Mo Yun looked at the Third-Class Guards.
There were three of them in all.
At the front walked a man of medium build who looked to be in his early thirties, with a thick-backed saber hanging at his waist.
He sported a dense, full beard that stretched from his sideburns to his chin, hiding half his face and leaving only a pair of piercing eyes exposed, as though he wore a black mask.
His skin was dark and rough, marking him as someone who spent years out in the elements. A faint scar crossed his forehead, seemingly left by a sharp blade, lending him an extra measure of ferocity.
Mo Yun noticed that the other two stayed slightly behind him, keeping half a pace back. Clearly, he was their leader.
To the bearded man's left walked a young man who looked twenty-four or twenty-five.
He was lean and not particularly tall, with sharp eyes and thin lips that gave him a shrewd air.
He wore a finely made, dark blue martial outfit, with subtle patterns embroidered along the cuffs and collar-far more elegant than the others' clothing. A slender Willow-Leaf Knife hung at his waist, its workmanship exquisite and its sheath studded with silver rivets. It looked quite expensive.
Only a small fraction of the Mountain Manor's guards had risen from the ranks of impoverished servants. Many had already been skilled martial artists before joining the Crouching Tiger Manor. Their families might well have been comfortably off, and the martial arts they practiced were not necessarily the Tiger-Crouching Fist.
To the bearded man's right walked a man who looked twenty-eight or twenty-nine, with a pair of Eight-Sided Copper Hammers hanging at his waist.
This man was the complete opposite.
He was tall and powerfully built. Although slightly shorter than Zhao