Chương 127: Death and the Beggars, II

Wu Hao would have tried to remember the exact route to the Beggar's Court, but as it turned out, someone was already waiting to escort him there. It was Nosepicker Shi, the same man who'd taken him on the last leg of the journey last time.

"Ready to go?" Nosepicker Shi asked. True to form, he wiped his hands on his filthy robes before he stood up.

"I'm ready," Wu Hao said.

"What's this about?" He had a suspicion, obviously, but he didn't want to voice it unless the beggars told him first. Maybe they hadn't yet heard about the Mu Jun situation. Maybe this was just to check in on him. Then he remembered that whatever else it was, the Beggar Union had secrets under its purvey in which it dealt. It was an intelligence organization - possibly the largest, though maybe not the one with the most exclusive information on the absolute highest echelons of power.

Considering the highest echelons of power could kill their way through Mu Jun and his dolls even if there had been a hundred thousand of them, that meant that the incident could be considered as within the interests of the Beggar Union, which meant they knew.

"We'll talk about it there," Nosepicker Shi said, which neither confirmed nor denied Wu Hao's guess.

"Anyway, how has the Crane's Nest treated you so far?"

"Fine," Wu Hao said.

"There's food and I can sleep in a bed." Nosepicker Shi nodded as if this was a well-thought out critique.

"I see." They continued discussing the food, though Nosepicker Shi had more to say about the wine. It was supposed to be fairly good for the prices offered, which he discussed with a surprisingly complete understanding of the menu. Honestly, some part of Wu Hao wanted to go back for breakfast, but he repressed the urge. He was more than his body, he reminded himself, and he'd conquered all sorts of challenges. Being kind of hungry wouldn't hurt him.

"How come you know so much about the Crane's Nest?" Wu Hao asked.

"And why was I sent there, in the first place? There's cheaper places, aren't there?" In fact, from what he knew, the Crane's Nest was on the more expensive side of the scale, especially for the services it offered. Compared to some inns offering a full complement of couriers to get you whatever you needed and in-house experts to confer with, just having a bed and three square meals didn't quite seem to merit the price.

"Ah," Nosepicker Shi said. He looked around.

"Well, a while back Fu Wang needed a little help with something. He came to the Beggar's Union, looking for a favor, y'see."

"What favor?"

"Can't say," Nosepicker Shi said.

"You don't know?"

"No," Nosepicker Shi said.

"I do. I can't say. Not unless you pay me. It's not worth all that much, though, so if you've got a bit of coin on hand, I'm willing to strike you a bargain..." Oh. That again.

"Never mind," Wu Hao said.

"That so?" Nosepicker Shi asked, as they turned a corner.

"Well, suit yourself."

"Why does every beggar keep asking for money?" Wu Hao asked, and then realized it was a really, really stupid question. He'd waxed poetic about his ability to ignore awkwardness a few days ago, but he still had to tough that one out.

"It's more expensive being a beggar than you think," Nosepicker Shi said.

"I've lived both sides of the coin, as they say."

"You weren't always part of the Beggar's Union?" Wu Hao asked.

"Nah," the martial artist said, tugging at his nose a little before remembering he was on official business.

"How'd you get to join the Beggar's Union, then?" Nosepicker Shi made another gesture, one involving making a sort of cup with his hands while the other hovered above it and unclenched, fingers splaying open. He wanted money again. Wu Hao didn't scowl but he did feel the urge to.

"Never mind," he muttered, and the rest of the walk passed without them speaking much. Nosepicker Shi began to whistle a melody, but he wasn't very good at it and he switched up the rhythm frequently. Wu Hao found himself growing oddly annoyed and, to distract himself, tried to focus on the route. In fact, it might even have been more confusing than it would have been had he just followed. Wu Hao could swear that they had passed by the same street a few times.

They went crawling through hidey-holes that were dark and twisted tunnels, jumped fences of abandoned and not-quite-abandoned houses, and took a short trek up to the roofs before jumping down a few ramshackle houses later. Nosepicker Shi's movement technique was simple enough - a sort of shifting, swaggering, almost drunken-looking step.

Instead of the straightforward movement that Wu Hao was used to, it looked like at random points he staggered and danced a jig, but somehow kept heading forward at a breakneck pace. Wu Hao caught eyes staring out at him every so often, though, and he caught yet more qi signatures looking in at him as well. Not strong ones - third-grades mainly, one or two second-grades. As far as he could figure he was being led through checkpoints to check his identity.

A little more thinking later he also figured that maybe the order of the checkpoints was important as well. Why they felt the need to be so secretive, he didn't know. The Jin clan had also been on guard, but they hadn't bothered to try and mislead him as to where the headquarters were. He could have asked, but before he could he was led to the intersection where the elders of the Beggar's Court met, over which that same ragged, patchwork fabric was hung as a tent roof.

