Wei Xun took the seat of honor without a word, glaring fiercely at Tuoba Sanniang. She gave him a dazzling smile, raised the Human-Tendon Pipa in one hand, and passed it to a subordinate behind her, taking the lead in disarming as a gesture of submission.
Chen Shigu had been lax, freewheeling, and utterly unrestrained, and had never laid down any rules for his disciples. Their tacit ban on fighting at gatherings was a rule they had agreed upon themselves, after everyone had suffered badly enough in past free-for-alls.
Since Tuoba Sanniang had already yielded, Wei Xun could not keep pressing her. He gave a cold laugh, removed the Meteoric-Iron Dagger from his waist, and slapped it onto the table beside him. The moment the Fish-Intestine Sword landed, it was as though their master's command had been issued.
The others promptly surrendered their weapons as well. Xu Baozhen handed both his horsetail whisk and longsword to a disciple; Qiu Ren, nicknamed Ghost-Hand Vajra, practiced the Dying-Lamp Hand and always fought barehanded, so he had no weapon; Luo Toutuo turned and drove his Tin Staff hard into the floor, sinking its end straight into the tiles. It stood upright like a flagpole, which counted as disarming.
When Huo Qilang's turn came, she spread her hands to show she had brought nothing.
Xu Baozhen frowned. "I've been meaning to ask. Where's your saber?"
Huo Qilang said helplessly, "I owed someone money a while back and was short on cash, so I left it at a pawnshop for the time being."
Everyone stared at her. They thought she was so dissolute that she had even pawned the personal weapon on which her fortunes and her life depended. Even among this crowd of reckless lawbreakers, that was hard to excuse.
Seeing the contempt on