Chapter 200: Proselytization (4)

While Baek Cheon belted out the hymn with crystal-clear eyes radiating magnificence, everyone gathered at the rally was showing lukewarm reactions at best.

Which made perfect sense. The whole thing was out of the blue, and the song was totally new to them.

But Baek Cheon wasn't the type to get swept up in that kind of atmosphere.

What mattered to him was simply the fact that everyone was looking at him.

Without batting an eye, he started singing the first verse of ‘We Shall Fight the Wicked.’

He had no choice. Il-mok wasn't a genuine Christian believer, so even with famous hymns, he only knew the first verse.

And the moment his song reached the chorus again—

“Glo~ ry! Glory! O’ Divine Cult!!”

“Glo~ ry! Glory! O’ Divine Cult!!”

And just like that, a few voices from the crowd started echoing the ridiculously catchy chorus.

These were the people Il-mok had planted. More precisely, members of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's branch.

Just like the saying "three men make a tiger," humans were naturally prone to getting swept up in the surrounding atmosphere.

"It's a weird song, I'll give you that."

“But isn’t it quite catchy?”

"Oddly uplifting, I'd say."

The hymn was so insanely catchy that it made even those who knew nothing and just showed up to the gathering feel their lips itching to join in.

“Glo~ ry! Glory! O’ Divine Cult!!”

“Glo~ ry! Glory! O’ Divine Cult!!”

By the third round of the chorus, everyone had started singing along with excited faces.

Meanwhile...

Sitting leisurely on a tree branch some distance from the rally location, Il-mok let out a soft sigh as he watched the intensely religious scene unfold.

He'd wanted to leave the gathering in someone else's hands and rest at the branch, but in the end, he had no choice but to secretly come to the gathering site.

It was because of his obsessive tendencies. Delegating work to others was fine, but he needed to check things with his own eyes at least once to feel at ease.

'Good thing I came.'

And thanks to that compulsion, Il-mok gained a small harvest.

It wasn't that the hymn was a bigger hit than he’d thought.

It was that there were a bunch of filthy, grime-caked beggars mixed in with the crowd.

"Tch. So the Beggar Gang’s rats already caught wind of this."

And not just any beggars, but beggars who'd learned martial arts.

***

The Nine Sects and One Gang, and the Seven Great Families—these were the major powers of the Central Plains. Among the Nine Sects and One Gang, the "One Gang" referred to the Beggar Gang.

The Beggar Gang, counted as one of the Central Plains martial world's colossal forces, was exactly what its name suggested: a gathering of beggars.

Originally, the Beggar Gang wasn't created by beggars who learned martial arts. Rather, it was formed when someone who'd learned martial arts protected beggars.

In the past, during an era of war when the rulers of the Central Plains changed one after another, countless beggars appeared throughout the land. A certain chivalrous warrior decided to start protecting them, and the whole thing grew from there.

He was called the Founding Ancestor of the Beggar Gang. The martial arts he passed down to the beggars so they could protect themselves, along with his noble intentions, were transmitted through generations, naturally forming the organization known as the Beggar Gang.

But despite the Founding Ancestor's noble intentions and efforts, even after hundreds of years had passed, countless beggars still wandered throughout the world. Before anyone knew it, the Beggar Gang had transformed into one of the Central Plains' biggest intelligence organizations.

Since you can find beggars literally everywhere, they became the perfect spies. They'd collect all the gossip and intel they overheard while begging, package it up, sell it for cash, and use the profits to feed their own.

Of course, Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu, was crawling with beggars as well and had a branch of Beggar Gang to look after them.

“The hell you sayin’?”

The question came from Hong Gae, the Five-Knot Beggar who served as a Branch Leader in Lanzhou. A young, three-knot beggar sighed before answering him.

"Are your ears clogged too now? I'm saying the Heavenly Orchid Society is over!"

At the Three-Knot disciple's attitude that showed zero promise, Hong Gae smacked the back of the young beggar's head and said:

"Did you trade away all your manners for taffy now? That’s how you're talking to your boss?"

