Warning: this chapter personifies the Enver Hoxha joke.

In the Red Alert timeline, Enver Hoxha never had a chance to rule Albania. Albania may have been under the rule of the Zog dynasty or became part of Regno d'Italia after being invaded by Italy.

OR1-EP3: The Bloody Coat of Arms (10)

That morning, the chubby priest Alexandros Palaskas walked into McNeil's room in high spirits, clutching a stack of papers, and took a few out of them, bringing them to McNeil's eyes.

"They actually do have a list of names ... even though the list was compiled from transaction records." The Priest pointed at a few names on it, "However, we can't easily let the Emperor of Britannia just eradicate those ill-intentioned opponents, the opinion of the Parisian side is that they want us to put in some neutrals or loyalists who don't have a firm stance as a way to influence their judgment."

After saying that, Father Palaskas took out another list. EU's merchants always like to intervene in a large-scale conflict while selling intelligence and materials to both sides at the same time, such as when the Middle East War broke out back then, the Arab states and the Chinese Persian military region received arms from EU at the same time. EU's senate and consuls were completely laissez faire about this kind of behavior, as long as these merchants wouldn't jeopardize the EU itself, all behavior were all legal.

McNeil picked up the second list and looked at the remarks on it, pointing suspiciously at the first name and asked:

"What does this person do?"

"Pimps for foreigners." The priest said without changing his face, "I remember Duke Bradow von Breisgau told you that some of our country's merchants and politicians only cared about going to brothels and manors after arriving in the empire. I heard that they also illegally detained a large number of minors on one of the empire's small islands ... Forget it, don't talk about such things, it's disgusting to think about it."

McNeil was no defender, but he loathed the behavior all the same, simply because it was such a waste of time. Some people would rather waste all of their energy on spending their time in the world than open their eyes to reality. They can afford to squander their time with such impunity only because they have the wealth that should serve a greater cause. McNeil believes that GDI can overcome these vulgarities, which are even more repulsive than NOD, but he sees no such realization in the EU, which is now continuing to slumber in the peace of the ages until a powerful external force breaks through the dream and awakens it from its beauty sleep.

The two men continue to analyze the list in their hotel room. McNeil asked the priest about nobles in the Britannian Empire who might specialize in technology. The priest mentioned the Ashford and Zevon families, and said that most of the nobles in the Britannian Empire would not fund and support related businesses, and that only these two families would be willing to invest in those companies that were engaged in technological research in the civilian or military fields. Naturally, the companies would also choose to attach themselves to the corresponding nobles to avoid being appropriated by other nobles.

"I still don't quite understand." McNeil decided to mix up the names so that Bismarck or the Emperor wouldn't be able to tell if they were real or not, "What do you think these nobles usually do? Don't they get disgusted?"

"When normal hedonism can no longer satisfy them, some nobles have no choice but to use more extreme means to find excitement." The priest said in a double entendre, "Some nobles chose to join the army, but not to defend the empire or their emperor, they just wanted to give vent to the urge to destroy; others went into the business of human trafficking, and I'm guessing that those human traffickers in my country and they probably have dealings with them as well."

"The traffickers should all be dragged out and hanged."

"It's no use, McNeil." The priest looked kindly at the youth who was full of anger, "If you don't eliminate those who support the human trafficking business and only kill the traffickers, then there will be a new batch of traffickers in a short while, and the trafficking has not been curbed since the beginning. But there's nothing sadder than the fact that we can't do anything about those people, and we can only take symbolic swipes at the traffickers who cause public outrage."

McNeil doesn't feel guilty for victimizing these nobles. Even the kindest of nobles, their good deeds were not enough to atone for the crimes committed by their grandfathers, and it would be considered merciful if someone spared their lives when the moment of reckoning came. From the bottom of his heart, he welcomes the civilians of the Britannian Empire to flee to the EU, a stifling country unworthy of their existence. The Emperor and the nobility ruled everything, and even if the nobility was overthrown there was still the Emperor riding over them. EU, despite its many problems, the citizens here were at least free.

