Open the door to good fortune, the God of Wealth reports in

The next day, Shanghai's largest newspaper, Shen Bao, published a news story.

"Shanghai boss Rui Qingrong dies in fire; mistress Yue Jialing vanishes with a fortune"

The report explained in detail that after a fire at Datong Warehouse, French Concession police had discovered a basement there.

They found two male bodies in the basement. One was Yue Zheng; the other was difficult to identify, but certain features confirmed that it was Old Fire Crow.

Besides the bodies, they also found traces left by a large quantity of burned goods.

According to intelligence, what had burned was very likely opium.

And Datong Warehouse had been a storehouse where criminals concealed opium.

That sort of story was more than enough to fool ordinary people.

But seasoned old hands treated it as a joke.

Datong Warehouse was on Foch Road. Though the location was a little out of the way, if opium really had been burned there...

Heh, the French Concession would probably have become Shanghai's carnival grounds last night.

Could the people who set the fire have made it back alive? They would have died of an opium overdose long before that.

At the very least, no one in the surrounding area would have survived...

As for the claim that Yue Jialing had fled with the money, that was even more laughable.

She was the theater's star performer, and a single show brought in over a thousand silver dollars in ticket sales. She had no shortage of money, so why would she run off with Old Fire Crow's?

Old Fire Crow had money, but those were company funds. Why would company funds be kept with his mistress?

They would have been kept either at the company or with his lawful wife.

None of those claims held water. Shen Bao? Heh, so much for that.

On Wusong Road in Shanghai, after dealing with Old Fire Crow and Old Knife Handle, Chen Fan's life suddenly became simpler.

The channels Old Knife Handle left behind were like an underground river cleared of obstructions, carrying supplies in every direction.

A Xiang knew how to conduct himself, too, reporting the theater's accounts every three days, with every figure clearly recorded.

At the Chen Trading Company warehouse in Zhujiaji, just under half the batch of looted goods had already been distributed. There was no hurry to move the rest.

The goods were fine, but they drew attention. They could not be sold openly, only distributed a little at a time!

Then again, after Old Fire Crow's warehouse on Foch Road had been cleaned out, several merchants in the French Concession who had previously been watching from the sidelines sent people to Wusong Road with calling cards, saying they hoped to do regular business with Chen Trading Company.

Merchants had the keenest eyes and ears, so naturally they knew what had happened. Old Fire Crow had held a large shipment belonging to the French and the British. Burned? Who would believe that!

Where were the goods? Everyone understood without saying a word. Chen Fan was in no hurry to turn these people away, but naturally, he did not immediately hand over the looted goods either.

He had some strength now, but not enough to confront them head-on. At the very least, he had to wait for Long Si's fighting strength to recover.

Only with a gang providing armed protection would his business have a firm footing.

So for now, he still focused mainly on the trading company.

His contact with Yamada, meanwhile, grew increasingly close.

Yamada played the role of an executor. Yoshino Tomokazu, who stood behind him, was the one at the end of the thread.

Chen Fan knew this man was cautious. He would not step forward himself unless the moment was critical.

As one of the links in the chain, Yamada conducted himself quite properly.

Their recent deals had also gone pleasantly for both sides.

With Old Fire Crow's and Old Knife Handle's assets, Chen Fan had no funding problems either.

Once the goods arrived and entered the warehouse, they could be sent out of town through Old Knife Handle's channels a week later.

Within three days, the money would be in his account.

Smuggling was a cash-flow business: payment for goods, fair dealing for young and old alike. The risks were enormous, but the profits were frighteningly high.

In less than ten days, Chen Fan's account had gained tens of thousands of silver dollars.

Of course, things could not keep going so smoothly forever. Cao Bin sent word from the docks that he had found himself a dog, a man surnamed Hao, originally named Hao Fugui.

After becoming a dog, he had changed his name to Hao Zhun.

This man had learned that even some of the veterans among Boss Du's former subordinates still in Shanghai were asking about Chen Fan's background.

Those old fellows were certainly not as powerful as Old Fire Crow. For now, they were only asking questions and did not dare make a move.

Soon, March arrived.

The spring breeze brought warmth, and Chen Fan, who had wanted to keep enjoying his carefree days, finally received his activation orders.

That morning, after leaving his apartment, Chen Fan slowly strolled to the trading company.

He had no plans to buy a home yet and was renting a boutique apartment.

When he reached the entrance downstairs, the store manager was leading a group of people in chanting some slogan.

Watching them, Chen Fan somehow felt it resembled the routines at certain foot massage parlors.

Of course, at present, no store in all of Shanghai had sales staff who could compare with Chen Trading Company's.

They operated under a benefits system that included base pay, commissions, and performance bonuses.

At the highest, one employee had earned over eighty silver dollars in a single month over the New Year.

That was more than a female textile worker earned in a year at a cotton mill.

Chen Fan did not interrupt the store manager's work and went upstairs.

On the third floor, Long Wu was throwing darts at a target. She always carried a gun.

But this was the trading company. She could hardly practice shooting inside it.

When bored, she could only practice with darts to satisfy her urge.

Seeing Chen Fan come up, she quickly put down the darts and picked up the documents she had organized.

On top were some reports, along with paperwork from the sales department downstairs.

At the bottom were two newspapers. Chen Fan read the papers every day.

They entered the office one after the other, and Long Wu arranged the materials on the desk by category.

After working together for over a month, Long Wu could now fully meet Chen Fan's requirements for a secretary.

Chen Fan even felt that Long Wu understood him far better than Lisa, his secretary in his previous life.

After all, Long Wu had experience managing a large gang of several hundred people. In his previous life, she would have been called a multidisciplinary management professional.

Having her serve as a director's secretary really was something of a waste of her talents.

Chen Fan took off his coat, revealing a shirt and waistcoat underneath-the standard attire for a promising young man of this era.

Long Wu took his coat out of habit, hung it on the coat rack, then made Chen Fan a cup of tea.

Once everything was done, she went out and closed the door behind her.

Chen Fan drank his tea while reading the newspaper.

For him, handling business took only ten minutes. The system script in his head had an analytical function.

That function had originally been intended for battlefield simulations. Using it to manage a small trading company now was an utter waste.

As usual, he turned to page four of Shen Bao, the literary section, and a prose poem at the lower left caught his eye.

Chen Fan's gaze sharpened. What was coming had finally come.

The prose poem was not particularly well written, because its arrangement was actually a code.

It was the content of the final lesson at the meeting before they left Jinling.

Each team had been taught something different. Chen Fan was now the only survivor of his team, which meant he alone could understand this arrangement of character counts and decipher his superiors' orders from it.

Chen Fan closed his eyes, then opened them. Without using any aids, he merely glanced at the prose poem and decoded the orders concealed within it in his mind.

The activation order: "Shopkeeper, come home. Buddy, serve the dishes..."

The rendezvous location: "Yuexiang Restaurant."

The recognition phrase: "Open the door to good fortune, the God of Wealth reports in."

All the orders amounted to these nineteen characters...