Gu Sheng stood to one side and watched for a while. Chen Dong and the others were fairly capable.
They were no match for Chan Ho-nam, but that was only natural.
Chan Ho-nam might have looked like a child in front of him, but he was actually a decent fighter. Gu Sheng was just too damn good.
Chen Dong and the others had decent skills, guts, and the right temperament.
They were much better than the bunch working under him.
With a little training, they could improve further.
"All right." Gu Sheng beckoned them over. "I've seen what you can do. From now on, you're with me."
"Yes, Brother Sheng." All of them looked delighted.
"But your fighting skills still need work. You can't neglect that. I'll find you a place to train," Gu Sheng added.
"Okay, Brother Sheng."
"Let's go. We'll hold the initiation ceremony this afternoon." Gu Sheng held out a hand, and Chen Dong passed him his jacket.
He put it on and headed outside. Everyone along the way lowered their heads and greeted him. "Brother Sheng."
Nearby, Chan Ho-nam and Big Tony had been carried off to one side. Chicken hadn't passed out, though. He watched out of the corner of his eye, his gaze full of hatred and fear.
"Brother Sheng, I want to follow you." A young man built like a tower ran over, his eyes brimming with admiration.
That bout in the ring had certainly won Gu Sheng plenty of admirers.
The guy really was built like a tower. He stood more than half a head taller than Gu Sheng, probably around two meters, and was covered in muscle. His face was very young, though. He looked even younger than Chen Dong and the others.
"Wow, those pecs are ridiculous." Gu Sheng thumped them twice. They felt like rock.
"You want to follow me? Can you fight?"
"Yes. I can fight."
"What's your name?"
"Brother Sheng, my name's Fu Gen."
"It's Silly Fook!" someone nearby called out with a grin.
"That name sounds lucky. All right, you're in." Gu Sheng laughed. He hadn't expected a bonus like this.
The guy hadn't appeared in the movie, but that didn't mean he couldn't fight. With that height, build, and all those muscles, he could intimidate people just by standing there.
Even as a human shield, he could take two more bullets than anyone else.
The moment Gu Sheng saw his build, he decided to take him in. If he couldn't be trained into anything useful, Gu Sheng could always keep him around to block bullets.
At the initiation ceremony that afternoon, he formally took Silly Fook, Chen Dong, and the others under his wing.
Afterward, Gu Sheng returned to the shop and had his staff rent a place to set up a boxing gym.
Then he would find a coach and have his boys train there.
They could use Big B's gym, but he had no interest in going to someone else's place every day.
"Ah Tung, Silly Fook, you two will stick with me for the next couple of days. Ah Tung, learn to drive. Mantis, Ah Yong, Ah Bo, you three handle the gym. Ask around for good fighters while you're at it and hire one to teach."
Gu Sheng tossed them three thousand dollars.
"Go buy a couple of suits each first. Get out of those clothes."
"You don't give your new boss a red envelope, and he has to give you money instead. You lot are really something!"
They all looked embarrassed. Normally, when you took a boss and received his protection, you were supposed to give him a red envelope.
But they really didn't have much money.
Gu Sheng then pulled out two ten-thousand-dollar bundles and tossed them onto the table.
"This is for the gym. Take care of it."
"Yes, boss!" they answered quickly.
They had only just joined him, and already they had money and work to do. All of them felt they had chosen the right man.
Especially since their boss was genuinely formidable. They would never forget what they had witnessed at the gym that morning.
"All right, go buy your clothes." Gu Sheng sent them away, and Kong Sang leaned against him and asked, "You think that highly of them?"
Gu Sheng had never treated anyone else like this, even paying for his underlings' clothes.
Not even Big-Eyed Hua, who had been with Gu Sheng the longest, had received that kind of treatment.
"They're decent. Useful," Gu Sheng said casually. The group had been fairly capable in Knife Hand, which meant they still had room to improve.
In fact, he had a few other promising people in mind: Tin Yeung-sang and his crew from Invisible Target, and Ah Wu from Election.
The former were good fighters, and their close bond as brothers made them easy to control.
