Chapter 499: Discovering a terrifying master
Invoking the patriarchs meant invoking the three patriarchs.
They were Weng Youtang, Qian Baotang, and Pan Antang.
These three were the founding patriarchs of the Green Gang, the very three referred to as Pan Qianweng in its secret cant.
Besides them, Patriarch Luo, the founder of the canal transport Luo Sect, was enshrined to the side.
As the chant rang out, Yang Lian and the other five Green Gang hall masters rose. All wore old long gowns, holding ritual registers, disciplinary blades, or incense clasped in both hands, representing the Green Gang's six halls: hall establishment, incense bearing, hall patrol, ritual supervision, inspection, and hall protection.
As expected, Yang Lian held the disciplinary blade, marking her as the hall master responsible for inspecting the gang's disciples.
According to Hongmen's original wishes, Lian Youming was also to formally join Hongmen before everyone present and hold an initiation ceremony.
After all, Junk King had already opened an Incense Hall for him on the Green Gang's side. With a master of the "Great" generation backing him, his becoming the Green Gang's chief seat was only natural.
But with Hongmen, he possessed only a token, without formal standing. Though he shared something of a master-disciple bond with the Mountain-Guarding Old Man, that was a Martial Way inheritance; he was not yet an official Hongmen disciple.
Given the urgency, however, they had agreed after discussion to leave it until later, when he would travel to Hongmen Headquarters in Honolulu for the initiation ceremony.
The six hall masters stepped forward, and Lian Youming rose with them. The remaining Green Gang elders stood up one after another.
The incense bearer, representing one of the six halls, was a burly elder in his sixties with a booming voice. Standing to one side,