Li Mu and Qing Feng knew what the other was thinking. So, after they both detected the suspicion in their eyes, they did not come to the light but continue hiding in the darkness to see if their suspicion would be verified.
Unlike them, the members of the Beggar Gang could no longer contain their temper.
“Who are you? How dare you break into the headquarters of the Beggar Gang!”
Liang Zhi’s face darkened, issuing blatant killing intent. The folding fan bearing “No One Is My Equal” shot out again. It turned into a jet of eerie black-and-white light and lunged at that beautiful girl up in the void with the momentum of a flying broadsword.
“That move again? Sadly, it doesn’t work on me.” The pretty girl leaped out of the swing and gave a well-placed kick in midair. As her tender toes touched that sharp fan, she flipped over and landed onto the swing again. The movements were performed at one stretch, which were incredibly elegant as though a fairy was dancing in the sky.
The folding fan was thrown backward at once.
Liang Zhi reached out and caught it. His face reddened, and he staggered back.
The simple strike already distinguished the winner out of the two.
Indisputably, Liang Zhi was not the girl’s equal.
Divine Beggar, the Grand Master of the Beggar Gang who had been grievously wounded, looked in alarm.
“Guys, go arrest that wicked girl!” He growled.
In a trice, several hundred experts of the Beggar Gang leaped up brandishing their weapons and shot toward that weird swing hanging between the twin moons.
As the meeting was at the headquarters of the Beggar Gang, over half of their best combatants had gathered there that night.
“You think you can scrape a win because I’m outnumbered?” The girly chuckled with ease.
Those weird chains in the sky suddenly retreated and wrapped themselves around her wrists. In a second, they turned into a pair of bracelets with the engraves of the suns, the moons, and the stars. Meanwhile, that seemingly ordinary wooden board swooshed at her feet. The girl leaped forward as a jet of bizarre light flashed behind her. She had turned into a beam of moonlight! Without hesitation, she broke out of the besiege of those experts of the Beggar Gang. Yet, instead of running away, she landed on the stone stage and stood there with a smile.
Whiz! Whiz! Whiz!
Next second, many shadows flashed onto the stage.
The experts of the Beggar Gang surrounded the girl.
Qing Feng was already quite worried. Afraid that the girl who looked exactly like Ming Yue would get herself in trouble, he shuddered and made to dash forward. But Li Mu gently rested his palm on his shoulder, shook his head at him, implying that he should be more patient, because even if there was danger, Li Mu would definitely intervene before anything happened to that girl.
“Which wicked girl are you? How dare you interrupt the general meeting of the Beggar Gang! Are you one of the ruffians of the Bloody-moon faction?” Divine Beggar demanded warily with an enraged look.
“Hahaha, I am also a member of the Beggar Gang. Why can’t I attend this meeting?” The girl grinned, revealing a trace of cunningness.
“What? You are a member of Beggar Gang?” Divine Beggar was a little taken aback.
The experts of the Beggar Gang around him were also stunned.
That was not to say the Beggar Gang never took in female disciples. It was just that the pretty girl’s cultivation was too impressive and her deportment was rather surreptitious, and no other members recalled they had seen her before. If she was really a member of the Beggar Gang, those people on the scene could not all fail to recognize her.
“You are trying to trick us! If you’ve joined us, why I, Grand Master of the Beggar Gang, know nothing of it?” Divine Beggar’s jaw set. He raised a hand and said, “Don’t believe the wick girl’s nonsense. Arrest her!”
The experts of the Beggar Gang on the flood land rushed toward the girl.
But her pretty face was calm as usual. She was still wearing a bright smile, not feeling a hint of fright at all. Quickly, she held up a hand seizing a token and giggled. “You don’t believe me? Look, what’s this?”
“Huh? That’s… elder’s token?”
“It’s the chief elder’s token!”
“How come she has the grand elder’s token? Is she really one of us?”
At the sight of that token, the experts bearing down on her instantly skidded to a halt.
