I'm going back through some old martial arts stories I wrote. Though readers these days seem to prefer short, fantastical new-style wuxia novels, I still love the sweeping epics I read as a boy by the four great masters: Jin Yong, Gu Long, Wen Rui'an, and Liang Yusheng.
Jin Yong's 'Snowy Mountain Flying Fox, The Proud Smiling Wanderer, The Deer and the Cauldron, The Book and the Sword, The Return of the Condor Heroes, The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber'; Gu Long's 'A Sword Comes from the West, A Flying Immortal from Beyond the Heavens'; Wen Rui'an's 'Where Are the Disciples of China Now? No One Under Heaven Fails to Know You'; Liang Yusheng's 'A Nation Adrift, A Light Farewell to the Land, Heroes and Heroines, Both Peerless'... Every one is a timeless line, encompassing the vast world of wuxia: chivalry and righteousness, right and wrong, kindness and resentment, love and vengeance.
In my youth, I sang 'A Journey Through the Jianghu.' Let me borrow your five-flowered fur coat for a moment, have the boy bring it out to trade for fine wine, and together we'll drown ten thousand years of sorrow!
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