"Senior Mao," he said, keeping the same kind of respectful address that had been drilled into him by his sect before they expelled him for the way he 'entertained' young women. "Why do you let Little Boss Gao order you around like that? From what I've seen this past month, Senior Mao is much stronger than Little Boss Gao. How come he's in charge here?"
"Little Brother Dai has a lot to learn," the veteran member of the Mountain's Bones gang said, shaking his head at the new recruits naivete. "Say that around Little Boss Gao and watch how fast he crushes your bones to dust," he added. "He only looks fat. I don't pretend to understand his physique or cultivation, but you and I, we store extra food as fat on our bodies if we don't train our bodies well. Little Boss Gao stores extra energy as fat."
"Isn't that the same thing?" Black Eyed Dai asked. Why else did people eat if not to replenish their energy. Certainly, he'd heard that more powerful cultivators could go weeks and even years without eating, but every creature in the world that ate food could store up extra energy as fat. How was Gao the Glutton any different?
"No, what Little Boss Gao does, it's not even close to the same thing," Mao replied with a shake of his head. "Go ahead. Offend him. If you put up a fight, you'll see how terrifying he is. He'll stomp on your body like a maddened elephant and trample you into paste that has to be scraped off his boots," the veteran bandit declared.
"You're not even an appetizer to him," Bullheaded Mao continued in a tone that wasn't looking down on the other man, he was simply stating a fact. "That Little Boss who died once challenged Little Boss Gao for his rank. By the time the fight was over, Little Boss Nalan needed a month with an alchemist to recover from his injuries, and Little Boss Gao was thinner than you."
"What?" Black Eyed Dai exclaimed, his dark eyes wide. "That's not…"
"I told you, didn't I? He stores energy as fat. If you make him use it, the more energy he uses, the thinner he gets. The thinner he gets, the meaner he gets," Mao said with a shudder. "I don't mind doing extra work to keep Little Boss Gao fat and happy. Trust me, little brother, it's better this way."
"I didn't know people could cultivate like that," the slender knife wielder said, still not entirely convinced such a bizarre cultivation method could be so powerful.
"Get used to it Brother Dai," one of the other new recruits said. "Once you leave the city behind, people don't care so much about having everyone use the same cultivation method the way sects in the city do. Out here, all anyone cares about is if a method is strong or not and if it works for them."
"Right now, we have to prove to Little Boss Gao that our methods are strong enough to stay in the gang or we'll probably be his next meal," the recruit finished with a shudder.
"Haha! That's the way of it," Mao said with a hearty laugh, clapping the other man on the shoulder. "Now, let's find this 'Sister Vixen' and show her that a little Artist shouldn't look down on us because she killed a bunch of Little Boss Nalan's drunk fools!"
Long after the last rays of sunlight had vanished from the sky, the celebration at the lake showed no signs of fading. Wu Ling had put aside his zither and sat on one side of the chessboard while Yu Jinqi and Fang Lin conspired together to find a way to defeat the devilish player.
Suddenly, Wu Ling and Xiong Dahuo both looked up at the same time, their heads turning in the same direction to the north before looking at each other.
"It sounds like we have company," Wu Ling alerted the group, standing up from the game of chess and recalling Hou from his current perch on Jin Wuya's shoulder. "Take a look," he told the Golden Crow. "I think I hear voices but confirm if it's people. Don't get too close, just take a peek and come back, they aren't far from here."
"Brother Wu," Yu Jinqi asked. "Are we in danger?"
"Maybe," the Artist admitted, pulling out a few of his talismans to have readily available. "The people coming our way don't sound like they're trying to be quiet at least. Brother Xiong?"
"I hear 'em," the red-haired man said, rubbing at his eyes and retrieving his saber from his hut. "I drank too much to count them," he admitted, circulating his energy in an attempt to suppress the effects of the strong liquor he'd been drinking.
"I have something for that," Yu Jinqi said, pulling out a small bottle and pouring a thimbleful of liquid for Xiong Dahuo. "Does anyone else need some?"
"Me," Su Xiang said, raising her hand with a flush of embarrassment. She'd agreed to drink with Xiong Dahuo to give Zhang Buyan space to talk alone with Jin Wuya but she hadn't anticipated how hard the saber wielder's liquor would hit her after she'd had a few cups. Now, she could only hope that Sister Jin had made good use of the opportunity she'd created.
A few breaths later, Hou returned, perching on Wu Ling's shoulder and giving a concerned series of squawks.
"Men, as many of them as there are of us," Wu Ling reported back to the group. "Let me do the talking when they arrive," he said, thinking quickly. "Brother Yu, I may need to borrow your reputation, please play along."
"Whatever you need, Brother Wu," the young alchemist said nervously.
As the group took their places, Wu Ling firmly calmed his racing heart, imagining a soft, soothing zither melody and wrapping it around the sharp, jagged notes that wanted to run ragged through his mind. As long as he could keep his calm, he was confident that he could get through this without shedding blood.
Well, as long as he could keep his calm and the other party remained rational. If they were unreasonable and belligerent, there was nothing any of them could do to avoid violence.