The Flying Arc Saga (Volume 1 and 2)

Author: Jin Yong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-05-01
Features: "Hu Yi Dao, Qu Chi, Tian Shu!" "Miao Ren Feng, Di Cang, He Gu!" A hoarse voice called out in a low tone. The cries were filled with resentment and anger, the words bursting from the gaps between the teeth, as if they were a curse from millennia, each syllable stained with blood and hatred. Thump, thump, thump—four flashes of golden light, four golden darts shot in sequence, aimed at two wooden plaques. The Legend of the Flying Fox was written between 1960 and 1961 and originally serialized in the Wuxia and History magazine, with 8,000 characters published in each issue. Novels serialized in newspapers typically had paragraphs of about 1,000 to 1,400 characters each. The Legend of the Flying Fox, however, was divided into sections of 8,000 characters each, so the writing style was slightly different. I wrote one section every ten days, completing it in one night—usually starting at midnight and finishing by 7 or 8 a.m. the next morning. As a long, the rhythm of writing in sections of 8,000 characters was absolutely not ideal. The revisions made this time mainly focused on adjusting the rhythm to be smoother and eliminating unnecessary traces of the section breaks. The Legend of the Flying Fox is a "prequel" to Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain, narrating Hu Fei's past. However, these are two separate novels that are connected but not entirely unified. In The Legend of the Flying Fox, Hu Fei meets Miao Ren Feng multiple times, and he has other beloveds. These plot points were not forced to align when revising Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain. The writing style of this novel is relatively distant from the tradition of old Chinese novels, and it has not been changed back, but two things have been revised: First, modern-sounding words and concepts were removed from the dialogue, and the internal monologue of the characters was also adjusted. Second, sentences that were too literary and resembled foreign grammar were rewritten. The true protagonist of Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain is actually Hu Yi Dao. Hu Fei's character is quite thin in Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain, but he gradually takes shape in this book. I tried to portray a hero in this novel who helps those in need and acts with righteousness. In wuxia novels, there aren’t many that truly write about heroes—most protagonists are more about martial prowess rather than righteousness. Confucius said, "Wealth and honor cannot corrupt, poverty and humility cannot move, and power cannot bend—this is what is called a great man." Wuxia characters do not care about wealth or poverty and are even more unyielding to power. They can easily meet all three standards of a great man. In this book, I wanted to add some requirements for Hu Fei: "not to be moved by beauty, not to be moved by pleading, and not to be moved by face." Heroes can’t resist beauty; a beautiful girl like Yuan Zi Yi, who is deeply loved by Hu Fei, is pleading softly at the moment of mutual affection—it would be difficult to refuse her. Heroes and tough guys are always more moved by softness than by force. Feng Tian Nan offers gold and houses, which Hu Fei naturally does not value, but such sincere pleading makes it even harder to refuse him. In the martial world, face and righteousness are highly valued. People like Zhou Tie Jiao give Hu Fei enough face and beg him to forgive Feng Tian Nan, but Hu Fei still refuses. Not giving face is something even heroes and tough guys find hard to do. Hu Fei behaves this way only for the four of Zhong A Si, whom he has never met and has no connection with. The purpose was to write such a character, but I failed to give it depth. Among all the male characters I have written, Hu Fei, Qiao Feng, Yang Guo, Guo Jing, and Linghu Chong are the ones I particularly like. In wuxia novels, when a villain is killed by the protagonist, the usual treatment is to consider them "deserving of death" and not dwell on it further. In this book, I wrote about the character of Grandma Shang, trying to show that when a villain is killed, his family may not think he deserves it. They may still admire and deeply love him, unchanged by age or death, forever mourning his death and intensely hating those who killed him.