After noon, McNeil went downstairs to the dining room for lunch. There he met an emissary from Bradow von Breisgau, and it turned out that the Duke had entrusted him with a personal matter to attend to. There was a nobleman who lived on the outskirts of Pendragon who was selling his mansion, and the man who had always been a spendthrift might be swindled out of his money, and Breisgau, who couldn't bear to see him swindled out of his money for nothing, was going to have McNeil there to oversee it.

"When?"

"About the end of this month." The messenger said, "If we don't do it until May, things might get a little tricky."

The Duke's subtext was that the conflict would become more and more intense then, and even McNeil, who was a member of the foreign mission, would not be able to stay out of it. McNeil was tempted to flee the Britannian Empire before the civil unrest began, but his mission was to stay here and wait and see what happens or fish in the water, and he couldn't betray Governor-general Herzog's trust. The governor-general, who was a Britannian man by birth but anti-Britannia, had to prove in this way that he was truly a mainstay of the EU and not a traitor who's loyal to Britannia, and McNeil didn't want to disappoint the old man who still fantasized about being elected consul in his lifetime.

McNeil was about to go out to explore the area when he saw a young man who looked somewhat familiar come to him.

"Are you ... Mr. Duan?" McNeil remembered this trainee who he had put down with few punches and kicks in the martial arts school, "What a coincidence, are you working in your country's embassy?"

Duan Yingming frowned and corrected himself:

"We are not country. The Nanting Protectorate is still nominally the imperial court's Protectorate... Well, my master would like to ask you to visit the embassy, he has something very urgent to inform you about."

"I, a foreigner, cannot just enter your embassy." McNeil immediately refused, "Otherwise, in case there are any classified documents stolen inside the embassy, I will become the number one suspect, and Colonel Wang can hardly be blamed."

"No harm done. Our ambassador has already notified your country's ambassador and told them to check it carefully." Duan Yingming said without a thought, "Hurry up and go, time waits for no one."

McNeil followed Duan Yingming lightly to the Nanting Office in the Britannian Empire, the first two times he came here he was stopped by Wang Shuang, and when he really became friends with Wang Shuang instead, he wasn't interested in this place anymore. McNeil followed behind Duan Yingming, he noticed that this youth had short hair while the vast majority of his compatriots had long hair. Wang Shuang had said before that in their cultural tradition, only criminals cut their hair. However, McNeil did not intend to inquire about the reason for this; he did not care about other people's personal matters.

Wang Shuang was standing in the lobby arguing with a man who was also wearing robes. Both of them were wearing official robes with their sleeves rolled up above their forearms, looking like they were living in a cockfight, close to actually starting a fight.

"Why has your master changed into a suit embroidered with a leopard again?" McNeil wondered.

"It's what he usually wears in the office."

"What about the one with the python design?"

"That was rewarded to him by the king."

"He casually wears clothes rewarded by the monarch out as sportswear?" McNeil cried and laughed.

Seeing McNeil's arrival, Wang Shuang stopped arguing with his opponent and took a big step towards McNeil, leading him towards a side corridor. There was an escape route map posted next to it, and McNeil saw the path to the basement on both sides of this corridor.

"We have notified your embassy and hope that they will be on alert." Wang Shuang's tone was gloomy, his eyes were bloodshot, "This group of God damned Britannians, I should have guessed that they are scheming ... When we go to the basement to have a look, you will understand."

Things came suddenly, the cause was that the real controller of the office, Huo Xingtian (third class ambassador, the same rank as Wang Shuang), intended to expand the basement in case of emergencies. Anyone with a bit of common sense could see that the Britannian Empire was becoming more and more dangerous, and Pendragon wasn't safe, so the embassy would have to have the ability to defend itself in the event of a melee within the city. Wang Shuang's opinion was the opposite, he wanted to take the initiative rather than sit back and wait for death within the embassy. Ambassador Huo is clearly not going to listen to Wang Shuang's advice and orders the expansion on his own, but the construction crew accidentally discovers that there are hidden tunnels within the original underground facility. This shocking discovery not only horrified Wang Shuang and Huo Xingtian, but also made them suspicious. Ever since the Nanting Protectorate set up the embassy in the name of the office, so many ambassadors had not found anything strange in it, and it was at this time that Wang Shuang discovered the accident, and all of them thought that there must be something treacherous in this matter.

