Chapter Eighty-Four: The Might of the Primordial Sage

After a simple lunch, Hua Feng wandered with Yun Meng and Bai Feng through the afternoon landscape of Mount Wudang, where many Daoist disciples were practicing martial arts in the training grounds. Hua Feng knew that, since ancient times, Chinese martial arts held the saying: “Shaolin revered in the north, Wudang honored in the south.”

Noticing Hua Feng’s rapt attention, Bai Feng stepped forward to explain the history of Wudang martial arts to them.

“Wudang martial arts are deeply intertwined with Wudang Daoism. Wudang Daoists, while pursuing spiritual cultivation, often practiced martial skills. Even before the Song dynasty, there were extraordinary martial artists among Wudang Daoists. At the end of the Yuan and the dawn of the Ming, the Daoist Zhang Sanfeng brought Wudang boxing to its pinnacle, founding the internal school of Wudang boxing. He is revered as the patriarch of Wudang martial arts, laying the foundation for its later development.

Because Wudang martial arts followed the Daoist tradition of secret transmission, they remained obscure for a long time. During the Qing dynasty and the Republican era, with social unrest and the decline of Daoism, many Daoists left the mountains and returned to secular life, and thus Wudang martial arts gradually spread among the common people.”

“How did they evolve from there?” Hua Feng asked.

“Building on the attack and defense theories of ancient martial arts, Wudang incorporated principles from the Book of Changes and insights from Daoist inner alchemy, gradually forming its own theoretical system and unique style. Its core theories involve the waxing and waning of yin and yang, the transformation of the eight trigrams, and the generation and overcoming of the five elements. Its purpose is the cultivation of mind and body, self-defense, and health preservation, emphasizing intent over brute strength, using four ounces to move a thousand pounds, overcoming the strong with the gentle, acting later but gaining the advantage, distinguishing subtle distances, and subduing opponents through control and closure.

Wudang martial arts include Taiji Boxing, Xingyi Boxing, Bagua Palm, Wudang Qigong, Wudang Sword, and related weapons techniques. Over its long evolution, many schools and styles have formed, such as internal boxing, Wudang Taiyi Five Elements Boxing, Wudang Pure Yang Boxing, Wudang Alchemical Sword Techniques, Zhaobao Taiji Boxing, Chen-style Taiji, Yang-style Taiji, Wu-style Taiji, Sun-style Taiji, and the southern arts of the Gong family.”

Listening to Bai Feng’s gentle narration, Yun Meng couldn’t help but exclaim, “Bai Feng, you know so much! How do you know all these details?”

Hua Feng, too, was curious.

With a rare, blooming smile, Bai Feng replied, “Because my master, Master Linfeng, once studied at Wudang. In a way, I’m also a successor of Wudang martial arts.”

The renown of Mount Wudang owes much to its distance from cities and mundane bustle, offering tranquility, elegance, and strange, wondrous scenery.

Ascending the main peak, “Heavenly Pillar Peak,” more than sixteen hundred meters above sea level, one is surrounded by clouds, and many feel all the worries of the mortal world vanish beneath their feet.

Hua Feng looked around: seventy-two peaks soared into the sky, each bowing toward the main peak, as if stars encircling the moon, embodying the grandeur of “all mountains paying homage.”

A poet from the Yuan dynasty once wrote, “Seventy-two peaks touch the azure sky, twenty-four streams sing in endless flow.”

Around Heavenly Pillar Peak, the mountains rise steeply and the valleys are deep, with streams and brooks intertwining, making all worldly thoughts vanish in the presence of such otherworldly beauty.

At this moment, Hua Feng, Yun Meng, and Bai Feng stood on a terrace atop Heavenly Pillar Peak, gazing into the billowing sea of clouds—it was as if they had entered a fairyland.

“What a beautiful place!” Yun Meng couldn’t help but sigh.

“Yes, a paradise on earth, nothing less,” Hua Feng agreed.

