These guys are totally snubbing him and building up a bullshitter like Manxing to be of his caliber. Jing could see the displeasure rolling off of Bai in that meeting, I'm pretty damn sure that Wuxing is tryingto marginalize the dude because of his ambitions. Yeah, I'd say that we can always count on BJ's ambition. He wants the crown of the pugilistic world.
And he hates us, too. I think he's probably willing to work with us on this, but let's not go so far as to talk about '100%' anything, when that'll set us up for butthurt later. This would be an alliance of convenience if it goes through and nothing more, we should do well to keep that in mind.
We, the hated and treacherous Fire Cult that has, like, six competent warriors at a time and the rest being cannon fodder, hold one of the three legendary manuals in our monastery. The Ameshas are preparing themselves for an assault on the fortress and, honestly, with things being the way they are right now, the Orthodox Sects don't need much of an excuse to march up the mountain and start slaughtering our faction. Yeah, redeeming their rep is pretty important if we want to make theirs and our lives easier.
Remind me of how busting in on a wedding and setting the orthodox world against us even more is a way of redeeming our rep? The options aren't 'clear up that the Fire Cult didn't poison anyone' or 'not that', what we need to do is chill out and stay far, far away from yolotigering and keep a low profile. Any notion that we're going to be lifting that suspicion from the Fire Cult when blood has been shed and the plotters have had years to dispose of evidence and solidify their power seems rather idealistic to boot
The orthodox attack when it comes will require a ton of negotiation, manpower and will not be coming as a surprise. The pirates knew very well that the orthodontists were gearing up to attack them well in advance; given the nature of such an expedition, it won't come as a surprise to us either. They will require some excuse to make a harsh expedition into Tibet, even if a flimsy one, and we're going to see that published well in advance.
Money matters a great deal. What do you think Mao Sanjiao pays his Black Dragon Society contacts with? Yeah, we might be in good with the Wudu Cult, because their definition of "profit" is more broad than strictly money, but there are a million ways to make a ton of wealth, influence and huge grassroots support among the populace a world of shit for Jing. We might not dabble in the world of money, but these guys do for a reason, and it's because it works for them. Just because we personally don't have much of a need for it doesn't mean it can't be used to hurt us.
What I'm against is deciding that because this particular sect has money, a decent number of people and is well regarded we should throw away all other concerns to try to sabotage it as much as possible, particularly when the means of sabotage in choice seems to harm only the long-term stability of the group rather than the immediate facts that they're rich as hell and so on. If anything, I think that Jing storming in with C and making a ruckus will cause them to actively devote some of those powerful resources to causing trouble for Jing when we really don't need it.
The main thing protecting the Fire Temple is that they still think that Ahura is alive and probably recovering. This lie is pretty much our first line of defense. The section here that I bolded is exactly what they're going to do if they eventually discover that Ahura is toast and that the Wuxiang Qiankun Skill is up there. They're going to gather all their money, resources and manpower together, then go on a campaign towards Tibet. These guys know that the Amesha Spenta are the real danger in our sect, and that if you throw enough numbers at them, eventually they will die.
Even a Great Pugilist can't fight off an army:
So the best option is to emulate Ahura as much as possible in the sense of becoming an overwhelming badass so that we have that warding off effect, and the best way to do that is to pursue the other manuals... and the best way to do that is not to cause trouble with the orthodox who hold documents that will give us some leads on where to start! Crashing a wedding isn't going to destroy their huge cash reserves or significantly dent the public goodwill, is it? That still leaves everything else in place for that mercenary army you seem so sure that they're going to march up their despite the massive, ridiculous costs that that would entail.
You have to remember that the orthodox sects aren't strong enough to properly establish order too far out from the mountains and cities that they're located at. It will require extraordinary circumstances and costs for them to justify launching a campaign that cross borders to another country entirely with some of the harshest terrain in the world; that alone will vastly reduce the number advantage that they possess. The orthodox sects are not likely to approach this as one particular sect's thing but as a group; weakening Qingcheng specifically while antagonizing the others all at once would not significantly damage a unified effort but it would contribute rather heavily to them collectively deciding that Jing is an asshole who should be put down, even more so when they figure out that those foreign fire guys are now following him so that he has his own dangerous sect.
That's fair. We are really putting the cart before the horse, but we do know that Nie Wuxing being declared as leader of the Eight Sects did come as a shock to him. Given his stellar reputation, it isn't all that unreasonable to conclude that he wasn't thrilled by it.
I thought it was pretty well established that Nie is still stronger than BJ? I mean, the guy's a master for a reason, even if during the fight he stuck to the sidelines. He's still a powerful pugilist in his own right and he has years of experience backing him up. BJ may have greater potential than him, but he's not stronger for now and it shouldn't really be a surprise that a master gets the nomination over someone who's still his pupil, should it? I saw him as being shocked by the turn of events or else the speed at which it happened, not so much by a shock at himself being passed over.
