Chapter 51: Dance of Blood

Yet the world's affairs are always hard to predict. Just after the first wave of messengers came tumbling through the Mountain Gate, Hu Zhengqi's heart began to race, and by the time Zhou Tong stood there laughing long and loud, he—who had been hiding behind a pillar to watch the excitement—let out a silent scream in his heart: the voice and face of that kidnapper in the Earth House that night instantly overlapped with Zhou Tong's.

Looking again more closely, wasn't that dark, short man beside Zhou Tong, leaning on a knife with a face full of wild whiskers, the very same Servant from that night?

In that One Moment, Hu Zhengqi finally understood; he grasped everything completely.

Yet understanding was of no damn use. Whatever the rules were today, saving his own life came first.

So now he crouched his body down even lower, showing only his two eyes from behind the pillar, and then his eyes sprang open to their widest, witnessing a Scene he would never forget.

Over a hundred Beggar Sect members charged down from the front of the main hall with battle cries, but the opposing group, instead of thinking to form ranks and resist the enemy, all Scattered apart, revealing several seven-foot giants with green cloth wrapped around their heads in the back row. These giants simultaneously swung open a bizarrely shaped Iron tool from their hands, and in the next instant, flames and the sound of firecrackers erupted from those Iron tools.

Under the bright daylight, Hu Zhengqi swore he saw One String after another of sparks flash before his eyes, and those brave men of the Sect, brandishing their weapons as they charged forward, were swept down One Row after another. In this moment, severed limbs flew sideways, fresh blood spurted vertically, and the warriors roaring in their charge instantly transcended time and space—by the standards of Later Generations, they twitched and danced a breakdance amidst the piles of corpses, unwilling to stop even as the holes in their bodies sprayed columns of blood.

In this moment, Hu Zhengqi's heart and gall felt like they would split.

As if in an instant, and yet as if several hours had passed, the Firearms in those giants' hands finally ceased their deafening roar and fell silent.

Of the hundred-plus men who had charged down from the front of the hall, half now lay sprawled on the ground; the nearest dead man was still over ten paces from the enemy. For a time, the field was utterly silent, then suddenly, that group of outsiders let out a unified battle cry, raised their blood-dripping Long Swords, and counter-charged.

The Beggar Sect's Remaining scattered soldiers and broken troops likewise let out a unified cry and fled scattering in all directions.

In Hu Zhengqi's now blood-red eyes, Scene after Scene of dynamic images reflected once more.

He saw the eldest of the Five Righteous Ones, Master Jiang Zhendong, who was said to have received the Group Head's true teachings and whose body-hardening skill had nearly reached full mastery, cleaved by One Blade from that black, short man with a face full of wild whiskers—the Iron ruler in his hand and half his skull were sliced off together.

He saw Ding San, nicknamed "Surpassing Yan Qing," spring up nimbly from the corpse pile, his cold-gleaming dagger thrusting into Zhou Tong's waist—yet the dagger was rebounded by the black riding vest on Zhou Tong's body. In the next instant, Ding San screamed as he clutched the Long Sword that had pierced through his chest, then was kicked flying away, collapsing beside his father, Ding Old Hall Master.

Just as his eyes could not take it all in and he could not tear himself away, he suddenly saw his own boss, "Fire-eyed Worm" Su Chai, panting heavily as he ran toward him. Seeing that his own boss intended to shift calamity onto him, Hu Zhengqi could not help but curse furiously in his heart and prepared to flee from disaster.

However, when he saw, twenty paces Behind the Scenes of his own boss, a seven-foot giant pull a bright silver short blunderbuss from behind his waist and raise a hand to aim over, Hu Zhengqi, in this moment, had a Sudden Inspiration—with a "swish," he shrank back behind the pillar and did not move a muscle.

After several crisp "pop pop pop" sounds of the Bird Blunderbuss, "thud"—Su Chai fell backward right beside Hu Zhengqi's feet, a patch of bloodstains on his chest. Those fiery eyes that had scrutinized countless money pouches now stared at him like a dead fish, and a faint voice sounded from his mouth: "Save me."

