Sparks Fly

Xuan Ci said, "If the few of you had come to our humble mountain alone, we should naturally have welcomed you into the temple. But the three of you have come together with True Master Zhang. When True Master Zhang was young, he left Shaolin Temple without permission. True Master Zhang surely knows our sect's rules of several hundred years: any disciple who abandons or betrays the sect shall never again be permitted to set foot inside the temple. Otherwise, he must suffer the punishment of having his feet severed."

Zhang Sanfeng merely smiled without speaking, but Song Qingshu was not nearly so patient. He sneered, "When my grandmaster was young, he did serve Master Jueyuan at Shaolin Temple, but only as a menial laborer who swept floors and brewed tea. He was never tonsured, nor did he take a master. How could he possibly count as a Shaolin disciple?"

Xuan Ci said coldly, "But True Master Zhang did steal martial arts from Shaolin Temple."

Song Qingshu recalled the words Zhang Sanfeng had once spoken himself: "Although the martial arts of my Wudang Sect were created by me after years of dedicated study, tracing them back to their origins, had Master Jueyuan not passed the Nine Yang Divine Skill to me, and had Heroine Guo not gifted me that pair of Shaolin Iron Arhats, I would have had nothing to build upon afterward. It would not be wrong to say that my martial arts came from Shaolin."

Zhang Sanfeng could take such matters in stride, but that did not mean Song Qingshu could. Hearing Shaolin Temple repeatedly use words like "traitor," his anger surged. "You keep slandering my grandmaster, saying he stole Shaolin martial arts. Yet everyone in the martial world knows Wudang's martial arts. Why don't you tell us—which