Chapter 1017

PS: I went on a blind date today, ate a meal of Yúnnán mushrooms, and didn't get full—

The content of Uesugi Munetsugu's journey is actually quite simple.

Uesugi Munetsugu is a forensic pathologist, not a toxicology expert! He's also not some narcotics control officer from the Ministry of Health!

He really just came to go through the motions.

The reason the police department let him come is mainly because Uesugi Munetsugu's results are trusted by the outside world, by the system, by the public—even Americans believe them.

So AI will never be able to replace humans.

First, AI must be fed tokens to function, whereas humans can even work without being paid—like volunteers or people required to have internship certificates.

Then, AI doesn't take responsibility for its output, but humans must have someone sign off on it.

The morning after Uesugi Munetsugu arrived in Okinawa, the meeting room at the Naha District Prosecutors' Office was bright and monotonous.

White walls, gray metal tables, the constant hum of fluorescent lights overhead—everything was no different from an interrogation room in Tokyo, except that occasionally, the low-flying helicopter noise from the U. S. military base outside could be heard, reminding people that this island hosts foreign military forces not belonging to Japan.

Okinawa hosts U. S. military bases, and for this reason, Okinawans have protested many times over this issue.

So, do Okinawans really want the U. S. military to withdraw?

Think again! In fact, one of Okinawa's main economic pillars is the presence of the U. S. military base—millions of people's livelihoods depend on it. Not to mention tourism, which brings in astronomical revenue, and let's not forget how much Americans spend here.

Okinawans just want the U. S. military to behave better and stop causing so many problems.

Just like, do Okinawans really want independence?

Think again! Okinawans actually hope to become a distinct "Ryukyu ethnic group" and then enjoy preferential treatment and various policy subsidies and extra funding from the Japanese government as a minority.

Unfortunately, the Japanese don't buy this—Japanese people have always only recognized the Ainu.

Uesugi Munetsugu couldn't care less about all this; he rested with Erina for a night, and the next day he met the ex-wife of Sugishita Ukyo.

When Miyuki Miyabe was brought in, she was wearing a light green detention center uniform, her hair slightly messy but her spirits good.

She is fifty-one this year, but looks younger than her age, her skin well-maintained and tanned wheat-colored from the Okinawan sun. There's a certain intellectual aloofness in her brow and eyes.

She sat down opposite him, naturally resting her hands on the table, her gaze scanning Uesugi Munetsugu, then she let out a small laugh: "Wah-wah-wah-wah-waaagh~ So you're the chief shrimp big guy from the Special Assignments Unit of the Metropolitan Police Department, Uesugi Munetsugu! I'm truly fortunate to have met you in this life! Speaking of which, Ukyo over there—"

"The First Investigative Division doesn't handle this case." Uesugi Munetsugu sat opposite her, didn't open the file in front of him, and made no notes: "The Ministry of Health's Narcotics Control Division requested assistance from the Metropolitan Police Department. I was assigned to handle coordination work."

"Coordination work." Miyabe repeated these words, the corner of her mouth unchanged: "Or is it just a government-funded trip?"

"I don't have time to joke with you here." Uesugi Munetsugu glanced at the file: "Promoting marijuana legalization, keeping 55 grams of dried leaves at home, plus marijuana use—do you have anything else to say? Ms. Haba?"

Ms. Miyabe leaned back in her chair, lazily saying: "Mr. Uesugi, I don't think I've done anything wrong. Marijuana is legal in the Netherlands, and also in Portugal. In the U. S., more than half the states have already—recreational use, got it? In the UK, if you smoke a joint in a park and the police see you, they'll just tell you to put it out. Why can't Japanese people do the same? Why can't Japanese people have the right to choose their own lifestyle like people in those countries?"

"Marijuana isn't selling drugs—I grow it myself, use it myself, and haven't harmed anyone. You're locking me up here just to suppress personal freedom with outdated laws."

After hearing her, Uesugi Munetsugu let out a speechless laugh: "Ms. Miyabe, you cited the U. S., UK, Netherlands, and Portugal as examples—you seem quite well-researched—so let me ask you: do you know why Japan, after the Meiji Restoration, went to such great lengths to adopt the civil law system?"

Miyabe blinked slightly.

"What does that have to do with marijuana?"

