Beggar Clan–XingXiu Sect Battle

The Beggar Clan–XingXiu Sect Battle turns a struggle between rival martial groups into a turning point for You TanZhi: he saves the people who had threatened and flattered him, only to be drawn into Ding Chunqiu’s service. The encounter’s reversals expose the danger of the Xingxiu Sect’s poisons, the Beggar Clan’s resourcefulness, and the unexpected protection afforded You TanZhi by his accumulated Frost Silkworm poison and practice of the Yijin Jing.

Causes and Confrontation

The clash begins when two messengers associated with the deaf-mute community are found dead and a Beggar Clan report identifies their killer as a subordinate of the Xingxiu Sect’s Divine Elder. Quan Guanqing hears that the Old Freak of Xingxiu is approaching Central Plains and judges that open resistance could bring a dangerous conflict. A strange, dwarf-like disciple then appears behind a Beggar Clan member and demands that the clan provide 200 poisonous snakes and 100 poisonous insects for his master. He threatens the Beggar Clan with the dead man as an example if it refuses.

Quan Guanqing answers the threat with apparent compliance. He offers a bag of snakes for inspection, and the disciple, Tian Langzi, leans toward it. Quan Guanqing pulls the bag over Tian Langzi’s head; the poisonous creatures inside bite him as he strikes blindly and retreats. He loses his footing, tumbles down a slope into the river, and is carried away. Concerned that a Xingxiu poison expert might survive and return with reinforcements, Quan Guanqing orders the Beggar Clan to prepare its giant-python formation and meet poison with poison.

The Python Formation and Its Reversal

After waiting through the night, the Beggar Clan hears music and drums announcing the arrival of Ding Chunqiu. His followers call on the Beggar Clan to kneel, while Quan Guanqing maintains the formation and directs its members with an iron flute. The confrontation becomes a contest between Ding’s command of poison and the Beggar Clan’s prepared animals. As snakes and giant pythons emerge, Ding’s disciples are surrounded; the pythons seize several of them, while the attackers’ weapons prove ineffective against the larger snakes.

Ding tries to break through to Quan Guanqing. He avoids an initial attack, leaps away from the pythons, and strikes one so forcefully that it is killed. But more snakes close in. He kills several, then is caught around the waist and leg; other pythons wrap around him until he can no longer move. The formation has turned the Xingxiu leader’s advance into a trap, and his followers are pinned with him.

That advantage does not hold. A Beggar Clan disciple strikes Ding, then collapses, apparently poisoned. Several others fall in succession when they touch the first victims. Quan Guanqing recognizes that Ding’s body is poisonous and orders the clan members to keep away and use hidden weapons. Ding repels some projectiles with his hair, while poisoned weapons or contact leave further Beggar Clan members incapacitated. When Quan Guanqing prepares to use his flute again, he too is poisoned and collapses. The surviving Beggar Clan members carry him away, abandoning their dead, snakes, and bags.

You TanZhi Frees the Captives

You TanZhi has been watching from the vegetation. Once the Beggar Clan has withdrawn, the Xingxiu disciples, still restrained by the pythons, beg him to build a fire and promise extravagant rewards. They praise him as a hero and a righteous rescuer, and their flattery briefly persuades him to act. Yet he remains wary of the snakes: instead of approaching them, he builds a large fire at a distance and throws a burning twig toward the nearest python, keeping himself ready to flee.

The snakes retreat from the fire and release the Xingxiu disciples. You TanZhi continues tossing burning twigs until the pythons and the smaller snakes have all left. The rescued disciples immediately transfer their praise to Ding Chunqiu, crediting their master rather than the person who freed them. Their swift change of allegiance leaves You TanZhi puzzled and disappointed: moments earlier they had hailed him as a hero, but now they behave as though his help had not mattered.

Ding Chunqiu Recruits You TanZhi

Ding calls You TanZhi over and asks him to check the fallen Beggar Clan members. You TanZhi finds that they are dead, but suffers no harm from the poison while examining them. Ding notices this resistance and remarks on it. The explanation lies in You TanZhi’s recent history: he has been practicing the Yijin Jing, and the Frost Silkworm’s poison has become integrated with his body, leaving him unharmed by the poison that killed the Beggar Clan members.

Ding does not know the cause. He suspects You TanZhi possesses an antidote or some other protection and, recognizing his potential value, chooses to recruit him rather than kill him. He presses a hand against You TanZhi’s iron mask and demands that he accept him as master if he wants to live. You TanZhi, accustomed to mistreatment and focused on preserving his life, agrees to become Ding’s disciple and promises to obey the sect’s rules.

When Ding asks about his past and the source of his unusual condition, You TanZhi gives only a partial account. He says he is a farm boy captured in a Liao raid and fitted with an iron mask. He admits to encountering the Frost Silkworm and to meeting the monk HuiJing, but claims the silkworm bit him accidentally and died after freezing him. He does not disclose A'Zi’s role in using him to train her poison palm, and he withholds the Yijin Jing book and its unusual diagrams, fearing Ding would seize them. The battle thus ends not with a settled victory but with a new, uneasy master-disciple relationship: Ding has gained access to You TanZhi, while You TanZhi conceals the knowledge that explains his immunity.

Significance

The battle’s changing advantage depends on different kinds of preparation. Quan Guanqing’s formation initially confines Ding’s followers, but Ding’s poisonous defenses overturn the Beggar Clan’s apparent success. You TanZhi then changes the outcome by using an ordinary fire rather than martial force. His resistance is more consequential than his understanding of it: it lets him approach victims of poison unharmed, exposes an ability Ding covets, and makes him useful to the very sect whose followers he has just rescued.

The scene also links You TanZhi’s growing abilities to a concealed chain of causes. His resistance results from the Frost Silkworm poison within him and his Yijin Jing practice, but he neither explains that combination to Ding nor reveals the book that has guided him. His decision to accept discipleship is made under pressure, while his selective answers preserve some independence. The encounter therefore advances the sect conflict and You TanZhi’s martial development at once, turning a rescue into the beginning of another dangerous dependency.