Urban Martial Saint

As the cleaver descended, it was about to chop down on Snake's fingers. Just then, a hand suddenly extended from the side, snatched the cleaver out of Li Lianshan's hand, and at the critical moment, saved Snake's fingers.

Li Lianshan turned his head to look, and the one who had taken his cleaver was none other than Ye Qing.

Li Lianshan was stunned for a moment and asked in surprise, "Ye Zi, what are you doing?"

Ye Qing shook his head at him and looked coldly at Snake and the others, saying, "Song She, I'll assume this was an unintentional mistake on your part this time and give you a chance. But remember this, don't come around here causing trouble again. Otherwise, next time, you won't get off so easily!"

With that, Ye Qing waved his hand and commanded, "Let them go!"

Upon hearing Ye Qing's words, the lackeys around immediately dispersed, setting Snake and his men free.

Snake was still trembling and turned his head to glare resentfully at Li Lianshan. He wanted to say a few perfunctory words, but in the end, he didn't dare speak and could only grit his teeth and lead his gang away.

"Ye Zi, you're just going to let them go like this?" Li Lianshan turned to look at Ye Qing and said, "How can this be right? They caused trouble on our turf, if we don't teach them a lesson, word will get out that we're cowards. Then more people will come looking for trouble here in the future. Ye Zi, in the underworld, reputation is everything. If people come causing trouble and we just let them go without dealing with them, not to mention outsiders, even our own men will probably lose respect for us!"

Ye Qing knew there were rules to the underground world, rules that were both bloody and effective. In reality, the sum of 130,000 or so didn't mean much to Li Lianshan. However, he had to pursue this matter because it involved his reputation. He couldn't just let someone come, cause a scene, damage his establishment, and then simply let them walk away. If he did, his position as the boss would gradually be undermined!

However, since Ye Qing had let them go, he had his own calculations. He always felt that someone was backing Snake, so he thought it best not to forge too great an enmity with him.

"There's something off about this guy, don't push him into a corner for now!" Ye Qing whispered to Li Lianshan.

"Off? What do you mean?" Li Lianshan whispered back curiously, and upon hearing this, he instantly lost the thought of chopping off their fingers.

"Can't put my finger on it, but I just feel like there's something off about them. Send someone to investigate and see if there's anyone backing Snake!" After a pause, Ye Qing added in a serious tone, "People from the Western Province are moving troops to the Eastern Province. Still, this place is unfamiliar territory for them. To gain a solid foothold, they'll definitely need to rely on local forces. There's no room for them in the city center, so they can only make moves in the suburbs. We must be on guard!"

Li Lianshan said, "Damn, the people from the Western Province can't be that desperate, right? Snake doesn't even count as a small-time leader, he's just a thug. Do they really need to use him to deal with us? What can a mere thug accomplish?"

"It's hard to say..." Ye Qing paused before continuing, "Do you remember, Snake kept mentioning something called Snake Form Gate. What exactly is Snake Form Gate?"

"I don't know, I've never heard of that thing!" Li Lianshan waved off.

Ye Qing fell silent for a moment, didn't linger downstairs, and went straight up to find the people from the Southern Xingyi School. Snake Form Gate sounded like a sect's name. If he asked the people from the Southern Xingyi School, they were bound to know.

Upstairs, members of both the Southern and Northern Xingyi Gate were sitting together drinking merrily, and Du Yongwu had drunk quite a bit. Seeing Ye Qing come up, Du Yongwu immediately picked up his glass and said to Ye Qing, "Mr. Ye, you're finally back. Come, let's have a drink first!"

After speaking, Du Yongwu didn't wait for Ye Qing to take the wine cup, instead he raised it to his own lips and drank the wine in one gulp. Then he let out a loud exclamation, enraptured, "What a fine liquor!"

This Du Yongwu, was actually quite a drinker, his capacity for alcohol was even greater than that of Ye Qing's. However, when he was in the North, he only drank the sorghum liquor brewed by his own family, and he didn't have extra money to buy other fine liquors. Now at Li Lianshan's place, Li Lianshan had specially unpacked a few cases of Maotai to present to him, an opportunity Du Yongwu seized upon, always finding various excuses to drink. Just now, no sooner had Ye Qing gone down and come back up than Du Yongwu wanted to drink a toast with him, when in fact, he just wanted to drink himself!

Ye Qing drank a cup with Du Yongwu with a smile, and then went to find Tie Weihua and others who were sitting with Du Fei, saying, "Senior Tie, Du, I want to ask you something. Do you know of a sect called Snake Form Gate?"

"Snake Form Gate?" Du Tianyi clearly had not heard of the name, but Tie Weihua nodded and said, "Snake Form Gate, I've heard of it. It was a sect in Shenchuan City a long time ago. It's said that they practiced Snake Shape Fist, and hence the name. However, the sect had already fallen from grace about twenty years ago. According to my father, they seemed to have been involved in a major melee twenty years ago, and being an originally strong sect, many of their experts died, leading to their decline. The younger generation in Shenchuan City has almost never heard of this name!"

