Mu Nianci

Mu Nianci is a character in the wuxia novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes by Jin Yong (Louis Cha). She is the romantic interest of the antagonist, Yang Kang, and the mother of Yang Guo, the protagonist in the sequel novel, The Return of the Condor Heroes. Jin Yong describes her appearance as "firm like a piece of jade, despite appearing weather-beaten, she is beautiful, with bright eyes and sparkling white teeth." Mu Nianci and Qin Nanqin The Mu Nianci in the latest revision of The Legend of the Condor Heroes is actually an amalgam of the original Mu Nianci and another character, Qin Nanqin. In the first edition, Mu Nianci is Yang Kang's love interest but not Yang Guo's mother. Qin Nanqin lives with her grandfather and they catch snakes for a living. She develops a crush on Guo Jing after he saves her. However, she is raped by Yang Kang and Mu Nianci arrives too late to stop him. Qin Nanqin becomes pregnant and gives birth to Yang Guo and thereafter becomes a nun and travels with Mu Nianci before settling down to raise her child. After Yang Kang was poisoned, Mu Nianci performs a coup de grâce on him and commits suicide to join him in death. Qin Nanqin went on to give birth to Yang Guo, and raised the boy until when she was bitten by a poisonous snake while trying to protect her son at the time Yang Guo was five years old. Before dying, Qin Nanqin entrusts her son to Guo Jing. Jin Yong felt that Qin Nanqin's role was unnecessary so he merged Mu Nianci and Qin Nanqin into a single character when he revised the novel. Roles in the novels Mu Nianci was from a village in Lin'an (present-day Hangzhou). She became an orphan shortly after birth when an epidemic killed her family. Months before, her family offered shelter to an injured Mu Yi, who was escaping from Duan Tiande. When Mu Yi returned to her home to offer help, he saw that she was the only survivor in her family of seven (her parents and four brothers died) and decided to adopt the girl to repay her family's kindness. When Mu Nianci became older, Mu Yi decided that it is time for him to find a suitable spouse for her. They travel around the land and stage martial arts contests for interested men to participate. The contestant must defeat Mu Nianci to win her hand-in-marriage but none has managed to overcome her yet.