Starting as dockworkers, they swept through Chongqing.

Halfway through breakfast, Rod handed over another form.

"The patients in Nancang were a bit more stable last night. The dosage Samuel gave was effective. However, the pharmacy is already pressing for payment, as the Tranquility Potion and Mind-Cleansing Incense are not cheap."

"Hang it on Tusol's tent first," said Xiren.

Rena looked up: "You're really not being polite."

"Since they've asked, I'm not going to try to save them money."

After saying that, he finished the last sip of tea, got up and put on his gloves.

A car was already waiting outside the porch.

Mornings in the North District are always dirtier than in the South District.

The flagstones along the street were still wet, and the coal dust that had fallen last night had been crushed into black mud by the wheels of vehicles. Rotten vegetable leaves and sawdust floated in the drainage ditch.

But this didn't stop people from going out as usual—bank clerks walked by quickly with briefcases, shop assistants in tight skirts carried baskets to buy milk and bread, and newsboys stood on street corners waving morning papers, running and shouting, "War! War on the front lines!"

In the distance, a horse-drawn tram swayed past, its clanging startling a flock of gray sparrows perched on the power lines.

Xilun sat in the enclosed carriage and looked out through the glass window.

Rows of red brick houses flashed by, low and close together, with a few clumps of grayish holly growing behind iron railings.

Sometimes you can see chandeliers, pianos, fireplaces, and standing coat racks inside the window. You can also see children lying on the window, breathing on the fog and drawing on it with their fingers.

Further ahead were tailor shops, pharmacies, watch shops, and newsstands, their signs floating in the mist like plaques on water.

This is the North End of Victoria, a world of factory chimneys, coal stoves, ledgers, church bells, and stiff-collared shirts.

Respectability here isn't innate; it's something you cultivate little by little by shaving, tying a tie, and going out to earn money every morning.

Wellington Street is located in the western part of the North End, with a wider road and more upscale shops.

Black Star's place was a steakhouse that often served lunch to business owners and lawyers. The entrance was gleaming, the brass handles were warm, and inside there was a red carpet, with the air filled with the aroma of black pepper, butter, and stew.

Black Star has arrived.

He sat by the window, with only a barely touched cup of coffee on the table. His black coat was draped over the back of the chair, and his expression was as calm as last night, but his brows were colder than usual.

"You're five minutes late," Black Star said.

"There was a traffic jam." Xiren sat down, glanced at the menu, and asked, "Any discoveries?"

Black Star pushed a folded note towards him.

"The two who went missing were named Evan and Mays. Evan was last seen at his rented apartment at 7 Yards Wellington Street."

Mays's trail is still tangled, but both of them went to the same place before they disappeared—the Santa Blanca Clinic.

Xilun's eyes flickered slightly: "It's from the Scarlet Training Conference?"

"On the surface, it's a charity clinic," Black Star sneered. "Half of the people inside are connected to Scarlet."

The waiter came over, and Black Star, familiar with the place, ordered two steaks, an onion soup, and a bread basket.

He lowered his voice after everyone had left.

"I checked Evan's recent accounts. He didn't bring any guards or use the family car. It's like he's deliberately keeping a low profile."

The rent was paid weekly, all the clothes were there, the watch, ring, and gun were all left, but the person seemed to have vanished into thin air.

Who within Tusol knew about this connection first?

"I am the chieftain, Oin."

"Now Oro should know too."

Black Star glanced at him and slowly nodded.

That's why I called you here first.

Xilun hummed in agreement and said nothing more.

The steakhouse was quite busy. Two tables of businessmen were discussing the canal and coal prices, while on the other side, a bald lawyer was talking at length about insurance terms with the bakery owner.

The clinking of knives and forks, the gentle clatter of cups and saucers, and the passing carriages outside the window—it all seemed like an ordinary lunch to everyone.

But the undercurrent beneath the table was thicker than the rain clouds outside the window.

The two got up and left shortly after finishing their meal, heading towards their rented apartment at Seven Yards.

It was a three-story brick building with a black wooden sign with gold lettering at the entrance. Old carpets were laid in the stairwell, and at the end of the stairwell was a pot of nearly dead ferns.

The landlady was a plump middle-aged woman wearing a dark brown long dress and a cheap brooch on her chest. When Black Star showed her his ID and business card, her face turned pale.

“Mr. Evan was always respectable,” she stammered. “He would hand his dirty shirts to the laundry girl every Tuesday and Friday, usually eat out for dinner, and occasionally bring home a cod pie… He never owed rent or caused any trouble.”

"When was the last time you saw him?" Xilun asked.

"The day before yesterday, around 5 p.m., he changed his clothes, took a cane, and even sprayed some cologne... as if he was going to meet someone important."

"Have you come back?"

The landlady shook her head, her throat bobbing: "No."

The room is on the second floor facing the street.

