How long had the Ming Cult had a reputation as a "demonic" cult?

During HSDS, the Ming Cult had a reputation among mainstream wulin as a "demonic" cult, which is the reason the Six Orthdox Sects gave for wanting to wipe it out. Undoubtedly, this perception of the Ming Cult was magnified after Tse Tsun had begun murdering various wulin individuals in Sing Kwun's name, but apparently, the "demonic" cult reputation that the Ming Cult had was already in place back when Yeung Ding Teen was the Cult Leader. What about before that, however? Did the Ming Cult have this sinister reputation as far back as the pre-LOCH days of Wong Seung?

Ken, I think we already know the answer to this. The main reason they were called the Demon Cult was because they didn't socialize with other clans and kept to themselves. Then Xie Xun came along and started killing.

But before that, due to their following of certain rules and regulations, the government became alarmed that they might become a potential threat and sent forces to destroy them, from that we get the 9 Yin Manual.

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Originally Posted by Ken Cheng

Did the Ming Cult have this sinister reputation as far back as the pre-LOCH days of Wong Seung?

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Yes they did. They were first called the demon cult by the imperial court, because they were against their rule. They had to operate in the dark, and when some people in their rank were involved in some nasty businesses, other folks in wulin started calling them the same. The rest followed suit, more out of fear of the unknown, as the cult members had to be secretive, than anything substantial really.

That's a long time for the stink of a bad reputation to carry on. By the time that Cheung Mo Gei finally got some respectability for the Ming Cult, it had been a pariah in wulin for nearly three hundred years. You'd think that with the Ming Cult dormant for much of that period that saw the rise and fall of the Greats, Gwok Jing, and Yeung Gor, the cult's bad reputation would have faded a bit just for being out of the picture for so long. It does, however, magnify the scope of what Cheung Mo Gei accomplished for the Ming Cult during his tenure as Cult Leader. Ironically, the cult that survived being shunned and condemned as a "demonic" cult by wulin for three centuries would finally be disbanded just a few decades after finally winning respectability in mainstream wulin.