenlymirror asked. chen told him.

"i never guessed that the standard of kung fu would beso high in the western border regions. if you had usedthat style from the start you would not have hurt yourarm.""seeing as i am hurt, i am sure i will not be able tomake it through the last hall," chen said. "what doesyour reverence suggest i do?""if you can't make it through, turn back."chen's martial training made it impossible for him toaccept defeat so easily. he stood up and bowed toheavenly mirror, then strode bravely towards the lasthall.

he was surprised to find it was in fact only a tinyroom in the centre of which sat the abbot of theshaolin monastery, heavenly rainbow. chen wondered howhe could possibly overcome the best kung fu fighter inthe shaolin monastery if his junior, heavenly mirror,was already so formidable.

the abbot bowed. "please be seated," he said. a steadystream of sandlewood-scented smoke rose from a smallincense stove on a table between them. on the wallopposite chen, was a painting of two monks which,although executed with only a few brush-strokes, wasfull of vitality.

heavenly rainbow meditated for a moment, then said:

"there was once a man who was very successful atgoat-herding. he became very rich, but he was bynature very miserly...."hearing the abbot begin to tell a story, chen wasgreatly puzzled, but he concentrated on what the oldman was saying: "an acquaintance of the goatherd knewhe was very stupid, and also that he badly wanted tofind a wife. so he cheated the goatherd, saying: 'iknow a girl who is very beautiful. i can arrange forher to marry you.' the goatherd was delighted and gavehim a large amount of money. a year past, and the mansaid to him: 'your wife has given birth to your son.'

the goatherd hadn't even seen the woman, but hearinghe had a son, he was even more pleased and gave theman another large sum of money. later, the man came tohim again and said: 'your son has died!' the goatherdcried uncontrollably, heart-broken in the extreme."chen had a fairly good general education, and knew hewas quoting from the hundred parables sutra of themahayana school of buddhism.

"in fact all worldly matters are like this," the abbotcontinued. "power and riches are like the wife andchild of the goatherd: just fantasies. what is thepoint of wasting effort to obtain them when losingthem will only cause sorrow?""there was once a husband and wife who had threecakes," chen replied. "they ate one cake each, butcould not decide who should eat the third. finally,they agreed that whoever talked first would lose thechance to eat the cake."hearing chen relate another story from the hundredparables sutra, heavenly rainbow nodded.

"the two stared at each other in silence. soon after,a thief entered and ransacked the house for thecouple's valuables, but because of their agreement,the couple continued to stare at each other withoutsaying a word. seeing them thus, the thief became evenmore bold and violated the wife in front of thehusband. the husband made no complaint at all aboutwhat was happening, but in the end, the wife couldstand it no longer and cried out. the thief grabbed upthe valuables and fled, while the husband clapped hishands and shouted triumphantly: 'you lose! the cake ismine!'"heavenly rainbow could not help but smile, even thoughhe knew the story well.

"he ignored great suffering for the sake of minorpersonal satisfaction, allowing the thief to steal hispossessions and violate his wife in order to satisfyhis appetite. according to buddhist tenets, one shouldtry to help all living things and should not thinkonly of oneself."heavenly rainbow sighed, and quoted from the buddhistscriptures: "there are no rules to regulate behaviour,there are no rules to which i am subject. man is at astandstill until acted upon by a force. those with nodesires, will not be troubled by dreams andfantasies.""life for most people is full of hardship," chenreplied. "the monk zhi daolin once said: 'emperors arecruel and evil by nature. how can one stand idly by?'"the abbot could see chen's determination to carry outhis duty and help ease the people's burden, and wasfull of respect for him.

"your enthusiasm is commendable, master chen," hesaid. "i will set you one more question, and then youcan have your way."chen bowed his head in acknowledgement.

"an old woman was once lying under a tree, resting.

suddenly, a huge bear appeared wanting to eat her. shejumped up and ran behind the tree to escape, and thebear stretched its paws round either side of the treeto grab her. seizing the opportunity, the old womanpressed its paws down onto the tree trunk. as aresult, the bear could not move, but the old woman didnot dare to let go either. some time later, a manpassed by and the old woman appealed to him for help,saying they could kill the bear together and share themeat. the man believed her and took her place holdingdown the bear's paws. the old woman then fled, leavingthe man in the same dilemma she had been in."chen knew the moral of the story: "never regrethelping others, even if you suffer yourself as aresult," he replied.

heavenly rainbow lifted the the long-haired duster hewas holding. "please go through," he said.

chen stood up and bowed before him. "please forgive mefor trespassing on this sacred place," he said.

the abbot nodded. as he walked out of the room, chenheard the old man sigh.