"It's related." Uesugi Munetsugu crossed his hands on the table, leaned forward slightly: "Before the Meiji Restoration, Japan's laws were warrior codes under the shogunate-domain system, each domain with its own rules. After the Meiji Restoration, we abolished the old status system, adopted the civil law system, and built a unified modern legal system. Why?"

"Because if a country allows different regions to have different laws and different rules, then it's not really a country." Uesugi Munetsugu said calmly: "When did Okinawa become independent?"

Miyabe opened her mouth, as if to interject, but Uesugi Munetsugu didn't give her a chance: "You just said Japanese people can't do this. Of course they can—Japanese people can fly."

"But current laws don't allow it."

"Japanese laws can be changed. But changing laws requires parliamentary debate, public discussion, and social consensus—law is law. If you break the current law, you must bear the consequences as defined by it. This has nothing to do with your personal beliefs, nor with your citing foreign laws. This is the basic logic of a rule-of-law state."

Uesugi Munetsugu said helplessly: "Regarding the Narcotics Control Act, if you have the ability, go propose it in parliament—but for now, I don't care about all that."

"But this country's laws violate my freedom! The Japanese Constitution guarantees citizens should enjoy—" Miyabe finally found her chance to rebut.

"Yes, citizens should enjoy personal freedom! But you need to distinguish between public freedom and private freedom. Do people interfere when you play with 2D characters at home? When you build Gundam models at home? When you play survival games at home? But have you ever wondered why you'd get police at your door just for playing piano at home?" Uesugi Munetsugu said: "Theoretically, if someone only uses drugs privately and doesn't affect or hinder anyone, that's their private freedom—but why does the whole world ban drugs?"

"Because there's no such thing as a drug that stays truly private." Uesugi Munetsugu said coldly: "Drug use, even personal use, inherently carries an uncontrollable storm—it moves from private to public, and will eventually cause serious harm to those around you. It's only a matter of time."

Uesugi Munetsugu knew of an extreme case in Las Vegas, Nevada: a wealthy drug addict whose family supplied him with ice to prevent him from fighting over inheritance. A full medical team stayed with him daily, he smoked until all his teeth fell out and he had to wear dentures, yet he lived to sixty.

This guy really didn't harm anyone.

But this extreme form of private freedom would be a major impact on the public sphere—if not for his family spending hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly to support him, he couldn't have lived like this.

The greatest harm of drugs is that they inevitably move from private to public.

Ms. Miyabe fell silent for a moment: "—You speak so well, your logic I can't argue with, but look at those American big companies, British funds—they're all investing in the marijuana industry. The whole world is moving in that direction. Japan will too, sooner or later."

"That's for the future." Uesugi Munetsugu stood up: "The Anglo-American model has its specific historical and social background. Let me give you an example: pachinko is illegal in many countries, but Japan allows it due to specific historical reasons. Meanwhile, 'ice wolf' is classified as a narcotic in many countries, and in Southeast Asia, India, and elsewhere, you still see 'ice wolf' variants—'ice wolf beauty,' 'ice wolf girl'—you can't talk about marijuana and say we should follow international trends, then talk about pachinko and say it's our traditional culture."

"If it's illegal, it's illegal—don't feed me that nonsense!"

Ms. Miyabe didn't rebut further, she shook her head.

"I'm just ahead of the times."

"People must have dreams!"

"I'll get a reduced sentence in prison!"

"Meanwhile, in Nagoya, time is flowing at a completely different pace."

"The next morning, the Special Investigation Headquarters expanded its forces from 100 to 300 officers. That afternoon, it was increased again to over 400. All police stations in Aichi Prefecture received deployment orders, and patrol vehicles in Nagoya were reassigned to new routes, specifically to free up more manpower for the Hira-te case."

"The temporary office area didn't have enough desks, so someone set up folding tables in the hallway."

"The whiteboard with the map of the Southern Industrial Zone was replaced with a larger version, and all roads, buildings, and surveillance points within a five-kilometer radius were marked."

"Island Headquarters Chief didn't actually restrict Nagase Ren and gave him maximum authority."

"But at this moment, Nagase Ren faces the most difficult problem he's ever encountered."

"Tiger eating the sky—nowhere to bite."

"DNA, surveillance, the Yucho Sanro cut-off, and the clues collected during this period are contradictory and extremely chaotic."

However, at this moment, Ren Nagase is facing the most difficult problem he has ever encountered.

The tiger ate the sky, leaving nothing to bite into.

