The Legend of the Condor Heroes: From Being Expelled from Peach Blossom Island

Chapter 443 Possible Changes in the Beggars' Sect

Every step you take leaves a trace; or rather, don't assume that the whole world doesn't know what you've done.

Wu Chengyu's methods in Hangzhou may seem barbaric and haphazard, but they did indeed thoroughly muddy the underwater silt.

More than thirty experts gathered from all over the country to hunt down the Beggars' Sect Inspector. How did they get there? Where did they hide afterward? How did they leave Hangzhou? How could there be absolutely no clues?

As it turned out, after a brutal massacre, all the clues that the Beggars' Sect had been searching for in vain came to light.

Meanwhile, the massacre perpetrated by the three hundred Beiwei soldiers in Hangzhou must have been observed by those with ulterior motives. However, since they were unsure of the Beiwei soldiers' origins and objectives, and were uncertain whether their actions were related to their own, they remained completely neutral in their observation of the Beiwei soldiers' activities.

After being subjected to severe torture by the Beiwei Army, all the gang leaders begged for death, and they all died very thoroughly.

The young men of the Beiwei Army had all experienced the cruelty of fate in their youth, and they returned that cruelty to each other. So, no one knew afterward that the Beiwei Army had actually come to find clues about Aku.

The Beiwei Army chartered more than a dozen large ships to leave Hangzhou. It was impossible for them to go unnoticed. People with a keen eye were watching them all along.

When Wu Chengyu and the Beiwei Army met up and set sail south, they were suddenly attacked by water monsters, which shows that people behind the scenes began to interfere with the Beiwei Army's progress.

This action, however, precisely demonstrates that they already knew the true purpose of the Beiwei Army, which is why they tried to intercept them, even going so far as to use their connections with the Jin Dynasty to bring in scoundrels from the Southern Song army.

The question is, how did these people behind the scenes know what the Beiwei Army was going to do?
When Wu Chengyu was hiding in Yunlai Inn waiting for news, he used Su Daqiang's face. Only when he went to the Beggars' Sect branch did he use his true face. Only the people in the Beggars' Sect branch knew that Wu Chengyu was A Ku's brother.

When Wu Chengyu led the Beiwei Army onto the ship, he was so anxious that he forgot to change his appearance.

So when Wu Chengyu joined forces with the Beiwei Army and sailed south, the purpose of the Beiwei Army became self-evident.

Therefore, Wu Chengyu's identity must have been leaked from the Hangzhou branch of the Beggars' Sect.

The one who always looked troubled, yet was still very responsible in instructing the Beggars' Sect disciples to go out and search for clues every day, and who was always so anxious about not finding anything, finally revealed a flaw.

This person is very good at hiding his true feelings. Wu Chengyu eavesdropped many times, but he didn't have the martial arts skills to detect Wu Chengyu's presence. Yet he managed to keep his secrets perfectly, and his words were full of worry for A-Ku and disappointment in himself.

Now that Wu Chengyu has put everything together, he has to admit that he misjudged Zhou Quan. Zhou Quan's performance was indeed very thorough. Although Wu Chengyu had always suspected or even confirmed that there was something wrong with the Beggars' Clan in Hangzhou, he really didn't find anything wrong with Zhou Quan.

However, now that the fleet has entered Hubei province, Wu Chengyu can no longer afford to deal with this complicated matter and can only leave it for later.

After receiving a secret order from his master in the Jin Dynasty, Duan Tiande led his men to the dock in front of Wu Chengyu's fleet and ordered the water ghosts to stab the ships.

He himself was currently holed up in a roadside inn near the dock, which he had booked himself. He was now feasting on a table full of fish and meat.

This person was an insignificant figure, a complete scoundrel. He didn't appear much in The Legend of the Condor Heroes, yet all readers remembered his name.

Duan Tiande, a man with a broken heart, was bewitched by the Jurchens more than a decade ago and led the Song army to launch a surprise attack on Niujia Village.

Although he was hunted down afterwards, forcing him to take Li Ping hostage and flee north, resulting in the birth of a great hero in Mongolia, he ultimately benefited from it.