"They say if you starve for five days, even the Emperor won’t be different from a beggar. You think I care about being polite to a Branch Leader?” His eyes were practically glittering with murderous intent.

The Three-Knot Beggar’s response made Hong Gae's face turn beet red like his name.

(TL Note: Hong Gae literally means red beggar.)

"Get good and beg better, kid! Blame your own scary-ass face. Who the hell do you think you're talking back to?"

"Is this about my face right now? The whole damn neighborhood's a shitshow, and it’s all because of that goddamn Heavenly Orchid Society!”

The Branch Leader clicked his tongue.

The kid had a point.

There's an old saying: it's easy to be kind when your own pantry is full. Thanks to the Heavenly Orchid Society's evil bullshit, the people of Lanzhou were anything but kind.

Just like the saying "generosity comes from full granaries," thanks to the Heavenly Orchid Society's vicious deeds, the people's goodwill in Lanzhou had hit rock bottom.

Most people were too busy trying to survive themselves, so those willing to give alms to beggars could be counted on one hand.

But the real reason the Three-Knot Beggar was furious wasn't because he'd failed at begging.

He was mad because he felt useless, watching the whole city go to hell and being completely unable to stop it.

He'd been a beggar his whole life, but he'd joined the gang and learned to fight because he wanted to do good.

But he never got the chance to use his skills here.

That's because it was impossible for the local beggars to win against the Heavenly Orchid Society. Even Hong Gae, a Five-Knot Beggar and Branch Leader, fell far short of the Heavenly Orchid Society's leader in skill.

To cleanly eliminate the Heavenly Orchid Society without casualties, the Sect Leader or an Eight-Knot Elder would need to step in, but they were too busy with affairs elsewhere to spare attention for Gansu.

The Central Plains were simply too vast, and within the Central Plains, Gansu Province was a backwater.

In that sense, the Heavenly Orchid Society's leader was pretty damn clever. While selling women and doing all sorts of trashy shit, he didn't touch the beggars.

He wanted to avoid incurring the Beggar Gang's wrath by messing with beggars.

You could almost call it a twisted kind of partnership. After all, the Heavenly Orchid Society was in the business of ruining lives and creating new beggars.

Of course, with his youthful hot-headedness combined with overflowing righteousness, the Three-Knot Beggar was itching to go up against the Heavenly Orchid Society even if it meant his own death. But he couldn't dare challenge the Heavenly Orchid Society's leader.

It was because of the middle-aged beggar standing right before him, Branch Leader Hong Gae.

There was an order from the Sect Leader to keep an eye on things in Gansu and told them not to throw their lives away for a stupid reason.

The order came around a year ago and basically told them to keep their heads down and be even more miserable if possible.

Seeing the young beggar simmering with a year's worth of suppressed anger, the Branch Leader changed his tactic and spoke as if consoling him.

"Well, at least now you won't have to worry about food for a while."

"Why? Because the Heavenly Orchid Society is gone?”

"Yeah."

"But what if the bastards who took down the Heavenly Orchid Society are even worse? Wouldn’t we be totally screwed for good then?”

"Ugh, you ignorant fool."

“Hey, we’re both beggars. It’s not like either of us went to school.”

As the young disciple grumbled, Hong Gae shot back with a smirk.

“People can be smart even if they didn’t go to school, you little shit. The kind of people who can wipe out the Heavenly Orchid Society in a single day are either some secret masters who’ve been hiding out or a whole new group, correct? Don’t you think the headquarters would pay good money for info on people like that?”

"Ah!!"

When the young beggar finally understood what the Branch Leader meant, Hong Gae grinned. A smile with yellowed teeth and dirt streaming down.

"Let's use this opportunity to get some money from headquarters and feed our guys some meat soup for once."

***

By morning on the day the Heavenly Orchid Society fell, collapsed, a special order had gone out to every beggar in Lanzhou.

A directive to obtain information on the individual or group that had destroyed the Heavenly Orchid Society, along with a very enticing bait of stewed meat soup if they got their info correct.

But beggars aren't idiots. In fact, living on the streets had made them experts at reading the lines in between.

