After Hog shouted that, he panted nervously, obviously exhausted by the tracking trip.
"What happened? Speak slowly. Were you discovered?" Alan gently comforted Hog, who was in a hurry.
"I wasn't discovered. I discovered something, and the problem is very serious," Hog said, catching his breath.
"Is there anything special about that Golden Knight?" Shalltear couldn't help but interject at this moment.
"That... that Golden Knight, his true identity is the Minister of the German Ministry of Magic!" Hog stammered, finishing his sentence.
"This is impossible!" Alan's eyes widened in surprise upon hearing this. "How could Golden Knight be the Minister of Magic? You didn't mistake him, did you?"
"I also suspected at first if I had made a mistake, but after careful identification, I can confirm that the person holding the Golden Knight mask is Minister Peter, the Minister of Magic that you mentioned," Hog affirmed seriously.
"We've only been here for a day. How can you recognize him as the Minister of Magic? We haven't even seen what the Minister looks like!" Shalltear was also startled by Hog's words and immediately retorted.
"I'm not deaf. I can hear the conversations he has with others. I clearly heard others address him as Minister," Hog said testily.
"Explain in detail your tracking of Golden Knight. Do you have any recorded video footage? Although Alan was somewhat incredulous, seeing Hog's certainty, he instinctively chose to believe him.
"It's like this..." Hog pulled out a stack of recorded photos from his person and placed them in front of Alan, then began to explain in detail his tracking process.
It turned out that when Hog began tracking Golden Knight, initially it was similar to Alan and Shalltear; the target basically stayed in the Ministry of Magic. Hog, to ensure safety, did not attempt to venture deep into the Ministry of Magic. But he didn't go in, yet Golden Knight came out. After Hog had been staking out for a while, Golden Knight's location shifted from the Ministry of Magic, and he left with several other wizards from the Ministry of Magic. It was at this time that Hog locked onto Golden Knight and took photos of him. At the same time, Hog also attempted to eavesdrop on them, and then Hog discovered that the Golden Knight he was tracking was actually the Minister of Magic in the mouths of the other wizards!
This discovery also gave Hog a big fright. The true identity of Minister Peter being a secret cadre of the Silver Spears was simply sensational.
After listening to Hog's general description, Alan picked up the photos of Golden Knight, or rather, Minister Peter. The photos showed a middle-aged man in his sixties, with a well-proportioned figure and a robust spirit, accompanied by several wizards in professional formal attire.
"It doesn't make sense," Alan couldn't help but frown as he looked at the person in the photo.
After this Peter became the Minister of Magic, he fully pushed for the division of the German wizarding world. If he was someone placed by the Silver Spears, or had some connection with the club, it wouldn't be entirely unacceptable. But what he found hard to accept was that this Peter was Golden Knight himself. Because according to the information obtained from Thunderbird, Golden Knight was also a wizard who had drunk the Elixir of Life, so he should exhibit two characteristics.
One is that his appearance should be around twenty to thirty years old, because the Elixir of Life has the effect of reversing aging, but judging from the person in the photo, he looks too old, at least sixty or seventy. But if he hadn't drunk the Elixir of Life, that also didn't seem right, because Golden Knight was at least ninety to a hundred years old, and the person in the photo looked too young.
Of course, Golden Knight might also have used a transfiguration potion like Polyjuice Potion, but this Minister Peter has been in office for five or six years. Can he really ensure that such a long period of transfiguration goes undetected? Moreover, Polyjuice Potion is not that simple to make. A potion sufficient for five or six years of transfiguration would require a large amount of materials. Of course, this alone cannot fully prove that the person is not Golden Knight in disguise.
The biggest problem is, how dare Golden Knight appear directly in public after taking the Elixir of Life? It should be known that people who have taken the Snake Skin Potion must undergo a shedding ritual every month, and during the shedding period, the person will be completely defenseless. Therefore, other wizards would rather completely hide themselves in the dark. As the Minister of Magic, this Peter, if not working year-round, must at least spend most of his time in the public eye.
So Alan really couldn't understand where he got the courage to personally impersonate the Minister of Magic. Wasn't he afraid of his secret being discovered? What if someone saw him undergoing his shedding ritual one day? It should be known that the ritual lasts for twelve hours. Or what if a Silver Spear, who knows his true identity, figured out his shedding period? Wouldn't he then be at their mercy, to be manipulated and slaughtered at will?