As soon as the door opened, a faint scent of cedar soap lingered.

The room was small, but very tidy: a single bed, a washstand, a writing desk, a small wardrobe, a coal stove, a bookshelf against the wall, and a newspaper from three days ago pressed on the windowsill.

Two clean shirts were folded at the foot of the bed, their collars starched crisply. Shoe brush, shoe polish, and bow tie box were neatly arranged on the shelf, as if the owner had only gone out temporarily and would return soon.

Xilun didn't rush to rummage through the things.

He stood at the doorway, closed his eyes briefly, and slowly released the echo.

The landlady's breathing, the sound of the kettle boiling downstairs, the neighbor coughing, horses' hooves splashing in puddles outside the window, the shouts of a newsboy in the distance...

Layers of sounds surged toward him, only to be peeled away by him bit by bit.

Soon, his gaze fell on the drawer in the lower right corner of the writing desk.

"key."

Black Star immediately went to see the landlady.

The woman frantically pulled out a bunch of brass keys and tried three times before she could open the door.

There weren't many things in the drawer: a few family letters, an account book, a box of matches, a small-caliber pistol, and a crumpled receipt.

Xilun picked it up and glanced at it.

Santa Blanca Clinic, evening appointment, payment already made.

The date was the day before he went missing.

Black Star's expression darkened slightly.

"Not enough." Xilun put down the receipt, reached out and touched the bottom of the drawer, tapping it lightly with his fingertips. "It's empty."

Black Star immediately realized what was happening, bent down and touched it, and sure enough, he felt an extremely thin slit.

The two men pried open the baseboard, revealing only one thing inside—a tram ticket. The destination wasn't the parish where the Scarlet Religious Society headquarters was located, but rather in the old industrial area further west, near the western suburbs' tidal power plant.

Black Star stared at the ticket, his eyes gradually turning cold.

"What is Evan doing there?"

"You've asked the wrong question," Siron said. "The question should be, who led him there?"

No sooner had he finished speaking than a very faint scraping sound came from the stairs outside the door.

Someone is eavesdropping.

Xilun and Black Star turned their heads almost simultaneously.

Black Star took a step forward. At the end of the corridor, a tall, thin man was about to run downstairs, but before he could turn around, Black Star grabbed him by the back of the collar and slammed him against the wall.

The man groaned in pain, his face turned pale from the impact, and his hat fell from his hand.

"Who sent you?" Black Star's voice wasn't loud, but it felt like a blade scraping against bone.

The man's lips trembled, and he was about to give in when Black Star tightened his grip, almost lifting him up completely.

"I... I'm keeping watch for Young Master Oro—"

The coldness in Black Star's eyes deepened even further.

"Should we keep an eye on me, or on him?"

The man's forehead was beaded with sweat: "Everyone...the Third Elder said that whoever finds the person first gets to speak first..."

Xilun stood by the door, watching the unsurprising farce unfold with a calm expression.

Before Tusol's men have even been found, Tusol's own men have already turned their knives on their own people.

Black Star threw the tall, thin man back to the ground and leaned down to stare at him.

"Go back and tell Oro," he said, emphasizing each word, "if he continues to use my case as a whetstone to make his teeth grow, I'll pull his teeth out myself."

The man scrambled down the stairs.

The hallway fell silent again.

The landlady huddled against the wall, almost crying with fear.

Xilun put away his ticket and walked to the window to look down. Several figures were reflected in the window of a hat shop across the street. One of them, wearing a dark trench coat, had been standing there for too long; he looked like a passerby, but not quite.

Black Star stood beside him and whispered, "It's not just Oin's people."

"I saw it."

"Armed insurgents?"

"It could also be the Crimson Ones," Siren said, his gaze unwavering. "Or perhaps both."

The fog outside the window grew thicker.

The streets were still bustling with people: women carrying baskets, shop assistants with umbrellas, clerks hurrying along, coal delivery workers, and young gentlemen looking at top hats in shop windows.

Everyone lives their own life, and no one knows that a tram ticket and a missing member of a middle-class family have already put the fingers of several forces to the trigger.

Black Star was silent for a while, then suddenly said, "Now I understand why the clan leader insisted on bringing you in."

Xilun glanced at him.

"Because I can find things?"

Black Star twitched the corners of his mouth, but his smile was faint.

"No, because you're calmer than many hunting dogs when you smell blood."

He paused, then lowered his voice further.

"Sirlen, this is probably not a simple disappearance. Some people don't want to find the living; they want to find the body first... or turn the body into evidence."

Xilun looked away and put the ticket to the western suburbs into his inner pocket.

"Then let's not let them find it first."

It started raining at 2 p.m.

At first, it was just like thin threads, but later it became denser and denser, hitting the roof of the carriage like countless coins being smashed onto an iron plate.

Black Star did not return to the manor, but instead took Siron directly to the Tusol family's reception residence in the city.

