Wulin

Wulin (Simplified Chinese: 武林) is a term referring to a subset within Jiang Hu (江湖). It has been variously translated as "the World of Martial Arts", "the Pugilistic Fraternity" and "the Circle of Warriors". The standard of morality within Wulin is less vigorous than that in Jiang Hu. Law and order is maintained by the alliance of Wulin or Wulin mengzhu who is sometimes be nominated and voted for this role.

Inhabitants of Wulin are clearly differentiated from those within Jiang Hu, in that they all know some form of martial arts. And the way to distinguished the good from the bad within Wulin is the code of Xia, those who adhere to it are good, those who do not are bad.

It is common to split wulin into black and white ways, denoting the criminous and virtuous. Killers, murderers and those less scruplous belong to the black way would live in wulin with a bad reputation, until someone would right their wrongs. The virtuous white way adherents are commonly represented by the major schools including Shaolin, Wudang, Emei to name a few, who are the benchmark good guys of wulin.