The thing that baffled Wu Hao was that he saw and sensed people who were not who they had been days ago. His senses had been overwhelmed back then, yes, but he didn't think that he'd be quite so confused as to utterly mistake or miscount the qi signatures he now sensed. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. There were other elders now then there had been last time. He didn't see the old women that he had seen. In fact, there were no women.

And while a pair of men were still arguing loudly about nothing in particular, one of the men had been swapped for someone else, with liver spots on his bald head that Wu Hao would have recognized. Their qi signatures were also different. He was sure of that, at least. He wondered if this was intentional. It certainly put him off his kilter.

"Here he is," Elder Gou said, looking up from where he sat cross-legged on the bare ground. This was the elder that Wu Hao had spoken with mainly, the last time that he'd been here. Elder Gou hadn't changed his clothes, and his filthy beard still hung down the floor. Wu Hao wasn't entirely sure, but it also felt like the man might genuinely not have moved from his seat ever since the last meeting. That was impossible to say for sure, but the longer Elder Gou sat there, the more that the idea took root in his mind.

The old man sized Wu Hao up, and what impression made he didn't know, but Elder Gou nodded very slowly.

"Hmmmm." The man's qi registered some surprise, but it was muted. Afterwards, though, it was reined in, the emotion fading like a curtain had been drawn across it. Not just him, either - Wu Hao felt the qi of the area change as the other elders began to use the same technique to mask their qi. The environmental qi, stained a deep deep brown of the earth, lightened slightly. Elder Gou smiled up at Wu Hao, a knowing smile playing across his lips. Wu Hao nodded back, acknowledging the point.

So he couldn't see their emotions, and they knew that he could sense their qi. That was a setback. He'd have to deal. Normal people apparently couldn't see qi either, let alone emotions as clearly as he could, and they managed to live their lives. Wu Hao had the distant thought that maybe he shouldn't be so reliant on his qi sense for every single thing he did, but he could worry about that later.

"Elders," Nosepicker Shi said, bowing respectfully.

"I have brought the supplicant."

"Very good," Elder Gou said, nodding to Wu Hao's guide.

"Get some updates from your people, but stay in the vicinity. You'll have to be present to guide him back."

"Yes, Elder," Nosepicker Shi said. He bowed again, then retreated, moving away from the tent roof to go talk. Right, Wu Hao thought. Now came the interesting part.

"So?" he asked. One elder frowned; another pulled at his beard, though maybe that was because he was involved deeply into a match of chess with another elder. Wu Hao didn't know chess but he figured, by the sense of qi from both men that he'd gotten beforehand, that the beard-pulling elder wasn't winning.

"We have repaid the favor you have asked of us," Elder Gou, and the others made various noises of agreement, up to and including one older man spitting on the floor.

"You've been given refuge from the Jin clan, which we believe is what you were seeking." Wu Hao nodded, then winced. So they hadn't just found out that he was a sensor, then. They knew everything. That seemed... very fast, but then again, the information had had weeks to spread ever since he'd run from the mines. He considered himself fast, but the trek through the woods had cost him time and had been by no means the fastest route here. Really the problem was one of caring.

Previously he hadn't been important enough to warrant an investigation, but he supposed that he'd shot himself in the foot there by also attempting to use the fight in the mines to escape. Of course that'd be considered interesting enough that he'd be placed on their radar. But, at least, now he knew that they knew who he was. They knew a fraction of what he could do. Which maybe included knowing that he could perform a Heaven-tier technique.

"Your help has been useful," Wu Hao admitted. A faint remnant of Father's teachings made even this seem like a concession that he should've been more loath to make. Elder Gou nodded.

"Of course. We're glad to hear that. We take our promises very seriously." Which meant there was a but coming. Wu Hao stared out at the group of elders. They didn't radiate power outwardly - they looked like a group of people either in middle age or elderly already, and they were filthy. But they didn't have to radiate power. Wu Hao felt it. Each and every single one was a first-grade martial artist, as they had been before. Even the new ones.

Which meant there were definitely others who hadn't come to this meeting. So. Ten first-grade martial artists, whoever else was waiting in the wings, and probably every martial artist of the Beggar's Union nearby. If he fought them, he would lose. Still, though, if they had asked for him then there was something that they wanted from him. He had no material possessions except his clothing, his freedom, and his life. The clothing had been a gift from Wei Mingku, and he still needed his life, for now.

And he'd rather give his life than his freedom. There was only one thing it could be, then. He straightened himself up, and counted his weapons. A single knife, versus ten first-grade martial artists. At least it'd be an interesting death, he imagined. Some of these men might use staves, others would simply use their fists, and frankly maybe Master Ma would simply sit on him to kill him, if he was even nearby. Either way, he'd get something out of it. Then, in his next life, he'd simply...

Well, he'd figure that out when he'd get there.

"If it's to ask me for the favor that the Emei Sect owes me," Wu Hao said, his tone strong and his spine straight, "I refuse to hand it over. That's mine."