Survivors

This was already the third breakfast stall Su Xinghe had eaten at.

He had moved from the Great River Gang, gradually making his way toward Eight-Zhang Street.

He had also heard a rough account of last night's battle.

Early that morning, the county yamen had announced to the public that demonic cultists from the Peaceful Heaven Sect had entered the city. They had raided a Brokerage Guild and killed the warehouse guards.

They did not disclose exactly how many had died, only that the cultists had already retreated and the common people need not panic.

With that conclusion, Su Xinghe relaxed a little.

After all, they had not come for him. Besides, the enemy should already have gotten what they wanted from the Brokerage Guild; they would not be so brazen as to commit murder in broad daylight.

With the Veteran's Trade House gone, the remnants of the Great River Gang likely could not hold their turf in the south of the city either. He could plan to use this chance to leave his life in the underworld behind and scrub himself clean as a martial arts school apprentice.

But there were still two problems.

He had already trained the Golden Ape Fist to Inner Tempering, but he still needed to ask the Brokerage Guild about the subsequent Body Tempering and Bone Forging portions.

And the Brokerage Guild knew where his family lived.

Before he knew whether there were any survivors in the Brokerage Guild, he could not rashly jump ship.

If the Brokerage Guild had been wiped out entirely, then he could consider whether to move house.

Blending into the crowd, Su Xinghe hurried toward Eight-Zhang Street.

With the aid of his fate trait, the wound had already begun to scab over. As long as he did not move too strenuously, it was basically impossible to notice.

The moment he entered Eight-Zhang Street, he saw yamen runners setting up checkpoints and patrolling near the Veteran's Trade House. Anyone who tried to approach was immediately shouted at and driven away.

Those who had been chased off did not go far. Instead, they gathered in twos and threes at both ends of the street, continuing to watch.

There were many people there to watch the excitement. There were several hundred on this end of the street alone, blocking more than half of Eight-Zhang Street.

Su Xinghe also blended into the crowd and looked toward the Veteran's Trade House from afar. Dozens of carriages bearing the Martial Dao Bureau Security Office's flags were parked nearby, while scores of constables and yamen runners in uniform continually carried things in and out.

The entire Brokerage Guild building beside them was now reduced to broken walls and rubble. Even several neighboring shops had suffered no small amount of collateral damage.

The cleanup was still underway. Charred corpses and goods were constantly being carried out.

When he looked toward the entrance to the alley they usually took to the back lane, he found it packed with all kinds of carriages as well.

All around stood burly, sharp-eyed guards of the Lu Family, along with constables and yamen runners in official robes. There was not a single person in Brokerage Guild attire, nor any familiar face from the Great River Gang.

And deep within the alley, the Great River Gang's warehouse compound had become ruins.

Su Xinghe sighed inwardly.

He lowered his head and quickly left.

The Great River Gang was gone. Or rather, the Veteran's Trade House was gone. He could not say he was reluctant to part with it, but there was still some regret in the end.

If Brother Chun had been a little more generous back then and shown them the entire Golden Ape Fist manual, there would not have been so much trouble.

Now, though...

A thought rose from the depths of his heart...

He quietly pressed the Treasure Notes against his chest. They were enough for him to find a martial arts school and start over.

With the Inner Tempering-level Golden Ape Fist as his foundation, he should be able to directly learn a complete true martial art.

As for going to the Black Market, he decided to forget it after thinking it over.

Leaving aside the fact that wealth should not be flaunted, even if he wanted to buy something, seven hundred taels probably would not be enough.

He was no longer the person who had just arrived in this world, thinking forty taels could buy a true martial art manual. Even if he did buy one, it would most likely be something like the Ascending Dragon Stance.

Half an hour later,

Su Xinghe walked out of a martial arts school in the south of the city.

It turned out that the Registered Disciple slot that a hundred taels of silver could buy only covered the Apprentice Three Realms.

As for the subsequent Grade-Entering stages of Body Tempering and Bone Forging, paying money alone was not enough. They first had to investigate one's background and family history; only after finding no problems would they formally accept someone as a disciple.

