Cloud of the Qing Dynasty

Zhang Chi looked at it for a while, then took out a piece of broken silver from his purse, and greeted the beggars: "Brothers, this Taoist priest of the Shangqing Palace is kind enough to treat you to a good meal."

Talking about throwing the broken silver, a beggar reached out to take it, and thanked the two of them: "Thank you very much."

Speaking of which, the beggars patted their buttocks to stand up, whistled and walked away without a trace.

Mu Liuyun looked back at those ragged figures in puzzlement: "...Why did you give them money? What kind of charity do such lazy people have?"

Zhang Chi looked at him probingly: "Do you look down on beggars?"

Mu Liuyun shook his head: "That's not true. If you are really unable to make a living, begging is a helpless act. There is nothing to look down on trying to survive. It's just that these people have hands and feet, are young and strong, and some of them seem to be physically fit. Still very strong, obviously there are many other ways to make a living, but would rather beg for people, it is contemptible."

Zhang Chi smiled: "You're right, but it's not because these people come out to beg for food because of laziness."

"Then why?"

Zhang Chi lowered his voice mysteriously and said, "Do you know which is the biggest gang in the world?"

"... Beggar Gang?" Mu Liuyun suddenly realized that he turned around and looked at the backs of those who had gone away, "Are they members of the Beggar Gang?"

Thinking about it in retrospect, the behavior of these people is indeed not very like beggars, neither lowering their posture to beg for pity, nor taking the initiative to beg around others, just sitting there lazily, with cynical laziness in their expressions Confident and confident, a few people are still chasing and fighting in the street at the moment, and it is not difficult to see from their movements that they have all practiced martial arts.

"That's right." Zhang Chi said, "Maybe you don't know much about it. There is such a rule in the Beggar Clan that no matter if it is the leader, elder, hall leader or ordinary disciple, no matter how high the status, how noble the status is, how good the martial arts is, the thing How busy I am, I have to set aside one day every month to go to the streets to beg in person. On the day of begging, I am not allowed to reveal my identity as a beggar, I am not allowed to accept gifts from acquaintances, and I am not allowed to get food in other ways. If I can’t get food, I have to starve for a day all day."

"...Why is this?" Mu Liuyun couldn't understand such a strange gang rule at all.

"You think, in terms of strength, the Beggar Gang is far inferior to Jinghong Mountain Villa, and in terms of martial arts, they are no match for Shaolin Temple and Shangqing Palace. Why are they called the world's largest gang?"

"Because there are many beggars?" Mu Liuyun asked tentatively.

"That's right." Zhang Chi sighed, "The world has not been peaceful these years, with natural disasters and military disasters. I don't know how many people have been displaced and turned into beggars. The total number of beggar gangs is probably more than that of Shangqing Palace and Jinghong Villa combined. It is more than ten times more, and the power spans the north and south of the river. It can be said that as long as there are people, there is a beggar gang. But most of the beggar gangs are old, weak, sick and disabled, and only a very small number of them can be killed. They are called 'disciples of the beggar gang', even so, the number of disciples of the beggar gang exceeds that of all other gangs."

Mu Liuyun nodded in understanding. Of course he understands that "members of the beggar gang" and "disciples of the beggar gang" are two different concepts, just like the Shangqing Palace also has its own cooks, tailors, doctors, or pure monks. They can be regarded as members of the Shangqing Palace, but they cannot be called Shangqing Palace disciples, because they neither practice martial arts nor participate in sect affairs.In general schools, there are many disciples and few idlers, but the beggar gang is completely reversed, and beggars who do not know martial arts account for the vast majority.

"According to the rules of most gangs, once you join the beggar gang, you will be a member of the beggar gang for life. However, more than ten years ago, although a group of beggar gang disciples joined the gang as beggars, after learning martial arts and becoming capable Disdain to associate with dirty beggars, but collectively defected from the beggars to establish their own. As you can imagine, they lost the support of countless beggars they looked down upon, and were morally untenable. In terms of strength, the small gangs, which were second- and third-rate, were quickly wiped out. They didn't understand that the foundation of the beggar gang's strength was the countless little beggars, old beggars, and disabled beggars. If there were no such beggars, only For the remaining group of people who know martial arts, what is the difference between the beggar gang and the ordinary second-rate gang? Since then, the leader of the beggar gang has established this rule, and has insisted on implementing it for more than ten years, just to make the beggar gang Help the disciples to always remember who they are and what kind of life the other beggars of the Beggar Sect live, and don’t think that they are not beggars after learning some skills.”

"In this case, this gang leader has considered it thoroughly." Mu Liuyun couldn't help admiring it.

"It's considered comprehensive, but there are always loopholes in the rules. After a long time, when people see these young and strong beggars who don't look like beggars, they will know that the disciples of the beggar gang are begging routinely. Merchants are naturally generous, not so much as charity, but as flattery. So there are also some lazy young people who start pretending to be disciples of the beggar gang to cheat food, drink and money everywhere. After all, not everyone is like me. They have a keen eye, so they have repeatedly succeeded. These scoundrels were captured and plausible: 'I never admitted that I was a disciple of the Beggar Gang! You insisted on giving it to me!'”