"Sir, what do you think? Could this guy be Golden Knight?" Shalltear also looked at Alan with some uncertainty.
"I don't know. If this Minister Peter is really Golden Knight, then I can only say that he is truly bold to dare to appear openly." After a moment of thought, Alan made a simple judgment, "Now there are a few possibilities regarding Golden Knight's identity. First, this Peter is not Golden Knight; he simply gave his mask to Peter, letting him impersonate Golden Knight for him."
"You mean..." Hog suddenly realized upon hearing this, "This Peter is actually Golden Knight's substitute?"
"That's possible," Alan nodded calmly. "Of course, there's another situation, which is that Peter is indeed Golden Knight himself, but he has some way to avoid the shedding period, or some means to ensure his safety!"
"Then we only need to monitor him continuously for a month, right? If he really has a shedding period, wouldn't that prove he is Golden Knight?" Hog immediately jumped up excitedly upon hearing this.
"Although this method is a bit clumsy, it's not impossible," Alan didn't intend to solve the problem in the short term when he came out this time. "However, in that case, we'll have to find a reasonable way to stay in Germany."
"Uh, what method? Our excuse for this trip is a business trip, and it seems we can only stay for less than two months at most," Shalltear counted on her fingers.
"We can open a branch here and use that as an excuse to stay," Alan chuckled.
"Open a branch? Will the German Ministry of Magic agree?" Shalltear frowned upon hearing this. Shalltear's concerns were not unfounded. It is very difficult for foreign companies to open branches or subsidiaries in another country, because that would squeeze out local industries producing similar products. For example, in Britain, apart from the Floo-Powder Company which produces Floo powder, Gringotts, and a few publishing houses, you basically don't see industries from other countries. This is something that cannot be resolved even with money.
"It doesn't matter if they agree or not. The act and motive of trying to open a branch can serve as our cover for staying in Germany, so it doesn't matter if it's not successful later," Alan said with an indifferent smile. The situation in Germany was much more complicated than he had imagined, and it was very likely that it couldn't be resolved in the short term, so finding an excuse to stay was very important.
"So that's how it is," Shalltear nodded upon hearing this, then looked at Peter in the photo again. "Then how should we deal with this Minister Peter next? Just tracking him is too passive, isn't it?"
"Indeed," Alan nodded, but then became somewhat conflicted. "But before we figure out his true background, it's not advisable to act rashly, especially not to take direct action. This is the Minister of Magic, and I don't want to be wanted by the German Ministry of Magic with a charge of attacking the Minister of Magic."
"How troublesome," Hog scratched his head with his hind leg, somewhat annoyed. "Even if this Peter isn't the Minister of Magic, he at least has a close connection with the Silver Spears. I didn't expect this rotten club to have such deep infiltration in Germany. What good does dividing Germany do for them?"
"In the eyes of outsiders, splitting a country and its Ministry of Magic might seem quite foolish, because purely from a political perspective, the Minister of Magic's power would be divided," Alan said, then gave a cold laugh. "But for an illegal organization like the Silver Spears, successfully splitting a Ministry of Magic allows them to insert enough personnel into one of the factions, and then indirectly control a country!"
"You mean?" Shalltear's expression turned stern, then she exchanged a shocked glance with Hog. "They want to establish a country completely controlled by them?"
"Don't say it, there really is such a possibility." Although Hog was also shocked, he calmly nodded. "If the Ministry of Magic is successfully split, the personnel of the two newly formed Ministries of Magic will certainly be selected from existing staff, and Peter is very likely to become the Minister of Magic of one of the countries. He only needs to ensure that the Ministry of Magic in the country he serves is entirely made up of his own people, which would be equivalent to..."
"Equivalent to the imminent birth of a country completely under the control of the Silver Spears," Shalltear's face gradually turned ugly, then she looked at Alan again. "If that's really the case, the Silver Spears might have many more members in Germany besides those four."
Alan nodded in agreement upon hearing this. The four Silver Spears he was tracking were all based on Thunderbird's mask contact list, so they seemed few. But if the Silver Spears was preparing for a separatist coup in Germany, they would need many more people, and they might have developed more members and collaborators in Germany.
However, Alan was not too worried that Germany would actually split because of this, as he remembered that the Berlin Wall would fall in two years, and East Germany and West Germany would reunite three years later. Of course, this was on the premise of no violent coup.