An uproar in Divine Dragon Hall

Li Yu returned from the lake. Just as he reached the vicinity of Flower Reverence Pavilion, he heard groans of pain. He stopped and looked over. Two cult members were carrying an injured man beneath the covered walkway, his right shin bent backward, jagged bone protruding starkly.

"Xiao San..."

Guo Xie froze, then hurried over. Looking at the dark, thin youth lying pale-faced on the stretcher, he was both shocked and furious. Both were orphans Fu Rong had adopted, and they had grown up together, sharing a deep friendship. They called themselves the Shrimp Soldier and Crab General duo.

Luo Xia had been perfectly fine before he went to the lake to deliver the message.

"Who did this to you?"

"Thump, thump!"

Li Yu stepped forward and pressed the Yangling and Guanbai acupoints on the youth's right leg.

First Rank Hall taught a broad assortment of skills. This was hardly a sophisticated acupoint-sealing technique, and it had originally worked only intermittently. After practicing the Soul-Losing Finger, however, his finger strength had improved considerably, and he stopped the bleeding at once.

"Cult Leader..."

Luo Xia recovered a little strength.

"Take your time."

"I went into the hall to serve tea, and a man in black stuck out his leg and tripped me. The tea spilled, and Young Branch Master Chen wouldn't hear a word of explanation. He... he said I'd dirtied his clothes, then smashed my leg with an iron pestle..."

Luo Xia's expression dimmed. He knew the resounding reputation the world's largest sect commanded in the martial world. Besides enduring the pain of his injury, he worried that offending Chen Youchun would bring disaster upon the cult.

"Rest and recover."

Li Yu offered those words of comfort, then strode toward Divine Dragon Hall.

Quite a few people had gathered at the end of the covered walkway. A dozen unfamiliar faces were all looking inside, where shouts and the clash of weapons rang out from time to time.

"Fierce Tiger Leaps Across the Ravine!"

Inside the hall, Fu Rong sprang into the air and swung her saber down with both hands. Cold light fell. The pock-faced man rose, and the wooden chair beneath his backside instantly shattered into pieces. She bent low and spun, following up with Fierce Tiger Sweeps Its Tail, her long saber chasing after him.

"Bang!"

Chen Youchun thrust up his iron pestle and swept it outward, knocking the saber aside. He stepped swiftly forward and reached for Fu Rong's waist with a grin.

"Heh heh, what a mighty saber style, and what a pretty little wife. Come back to the Beggars' Sect with me..."

The moment he entered Green Willow Manor, Fu Rong had caught his eye, and he had secretly speculated about her relationship with Li Yu. With such a voluptuous young married woman right beside his mouth, only a eunuch would fail to take a bite...

He judged others by himself. Female beggars were rare treasures in the Beggars' Sect. Every reasonably attractive beggar woman in the Gusu Branch was a respectable woman he had tricked into joining, and he had long since enjoyed them all without paying a thing.

At the headquarters in Luoyang, there was no shortage of heroines who, in a rush of hotheaded enthusiasm, defied their families' objections. Brimming with loyalty and old-fashioned chivalrous fervor, they came to join, drawn by the gilded signboard of the world's largest sect.

As far as he knew, they too had become the private playthings of the sect's higher-ups.

People were not sages-who could be free of desire? Tending to the physical needs of the elders and branch masters was another form of martial-world loyalty.

Chief Qiao advocated equality between high and low.

But in the end, some people were more equal than others.

"Come back with me. Surely the world's largest sect wouldn't disgrace you? Hahaha..."

"You bastard!"

Though Chen Youchun's grab looked like crude, flirtatious teasing, it came fiercely, at a cunningly precise angle. No matter how Fu Rong retreated, she could not evade it. In her anxiety, her footwork fell into disarray.

"Hahaha, never mind you-even your cult leader is no more than a grain of rice's glimmer before the supreme arts of the Beggars' Sect..."

This was the Beggars' Sect's renowned Snake-Catching Hand, a skill used to seize generals and capture commanders on the battlefield. His adoptive father, Tie He, was a close friend of Protector Elder Chen Guyan. Several years earlier, at the Hundred Flowers Gathering in Luoyang, Chen Guyan had taught him three moves out of regard for his adoptive father.

Outsiders did not recognize it and took it for something ordinary.

