Mystery: Gray Walker

Chapter 32 Precursors to Losing Control

The gatekeeper closed the iron gate.

A slight smile appeared on Green's lips.

Locks? Doors? Walls? These obstacles, which are insurmountable for ordinary people, have lost their meaning in his presence.

He crouched low, made his way through the port authority's perimeter wall, and without stopping, cautiously crept into the shadows beside the main building. After confirming that the guards did not react, he passed through the heavy wooden door and appeared inside the main building.

He soon arrived at the door of Henry Burns' office.

His figure disappeared, and when he reappeared, he slowly walked towards Henry's office chair, his fingers brushing against the high-end oak desk, casually picking up a gold-plated fountain pen. The room was filled with the scent of cigars and men's fragrance.

"Just like the one I gave to Sura... Tsk, someone like that doesn't even deserve to be in my league..."

The pen twirled between his fingers as his gaze swept across the room. "Let's see what little secrets our Manager Henry is hiding..."

The desk, filing cabinet, sofa, coffee table... were all ordinary items. His gaze finally settled on the desk in front of him, and he quickly rummaged through the drawers.

The documents are mostly routine procurement applications, material lists, and reimbursement forms from the port authority, and on the surface, there doesn't seem to be any major problem.

In a side drawer, he found several bottles of pills with foreign labels. Upon closer inspection, he discovered they were some kind of health supplement that claimed to "enhance male vitality."

Green couldn't help but curl his lip. "They need this to maintain themselves, and they still can't control their lower bodies, really..."

He put the medicine bottle back as it was and shook his head.

Next was the filing cabinet against the wall. Inside were neatly categorized files from previous years, thickly dusty and seemingly untouched. Green quickly scanned several categories that might involve financial transactions, but still found no obvious accounting discrepancies or suspicious records.

"Is it really just this petty thing of harassing female subordinates?" Green frowned slightly, feeling a little strange.

Given Henry's long-standing position in this lucrative sector, would he be content with just this little bit of "fun" and verbal threats? That doesn't make sense.

Such a shrewd person is either extremely clean-handed, but that's clearly unlikely, or they've hidden the truly deadly thing in an even more concealed place.

Wait! A thought flashed through Green's mind. A hidden compartment, a secret room... That's right, why would something that's detrimental to him be placed in the open?

His gaze swept across every corner of the room again, searching for anything illogical or overly decorated. Just as he was about to give up, his eyes fell on a rather conspicuous, large oil painting on the wall.

The oil painting depicts a woman in a languid posture, her clothes half-undone, holding an infant and breastfeeding. The brushstrokes are delicate, carrying a certain ambiguous maternal glow.

Although hanging it in the office might seem a bit out of place, it could also be interpreted as the manager's "personal artistic taste".

Green didn't pay much attention to the content of the painting. He stood up, walked slowly to the painting, and gently ran his fingers along the edge of the painting, carefully tracing the outline... Suddenly, his fingers stopped and pressed down on the raised part of the flower shape.

"Found you," Green said with a cold smile.

"Click".

A soft sound, but the sound did not come from the picture frame, but from the other side of the office, near the wall next to a tall bookshelf in the corner.

A wall panel that was originally perfectly sealed suddenly popped open, revealing a heavy, leather-covered hidden door behind it.

"Tsk, esteemed Manager Henry, you have quite a few little secrets..." Green snorted and walked to the hidden door.

The door was unlocked; perhaps Henry thought the external mechanisms were secure enough.

Gently push it open, turn on the light, and Green stands there stunned.

It wasn't another office or archive room as he had imagined, but a secluded room decorated... in an extremely erotic style.

The room wasn't large, but it was luxuriously decorated with dim lighting. The most eye-catching feature was an oversized round waterbed, scattered with various embarrassing items, the silk sheets were messy, and the air was filled with a strong fragrance.

What shocked Green even more was that the walls were almost entirely covered with photos.

These are not artistic photos, but rather "special" photos of different women from various angles. Many of the women in the photos have dazed expressions, and some even look humiliated. The background seems to be this room.

Next to the photos, some are also labeled with the date, a short code, or a comment.

Green vaguely remembered that some of the faces belonged to female employees from different departments of the port authority.

The sheer number of films being submitted and the wide range of people involved far exceeded Green's expectations.

This was no longer simple harassment, but coercion, control, and recording. Each photograph likely represented a weakness that Henry had in his grasp, a 'trophy' for him to satisfy his desires and power.

