Chapter 62
“Is there still no news about Echiri?!”
In the Metropolitan Police Department’s conference room, Mrs. Yoshijima clutched her husband’s arm, on the verge of collapse.
Senior Superintendent Yoshijima was silent. Mrs. Yoshijima’s grip on his arm tightened, her nails almost digging into his flesh.
“It’s all your fault!” Mrs. Yoshijima’s eyes were red. “Why did you have to say those things to provoke the kidnapper? I don’t care if we go bankrupt! I just want my daughter back!”
“I am a Senior Superintendent of the Metropolitan Police Department. How can I yield to a kidnapper?” Senior Superintendent Yoshijima pulled his wife’s hand away and said sternly, “Justice will prevail over evil. Echiri is my child. She should understand this too.”
Mrs. Yoshijima looked at her husband as if he were a madman, her face full of disbelief. “What are you talking about?! Echiri’s safety is the most important thing!”
Seeing that the couple was about to come to blows, Inspector Megure hurried forward to mediate. “Please calm down. This kidnapping case has been taken over by the Public Security Bureau. Echiri will definitely be rescued.”
The news that Public Security had taken over made Mrs. Yoshijima a little more rational. Senior Superintendent Yoshijima’s eyes flickered.
On the surface, he was still the same silent, solemn, and dignified figure.
“Senior Superintendent Yoshijima is a bit too heartless,” a police officer whispered outside the conference room.
“Yeah, he won’t even back down to a kidnapper when his own child has been kidnapped.”
“But it also shows that his faith in justice is very noble, right? He will never yield to evil.”
“He’s a terrible father, but a very reliable Senior Superintendent.”
The faint sounds of discussion reached Senior Superintendent Yoshijima’s ears. He rubbed his palms, suppressing the upward curve of his lips.
If the world were a game, he could already hear the sound of his reputation increasing by +1, +1.
Not enough. Still not enough.
If Echiri were to die in this kidnapping, her grief-stricken father, standing before all his colleagues and vowing to fight evil to the end, his reputation would truly reach its peak.
The position of the highest-ranking officer in the Metropolitan Police Department, the Superintendent General, would also be within his grasp!
Superintendent General Hakuba, your son is already in high school. It’s time to abdicate and make way for the younger generation.
Senior Superintendent Yoshijima was not worried about any accidents in the kidnapping. He had a very reliable ally.
An unfathomable multinational criminal organization had extended an olive branch to him. Senior Superintendent Yoshijima had personally witnessed a mysterious woman who looked exactly like his wife easily take his daughter from their home. The woman had glanced up, her eyes meeting his through the hidden camera.
Senior Superintendent Yoshijima’s hair had stood on end. He had cut off the surveillance and no longer doubted the plan the Black Organization had given him to execute.
“If I could, I wouldn’t want to sacrifice Echiri either. But the documents I leaked to the organization before have been faintly suspected by my superiors. If they investigate me, all my years of hard work will be in vain, and I might even be sentenced to prison… Damn it, there must be a police mole in the organization. Unfortunately, with my authority, I can’t find them.”
Senior Superintendent Yoshijima was eager to establish his identity and gain the trust of his superiors. He had finally decided to offer up his own daughter to achieve a win-win situation for both him and the Black Organization.
Risk it for the biscuit. Maybe he would really become the Superintendent General.
The Black Organization wouldn’t lose out either. The daughter of a Senior Superintendent had been kidnapped by them. The police moles lurking in the distillery would certainly not be able to stand by. Once the moles started to act, what awaited them was a brutal exposure!
…
“Is this what it feels like to have an enemy on the inside?”
Vodka said, intoxicated. “I’m starting to understand why the cops like to plant moles in the organization.”
So satisfying. Completely playing the red side for a fool.
Vodka’s intoxication didn’t last long. His cool-guy big brother, who was smoking coolly beside him, received a call from Vermouth.
“The child I kidnapped seems to have been kidnapped,” the blond woman’s tone was slightly raised. “What is this? Has the organization been double-crossed?”
Gin: ???
“Are you sure she was kidnapped, not rescued?” Gin asked grimly.
Vermouth: “I’m sure. Yoshijima Echiri disappeared in the mall. I didn’t hear any broadcasts looking for her. The spy planted in the Metropolitan Police Department reported that the police are still running around like headless chickens, looking for her. Her parents and relatives have also not received any news.”
The blond woman paused for a subtle moment. “Given that her disappearance was in Beika Town, the probability of a second kidnapping is not low.”
Don’t underestimate the City of Crime.
Things were getting complicated. Gin finished his cigarette with a cold face. He crushed the butt. “The plan remains unchanged.”
Gin didn’t care in the slightest about Senior Superintendent Yoshijima’s wish to become the Superintendent General by sacrificing his daughter.
He only cared about the moles. He only cared if he could catch a big fish this time.
“Pick a ten-year-old child from the organization’s orphanage and disguise her as Yoshijima Echiri,” Gin said. “Set up a place to hold her, and then spread the news.”
“OK,” Vermouth said, putting on her helmet and getting on her motorcycle. She twisted the throttle and sped down the street in the howling wind.
…
Braving the biting cold wind, Mentor Scotch found his unlucky student and the unlucky child who had been tormented by his student by the self-service sausage grill.
The big and small girls were huddled together, eating grilled sausages, their mouths full of oil. Logically speaking, the adult one was instilling the twisted logic of “two sausages, the adult eats one and a half” into the child.
