Liu Jing, who had remained inside the Four Seas Gang the entire time, felt his heart go cold with dread. Every last one of the Tang Family guards was Yellow Rank? Since when had the Tang Family bred so many experts?

When Chen Dao's shout had reached him a moment ago, Liu Jing wavered, wondering whether he should go out and lend Chen Dao a hand.

But he soon abandoned the thought. Uncle Mo had already reached Black Rank Eighth Grade. If he joined Chen Dao in the attack, perhaps the two of them could press some small advantage. Yet once the Tang Family guards closed in from every side-enough ants can bite an elephant to death-his odds of coming out alive were simply too slim. Better to slip away while he still could.

His mind made up, Liu Jing sent a secret signal beyond the walls, telling the Liu Family men to flee for their lives at the first opening. He himself bolted for the rear courtyard, reached a wall, drew a deep breath, and vaulted over it, fleeing back toward the Liu Family in a panic.

Against so vast a gap in strength, the Four Seas Gang's experts were wiped out to the last man, while the lowlier ones who had not died had long since scattered. The Four Seas Gang, which had lorded over Yun City's underworld for so long, was shattered to pieces in less than the span of an hour.

Chen Dao had sensed the gang's ruin long before. All this while he had not glimpsed even a shadow of Liu Jing, and grief and fury churned together in his chest. In that moment he held no hatred for the Tang Family. It was the Liu Family he loathed beyond measure. If not for you Liu people, how would I, Chen Dao, ever have fallen this low?

His strength had been beneath Uncle Mo's to begin with, and with every outside disturbance pressing in on him, Chen Dao gave ground step by step. A single lapse, and two spear thrusts pierced him one after another. Blood sprayed out at once.

"Liu Family, I curse all eighteen generations of you to die without peace! Even if I, Chen Dao, become a vengeful ghost, I will never let you go!" Cornered with nowhere left to run, knowing the day was beyond saving, Chen Dao threw back his head and roared the curse. Then he drew his long blade across his own throat and ended his life.

Watching Chen Dao fall and the Four Seas Gang crumble, Uncle Mo let out a quiet sigh.

The gang had indeed hoarded untold riches in Yun City. Its strength fell short of the four great families, yet if it threw everything into a fight against a single clan, it could still deal that clan grievous harm. So although every great family had eyed the gang's holdings with hungry intent, none had truly moved to put it to the sword.

Who could have guessed that such a tough bone to gnaw would be swept clean by the Tang Family with so little effort?

Uncle Mo thought of the Eldest Young Master, and his heart gave a sudden jolt. Was the Tang Family's fearsome strength not precisely because the Eldest Young Master had been driving it all from behind the curtain?

These past years, the Eldest Young Master had hidden himself far too deep.

"Search inside, every corner. Haul everything of value back to the Tang Family!" His musing done, Uncle Mo gave the order at once.

When the Tang Family guards began carrying out chest after chest of treasure, Uncle Mo's eyes went round. After all these years running its filthy trades, the Four Seas Gang had amassed this much wealth?

That mountain of heaped gold-it likely came near to half of the Tang Family's own coffers.

When all of it was carried back to the Tang Family, even Old Master Tang stared blankly. The Four Seas Gang had held such a fortune?

"On top of today's Reward for slaying the enemy, each man gets another five hundred taels of silver!" The instant Tang Yan saw the carts of wealth rolling in, he added to the bounty.

He meant to drive home, again and again, the simple message that those who followed the Tang Family ate well. Only so could he bind their hearts together and forge the Tang Family's men into a single unbreakable wall.

......

To wipe out the Four Seas Gang in a single hour-such a feat was glorious by the measure of all Yun City. The news sprouted wings and swept through the whole city in a breath.

When the great families received word, each reacted in its own way.

The City Lord's Manor, the Myriad Pill Pavilion, and the Heavenly Treasure Auction House, which kept itself apart from worldly affairs, felt only shock at the Tang Family's strength, with no real alarm.

As for the families that leaned on the Tang Family-those who had wavered over whether to break away-every one of them now set their hearts at ease.

This time the Four Seas Gang had smashed up the Liu Family of North City. Who could fail to see the Liu Family stoking the fire from behind? For the Tang Family to step forward at such a moment and demand justice for the Liu Family of North City-even sending out a hundred and thirty Yellow Rank experts-such martial might settled their hearts at once.

The three clans outside Yun City's four great families, however, found things far less easy than they had imagined.

In the Liu Family's main hall, Old Master Liu Wuhui paced back and forth, while the rest wore grim, shadowed faces.

The strength the Tang Family had suddenly bared pressed a heavy stone onto every heart.

"More than a hundred and thirty Yellow Rank experts-will someone tell me how you were watching the Tang Family? So many appear out of nowhere, and not a whisper reached our ears?" Liu Wuhui roared.

The hall fell deathly silent; a dropped needle would have rung loud.

After a long pause, Liu He spoke. "Father, the Tang Family may have produced this crowd of experts, but they still cannot measure up to our Liu Family. At tonight's Mid-Autumn Conference, we can strip the Tang Family of its face all the same."

"The strength the Tang Family is showing now is no longer something to dismiss. If we truly kill Tang Yan and the Tang Family throws caution aside to make enemies of us, how much will our Liu Family stand to lose?" Liu Wuhui pointed out coldly.

"This..." The others sank into thought. The notion that the Tang Family could call up more than a hundred Yellow Rank experts in one stroke sent a chill through them all.

"We cannot take Tang Yan's life, but we can still cripple him. Leave the bastard breathing, and old dog Tang will not pour out everything to bleed our Liu Family dry. After that, we need only join hands with the other families to move on the Tang Family, and their downfall will be only a matter of time." Liu Wuhui laid out his scheme.

"And if the Tang Family still does not enter this year's Mid-Autumn Conference?" asked Liu Zhi, who had held his silence until now.

"Then in a little while we put it about that the Tang Family has no worthy heirs-not even a direct-line junior fit to enter the Mid-Autumn Conference. However strong they may be now, it is no more than a flower that blooms and dies overnight. The day Tang Ling dies, the Tang Family collapses.

"If they truly stay out, that rumor will brand itself into every mind and strike a heavy blow to the Tang Family's name.

"And if they do enter, we hold to the original plan and ruin Tang Yan. Either way, the Tang Family takes the wound." A flicker of cold cruelty crossed Liu Wuhui's eyes.

"A wise plan, Master." The others clapped and voiced their agreement at once.

The sun sank slowly into the west.

Only a few bands of brilliant evening glow lingered along the horizon.

The annual Mid-Autumn Conference slowly raised its curtain.

By now the shores of Bright Moon Lake blazed with strings of lanterns, lighting up the whole expanse of water. Men and women, old and young, from every corner of the city came hurrying toward it.

Many young men had dressed with care before setting out, hair combed to a sheen, hoping to charm a pretty girl away at the grand gathering.

Plenty of clan juniors flexed their fists, eager to make a name for themselves at the conference.

Peddlers and stalls of every kind spread out along the lakeside and on toward the main street.

Drums and gongs thundered across all of Bright Moon Lake, the scene livelier than words could tell.

Yet many craned their necks, waiting for the real spectacle-the contest among the four great families.

And in the span of a single day, two rumors had suddenly sprung up across Yun City.