He suddenly wanted to throw the Scorpion away and head straight for Fengya Mountain, but he was still Zhou Zishu, after all. That notion merely flashed past his brain, then was suppressed — the present gameboard was in chaos, and all the factions were already on it, aside from the Scorpion. Hastily mixing in with it would instead make him liable to be unclear on its shape, so it would be better to just follow said Scorpion.

That guy… since he had been the Ghost Valley Master for so many years yet still had all his limbs, he should generally have some capability.

Zhou Zishu unconsciously streaked his fingers across the strings of his huqin, making a faint sound, and then his figure disappeared into the alley.

The Scorpion had come prepared, getting more than thirty Scorpions to ambush Zhao Jing’s group. Clearly, he had long been planning to fish in besieged waters, having no sort of good intentions… because those thirty had ghost-face tattoos patterned on them, the ink for which had been separately obtained from Lao Meng and Sun Ding. That was some real forward-thinking.

Zhao Jing’s group had just endured many misfortunes. Mo Huaikong had nearly come to blows with Mo Huaiyang, only barely able to be held back. Everyone was unsettled, and then, all of a sudden, a group of uninvited guests arrived, catching them badly off-guard. The people in black, who had come out of who-knew-where, were extremely cunning, both battling and retreating, not getting rashly tangled up. If someone couldn’t be beaten, they ran, but it wouldn’t take them long to take advantage of someone’s inattention to pop out again.

The scarred man took the clothes off one’s corpse, exposing the ghost face that the Scorpion had deliberately made up beneath the crowd’s staring eyes. Zhao Jing frowned, then looked at Mo Huaiyang. “Sect Leader Mo, the time is now. The problems between us should be discussed a bit later. We’re all very sad over you losing your beloved disciple, but this is a period of life and death for the martial world. I hope that you’ll weigh the situation at large!”

Mo Huaiyang thought about it. Feeling that he could not put on a rival stageplay to ‘life and death of the martial world’ for right now, he silently acquiesced to Zhao Jing’s collaboration. The group of heroes that had dawdled for so long at the mountain’s base finally remembered what they were supposed to be doing, and with an order from Zhao Jing, they fought their way up the mountain.

In order to handle Wen Kexing, Lao Meng happened to have transferred the majority of his manpower to the vicinity of Yama Hall, practically allowing those warriors to enter a no-man’s-land. The war, given a push by the Scorpion, had finally begun.