McNeil came inside the already empty basement and saw a passageway in a hidden corner. He turned on his flashlight and shined it inside the passage, which was so long that no one outside could see anything.

"I remember a cold joke." McNeil put the flashlight aside, "There once was a king who didn't trust his minister, so he dug a tunnel between the palace and the minister's mansion, the other end of the tunnel was always locked, while the minister's end had to be kept open at all times. Then one day the minister committed suicide."

"Not funny indeed." Wang Shuang sat on the sidelines, not knowing what he was calculating, "If we hadn't been working on the construction today, we wouldn't have found such a big hidden danger. I hope you don't have the same hidden passage there in EU, no one wants to be watched by others."

The crowd fidgeted and waited for news, during which time Ambassador Huo contacted Chengtianfu for a reasonable plan to deal with the situation. At around four in the afternoon, Wang Shuang decided that they couldn't afford to remain in such a stalemate; they could either have a showdown with the other side, or they could continue to feign obliviousness and match acting skills with the Britannians.

"I am in favor of this decision." McNeil also supported Wang Shuang's idea, "Mr. Huo, I suggest you notify our embassy to stop the investigation so that the Britannians will never know that you have discovered their secret."

"Strange, instead of installing bugs or monitors, they use this ancient means." Wang Shuang felt a little confused, "I'm beginning to doubt their true intentions."

Following McNeil and Wang Shuang's suggestion, they installed a simple monitoring device at the entrance of the dark passage. As long as someone passed through or approached it, others inside the embassy would be alerted and prepared. At the same time, McNeil also suggested that they set up a tracking device so that they could investigate where the end of the culvert led.

It was evening when McNeil returned to his hotel from the Nanting office, and he was hungry and had just planned to go out to buy some food when he was blocked at the door by the priest, who had arrived in a hurry. The priest, who was full of panic, told him to close the door of the house, and then carefully checked all the corners of the room before he put his heart down and said to McNeil:

"Have you heard? There's a secret passage under the embassy of the Nanting Protectorate."

"Knew it long ago." McNeil was in a hurry to get to dinner, "Cleric, I was there."

"Alas, it is baffling. Since they are intent on spying on us, they don't use more effective equipment, but this old, backward way." The priest sat by the window looking out at the fire trucks that were whizzing down the street, perhaps one of the surrounding neighborhoods was on fire, "Besides, digging tunnels is too easy to expose."

McNeil, after explaining the situation to Father Palaskas, rushed out of the room to the dining room. His wolfish appearance caused giggles from the neighboring diners, as the not-so-strong-looking youth devoured the food around him like a bottomless pit, with nothing escaping his clutches. Only after he had had his fill of wine and food did McNeil slowly return to his room and continue his work during the day.

The Britannian Empire's nobles were commonly linked by marriage to each other, and the laws of the empire were incomparably cruel, even more brutal than those medieval monarchs. Once a nobleman committed a major crime, he could easily end up with his entire family killed, and most of them were innocent. In the past, in order to eliminate the enemy, there have been fake marriage and then deliberately committed crimes to kill the enemy's whole family of avengers, but this approach can only be used in the case of the person concerned alone, otherwise it will only be in vain to harm their own family.

After finishing the list, McNeil handed over the part he was responsible for to Father Palaskas, and then returned to his room to sleep. Too many things had happened recently, and he felt exhausted from the bottom of his heart. The suffering from the battle would only afflict the body, while the aftermath of the hookup would lurk in the soul forever.

McNeil dreamed that he was walking through an opulent palace, at the end of which were thrones adorned with jewels of unparalleled splendor, and in front of which stood a maiden holding a scepter. McNeil boldly stepped forward, and the maiden looked back at him - no face, just a myriad of misshapen and twisted mouths parasitizing the countenance.

Then, for the first time in his life, McNeil woke up to the sound of his own screams.

TBC

Chapter Notes:

Translation of the names of Nanting characters:

Duan Yingming (段英名)

Huo Xingtian (霍興天)

Nanting Officer title translation:

Third Class Ambassador (三等出使大臣)