Otherwise, one had to go back where one came from.

His underworld identity as a member of the Great River Gang definitely could not survive such an investigation.

"Could it be that I can only find another gang to join..."

From the south of the city to the west, he asked at five or six martial arts schools along the way. Every one of them told him to pay a hundred taels first.

Since the Golden Ape Fist could still be trained for some time, he planned to look around the east of the city tomorrow.

If that truly did not work, he could only find a gang and start again from scratch.

The blazing sun hung overhead, and fewer and fewer pedestrians remained on the streets.

As he strolled through the narrow alleys of Tongzi Ward, a thick, nasal shout came from behind him.

"Blackie!"

He turned around and saw several familiar figures standing at the mouth of an alley behind him.

Some were from his own squad, while others were disciples from other squads.

Su Xinghe's heart skipped a beat.

The Great River Gang had come all the way to the alley near his home!

There was no helping it. He could only steel himself and step forward.

"Brother Kui..."

There had been many people at the compound last night, and he had not examined them one by one. He did not know whether Lu Kui before him was, like himself, one of the lucky survivors.

But judging by the way these people were dressed, that did not seem likely.

"What happened?"

Su Xinghe pretended not to know and probed cautiously.

"Something happened to the Brokerage Guild. You should know about it, right?"

"The young gang leader told me to come find you. Hurry and come with me."

Lu Kui wore an unprecedentedly solemn expression. Turning to the others, he said,

"I found my man. I'll be leaving first."

After saying that, he gave Su Xinghe a meaningful look.

His escape plan had gone up in smoke. Su Xinghe could only sigh inwardly.

But thinking about it, that made sense.

He had learned their true martial art, the Golden Ape Fist. His name was on record, and he had signed a contract with the Brokerage Guild's upper ranks.

From Tongzi Ward in the west of the city, they crossed the Central River and arrived at Eight-Zhang Street. Before reaching the Brokerage Guild, they swiftly turned into another narrow alley.

The alley ran deep, extending from Eight-Zhang Street all the way to Nanzhi Avenue. This was the center of the south of the city, an even livelier place than Eight-Zhang Street.

Lu Kui led the way in silence. The two arrived at the gate of an elegant small courtyard deep in the alley.

"Wait here first. I still need to pick up other people."

After speaking in that muffled voice, he turned and headed back toward Eight-Zhang Street.

At that moment, Su Xinghe had already seen what was happening in the courtyard. It was full of Great River Gang disciples who, like him, wore bewildered expressions.

These should have been people who had not been at the warehouse last night and had luckily escaped disaster.

Among the crowd were the minor leader Zhang Whiskers, the senior leader Brother Blade, and several apprentices he had seen at the training ground.

Their expressions were extremely grim. All of them silently looked toward a two-story pavilion inside the courtyard. Su Xinghe could faintly hear suppressed sobbing from within.

No one spoke, so he too found a corner and waited quietly. As time passed, more and more people filled the courtyard.

In the end, seventy or eighty people had gathered.

There were Great River Gang disciples, Brokerage Guild clerks, and maidservants among them.

In the second-floor reception room of the pavilion.

Xie Guang, his head full of silver hair, stood behind a sturdy middle-aged man. But he no longer wore his former lazy look; he appeared thoroughly bedraggled.

"Yingjun, how are your injuries?"

In last night's battle, all of them had fought back with their lives on the line. Of the martial artists who had survived, nearly every one of them was wounded.

Zhou Yingjun did not speak, merely shaking his head lightly.

Xie Guang knew that the young gang leader did not want others to worry, so he did not press further.

He merely advised him,

"The Zhou Family no longer has a Grade-Eight Martial Artist. You should know my situation as well. You must learn to let go of the interests that should be surrendered."

"As long as Xiao Hao is alive, everything can begin again."

"Most of the people have arrived. Do not keep them waiting too long."

"Otherwise, people's hearts will scatter..."

As he spoke, Xie Guang looked toward the stairway.

