《覆雨翻雲》 LWOLAP - Summary of the Real Novel (Part I)

Many viewers are curious about the differences between the TVB series and the real novel. Questions keep popping up in forums here and there. To make it easier for others, I decided to summarize the novel per ajon753’s request.

This summary was originally posted on AsianFanatics.net: Lethal Weapons of Love and Passion subforum: Summary of the Real Novel

The novel is very long and complicated. I’ll summarize it to the best of my memory.

The story starts off with Long Fan Wan (John Chiang’s character) and the internal affairs of his Lo Gau Clan. His clan controls all of Dung Ting Lake and is well known for it’s powerful fleet of ships. Chek Jun Sun (who gave Hon Pak his inner power) was known for his craze for martial arts and weapons. He had his own Jun Sun Clan and they attacked Lo Gao Clan but Long Fan Wan fought them off.

Cut to … Fung Hang Lit’s beloved wife left him and he experienced a sudden loss of inner power. The sorcerer Pong Ban was using him as a “container” to hold good inner power and arranged to have his lover Gan Bing Wan marry him and leave him. His purpose was to inflict pain on both Hang Lit and himself at the same time. When it was time that both were having the same feeling of despair, he could remotely take all of Hang Lit’s inner power, Hang Lit would die, and he would merge his evil inner power with Hang Lit’s good inner power and become invincible. But Hang Lit didn’t die as expected, so Pong Ban had his runners hunt Hang Lit down.

The young and affectionate Hon Pak saves Fung Hang Lit once when he got really hurt. Killers continued to chase after them. Long Fan Wan saves both of them in the nick of time and Hang Lit was taken to some place to recover.

Hon Pak returns to the Hon mansion, a prestigous martial arts and commerce family, where he is the caretaker of the weapons chamber. Hon Pak doesn’t know martial arts but hears a lot of stories from his master’s family and friends. He knows about many types of weapons though doesn’t know how to use them. His favorite weapon in the chamber is a mysterious sabre that his master’s brother brought back. Chun Mung Yiu was invited to the weapons chamber to see the mysterious sabre. She was an elite fighter of her sect, the only one allowed to journey out in several hundred years. Hon Pak fell in love at first sight.

Later Hon Pak got framed for stealing the sabre. In jail he meets Chek Jun Sun, who is hiding from Pong Ban after a brutal defeat. The guards want Hon Pak dead to protect the real perpetrator. CJS gives him some inner power so he could protect himself from the beatings. Later CJS didn’t want to live the rest of his live as a coward, and he knows that Hon Pak has to die for the case to close, so he passes all his inner power to Hon Pak. Not knowing what would happen after Hon Pak receives his power, CJS asks Hon Pak to kill Pong Ban when he gets the chance. After getting all of CJS’s inner power, Hon Pak dies. All of the martial arts world know about him stealing the sabre and died in jail. Of course he is resurrected, but CJS’s inner power causes major physical transformations that made him look totally different. No one could recognize him, not even Fung Hang Lit and Chun Mung Yiu. Hon Pak doesn’t know any routines but his inner power was good enough to beat up mediocre fighters with just random moves. And because CJS’s cognition was also passed to him, he was able to think like an experienced fighter, sometimes.

On an attempt to chase Pong Ban, he meets Gan Bing Wan. She thought she killed him and felt very bad, when in fact it was just time for him die and reborn again. After he literally crawls out of the grave for the second time, he goes back and kidnaps her to lure Pong Ban, also because he was attracted to her. Gan Bing Wan did not resist. She’s a miserable person at this point - partly due to remorse for hurting Fung Hang Lit and partly because Pong Ban already knows that she did love FHL. When she figured that Pong Ban will not come for her, she decides to return to her master’s temple. When she returned, her master passed away and she succeeds as leader of the sect. (That’s it for Gan Bing Wan. She is a very minor character in the novel.)

Hon Pak chases after Pong Ban again. Pong Ban is curious to know who is this young powerful fighter that came from nowhere. He sends his disciple Fong Ye Yue (the Mongolian character that makes up Ray’s character in the series) to confront Hon Pak. They fought and FYY was intrigued by Hon Pak’s child-like personality and mysterious background. He purposed to play a game of hide-and-go-seek with Hon Pak. FYY gave him 3 days to hide and then he will send out all his runners to capture him. If he doesn’t get captured in 3 months, he wins and he lives. Hon Pak respects FYY for his forthrightness despite FYY tries to kill him.

Pong Ban challenges Long Fan Wan to a battle. They set a date to fight a year later on some island in Dung Ting Lake. His strategy was to keep Long Fan Wan from interfering his disciple’s coup d’etat. Pong Ban himself does not insist on overthrowing the Ming government, but he is obligated to help his disciple, who is a descendent of Kublai Khan.

Fung Hang Lit meets a perky young lady called Gok Sin Lin. She tells him she knows someone who could help him regain his inner power. She’s a compulsive liar and always pretends to cry to get his sympathy, so Hang Lit didn’t believe her. He sometimes finds her annoying, but because he’s a gentleman, he puts up with her and lets her follow him around.

