Beginning with the Ubume Bird

Chapter 30: Chapter 30 It’s time to show some real skills.

Editor: Larbre Studio

Chang Kaile had already turned thirty this year and had been involved with the affairs of Hongmen for over ten years, yet his father, Chang Shen, still possessed an unparalleled influence over the organization’s branches.

If you mentioned Chang Kaile’s name, there wouldn’t be many in Hongmen who would react; they only recognized Taizi Le.

Chang Shen had cultivated Chang Kaile for thirty years. In terms of intelligence and determination, Chang Kaile was certainly not lacking. Such an awkward position should have changed overnight. Yes, it should have.

As new talents emerged in the underworld, Taizi Le launched a surprise attack on Kowloon City, dethroning Hong Kong’s largest drug lord. Chang Shen took the opportunity to step back, and it was only natural for Chang Kaile to take the seat of the presiding officer, blah blah blah.

Unfortunately, the fierce counterattack from Wu Haoxi’s men and Taizi Le being detained in the boxing rings of Kowloon altered everything.

Chang Kaile couldn’t forget the woman in Fuyi Building with her eyebrows sharp as knives.

After he returned, Chang Shen didn’t say anything, nor did he ever mention the matter of stepping down. Before this event, Chang Shen had firmly patted his shoulder, assuring him that the seat of the presiding officer of Hongmen was his to take…

“Here’s the thing you wanted.” Taizi Le’s eyes were bloodshot, his voice hoarse. Sitting across from him was Li Yan, with several of Hongmen’s bodyguards behind him. Hua Shanjiu, leaning on a cane, was seated by his side.

Beneath his palm lay a sheet of gold-embossed, patterned rice paper.

Li Yan glanced down, where the exotic beast with eighteen wings of varying lengths and nine fierce, bizarre heads, one with a neck gushing blood…

He took a deep breath, reached out to grab it, and suddenly Taizi Le’s left hand, hanging under the table, shot up, and with a chop, a paper cutter was thrust toward the gap between Li Yan’s fingers and into the table.

Even though he knew he wouldn’t get hurt, Li Yan’s instinct was to clench his fingers, his wrist gave a slight jerk, pulling and tugging to the side. Taizi Le’s palm ached from the strike, and the paper cutter clattered onto the table.

Instantly, the room filled with the sound of safety catches being pulled back, a fierce glint in Li Yan’s eyes as his right hand grabbed the paper cutter and slashed at Taizi Le’s throat!

“Stop!”

The paper cutter rested against Taizi Le’s fair neck, while Li Yan himself was held at gunpoint by three or four dark muzzles.

“Put down the guns,” Taizi Le said.

One by one, the men of Hongmen lowered their arms, and Li Yan slowly withdrew his right hand.

“Le, that’s not a joke you can afford to make.”

Li Yan’s expression was half-smiling, half-serious.

“I found the thing you wanted, now I’ll ask, and you’ll answer,” Taizi Le said coldly.

Li Yan leaned back with an air of indifference.

“It’s just a piece of paper; I just wanted to test your sincerity, Le. I’m telling you Taishuai is colluding with other Hongmen factions, isn’t that worth the ticket price?”

Li Yan knew there was a fragment in the hands of the committee, a place usually inhabited only by Wu Haoxi, chairman of the committee. With Hongmen entering the city, it was very likely that the fragment had fallen into their hands.

He wasn’t in a hurry after all, to these people, this object really wasn’t much different from scrap paper.

“You expect me to believe that just because you say so? Do you think I’m an idiot?”

Li Yan’s gaze fixed on Taizi Le’s face, his smile fading instantly: “Chang Kaile, I’m risking being thrown into the sea by Taishuai’s men to talk to you, and you think I’m joking with you? You say you don’t believe, so why are you sitting here bullshitting?”

Watching Li Yan barely containing his anger, Chang Kaile’s doubts subsided slightly. He chuckled and slid the fragment over to Li Yan, tossing him a cigar as well.

“All of Kowloon City knows that you, Yama, are Taishuai’s most favored upstart. Blasting your own boss’s secrets suddenly, everyone needs to think it over.”

Li Yan snorted coldly, slipping the fragment into his pocket. “So do you believe me now or not?”

“You say Taishuai has collusions with the Hongmen triads, where’s the evidence?”

“Evidence? Is it not evidence that you and Lian Sheng firebombed Wu Haoxi, and then Taishuai took a potshot at you right after? Is it not evidence that your old man went to the Hongmen uncles to mediate peace talks, and they demanded a cut right off the bat? Is it not evidence that Taishuai released hostages right away, without any benefit for himself, as soon as you made concessions to Lian Sheng?”

