Hong Kong variety show: The mastermind behind the scenes is emerging.

For the next week, the Yamaguchi-gumi appeared to be in a calm and peaceful state.

Muranishi Koichi naturally moved into the mansion in Kobe's Nada Ward, a place that symbolized the highest power and had been the residence of successive group leaders.

The old pine trees in the courtyard were trimmed even more neatly than they were during Taoka's time, and brand-new white lanterns were hung on both sides of the entrance hall, with the Yamaguchi-gumi's diamond-shaped emblem printed on them.

Every morning at 5:30, Muranishi gets up and does a set of health exercises in the courtyard. Then he changes into a dark blue kimono and sits in the tea room, leisurely flipping through the daily reports submitted by the branch leaders.

In the evening, he would change into a sharp suit and frequent various restaurants and high-end clubs, drinking and exchanging toasts with familiar politicians and allies with whom he shared interests.

"Tanaka-kun, the land you mentioned to me last time will be converted to commercial use by next spring. However, when the bidding takes place, I would appreciate it if your son could lower the bid price a bit, as a high price will attract attention."

"Mr. Mitsui, I heard that your wife recently opened an art gallery in Osaka? I'll have someone send over a few paintings sometime. They're all old pieces from the Edo period, not worth much, but they'll look nice hanging on the wall."

"Wu Zhong, don't worry about the tariffs. I've already spoken to the port, and it'll be at least 30% less than it is now—the rest depends on how you handle the quantity of goods on the bill of lading."

These words are always subtle and precise. Faced with the other party's gratitude, Muranishi simply raises his glass, takes a small sip, pats the other party's shoulder with his other hand, and says with a smile, "We're all old friends, helping each other out. Saying these things would be too formal."

Muranishi was very pleased with himself, and he had no reason not to be.

He felt that he would continue to be so smug.

……

On the evening of April 7th, Muranishi Koichi invited Kimura Seiichi, the leader of the Higashikawa group, to have drinks at an izakaya called "Tsuruya" in Kitashinchi.

Tsuruya is unremarkable from the outside. There is only a paper lantern with the shop's name on it at the entrance, and the curtain is made of dark blue cotton cloth with a faded white crane pattern printed on it.

But once you step inside, you'll find a hidden gem. The bar is made from a single piece of cypress wood, and dozens of bottles of limited-edition shochu and sake sourced from all over Kyushu and Hokkaido are displayed on it.

The sliding doors of the private rooms are made of traditional handmade washi paper from Nishijin-ori in Kyoto, and each door has a different pattern—pine, bamboo, plum blossoms, cranes, turtles, flowing water, and maple leaves.

The proprietress of Tsuruya is a round-faced woman in her fifties. She used to be a geisha in Gion, Kyoto. After marrying the owner of a ryotei (traditional Japanese restaurant), she opened this shop here.

Muranishi is one of her oldest regulars, having come to drink frequently since the first day she opened, almost twenty years ago.

Tonight, Muranishi was wearing a white shirt and dark gray trousers. His collar was slightly open, and he had already drunk about a bottle and a half of liquor; his complexion was a bit rosier than usual.

Sitting opposite him was a slightly overweight, bald man wearing a dark blue jacket and a loosely draped tie around his neck. He was none other than Kimura Seiichi, the leader of the Higashikawa Group.

The Higashikawa Group is one of the largest independent branches of the Yamaguchi-gumi in the Kansai region. It is based in the Kobe Port area and controls a large area of ​​the fish wholesale market there.

Although he is not as large as Watakawa in terms of scale or as well-connected as Muranishi, he owns the largest seafood logistics base in the entire Kansai region, so his influence within the Yamaguchi-gumi is by no means weak.

At this moment, besides the two of them, there were two top-tier male escorts from a high-end club in Osaka in the private room.

The woman next to Kimura, wearing a purple sequined halter dress and black fishnet stockings, was practically hanging on Kimura's arm, drawing circles on Kimura's bald head with her fingers painted with bright pink nail polish.

The woman next to Muranishi was younger, wearing a black lace dress with a slender waist. She sat beside Muranishi, pouring him drinks, her eyes crinkling into crescent shapes. She skillfully picked up a piece of grilled tuna belly and offered it to Muranishi's mouth.

"Muranishi-san, congratulations!" Kimura said, raising his glass with a broad smile, revealing a row of gold-rimmed back teeth. "To be honest, my heart was in my throat the whole time that day. After all, those lunatics under Watagawa are all ruthless, and I was genuinely afraid they'd flip the table on the spot—"

"Heh, he wouldn't dare." Muranishi put down his cup, extended his left hand, and the woman beside him immediately understood and handed him a cigarette, then lit it for him. "After all, rules are rules."

