Chapter 24
The appearance of Scotch Whisky sent shockwaves through the distillery.
The last newcomer to cause such a stir was Rye Whisky. This man, with his “distillery heartthrob” persona, had once risen to a position of great trust with Gin, only to reveal his ugly FBI mole face, brutally backstabbing the last few honest souls in the organization who still believed in true love.
Since then, a piece of advice has been passed down by the old-timers: “Don’t get close to the whiskies. You’ll become unfortunate.”
This group of whiskies was a bit too cursed. The feng shui of their codenames was unfathomable. It was better to be safe than sorry and avoid the whisky series of codenames as much as possible.
The new Scotch Whisky had put an end to the codename feng shui. The distillery’s superstitions were no match for his courage.
Was this the charm of body-double literature? Was this the power of the pure-hate black moonlight?!
The world was a giant basin of dog-blood drama, and even Gin—especially Gin—after the initial shock, was forced to accept the reality.
The new Scotch Whisky was filled with the powerful beauty of a sniper. The distillery was a place where strength was respected. There were no background checks, and they certainly didn’t care about their employees’ chaotic private lives.
Even if another sniper appeared and claimed to be the child of Gin and Vodka from a past life, Leopard Cat, I am born, as long as he had that powerful beauty, HR would still slam the table and declare: “You, start work tomorrow.”
For heaven’s sake, do you know how short-staffed the distillery is? If they could just get one more workhorse like Gin, even if the candidate wore a t-shirt with “Paid to Sabotage” on the front and “The Boss’s Greatest Threat” on the back and performed a belly dance in the office during the interview, HR would still smile and clap: “Excellent! So charming!”
The distillery’s HR quickly accepted Scotch Whisky. Gin, filled with murderous intent, accepted Scotch Whisky. Vermouth, with a sense of reverence, accepted Scotch Whisky.
There was only one person who, no matter what, could not accept it.
Bourbon felt this whole thing was too weird.
Too weird!
“A conspiracy,” the blond Public Security officer said with conviction. “It must be a conspiracy.”
The night was already very late. Amuro Tooru couldn’t sleep. He had no desire to sleep at all.
The moment he closed his eyes, words like “workplace bullying,” “you don’t even know this,” “behind the times,” and “the new Scotch” flashed through his mind, turning his perfectly good brain into a pile of mush.
Amuro’s eyes closed and opened, opened and closed. Finally, he sat up in one smooth motion and grabbed the TV remote.
The root of all this was that he had promised to watch the drama An’an starred in, but had broken his word.
A guy who deceives a girl will not have a good end. Amuro was enlightened.
If he had kept his promise, Bourbon would not have been bullied at the distillery gathering. If he hadn’t been bullied, he wouldn’t have been teased by Vermouth. If he hadn’t been teased by Vermouth, he wouldn’t have been front and center for “Scotch Whisky’s” self-introduction. The subsequent loss of composure, breakdown, and existential crisis would never have happened.
One wrong step, and every step after was wrong.
The blond young man decided to make amends, starting with not being ostracized by his Black Organization colleagues.
Amuro Tooru watched the drama with rapt attention.
His sense of immersion when watching a police procedural was on a whole other level. Amuro could put himself in the shoes of the police, the black side, the occasional guest-starring detective, and the working man who was everywhere in the plot. He played multiple roles at once, maximizing the viewing experience.
“The plot is actually pretty good,” Amuro said, nodding thoughtfully. He was beginning to understand why this drama was so popular.
But was it so good that it could make Vermouth, Vodka, and the others so obsessed?
Speaking of which, An’an hadn’t appeared yet.
The third male lead, who his colleagues had mentioned was “amazing as a person and a dog, especially amazing as a dog,” seemed like a normal person so far.
Just as Amuro was thinking about the third male lead, he appeared on the screen.
He walked alone towards an empty warehouse, his shadow long and distorted on the ground.
The third male lead kicked open the warehouse door. Amidst the flying dust, the dark-haired, dark-eyed girl raised her hand to wipe the blood from her cheek and cast an indifferent glance.
The camera’s favoritism cannot be faked. Director Kawamura practically wanted to shove the camera in Fan An’s face, frantically switching between different angles just to capture the most perfect shot.
Amuro was an amateur when it came to filming, but even he could feel this heartfelt favoritism.
Some people look beautiful in real life but are not photogenic. They either become mediocre on camera or need the help of heavy makeup.
Some people don’t need the director to bother finding an angle. A candid shot of them looks like a finely edited photo. They are warriors of the front-facing camera.
The girl lived next door to Amuro. On a good day, he could run into her several times. Every time he saw her, as he greeted her, Amuro would think: She’s such a beautiful person.
Black hair, red lips, eyes as dark as ink, as if she had stepped out of an oil painting.
But the background of the oil painting was not a field of flowers, but a gloomy old castle, rugged, strange trees, and a violent thunderstorm.