"Steward Zhou Chun, have the numbers been counted?"

Zhou Chun appeared from the stairway, his expression grief-stricken. He stepped forward twice, came before the two men, and bowed.

"Elder Xie, the count has been completed. I also went to the Public Security Office to confirm the bodies."

Xie Guang let out a long sigh. "Speak. I can bear it!"

"There were one hundred and fifty-five people in the Brokerage Guild last night: one hundred and thirty-one in the front courtyard and twenty-four in the rear courtyard. Apart from the few of us, none survived..."

Zhou Chun lowered his head, his tone filled with grief and indignation.

Their family's Brokerage Guild was finished...

At those words, even Xie Guang, resolute as he was, could not stop tears from streaming down his aged face.

There was no need to look at the list, because he had personally confirmed every important person at the scene.

The old shopkeeper, several veteran clerks, the gang leader's wife and children, as well as those martial artist retainers and honored guests maintained at great expense.

One sneak attack last night had directly wiped out ninety percent of the Veteran's Trade House's fighting strength.

Fortunately, someone had raised the alarm, and the few of them had arrived in time to rescue the gravely injured young master Zhou Hao.

But to prevent another assassination attempt, they had found someone to impersonate Zhou Hao's corpse. They announced to the public that he had died in the great battle.

They had also scattered the surviving family members and female relatives outside the city to hide in different places.

"Have you found out the reason?"

Even now, they still did not understand why their Brokerage Guild had been attacked. They could only speculate that Zhou Hao's talent had been exposed.

Someone wanted to curb the Veteran's Trade House's growth and strangle a genius while he was still weak.

Because the enemy seemed to have come solely to kill. In the end, one great fire had burned every building to ashes. Apart from several corpses they had killed, it seemed the attackers had not taken anything.

Zhou Chun shook his head.

He only handled internal affairs.

"Did the Public Security Office say who did it?"

"The Peaceful Heaven Sect..."

At that moment, Zhou Yingjun, who had remained silent all along, suddenly roared himself hoarse.

"The Peaceful Heaven Sect, my ass! It must have been the Lu Family!"

"Silence!"

Zhou Yingjun also knew he had misspoken.

He drew a deep breath, easing the grief and fury in his heart. Then he turned his gaze out the window, toward Eight-Zhang Street.

The Lu Family was powerful. Without direct evidence, they did not even have a path to file a complaint.

But did their Zhou Family truly no longer have a Grade-Eight Martial Artist?

Feeling that wisp of meager Internal Force in his dantian, a chill rose in his eyes. If he had not kept his Eighth Rank strength hidden all this time, he would not have escaped last night either.

But now was not the time to reveal it.

"Did the Bandit Suppression Bureau catch any of the thieves?"

Zhou Chun shook his head helplessly.

"The enemy came prepared. Many bodies were taken away. With that fire on top of it, let alone evidence, even everything in the house was burned clean. The Public Security Office's constables are all ordinary people; they simply could not catch up to those thieves."

"The county yamen did not dispatch the Bandit Suppression Bureau?"

The Public Security Office was made up of firearm squads responsible for patrols within the city. Only a few of its officers were Grade-Entering Martial Artists.

There had been Grade-Eight Martial Artists fighting at the Brokerage Guild last night. By rights, the Bandit Suppression Bureau, which was entirely staffed by martial artists, should have handled it.

"They were dispatched, but they have not returned from outside the city yet."

Though they had expected it long ago, disappointment and helplessness still rose in all three of their hearts. The Bandit Suppression Bureau's greatest task was dealing with the Peaceful Heaven Sect, so it was often outside the city.

What grudge did their Brokerage Guild have with the Peaceful Heaven Sect?

The attackers were most likely the Lu Family. What use was there in pursuing people outside the city?

Xie Guang gave Zhou Chun a meaningful look.

"Go wait at the Bandit Suppression Bureau. If there is any news, send word back immediately."

After saying that, he patted Zhou Yingjun on the shoulder.

"Let's go downstairs. We'll proceed as we discussed."