Under the manipulation of his Jin masters, he is now the commander of a naval garrison in Jiangnan, a fifth-rank military officer, one rank higher than the Suzhou militia commander that Wu Chengyu desired.

This was a windfall for him, and he had to take it and reap the benefits.

The Jin people didn't ask much of him; they just wanted him to have the ships destroyed. They didn't expect him to kill many people, but at least to disrupt Wu Chengyu and his group's journey and buy them time.

He was confident that the task would be easy, and the Jin people had promised him promotions and titles, so how could he not be happy?

Just as he was embracing a girl, groping her while drinking fine wine, and grinning lewdly, his smile slowly disappeared.

He brought more than two hundred people with him. Apart from the dozens of water ghosts, the other soldiers were also gathered around the inn. They were drinking and eating meat when the screams that kept coming filled the area within a hundred meters of the inn.

How could the soldiers led by Duan Tiande possibly have strong combat capabilities? At most, they would bully the common people. These subordinates were all people he had already tamed. They had committed countless atrocities under his command, and it was finally time for them to be punished.

In the short span of half an incense stick's time, before Duan Tiande could even react, as he trembled, holding the knife but dared not rush out, the surroundings suddenly became eerily quiet, and all the screams ceased.

In a daze, he could only hear some faint footsteps, which grew closer and closer until they completely surrounded Duan Tiande's room.

Next, a tall young man with a youthful face, who looked about seventeen or eighteen years old, gently pushed open the door, pulled a grand chair from the side, and placed it in front of the timid Duan Tiande.

Duan Tiande was so frightened that he didn't dare to lift his head. He cowered in the corner, his hand gripping the knife more and more, but he dared not let go, as if he were clutching his own life, until he saw a pair of legs appear before him.

Wu Chengyu casually stepped over the threshold, sat down in the armchair, crossed his legs, and Song Mu stood tall behind him. Wu Chengyu tilted his head and looked at Duan Tiande with great interest, as if he were looking at a rare object.

"The name Duan Tiande is legendary. I've known about you since I was a teenager, and probably hundreds of millions of people know about you at the same time. Tell me, does someone like you deserve it?"

As he spoke, Wu Chengyu casually grabbed Duan Tiande's single-edged sword. Duan Tiande was jolted awake when he lost his sword. He immediately knelt on the ground, trembling, and kowtowed to Wu Chengyu, begging for mercy.

Next, he saw his sword being broken into pieces, one by one, in the hands of this unbelievably handsome young man, and then thrown in front of him, as if the sword were not made of fine steel, but rather as thin as a cicada's wing of porcelain. "Tell me, besides telling you to stop me, what else did the Jin people say?"

“Brave warrior, all they really wanted was for me to tamper with your ship, to stab it open so you couldn’t move forward. That’s all they said.”

"Song Mu, take this out with you. All I want is for him to be able to speak. Also, don't kill him. I'll pack this up as a gift later."

Song Mu didn't speak, but just grinned maliciously, grabbed Duan Tiande by the neck, lifted him up with one hand, and dragged him out of the room.

Wu Chengyu looked at the dishes on the table; they were all dishes that Duan Tiande had used, and he had no interest in them. There was also the girl that Duan Tiande had brought over; judging from her attire, she must have come from a brothel, and she was kneeling there, trembling.

Wu Chengyu didn't ask her if her name was Cui Nong. He simply flicked his finger from a distance, striking her pressure point and putting the girl to sleep immediately.

At the same time, Duan Tiande's scream came from outside the door, as shrill as an old dog whose throat had been cut. These half-grown boys were indeed worthy of being trained by Wu Chengyu; they were even more ruthless than Wu Chengyu when they started to fight.

A short while later, Song Mu brought back a bloody mess. Duan Tiande's limbs were broken into at least a dozen pieces, and his face was covered in bruises. Fortunately, his teeth were still intact. Song Mu was very considerate, knowing that losing his teeth would make him speak unclearly and cause Wu Chengyu to frown.

"Tell me what you want to hear, otherwise I'll have to take action myself. I taught them all those techniques, and for now, they're still a bit lacking."

