Chapter 40
Fan An was unable to die in the movie theater as she had wished.
She had already found the perfect spot to fall, and was in the middle of drawing a line around herself with chalk, when the frantic host rushed over, begging her to choose a different place of death.
“There’s a problem with the equipment in the movie theater. It needs to be repaired urgently,” the host said, wiping the hot sweat from his forehead. “The cruise ship is so big. Take another look. Maybe you’ll find a more suitable scene.”
If the equipment needed to be repaired, then there was nothing to be done. A worker doesn’t make things difficult for another worker. Fan An was very easygoing and nodded. “Then I’ll die somewhere else.”
[Sister has such a good temper. She’s been so obedient to the production team. She wasn’t even impatient when they kept redrawing lots.]
[She even silently accepted being openly rigged. She really… I’m crying.]
[Is it really an equipment malfunction? Why do I feel like that bomb looked so real…]
[Me too. The ticking made my heart almost stop.]
[Impossible. It’s just a show effect. The person in front is so paranoid.]
[This production team just loves to cause trouble. I bet they didn’t just plant one bomb. There are definitely more easter eggs.]
[I just checked the other live streams. No easter eggs.]
[Because they’re lame! Look! What did I tell you? Sister found another one! The chosen one!]
In the cruise ship’s KTV room, the dark-haired girl squatted in front of a flashing red bomb, her chin resting on her hand. The cameraman moved in for a close-up, and she cooperatively flashed a peace sign.
The chat was filled with a screen of “hahahahaha,” converging into a sea of joy.
The happiness was theirs. The variety show director was about to go crazy.
“Again?!”
The chaotic backstage was as messy as a battlefield. The broadcast director no longer had the energy to care about the other live streams. Everyone’s eyes were glued to one person.
The girl, who had been persuaded to leave for the second time, was still on the path of finding a place to die. She pondered the map for a moment, then pushed open the glass door of the greenhouse garden.
Half a minute later, the variety show director, the screenwriter, the prop master, and the host, with trembling hands, took out the emergency heart pills from their pockets and poured them into their mouths, collapsing as if they were having a seizure.
The production team was lucky. At least they had brought emergency heart pills.
…
“Aniki, I have something to tell you. You have to stay calm,” Vodka swallowed.
He looked like a heroic martyr about to step into a minefield, his face filled with a righteous disregard for life and death.
Gin looked over coldly. The silver-haired man, from the tips of his hair to the tips of his toes, embodied the word “indifference.” Even if Mount Fuji erupted in his face, this lone-wolf-like, cold-blooded killer would not be moved.
If it’s Aniki, he can definitely accept any bad news! With a blind worship for his big brother, Vodka bravely charged forward.
He: “The bombs we installed on the cruise ship have been dismantled.”
Gin’s face instantly became terrifying. The cold-blooded killer transformed into a gloomy ghost.
The bombs on the cruise ship had been installed by Gin himself. Every location had been carefully selected by him, the angles tricky. He had never considered the possibility of them being discovered.
No, it wasn’t entirely impossible. If someone had leaked the information… Gin’s eyes narrowed, killing intent boiling in them.
Suspicion was the foundation of his personality. Gin suspected everything. The mole is among us!
There were five people who had boarded the ship with him. Who was the most suspicious?
The star-chasing Scotch, the slacking Bourbon, the bound-together Chianti and Korn, or the idle Vodka?
“Vodka,” Gin’s voice seemed to come from hell. “You weren’t at the scene. How do you know the bombs were dismantled?”
Vodka, who had suddenly become the target of Gin’s suspicion, felt his world collapse. “Aniki?!”
No, Aniki! I am your most loyal, most considerate, one-of-a-kind little brother! Have you forgotten all the years of deep friendship we’ve forged through thick and thin in the movies, Aniki?
As Vodka was at a loss for words, an unexpected person saved his life.
Bourbon coughed. “Gin, do you never watch live streams?”
Gin frowned. Before Vodka had told him the bad news, the distillery’s number one workhorse had been thinking about the mission. The Top Killer never slacked off during work hours.
So much so that when he came to his senses, he found that all five of his teammates were engrossed in their phones. The meeting room was like a gathering of internet-addicted teenagers, all of them donating to the streamer.
The ostracized Gin was speechless. “…”
Even the big brother of the distillery could be bullied at work. This was the Black Organization, a ruthless company that believed in a wolf-pack culture, without a shred of human care.
