Chương 128: Death and the Beggars, III

One of the elders coughed out a ragged laugh, smoke curling from his eyes and ears as he tried not to choke on his own pipe. Others scoffed or showed irritation with Wu Hao. Elder Guo, on the other hand, just smiled.

"You think we don't have a few favors that the Emei owes us already?" he asked.

"I -" Wu Hao said, and then actually thought about it. That did make sense. The Beggar's Union was the largest intelligence organization in the jianghu. Favors, by and large, had to be things that you were owed, which meant you'd given something. He could easily imagine scenarios where the Emei relied on the Beggars Union for information.

"All sects owe each other favors," Elder Gou stated.

"We owe them, they owe us. We all have to get along, after all - a mutual deficit of trade means we're connected tightly together. This is one of the pillars of the foundation of the Alliance."

"Don't favors cancel each other out?" Wu Hao asked.

"Not if you don't let them," Elder Gou said.

"Do you understand what I mean?"

"No," he said.

"Then what do you want from me?"

"Information," Elder Gou stated.

"We are in the business of gathering intelligence."

"And what's in it for me?" Elder Gou nodded.

"We of the Beggar's Union are by no means poor," he said, without a trace of irony in his voice.

"Every new piece of information you can give us, we will pay for. The more important it is, the more we will pay. There's one topic of particular interest, but we'll get to that later."

"How much?" The figure that Elder Gou named, without even looking over to the rest of his colleagues, might not have been much to them. It probably wasn't, actually. Nonetheless they'd hooked Wu Hao's attention. A few facts and he could buy himself a new weapon. A few more and he could get one that wasn't just the bottom of the pile but instead something far better. Something he wouldn't be ashamed to be seen with.

"I agree," Wu Hao said, attempting not to sound too eager. Maybe he could have haggled, but men like these had haggled more than he'd died so far.

"Where do I start?"

"Tell me every single thing that you can about what went on. How did you first realize what was going on, when did your investigation start, and what happened during your daring raid on the Mu Estate?"

"I found him," Wu Hao said, tersely.

"Him?"

"Mu Jun. He was in Steel Alley. His qi smelled off."

"Off how?"

"Shadows," Wu Hao said.

"And something slimy." One of the elders nodded to one of the boys next to him, who drew a single line on a piece of paper. It was fairly short, though.

"That's new to us," Elder Gou said.

"Can you identify similar scents?" Wu Hao breathed in, thought about it. He had been able to smell a sort of similar qi with the other cultists he'd met, but on a random stranger?

"Maybe." The line was elongated slightly.

"Another question," Elder Gou said.

"Are there any other signs we can spot?" The boy's hand was set over the paper, the quill primed to add another length to the line.

"Can you see qi?" Wu Hao asked.

"I cannot."

"Then I don't think so. I can teach you how to identify those not-quite-living corpses, though." That got him a smaller stripe than he'd hoped for, but at least it got a little longer. The rest of his story went along like that. He told them what he'd done - or at least what he'd done that final go-through. There were some exasperated mutters about the Emei Sect when he described how the girls had gone along, but they didn't speak loud enough to actually overhear what they were saying.

There were additional stripes added every so often but they were fairly short, mostly about how and what array dolls were. It did feel good to see that they looked very disturbed by that particular bit of information, though. That got him a nice long stripe by the wide-eyed boy.

"- and then she ripped the crown off his head," Wu Hao said.

"I'm not sure what to make of the crown, actually."

"That's the main thing here today," Elder Gou said. Wu Hao might've figured as much. Elder Gou waved out the boy and sent him off with the piece of paper to go collect Wu Hao's money. By his count, he ought to have made enough for a better spear. Or sword, if he wanted one.

"First, let me ask you a question. What do you know about arrays?"

"I understand the principles," Wu Hao said.

"Indeed?" Elder Gou asked.

"Well, that will make things simpler, I think. Do you happen to also know who makes these arrays?" Wu Hao shrugged.

"Individual masters?" Elder Gou clicked his tongue.

"No, I'm afraid not. Perhaps at one time, but nowadays guilds have formed. Not unlike our own, I suppose. Though the Beggar's Union includes more than just beggars, as you know."

"I don't," Wu Hao stated bluntly.

"Let me inform you, then," Elder Gou said, shaking his head slightly.

"We don't just have beggars in the union, you know. And unlike all the other orthodox sects, we do not just include those who have learned our martial arts. We include tradesmen as well, though they're a minority, and we include eunuchs into our ranks that take high seats at the imperial court. They are not beggars in any sense of the word. So do we include musicians, travellers, and more."

"The ill," another elder chimed in.

"The mentally disturbed."

"Do we have to do the entire extended conversation?" one elder grumbled.

"You're distracting me from getting any work done here." It was the man with liver spots on his head who was playing xiangqi. Wu Hao didn't have a clue what his work actually entailed, but if it was playing xiangqi then it seemed he was very engrossed in it. Despite pretty clearly losing, even to an untrained eye.

