Reborn in 1993, Dark Sea

Xingfuyuan Residential Complex, Building 6, Top Floor

An Xiaohai sat on the sofa, lost in thought. Mai Xiaoyu was watching the last episode of Tokyo Love Story, crying her eyes out. Zhou Xun was cooking.

An Xiaohai's thoughts were interrupted by a text message notification on his phone. He picked up his phone and looked at it. It was a message from No. 1 about Zhao Gang's whereabouts.

An Xiaohai stopped monitoring the club and sent No. 1 and his team to investigate Zhao Gang.

Fuwang Grain and Oil's core business is still in the two provinces of Haidong and Haixi. They have a headquarters in Nancheng City, where Zhao Gang has been working for the past few days.

Under the pressure from other grain and oil brands and supermarkets, Fuwang Grain and Oil's marketing system is already somewhat shaky.

Zhao Gang held a meeting at the Fuwang Grain and Oil Haixi headquarters this afternoon. He will take the general manager of Fuwang Grain and Oil Haixi headquarters to inspect various stores in Nancheng City tomorrow. He said it was a private inspection, but since this matter was mentioned at the meeting, it is estimated that it cannot be kept secret.

Zhou Xun's cooking skills were consistently excellent. An Xiaohai finished his portion with great perseverance. To his surprise, Mai Xiaoyu ate it with great relish.

"You've been thinking all afternoon. What have you been thinking about?" Mai Xiaoyu asked, wiping her mouth after finishing her meal.

"I'm wondering how Caos actually works, how they accept missions, how they get the target's information, how they hand over the tasks after they're completed, and how they collect their rewards."

"We have some intelligence on this matter."

Can you tell me?

"Of course," Mai Xiaoyu said, taking a breath. "How about I explain it to you in detail?"

"That's great."

"The Caos originated in the West and are said to have existed as early as the 17th century. In those days, Caos members were mostly thieves, assassins, pirates, and a very small number of knights."

At the time, Caos touted itself as a righteous and vengeful organization.

If someone suffers an injustice and is powerless to seek revenge, they only need to go to the Cathedral of Escorial, confess their grievances in the confessional, and leave three gold coins under the statue of Jesus, and a Cao will step forward to uphold justice.

Therefore, it is widely believed in Europe that Caos had close ties with the church.

The Caos are managed by a council of elders, whose elders are scattered throughout Europe, each in their own region, responsible for training and managing the Caos members within that region.

The elders are responsible for issuing tasks and settling rewards.

Fearing retaliation, the identities of Caos and the elders are kept secret. The council of elders meets secretly every three years, at which time elders from various regions travel to Mount Guadalajara to attend the meeting.

During the meetings, the elders exchanged information and shared their wealth. At other times, communication among the elders was conducted through designated messengers.

This organizational and management model continued until the advent of the telegraph and telephone, which brought about significant changes.

During World War II, the Caos organization suffered a devastating blow, and after the war, the Caos organization and its members were almost completely destroyed.

Around 1962, a few surviving elders held their last meeting in the Guadalajara Mountains, which led to the reorganization of Caos.

After its reorganization, Caos became much more disorganized, and the identities of its elders became increasingly mysterious. At the same time, they no longer adhered to the principles of justice and revenge, and gradually transformed into a full-fledged assassin organization.

In recent years, with the continuous development of communications, Caos has undergone many significant changes.

As far as we know, if you want to hire a Caos killer, you must put the target's and your contact information into a red box. Caos' managers will check the information in the red box from time to time.

If a Caos accepts a task, they will ask the task poster to transfer money to a designated account, and the administrator will assign a suitable Caos to execute the task.

That's roughly the process.

"This doesn't seem right, does it?" An Xiaohai frowned. "I think the manager should only issue tasks; he shouldn't be assigning a specific Caos to carry out an assassination mission."

"Yes, you're right, but it's not the same thing I just said," Mai Xiaoyu shrugged. "I only gave a brief description of their mission process; their actual operation is much more complicated than I described."

The administrators did not assign a specific Caos killer, but rather a Caos manager for a region.

For example, if the management of the Western Caos headquarters receives an assassination request, and the target is someone from China, the headquarters management will not immediately grant the employer's request. Instead, they will send the target's information to the Caos manager responsible for the China region.

The Caos manager in charge of the China region will first assess the difficulty of the task, and then he will issue the task to all Caos under his jurisdiction through his own channels.

If no Caos assassin accepts the mission, the Caos manager in the China region will refuse to carry it out. Once the Western headquarters receives feedback from the China region Caos manager, they will refuse to accept the employer's mission.

If a Caos manager in charge of the China region has an assassin under his command willing to carry out the mission, he will directly quote a price to headquarters. As for what price headquarters will ultimately quote to the employer, the Caos manager in the China region will not care.

The Caos administrators in the China region are equivalent to the elders of the past.

"I understand. You mean that the Caos managers in each region are relatively independent, and their relationship with the Caos headquarters in the West is more like a cooperative one. The regional managers control almost all the resources of their respective regions."

That's right.

"And what are the relationships like between managers in different regions?"

"I don't know about that, but we estimate that under normal circumstances, there should be no contact between the regional managers of the Caos organization, or at least not frequent contact."