"Speaking of Watarikawa..." Kimura's expression became somewhat subtle. He removed his arm from the woman's shoulder and leaned forward slightly. "Hasn't he been a bit too quiet lately? He doesn't seem like the type to give up easily. Besides, his two mobile squads are still stationed in Kobe. What if he goes berserk and causes trouble—"

"It won't cause any trouble." Muranishi took a deep breath, the white smoke he exhaled forming a thin wisp under the warm yellow light of the private room. "The results have already been announced, and everyone has accepted my new position as group leader. If he causes trouble, it's considered insubordination. More importantly, his political backer is retiring this year, and if things get out of hand, no one will protect him."

"I hope so. After all, the stability of the organization is more important than anything else right now..." Kimura feigned concern for a couple of minutes before finally revealing the real purpose of the meal, "By the way, Muranishi-san, about that thing you mentioned last time—the profit-sharing percentage for port transportation—could we raise it by another 10%?"

"To be honest, things haven't been easy for our team lately either. Last month, the commission on shipping alone was 20% lower than at the beginning of the year. Customs is cracking down hard, and the youth team from the Watari faction keeps causing trouble. We're almost not even able to pay the guys overtime."

After hearing this tearful account, Muranishi did not answer immediately. Instead, he smiled, picked up the sake pot, and leaned over to personally fill the cup in front of Kimura.

This action made Kimura's heart skip a beat, and he involuntarily shrank back a little. After all, according to the rules of the Yamaguchi-gumi, offering drinks and pouring sake is a courtesy from a subordinate to a superior.

Muranishi is now the fourth-generation group leader and Kimura's direct superior. When he offers Kimura a drink, it's either to show friendliness or because he's about to refuse him.

"Brother, the profit sharing is negotiable," he said, gently placing the wine jug back on the table, his tone still mild. "But as you know, the group has just undergone a leadership change, and we need to spend money on everything. No one dares to touch Watari's mobile unit for the time being, and we also need to appease the old and new branch leaders in various places... How about this, in the second half of this year, once the approval for converting the Hanshin Bay yacht marina land to commercial use is issued, I'll give you all the cold chain logistics contracts for the new project. The profit margin will be much higher than the current 10%."

He paused, raised his glass, and smiled at Kimura: "You help me stabilize this quarter, and I'll help you make the next decade successful, how about it?"

Kimura paused for a moment, then tilted his head back and downed the rest of his drink in one gulp, slamming the empty glass on the table. "With Muranishi-san's words, I'm relieved! Come on, let's have another drink!"

Muranishi smiled, picked up his glass, and drank it all in one gulp. The woman sitting next to him promptly refilled his glass. The atmosphere in the private room was once again filled with fragrant whispers and the smell of alcohol, and the atmosphere became lively again.

……

The drinking party ended at 9:40 p.m.

Kimura, hunched over, escorted the slightly tipsy Muranishi towards the Toyota Century parked at the alley entrance. Muranishi, his face flushed, casually kneaded the shoulder of a hostess, eliciting a coquettish reproach from the girl.

Just then, a dark figure suddenly darted out from the narrow alleyway leading to the station on the right.

The man wore a baseball cap pulled low, a black mask covering most of his face, and a loose, dark gray hooded jacket. He held a Remington 870 shotgun with its barrel sawed off in both hands.

"Hello!"

Before Muranishi could even turn his head, the dark muzzle of a gun was already locked onto his chest.

"boom--"

The first shot hit Muranishi squarely in the chest and abdomen, the enormous impact causing him to stagger backward.

Muranishi looked down at the dense, bloody holes that had suddenly exploded on his white shirt. Before he could even utter a sound, the second shot came.

"boom--"

The second shot blasted into his shoulder, neck, and left side of his head from the side. Shrapnel from the bullet pierced the back of his head and lodged in the cypress door frame of the Tsuruya entrance, leaving seven craters of varying depths on the wooden signboard bearing the name "Tsuruya" that had been inscribed for twenty years.

The hostess in the black lace dress was also caught in the crossfire, her abdomen and half of her neck pierced by several lead bullets. She was sent flying backward, pulling the dark blue curtain with white cranes printed on it at the entrance of the Tsuruya building down with a crash.

"There's an assassin!"

"Protect the team leader!"

