The expression of pain on the face of the fake "Father" with brown hair and hazel eyes became even more pronounced upon hearing Shang Jianyao's question, his facial muscles contorting, making him look quite ferocious.
He said, as if exerting all his strength:
"It, it's 'Shepherd', Buyong, Elder."
"Buyong? Could it be that he's also between 1.75 and 1.80 meters tall, has heavy dark circles under his eyes, and looks very tired overall?" Shang Jianyao wasn't surprised at all, repeating the question in a mimicking manner.
Clearly, he believed that the Elder Buyong mentioned by the fake "Father" was actually the real "Father" in disguise.
This poor controlled puppet had never seen the real "Shepherd" Buyong.
The fake "Father's" distorted face revealed an undisguisable look of horror:
"Yes, how do you know... how could this be..."
He rapidly became hysterical, seemingly reaching the point of complete collapse.
Seeing this, Shang Jianyao said with a smile:
"You should thank me."
He then took a step forward, raised his right hand, and accurately struck the fake "Father" behind his ear.
The fake "Father" directly fainted, escaping that unspeakable pain.
Shang Jianyao quickly dragged him to a deserted spot in the alley and took out the blue-green luminous pearl from his pocket.
…………
Within the glimmering "Sea of Origins", Shang Jianyao, divided into nine, used the power of the "Destiny Pearl" to mobilize all of the fake "Father's" memories.
They cooperated, searching for the most recent and clearest scenes from the solidified giant waves, constantly rewinding to discover the real "Father's" figure.
Before long, the Shang Jianyaos found a relevant memory:
The fake "Father" named Sandel received a letter from "Shepherd" Buyong the day before yesterday. After confirming it was genuine using a matching cipher, he began to plan how to obtain the surveillance footage from within the "wolf's den."
Following this memory, Shang Jianyao discovered that the so-called "Shepherd" Buyong mainly relied on sending letters to Sandel to issue orders. The person sending the letter and the address on the envelope were different each time. The former was obviously a hypnotized tool, and the latter was clearly fake.
He also occasionally called Sandel and met with this fake "Father" three times.
In the memories of these three meetings, "Buyong's" image was very blurry, lacking distinct features, and lacking sufficient walking scenes. Shang Jianyao could only discern that his height was similar to Jiang Baimian's, with heavy dark circles under his eyes, revealing an unmasked fatigue.
In other words, the man suspected of being the real "Father" was indeed between 1.75 and 1.80 meters tall.
And Sandel reported the situation by sending telegrams at the agreed time, but the other party only received and didn't reply, remaining silent, making it impossible to locate the signal source using technical means.
Shang Jianyao quickly rewound, finding the scene of Sandel "becoming" a "Father."
Clearly, there were traces of tampering.
And Shang Jianyao, who was only using the tool, couldn't mobilize the deepest, most subconscious memories and couldn't repair this.
To conserve the "Destiny Pearl's" energy, Shang Jianyao quickly ended the viewing and returned to the real world.
After putting away the blue-green luminous pearl, he looked around, saw that no one was approaching, and then picked up the walkie-talkie, briefly reporting the gains just now.
After listening, Jiang Baimian slowly exhaled and said:
"Get the fake 'Father' back to his room and wait for me to come over."
She then put away the "Orange" rifle she had obtained from the "Blackshirts" and issued orders to Bai Chen, Long Yuehong, and Genaeva:
"Continue to stay in your current positions, observing whether any men between 1.75 and 1.80 meters tall, looking tired, and with heavy dark circles under their eyes are coming out of the surrounding houses."
She suspected that the real "Father" might be monitoring everything nearby, and once the fake "Father" had any problems, he would immediately cut off contact.
And just now, the "fire truck" siren and Shang Jianyao's shouts from the fake "Father's" room could be faintly heard in the surrounding blocks.
Of course, Jiang Baimian felt that, given the real "Father's" style, he probably wouldn't monitor himself, and would more likely hypnotize two or three ordinary people to have them take turns paying attention, sending telegrams immediately if there were any changes.
After all, there was more than one fake "Father", and the real "Father" couldn't be everywhere at once, so he could only use a less efficient but safer and more covert method.
Based on this conjecture, Jiang Baimian specifically said to Genaeva:
"Old Ge, you monitor the radio signals on this frequency band..."
Although it was likely too late, doing something was better than doing nothing.
While Jiang Baimian issued orders to the other members of the "Old Task Force", Shang Jianyao had already helped the fake "Father" up, bringing him back to his original apartment room like he was helping a sick comrade.
After closing the door, Shang Jianyao ended the looping music by forcibly shutting down the device.
Soon, Jiang Baimian arrived and entered the room.
She and Shang Jianyao carefully searched the place and only found some "Anti-intellectualism" propaganda materials filled with spelling errors.
"He's clearly not illiterate and can even use a computer, so why are there spelling mistakes..." Jiang Baimian muttered "softly."