Li Yan’s words were like sharp swords, piercing Taizi Le’s heart. When he was born, Lian Sheng was already a well-known name in Hong Kong and Kowloon, so this future successor of Lian Sheng never had to experience the bloody struggles from the bottom up. In his eyes, when you’re in the underworld, you talk money, you talk manpower, you talk brains. Honor, face, and even rules should be worthless in the face of naked interests.

Taishuai of Kowloon City might sound intimidating, but you’re just a guy holding the underground boxing business, and among the five committee members of the City, you’re the least noticeable. You can’t compare with Lian Sheng’s wealth and manpower, whose influence spreads across all of Hong Kong and Kowloon. My men caused trouble at your venues, true, but we can talk about it. After a few words with you, I rushed off to take down Wu Haoxi. I, Chang Kaile, had a good hand, so why the hell did this crazy woman just flip the entire table?

But if she had been prepared from the start, all of it made sense.

Upon this thought, Chang Kaile was fuming. Anyone who lost a significant number of men only for someone else to sweep in and take the cake, slapping you across the face while doing so, would not be in a good mood.

Remembering the veiled scorn of the old-timers in the gang and his own father’s ambiguous silence, Chang Kaile clenched his teeth. His facial expression unchanged, he asked, “Why are you telling me all this? Has Taishuai treated you badly?”

It was time to display some real skills…

Li Yan pursed his lips, struggling to control his facial muscles.

“Good? He’s been incredibly good to me.”

Li Yan looked straight at Taizi Le: “Do you know who’s been backing my arena at the Kowloon boxing ring?”

“I know, it’s Judy from Hang Seng Cargo Ships, right?”

Chang Kaile said sullenly. For people like them, they were nowhere near the same level as the tycoons from the Ho’s or Hang Seng. Lian Sheng rose to power with capital backing, of course, but even so, compared with someone like Judy—worth billions and wielding the title of a Taiping Gentleman’s wife, with connections in political and business circles—Lian Sheng was vastly inferior.

Li Yan getting involved with a woman like that was a meteoric rise, but Chang Kaile didn’t really look down on Li Yan. Not just anyone could live off a rich partner; the man had landed that meal, so naturally, he had his capabilities.

“Taishuai… told me to break up with Judy…”

“For what?”

Chang Kaile was taken aback. Judy was a well-known big spender at the Kowloon boxing ring; why would Taishuai pass up the chance to make money?

Li Yan glanced at him: “When a woman wants a man to break up with another woman, what do you think it’s for?”

Upon hearing this, Chang Kaile’s thoughts spun, and he couldn’t help but gasp.

“You…”

Li Yan’s expression turned ugly, he gritted his teeth and said: “I was just playing around with her at first, who knew this woman couldn’t keep her role straight after getting into bed, forcing me to come clean with Judy, pick that star, you a Kowloon City’s crazy woman with a chest as flat as a washboard, how can you compare with her? If it weren’t for her, I’d be drinking foreign wine on Judy’s yacht by now, why would I still be fighting to the death in the ring?”

Hua Shanjiu standing by was also stunned. Chen Minhong (Red Ghost) was Taishuai’s loyal enforcer for many years; everyone in Kowloon City knew that he was devoted to a woman, obviously being smitten, but with Li Yan’s words, Hua Shanjiu suddenly saw the man, one who could knock down seven or eight of Lian Sheng’s men with bloodied fists and elbows, with green all over his head…

Chang Kaile pondered over Li Yan’s words back and forth, recalling the woman with the jacket and the razor-sharp eyes, and then looking at the disgruntled man in front of him, wearing clothes that didn’t add up to more than two hundred dollars. Though somewhat hard to accept, on closer thought, it seemed not wrong at all.

“As long as Taishuai stands, I won’t have peace, and if she confronts Judy, my second half of life…”

Li Yan licked his lips but didn’t say a word, his unsaid implications overflowing.

“What do you want to do?”

Chang Kaile couldn’t help asking.

Li Yan’s expression was almost manic.

“Five million, give me a month, and I’ll help you take down Taishuai. We work together inside and out. We’ll drive out and slaughter everyone in the Fuyi Building.”

Chang Kaile’s eyes glinted with shock and excitement, while Li Yan smirked secretly, full of murderous intent.

“In a month, I’ll be home sleeping, you rotten banana…”

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