12: Chapter 12 spread throughout the city

After eliminating the upper echelons of the Dahe Gang, Pei Kong led the Pei Family guard unit to loot all of the Dahe Gang's assets.

As for the corpses, Pei Kong arranged for personnel to burn them right on the spot.

He did this not entirely to destroy the evidence, but primarily to prevent them from turning into Zombie Entities.

Because of the invasion of Demons in this world, any corpse left untreated for a long time would mutate into a Zombie Entity.

The stronger the Martial Artist's corpse, the more powerful the resulting Zombie Entity would be.

If these corpses were left unattended, within a few days at most, a large number of ordinary people would die.

"Have you checked everything?"

"Please rest assured, my lord. My subordinates have checked everything, and all the corpses are here."

"Pour hot oil on them and burn all the corpses right here. Do not miss any."

At Pei Kong's command, raging fires ignited within the Dahe Gang.

With this, the Dahe Gang was effectively destroyed.

It was foreseeable that the news of the Dahe Gang's destruction would inevitably shake the entire city.

...

Just after Pei Kong destroyed the upper echelons of the Dahe Gang, Pei Qingyun, who had been guarding from the shadows, left a step earlier.

He returned to the Pei Family grounds.

Pei Qingyun entered the ancestral house.

This operation was a complete victory for the Pei Family.

The first step of taking the initiative to attack and rattle the cage was a success.

The success of this operation also brought considerable gains. The wealth accumulated by the Dahe Gang's upper echelons over the past few years all ended up in the Pei Family's pockets.

This sum was much larger than expected.

Although the Pei Family did not have a financial crisis, this did not mean the Pei Family did not need silver.

Whether it was expanding the guard unit, forging weapons, or supporting the clan members in their martial arts training, all were huge expenses.

Naturally, the more silver, the better.

However, these were not Pei Qingyun's biggest gains.

Through the attribute panel, he discovered that the upper limit of the Family Luck had increased by fifty points this time.

It had increased from the original six hundred to six hundred and fifty.

In the attribute panel, Pei Qingyun had previously inferred that Family Luck should be a manifestation of comprehensive factors such as Family strength, Family reputation, and Family population.

Although this operation yielded a batch of silver and other assets, compared to the vast Pei Family, these gains could not increase the Family's foundation by much.

At least, in his eyes, it was definitely not worth fifty points of Family Luck.

According to his deduction, it was more likely that the gains came from the impact on Family cohesion and reputation.

For a Family to be strong and prosperous, both reputation and cohesion were indispensable.

In recent years, the Pei Family had been in continuous decline. The Family's reputation and cohesion had also fallen imperceptibly.

Having figured this out, Pei Qingyun did not dwell on it any further. He still had plenty of time in the future to verify this point.

But there was one point he still held expectations for.

If this matter continued to ferment, would it cause a continuous increase in Family Luck?

Or perhaps, the attribute panel had a judgment based on the Family.

The next day, at dawn.

The sky was still gray.

In the fresh air, there was still a hint of moisture.

On the streets in the early morning, the familiar hawking of vendors could already be heard.

Working from dawn to dusk was the norm for vendors.

But there was one unusual thing: early in the morning, business in the major teahouses in Wuyang County was unusually booming.

Yet these teahouses all had one thing in common.

That was, the customers were almost all discussing the events that had happened within the Dahe Gang.

"Has everyone heard the news? Just yesterday at noon, the Dahe Gang was destroyed."

"No way! The Dahe Gang has hundreds of members; who could destroy them all at once? Where did you hear this gossip?"

"How could this be fake? I heard that at the Dahe Gang's base, the fire was raging high that day, supposedly to burn the corpses."

"Brother, this is all hearsay. If you spread rumors here and the people from the Dahe Gang hear it, you won't have a good time."

"I'm really not lying to you. If you don't believe me, listen to everyone discussing this matter. If it were fake, would I bother telling you?"

Upon hearing this, the man leaned in and listened to the discussions around him. Just as the other person said, everyone was talking about the Dahe Gang.

"I didn't expect that such a behemoth as the Dahe Gang would be destroyed in less than half a day. Who in Wuyang County has such great ability?" the man exclaimed.

"Those who could do this are none other than those few families. I heard from my brother-in-law that it seems the Pei Family did it. It is said that a minor leader of the Dahe Gang offended the Ancestor of the Pei family, which brought about the Pei Family's retaliation," a passerby whispered from the side.

"The Pei Family, one of the three great families." The man's expression was complex and thoughtful.

As the saying goes, news spreads like wildfire.

The news of the destruction of the Dahe Gang's upper echelons swept through Wuyang County with lightning speed.

After a day of fermentation, the major forces within Wuyang County had successively received the news of the destruction of the Dahe Gang's upper echelons.

Once this matter came out, the major forces were in an uproar.

In recent years, the Pei Family had been in a slump, and their attitude towards the two families had frequently shown weakness.

This had also caused the Pei Family's reputation in the city to decline imperceptibly by quite a bit.

Even some second-tier forces that feared the three great families like tigers had their awe of the Pei Family diluted quite a bit under these circumstances.

If it continued to develop according to this trend, other forces would also give birth to the idea of replacing the Pei Family.

However.

It was this very Pei Family, which was in decline, that had wiped out the upper echelons of the Dahe Gang in half a day.

Even though the Dahe Gang was far inferior to the Pei Family, in Wuyang County, it was enough to rank in the second tier.

The occurrence of this incident also dealt a heavy blow to those second-tier forces that were eyeing the Pei Family.

As for those Family forces that couldn't even compare to the Dahe Gang, in the eyes of the Pei Family, weren't they even less than ants?

At the same time, the Pei Family also released a message within Wuyang County: the Pei Family's position could not be shaken.

...

Wang Family grounds.

Wang Yang had already received the news yesterday.

However, he never expected that Pei Tianrong would dare to do this.

Although the Dahe Gang was not an affiliated force of his Wang Family, they offered a considerable amount of silver every year.

The Dahe Gang was even able to soar three years ago and leap to become one of the four major Gangs in the slum area, which was more or less due to the Wang Family.

In other words, even if the Dahe Gang and his Wang Family were not related, they were somewhat connected.

With the destruction of the Dahe Gang's upper echelons, the Wang Family losing a yearly tribute was only one thing. More importantly, the Pei Family was slapping his Wang Family across the face, and his Wang Family couldn't even find a reason to retaliate.

This made Wang Yang hold a breath in his heart, causing him to not sleep well all night. With a pair of dark circles under his eyes, he got up early in the morning.

"Family Head, this is the ginger tea you wanted." A maid lowered her head and walked respectfully to Wang Yang.

Wang Yang took the ginger tea and took a forceful sip.

But the next second, a mouthful of ginger tea sprayed out of his mouth.

"What are you good for? You can't even brew a cup of ginger tea properly." Wang Yang threw the teacup on the ground and glared at the maid.