The Beggars’ Guild and Xingxiu Sect battle in the valley

The battle in the valley is a confrontation between the Beggars’ Guild and the Xingxiu Sect in which both sides turn their knowledge of venomous creatures and poison into weapons. The Beggars’ Guild first outmaneuvers Ding Chunqiu with a mass of snakes and giant pythons, but his poison defeats their apparent victory and forces Quan Guanqing’s followers to retreat. The clash exposes the danger of mistaking a temporary tactical advantage for control of a fight.

Causes and Stakes

The immediate dispute grows out of a demand made in the name of Ding Chunqiu, the Xingxiu Sect’s leader. A sect follower appears at the Beggars’ Guild gathering and orders the Guild to supply 200 poisonous snakes and 100 poisonous insects, saying that Ding will spare the beggars if they comply. The demand is backed by a threat: refusal will bring the same fate as the Guild member whose body is revealed beside a bonfire. The intruder is Tian Langzi, who had killed the member and concealed himself behind him.

Quan Guanqing weighs the threat against the consequences of submission. He fears a fight with the Xingxiu Sect, but he also believes that giving up the venomous creatures would cost him standing among Guild members and damage his prospects of becoming their chief. He therefore welcomes Tian Langzi’s request to inspect a bag of snakes and turns the encounter against him: when the bag covers Tian Langzi’s head, its poisonous contents bite him, and he tumbles down a steep slope into the river. The Guild believes he is probably dead, although Quan recognizes that the Xingxiu Sect may have remedies for poison and that the intruder could survive.

The Guild’s response is to prepare for Ding’s arrival rather than disperse. Quan orders the members to use a formation of giant pythons and to counter the Xingxiu Sect’s poison with poison of their own. They spread out near the bonfire, sit in formation, and wait through the night. The gathering thus shifts from a demand for supplies to an organized attempt to withstand the sect leader and his followers.

The Xingxiu Sect Arrives

At sunrise, Quan warns the Guild that the opposing group is approaching. The Xingxiu party announces its arrival with music, drums, banners, and acclamations demanding that the Beggars’ Guild kneel. After the procession’s formal display, Ding advances with a feather fan. His appearance and the ceremony around him project authority, while his followers loudly praise his skill and their own supposed superiority.

Ding’s first attack appears to confirm that reputation. He whistles and moves his fan, and Guild members collapse in successive groups, apparently overcome by poison carried in the sound. The attack is effective enough that You TanZhi, watching from the bushes, initially believes Ding has displayed supernatural power. The scene sets the spectacle of the Xingxiu Sect’s procession against the practical danger of its leader’s concealed poison.

Quan counters by blowing an iron flute. Poisonous snakes pour from the Guild’s bags and move toward Ding and his followers. As the reptiles spread across the ground, the Xingxiu disciples panic and strike at them with steel staffs. The pythons prove especially difficult to stop: staffs do little to impede them, and several disciples are caught and held. The growing threat forces Ding to fight while his followers remain afraid to abandon him.

The Reversal

Ding attempts to advance toward Quan, but snakes and pythons close around him. He leaps clear of one danger, strikes at the pursuing pythons, and kills several. Yet each successful counterattack leaves the wider formation intact: more snakes continue to arrive, and the large pythons gradually surround him. His followers, meanwhile, are also trapped and bitten as they try to fight their way out.

Quan stops the flute once the Xingxiu party appears unable to resist. He challenges Ding over why the sect has provoked the Beggars’ Guild, treating the entangling snakes as a victory. Ding answers that he was careless and suggests that his defeat is fate, but his composed manner does not mean the confrontation is over. Quan’s confidence is tested when a Guild member strikes Ding and then collapses. Others fall after touching the first victims, revealing that Ding’s body is dangerous even while he is immobilized.

Quan recognizes the poison hazard and orders the Guild to use projectiles rather than touch Ding. Dozens of senior Guild members throw darts, knives, sleeve arrows, and stones. Ding deflects some projectiles with his white hair, while others strike Guild members and poison them. He then catches a steel dart with his hair and sends it toward Quan, who deflects it with his iron flute. When Quan prepares to resume playing, poison affects him as well; he drops the flute and collapses, telling the others that he has been poisoned and urging them to leave.

Outcome and Significance

The Beggars’ Guild retreats, carrying Quan away and abandoning the bodies, snakes, and bags. You TanZhi remains hidden, too frightened by the fighting to move. The surviving pythons, no longer guided by Quan’s flute, do not attack the observers; they continue to restrain Ding and his disciples. The immediate result is therefore neither a clean Guild victory nor a complete Xingxiu escape: the Guild has driven off, while the Xingxiu party is still immobilized and in danger.

The encounter develops through successive reversals. Quan’s concern for the Guild’s reputation leads him to resist the initial demand, and his knowledge of the Guild’s stored snakes gives him an apparent advantage. But the same reliance on venom that makes both groups formidable also makes the battle difficult to control: the Guild’s creatures trap Ding, while Ding’s poison incapacitates Guild members and their leader. The episode’s unsettled ending leaves the wider conflict unresolved and shows how quickly an apparent triumph can turn when neither side can safely approach the other.