Just like the feeling she gave off on the screen: dangerous, crazy, with no regard for the lives of others, looking at everyone as if they were a dog.
Amuro stared subtly at the third male lead on the screen, who was being the girl’s dog.
When he had been on set, the script wasn’t written like this.
Director Kawamura had had a burst of inspiration. The plot had gone wild, adding a lot more scenes for the black side.
The director’s original intention might have just been to attract more villain fans, but he had unexpectedly catered to the tastes of the Black Organization. Many real-life criminals were watching and screaming: Awesome! So awesome!
Just by looking at how popular Gin was in the organization, you could tell how high the percentage of masochists was among them.
Amuro checked the public opinion. After the drama aired, Fan An’s fanbase had soared. A group of people, shouting that she was “amazing as a person and a dog,” had come barking.
“Your oppa looks at a dog with soulful eyes. My unnie looks at everyone like they’re a dog. The master of masters (fire).”
“Does anyone else think she’s acting too real? It doesn’t look fake. I suggest a thorough investigation.”
“Investigate what? Do you understand the weight of dominating the crime section’s front page for a month?”
“Debuted for months and still a suspect. Never forgetting her roots, I’m crying.”
“I want sister’s autograph so bad I can’t stand it. I asked a friend to go to the police station to steal her report. My friend has been out of contact. Did he pocket sister’s autograph for himself?”
“To the person above, your friend is probably giving his own statement right now, on the page next to your sister’s.”
“Nonsense! Sister’s report is in its own separate volume!”
Amuro Tooru: “…”
As expected of Fan An’s fans. They were cut from the same cloth, all of them talented individuals.
The undercover Public Security officer had reason to suspect that besides the distillery employees, Fan An’s fanbase also had forces within the police department. Otherwise, how would the fans know about her separate volume of reports? It must have been an internal leak.
The drama was still playing on the screen. After the third male lead became a dog, Director Kawamura completely stopped holding back. He was immersed in his art, unable to extricate himself, the plot full of twists and turns.
Perhaps because his inspiration had come from the shot Fan An had fired, Director Kawamura had added a lot more shooting scenes for her after revising the script.
Amuro hadn’t been on set. He couldn’t see the overlapping old shadow behind the girl through the lens like Morofushi Taka’aki could. Amuro saw something else.
The blond Public Security officer picked up the gun on the coffee table. He fiddled with it for a moment, then held it with both hands and aimed at the screen.
The girl on the screen happened to raise her gun as well, the two guns pointing at each other.
A strong sense of déjà vu washed over Amuro.
An’an’s marksmanship… why did it look so much like the police academy style?
He had trained in the same style. The sense of déjà vu was so strong it was as if the two of them were standing on the police academy’s shooting range. The girl was aiming at the target, and Furuya Rei was standing behind her, correcting her posture hand-in-hand, holding her hand, and guiding her to pull the trigger.
After the new Scotch Whisky, another strange thing had been added to the list.
Amuro thought of the “Ghost of Scotch” incident. Fan An had also been the sole survivor.
His new neighbor was always getting caught up in all sorts of strange incidents, as if she were surrounded by an ethereal mist.
What secrets was she hiding?
…
Knock, knock.
It was lunchtime. Fan An was in the kitchen, preparing to cook.
After Mentor Scotch had gone out to grind in the wild, she had lost her “beloved wife’s bento” and had to make her own meals.
Fan An knew how to cook. Although she wasn’t very good at seasoning or preparing vegetables, she was a meat specialist.
“Who should I kill today?” the dark-haired girl stood in front of the dripping refrigerator, weighing the boning knife in her hand.
The knock on the door interrupted her roll call. Fan An put down the boning knife and went to open the door. “Who is it?”
“Excuse me.” Amuro’s gaze swept over the clean but empty living room behind the girl, his eyes landing on her face. “Has An’an had lunch yet?”
“I was just about to make it,” Fan An replied. “I haven’t decided who to kill yet.”
The bloody water from the refrigerator flowed along the kitchen tiles, creating a river of blood on the white tiles.
Amuro, who had witnessed everything, was speechless. “…”
He thought of Fan An’s police academy-style marksmanship. If she had gone to the police academy after high school instead of entering the entertainment industry, Fan An could have single-handedly achieved the entire school’s case clearance rate.
Humans are highly adaptable creatures. After being tested by his high EQ for so long, Amuro had learned to deal with everything calmly.
He kindly reminded her, “After slaughtering a chicken or duck, you should bleed it out before putting it in the fridge. Otherwise, it’s easy to cause a bloodbath when you defrost it.”
“You can ask the vendor to slaughter the live animals you buy at the market,” Amuro said tactfully. “Next time, don’t go out in the rain wearing a raincoat, carrying a knife, and covered in blood.”
