We agreed on the twelve zodiac animals, but you've transformed into the Monkey King?

A hidden teahouse without even a plaque.

The room was filled with the strong scent of cypress incense, but it couldn't mask the sweet, earthy smell of tobacco.

Two people sat at the rosewood tea table.

In the main seat, Zhang Sulin, the tycoon of the Qingmen, was reclining on an opium couch, holding a pure silver opium pipe in his hand. His thin face was faintly visible in the dim light of the opium lamp.

Sitting opposite him was the white-suited officer under Lu Yongxiang, who had been forced to retreat by Shelly at the dock.

"This method can actually work?" the man in the white suit asked impatiently. "A few tattered newspapers, some vulgar jokes, and you think you can kill that madman who dared to use a Maxim machine gun in the French Concession?"

Zhang Sulin took a deep drag of his opium, a thick laugh escaping his throat: "Commander Bai, you use knives and guns to kill peasants on the street. To kill a newly appointed master, you need dirty water."

He tapped the copy of the Chinese newspaper on the table with his pipe.

"That girl surnamed Xue is a comprador. Once her reputation is ruined, her credibility in foreign circles will suffer, her cash flow will tighten, and the British Empire, her backer, will no longer protect her. As for that Wen Xiao..."

"His laborers are all roughnecks," the man in the white suit said knowingly. "Roughnecks value their reputation the most. Knowing that their master is a gigolo who rose to power by selling his body, those five hundred men would probably be so ashamed that they'd break up on the spot."

"You're wrong." Zhang Sulin shook his head. "Gong Hexiang's gang of laborers have been completely fed into a group of die-hard mad dogs by him with white rice, silver dollars, and even Chen Jinbiao's life. They won't break up; they'll just go crazy."

A glint of light flashed in his cloudy eyes.

"A mad dog, once it bites someone, has a legitimate reason to be killed."

The man in the white suit suddenly realized.

"And what about Wen Xiao?"

"He can't stay in the French Concession police station any longer. If he wants to protect his position, he has to clean up his act." The old man tapped his fingertips lightly on the table. "In the entire city of Shanghai, only the biggest mouthpiece—the Shen Bao newspaper—can clean up this mess."

……

At noon on the tenth day, at Gonghexiang Wharf.

The air was thick with a suffocating tension, as if something was about to explode.

Hundreds of shirtless laborers did not go to carry heavy loads, but instead gathered in a dark mass in front of the steward's wooden hut.

In the center of the crowd, an elderly man with worn-out glasses, who usually wrote letters home for laborers, was reading aloud the large, bold characters from the newspaper, his lips trembling. His voice quivered in the river wind:

"The Traitorous Son of Hongmen Recognizes His Fellowship as His Father; Chen Jinbiao Becomes a Blood Money Crowd in His Official Career!"

"...Wen Ni, in his quest for power, willingly became the malevolent concubine and eunuch of the Xue family. This scoundrel is vicious and cruel, deliberately condoning the brutal murder of Chen Jinbiao in the French Concession, using his blood to sacrifice the foreigners in exchange for the position of Chinese detective! His heart is despicable, and his crimes deserve death!"

The old man swallowed hard, and seeing the murderous glares of the laborers around him, he broke out in a cold sweat, his voice growing softer and softer:

"Even more appalling is that...we've heard that this traitor has secretly signed a traitorous pact with the French, promising to turn the Gonghexiang Wharf into a concession for foreigners to smuggle opium, and has organized his five hundred laborers into the 'Chinese Brave Battalion' to suppress patriotic student demonstrations. The white rice you laborers are chewing now, the fatty meat in your bowls, is all money earned by selling out your compatriots and becoming traitors to foreigners! Such traitors are a disgrace to Shanghai and a great humiliation to China..."

I can't continue reading.

The entire area was silent, save for the muffled sound of the river lapping against the pier.

For these poor, largely illiterate laborers, you can call them poor, call them lowly, even call them gangsters and peasants, and they'll swallow it all numbly. But there are two bottom lines that cannot be crossed:

First, there's the "righteousness of the martial arts world" that prioritizes loyalty; second, there's the "ancestral honor" ingrained in one's very being.

This vicious article not only portrayed their revered Fifth Master as a beast who betrayed his brothers and lived off women, but also nailed them, men who had just enjoyed a few days of good food, to the pillar of shame as "traitors" and "lackeys of foreigners."

Just then, on the streets outside the dock, several thugs who had received money started shouting and making a ruckus, pinching their noses:

"Hey! Look! Gong Hexiang's traitorous dogs are eating the bones their foreign masters gave them!"

"I thought Fifth Master Wen was some tough guy, but it turns out he's just a spineless coward! And you beggars along with him are all traitors with broken backs!"

"Clatter".

The half-eaten, still-warm white steamed bun in Ah Jiu's hand fell into the muddy water.

He stared blankly at the steamed bun on the ground, his mind filled with the image of that day outside the French police station, when Fifth Master, in order to retrieve Uncle Biao's body, endured a Maxim machine gun fire and was shot through the shoulder. Fifth Master bled to save their lives, but now his spine had been turned into mud.

"That's utter bullshit..."

Angri curses were squeezed out from between A-Jiu's teeth. He suddenly raised his head, veins bulging on his young face.

He yanked out a steel hook from behind his back, pointed it at the thugs still yelling outside the dock, and roared hysterically:

"Fifth Master risked his life to save us! How dare they treat him like this! How dare they mistreat Uncle Biao!"

Five hundred rough men, five hundred bodies of flesh and blood filled with pent-up frustration and rage, transformed into rabid dogs that had lost their minds. They overturned an iron pot, brandished machetes covered in rust and mud, their eyes bloodshot, and scaled the wooden fence of the Gonghexiang Wharf, surging like madmen into the streets and alleys of the Chinese-controlled area.

The thug who had just been cursing "traitorous dog" hadn't even run half a street before he was surrounded and blocked in the middle of the road by a dark mass of people. His shrill screams were abruptly cut off as soon as they began to pierce the air.

"Tear their mouths apart! But leave them alive, Fifth Master wants to hear a sound!"

Ah Jiu grabbed the thug's hair and yanked it back, crumpling a stack of pungent-smelling "Hua Bao" newspapers into a ball and shoving it into his mouth, the rough, ink-stained pages being crushed deep into his throat.

"Fifth Master said that we are now police officers and must be 'civilized'." Ah Jiu gave a smile that was more like a grimace to the thugs at his feet who had broken two legs and were wailing incessantly.

Five hundred laborers pushed their way down the main street into the Chinese-controlled area, smashing to pieces all the shops and bookstores along the way that sold that tabloid spreading rumors.

"Damn it! You beast who farts with a pen holder!"

"Smash those newsstands selling traitorous newspapers! Anyone who dares to curse Fifth Master, I'll make them pay with their life!"

However, the enraged men did not realize that the intersection at the end of the long street was already deserted.

"Boom!"

Four military trucks covered with dark green tarpaulins sped out from the dead ends on both sides of the street, blocking the men's way, as if they had timed it perfectly.

With a "whoosh," the canvas was lifted, and Lu Yongxiang's Anhui-affiliated military police, with their gleaming bayonets fixed, pointed their dark muzzles at the group of dockworkers.

"The military police are ordered to suppress the rioters! Don't move!" A military police officer stood on the roof of the vehicle, drew his pistol and fired a warning shot, his eyes flashing with cruelty.