There were six grand elders in the Beggar Gang. Their status was only second to the Grand Master, and each of them had their own supporters in the gang. Only those senior experts who enjoyed high prestige and commanded universal respect could be grand elders. They were practically as prestigious as the Supreme Elders in other sects. And each of the grand elders held a token, which could command any members of the Beggar Gang in the Northern Song. Anyone holding one of those tokens made his presence on behalf of that grand elder. Therefore, the girl was certainly a member of the Beggar Gang.
“Girl, how did you get that token?” Lu Changfu could not help posing that question. He had risen to his feet and marched onto the stone stage.
The pretty girl grimaced at him gleefully and answered, “I stole it, or robbed it. Do you think that’s even possible?”
Everyone went speechless.
Of course impossible!
The grand elders of the Beggar Gang were powerful practitioners. How could a little girl rob them of their tokens?
And the more important thing was that the grand elders were supposed to carry their token all the time. Unless they voluntarily gave theirs to someone, other people could never have one.
“This is a matter of great importance. Please get straight with us.” Lu Changfu requested earnestly.
The pretty girl fixed him with a gaze and then said, “Now that you’ve posed the question with a sincere desire, I’ll have the courtesy to… fetch someone to tell you the answer… Hey, old man, Sun, haven’t you had enough fun already? Quickly come out and prove my identity.”
Before her words faded, Divine Beggar, Grand Master, swiveled his eyes in the east.
Liang Zhi also realized what was going on.
Up in the east, basked in the moonlight, two old beggars were coming toward them. Darting from one patch of moonlight to another, they crossed mountains and lakes. In an instant, they covered several kilometers before leaping to the stone stage and standing by the pretty girl.
“We pay our tributes to Elder Sun, Elder Guo!”
“Pay our respects to two grand elders!”
All the disciples of the Beggar Gang made obeisance at once. None of them dared to show any defiance in the presence of the two old beggars.
Because they were two of the six grand elders in the Beggar Gang. One was Sun Changfeng, the Shadowless Roamer, the other was Guo Bu’er, the Miraculous Fist. Several centuries ago, they were two experts who could overrun the whole world. At that time, they had already entered the Sage Realm. About a hundred years ago, they acted more stealthily and seldom showed up in public. Like two mysterious dragons living in reclusion, they rarely attended to the affairs of the gang. As a result, most of the disciples from the younger generation did not know what they looked like. Even so, as all those present in the meeting were the middle-and-high-ranking members, they recognized them at first glance. So, they hastily bowed to the two elders, holding them in high regard.
“Turns out two of our grand elders have arrived.” Divine Beggar also made obeisance as the rest of the juniors.
Because in light of the seniority in the gang, he was a junior to the two grand elders indeed.
Sun Changfeng, the Shadowless Roamer, looked quite shaky. His hair was white and sparse. And he had lost most of his teeth. Without further ado, he pointed at the pretty girl and said, “This kid is Zuo Luyi’s direct disciple named Ming Yue. She is sure a member of our Beggar Gang. She is here to be the next Grand Master.”
When his remark came out, a wave of exclamation broke out on the flood land.
That was followed by a sweeping tide of murmurs and discussions.
Though Beggar Gang was a large association, as most of its members were outcasts of society, they could hardly act in order. Once something occurred, they easily broke into an uproar.
But Li Mu and Qing Feng both looked elated.
By then, they had basically ascertained that the pretty girl was Ming Yue, the cute, silly little attendant. Adding that her master’s name was also Zuo Luyi, there was no room for mistakes. But they were wondering what on earth had happened over the past year that made Ming Yue almost a different person.
Wang Shiyu sharply looked at Li Mu and Qing Feng and remarked, “You two know that girl, don’t you?”
Li Mu nodded. “She is our old friend. We’ve been looking for her for a long time… But this is not a good time to tell you about her. Let’s see where this is going first.” When he spoke, the Taoist Principles around him surged, blocking their conversation from the others. Thus, Lu Changfu and the other experts who stayed to protect Li Mu heard nothing.