Hu Zhengqi tremblingly stretched out a hand and pressed it against his own boss's chest wound. In the next instant, just as a faint glimmer of hope began to recover in his boss's eyes, he Expressionlessly withdrew his blood-soaked hand, wiped a smear on each of his own cheeks, and then, under the Fire-eyed Worm's final gaze, executed a Sticky Clothes Eighteen Falls followed by a Spirit Cat Catches Rat—Hu Zhengqi rolled all One Road to the other end of the corridor, then lay down on the spot and feigned death.

Time rewound to the moment the gunshots rang out.

The one of the only two in the Beggar Sect who had not charged—Group Head Huang Qi—the instant he saw the brothers in the first row swept down by the AK, flipped backward like a hawk and fled toward the rear hall.

All One Road, he passed through two long rows of folding chairs representing the Seating order within the Sect, stepped over the silver coins his subordinates had toiled to earn, and felt not the slightest attachment to his own throne. His ears carefully listened to the screams outside the hall as his feet seemed to grow wings, heading straight for the back gate of Wuxian Temple.

Huang Qi knew that his own karmic retribution had arrived.

Back then, when the old Sect leader had offended the Sect's official backer, wasn't it exactly like today—the enemy swaggering right up to their door to slaughter them all?

In this moment, he had a Sudden Inspiration and was absolutely certain: the death by illness of Master Zhu Zheng was absolutely inseparable from this group of outsiders. If he wanted to reclaim his foundation, he would properly have to rely on the officials.

Group Head Huang calculated in his heart while panting heavily as he ran toward the back gate. If this were ten years ago, he would not have fled by the back gate in such a situation—the back gate was a dangerous path.

He would have leaped over the wall, jumping out of any possible ambush, and then planned his next move.

However, after many years of living in luxury, the solid bulk he once had had long since turned into a mass of fat; Climbing the wall was no longer possible. He would just have to see if Heaven would leave him a path to Survival. If he died, it was his own bad luck; if he lived, this matter was not over.

The various thoughts churning in his mind did not stop until the next moment, when he pushed open the back gate of Wuxian Temple and was shot through the chest by a Bullet fired from the distant weeds.

Half an hour later.

In front of the main hall of Wuxian Temple, the thirty or forty shrimp soldiers and crab generals who had survived from the Beggar Sect were kneeling neatly in One Fragment. Long Swords gleaming snow-white were pressed against their necks, behind them lay a field of corpses, and before them, Sitting In the Great Dragon Head chair, was the self-proclaimed new Group Head, Zhou Tong—and at Zhou Tong's feet lay the corpse of the former Huang Qi.

Hu Zhengqi also knelt among these people.

He had surrendered voluntarily. After seeing these fiends begin to search and round up prisoners, Hu Zhengqi, who had long since thought things through, climbed up from the ground, wiped the bloodstains from his face, smiled apologetically and cupped his hands in salute from afar, and voluntarily threw himself into the Prisoner of War camp.

Just after Zhou Tong laughed long and loud and opened his mouth to ask, "Do any of you refuse to submit?"—before the words had even faded, Hu Zhengqi knew that the time for him to speak had come. Wasn't that ingot of silver that night precisely to buy this One Sentence from him now?

Having long since adjusted his posture, Hu Zhengqi exerted strength in both arms, summoned power from his waist and legs, and straightened up, ready to shout. The opening he had long since thought up was: "Great King, with your divine might, we wish to surrender! This humble one is Blessed today to have met a wise lord and wishes to offer his strength to the Great King!"

This sentence both declared his stance and secretly alluded to the matter of that night; surely the Great King should be satisfied?

Just at the critical moment when his words had already rushed to his throat, a loud, resonant shout rang out beside his ear: "Zhou Big Dragon Head, your martial skill covers the world, your noble presence descends upon us, we men are prostrate in worship!"