Handkerchief Qing was clearly embarrassed; even with more than twenty of his underlings working together, they couldn't take down Chen Tai, not even managing to touch the door of the general store.
"My brothers didn't want to ruin the bond between our sects. Speaking of which, A-Tai is also a member of the He-prefix gangs, he just chose the wrong team this time," Handkerchief Qing explained calmly.
Previously, his relationship with Lui Lok was more like that of brothers of the same generation, one in the Police Force and the other in the underworld. But recently, Lui Lok has become quite famous, and together with Sergeant Hung Yan Hung, Fat Boy B Hon Sam, Headless Lam Kong, they launched a major crackdown on loan sharks. Initially, they claimed to be investigating counterfeit money, but they couldn't find the source of the counterfeit money, so they simply targeted a large number of illegal underground banks and loan shark factories in Hong Kong and began to clean up the loan sharks. If one person were to try to eat this lucrative piece of meat, it would be easy to suffer a terrible fate. However, with four rising Police Force elites, backed by their respective bosses and Britain Foreign Devil, it wasn't so difficult for them to eat it. Lui Lok's father-in-law, Wo Shing Wo's uncle, Zhe Gu Cai... Tong Fuyixing, Golden-Tooth Lei, Jin Ya Lei, Widow Yun, and others swallowed a large chunk of the profits. Each of them took over their own loan sharking and gambling businesses, registered their own small banks, fed their superiors, gained merit, and had powerful backers. Lui Lok easily rose above his station. Although he was no longer in the triad, everyone in the He-prefix gangs had to give him face. Lui Lok used to order around his former brothers as if he were ordering his own Police Force. Although Handkerchief Qing still seemed to be on good terms with Lui Lok, he was now much lower in status within the triad. After all, while you can make a name for yourself in the underworld with your fists, you really make money with your brains.
"Tonight, we need to deal with Scribe Hui and release the group of people captured by Widow Yun. Only then can we gain a huge favor from the underworld, including you, me, and even our uncles. Choose A-Tai or choose opportunity; the choice is yours." After saying this, Lui Lok got into the back of the car.
Handkerchief Qing hesitated for a moment, then said to his henchman, "Bring me my weapon."
Chapter 519 Forced to Join the Liangshan Rebels
The man, whom Tan Jingwei called Fourth Brother, sat in a black Ford sedan on the side of Watson Road 'Causeway Bay typhoon shelter. His hands, gloved in black, were on the steering wheel, and his eyes were fixed on the dark bay outside the window. On the passenger seat next to him were binoculars and a handheld radio.
At this moment, all the boats of various sizes moored in the bay were slowly rising and falling with the waves in the storm. Apart from a few dim gas streetlights, his lonely car was the only other thing on the entire Watson Road street.
His real name Sheng Zhaozhong, but aside from a few times when he visited his disillusioned former superior in Taiwan, most people who know him call him Fourth Brother, just like Tan Jingwei. However, Tan Jingwei calls him Fourth Brother because Tan Jingwei is his junior at the Whampoa Academy. He is a graduate of the fourth class of the Whampoa and was classmates with well-known Kuomintang generals such as Zhang Lingfu and Hu Lian. Nowadays, many of the powerful young military officers in Taiwan address him as senior.
However, after graduating from Whampoa, he did not go to the battlefield. Instead, he joined the Blue Shirts Society with his classmate Teng Jie to maintain the Kuomintang's autocratic rule. Later, the Blue Shirts Society expanded its power, becoming one of the three major forces in the Kuomintang, along with the Political Science Clique and the CC Clique. People from the Blue Shirts Society were ruthless in their external methods and equally ruthless in their internal ones. Apart from his marksmanship and martial arts skills, Sheng Zhaozhong was completely at a loss when it came to this kind of bloodless violence. He was awarded the rank of Major General in the Army in 1938, but there were no further opportunities for promotion. Promotion in the intelligence agency was not like on the battlefield. Occasionally, one would achieve merit, which was like a piece of juicy meat falling into a group of sharks, attracting countless colleagues to fight over it. Sheng Zhaozhong had seen too many cases of infighting and backstabbing among colleagues for a piece of meat. He watched from afar, but was regarded as an outsider by all factions, who were all wary of him, which further isolated him.
His former friend Teng Jie gradually distanced himself from him because he remained neutral in this internal struggle. After the Chinese War of Liberation, he came to Taiwan and was directly assigned to the Taiwan puppet Ministry of Ministry of National Defense as a major general observer in the reserve combat capability inspection office—an absolutely despised department. This was tantamount to him being discharged from active duty. He felt that all the military tactics he had learned at Whampoa Military Academy, as well as the assassination and combat skills he had honed during his time in the Blue Shirts Society, had become a joke after being discharged from active duty.
He had considered spending money to pull some strings, but even his former superiors had fallen on hard times and retired, while his classmates and friends of the same age now held high positions in the Kuomintang. They were no longer the people he used to hang out with every day in Whampoa Military Academy. He wanted to meet his classmate Teng Jie, who was now the Secretary-General of the Kuomintang National Assembly Representative Party Caucus and a member of the Kuomintang Central Design and Assessment Committee. He didn't ask Teng Jie to help him get a position, but even if he could become an instructor at a military academy and pass on his skills to his students, he couldn't even fulfill this wish. He went five times, but was turned away by his subordinates each time, who treated him like a defeated soldier protesting for unpaid wages. He made eight phone calls, but each time it was answered by Teng Jie's so-called secretary, who said he would report the truth each time, but the first seven calls went unanswered.
Fortunately, Teng Jie still remembered their past relationship. After the eighth phone call, he finally managed to meet with Sheng Zhaozhong. He learned that Sheng Zhaozhong was not dissatisfied with the Kuomintang, but was just too busy in his prime to spend his days with just a cup of tea and a newspaper. So Teng Jie specially arranged for him to keep his previous position and gave him some new work. Thus, the 44-year-old Sheng Zhaozhong finally received a new order and was assigned to work as a bodyguard for Tan Jingwei, assisting him in overseeing the Free China Relief Association and receiving supplies in Hong Kong.
"What a boring life I've lived!" Sheng Zhaozhong lit a cigarette with his black-gloved hands, letting the smoke fill the closed car. He then unscrewed the small silver flask he kept close to his body, took a swig of liquor, and exhaled before sighing, "In chaotic times, all we can do is be a useless errand boy."
A handheld radio crackled with static, followed by a voice. "Fourth Brother, the brothers from Hanging Neck Ridge are back from their work."
"Did you see that bolt?" Sheng Zhaozhong asked, picking up the radio microphone.
The radio voice, mingled with the sound of rain, said, "They're in my hands. They say the person has already been dealt with on Peng Chau Island, and their whereabouts have been determined."