Bai Feng said nothing more; she simply gazed quietly at the undulating sea of clouds, lost in thought.

About half an hour later, the sound of a bell echoed through the mountain valleys.

“It’s the Wudang summons. We should pay our respects to Elder Zhang Sanfeng,” Hua Feng said. As neighbors to Wudang, he had occasionally heard this bell during his own cultivation.

“Let’s go together!” Yun Meng replied cheerfully, running off toward the main hall of Wudang.

Watching Yun Meng, as lively as a sparrow, Bai Feng and Hua Feng quickly followed.

From all directions, Daoist cultivators of various schools, who had been wandering the grounds, now converged, all eager for an audience with the legendary grandmaster of the martial world, even if this long-awaited moment came slowly.

In front of the Zixiao Palace’s grand hall, more than a thousand people had gathered, all to await one legendary figure—Zhang Sanfeng.

Zixiao Palace, covering 74,000 square meters, originally housed 182 buildings, with a total construction area of 8,553 square meters. The main hall stands 18 meters high, 30 meters wide, and 12 meters deep, covering over 350 square meters. The architecture showcases a variety of techniques—woodwork, bronze casting, stone carving—each reaching the highest levels of craftsmanship.

The complex was constructed according to the contours of the mountain, employing the artistic principles of restraint before display, openness before density, and harmony between head and tail, echoing across distances. Hundreds of broad steps were built up the mountain, with tier upon tier of terraces, their imposing presence clear. The halls and pavilions stand in close succession, their red walls and green tiles magnificent and grand. From the base to the summit, one passes in succession through the Hall of the Dragon and Tiger, the Stele Pavilion, the Ten Directions Hall, the Grand Zixiao Hall, and the Hall of Parents, with auxiliary halls and east-west palaces and Daoist courtyards flanking either side—each function clearly distinguished, solemn, and exuding the aura of a royal Daoist sanctuary.

The Grand Zixiao Hall is the main hall of the palace and the only surviving double-eaved, hip-and-gable wooden Daoist hall on Mount Wudang. This rare structure, one of the very few in Chinese architecture, features a beam-lifted framework, its structure and layout both scientific and harmonious in style, blending seamlessly with the natural environment and standing out among the ancient buildings of Wudang.

Before long, the thousand-strong crowd was finally rewarded for their wait. Dressed in a plain white Daoist robe adorned with a Taiji emblem and golden script, Zhang Sanfeng appeared before them. His gaze was sharp, his expression serene, his white hair flowing, yet his face bore the heroic vigor of a man in his prime.

“Master Zhang! Look, it’s Master Zhang!”

“It’s the Patriarch! The living patriarch!”

“I never thought I’d live to see the founder of our school, a sage of the original generation! Ha ha... Is this a dream?”

“I can’t believe our founder, at 871 years old, still looks so young—it’s unbelievable!”

Voices of amazement rose from the crowd. Zhang Sanfeng hadn’t expected, after hundreds of years, that the world would still pay him such respect. Looking at the disciples before him—his spiritual descendants and the new generation of the martial world—his heart was filled with a thousand emotions. Millennia seemed to have passed like a fleeting dream; all that once was has become mist and illusion.

Just as he never expected that, in the depths of the Guixu Sea, it would be his lifelong rival, Qiongqi, who saved him—perhaps it was fate, or perhaps something he once believed in had changed, unknown to him. After centuries of time slipping by, he now stood before the Zixiao Hall, the sect that flourished because of him, the place to which he had devoted so much of his life. Suddenly, he felt a wave of exhaustion.

The current head of Wudang, Master Yichen, stood respectfully to one side, not daring to be the least bit negligent before the patriarch, looking very much like a novice Daoist under instruction.

Zhang Sanfeng raised his hand for silence, and with his measured breathing, his presence gradually enveloped the entire assembly.

A familiar yet unfamiliar sensation drifted through the hearts of all present. Some had experienced it before; most found it strange, but the feeling was the same for everyone—as if standing before a towering mountain.