The fleeting glimpse he had caught had nearly given him a heart attack.
Director Kawamura’s script was still restrained. The intensity of the script wasn’t even a tenth of Fan An’s natural performance.
The girl obediently nodded.
She had been quite skilled when she helped her aunt in the kitchen back home, but after coming to Beika, Hiromitsu had always been the one busy in the kitchen.
Every time An’an wanted to help, the cat-eyed young man would coax her to the living room with a peeled apple, a peeled orange, or washed grapes. Her cooking skills had grown rusty.
If Amuro had known his childhood friend’s methods, he would have deeply sympathized. It was a very effective trick. He had used it before when he was fixing the lock, and it had never failed.
“I tried a new dish when I was making lunch today and accidentally made too much. I can’t finish it all by myself,” Amuro said, pressing his hands together in a plea. “Can An’an help me?”
Such a thing has happened? Miss An is duty-bound to help.
She eagerly threw the dripping refrigerator to the back of her mind and sat at Amuro’s dining table, tapping her bowl and waiting for food.
It’s only right for neighbors to help each other. Leave it to me.
Amuro placed a bowl of rice in front of the girl and, while he was at it, turned on the TV in the living room.
The drama Fan An starred in happened to be on.
“It’s already on this episode?” Her attention was drawn to it. She bit her chopsticks and watched the plot. “The police have found the body. They analyze: ‘Criminals revisit the scene of their crime. The real culprit may be among the onlookers at the time.'”
“Mr. Amuro, who do you think is the real culprit?”
Amuro glanced at the screen. In the police’s flashback, there were thirty to forty onlookers. Even a great detective couldn’t see through the culprit at a glance.
The blond Public Security officer found the real culprit at a glance.
He looked at Fan An.
The girl blinked.
Among the onlookers, the dark-haired, dark-eyed girl, even standing in the most inconspicuous corner, exuded a powerful presence.
A presence that made the police want to arrest her and bring her in for questioning at first sight.
Saying it out loud would be too hurtful. Amuro silently put some vegetables in the girl’s bowl. “Let’s keep a little suspense.”
Fan An thought so too. It was one thing for her to have the script, but she couldn’t spoil the viewing experience for other viewers.
The girl buried her head in her food. She ate very cutely, savoring everything. When she came across a dish she liked, her eyes would light up, and she would look especially happy.
A cook’s favorite kind of diner. Amuro was infected by her mood, and the corners of his lips curved up.
She looked completely different from how she did on the screen now. Neither dangerous nor scary, she exuded a soft and satisfied aura, like a small cat that had eaten its fill and was now pancaked out in the sun.
Her hair whorl looks so fluffy. I really want to touch it… Amuro abruptly reined in his thoughts and remembered the matter at hand.
He deliberately brought up the case of the blond’s frame-up on the set.
“The gun An’an used then and the one on the screen now aren’t the same, are they?” Amuro asked with certainty.
“It was a prop gun before. Later, Director Kawamura pulled some strings and got a real gun,” Fan An gestured. “The texture is completely different.”
Not just the texture, but the way she held the gun was also completely different. This was precisely why Amuro had gone to the trouble of luring her to his home for lunch.
He was very concerned about the girl’s police academy-style marksmanship.
For some reason, very concerned.
The sense of déjà vu was really too strong. In a daze, Amuro’s mind automatically generated an illusory image of him holding the girl’s hand, patiently correcting her posture, and guiding her to practice shooting.
Fan An didn’t know what the blond Public Security officer was thinking. Most of the time, she was an honest person who answered any question she was asked.
“I had a very good teacher, but I also practiced very seriously. During filming, I practiced so much that I got calluses on my hands.”
She held out her hand for Amuro to see.
A long time ago, Amuro had needed the help of a hot summer and a melting ice cream to determine if An’an had calluses on her hands.
This time, he had a legitimate reason. He took the girl’s hand, his thumb gently rubbing it.
Slightly hard calluses, not soft, but proof of her hard work.
It was as if it brought Furuya Rei back to his time at the police academy. The hardship of learning to shoot, the sweat that dripped during practice, and the comrades who shared the joys and sorrows…
“Why don’t you use some hand cream?” he said softly. “You have to take care of yourself even when you’re working hard.”
“Is it because it doesn’t look like an actor’s hand?” Fan An’s eyes curved like a crescent moon.
She didn’t really care if her hands were well-maintained. These hands had held a knife for a long time, and would continue to hold a gun. They were healthy enough, strong enough, and beautiful enough.
“Mr. Amuro’s suggestion, I’ve received it.”
The dark-haired girl took Amuro’s hand in return.
Her fingertips tentatively touched, finding the calluses on Amuro’s thumb in the same place.
The fair fingertips curiously rubbed the man’s wheat-colored skin, teasing, “Don’t just talk about me. This doesn’t seem like the hand of a café waiter either.”