Double Ninth Festival

Double Ninth Festival is the appointed day for a major Shaolin gathering of martial artists, announced through a red invitation card carried by Xu Zhu. The date gives a public deadline to the monastery’s challenge to the Gusu Murong family’s reputation and to the unresolved suspicion linking its celebrated technique to Venerable Xuan Bei’s death.

The Invitation and Its Challenge

At a pavilion, Xu Zhu explains that his master sent him to deliver ten Heroes Invitation Cards and ordered him to return at once rather than fight; he has delivered four and still carries six. One of the men present takes the red card and reads its formal invitation: Shaolin’s abbot, Xuan Ci, summons martial artists to Songshan Shaolin Temple on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, Double Ninth Festival, to challenge the reputation of the Gusu Murong family’s “Returning you with your own move.” The wording makes the date more than a calendar marker: it fixes when a dispute now circulating through the martial world is to be tested before an assembled audience.

The announcement immediately changes the pavilion’s conversation. A burly man recognizes that Shaolin is holding a gathering to challenge the Gusu Murong family, while Feng BoE, the black-robed man who identifies himself as that family’s subordinate, declares that he will seek a Shaolin expert’s advice immediately. He proposes a preliminary exchange of blows as a way of building anticipation for the larger contest, then imagines arriving at Shaolin on Double Ninth Festival and facing challenger after challenger. The date thus becomes a focal point for both public expectation and the prospect of a series of individual fights.

Suspicion and the Coming Contest

Xu Zhu explains the source of Shaolin’s unease: people have died in recent years under the supposed use of the Murong family’s famous technique, and Venerable Xuan Bei died in Dali. Except for Xuan Ci, the Shaolin monks suspect that the Murong family may be connected with that death, although they do not know whether the suspicion is justified. The invitation’s challenge therefore concerns more than martial prestige; it places a disputed reputation alongside an unresolved death.

Feng BoE denies that the matter concerns the Gusu Murong family, but says that Xu Zhu is unlikely to believe him. He argues that, since the circumstances cannot be fully explained, the issue should be settled through martial arts. His willingness to fight at Shaolin on the appointed day collides with the uncertainty surrounding the accusation: the gathering promises a public test, but the evidence presented at the pavilion does not resolve who is responsible. Another man urges that the matter first be clarified, while a yellow-robed companion counters that clarification would remove the opportunity to fight. Double Ninth Festival consequently stands as the scheduled point at which accusation, reputation, and martial challenge are meant to converge.