Chen Youchun had mastered those three moves of the Snake-Catching Hand, but often used them to molest women.

"Die!"

Fury surged in Fu Rong's heart. Ignoring the lecherous hand reaching for her waist, she raised her great saber and slashed diagonally upward. At last, she forced Chen Youchun back, only to feel her waist loosen. Her outer lapels fell open, revealing her undergarment.

"Look, look, look! What's this?"

Grinning, Chen Youchun held out his hand. In it was a blue sash, soft in texture.

"What are you laughing at? Never seen one before? Go home and ask your mother to show you!"

Fu Rong paid it no mind. She simply stripped off her outer robe, seized both cuffs, crossed them, and pulled hard, wrapping it around her waist and tying a knot. Her two snow-white arms raised the great saber, ready to fight again, but a voice stopped her.

"Young Branch Master Chen, behaving with such impropriety-do you take the Divine Dragon Cult for a place with no one to stand up to you?"

Chen Youchun turned to look. The crowd parted, revealing a figure of eighteen or nineteen, dressed in blue robes. He stood tall as jade, with a handsome face, the noble bearing of dragon and phoenix, an otherworldly presence, and a pair of perfectly formed peach-blossom eyes.

His face stiffened. He had not heard clearly what the newcomer said at all. Only that nursery rhyme rang through his mind. Damn it, the rumors really were true...

"Cult Leader!"

"The Cult Leader's here! Let's see if they still dare act so brazenly..."

Li Yu entered the hall and surveyed it with cold eyes. Tables, chairs, and plaques had been smashed to pieces. Apart from Fu Rong and the pock-faced beggar, there was only a man in black who had followed behind Ge Zhixiong during the nighttime intrusion into West Canal Gate.

He found a reasonably intact wooden chair and slowly sat down near the entrance.

"Cult Leader!"

Carrying her great saber, Fu Rong walked to his side. Looking at a man in black behind Chen Youchun, she whispered, "Most likely West Canal Gate stirred this up."

Outside, more and more Divine Dragon Cult disciples were gathering, their indignation running high. The dozen or so Beggars' Sect disciples had all been driven into a corner by a thicket of blades. At a single command, the Divine Dragon Cult members would charge into the hall.

Chen Youchun thought to himself that however brave and skilled he was, even if he could defeat ten men, he could not escape being hacked apart by a flurry of blades. Things had come this far, and he could not back down either. Raising his head, he sneered, "What an impressive show the Divine Dragon Cult puts on. Do you hold even the Beggars' Sect in contempt?"

Li Yu looked at him, his voice level. "Chief Qiao's name resounds throughout the martial world, and the Beggars' Sect is the world's largest sect. You have repeatedly won exceptional merit fighting Great Liao and Western Xia, and I have long admired you. But Young Branch Master Chen, what exactly have you come here to do today?"

"Hmph."

Chen Youchun gave a soft laugh, putting his mind completely at ease.

What he feared most was a reckless hothead who did not understand the stakes. They were outnumbered here, and a single command would put him in dire straits. Even if the Beggars' Sect avenged him afterward, what good would that do him?

So long as he understood the stakes.

This was the confidence a great sect afforded.

With a pot of red flowers, Yan Ruhua had bent Zhang Hengye's knees. How much more so the prestige the world's largest sect had accumulated over many years? To a third-rate force like the Divine Dragon Cult, it weighed as heavily as a mountain.

Had some other sect come to stir up trouble at their door, how could it have received such treatment?

Chen Youchun's expression was haughty. "At my adoptive father's command, I've come to resolve the feud between the Divine Dragon Cult and West Canal Gate."

"How is it to be resolved?"

"Deputy Gate Master Ge Zhixiong of West Canal Gate sent someone with a written challenge, inviting you to meet at Apricot Grove on the fourteenth day of the eighth month."

"Where is the challenge?"

"The challenge is here!"

Man Zhan stood in the corner like a sinister venomous snake. His five fingers were drawn together, and he had long since reached inside his robes, gripping the gold-leaf invitation tightly. At those words, he flung it out, sending it spinning over like a sheet of iron.

"Cult Leader Li, catch!"

This strike of Snake-Head Snatching Hand had lain in wait for a long time, deliberately intended to make the Divine Dragon Cult lose face and thoroughly enrage Li Yu.