The young man's expression turned grave upon hearing this. He frowned slightly, as if carefully considering whether there were any oversights in his work.

His breathing, heartbeat, and even micro-expressions were all perfectly natural.

"Mr. Gong," the young man said, raising his head after a dozen seconds. "There's something, just a personal speculation, but I think it's necessary to tell you."

His voice was filled with hesitation, as if he wasn't sure whether he should speak or not.

"I suspect that the two commissioners' purpose isn't as simple as it seems," the young man lowered his voice. "And their identities need to be verified."

"You're right," Gong Zhe said, leaning back in his chair. "They're not from the Executive Department."

"I just verified their identities. Neither the Executive Department nor any other department of the Night Watchers has these two people."

"And according to facial recognition, these two people don't even exist in the database," Gong Zhe's voice became cold. "It's as if they appeared out of thin air in this world."

Hearing this, the young man's eyes paused, and he almost immediately realized where they came from. "Scarlet?"

According to intelligence summaries, they had confirmed that Scarlet No. 4's ability was disguise. He could not only change his own face, but also change others.

These two guys were probably his handiwork.

"But... wasn't the Gate in his body destroyed?" the young man exclaimed. "Could the information the Night Watchers gave us be false?"

Gong Zhe shook his head. "Gates of Calamity are never destroyed. What's destroyed are only the disciples who bear the curse. Someone has re-inherited that Gate."

"Who is it?"

"Not clear yet." Gong Zhe glanced casually out the window. The sun was shining brightly outside, and in the distance was a dense forest, full of life. He withdrew his gaze and looked at the young man. "But we'll figure it out eventually. It's just a matter of time."

The Night Watchers had planted hidden stakes within Scarlet, so figuring out such a thing shouldn't be difficult, the young man knew.

"Mr. Gong," the young man said quickly, "The convoy that brought those two people hasn't gone far yet. It should still be possible to chase them."

Seeing Gong Zhe nod, the young man hurried away, not forgetting to close the door as he left.

The large room fell silent again. Gong Zhe opened the bottom drawer, unlocked the secret compartment, and took out the golden clock dial hidden inside.

The 13 scales were decorated with enamel patterns, which were magnificent and mysterious, as if containing the power of some kind of faith.

His fingers caressed the clock dial, feeling the complex patterns on it, and finally stopped at the scale representing 4.

The mechanism was activated, and the scale popped open, revealing an even smaller secret compartment inside.

A photo, of a masked guy, wearing a woman's stocking.

A few holes were perfunctorily cut out for the eyes, nose, and mouth, making him look disreputable.

Even in Scarlet, he was considered an outlier.

Gong Zhe took out the photo, placed it on the flame of the candle, and watched it turn to ashes bit by bit.

The compartment was empty, as if waiting for a new owner.

His finger inadvertently brushed across it, and a crisp "click" sounded.

Another mechanism was activated, and the scale representing 6 popped open. Seeing this, Gong Zhe's whole body trembled a few times.

Unlike the previous No. 4 and No. 10, the secret compartment representing Scarlet No. 6 contained a group photo, and a ring lay quietly on the photo.

It was the ring belonging to the Xia family, with the family crest of the holder engraved on the ring face using intaglio and relief techniques.

But Gong Zhe's gaze skipped over this extraordinary ring and landed on the photo.

The photo showed a man and a child of about four or five years old.

The child was riding on the man's neck, holding a plastic short sword in each hand, with a bright smile.

The man's emotions were much more restrained. Just standing there, his burly body gave people a sense of unshakeable power.

They were a father and son.

At least, they were when the photo was taken.

Staring at the boy's smiling face, Gong Zhe's breathing suddenly became rapid. A gust of wind blew in, and a corner of the heavy curtain was blown open, briefly illuminating the room with sunlight.

Cracks of varying sizes appeared on Gong Zhe's face, as if something was about to burst out of his body. Even more terrifying, his eyes turned into a pair of golden vertical pupils.

With this little bit of light, it could be noted that the pattern adorning the scale 6 on the golden clock dial was exactly the same as the Xia family's crest on the ring.

And there were as many as 13 similar patterns on the golden dial.

...

"Mr. Qin," a voice on the other end of the line said rapidly, "We couldn't find those cars. They seem to have disappeared into thin air."

Listening to his subordinate's report, the young man covered his forehead, his mind in a mess.

He could understand people disappearing, but what about the cars? Surely those cars couldn't have disappeared into thin air as well.

"Keep looking for me!"

"Understood."

After giving the order, the young man sitting in the office fell into deep thought. It seemed that Gong Zhe was right, these people's origins were indeed problematic.

Their people weren't idiots either, they had secretly installed positioning devices on the cars long ago, but now all the devices had strangely malfunctioned.

It really was Scarlet...

It wasn't as if Scarlet had just begun showing interest in the Xia family. Although the Xia family had publicly withdrawn from the Night Watchers, the connection between the two had not been severed.

At least, their attitude towards Scarlet had never wavered.

But infiltration operations like this were extremely rare.

There must be an unspeakable secret involved.

Moreover... the young man's eyes narrowed slightly, Gong Zhe's attitude was also questionable. The two corpses on the mountain were his handiwork.

Originally, it wouldn't have been a big deal for Gong Zhe to kill two people, but what was strange was his attitude. He actually didn't admit it.

The young man suspected that Gong Zhe had already seen through the other party's true identity, otherwise, he wouldn't have acted so decisively.

Also, that fatty had been imprisoned for so long, and Gong Zhe hadn't thought of using the power of the Gate to investigate, but after solving those two commissioners, he suddenly brought it up. Could there be some kind of cause and effect relationship in this?

The young man boldly speculated that the source of all this was that fatty.

He was the trigger that broke the balance.

His identity was special, and even Gong Zhe didn't know his true identity when he was first sent here. It wasn't until a series of events occurred later that Gong Zhe's suspicion was aroused, and he even used the power of the Gate to investigate.

If it was really as he guessed, that the other party was sent by Scarlet, then Scarlet had invested a great deal for this fatty.

Such a person would never be a simple minor character.

What would his identity be?

A member of Scarlet?

Or someone Scarlet wanted to kill?

Or something Scarlet wanted to get from him?

Based on the current clues, he could only sort it out to this point, but what was important was that he had already noticed this fatty.