The Treasure of Lei Fong Wu

Chapter One

Lei Chin Yi watched with steady eyes through a crack in the door as the three big men came down the hall – and to the wrong apartment.

Not that this tentament was long on exact addresses – in fact, it was worse than the slave dorms on the other side of Meridian City. Crowded with “guest workers” and low-paid contract labor, the Company didn’t care too much if the mail got through to the right place. So there was little organization, standardization, or labeling. If you wanted directions to somewhere on the East Side, you got them by landmark.

But this, this was incompetence, and Chin Yi silently shook his head. Unprofessional. Disgraceful. A good hit-man knew the right place to hit, and a squad of three should have had enough brain cells between them to ask directions. Everyone in the neighborhood knew where Lei lived. To make that kind of mistake, to disturb an old lady like they were about to, that was almost unforgivable. His father would have had the men punished for such sloppy work.

But standards had slipped inside the Tong since his father’s day. With Tortoise in charge of the gang, muscle had been chosen for political reasons, not for competence. Lei knew all three of the thugs. Not one of them should have been given anything more complicated than bouncer detail at a brothel. But since Tortoise had come to power, standards had slipped. He rewarded personal loyalty over effectiveness, and these three cutthroats had been promoted to jobs only seasoned killers should have held.

Chin Yi eyed them again, preparing himself for the storm that was to come. He had been ready for this move for months. Ever since his father, Lei Peng Wu, had mysteriously died, leaving the leadership of the Yellow Ribbon Tong open to question. Chin Yi was a candidate, of course – he had been in the business since he was a child, and had studied the subtleties of effective criminal management since he was a thirteen at the knee of his venerable father. He had