Why do I have so many masters?

In the bustling Mid-Autumn Festival Lantern Celebration, Wang Anfeng kept his head low, pushing through the crowd, heading towards the District Market indicated on the map that Wuxin had covertly given him, like a fish swimming upstream.

Since Wuxin had secretly handed this thing to him, he was not going to rush over the rooftops as he had done before, but instead, he suppressed the rising murderous aura within him and proceeded through the flow of people.

On the rooftops to his left and right, every thousand meters or so stood Martial Soldiers and Government Officials from the Ministry of Punishment. Wang Anfeng did not realize that he had fallen under suspicion by Tie Lin, whom he had just fought alongside. The gazes of the Martial Soldiers covered the entire street, and a significant portion of their attention was focused on him.

He looked extremely ragged at the moment, one arm bare and a pungent smell of medicine on his shoulder, his clothes stained with blood and the dirty water from extinguishing fires. He was wretched and low-key, and the people on the street instinctively avoided him, which conveniently facilitated his progress.

Nevertheless, given the current pace and the congestion on the road, it would take him at least an Hour, perhaps even two, to reach the few District Markets marked on the map.

He wanted to dash wildly, to soar with the wind.

But since Wuxin had entrusted the item to him with such caution, he was surely meant to act clandestinely, at the very least not to appear as 'Feng An' and draw attention.

After walking past only three or four intersections, several flashy-dressed youths in the crowd noticed the disheveled, head-bowed Wang Anfeng, their expressions changing slightly. One of them whistled, drawing the attention of his companions nearby. When these youths saw Wang Anfeng, they were stunned for a moment and then dark resentment filled their eyes.

The first youth to notice Wang Anfeng whispered a few words to the man in the middle wearing his coat sloppy. The group of youths then started to push through the crowd towards Wang Anfeng. The one in the center was a burly man with a tattoo of a tiger descending a mountain on his exposed arm, wearing his coat shoved carelessly into his belt.

Holding a handful of sunflower seeds, he walked along, tossing them into his mouth and crunching them loudly, then spat the husks out onto passers-by. The civilians were annoyed, but seeing the gang's display, they dared not say anything and hurried along, silently cursing the city's riffraff as they tried to evade the troublemakers.

These youths took the opportunity to shove people aside and spread out in a circle, trapping Wang Anfeng within like a stone dropped into a stream.

The burly man scattered the seeds in his hand onto the ground and stepped forward, feigning intimacy as he slapped Wang Anfeng's shoulder, a Dagger hidden in his left hand poked at Wang Anfeng's waist without force, and he sneered in his ear:

"Brother, I heard you had some unpleasantness with our boys..."

He snickered while signaling to the other rowdy youths with a nod of his head.

Wang Anfeng looked up and saw several frivolous-looking young men, around eighteen or nineteen years old, with blue-black marks on their right hands as if they had been punctured by needles, the scars of being struck by his Tai Chi Fist's Yin Thunder Energy. The identities of these people were thus revealed.

They were the street ruffians whom he had taught a lesson upon entering Liangzhou City an Hour ago when they had attempted to take liberties with Xue Qinshuang.

A flicker of strangeness crossed Wang Anfeng's eyes, but his face remained cold and impassive.

The ringleader seemed to think that Wang Anfeng was too composed, which he felt made him lose face in front of his brothers. The Dagger in his hand loosened a bit, and he lowered his voice, "These brothers of mine took quite a beating. Stranger, why don't we find a place to talk this over properly?"

"Or shall I give you a double piercing right now, settling a grudge for one man? There are four of us here, and you've slapped me in the face by doing this. That makes five people; five strikes, ten holes."

"What do you say, take some time to think about it?"

Wang Anfeng didn't respond, and the thug sneered, moving closer and leading Wang Anfeng towards an area away from the crowd, the other ruffians following behind.

The Martial Soldiers who had been ordered by Tie Lin to keep a close watch on Wang Anfeng watched this scene from a distance and were momentarily stunned, unsure of how to react.

These city ruffians, who often wandered around Liangzhou City, were quite well-known amongst those who frequented the place. With some family resources and minor Martial Arts training, they specialized in exploiting legal loopholes and skirting the edges of the law, like rats under the foundation, omnipresent.

But when it came to real abilities, they weren't anything to speak of.

Wang Anfeng's Martial Arts skills, however, had just been witnessed by the soldiers, and they knew that no matter how many people came, they would not be a match for him, which is why they didn't immediately step in. And by the time they decided to follow, they had already lost sight of the group.

Wang Anfeng let the man lead him through twists and turns until they arrived in a narrow alleyway. These 'rats' knew the layout of Liangzhou better than the constables. This alley, being too narrow, was not even on Wuxin's map.

It seemed to have been unintentionally created as residents built their homes, barely wide enough to accommodate a single person. The alley sat lower, so the runoff and sewage from the surrounding streets flowed towards it. Without access to drainpipes, the alley became dark and foul-smelling over time.