Fortunately, Gin had Vodka. He had his little brother who would never leave him and was loyal to him.
Vodka shared his screen and said eagerly, “Aniki, please look.”
Gin looked over. A comment jumped into his eyes: Thank you “I will follow Aniki to the death” for joining the streamer’s fan club.
Vodka wiped his sweat. “I only donated a little, just a little.”
In the live stream, the fire hydrant cabinet in the movie theater was open. The dark-haired, dark-eyed girl was showing the ticking bomb to her fans. The chat was full of praise: “The production team is so dedicated.”
Vodka: Of course they are. This is fresh merchandise that the organization just smuggled in.
Seeing the bomb he had installed himself exposed on camera, Gin, on the contrary, calmed down.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said calmly. “It’s not the only bomb.”
Exposed is exposed. There were plenty of backups.
The girl on the screen was persuaded to leave by the host. Fan An walked towards the KTV.
Gin: “…”
Fan An walked towards the greenhouse garden.
Gin: “…”
Fan An walked towards the gym.
“…”
A silent silence echoed in the room. No one dared to speak under Gin’s terrifying low pressure.
Heavens, Bourbon said with reverence. It’s a conceptual god.
Fan An had visited all the places with good feng shui on the cruise ship. Every single one of her favorite death spots had an easter egg set up by the production team.
“To think there is someone in the world so in sync with me,” Fan An said with surprise. “Could it be my soulmate?”
My best friend, where are you?!
Hiromitsu, who was watching the live stream: No, it’s your Silver-Haired Model Bro.
Fortunately, An’an and Gin were enemies. The undercover Public Security officer silently made the sign of the cross. Hiromitsu couldn’t imagine how terrifying it would be if these two were to collude.
“What now?” Scotch Whisky spoke up. “The mission has already failed. Do we have a backup plan?”
The audience hadn’t recognized the bomb, but the production team clearly had. The last few times the host had asked An’an to change locations, his voice had been tinged with a sob, full of brokenness.
What puzzled Hiromitsu was, how could a variety show production team know how to dismantle a bomb?
And with so many bombs installed on the cruise ship, why were the captain and crew continuing to sail as if nothing had happened? Were they not planning to call the police at all?
Hiromitsu’s gaze searched the room. On the coffee table was a cruise ship guide. The cover of the booklet was printed with the name of the producer: Mori Corporation.
The undercover Public Security officer remembered now. This was a cruise ship from Tokyo to Yokohama.
A mere bomb. The cruise ship captain, a Yokohama native and an external employee of the Port Mafia, was disdainful.
Calling the police for such a small matter? Does the leading organization in Yokohama still want its face?
“The bombs have all been dismantled, right? The tourists are also stable. It’s completely fine. Keep sailing.”
The captain was stable. The viewers in the live stream were stable. The minesweeper expert Miss An was stable. The two undercover Public Security officers were stable.
Gin’s emotions were also very stable.
Vodka had thought his big brother would turn into a fire-breathing T-Rex and chew everyone in the room out, but Gin hadn’t. He was still a cool guy, silently biting his cigarette, the smoke blurring his cold and handsome face.
Vodka: As expected of Aniki! This temperament, this magnanimity!
But Bourbon and Scotch, on the other hand, had both raised their guard.
The night before a storm is always particularly calm. Gin was famous in the Black Organization not only for his zero tolerance for moles, but also for his unscrupulous methods when completing a mission.
Gin had done things like strafing the Tokyo Tower with an Osprey more than once. Could the mere dismantling of a few bombs really make him admit defeat?
Bourbon’s knuckles tapped lightly on the coffee table.
There was one possibility. He deduced calmly:
Destroying the cruise ship was never Gin’s real goal from the beginning.
Even if the exposure of the bombs was not in Gin’s plan, the mission could still be carried out.
After a brief moment of thought, Bourbon spoke up to probe.
There was no choice. This was the job of an undercover agent. Vodka could blindly follow Gin. Chianti and Korn could remain aloof. Only the whiskies had to pretend to be concerned about the mission’s progress, in the hope of digging out a little information from the black side.
Bourbon didn’t have much hope. Gin was the kind of highly sensitive person who, if you asked him whether to order takeout or dine in for dinner, would narrow his eyes and demand to know if you were trying to find out his address, if you were trying to listen in on organization intelligence at his door in the middle of the night, if you were a stalker sent by a rival. Super-sensitive skin.
