Chapter Eighty-Four: The Founding of the Beggars' Sect

The autumn sunlight was gentle rather than fierce. Half-screened by the tea pavilion, Lu Liaoliao sat reading a manual of secret arts, yet felt his whole body grow hot with embarrassment. He lifted the teacup that had already been refilled several times, took a sip, and smoothly made to tuck The Thirty-Six Secret Arts of the Profound Cavern into his robe.

He absolutely had to try it on that enchantress Gu Xihua first. Once he mastered such divine techniques, would she not be pleading for mercy without end? At the thought, Lu Liaoliao broke into a smug grin.

“Elder Brother, wait!” Guo Yan hurriedly stopped him.

“You’ve already practiced it, haven’t you? Can’t bear to let me take it and learn a little?” Lu Liaoliao had already made up his mind. This manual—he was definitely going to pocket it.

Guo Yan let out a long sigh. “Brother Lu, you don’t understand. Managing such a large gang is no easy thing. I’m young, and my martial skill isn’t strong enough either. It’s hard to command respect. If I could personally take the head of that old fellow from the Flower Beggars’ Gang in the east of the city, my prestige would rise quite a bit. But as things stand, against that old man, I truly have no confidence.”

“So you want me to teach you some swordsmanship?” Lu Liaoliao looked at him with a smile.

“Elder Brother’s swordplay is divine, unfathomable, beyond ghosts and gods. If you’d just pass on the tiniest bit to your little brother here, I’d have the confidence to cut off that old bastard’s head.” Guo Yan’s face was full of fawning smiles as he spoke ingratiatingly.

Lu Liaoliao stroked his chin and calculated. It would not be right to embezzle the man’s manual for nothing. He dared not casually transmit the secret arts of Ghost Valley, so he might as well pass on some sword techniques from other schools.

“All right. What you say has some sense to it. I have here an exquisite Daoist sword art from the Supreme Clarity Abbey, the Thirty-Six Forms of the Blazing Wind Brushing Willow Sword. I’ll alter it a bit and teach it to you.”

“The name alone doesn’t suit a bold and heroic man like me. Elder Brother, why not pass on another set as well—something fierce and powerful?” Guo Yan blinked and looked at Lu Liaoliao pitifully.

“All right, all right. Sword Saint Pei Min’s General’s Sword—mighty and overbearing. I’ll teach you that too.” Lu Liaoliao was in a good mood and appeared exceedingly generous.

“Well... sword techniques alone, without a matching breathing art, won’t really do, will they?” Guo Yan’s voice grew softer and softer; he scarcely dared raise his head to look at Lu Liaoliao.

“So that’s it. You brought this thing out because you planned it all along, didn’t you? Do you really think this damned excuse for a manual is worth two sword arts and a breathing technique?” Lu Liaoliao sprang to his feet at once and spoke irritably.

“Brother, my Brother Lu! Think carefully—once that manual is mastered and lets you conquer all before you, would it really not be worth it?” Guo Yan looked at him beseechingly.

After a fierce struggle between reason and desire, Lu Liaoliao was finally unable to resist the supreme temptation. He secretly glanced in the direction of Zizhou in the southwest, touched the manual hidden in his breast, and lowered his voice. “Fine, fine. I’m treating you as a real brother, so I’ll pass on to you a breathing art of purest hardness and utmost yang. But if you dare leak it, don’t blame me for turning nasty.”

On the road back to the city, the silver-bell laughter of Tang Xiaoqi could be heard from the carriage from time to time. It seemed this excursion to Incense Accumulation Temple had greatly lifted the spirits of the young woman who usually stayed at home.

That night, thinking at last an opportunity had come, Lu Liaoliao eagerly went to the bedchamber, only to find the door still tightly shut. He tapped lightly a few times, and from within came Tang Xiaoqi’s teasing voice again.

“Go find your Miss Yelai instead.”

Lu Liaoliao pleaded several times, but Tang Xiaoqi remained unmoved. Heaven knew where he found the courage, but in a fit of anger he snapped, “Fine, fine! You won’t open the door, is that it? Then I’ll go straight to the Celestial Maiden House and find Yelai!”

He plopped down on the steps in a huff. At once the door creaked open instead.

He darted inside, wrapped his arms around Tang Xiaoqi, who was still wearing a cold expression, and with shameless cheer asked, “Xiaoqi, today at Incense Accumulation Temple, when you offered incense and fulfilled your vow, did you enjoy yourself?”