Duan Tiande dared not hide anything any longer: "It was a special envoy from the Jin Kingdom who suddenly found me and said that they were carrying out a big plan, but a group of troublemakers suddenly appeared, so they asked me to find a way to stall you."

I invited him to a brothel for drinks. He drank to his heart's content and let slip that they were gathering forces from all sides to chase after a girl.

The girl was from the Beggars' Sect and possessed extremely high martial arts skills, but she was outnumbered and ambushed. They could have captured her on the spot, but the Jin people wanted to use her as bait, so they let her continue south.

"I need to know the girl's specific route south."

"This girl originally traveled by waterway all the way to Hankou, where someone was said to meet her."

But upon arriving in Yichuan, she disembarked and switched to land travel, taking the official road through Jingmen and Tianmen towards Hankou. The Jin soldiers followed her at a distance, occasionally attempting to kill her, but each time letting her go.

"Who is she going to Hankou to see, or who will pick her up?"

"I don't know. I only know that the Jin people said that after the matter is accomplished, the entire Beggars' Sect will fall into their hands and serve the Great Jin Kingdom from then on."

Who are the men pursuing that girl?

"I have seen some of these people. Some are from the Jin Kingdom, and some are from our Song Kingdom. They are all martial artists, but their clothes and accents are different. It seems that they are not from the same place. However, some of them should be beggars."

"What kind of beggar are you, and how did you tell?"

“They were dressed very well, and you couldn’t tell they were beggars at all. But there were a few patches on their clothes in inconspicuous places, as if it was done on purpose. I also overheard them talking about ‘how our Beggars’ Gang should be in the future,’ which made me start to suspect something.”

Wu Chengyu had a vague guess in his heart. The Clean Clothes Faction of the Beggars' Sect were not actually beggars. They ran businesses and were far wealthier than ordinary people. They were more like martial arts forces in various places, but they were affiliated with the Beggars' Sect.

In the original novel, the Clean Clothes Faction and the Dirty Clothes Faction of the Beggars' Sect had always been in conflict, but the Clean Clothes Faction never really rebelled, except for Elder Peng who betrayed them later. Therefore, the current Beggars' Sect must have undergone some changes that Wu Chengyu was unaware of.

Furthermore, the only person who could meet A-Ku in Hankou was Hong Qigong, but his movements had already been detected.

These Jin people must have infiltrated the Beggars' Sect and won over the Clean Clothes Faction to their cause. Meanwhile, A-Ku, the inspector, was checking out the branch sects everywhere and discovered something.

This discovery is enough to shake up the Jin Kingdom's arrangements within the Beggars' Sect. The Jin people must eliminate A-Ku, who is Hong Qigong's disciple. If she dies, Hong Qigong will inevitably launch a major offensive.

The inaction of the Beggars' Sect's Hangzhou branch could not be concealed at all.

So these people behind the scenes decided to go all the way and use Ah Ku as bait to lure out Hong Qigong, and then completely eliminate this Northern Beggar. At that time, the number one gang in the world would fall into the control of the Jurchens.

The Beggars' Sect was spread throughout the Southern Song Dynasty. Whether it was spreading information or carrying out sabotage in secret, it would inevitably cause irreparable damage to the Southern Song Dynasty.

It must be said that the Jin people played a very grand game. The only thing Wu Chengyu couldn't understand was what made them so confident in eliminating Hong Qigong.

At Hong Qigong's level, no one can stop him if he wants to leave, so the Jin people must have a way to deal with him. Qiu Qianren of the Iron Palm Clan alone cannot kill Hong Qigong.

However, all of this is just Wu Chengyu's speculation. Until the final reveal, who knows what's hidden beneath the surface?

Wu Chengyu had no interest in the Beggars' Sect; he only cared about A-Ku. But now he had to consider the Beggars' Sect, because if something really happened to them, the consequences would be unpredictable.

This large group of beggars is certainly not good enough to accomplish anything, but they are more than capable of causing trouble.

Wu Chengyu turned to Song Mu and said, "Tell the injured brothers to take this guy surnamed Duan north and hide him near Hangzhou. This guy can't die when we return."

As for the rest of you, it's time for the Beiwei Army to make its official debut.

(End of this chapter)