"Boss!"

The situation instantly descended into chaos.

The underlings in the west of the village had clearly never seen anything like this before. Most of them had only ever stood guard outside drinking parties. When the gunshots rang out, their instinctive reaction was not to draw their guns and return fire, but to fall to the ground to either side.

Kimura's men frantically pulled up their coats to try and draw their guns, but the gunman had already climbed into a silver-gray AE86 parked at the alley entrance.

As the engine roared like a beast, the red taillights drew blinding arcs through the crisscrossing alleyways before disappearing without a trace in the blink of an eye.

……

Meanwhile, another ambush was quietly launched.

10 PM, Soemoncho.

For Osaka residents, the night begins here.

This street, less than a kilometer long, is packed with more than two thousand nightclubs, bars, dance halls, and brothels, with neon lights so dense that their outlines can be seen on satellite night view maps.

During the most frenzied years of the bubble economy, the nightly revenue of Soemon Town was equivalent to one-third of the annual budget of a medium-sized city in the Kansai region.

The Muse nightclub, controlled by the Muranishi group, is a microcosm of this crazy era.

The Muses Club is located on one side of Shinsaibashi. Above the main entrance is a Carrara marble relief imported from Italy, depicting the nine Muses from Greek mythology. Each of them is dressed in a veil, holding a different musical instrument, and dancing around a giant disco ball.

As soon as the door opened, the air was filled with the fruity aroma of champagne and rum, mixed with the electronic synthesizers and bass lines of the YMO band, which wafted out of the BOSE speakers and onto the street.

The walls were covered with large mirrors with gilded frames, and relief scrolls and Rococo scrolls extended from the edges of the frames all the way to the ceiling.

The sofas were made of deep purple velvet, a disco ball with a diameter of four meters hung above the dance floor, the bar was a single piece of rose gold granite imported from Brazil, and the bartender wore a white shirt and a black bow tie, his movements even more agile than a pianist's.

But tonight, none of that matters. A "CLOSED" sign is hung outside the Muse nightclub, and there's no one there except for the security guards.

The atmosphere in the luxurious private room on the second floor was oppressively tense. Eguchi Toshiaki sat on the velvet sofa with an icy expression, looking at Kao Chieh, the leader of the Tainan gang, across from him.

Kao Chieh is short in stature with high cheekbones and thin, wide lips. The Tainan gang he leads has been a long-time collaborator of the Yamaguchi-gumi in the Kansai region. He manages many of the Yamaguchi-gumi's gray-area businesses—such as gambling and the sex industry—that the Yamaguchi-gumi cannot handle personally.

Kao Chieh first stood up and respectfully poured Eguchi a glass of wine, then sat back down with an embarrassed smile, lowering his voice to say, "Eguchi-san, I'm so sorry to bother you so late, it's just that there's been a problem with that batch of goods recently—"

"What's wrong?" Eguchi's voice was cold.

Kao Chieh leaned forward and pushed a thick ledger, bound with a rubber band, onto the center of the coffee table. "It's still about the port customs. A batch of 'trinkets' we brought in from Southeast Asia has been seized. We initially thought it was a minor matter, but this time the Metropolitan Police Department issued a direct order, saying it's suspected of smuggling. I've tried contacting several people but haven't been able to get through. I don't dare to act on my own, so I can only ask if you have any other options?"

"Why is this kind of thing going through Osaka Port?!" Eguchi glanced at the ledgers, his face darkening. "I explicitly forbade this last quarter. This kind of cargo must go through Kobe Port's Berth 7, then clear customs and be transported to Taiwan. Did you ignore me?!"

"Yes, yes, it was my oversight," Kao Chieh said with a forced smile, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead. "The main problem is that we're already under investigation, you see—"

"What else can we do?" Jiang Kou tapped the cover of the ledger heavily with his finger and said coldly, "I'll ask the customs officials for clarification tomorrow."

"Thank you, Eguchi-san." Kao Chieh-ho bowed repeatedly like a spring, saying all sorts of words of thanks.

Just then, Jiang Kou suddenly noticed a strange smile flash across Gao Jie's lips, and a sense of unease rose in his heart.

"boom!--"

At the same time, the hidden door next to the special service passage was suddenly kicked open, and more than a dozen Tainan gang members carrying katana and aluminum baseball bats poured out of the passage.

"Kaohsiung MRT—you!"

"Mr. Eguchi, I'm sorry, Mr. Watakawa has offered a good price!" Kao Chieh suddenly jumped up, and at the same time, he pulled a short-handled samurai sword from under the sofa with his right hand. The blade flashed a cold blue light under the crystal chandelier above the coffee table.