"If the words were all correct and the grammar was right, how would he gain the trust of those believers?" Shang Jianyao felt that there was nothing wrong with this.
Jiang Baimian looked at the fake "Father" Sandel, who was unconscious on the bed, and said thoughtfully:
"I'll use the program Old Ge coded to restore the computer to normal and see if there are any clues inside. You wake him up and become friends."
"Okay." Shang Jianyao's mouth curled up as he walked to the bedside.
By the time Jiang Baimian had rescued the portable computer from the virus infection, Shang Jianyao was already chatting and laughing with the awakened Sandel.
He used undeniable facts to prove that the other party was a fake "Father", a puppet of the real "Father", arousing Sandel's hatred.
He didn't even use his ability in this part.
"Although it's uncertain whether the real 'Father' has discovered that something's wrong with you here, we can pretend that nothing's wrong first," Jiang Baimian said, turning her chair and looking at Sandel.
She organized her words and gave her plan:
"In a moment, you'll act like you're fleeing in a panic, transfer to another place, and then, at the agreed time, send a telegram to the real 'Father', saying that you were targeted by us, almost captured, and barely managed to escape."
"Okay!" Sandel replied powerfully.
He thought for a moment and said through gritted teeth:
"He's been manipulating my mind for a long time. It'll be a waste if I don't take revenge after living for so long!
"But, after killing the 'Father', I will leave here and quietly withdraw from the 'Anti-intellectualism'."
He was deeply afraid of the elders of the "Anti-intellectualism."
And there were a total of eight such powerful individuals—the "Anti-intellectualism's" power structure was the "Council of Eight," and the Pope above was said to have gone to the New World to serve the Evernight "Terminus."
"That's your freedom," Jiang Baimian nodded.
As for whether Shang Jianyao would arrest him again because Sandel had done so many bad things, that was another matter.
Jiang Baimian and Shang Jianyao asked about "Anti-intellectualism"-related questions but failed to gain any new knowledge beyond what they already knew.
Because it wasn't advisable to "linger" here for long, they watched Sandel "escape" in a hurried and staggering manner.
"Goodbye! We must meet again!" Shang Jianyao waved his right hand reluctantly.
Jiang Baimian rolled her eyes and said seriously:
"We're withdrawing too."
They quickly left the apartment and went to the agreed meeting point.
Then, Bai Chen, Long Yuehong, and Genaeva reported their situations in turn.
None of them had discovered a man who looked like the real "Father."
Genaeva also had no gains in monitoring radio signals.
"Fall back," Jiang Baimian said, holding the walkie-talkie.
On the way back in the crimson off-road vehicle, Jiang Baimian, who was in the passenger seat, began to summarize the operation.
She sighed and said:
"We still couldn't catch the real 'Father's' tail. Sandel is just a spare piece that's unlikely to be effective."
"The real 'Father' is really too cunning and cautious..." Long Yuehong sighed along.
The car then fell silent, and everyone seemed a little depressed.
They had finally found a useful clue, spent a lot of effort, but still couldn't catch the real "Father."
--Genaeva was also able to make the correct "reaction" to failure, just like in Tarnan.
A few seconds later, Shang Jianyao said confidently and excitedly:
"Such opponents are interesting!"
He wasn't discouraged at all and even added:
"When we catch the real 'Father' and hang him up to beat him, it will definitely be especially satisfying."
"Yes," Jiang Baimian said with a laugh after listening.
Her emotional state had returned to normal, and she also had a bit more desire to accept the challenge.
"Yes, as long as the real 'Father' is still doing things and taking action, he will eventually be exposed," Bai Chen also exhaled.
After thinking about it, Jiang Baimian said:
"Let's take it slowly, don't rush. We'll take over the Zhao family's Left Bank Manor first.
"Hehe, maybe the real 'Father' is waiting for us there."
The transfer of ownership of the manor was not that simple in the "Initial City," which already had preliminary order. It still needed to go through the administrative department's approval process, so the "Old Task Force" had to wait a few days.
At this time, Long Yuehong, who was sitting in the middle of the back row, looked at Shang Jianyao and said:
"What are you thinking about?"
Shang Jianyao's face was filled with "I'm racking my brains."
Hearing Long Yuehong's question, he said thoughtfully:
"I was thinking that if we're idle recently, we can go to places where the real 'Father' might appear and stake them out. If we find someone who fits the description, we'll have Old Ge go up and 'chat' them up, dragging them into a deep alley to 'communicate'..."
"Isn't this just looking for a needle in a haystack?" Long Yuehong said amusingly.
Shang Jianyao shook his head:
"No, it's fishing.
"The most important thing in fishing is patience.
"The problem now is, what places are the real 'Father' likely to appear in."
Jiang Baimian opened her mouth, then closed it again, revealing a thoughtful expression.
ps: It seems like there's some kind of author voting, although I don't know what it's for, but I'll still ask for it, haha