“What enjoyment or not? The moment we entered the temple, a certain someone vanished without a trace. But Sister Luoluo really was something—she actually donated a thousand copper coins as incense money. I was far cleverer. I dropped only ten coppers into the merit box.”

Held in her husband’s arms, how could seventeen-year-old Tang Xiaoqi keep a stern face for long? She soon began recounting amusing things from their incense offering.

“Last year at Zhaojue Temple in Chengdu Prefecture, you put in only a single copper coin. This time at the famous Incense Accumulation Temple, you gave a mere ten. If you’re that stingy before the Buddha, be careful he may not bless you,” Lu Liaoliao teased, scraping lightly at her fine little nose.

“What do you mean, money donated to the Buddha? The silver and coins in those merit boxes all end up embezzled by those idle, fat-eared monks anyway. I may have donated little, but my sincere heart was conveyed to the Buddha. Look at me—haven’t my wishes all come true already?”

Tang Xiaoqi happily touched her lower belly and smiled in perfect contentment.

By candlelight, she looked so radiant and lovely that Lu Liaoliao, harboring unworthy thoughts, nearly drooled at the sight.

“What are you staring at? She’s your own wife. After all this time, haven’t you seen enough?” Tang Xiaoqi said shyly.

“I’ve been wondering how my wife Xiaoqi could possibly be so beautiful. I could look at you for a lifetime and never tire of it.” As Lu Liaoliao poured out sweet words, his hands began to wander as well.

Under this double assault, Tang Xiaoqi’s body softened and slumped into his arms, her eyes already tinged with seduction. “That mouth of yours really knows how to coax women.”

Feeling the moment ripe, Lu Liaoliao took out The Thirty-Six Secret Arts of the Profound Cavern, opened it before her, and said, “Xiaoqi, look. Practicing this bedchamber art won’t just bring us both to paradise—it’s also greatly beneficial to the body. Why don’t we give it a try?”

The moment Tang Xiaoqi saw the illustrations, her face flared scarlet. She snatched the booklet from him and hurled it far outside the door, then shoved Lu Liaoliao away in one motion.

“Lu Liaoliao, you shameless creature! You actually showed your own wife an obscene picture book. Get out, get out! If you want to try it, go find that vixen Yelai!”

Picking up the book from the courtyard, Lu Liaoliao stared at the tightly shut door once more and let out a bitter sigh before slinking back to the study.

Before he had even managed to mollify his wife, Guo Yan of the Flower Beggars’ Gang came calling again a few days later.

The Flower Beggars’ Gang had now been renamed the Beggars’ Sect. The famed pauper Fan Dan of the Eastern Han had, with a sudden transformation, become the sect’s founding patriarch. According to their account, one of his righteous deeds had been to save the Confucian Sage himself from starving to death by giving him relief when his cooking fire had gone out.

Lu Liaoliao looked darkly at the high-spirited Guo Yan in utter disbelief. “Do you know that this Patriarch Fan Dan you’ve raised up and the Sage Confucius lived more than five hundred years apart? How exactly was he supposed to save the founder of Confucianism?”

Guo Yan was entirely unconcerned. “This Patriarch Fan Dan was chosen by everyone in the gang after a long discussion, and everyone’s very satisfied. As for how he saved Confucius despite living centuries later—that’s unimportant. So long as everyone believes it, and it’s repeated enough times, it becomes true. Brother Lu, isn’t that the principle?”

Lu Liaoliao was struck dumb. He stared for quite a while before finally snorting, “Fine, fine! Then have your newly founded Beggars’ Sect go begging at scholarly households on every festival and holiday, and collect repayment from the disciples and descendants of the Confucians on behalf of your founding patriarch.”

Guo Yan’s eyes widened. His mind spun rapidly, then he slapped his thigh and shouted, “Brilliant idea, brilliant! That way the disciples of the Beggars’ Sect can pick up a little scholarly refinement too. Elder Brother is Elder Brother—your brain really does work better than ours.”

Lu Liaoliao’s head spun. The world swayed around him. He nearly coughed up blood from sheer exasperation at this living fool.

In the central courtyard of the old residence, on the leveled martial ground, Guo Yan took a wooden staff and demonstrated Lu Liaoliao’s revised Wind-Parting Willow-Brushing Sword, then looked proudly at the watching crowd.

