Crimson Tiger Sect
"Qiu Mu from the beggar sect, now that is a name, I am familiar with. Somehow this story getting more and more interesting."
Ma Yifan is one of Ma Fusong entourage, and a renowned martial artist himself. He has a lot of accomplishments to be proud of and famous friends all over the martial world. One of his close friends is Qiu Mu, the Iron Beggar.
"Qiu Mu, I'm more interested at that girl. Making three men fighting for her in the short time she met them… Amazing." Ma Fusong is approaching this story less seriously than Yang Feixia story before.
"He is Qiu Mu that you know, and this is the event that started his famous journey. However, I'm afraid my story will mention little of him."
Liu Kaxing paused a little bit to find the crowds are waiting for his continuation of the story. So, he can only comply to their demand.
A week after, the war between both sects finally take place and it is not pretty. Blood and corpses are now part of the scenery in the town. One mistake, and his rivals will use it to attack him, with the pretenses of him trying to rebel.
Other than the common brawls that sparks up, most part of the town became quiet. Even the market only has few desperate people, ready to take off when they heard a slightest commotion. When the sun starts to set the streets are completely empty, everyone stayed home and barred the door. The only sounds can be heard after dark, are either weapons clashing or screams that pierce through the walls.
The local authority cannot do much about it, their guards are lacking in both of quality and quantity to keep the town under control. The Fu family does send request for reinforcement, but nobody dare to send their army to the territory under surveillance for rebellion.
Originally the town itself supposed to be the responsibility of Marquis Bai Qianshu, but current situation made it impossible for him to mobilize his troops freely. Every other warlord around him looking for one mistake on him to make an excuse for attacking him.
As for now, the town guards are only able to guard gates and few other important places in town. They are mostly trying to protect the citizen and catching thugs who looking to gain from the chaos. When it comes to the clash of both sects, they chose to remain neutral and do nothing.
The Fu Family were close with the White Crane, but under current situation they cannot offer much help. All the martial artists they hired were placed at the mansion as their personal bodyguard. Without their help the White Crane was clear at the losing side. They might not be weaker than the Crimson Tiger, but their clear disadvantage was information.
Information is key to win a war, and at that time the beggar sect hold that key. Even though they chose to be kept neutral in the feud, they were still providing information for both parties. When the war started, they gave the Crimson Tiger better priority as part of the deal for keeping Lu Lin safe, enough to make them dominate the war.
We are able to get into the Crimson Tiger Sect just before it all began. Both sects were recruiting talents around them far before it happened, so it is not that hard to join them at that time. Most martial artists around already choosing their sides or leaving the town for safety. They sensed the tension between both sects far before it happens, while I just knew it after Fat Hao's story.
Fat Hao was not lying, the beggar sect has been trying hard to kept the peace between them. They control it by hiding some of the information and exaggerate the others, but of course they couldn't do it forever. Everyone has their limits and Li Han never intended to push it until then. It is better to keep everything under his control.
As an outsider in the sect, I mostly only took part in grunt's work. However, since the battle scale is quite big, anyone willing to take risky mission will be given a special place in the sect. There is not much choice I had but to took that chances.
The experience I got there was priceless. Real fights really are different from all the sparring I got before. My technique might not improve a lot, but I certainly became a much better fighter after that event.
After more than a week of that chaos, the Crimson Tiger were able to control most part of the town. The town guards became more and more dormant, while the White Crane holed up in their hideouts.
I had a part in one of the biggest brawls that happened between them. In broad daylight, around a dozen of White Crane members died in street and more are wounded. When the night came the number two of their sect was ambushed and killed, when he was trying to launch sneak attack into one of the Crimson Tiger outposts. It was hard to come back after that.
The next day I heard the Crimson Tiger will mount a big assault to the White Crane main base. This will trigger an even bigger chaos than before, and also ended the war at once.
Even if the Crimson Tiger had the upper hand, they cannot be careless. Attacking always have more risk than defending, if they are not careful the White Crane might be able to turn the table. Although not directly involved, I still able to hear rumors about how they planned the assault.
How many people will attack and how many to defense? Cutting their reinforcements, preventing important people in their sect from escaping, and minimize their own lose. These are all that was talked around in the sect, except for me.
I was given another task, to escort important people out of town. I didn't need to guess who they are, and accept the task right away.
"These two people are trusted to us by the beggar sect. They are fugitive, but not actually bad people. It just they happened to be on the bad side of Fu family, thus we decide to help them out of this town. Using the chaos that will happen as the cover." That is how I've been briefed.
Eventually the beggar sect specifically asks for someone from outside the Crimson Tiger to help escorting them out. The town guards might be busy at that time, but few must still stay at the gate. Having members of Crimson Tiger sect walking around in group will take too much attention. With the price tag for both them, it will be hard to keep the guards quiet.
The Crimson Tiger Sect was founded by Hu family, one of the oldest families in town. The sect itself supposed to be open for anyone wish to join them, learning their technique, follow their rules, and serve to the sect. Even then, most of its leaders are still dominated by the Hu family, including their patriarch.
One of their lieutenants are assigned to accompanied me and Hai Zhen to escort Lu Lin. I was captivated when I met her again, but I still had to hide the fact that I know her before. Luckily both of them able to hide it as well, even though shock expression can still be seen on her face.
Lu Shen has recovered to the point he can walk alright, but he still unable to fight. It is supposed to be enough, the three of us are better than most of the town guards there is.
Sneaking around the town is easy, but to get out we need to subdue few guards stationed there. If they recognize her and start to call for reinforcement, our plan will fail. The reinforcement they call will include those experts from the Fu mansion, a lot of them. I knew exactly it is better not to let them involved at all.
Most of the best town guards are either came from the Crimson Tiger or White Crane. With both of them at their crucial time, none of these guards will stationed at their post anymore. There is not much they can gain as a guard if their sect should fall.
The most important thing to this mission is not to kill them and not to let them recognize the people we escort. As long none of these conditions met, the Fu will not send his personal army to chase us.
Unfortunately, fate wasn't on our side that day. As we disposed the guards one by one, one of them easily thwart both my and Hai Zhen's attack. No longer the fool I was, my sword quickly drew as soon as I sense the danger.
The guard's sword short but thick, perfectly compliment his ferocious fighting style. I fought him for about a dozen moves and realize he was stronger than me. Hai Zhen tried to help me after he took care the other guard, but knocked out in a few moves.
He is still very young though older than me for years. Considering that, his skill was far more mature than it supposed to. Technically I could match him, but our strength difference was quite big. As our swords clashed more and more, my hand started to get numb.
That might not recognize me, but I have seen him before and his technique is those of the Crimson Tiger. Hu Fei is one the most talented from the Crimson Tiger Sect, if not the most talented. He also has a great sense of justice, great to the point of stubborn. I've heard it often during my time in the Crimson Tiger, but that was my first time truly seen it.