“Hmph… I might as well tell you,” Gin said, crushing the cigarette butt between his fingers.
He curled his lips into a bloodthirsty shark-like smile and threw a stack of files on the coffee table.
The pages flew. A magnificent, heavily detailed ukiyo-e image was printed on the white paper.
Below the collection was its origin: a ukiyo-e woodblock print from the Edo period.
A national treasure. Furuya Rei recognized this painting from the case file of a shocking cultural relic disappearance case at the Metropolitan Police Department.
A highly respected collector, on his deathbed, had wanted to donate his private collection to a museum. The museum director had personally handled this precious donation, but the day after he was notified to pick up the painting, he had heard the terrible news that the collector had died suddenly in his sickbed, and the cultural relic had disappeared.
This case was still unsolved.
“This time, the mission is to smuggle this ukiyo-e to Mexico,” Gin said lightly. “A drug lord from a local gang is interested in cooperating with the organization to establish a highly profitable smuggling line. This ancient painting is proof of the organization’s sincerity.”
The cruise ship sailed from Tokyo to Yokohama. Yokohama is a famous port city. The mafia has a pivotal position in Yokohama, and the city’s port is full of smuggling ships.
The Black Organization group would change ships in Yokohama and smuggle the national treasure out of the country, thereby establishing a smuggling line flowing with money and crime.
“The most likely place for a slip-up is the route from Tokyo to Yokohama.” Within the country’s borders, in the jurisdiction of the red side, Gin had planted a large number of bombs on the cruise ship just in case.
The Top Killer let out a displeased “tsk.” He hated those people who lived in the spotlight. The shadows that reached out from the darkness would be burned by the light source.
It was the same principle as why the FBI couldn’t do anything to Vermouth. Dealing with public figures was always particularly troublesome.
Oh well, the bombs weren’t the point. Gin just wanted to do a little quiet smuggling.
“Now, besides me, the only people who know the details of the mission are the five of you.”
Vodka, Chianti, Korn, Bourbon, Scotch. Gin chewed their codenames between his teeth.
He was sure that there had been no leaks at any stage, so…
“If there is a leak, it means there is a traitor among you.”
The silver-haired man’s smile was wanton and cruel. Compared to completing the mission, he was more interested in catching a mole.
If the smuggling goes smoothly, very good.
If the mission fails but a rat is caught, also very good.
Gin, the house, wins all.
…
The group dispersed, each returning to their own room.
Furuya Rei sat on the sofa, his head lowered in thought, his fingertips tapping his knee again and again.
He had to pass the information to the Public Security Bureau. He absolutely could not let Gin take a national treasure out of the country.
“What a brilliant open conspiracy,” the blond Public Security officer’s brow furrowed.
He couldn’t not pass on the information.
Passing on the information would expose his identity.
How much effort had Bourbon put into his undercover work in the organization until now? Was it really worth exposing himself for this?
“Can I frame someone?” Furuya Rei said to himself.
If he could both sabotage Gin’s plan and make the distillery turn on itself, mistaking a real liquor for a fake one, then it would be the Public Security Bureau that would win all.
Vodka, Chianti, Korn, Scotch… Furuya Rei slowly calculated in his mind.
Who was the easiest to frame?
“The person with the shallowest roots in the organization is the easiest to frame.”
Hiromitsu Morofushi sighed deeply.
Who had the shallowest roots among the five?
It was him, Scotch Whisky.
“If I were Zero, and I wanted to sabotage the organization’s plan without exposing myself, the best way would be to throw the blame for the information leak on someone else.”
Bourbon has suffered from the body-double literature for a long time!
For both public and private reasons, he was very likely to do so.
Hiromitsu couldn’t think about it in detail. It was too much of a dark joke.
He had to discuss this with someone, with the only person he could discuss it with.
…
The variety show live broadcast had been long enough for today. The production team was exhausted from the constantly refreshing wild bombs. They didn’t even want the traffic anymore and just wanted to end the broadcast as soon as possible.
As the sky grew dark, Fan An enjoyed the rich buffet provided by the cruise ship with Director Kawamura and returned to her room, satisfied.
She received a message from her special follow.
“Hiro?” An’an was puzzled. “Why did he send me a room number?”