Chivalry in Mighty Dragon Crosses the River
A snippet from the novel by Yun Zhongyue
“And you? It seems you two are in the right.” The white-faced woman glanced at Omnipresent Earth God, who had just returned. “I heard Lady Venom is a vicious woman despised by all within the wulin. Please tell me, are you two men of chivalry?”
“Hahaha!” Zhao Jiu guffawed. “What’s a man of chivalry? I can tell you, anyone who wields a sword or sabre thinking he can judge right and wrong is a swindler using the name of chivalry to commit all kinds of heinous deeds. Us four call ourselves ghost, god, demon, and goblin. We pay no heed to the business of heaven and earth or of the gods. We do what we consider heroic deeds regardless of the danger.
“Over these ten long years, we have come and gone through the gates of Hell, we have shed many tears, we have thrown our heads back to the sky laughing, we have played with our lives and used violence to violate the law… Stay out of our business, okay?”
“Have you committed heinous crimes?”
“Oh! Hard to say. Everyone has their own more or less different way of looking at things.” He raised his sword. “Miss, look at this sword here. It’s thin as a wire. Look at if from the side and it’s an inch and a half wide piece of metal. That Lady Venom secretly ambushed me with her poison needles, then viciously attacked me with a dagger. The way I see it, she tried to kill me so I have the right to kill her. The authorities would say I absolutely do not have the right to kill her, I can only let the law of the land punish her. Miss, what do you think?”
“Uhh…”
“Miss, you are young.”
“That… That’s nonsense.”
“I know I’m right, because you’re not using twisted words and forcing logic to refute me. We have to extract a testimony here. May we ask you, Miss, to withdraw?”
“No,” the white-faced woman flatly refused. “Even if you have the right to kill her, in the end killing is not a pleasant thing. People should not murder and eat each other up like wild animals do.”
“So you think we should…”
“Hand them over to the authorities to deal with.”
“Then there’s nothing for us to discuss. Miss, I’d like to ask you to leave.”
“You…”
“Miss, I’m serious.”
“I won’t allow you to use illegal torture.” The white-faced woman said resolutely, “I want to witness it with my own eyes, I want…”
“You don’t want anything.” Zhao Jiu sheathed his sword. “Go on!”
from Mighty Dragon Crosses the River《強龍過江》by Yun Zhongyue 雲中岳
Yun Zhongyue's novels eschew the classic concept of the righteous hero. More than that, he mocks the idea of it. In Yun Zhongyue's jianghu, the line between good and evil is blurred and there is much crossover, and this morality is embodied in his characters.
It isn't grimdark, but a more nuanced, and in my opinion, realistic portrayal of human morality and ethics. Thus, his protagonists might commit questionable deeds, and his villains often are difficult to label a villain.
His wuxia novels, therefore, are similar in tone to revisionist Westerns like Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven or the films of Sergio Leone, a stark contrast to the more black & white morality of most wuxia novels, where hero and villain is more clearly defined.