Yoshijima Echiri, blinded by her fan filter, nodded with sparkling eyes at whatever the kidnapper said.
“Hiro, you’re here,” Fan An said, seeing Hiromitsu, and held up Yoshijima Echiri like Simba. “Look, our child.”
Yoshijima Echiri was wearing a large woolly hat. Hiromitsu couldn’t see her face clearly. And Fan An had only said the explosive statement “Yes, we have a child” on the phone. He had rushed over, thinking that An’an had picked up an abandoned baby on the street.
“She looks like she’s in elementary school. Doesn’t she remember her parents’ phone number?” Hiromitsu said, taking off the little girl’s hat as he spoke.
A face that was wanted all over the city appeared before Mentor Scotch.
Hiromitsu: “…”
Yoshijima Echiri blinked innocently.
Fan An blinked innocently.
Hiromitsu: No, you’re not innocent at all! Don’t try to get away with it by being cute!
“How could it be? I’m really very innocent this time,” Suspect and Kidnapper An said, feeling very wronged that her respected Mentor Scotch didn’t trust her. She was about to throw a tantrum. “I’m the one who was framed.”
She recounted the whole story, especially the part where she had seen through Senior Superintendent Yoshijima’s true face, emphasizing it heavily.
“Although I haven’t unlocked the detective’s deduction skill, when it comes to the experience of being framed by the real culprit, the great detective is just a little brother in front of me,” Suspect An said proudly.
After hearing the whole story, Hiromitsu was sincerely impressed. An’an is so strong.
No matter how evil the other party was, in the presence of Suspect An, they had to retreat and hand over the title of the biggest and most evil.
The competition for the title of suspect is like a thousand soldiers crossing a single-plank bridge. An’an stands alone, invincible.
“The problem now is, I don’t feel comfortable taking Echiri back to the police station,” Fan An said.
“Senior Superintendent Yoshijima is her biological father, after all. As long as he’s ruthless enough to spray some chili water in his eyes and say with red eyes, ‘What’s your motive for slandering our father-daughter relationship?’, and Echiri is morally blackmailed by her family ties, I’ll really become a kidnapper.”
Her worries were not without reason, but Hiromitsu was not worried at all.
As long as An’an called her ex-boyfriend, everything would be solved.
Hiromitsu remembered the half-hour he had spent facing the wall at the storage closet door, struggling between trying to help his two star-crossed friends reconcile and really not wanting to get involved in their little couple’s drama, caught in a moral and ethical dilemma.
In any case, he should tell Zero first. Hiromitsu took out his phone.
He saw the contact name [Bourbon] and slapped his forehead. I almost forgot. Both Scotch’s body double and An’an’s distant cousin are very disliked by Furuya.
“An’an, lend me your phone.”
The calls from Scotch’s body double and the Fan family’s distant cousin might be hung up on, but Hiromitsu was 100% sure that Furuya would answer his ex-girlfriend’s call in a second.
“Beep, beep, beep…”
“Beep, beep, beep…”
No one answered.
Something was wrong. Hiromitsu stared at the glaring red of the failed call.
He: This shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be!
Answer the phone, Zero! Otherwise, no one can save you. Hiromitsu prayed in his heart while carefully observing the dark-haired girl’s emotions.
Even after the third call went unanswered, Hiromitsu began to rack his brains for an excuse for his friend.
The nature of undercover work is special. It’s normal to not be able to answer the phone for a while… no, it’s not normal. With Furuya’s ability, he could at least have sent a quick text message saying, “It’s not convenient to answer the phone right now. Please wait for a call back later.”
An’an had no connection to the police. On the contrary, she had a lot of fans in the organization. Even if Bourbon were to answer her call in front of Gin, at most, it would only earn him Vodka’s envious voice, “Can you help me get an autograph? A TO-signed one, please.” He wouldn’t be suspected of anything.
So the only reason Furuya wasn’t answering the phone was because he didn’t want to.
An’an took her phone from Hiromitsu’s palm and swiped the screen with her finger.
Hiromitsu, as their mutual friend, was already drenched in sweat. The girl’s long, black hair covered the side of her face, making it impossible to see her expression.
“—The signal must be blocked.”
A map with a flashing red dot was reflected on the screen. An’an flipped her wrist and showed the phone to Hiromitsu.
“The tracker shows he’s in a very remote location,” the girl said.
In that instant, Hiromitsu was flooded with question marks.
His life-doubting expression made An’an want to laugh. She raised her hand and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, her tone light.
“If you want to ask me why I’m still tracking my ex-boyfriend’s location after we broke up, the answer is that I am an outlaw who has no regard for the crime of invading others’ privacy.”
“If you want to ask why the phone call can’t get through with a blocked signal, but the tracker is still working, the answer is, don’t underestimate old people. Dr. Agasa is only a blue skin away from being Doraemon.”
“If you want to ask me why I’m so sure it’s a blocked signal and not that he’s deliberately not answering my call…”
The dark-haired girl paused.
“I just don’t think that’s a possibility,” she said, tilting her head in frustration. “Is it too love-struck to think that way?”
An’an had thought Hiro would complain to her, “A man who has broken up with you is like spilled water. Don’t be so attached!”
The fact was, she was met with Mentor Scotch’s inexplicably moved gaze.
Hiromitsu swore to the god of friendship that he would never again complain about the evil deeds of this little couple, who only tortured him, an honest person.
The CP he shipped was real!