Hon Pak realizes he couldn’t kill Pong Ban since he couldn’t even beat his disciple. He returns to the Hon mansion to find out who framed him. On the way he meets Fan Leung Gik (Power Chan, only he’s very old in the novel, like grandpa old). Leung Gik lures him to some forest and tells him his lifestory. After he finishs talking, he tries to kill Hon Pak. Since he’s a thief, he’s always stealthy and lonely. Once in a while he would find someone to blow smoke, and then kill that person off. Fan Leung Gik’s skills rank among the top 10, but Hon Pak was not afraid of him. Fan Leung Gik changes his mind. He takes Hon Pak to peek at see some lady named Jiu Ha. Jiu Ha never met Fan Leung Gik but he considers her a daughter and makes Hon Pak promise to marry her. Hon Pak hesitates because she was already someone’s concubine.

Hon Pak finds out that Pong Ban wants to kill Fung Hang Lit. Although Hang Lit was unconscious most of the time they were together, Hon Pak considers FHL a good friend and wants to stop Pong Ban from killing him, but he still has to dodge FYY at the same time. Fan Leung Gik worries that if he dies trying to save FHL, Jiu Ha would be a widow. Fan Leung Gik promises to help him save FHL under the condition that he must steal Jiu Ha from her uncaring husband.

FHL’s master Lei Yuek Hoi helps him regain some inner power. Lei Yuek Hoi decides to challenge Bong Pan. He purposely fights Pong Ban in front of FHL, so he could see and learn from the battle. Hon Pak and Fan Leung Gik also look on from afar. Lei Yuek Hoi was critically injured. Pong Ban senses Hon Pak’s presence, which diverted his attention and let Lei Yuek Hoi take FHL back safely. Lei Yuek Hoi dies shortly after leaving the battle. FHL was furious and went back to fight Pong Ban, but Pong Ban left. FHL thanks Hon Pak, but he doesn’t recognize him, and found it weird why this young man keeps smiling at him. Hon Pak expained his past, but FHL didn’t recall much of how Hon Pak saved him.

The three became buddies in no time. FHL was sad about his master’s death, so Hon Pak and FLG bicker each other to make him laugh. Gok Sin Lin caught up with the three. While eating, they encounter the prison guard that “killed” Hon Pak. Not knowing who he was, the guard gives them a hard time. Hon Pak becomes emotionally volatile - his mind wants to kill, but he also trys very hard to suppress his madness. FHL and FLG was trying to calm him, when all of a sudden Hon Pak returns to his usual innocent look and says he’s not going to fight and just runs off. He runs off because he spots Chun Mung Yiu on the street. FLG follows him, for fear that Hon Pak will not keep his promise to marry Jiu Ha. Gok Sin Lin keeps FHL company after they leave.

With FLG’s help, Hon Pak chases after CMY and told her everything about his past. She doubts him at first, but when she looks into his eyes, he gives her a familar impression of innocence, so she believes he is the supposedly dead servant. Fong Ye Yue comes along and tells Hon Pak that he’s ending their hide-and-seek game and will kill him without holding back. In light of the fact that Hon Pak is becoming more powerful by the day, it was not wise of him to let him live for 3 more months. Of course he doesn’t do so with CMY present, because he also falls in love with her at first sight. He then changes the rules of the game — if in 10 days Hon Pak could live through 3 attacks from his killers, he will take on Hon Pak to a fair duel. Hon Pak picks the location and chose to fight at the Hon mansion weapons chamber. Before leaving, FYY invites CMY to meet Pong Ban in 3 days. Later, FLG wanted to tell CMY that Hon Pak has a crush on her, but before he was able to say anything, Hon Pak ran off again, this time because he was shy.

Meanwhile, FHL leaves town without waiting for his buddies. Gok Sin Lin doesn’t give up and continues to follow him. Suddenly they were surrounded by a group that wanted to kidnap Gok Sin Lin. Turns out she came from Seung Sau Fu, a family lead by Madam Sueng Sau and well-known for it’s mysterious use of sex to heal and enhance inner power. Many people want to reveal the secret behind the Seung Sau Method (which is what Ray used to heal Charmaine). They were both hurt and Gok Sin Lin leads FHL to Seung Sau Fu.

Chun Mung Yiu meets with Pong Ban. Pong Ban tells her that after spending 10 days with her master Yin Jing Ngam in the temple, he decided to isolate himself for 20 years to forget her. She sent him a letter saying “I am giving you my disciple, but will train another to combat you.” CMY asked him why did he let Gan Bing Wan leave. He replied “I thought I could forget her, like how I thought I could forget Jing Ngam.” (The novel broke up the details of Pong Ban and Yin Jing Ngam into many bits and pieces. I don’t remember it all. I guess she wanted to create obstacles that will prevent him from becoming invincible. And love is his ultimate obstacle.)

To be continued…