Two days later, at the Three Lakes Gang headquarters in White Fish City.
White mourning banners now hung over the gate of the lavish courtyard.
They were holding the funeral for their gang leader, Chen Tao.
But it was a shabby affair. Even the paper offering shop had only made three sets of paper figures and horses. Chen Tao had loved grand displays in life, yet after his death, they could not even put together a decent mourning hall.
The reason was simple.
Almost everyone in the gang who could make decisions was dead.
Gang Leader Chen Tao, Deputy Gang Leader Qian Yue, and twenty-two elites, some of them branch chiefs or gang stewards-not one had returned.
All that remained were minor leaders who managed shops and collected rent. Accustomed to bowing and scraping, they had gathered for three meetings by now and still could not argue their way to a decision on who would take charge.
In the end, Chen Tao's concubine slammed her hand on the table.
"He's dead! Hold the funeral first. Everything else can wait until after the burial!"
And so the funeral was hastily arranged.
The few people now running the Three Lakes Gang agreed not to send invitations or notify any faction in the city. They would shut the gates, burn the remains, and be done with it.
The quieter, the better. Nobody wanted to invite trouble at a time like this. After all, the other factions were hardly decent people.
Unfortunately, Heaven refused to grant their wishes.
At noon on the second day of the funeral, before the incense in the Three Lakes Gang's main courtyard had finished burning, someone kicked the gate open from outside.
Leng Sheng of the Green Snake Gang walked in with twelve men.
He was in his early