Did the encounter with DGKB's legend prime YG to believe the story about the Nun?

[Ken Cheng]

One of the more out-of-character moments for Yeung Gor in RETURN OF THE CONDOR HEROES was when he decided to wait sixteen years for Little Dragon Girl to reappear rather than actively go search for her. The apparent reason that he did not search, though Wong Yung had (falsely) informed him of her location (the South Seas Island), was that the guardian of the South Seas Island, the South Seas Nun, supposedly had very high martial arts skills and that if Yeung Gor went there, he would be in mortal peril.

At the time that Yeung Gor received this (false) information, he was already knocking on the door of reaching Greats-level martial arts (if, indeed, he had not achieved it already), recently defeating such opponents as the Golden Wheel Monk and Kau Cheen Yan with the Heavy Iron Sword Technique. The Greats were the most powerful martial artists that Yeung Gor had encountered, and he could scarcely have imagined that any martial artists could be more powerful than they...until he encountered the legend of Dook Goo Kau Bai at the Tomb of Swords. My belief is that Yeung Gor only believed that there could be a "South Seas Divine Nun" whose martial arts could overcome even his Heavy Iron Sword Technique because the concept of Dook Goo Kau Bai, a martial artist whose level surpassed that of the Greats, made the idea plausible to him. Without that encounter, Yeung Gor perhaps would not have believed Wong Yung's story...at least not the part in which he could not go to South Seas Island to find Little Dragon Girl because the South Seas Nun would thwart him.

[Doc Kwok]

One of the more out-of-character moments for Yeung Gor in RETURN OF THE CONDOR HEROES was when he decided to wait sixteen years for Little Dragon Girl to reappear rather than actively go search for her. The apparent reason that he did not search, though Wong Yung had (falsely) informed him of her location (the South Seas Island), was that the guardian of the South Seas Island, the South Seas Nun, supposedly had very high martial arts skills and that if Yeung Gor went there, he would be in mortal peril.

At the time that Yeung Gor received this (false) information, he was already knocking on the door of reaching Greats-level martial arts (if, indeed, he had not achieved it already), recently defeating such opponents as the Golden Wheel Monk and Kau Cheen Yan with the Heavy Iron Sword Technique. The Greats were the most powerful martial artists that Yeung Gor had encountered, and he could scarcely have imagined that any martial artists could be more powerful than they...until he encountered the legend of Dook Goo Kau Bai at the Tomb of Swords. My belief is that Yeung Gor only believed that there could be a "South Seas Divine Nun" whose martial arts could overcome even his Heavy Iron Sword Technique because the concept of Dook Goo Kau Bai, a martial artist whose level surpassed that of the Greats, made the idea plausible to him. Without that encounter, Yeung Gor perhaps would not have believed Wong Yung's story...at least not the part in which he could not go to South Seas Island to find Little Dragon Girl because the South Seas Nun would thwart him.

YG did search. While training beside the sea, he had asked thousands of seafarers for any information regarding the nun, but obviously did not receive any. He also constantly searched for Huang Yaoshi to obtain more information about the nun.

He also did not swallow HY's lies wholesale - when he first heard it, his first reaction was to accuse her of lying:

楊過瞪著黃蓉，厲聲道：「郭伯母，你這番話到底是真是假？」

YG glared at HY, harshly saying 'Auntie Guo, are these words of yours true or false?'

Ultimately he accepted it, probably partly out of wishful thinking, but mainly because the words were indeed written by XLN, and HY's explanation was as good as any.