Edition note: An independent English rewriting of the Chinese argument, shaped for English-language readers.
Huang Yaoshi names six disciples with the character for wind and raises them on an island outsiders cannot navigate. When Chen Xuanfeng and Mei Chaofeng steal half of the Nine Yin Manual and flee, he does not merely pursue the thieves. He breaks the legs of the innocent disciples who remain and expels them all.
Lu Chengfeng builds a new life near Lake Tai with a permanent disability. Feng Mofeng becomes a village blacksmith. Qu Lingfeng dies stealing imperial paintings, hoping that gifts might earn forgiveness from the teacher who crippled him. None transfers loyalty to another school. The injured disciples continue to interpret punishment through the law of the man who imposed it.
Huang is celebrated as “Eastern Heretic” because he despises hypocritical convention. He rejects court, orthodoxy, and public opinion; his freedom is among the novel's great attractions. Yet the person who accepts no external rule demands faultless obedience from those below him. The positions do not conflict on Peach Blossom Island because only one person is authorized to define freedom.
His love for Huang Rong has the same shape as his cruelty toward the disciples. The love is deep and unmistakable, but he alone decides what is suitable for her, including whether Guo Jing may enter her future. Care and domination are not opposites when both proceed from the assumption that one voice determines what counts.
Mei Chaofeng eventually returns blind, burdened by murders committed while practicing a damaged text she never understood. She kneels for readmission and later dies taking a blow intended for Huang Yaoshi. Her last act serves the teacher who expelled her. The novel does not calculate whether it redeems her crimes or his.
The island contains unmatched martial learning, music, gardens, and ingenious defenses. What it lacks is any rule not spoken by its master. Huang Rong's most important act may therefore be leaving it. She carries its intelligence into the world without accepting that the island's single law must close around her.
Based on the Sanlian Bookstore edition of Jin Yong's Legends of the Condor Heroes; later revisions differ in some details.
版本说明：中文原作；简体与繁体同页切换。
黄药师收过六个徒弟：曲灵风、陈玄风、梅超风、陆乘风、武罡风、冯默风。
这六个人的名字里都有一个风字。桃花岛在东海上，岛上遍布奇门遁甲的机关，外人进不去。他们在那里长大，学的是当世第一等的武功。
出事的是其中两个。
陈玄风和梅超风在岛上相好，这件事按规矩不许。两个人都知道自己的功夫不够在江湖上成名，于是偷了黄药师的半部《九阴真经》，连夜逃了。
黄药师发现之后做的事情，是这本书里最难解释的一件。
他没有去追那两个人。他把留在岛上的另外几个徒弟叫来，把他们的腿骨打断、脚筋挑断，一个一个逐出师门。
这几个人没有偷东西。他们受罚，是因为另外两个人偷了东西。
陆乘风被逐的时候十八岁。他后来在太湖边上建了归云庄，成了一方人物，腿一直是瘸的。冯默风流落到乡下打铁，一瘸一拐地拉风箱，一辈子没有再回过桃花岛。曲灵风更早一步被打断双腿赶出去，后来在牛家村开了间酒馆，为了给师父偷回宫里的字画，死在皇宫里——他到死都想着有一天能凭这些东西求师父原谅。
这些人被逐出去之后，谁也没有反过来告过师父。曲灵风想的是怎么求原谅，陆乘风把自己的儿子取名陆冠英、教的还是桃花岛的功夫，冯默风在乡下打了半辈子铁，见到师门的人第一句话是问师父好不好。
被打断腿的那几个，一个也没有改换门庭。
书里写黄药师这个人，是"邪"。这个字在江湖上的意思是不守规矩：他不认朝廷，不认礼法，不认那些他觉得虚伪的东西，说话做事都由着自己。这一面写得很漂亮。
同一个人，把六个徒弟里没做错事的四个打成了残废。
他自己一生不受任何规矩管束，同时要求门下的人对他绝对无过。这两件事在他身上不冲突，因为那座岛上只有一个人有资格立规矩。
黄蓉是他女儿。她母亲冯蘅当年为他默写《九阴真经》，耗尽心力，难产死了。他此后把这座岛封了起来，脾气也是从那时候起变的。
黄蓉从小在岛上长大，聪明，任性，想什么就做什么。她跟父亲吵了一架，一个人跑出去，在张家口遇见了郭靖。
黄药师对这个女儿是真的好，他一生就这一个软处。可是他看不上郭靖，反对得很硬，还出过难题为难人。后来为了女儿，他也确实做过很多事。
他对女儿的爱和对徒弟的狠，是同一个道理的两面：这座岛上什么算数，由他一个人定。
梅超风这一条线要单独说。
她和陈玄风逃出去之后，两个人练那半部经书。经书是残的，上半部在别人手里；两个人不懂里面的话，照着字面硬练，越练越邪，练出了九阴白骨爪。他们在江湖上留下一路血案，被叫作黑风双煞。
陈玄风死在蒙古草原，是被六岁的郭靖误打误撞用匕首捅死的。梅超风的眼睛被柯镇恶打瞎。
此后她一个人瞎着眼睛在草原上练那部经书，练了很多年。她练不下去——那些口诀她背得出，意思不懂，一动手就伤自己。
她后来见到黄药师，跪下磕头，求师父收回门墙。
黄药师收了。她死的时候，是替黄药师挡了欧阳锋一掌。
她这一生做过很多恶事，最后一件事是替一个把她逐出去的人挡了一掌。书里没有让谁说这算不算够了。
把这一岛的人排一排：一个不受任何拘束的岛主，六个各自残废、逃亡、流落、死掉的徒弟，一个跑出去就不肯回来的女儿。
那座岛上有全天下最好的武功，也有最好的机关、最好的花木、最好的琴箫。
它唯一没有的是一条不由岛主一个人说了算的规矩。
注：本文所据为金庸《射雕英雄传》三联书店版。人物、情节与引述均出自该版本；新修版在若干处另有改动，与本文所论不涉之处不另作说明。