Wang Shiyu mumbled her consent and nodded, quitting question Li Mu. She looked over her shoulder and set eyes on Ming Yue again. Her face was perfectly calm, so no one knew what she was thinking.
At that point, vehement quarreling broke out on the stone stage.
But the core of the disputes was the fair-complexioned scholar named Liang Zhi who had set one butt in the throne suddenly had a competitor. Now that the pretty girl was the direct disciple of a grand elder, she was indeed qualified to compete for the position of Grand Master. In the Beggar Gang, the grand elders’ status was similar to that of the Supreme Elders. Sometimes, they could even question and correct the decisions the Grand Master made.
Nevertheless, many high-ranking members of the Beggar Gang held some bias against Zuo Luyi.
That was because, among the six grand elders, the one called Zuo Luyi was… well, a little special. Specifically, he was sort of mad.
However, given that Sun Changfeng, the Shadowless Roamer, and Guo Bu’er, the Miraculous Fist, who had stayed aloof to the affairs of the gang for a long time, turned up on the meeting out of the blue and unambiguously supported the girl named Ming Yue, Divine Beggar felt somewhat awkward to turn down their proposition.
Once a dispute came into being, the matter could not be fixed in a short time.
Not to mention the matter of choosing the Grand Master was so important that it involved all kinds of contestation of benefits.
At last, the most long-lasting as well as the most efficient solution in the martial arts world was brought up—
Battling.
Liang Zhi, the candidate Divine Beggar picked, and Ming Yue, the direct disciple of the grand elder, Zuo Luyi, would battle it out. The winner would be the final candidate for the next Grand Master.
“Fight him again? Is there some misunderstanding among us?” Ming Yue’s fine features were saying her reluctance. She pouted her lips and demanded, “Didn’t that old thing, Zuo Luyi, say that I will have the position of Grand Master in my bag once I show them the token?”
The two grand elders were speechless at that question.
They had never seen any disciple dare address their master like that.
Li Mu, however, was quite looking forward to that battle.
According to what Zuo Luyi had told him before, an evil spirit had been dwelling inside Ming Yue. If the spirit continued to stay in her body, it would swallow Ming Yue’s soul and vigor soon or later. Claiming to get rid of that spirit, the old beggar took the blood of the flood dragon from Li Mu and lured Ming Yue away. But judging by the current circumstances, Ming Yue must have gotten the spirit off her hand. And the sharp growth in her cultivation might have something to do with that spirit and the blood of the flood dragon. Therefore, Li Mu hoped through the battle he could know what kind of power Ming Yue had grasped so far.
In a few moments, the battle began.
To Li Mu, the outcome of that battle was already settled from the beginning.
Because before the battle started, Li Mu noted that Ming Yue’s aura was obviously stronger than that fair-complexioned Liang Zhi. The two swiftly started the one-hour-long fight. At first, Liang Zhi could still take the upper hand or stand up to Ming Yue as her equal on account of his rich experience in battling and his ferocious combating strategies. But as Ming Yue began to cast some secret skills that conjured up a strange projection of a white lotus growing in the dark sky behind her, Liang Zhi was quickly defeated.
To Li Mu’s amazement, that strange picture of a white lotus rooted in the dark sky was filled with the aura of the Divine Way. That power did not belong to that world, which was certainly related to the Power of the Supreme Divine Way in the universe that the old faker had told him.
The nine lotus leaves were extremely lush. The white lotus was still in bud, appearing to grow in the dark sky. The colossal picture was floating behind Ming Yue, which looked rather dreadful. With every lurch of the leaves, immense killing intent surged. Only a single wisp of the killing intent effortlessly snapped Liang Zhi’s Taoist instrument—the folding fan. It instantly cracked into fits, while Liang Zhi spilled mouthfuls of blood and beat a retreat…
Her force was so potent!