As for the latter, he was practically a model employee.
He just didn't know whether they existed in this world.
"Want to see a movie together tonight?" Kong Sang asked.
"One with clothes or without?"
Kong Sang gave him a thump. "At the cinema! It just came out. It's called The Buddha's Palm."
Gu Sheng immediately lost interest. Who wanted to watch movies where people kept their clothes on?
But then he thought about it. He had nothing to do that evening anyway, so he agreed.
He also popped a Liuwei Dihuang Pill.
He kept them at home and in the car, and even had a few boxes in a drawer at the shop.
Big B arrived at the hospital and found Chan Ho-nam lying in a bed.
"Boss." Chan Ho-nam struggled to sit up, but Big B quickly pressed him back down.
"Enough. Stay down in your condition."
"You... why were you in such a hurry?" Big B sat beside the bed, picked up an apple, and took a bite.
Chan Ho-nam fell silent. After a moment, he gritted his teeth and said:
"I'll settle this score."
He had planned to silence the gossip by killing Ba Bi and then beating Handsome Sheng. He had never imagined the gap between them would be so enormous.
Now he felt too ashamed to face anyone.
"All right, don't dwell on it. Just heal up. In this life, getting slashed is nothing unusual, never mind losing a boxing match against one of our own." Big B patted his arm.
"Don't worry, Brother B. I'm fine."
"Keep your boys in line. Don't cause trouble." Big B shook his head slightly. Chan Ho-nam had started this whole thing, so he couldn't even stand up for him.
Especially since, after the loss, Chicken and Big Tony had led the others toward the ring to gang up on Handsome Sheng, only to be dropped with one punch apiece.
The rest had been too scared to do anything.
Those last two things disappointed him even more than Chan Ho-nam's defeat.
Trying to gang up on one of their own after losing a boxing match disgraced Big B. If word got out, everyone in the underworld would say he couldn't control his men.
As for being too frightened to fight, that went without saying.
That evening, in a meeting room, Gentleman Sing, the leader of Hung Lok, sat expressionless at the head of the table.
Several other men sat around it, smoking constantly.
"Everyone's here, so I'll get straight to it. A few punks beat up Madman Fai. Hongxing's Quick-Blade Sheng has taken them in and announced they're under his protection. How do we handle this?"
Gentleman Sing tapped the table as he spoke.
"Fuck, do you even need to ask? We go after him! So what if he's Hongxing? He thinks he can protect whoever he wants? If word gets out, everyone will say we're scared of them. How are we supposed to show our faces then?" Someone immediately slammed the table and cursed.
"Concrete's right. If we let him protect whoever he wants, next time he wants one of our businesses, do we just hand it over?" another man chimed in. His name was Tai Bo Ball.
"If it were all of Hongxing, we'd have to give them some ground. But he's just one of Big B's lackeys. If we back down to him too, we might as well go home and babysit," another said.
"And I hear he doesn't get along too well with Big B."
"How so?" The others immediately turned to him.
"When Hongxing went to war with Tung Sing, this Quick-Blade Sheng made quite a name for himself. But look where he is now. Long Ping Estate! That place is so poor there's nothing left but cow shit."
The others nodded. That was true enough.
If an underling stood out enough to deserve a promotion, but you didn't like him, you sent him off to some remote backwater.
They had done it themselves.
"Since we all agree, that makes things easy." Gentleman Sing tapped the table again.
"Pick a few men to take him out. Any suitable candidates?"
They considered it briefly before someone spoke up. "Fai Chuen. He's got guts, he stands out, and he's done plenty for the society. If he takes out Quick-Blade Sheng this time, we promote him."
The matter was soon settled.
Gentleman Sing left the meeting room, and several underlings immediately followed him.
"Boss, where are we going?"
"The Mayflower Nightclub."
Recently, Gentleman Sing had taken a liking to a dancer named Ann at the Mayflower Nightclub, and he was intent on winning her over.
As a gang boss, he could have as many women as he wanted, but he preferred winning them over little by little.
His nickname said it all.
Before you continue