Chapter Eighty-One: The Cult That Guards the Sovereign!

I told the chief commander, "Clear everyone out. Leave only a few key people. This room could explode at any moment."

The chief commander nodded and ordered the remaining personnel out.

The demolition expert arrived quickly and examined the door with great care. The panel was still lying horizontally, and no one dared move it casually, because even the smallest action might trigger some hidden mechanism.

We truly could not afford the slightest mistake.

After a careful on-site inspection by the demolition expert and the technical team, he finally reported to the chief commander with a pale face, bringing a piece of information that was deeply frustrating.

An infrared scanner had been installed in the doorframe. Any movement of the door in any direction would trigger it. However, they had not yet discovered what the scanner was connected to.

No sooner had he finished speaking than the flat-screen television hanging from the ceiling suddenly turned into a field of static.

The chief commander went weak all over and nearly collapsed to the ground. Did this mean that Elder Huo and the others had already met with disaster?

Elder Lin hurried forward and said to the chief commander, "I need the technical team now. Elder Huo and the others may still be saved. From beginning to end, the other side has only been playing tricks and throwing us off balance. No real danger has occurred. I have a feeling... they may not actually mean to kill us."

The chief commander was startled. Looking at Elder Lin, he asked, "If they didn't mean to kill us, then why go to such lengths?"

Elder Lin said, "They are playing tactics with us, playing mind games. Or rather, it is a game. It seems they want to prove their own values."

The chief commander nodded thoughtfully. "If I catch that criminal, I'll flay him alive. The technical team will take orders from Elder Lin for the time being."

Elder Lin said, "I have heard that some televisions have automatic memory functions. Is it possible to replay the footage that was just shown?"

One of the technical team leaders said, "That depends on the model. The latest televisions are equipped with memory chips. We'll need to perform some technical processing on it now and do our best."

Elder Lin nodded. "All right, thank you all. This concerns three lives, and I hope everyone will give it their all."

The technical team leader said, "Rest assured. We won't let you down."

With that, the technical staff removed the closed-circuit television and rushed it to the department for analysis. The rest of us left as well, leaving the scene to the chief commander.

Only after I stepped outside did I realize that there must have been nearly a hundred people in the deployment force this time, and they had already sealed off an area within a radius of five hundred meters.

Not far away, many onlookers had gathered to watch the spectacle. Needless to say, the situation at the scene had undoubtedly stirred endless speculation among the public.

We followed the technical team all the way to their specialized equipment room. We thought Li Xingchen might be useful too, so we had Li Huai join in as well.

Li Xingchen's legs were trembling as he walked. "I... I'm useless for this. I'm a software guy. This closed-circuit television is hardware."

Tang Jingjing glared at him, and Li Xingchen had no choice but to go in.

To our surprise, Li Xingchen actually proved useful. When they began decoding the memory chip, they ran into difficulties. The chip was highly complex, and its memory format was not the binary system commonly used by computers, but decimal. It was even more concealed than some encryption methods, requiring extremely cumbersome calculations that only a high-powered computer could complete.

Only the supercomputer installed three years earlier at the provincial bureau could finish such a heavy workload in a short time.

Li Xingchen somehow used a narrow broadband line to build a connection between here and the supercomputer, and only then could the work proceed.

The rest of us sat with Elder Lin in the office, discussing the matter.

"Elder Lin, I have a question I am very concerned about," I said. "Is the other side a criminal genius? To pull off all this, one would have to be versed in botany, architecture, mechanics, computer science, and many other fields. Can one person really do all that? And in such a short time, too?"

Elder Lin's expression was grim. "I think there may have been only one person committing the crime at the scene, but behind him there may be a powerful think tank, much like the chief commander's own advisory group. And the members of that think tank are surely elites in every field."

Tang Jingjing said, "Elder Lin, I suddenly remembered something my mother once told me: true masters are found among ordinary people."

Elder Lin knew there was more to her words, so he asked her to explain further.

Tang Jingjing said, "Chinese civilization has been accumulating for thousands of years. Among its many great clans, those that managed to survive through chaotic times did not rely on luck alone. They must have developed very effective methods for dealing with the social conditions of each era. You can imagine how formidable and terrifying the abilities of these clans must be, after a century or even a millennium of accumulated experience."

"For example, our Tang family, and the Yu family where Xiaoyang comes from. Families like ours are certainly not the only ones in the world. We may only rank in the middle or lower tiers among these great clans."

"If these terrifying old families are brought under control, that's one thing. But if they refuse to submit and go against the government... the threat they could pose is unimaginable."

Elder Lin nodded.

I said, "I don't like the word 'brought under control,' because we are only carrying out our own mission."

Tang Jingjing sighed. "Silly brother, you know less than I do."

A wave of unease swept through me.

Indeed, I did not know much about the Yu family. Ever since I was young, my father had kept me from touching the core secrets of the family. Tang Jingjing was right.

"Silly brother, you know less than I do."

That sentence kept circling through my mind, along with Tang Jingjing's cold, mocking expression. The feeling was indescribably sour.

It was not until nightfall that the technical team finally managed to extract part of the video, only fragments of memory.

But that was enough, because the images we had seen earlier were static all along.

That meant even a single frame was enough for us to analyze.

Elder Lin enlarged the image and said to us, "Look carefully. Search line by line, as if combing a carpet. Don't miss a single detail!"

Elder Lin was afraid we might overlook something important, so he even invited an expert in the field, apparently called a specialist in microscopic trace identification.

I really did not want to comment on that title.

Everyone had their own specialty, so we gave the expert at least the most basic respect. That expert also seemed determined to prove himself, and he analyzed many trivial details for us in a confused and rambling fashion. But after comparison and analysis, they had no damn connection to the case at all.

In the end, it was Li Hong who had the sharpest eyes. He suddenly stood up, walked to the screen, and studied it carefully for a long time. Then he said softly to Elder Lin, "Elder Lin, the light on this coffin in one area seems a little brighter than elsewhere."

We examined it closely and indeed found that there seemed to be a mottled mark on the coffin in the middle. Looking carefully, it seemed like light reflecting off the coffin's surface.

The light was not very strong, so it probably was not a mirror.

Soon we marked that bright spot in its original proportions.

It was an X-shaped pattern.

Elder Lin looked gravely at the X mark and asked, "Can anyone tell me what this symbol means? Don't tell me it's the X-Men."

As soon as he finished speaking, Li Xingchen walked in, looked at the symbol we had marked, and was shocked. "Isn't this just the X-Men?"

A silence fell.

I said, "It could be some kind of religious symbol, or it could simply be something useless reflecting light onto the surface."

At last, the specialist in microscopic trace identification proved to be of some use. "I have seen this mark! Ten years ago, there was a church murder case in Seaside Province, and that church used this very symbol."

"What was the church called?" Elder Lin asked.

"The Protector Church. Its leader claimed to be a subordinate of the Supreme Lord Lao."

"The X-Men are subordinates of the Supreme Lord Lao? Heh, now that's interesting," Li Xingchen said half-jokingly.

This infuriated Tang Jingjing, who dragged Li Huai down and warned him that if he dared spout nonsense again, she'd kill him outright.

Elder Lin said, "This is our only clue. We must confirm it with the chief commander."

After that, Elder Lin reported our discovery to the chief commander, hoping he could help coordinate the information about this Protector Church.

The chief commander said excitedly, "Elder Lin, there's no need to coordinate with Seaside Province. A few years ago, our city's public security bureau handled a case involving the Protector Church. I'll have the city bureau leadership contact you directly. The bureau chief there seems to have personally participated in that case."

Elder Lin said excitedly that the sooner, the better, because we no longer had much time.