Unless they are already friends and have a very good relationship in private, which is a different matter altogether.

Do you know how regional managers of the Caos organization are selected?

"I don't know. This is one of their core secrets, and no one has been able to obtain this information yet."

"Okay, I understand. Where did this information come from?"

"We obtain and compile information from the police and security systems of various countries, and we always have some cooperation with them."

Are you thinking that Ahn Cheol-ho might be the manager of the Caos organization's China region?

"Yes, I think that's very likely, and An Zhehao must have made significant changes to the Caos organization in China, even adjusting and redefining the responsibilities of Caos members."

For example, the Caos who was with Jiang Ting and Zhu Polong, and the woman in the kimono who was with Zhan Weiting, were more like bodyguards, but also monitors.

Only those who remain hidden in the shadows are the true assassins.

"Yes, you make a very good point."

"By the way, among the stuff we got from Yulong Wanghai last time, there was a small notebook, right? It contained a lot of coded messages. Have you deciphered them all?"

"Most of it has been deciphered," Mai Xiaoyu nodded. "The notebook mainly records information about fund management and fund flows. The names and locations mentioned are all in code, so it's difficult to use it for now."

Moreover, we suspect that many of the deciphered contents contain double or even triple codes. Deciphering, organizing, and making them functional may not be so simple and will require considerable time.

"Could you please provide me with the deciphered encryption logic, especially the first-layer cipher logic?"

"I don't know, but I think it should be possible. I'll contact 073 right away and ask for his instructions."

"Okay, go ahead."

Mai Xiaoyu ran to her room to contact 073. An Xiaohai sat on the sofa and thought for a while before dialing number 1.

"Number 1, before you set up surveillance at the clubhouse, did you conduct a thorough investigation of the surrounding environment? What was the scope of that investigation?"

"We did a general investigation, but due to limited manpower, our investigation scope was not large; we only roughly investigated the area within a 1.5-kilometer radius."

Are there any internet cafes in the area you are checking?

"Yes, there are two. One is quite large, it just opened, and it has about 40 computers. The owner of this internet cafe is from Shenzhen, haha."

"..."

"The other one is smaller, with only about 10 computers. I suspect they don't have proper permits and are trying to cover it up."

"Okay, I'll assign you a task."

"Speaking!"

"You and No. 7 each guard one of these two internet cafes. If you find that the person from No. 701 who rode the motorcycle went to the internet cafe, find a way to notify me immediately."

You just wait for him in the internet cafe, and whatever you do, don't follow him, and absolutely do not arouse his suspicion.

"yes!"

"Also, have No. 10 do a thorough search of the surrounding area again to see if there are any illegal internet cafes hidden in residential areas, especially near schools."

If you find them, write them down and notify me immediately.

"Yes, is there anything else?"

"That's all, that's all for now."

"What is the time limit for the task?"

"The sooner the better."

"yes!"

Just as An Xiaohai hung up the phone, Mai Xiaoyu came out of the room. She snapped her fingers at the doorway and said, "President Chen, the information has been sent to my internal email. Do you want to see it on my computer, or should I print it out for you?"

"Let's just watch it on the computer, so we don't have to destroy the data."

"Okay, where do you want to watch it?"

"Just watch it here. Take your computer out."

"it is good."

Mai Xiaoyu took out her computer and huddled together with An Xiaohai to look at the information.

Zhou Xun pushed open the floor-to-ceiling glass door to the living room, sat on the balcony, drank tea and smoked for half an hour before returning inside.

"How's it going? Have you found their surveillance points?" An Xiaohai asked, but his gaze remained fixed on the computer screen.

"We're pretty sure now. They're probably on the top floor of Building 4. From there, they can see what's going on in Han Shasha's room, and they can also see us here."

"Hmm, let's find a way to locate this person, but we must not alert them. It's best if you don't do it yourself."

"Okay, I understand, I'll be careful!" Zhou Xun stubbed out her cigarette and left the house, it was unclear whether she was going to check on the guy on the top floor of Building 4.

An Xiaohai carefully read through all the materials, especially the parts that had not yet been deciphered.

Before they knew it, darkness had completely fallen; and before they knew it, dawn was slowly breaking in the east. An Xiaohai was completely absorbed in reading the documents, with Mai Xiaoyu by his side the whole time.

As dawn broke, An Xiaohai finally let out a long breath and straightened up.

Mai Xiaoyu also breathed a sigh of relief and picked up the small notebook next to An Xiaohai to look at it curiously.

The notebook contained two strings of numbers: 13325315122545 and 21820504400122.

"Mr. Chen, why did you write down these two strings of numbers separately? ... These two strings of numbers are very special. We have never figured out what they mean. They look like bank account numbers, but we have tried them and none of them match."

"Have you already deciphered it? That's amazing!"

An Xiaohai smiled slightly: "It's not that I'm amazing, it's just that I'm lucky. The moment I saw them, I had a feeling of familiarity!"

"Oh?!" Mai Xiaoyu's eyes lit up: "You really know what they mean?!"

"I think...yes, if I'm not mistaken, I think I know what they are."

"What is it? Tell me quickly!" Mai Xiaoyu raised her eyebrows, and surprise rippled across her face.