What did Huang Yaoshi actually do during his wanderings?

[tape]

It's strange that he doesn't have a larger reputation or cause a larger commotion than he does.

He was wandering nonstop from the end of LOCH until the end of ROCH, which is a good 40 years or so. From his character, he certainly would not shy away from involving himself in anything that crosses his eye. Considering there's so many arrogant wulin individuals and ROCH taking place during war torn times, you'd expect him to be massacring or heavily wounding tons of wulin individuals and Mongol soldiers that were unlucky enough to cross his path, at least enough for people to frequently talk about him -- after all Yang Guo built a huge reputation doing similar things in the ~10 years after he left Dugu's cave with the same temperament (both wander and only involve themselves in things they see rather than actively try to be heroes).

Was his wandering not in wulin and more like hiking (perhaps with some herbs considering his mastery of medicine )?

[Ian Liew]

Huang Yaoshi seemed the type who would not bother to leave a calling card after interfering. Preferably, nobody would ever know he was there. It's like how he handled Li Mochou at the beginning of ROCH - he swoops in, plays his flute, saves Cheng Ying (but not Lu Wushuang), and nobody involved even knew who he was, and that he had accepted Cheng Ying as his disciple. Along the way he would have made life hell for anybody he didn't like who crossed his path, but those who survived would never know that that figure which appeared out of thin air was Huang Yaoshi. He didn't engage with the people he helped the way Yang Guo did.

[Ken Cheng]

Maybe smoke LOTS of weed. It would explain why he was relatively mellower in ROCH than he was in LOCH.

[hyoyatika]

Huang Yaoshi seemed the type who would not bother to leave a calling card after interfering. Preferably, nobody would ever know he was there. It's like how he handled Li Mochou at the beginning of ROCH - he swoops in, plays his flute, saves Cheng Ying (but not Lu Wushuang), and nobody involved even knew who he was, and that he had accepted Cheng Ying as his disciple. Along the way he would have made life hell for anybody he didn't like who crossed his path, but those who survived would never know that that figure which appeared out of thin air was Huang Yaoshi. He didn't engage with the people he helped the way Yang Guo did.

Doesn't make sense, because people didn't know Yang Guo=Condor Hero; but people created the moniker Condor Hero. If HYS was making a presence, I'm sure people would spread tales of him, maybe as the Flute-carrying guy or something.

I think HYS mellowed a lot in his later years. After all, at the start of ROCH, he lost 2 buddies-H7G and OYF. I felt that with YiDeng "retiring" and the loss of H7G and OYF, it sort of killed the competitive nature in HYS.

[Ian Liew]

Doesn't make sense, because people didn't know Yang Guo=Condor Hero; but people created the moniker Condor Hero. If HYS was making a presence, I'm sure people would spread tales of him, maybe as the Flute-carrying guy or something.

I think HYS mellowed a lot in his later years. After all, at the start of ROCH, he lost 2 buddies-H7G and OYF. I felt that with YiDeng "retiring" and the loss of H7G and OYF, it sort of killed the competitive nature in HYS.

Sorry - my mistake. I meant Condor Hero, not Yang Guo. It was Yang Guo, of course, but he engaged with the people in his identity as the Condor Hero. Yang Guo went out to make friends, Huang Yaoshi didn't. I don't think he mellowed - he wasn't exactly the sort of friendly, wrong-righting kind of daxia even during his younger days when OYF and H7G were around - HYS certainly wasn't trying to compete with H7G on the righteous front. A few dead Mongolian soldiers here, a burning camp there, a villain who suddenly dropped dead - I can see HYS doing all this without staying around to reveal himself to those he had helped, simply because the presence of such things may have annoyed him.

[ChanceEncounter]

I think HYS mellowed a lot in his later years. After all, at the start of ROCH, he lost 2 buddies-H7G and OYF. I felt that with YiDeng "retiring" and the loss of H7G and OYF, it sort of killed the competitive nature in HYS.

This wouldn't apply. It's technically in the early part of the ROCH novel, but it's already 20 years from the end of LOCH, which gives HYS more than enough time to assemble a reputation if what he was doing was inclined to do so.

I think there's plenty of people who already know him as Eastern Heretic that his resume is already 'complete' so to speak. There's really no point in further perpetuating his mythos because everyone already knows his name. There's an element of new kid on the block with the Condor Hero.