He vividly imitated the exaggerated expressions and movements of the rogue, and Mu Liuyun couldn't help but chuckle while sitting on the horseback.

***

At this moment, there was a commotion nearby.

I saw two frightened horses pulling an out-of-control carriage, rushing along the street at full speed, the handlebars pulling the reins in vain, shouting in horror: "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Open! Help, help, help!"

Pedestrians screamed and avoided, and the carriage overturned several small stalls. The street was in chaos for a while, but an old beggar stood motionless in the middle of the street as if he had been frightened.

"Get out of the way!" Zhang Chi shouted, but the old man ignored him.

Zhang Chi pulled out the short gun on his back and stretched it out: "I'll stop the car, you go save people!"

Without saying a word of nonsense, Mu Liuyun rode his horse and ran towards the dumb old beggar.

When Mu Liuyun ran towards him, the old beggar fled the middle of the street in a hurry as if he had just woken up from a dream.

Mu Liuyun reined in his horse and turned his head to see Zhang Chi's rider standing up. Zhang Chi turned around with a gun in both hands on the horse's back, and stuck the gun between the wheel and the axle.

Feeling an irresistible force coming from his hand, Zhang Chi immediately abandoned the gun. After the rolling wheels spun half a circle with the iron gun, the barrel of the iron gun touched the ground, and the whole carriage bumped violently. The wheels were crushed by the horizontal iron gun, and the carriage was dragged a few feet away after being overturned on the ground. Finally, the mad horses still couldn't pull a wheelless carriage and were gradually stopped.

The handlebar was thrown out of the carriage screaming when the carriage overturned and slowed down, and Mu Liuyun was lucky enough to fly forward to catch him.

But at the moment of catching the person, a sudden change occurred!

The dagger in the sleeve of the handlebar slipped silently into his hand, and suddenly stabbed Mu Liuyun.

Mu Liuyun has been successfully attacked by Zhang Chi many times in the past few days. Although Zhang Chi just pinches him and laughs a few times, but Mu Liuyun has a strong temper, and he will be depressed for a long time every time he loses. , and every time I made up my mind not to let this little bastard succeed again, after a few days, I really became more alert.

So as soon as the assassin exerted strength on his arm, he immediately sensed the abnormality, and used the true energy of Tiangang body protection to bounce the opponent away.

The assassin failed with a single blow, fell to the ground and rolled around, got up, raised his hand and aimed at Mu Liuyun and fired a hidden sleeve arrow.

At this time, the distance between the two had been several steps away, and the mere sleeve arrow was no threat to Mu Liuyun. He sideways avoided the sleeve arrow, and almost instantly dodged in front of the assassin, and caught it with his hand. The opponent's wrist.

The assassin's cheeks tightened suddenly, and Mu Liuyun thought that the other party was also hiding a hidden weapon in his mouth, and he didn't have time to think about how a person who opened his mouth and shouted for help just now could hide a hidden weapon in his mouth, just out of Cautious immediately shook off him and took two steps back, only to see that the assassin made a swallowing movement - he actually took poison.

All this happened too fast, Zhang Chi didn't rush over until then, he reached out and took off the assassin's jaw, opened his mouth and looked, only to see half a plaster that was crushed false teeth, and the assassin soon turned blue and his body began to twitch. Zhang Chi could only helplessly shake his head at Mu Liuyun: "It's a crane with a red crown, there is no hope."

Mu Liuyun was also surprised and angry at the moment: "...who could have sent it?"

"Wait for me to see if there are any clues." Zhang Chi searched the assassin very efficiently, and the assassin's belongings were only a sleeve arrow originally designed by Tangmen, and now any finer workshop can imitate it. A barrel, and a dagger that can be seen everywhere, but under the clothes, a large area of ​​the shoulders is tightly wrapped with bandages.

Sending an injured assassin out to assassinate a martial arts master with excellent skills is completely unreasonable, so Zhang Chi cut the bandage without hesitation, and saw a serious burn on the skin of the assassin's left back shoulder , a whole piece of flesh was completely scorched, and some ointment was hastily applied, and it was obviously a new injury, which should have been scalded within the past two days.

Zhang Chi wanted to do further inspections, but there were a few people dressed as police officers who were approaching here, trying to separate from the crowd of spectators noisily.

Zhang Chi clapped his hands and stood up and said, "Let's go. If someone from the official family is involved, it's another personal life lawsuit. If we get entangled, we may not be able to get away for several days."

Mu Liuyun also had no experience in this area. Since Zhang Chi said so, he got on the horse and left with Zhang Chi.

The few policemen actually saw them through the crowd, but they thought that the life lawsuit would involve people in the rivers and lakes. Even if they were arrested, they would not be able to be arrested, nor could they be tried, and it would be difficult to release them. It's hard to say that it would be wiped out by these lawless Jianghu people, so they deliberately dawdled for a while, turned a blind eye and allowed them to leave calmly, and then began to disperse the crowd to clean up the scene.