They didn't make the stupid mistake of running around asking people about whoever took down the Heavenly Orchid Society. Instead, they just did their own thing. Begging on the streets, inducing pity from housewives washing near the downstream, and hanging around taverns or brothels.

They just begged all over Lanzhou, and kept their ears open.

And the countless bits of information the beggars picked up were passed to the Beggar Gang disciples, who organized that information and passed it back to the Branch Leader.

"So these Maitreya Luminous Cult bastards took out the Heavenly Orchid Society?"

“Yep. That’s the word on the street, at least in the red-light district. The rumor’s everywhere over there.”

"So where's their base?"

“No idea.”

"What?"

Hong Gai looked baffled, but the Three-Knot disciple answered shamelessly.

“They took credit for sacking the Heavenly Orchid Society and took over the red-light district, but they never said where they were staying. It’s all just talk right now. They just told everyone to show up for a gathering tonight and then disappeared.”

Then, the kid’s eyes lit up as if he’d just remembered something.

“Oh! And they killed all the brothel owners who talked back.”

"All of them?"

"Yes."

“...Sounds like they’re even bigger monsters than the Heavenly Orchid Society.”

"They seemed like good guys to me though?"

Hearing that, Hong Gai’s face twisted in disgust.

"Did all that begging finally rot your brain?"

“What? They killed the bad guys! We got a word from Gulang just now, and it said they wiped out the Black Path’s scums over there. Red Serpent Gang or something. Then they gave all their money away to the townspeople.”

“Gave the money away?”

"Yes. So like, what was it? They said that if you just believe in and follow their doctrine, then one day Maitreya will come down to earth, all the evil people will die, and the good people will see the light. Something like that was their doctrine anyway."

"So they're the type who help good people and kill all the bad ones?"

“Yeah. See? They’re the good guys!"

“You goddamn idiot.”

In the end, Hong Gae couldn't hold back and smacked the back of the Three-Knot disciple's head.

“Hey! I’m already light-headed from hunger. Why do you keep hitting my head, you f—... for what reason, sir!”

Hong Gai knew the kid had been about to say "fucker" or something similar before catching himself, but he decided to let it slide.

He just let out a light sigh.

'The doctrine itself sounds fine, but these guys are bad news.’

He was old and he’d been a beggar for decades. Throughout his few decades of life, Hong Gae learned a thing or two, and his gut was telling him something about this.

He knew that just because a group has a pretty face doesn’t mean it isn’t rotten to the core.

Especially since several of the Central Plains' major orthodox sects were like that.

“You said the gathering is tonight? Where?”

***

That night.

Hong Gae followed the info from other beggars and went to the location of the Maitreya Luminous Cult's assembly.

He’d ordered all the regular beggars to stay away and led only himself and the Beggar Gang martial artists.

It was just in case things went south. He didn't want a bunch of civilians getting slaughtered for nothing.

He scanned the area and opened his qi perception to the max as if he wouldn't miss even the slightest detail.

First up was some guy in a wrathful deity mask, who started spouting some weird sermon.

“We are the Maitreya Luminous Cult! We are the ones who wait for the coming of the great savior, Maitreya, who will purge this wicked world and save us all!

Following that, a young man who did not even bother to cover his face stepped forward and began to sing.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

Hong Gae could barely keep a straight face as he watched the pretty boy singing.

‘That much power at his age?!’

The kid looked like he was barely twenty. He was so young you couldn't even really call him one of the rising stars yet, but his cultivation was easily on the same level as Hong Gae himself, a Five-Knot Beggar.

'...He's on par with the Seven Dragons and Two Phoenix.'

He couldn't help but think of the nine rising stars of the new generation who'd been making the biggest waves in the Central Plains recently.

While Hong Gae hid his surprise internally, realizing that the Maitreya Luminous Cult’s power was no joke, the gathering’s atmosphere had completely changed.

One by one, people started singing along.

'What is this? Brainwashing?'

The song was so damn catchy that it put him even more on edge. He glanced around to check his surroundings and immediately shut his eyes shut.

“Glo~ ry! Glory! O’ Divine Cult!!”

Because the young beggars are singing along more enthusiastically than anyone else.