“My set of Thirty-Six Forms of the Dog-Beating Staff—passable, wouldn’t you say?”

Lu Liaoliao cast a dazed glance in the direction of the Supreme Clarity Abbey and thought to himself that if his grand-uncle Master Yuanqiu ever learned of this, he would surely kill him with a single palm strike.

Like a child showing off a treasure, Guo Yan then launched into another forceful and ferocious set of palm strikes.

“My Thirty-Six Dragon-Subduing Palms—once mastered, few in the martial world will be able to withstand them. What do you all say?” Not even winded, Guo Yan stood there with his hands on his hips, imposing as a general.

“The more I watch, the more your so-called Thirty-Six Dragon-Subduing Palms look suspiciously like my family’s ancestral General’s Sword.” After saying this, Pei Wuniang looked doubtfully at the ashen-faced Lu Liaoliao.

“Your family’s art is a sword technique. What Brother Guo is using is a palm technique. Can palm techniques and sword techniques be the same?” Lu Liaoliao looked at Pei Wuniang with the disdainful expression one reserves for an idiot.

Pei Wuniang scratched her head and glared at him indignantly. “Of course I know sword techniques and palm techniques aren’t the same. I just think they look a little alike, that’s all. Hmph! Do you really take me for a fool?”

At last he managed to send off the ridiculous Guo Yan and fool the simple-minded Pei Wuniang. Lu Liaoliao knew that an event as important as the founding of the new Beggars’ Sect naturally had to be reported to the Tang princess at Jade True Abbey. Having someone from the imperial house behind them as patron and support was an entirely different matter.

So the very next day Lu Liaoliao went to Jade True Abbey and, with utmost honesty and respect, explained the matter to Princess Yuzhen.

Princess Yuzhen said with dignified composure, “To gather these beggar gangs together and have them abandon evil for good is indeed a very fine thing. But if their power grows too great, I fear they may become hard to control.”

“Master’s Wife, rest assured—they would never dare harbor the slightest disloyalty toward you. For their founding assembly, they were even planning to ask you to bestow a sacred object as the sect’s token of inheritance. If it is convenient, they had also hoped to invite you to attend as an honored witness,” Lu Liaoliao said carefully, smiling ingratiatingly.

“A gathering of beggars—what is there to see?” Princess Yuzhen waved a hand, wholly unconcerned. “Since it is a beggars’ sect, I have here a white jade bowl presented as tribute from the Western Regions. Take it and let it serve as their sacred heirloom. You may attend in my stead.”

At the sight of the luminous white jade bowl in its exquisite box, clear as crystal and glowing faintly, Lu Liaoliao immediately took a liking to it and felt rather reluctant to part with it.

Then his eyes fell upon a clump of emerald winter bamboo before the hall, and his mind began rapidly to scheme.

Ten days later, in a hidden valley on Zhongnan Mountain, more than a thousand beggars of all ages sat with wooden staffs in hand. Every one of them stared eagerly toward the high wooden platform ahead. At the sight of the steaming buns there, they were nearly drooling.

As for solemn rites, procedures, and regulations, none of them cared in the slightest. So long as the meeting ended with everyone getting to eat those delicious steamed buns, whatever was said would be fine by them.

The platform was filled with honored guests and beggars with eight or nine sacks tied at their waists. All wore grave expressions as they watched Guo Yan, dressed in patched clothes and bearing nine sacks, kneel before the clay statue of Patriarch Fan Dan and kowtow nine times with resounding force.

As Princess Yuzhen’s representative, Lu Liaoliao brought forth a long wooden box adorned beautifully and tied with red silk. With solemn ceremony he stepped before Guo Yan and placed the box firmly into his hands.

Guo Yan accepted it with an excited expression and opened it with trembling hands. This was a treasure bestowed by an actual princess of the Great Tang—an immeasurable honor for a band of beggars.

But when he saw, lying quietly inside the long box, a single gleaming green bamboo branch, he froze in shock.

“This is no ordinary bamboo branch,” Lu Liaoliao shouted at him. “It is precious cold-iron bamboo offered in tribute from the South Sea. In all the Great Tang, only Jade True Abbey has two such stalks. The lady there, though pained to part with it, cut down one and bestowed upon it the name Dog-Beating Staff as the token of inheritance for your Beggars’ Sect. Why are you not kneeling in thanks to the princess and putting it away properly?”