Guo Jing did not know how long he was sleeping, but by the time he opened his eyes he could hear the birds chirping merrily and he smelled the sweet fragrance of the wild flowers. The sun was rising; but Huang Rong was still asleep. Her eyebrows creased, her complexion ruddy, her smile graceful; looked like she was having a sweet dream.
“Let her sleep a bit longer; I must not make any noise,” Guo Jing thought. He looked like he was counting her long eyelashes when suddenly a voice was heard, coming from about twenty feet to his left.
“I have found out the Eldest Miss Cheng’s room; it is on the second floor of the building surrounded by flower garden behind the Tong Ren pawnshop,” that voice said.
“Good! We will work tonight,” another voice replied, it sounded like an older man. Both men spoke in low voice, but in the quietness of the morning Guo Jing could hear every single word clearly. He was startled; they sounded like some ‘cai hua yin zei’ [lit. flower picking thief – serial rapist], naturally he could not let them do all kinds of evil things.
Suddenly Huang Rong opened her eyes; she leaped out of Guo Jing’s bosom and called out, “Brother Jing, catch me!” She ran toward a big tree. Initially Guo Jing was perplexed, but Huang Rong kept beckoning him to come. Finally he understood. They were pretending to be a young couple playing hide-and-seek in the morning. He pursued her while laughing and joking loudly, intentionally made his footsteps heavy to conceal his lightness kungfu.
Those two men were not expecting anybody else to be around that early in the morning. They were startled, but upon seeing a young man and a young woman noisily playing, their suspicion vanished. However, they did not continue talking and left immediately.
Huang Rong and Guo Jing could see their backs. They were dressed in rags, looked like they were beggars.
“Brother Jing, what do you think they are going to do to that Eldest Miss Cheng?” Huang Rong asked after they have walked far enough.
“Most likely not a good thing,” Guo Jing answered. “Do you think we should help her?”
“That’s for sure,” Huang Rong answered with a smile. “Only I don’t know if they belong to Hong Qigong’s clan or not?”
“I don’t think so,” Guo Jing said. “But then Qigong said that all beggars under the heaven are in his care … Hmm … perhaps those two are impostors.”
“There are tens of thousands beggars in the world, certainly some of them have turned bad. I don’t care how good Qigong is, he would not be able to manage each and every one of them. Looks like these two are the bad ones. Qigong has been so kind to us that it is impossible to ever repay him. I think Qigong will like it if we help him to take care of these bad ones.”
“You are right,” Guo Jing agreed. Even though he was a little bit tired, the thought of repaying Qigong’s kindness lifted his spirit up.
“These two men’s bare legs were covered with boils. I am sure they are not fake, so these two were real beggars. Other people could not disguise themselves like that,” Huang Rong said.
“You really are very observant,” Guo Jing admired.
The young couple went back to town for some breakfast, then they walked idly down the street toward the west end of town. There they saw a very big pawnshop with large characters painted on the white wall, ‘Tong Ren Pawnshop’ four characters, with each character taller than an average man. Behind the shop was a garden, and in the middle was a two-story building. There was a dark green bamboo curtain covering a big window on the second floor. Guo Jing and Huang Rong looked at each other and smiled. Hand in hand they walked away to play elsewhere.
After dinner that evening they retreated to their respective room for some rest and meditation. About one o’clock at night they ran toward the western part of the town; leaped up the garden fence and saw the dark shadow of the big building. Silently they climbed to the roof and swung their bodies down from the eaves. It was a summer night, so the window was open. They looked around the big room and to their surprise there were seven young girls, all about 18, 19 years of age. One beautiful looking girl was sitting next to a lamp, reading. They thought she must be Miss Cheng. The other six dressed as servant girls, all holding unsheathed weapons in their hands; they looked so stern yet graceful, obviously they knew martial arts.
Guo Jing and Huang Rong initially intended to help this young woman, but seeing she was well prepared they thought they would wait and see. So quietly the climbed back to the roof and waited.
Not too long they heard a faint cry from outside the wall. Huang Rong immediately pulled Guo Jing and they looked down to see two shadows leaping the wall and walked toward the building. The shadows looked like the two beggars they met earlier. One of the beggars whistled softly; to which a servant girl opened the curtain and asked, “Have the hero brothers from the Beggar Clan arrived? Please come up.” The two beggars leaped up and entered the room.
In the darkness outside Guo Jing and Huang Rong looked at each other in surprised. Earlier they thought that as soon as the beggars arrived there would be some fighting or something interesting; who would have thought that they knew each other?
Miss Cheng immediately stood up, paid her respect and uttered some pleasantries. “Would you tell me your honorable names, please?” she asked.
“My surname is Li,” the older beggar answered, “And this is my martial nephew Yu Zhao.”
“So you are Senior Li and Elder Brother Yu,” Miss Cheng said. “The valiant heroes of the Beggar Clan always hold justice; and are admired by the people of the martial arts worlds. It really is an honor to me, young disciple to finally meet two revered role models. Please, sit down.” Although what she said was common Jianghu pleasantries, but her facial expression was shy. She paused a lot in between sentences; which showed she was not used to this kind of talk. She said ‘admired by the people of the martial arts worlds’ with sincerity, but sounded like she was not sure what she was talking about. When she finished speaking her head hung low and her face completely blushed.
Shyly she looked up toward the old beggar’s one eye and timidly asked, “Senior Hero, aren’t you the venerable ‘jiang dong she wang’ [Serpent King of the East River] Li Sheng, Senior Li?”
The old beggar laughed. “You have keen eyes, Miss! I have had the honor to meet your master, ‘qing jing san ren’ [Sage of Tranquility]. Even though we are not the best of friends, but always have great respect to each other.”
Guo Jing also heard the name ‘Sage of Tranquility’ mentioned and was delighted, “The Sage of Tranquility Sun Bu’er, Priestess Sun is one of the Quan Zhen Seven Master; therefore, this Miss Cheng and those two beggars are not outsiders.” He heard Miss Cheng continued, “I am very grateful to receive the Senior Hero’s aid in upholding justice. I will listen to Senior Hero’s instruction.”