Chapter 2
Mr. Smith, the father of the young man, was shrewd and stingy. He had his son do the secretarial work for him so that he did not need to pay him salary, though he gave him monthly allowance, which was much less than the salary he would pay when he hired a secretary. But his son made a lot of mistakes, which caused him trouble and headache. He should know that cheap pay could not result in good work. Now his son brought home the girl to be his secretary. He only hoped that she could work better than his son, at least worth the pay he would give her. He would pay her less than the average salary, but Linda was contented with the little income as she did not know what the average pay was at that time.
Since he paid her salary, he thought that he must get his money’s worth. So besides the secretarial work, he bade the girl to do all the housework, including cleaning, cooking and washing.
How could Linda cook and wash clothes? When in America, she had ordered pizza when hungry and thrown all the dirty clothes into a washing machine. But there was no washing machine in the sixteenth century in China. She must wash them with bare hands. She carried the dirty clothes in a basket and went to the nearest stream. She watched other women how to wash clothes. They soaked the clothes in water and took them up and put on a smooth stone above the water. Then they beat the wet clothes with a wooden stick till the dirt on the clothes was squeezed out with water. Then they dipped the clothes in water again and shook them in water to let the dirt go with the current. After a while they took them up and wrung water out of the clothes. She followed suit. After washing, she put the clothes back into the basket and went home. She was told to hang the wet clothes on lines tied between trees to dry.
As for cooking, she often forgot to add salt to the dishes and sometimes burned the meat. Mr. Smith would deduct some money from her salary for the meat burnt. For several times, Mr. Smith had half a mind to fire her, but he knew that he could not get any other person to do all the work with so low salary. At least her secretarial work was satisfactory.
The young man, Albert Smith, was always not at home. He was seeking adventures somewhere else. Once the young man returned home with a black eye. Although he had learned fencing before he came to China, yet fencing was nothing compared with Chinese kungfu. When one used kungfu, he could kick while practicing fencing, no one kicked. And a kungfu person could use any weapon, including heavy steel club, while a fencing person only used a thin rapier. There were so many advantages in kungfu over fencing. So he was now learning kungfu from a famous master. Linda wished that next time when he fought against anyone, he had better give black eye than get it.
As Mr. Smith was busy with his business and Albert was away from home, Linda felt lonely and had no one to talk to, though she never talked to the father unless necessary. She was a little afraid of him with a potbelly and a pudgy build. He stared at her with a fierce look in his eyes whenever speaking to her. Once she forgot to polish his shoes, he deducted some money from her salary for the negligence of her job.
She toiled from morning till night and worked her fingers to the bone. She began to hate the heartless old man. However, she had at least earned some money and bought some clothes of the Ming-Dynasty style. She did not want to be conspicuous with bizarre clothes on among other people. Attraction of public attention was not a good thing in ancient China, especially for a pretty girl, she was told. She threw her modern American clothes away.
One day she bought a fish from the market. She cut the head of the fish off and thought that it were Mr. Smith’s head. Then she felt a little better. Another day when she got a piece of meat, she would beat it as if she were beating Mr. Smith. When she felt much better, she cooked the meat while humming a pop song to herself.
One afternoon she went out shopping for vegetables and meat for supper. As she looked so beautiful, almost everyone within the sight either glanced or gazed at her. Just then, a big guy came from the other end of the street. He had a sword hanging from the girdle round his waist. All the pedestrians stepped aside to let him pass. A miserable dog got in his way and he kicked it up with his big foot. The dog flew up like a bird, landed on a roof and rolled down onto the ground. It whined in pain and quickly limped away to escape a second kick. At that time in China, most houses were bungalows, and low.
People in the street just looked on at the scene. No one dared to say anything to this huge guy, especially with a sword hanging on his side. When he got close to Linda, he exclaimed, “Oh, by Buddha! What a beauty! She belongs to me.” He roared in merry laughter. He came to her side and snatched her up and put her on his right shoulder like he were shouldering a sack of rice. Linda fisted him on the back, shouting, “Let me down! Let me down!” She said these words in Chinese, though the pronunciation was not so good, but understandable. She had known a little Chinese when at home because some of her classmates were Chinese-Americans. Since she arrived in China, she had started to learn some more Chinese. She knew that she must overcome the language obstacle, or her life here would be more difficult. She learned easily. She was really a language genius.
The big guy was kidnapping a girl in the broad daylight before so many eyes. Although this was much more serious than the kicking of a dog, yet no one said anything to him. People just stared in silence. The big guy carried Linda away. Just then, the sound of galloping hooves was heard. People in the narrow street stepped aside to avoid any accident.
Soon a white steed came into sight. A young woman sat steadily on the horseback. She was dressed in a dark green upper garment and light-green trousers, in a Chinese style, both of silk. Her little delicate feet were incased in so small shoes of greenish brocade. Ah, the stirrup was of silver. She came from a rich family. Her hair was done in a knot on the top of her head with pearls strung together in the shape of a butterfly stuck in it. In her right hand, she held a long whip. She halted the horse in front of the big guy and said in her ringing voice, “Let her down.”
The guy sneered at her. “Who you think you are.”
“You don’t know me personally, I'm sure, but you may have heard of my nickname.” At that time, kungfu people, both men and women, used nicknames. As a matter of fact, it was not they themselves who wanted to use nicknames. Other people in the karate circle gave them nicknames based on their own conducts. Therefore, the nicknames would reflect their personality and general behavior.
“What's it?”
“Green Phoenix.” She was famous in the kungfu world since she always helped the needy and gave money and things to the poor like some good knights in the middle age in England. Only in England there were no lady knights. Of course, the big guy had heard of Green Phoenix, but he was not afraid of her. He thought to himself, “I’m a big guy. You are only a tiny woman. How can you fight me without being defeated?” He forgot the fact that in kungfu world, it did not depend on the strength born with, but on the kungfu, which would produce great force even from a small stature. The higher one’s kungfu level was, the stronger he or she would be in fight, including kungfu maneuver skills.
The big guy shifted Linda from his right shoulder to the left and drew out his sword with his right hand. He took the initiative and thrust his sword towards the right leg of Green Phoenix, who was still on the horseback with the guy at her right side. She cracked her whip at his right hand. As the whip was much longer, it hit the guy’s hand before he could reach her with his sword. The whip came so quick that he had no time to change his move. It meant that his kungfu level was much lower. Blood was seen on his hand and a sharp pain released the sword in his grip. It fell on the ground with a clang. He could not believe that he was defeated in the first round. He attributed his defeat to his slighting a woman.
He let go of Linda, who was about to drop on the ground and might get hurt when the thin end of the long whip flitted by under her body and entwined on her waist. The young woman jerked back the whip with the girl entwined on the other end. As the girl flew over, she held out both her hands and caught her in the air. She let Linda sit behind her on the horseback.
The big guy picked up his sword and rushed towards Green Phoenix. He would not acknowledge his defeat at the first round. He used his sword as an ax and cut at her hip. She twirled her whip tightly round the blade of his sword and gave a great pull. The force was so gigantic that the guy, though a giant as he was, could not hold his sword any longer. The sword flew away from his hand and landed on the nearby roof. This time the guy knew that he was no match for her and turned to run away for his dear life. Taking the advantage of her long whip, Green Phoenix gave his butts a final hit as a warning and a lesson as well as farewell bidding.
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