Ye Qing was taken aback. He hadn't expected that the affairs of Snake Form Gate were also related to events from twenty years ago. He had heard about the situation from Tie Yongwen, from Old Wang Ba, from Cui Yu, from Southern Fist King Shen Tianjun. However, what these people described were only fragments of the whole picture; Ye Qing didn't have a clear understanding of what exactly had happened twenty years ago.

The events from twenty years ago that Ye Qing knew of could roughly be divided into a few cases. Twenty years ago, the household slave of the Chen Family betrayed them, causing the Chen Family to be almost completely wiped out, with only Chen San and Chen Si surviving. Ao Wuchang from Shu extended his hand to snatch these two orphans, but they were taken away by Wang Tian'an, who used them to threaten both Ao Wuchang and Helian Tiehua. In the end, to preserve the root of the Chen Family, Helian Tiehua and Ao Wuchang agreed to the terms that as long as they stayed in the Western Province and didn't come out, Helian Tiehua and Ao Wuchang would absolutely not enter the Western Province to seek revenge, thus rescuing Chen San and Chen Si, and preserving the bloodline of the Chen Family. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ novᴇl(ꜰ)ire.ɴet

The second event involved the Huangfu Household. Twenty years ago, the Huangfu family was attacked by surprise, almost causing their family to be annihilated. It was Southern Fist King Shen Tianjun who stepped in and saved Huangfu Ziyu, thereby preserving the bloodline of the Huangfu family.

The third event was related by Tie Yongwen to Ye Qing. Twenty years ago, there was great chaos in the Jianghu, with many sects involved, and it was unclear what they were fighting over. Anyway, due to this chaos, many sects were left with their ranks thinned, including the Southern Xingyi School. So, could Snake Form Gate have fallen during this chaos as well?

The fourth event was the contest between the Kings of North-South Boxing. Over a book of Acupoint Seeking Technique, the Northern Fist King was poisoned and retired to a small mountain village to teach Ye Qing martial arts. The Southern Fist King Shen Tianjun traveled far and wide, only returning to the Xihang Shen Family in Xi Hang twenty years later.

Any one of these four events was enough to shock the world. And all four of them happened twenty years ago. Honestly, Ye Qing had always been puzzled as to what exactly had happened twenty years ago that led to such significant events occurring in succession. What state of chaos had the Southern Six Provinces been in twenty years ago?

"What was the strength of this Snake Form Gate like?" Ye Qing inquired.

"Not very impressive," replied Tie Weihua with a wave of his hand. "This Snake Form Gate is basically non-existent in name now. The few people that were left from that time also lacked strength and failed to pass down the essence of their martial arts. In this generation, there are hardly a few people who still practice martial arts. Apart from those old-timers, there are no real experts left. However, my father mentioned that the skills of those old-timers are still decent; there are even two among them who can release their Inner Strength, which is why Snake Form Gate still holds on. If it weren't for these old-timers, I'm afraid Snake Form Gate would have ceased to exist long ago!"

Ye Qing furrowed his brows slightly; the ability to release Inner Strength was a mark of someone who had reached a certain realm in Neijia Kung Fu. If his arms and meridians hadn't been unblocked, he would still not have been able to release his Inner Strength. Even for the entire Southern Xingyi School, only Tie Yongwen and Du Tianyi could achieve the feat of releasing Inner Strength, which spoke to the difficulty of the endeavor. And those who could release Inner Strength were generally considered to be experts.

Unexpectedly, Snake Form Gate still had two individuals capable of releasing Inner Strength; this meant that the sect could not be underestimated.

"By the way, why did you suddenly start asking about Snake Form Gate?" Tie Weihua asked Ye Qing curiously. "You just went downstairs twice; did something happen down there?"

In order to not affect the mood of the Xingyi School members, Ye Qing casually glossed over the issue. Tie Weihua didn't press any further and instead said to Ye Qing, "Brother Ye, you are the disciple of Northern Fist King Li San, and you have also learned boxing techniques from Elder Shen of the Southern Fist, making you a person of the martial arts world. You need to pay attention to some details. And some of the affairs of many sects, you should get to know. Taking the Snake Form Gate you just mentioned, there are another six sects in the West Suburb, each similar to Snake Form Gate. While they may not be prominent, each of these sects has elder experts, and they should not be taken lightly. If you want to develop here in the future, it would be best to visit them when you have the chance, to pay the respects due from a junior!"

"Another six sects?" Ye Qing's eyes widened in astonishment, not expecting that Shenchuan City would have so many sects. If these six sects combined, even if each sect had just a few elder experts, that would mean there were over a dozen experts!

Suddenly, Ye Qing felt a sense of foreboding.