Jiang Kou reacted quickly, leaning back the instant Gao Jie drew his sword. As his back hit the back of the sofa, his right hand gripped the Walther PPK at his waist.

But Kao Chieh's knife was no slouch either. The hand-forged short-bladed katana flashed a cold blue arc under the crystal chandelier, grazing Jiang Kou's right forearm and leaving a gash several centimeters long.

A smooth cut was made in the sleeve of the white shirt, and deep red blood gushed out from both ends of the cut, instantly soaking the Rolex watch strap on Jiang Kou's wrist.

Two of Eguchi's trusted men outside the door heard the commotion and tried to force their way in, but as soon as they opened the door, they were struck hard on the back of the head with baseball bats by Kao Chieh's men who were guarding the door. They collapsed to the ground without even uttering a sound.

"Baka!"

Jiang Kou's eyes widened in anger as he rolled to dodge Gao Jie's second slash. He then knelt on one knee behind the overturned coffee table to steady himself, raised his pistol to his eyes, and repeatedly pulled the trigger at the group of black-clad people who were closing in from both sides of the sofa.

"Bang bang bang—"

Despite Eguchi's best efforts to aim, his right arm was severely injured, and the incident happened so suddenly that most of the bullets missed their mark. Only two bullets hit the thigh of the assassin at the front, while the rest struck the wall, instantly creating several rough-edged black holes in the gold-painted murals of Osaka Castle.

The cunning Gao Jie immediately hid behind the sofa after seeing the other party fire a shot.

Upon hearing that the magazine was empty, he immediately laughed and shouted to his men, "He's out of bullets! All of you, charge! Whoever takes this guy's head today, I'll reward him with ten million yen!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the underlings, who had just been startled by the gunshot, suddenly brightened up and grabbed their katanas and baseball bats, crowding towards Eguchi from all directions.

Jiang Kou tossed the empty gun to one of his henchmen who was nearby, then grabbed a heavy stainless steel ashtray from the table with his left hand, his eyes as cold as iron, ready for a final, desperate fight.

"Go! Go! Cut his head off!"

"Bang!"

Just then, the heavy nanmu door of the private room was suddenly kicked open, and more than twenty armed men dressed in black ninja outfits filed in.

The first few men drew their katana from their waists, the blades gleaming coldly in the dim amber light.

Seeing someone break in again, the henchmen on the outermost edge instinctively turned around and raised their sticks to stop them.

However, the black-clad ninja leading the group was clearly not on the same level as them. He simply stepped to the side to avoid the stick, then twisted his wrist and slashed the katana from the opponent's armpit all the way to the edge of his collarbone.

Blood splattered onto the leaves of the fiddle-leaf fig tree, turning those large green leaves into the red fabric patterns found in Nishijin dye houses.

Immediately afterwards, the remaining black-clad ninjas, like wolves among sheep, ruthlessly fired their pistols with their left hands and slashed fiercely with their katanas with their right, launching a one-sided massacre.

The battle—if you can even call it a battle—lasted less than a minute, and almost all of the Tainan gang's twenty-odd underlings were wiped out.

Seeing his men fall like vegetables into pools of blood, Kao Chieh's arrogance vanished. He was terrified and kept backing away, shouting in Tainan-accented Japanese, "Whose people are you?"

However, no one spoke; the only response he received was the sound of blades slicing through the air.

Finally, Kaohsiung Metro could no longer withstand the pressure and turned to run towards the special passage.

Before he could even take two steps, the black-clad ninja leading the group took a step and caught up behind him. His katana drew a perfect arc in the air and precisely sliced ​​into Kao Chieh's knee.

With two sharp, cracking sounds, the ligaments in both legs were severed instantly!

Kao Chieh screamed and fell heavily to the ground. The short knife in his hand, stained with Jiang Kou's blood, flew out and landed right at the feet of the black-clad ninja.

The nightclub fell silent again, the disco ball still spinning, casting incongruous colored light spots across the floor stained with broken glass and bloodstains.

The leading ninja sheathed his katana and walked up to Eguchi Toshinari.

"Who are you people?" Jiang Kou pressed his left hand tightly against the wound on his right arm, his eyes warily scanning the group of killers in front of him, showing no sign of relaxation after surviving a close call.

The leading ninja bowed slightly, his tone both indifferent and respectful:

"Mr. Eguchi, my master wishes to see you."