"I'll handle the conversation, Elder Gang," Elder Gou responded in a measured tone. His smile had slipped slightly. It seemed that he didn't like being interrupted. Wu Hao would've needed to read his qi to be sure, though, and he couldn't with everyone still veiled up. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"There's no need," Elder Gang said.

"I can do the short version. Kid, listen, you -""I will do the conversation," Elder Gou said, and the veil over his core shattered as a pure sense of power erupted from him. Like stumbling across a slumbering bear in a cave it came roaring out of his core, crashing down on everyone there, and Wu Hao felt the sheer pressure weighing down on him. He got the sense, though, that the pressure lay at the core of Elder Gou's power, not that it was the backwash.

"Fine," Elder Gang said, a single drop of sweat beading on his head. His eyes had narrowed, and despite his words Wu Hao assumed that he was holding onto his qi carefully beneath his veil.

"Crazy bastard. Control yourself or the kid'll explode." Elder Gou made a small noise in the back of his throat and the pressure vanished. Wu Hao breathed out a long breath and sagged slightly, though. He hadn't bowed but he felt his knees click. Elder Gang bent back over the board and Elder Gou continued speaking again, picking up where he'd left off as if nothing had happened. The veil drifted back over his core and Wu Hao was blind once more.

"So," he said.

"Let's return to my original point, which is that we gather those from all parts of society. Which includes martial artists who no longer have a path of their own to follow, for whatever reason."

"If this is a recruitment offer -" Wu Hao began, but then there was another dry laugh among the gathered elders.

"Idiot boy," that elder who had spoken earlier said. Not Elder Gang, thankfully, because Wu Hao didn't want another explosion of power.

"We of the Beggar's Union may be beggars, but that doesn't mean we don't have our pride. Whatever talent you possess, it is not enough that we are the ones to ask you to join our sect. Are you a Master-grade cultivator, perhaps? Hiding a heritage straight from one of the Sovereigns beneath that common hair and that grimy face of yours? If you had those, then perhaps. As you are, though..." He let that silence hang for a beat, then shook his head.

"No." Wu Hao scowled, but the point had been made. They wouldn't ask him to become a part of their sect - he would have to ask them. Which he wouldn't. They might've mentioned their own pride, but he had his as well.

"We've gotten sidetracked," Elder Gou said. Though he didn't disagree with the other elder, who tossed back a cup of tea and leaned back into the shade of the tent.

"The point that I was trying to make is that there are guilds. There are guilds for weavers who the Alliance allows to work with qi-enhanced thread; there are guilds that handle the sale of new resources that our sects require. And there's a guild for Array Masters." He cleared his throat.

"Now, this Guild collects martial artists from every sect, every great family - whoever has significant talent in the field of arrays, or who has enough money to pay for the requisite learning, in the field..."

"What's that got to do with me?" Wu Hao asked. Elder Gou seemed to want to ramble on forever, but Wu Hao was already bored.

"What it has to do with you," Elder Gou said, "is that these relationships are two-directional. The Weavers are allowed to work with qi-enhanced materials; in return they fashion the robes of the heads of sects at reduced prices. The Explorers are given tips; in return, they are given security that they won't simply be robbed. The Array Masters..." He trailed off, waiting for Wu Hao to finish the sentence for him.

"The Array Masters make arrays for the Alliance," he said, a little annoyed that he'd let himself go along with it.

"So?"

"They don't just make arrays," Elder Gou said.

"If the Alliance wants an array broken, where do you think they'll go?" Wu Hao's brows scrunched together, and then he let out an "oh".

"To the Array Masters," he said.

"There we are," another elder said, and sniffed.

"Took him a minute, didn't it?" Wu Hao scowled.

"So that includes the crown," he said.

"That's where the crown is, isn't it? At the headquarters for this Array Masters' Guild?"

"Correct," Elder Gou said.

"They'll be studying it."

"Great," Wu Hao said.

"They'll tell you everything, afterwards." Elder Gou made an annoyed face.

"For a number of reasons," he said, "that is not the case. We will receive a report at the same time as all the other sects do. That report will not be complete, and that report will be whatever the Council has decided that we are allowed to know." Wu Hao nodded.

"We need more information," Elder Gou said.

"We need that information before anyone else has it, and we need it without it being censored by the Alliance. Only that way can we deal in true information." And charge a pretty penny for it, Wu Hao imagined. He had a feeling that that played a more important role than they were willing to admit to him. But an idea had begun to form. Maybe it wasn't entirely his idea, to be honest - he had a feeling he'd been led to it. Still, it was a good idea. That crown had haunted his thoughts for a while now.

"And what if I infiltrate the Array Master's Guild?" Wu Hao asked slowly.

"How much money would that get me?" Elder Gou smiled.

"Do you believe you can?"

"Yes," Wu Hao said.

"We will pay for a year of apprenticeship," Elder Gou said, leaning back slightly. The offer was so specific that Wu Hao was certain that the man had known where this conversation would lead.

"After that, though, it would depend on you. If you manage to obtain information on who made the crown, most of all, there would be a very significant compensation."

"How significant?" Wu Hao asked, intrigued. And then Elder Gou named a number that made Wu Hao's jaw drop.