Green took a deep breath, suppressing the disgust and chill in his heart.

He originally only wanted to find some leverage over financial issues, but he never expected to uncover such a filthy den of iniquity. These photos are more damaging than any accounting problem.

Without touching anything, Green carefully memorized the room's layout, the general content and number of the photos, and any other items that might be present.

He also paid special attention to several photos that looked new or had a lot of labeled information.

"It's... disgusting," Green muttered to himself, his eyes cold.

This evidence is enough to ruin Henry's reputation and even land him in jail. Having this in hand is a deadly weapon that can silence Henry completely and even allow him to be manipulated.

His gaze shifted from those objects to a corner of the secret room, where a black safe, about half a person's height, stood quietly. It looked quite heavy, with no label, only a complex mechanical combination lock.

"Let's see what other good stuff is inside..." Green squatted in front of the safe, lost in thought. How to open it became a problem.

He stared at the keypad, then looked at his hands, and a strange thought popped into his head.

"Opening the door obviously won't let me crawl into the safe... but what if a part of my body goes inside...?"

After saying that, he slowly extended his right hand towards the safe door. His hand gradually disappeared, appearing inside the safe.

He touched it!

The interior space was small, divided into two levels. The upper level contained several thick ledgers and document bags, while the lower level held some miscellaneous items, including a small velvet box and several rolls of film tied with ribbons.

As his arm began to retract, his body started to tremble slightly, and fine beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.

"Get out here!" he hissed.

The arm was slowly withdrawn, and when the right hand was completely out of the air, it held a blue-covered ledger, and... a small velvet box that was pulled out along with it.

"Well--"

Green felt a bit dizzy, his vision blurred, and he seemed to hear a creaking sound in his ears, the sound of a door opening and closing, growing louder and louder, and then another voice appeared, it was... his own voice!

[...You've found the 'gap'...]

[...You have overcome the 'barrier'...]

[...You've brought the 'part' outside the 'whole'...You've brought the 'interior' before the 'outer'...]

[...Look, how simple it is...boundaries are inherently illusory...walls, skin, concepts...all barriers are merely the sleeping 'doors'...]

[...You have touched reality...Why not go a step further?...Let 'here' and 'there' completely merge...Let 'you and I' never be separated again...]

[...Push me away...Become me...We...are the 'path'...]

[...Push me away...Become me...We...are the 'path'...]

"No!"

He covered his head with his hands, trying to ignore the sound, but it continued to echo in his mind, accompanied by a creaking sound as it opened and closed.

Green realized he had messed up this time; this must be what Lillian meant by "out of control"!

He suddenly dug his fingernails hard into the inside of his thigh.

"It hurts...it hurts so much! But this pain is mine! My body is aching!"

Green's thoughts began to wander, and some past memories flashed through his mind. He began to mutter unconsciously, trembling, trying to cover up the ramblings with his voice and the pain.

"Last week, Aunt Sula's stew was so salty that I drank a whole pot of water... Sula even secretly poured half a glass of wine in to flavor it, and Auntie found out and nagged about it all night..."

[...Look, how simple it is...boundaries are inherently illusory...walls, skin, concepts...all barriers are merely the sleeping 'doors'...]

[...You have touched reality...Why not go a step further?...Let 'here' and 'there' completely merge...Let 'you and I' never be separated again...]

"When I received my first paycheck, I bought my aunt a shawl that she had been eyeing for a long time but couldn't bring herself to buy. She complained that I was wasting money while secretly wiping away tears..."

Gradually, the babbling became quieter. Green realized that his method had worked, so he kept recalling and talking about his aunt, uncle, and Sura. In the end, he even revealed Emily's shameful secrets.

Finally, the sound of the door closing disappeared, the seductive murmurs ceased, and his mouth finally stopped.

Green was now drenched in cold sweat.

"That was close... Seeing that this kind of localized 'penetration' is not something I can do right now..." Green was a little scared.

He thought of William, unsure if he would become a monster like that if he lost control, but the babbling voice gave him a feeling that he might become a door.

He slumped to the ground, taking a long time to recover before his gaze fell on the ledger lying on the floor.

This strange idea of ​​his almost cost him his life.

He picked up the ledger and opened it.

These weren't official port authority accounts, but rather confidential transaction records. As he read through each page, Green's eyebrows furrowed higher and higher.

It contains detailed records of time, code, amount, description of items and services, as well as abbreviations of names of people or companies.