A common village, at least in appearance

After going down the mountain and following the path, it wasn't long before Ren spotted a familiar village in the distance.

Surrounded by an haphazard wooden palizade built more to fend off wild animals than defend against people, most of the house were huts made of mud or wood or a mix of them whereas the bigger ones also used stones.
Most of the stores were properly built and the inns too were quite decent as long as a countryside in goes... yup, he hadn't come here in years but things were still as he remembered.
Well, he did see more thugs than he remembered, like the ones asking for an entrance fee of 2 coins per person... Su Mei wanted to smack them for even asking, but they just came here and it wouldn't be good to already make trouble so they just paid and went in.

Asking a passerby they learned that those thugs were part of the Peach Flower Society.
In the beginning they were simply local troublemakers, but apparently they later gained some support from some unorthodox cultivator or sect and developed into a gang and they were now vying for control of the village against another few gangs who recently moved in, the White Gang and the Soft Silk Thieves.

Apparently the Peach Flower Society had control over the entrance fees and most inns, the White Gang were thugs who mugged people and exhorted protection fees from the stores and the Soft Silk Thieves handled the brothels and gambling. They were all at odds with each other, the Peach Flower against the Whites about the entrance fees, the Whites and the Silk Thieves over the gambling, and the Peach Flower against the Silk Thieves as the latter wanted to expand and mix the brothel and inn businesses...

Those were rumors and who knew how much was true, but fact was that the village's actual situation may not be as calm as it looked on the surface and they had to watch out least they ended up with all three gangs pining for their assess.