It was a typical respectable house, with four stone steps leading to the door, black lacquered doors polished to a shine, and gleaming brass door knockers. The foyer was carpeted in deep burgundy, and had umbrella racks, hat racks, and mirror cabinets.

As the servants took their wet coats from them, the coal fire in the fireplace crackled and popped, and the air smelled of cigars, black tea, and roasted meat.

As soon as Xilun entered, he saw Oin.

The old man sat at the far end of the sofa, a cup of tea he had barely touched beside him, his face still bearing that same look that seemed to regard everyone as something dirty.

Oro stood behind him, his hand on the back of the chair, his expression somber.

Opposite them were Austin and the middle-aged butler. The atmosphere in the hall became even more tense as soon as Black Star arrived.

"How's the investigation going?" Austin asked directly.

Black Star placed the receipts and tickets he had brought back from the Seven Yards rental apartment on the table.

The hall was quiet for a couple of breaths.

Oro was the first to reach for it, glanced at it, and his expression immediately changed: "The Santa Blanca Clinic? Isn't this the den of bastards run by those Scarlet Training Society people!"

"Think before you speak," Oin said coldly. "This at most proves that Evan was there, but it doesn't prove that they took the person."

Black Star scoffed: "Now you're talking about evidence?"

Oin lifted his eyelids and swept his gaze over like a knife: "Whether I talk about evidence or not is none of your business."

"Enough." Austin raised his hand to quell the anger on both sides, then looked at Xilen, "What do you think?"

Siren didn't sit too close to the front; he just stood by the fireplace and warmed his damp gloves.

"The people were lured away," he said. "The receipt is the visible evidence, the ticket is the hidden one. If they really wanted to cover it up completely, they wouldn't have left this. The fact that they left it means someone wanted to direct their attention to the western suburbs."

Oin sneered, "That's nonsense."

Xilun turned to look at him, his tone flat.

"Sometimes nonsense is more useful than stupid talk, at least you can listen to it."

Oro's face darkened instantly. Just as he was about to speak, Austin put down his teacup with a crisp sound.

"continue."

Xilun then withdrew his gaze.

"The Santa Blanca Clinic may not be the final destination, but more likely just a stopover."

With his family background, gun, and basic vigilance, Evan wouldn't be easily tricked out of town by an ordinary doctor.

The fact that he was allowed to travel discreetly and alone suggests that what the other party gave him either involves family matters or extraordinary clues that cannot be made public.

Black Star nodded: "That's what I think too."

"Furthermore," Celen said, "Elder Oin's men are keeping watch outside the Seven Yards apartment, not to help, but to get ahead of us."

Since everyone's in such a hurry, let's stop pretending to be on the same page and wasting time.

The atmosphere in the hall froze instantly.

Oro's face turned extremely ugly: "What do you mean?"

"Literally," Siren said. "If you're just trying to pin this on the Crimson Training Institute, I can leave now. If you really want to find someone, then clean up your mess."

Oin's gaze turned completely cold.

"Not long after the outsider entered the house, he learned how to do things in Tusor's house."

"It's better than sitting in Tusol's house waiting for all of Tusol's people to die," Xiren said in a flat tone. "Besides, dead people do me no good, and they do you no good either."

Austin did not speak immediately.

He looked at Xilun, a hint of approval appearing in his eyes.

Often, the people inside Tusol know each other so well that they've learned to speak indirectly and discreetly, like playing cards in a thick fog.

Xilun is different. He's not a regular at the poker table; he's more like a knife on the table—too conspicuous and too direct.

At this moment, footsteps were heard outside the door.

The middle-aged steward strode in and bowed slightly: "Clan leader, the people from the Crimson Training Society have arrived."

The expressions of the people in the hall changed simultaneously.

Austin narrowed his eyes: "Who?"

"Dr. Abel."

Black Star's fingers tightened around the cup handle.

A moment later, a slender man walked in.

He was dressed in a well-fitting black tuxedo with a snow-white collar and clean cuffs. He wore narrow-rimmed glasses on his nose, his hair was neatly combed, and he was holding a silver-tipped cane.

If it weren't for that indescribable coldness, he would resemble a professor of anatomy at a university more than someone from a powerful family.

"I apologize for the intrusion," Abel said with a smile and a slight bow. "I just wanted to say hello before any misunderstandings escalate."

"You Crimson Ones are afraid of misunderstandings?" Oin said coldly.

Abel didn't even look at him, instead focusing her gaze on the medical receipt on the table.

"It seems you've already located Santa Blanca."

He pushed up his glasses, his tone almost polite.

"Then I can also tell you frankly that the night before last, in addition to the people from Tusol, our clinic was also missing one person—a deacon in charge of the night clinic."

If Tusol were to pin this entirely on Scarlet, we would probably be even more eager than you to know who struck first.