DNA, surveillance, the severing of Yōzō Tanasawa Road, and the clues gathered during this period are contradictory and extremely chaotic.

So he went around in a circle and ultimately returned to the old method of the Japanese police.

Dragnet search.

Theoretically speaking, over four hundred police officers in Nagoya would be considered very ample.

But in the face of over four hundred police officers, Nagase Ren faced a problem more troublesome than the scale of the police force— the deeply entrenched chaos in Japan's foreign dispatched labor management system.

Nagoya Port is one of Japan's largest international trade ports, with a large number of dispatch companies, warehousing and logistics enterprises, and temporary labor intermediaries gathered around it.

These institutions employ skill trainees and settled residents from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Vietnam,

Myanmar and over a dozen other countries.

If they were from a certain country or South Korea, things would be great— people from that country and South Korea both have kanji as names.

But other countries are different.

The names of these workers in the Japanese system are a nightmare; their original language spellings vary, intermediary companies first transcribe them into English when registering, then transcribe from English into katakana, and the correspondence between katakana pronunciation and original names is often extremely arbitrary.

The same person may have three completely different but seemingly "about the same" names on the dispatch company's roster, in the port's entry and exit registration system, and in the resident registration ledger of their place of residence.

Worse still, some dispatch companies, to save trouble, directly give foreign workers a short, easy-to-remember Japanized name.

For example, "Ram," "Amir," and "Bikram"— these three names actually refer to the same person, but these names are inconsistent on their residency documents and pay slips.

Moreover, many people also register their names as nicknames, just like "Kaka" has no "Kaka" in the name.

And even more headache-inducing, many people register the same name!

Just like Big Luo, Little Luo, and C Luo all registering their names as "Ronaldo"!

Friends who often kill people while working part-time in Japan can understand what the katakana hell is all about.

Nagase Ren expanded the screening team to fifty people, specifically responsible for comparing dispatch companies' employment records and port entry and exit data.

But the comparison on the first day got stuck in a quagmire.

A large number of workers' names cannot be matched one-to-one with the immigration bureau's residency records, and some dispatch companies even failed to retain complete employee rosters, with the reason being "dispatched workers are too mobile, registered and then they leave quickly."

Nagoya Port has over a thousand temporary entry and exit records per day, nearly forty percent of which are foreign workers.

To filter out individuals who were active near the Southern Industrial Zone on the night of the incident from these people is basically equivalent to finding a needle in a haystack.

Five days, he only has five days!!!

Seeing that there was no way in this place, Nagase Ren had no choice but to focus his attention on the related parties.

On the second day's afternoon, Nagase Ren initiated individual questioning of the members of Red Slope 46.

This should have been a relatively controllable segment, as the members are Hirate's closest work associates, and they might know Hirate's emotional state before her disappearance, whether there was any friction with management, or if she had private contact with someone.

But shortly after the questioning began, Nagase Ren realized that this segment itself was triggering an unexpected crisis.

The members of Red Slope 46 reacted differently when questioned about Hirate.

There are those like Watanabe Rika, who are not good with words and also not very close to Hirate, lowering their heads in silence.

The team captain Sugai Yuuka, who knows some inside details but is unwilling to tarnish the group, simply said a few sentences like "She has been under a lot of pressure lately" and then refused to speak further.

Imaizumi and others started tearing up midway, then cried uncontrollably, and were finally helped out of the questioning room by their agent.

Deputy team captain Moriya Akane was also questioned.

She sat opposite Nagase Ren, her hand always placed on her knee, gripping it, speaking in a very soft voice, intermittently saying for about twenty minutes, but most of it was mundane description with little substance; finally Nagase Ren asked her: "When you last saw Hirate, what did she say to you?"

Moriya Akane's lips moved, then tears welled up from her eye sockets, and she suddenly burst into loud sobs.

She cried not only for Hirate, but also for her own idol dream, and also for the fact that she once planned to rise like Hirate, and also for the rabbit-dead-fox-sorrow feeling and the immense psychological pressure brought by this inexplicable investigation; her boyfriend Date was not only not by her side, but she also could not speak.

What the Second Young Lady cried about, Nagase Ren naturally did not know, but he knew that he was in trouble.

Indeed, the Second Young Lady's explosive crying caused the police outside to rush in, once suspecting Nagase Ren of inducing a confession or using coercion and inducement to perform the "Great Memory Recovery Technique," while the operation's scholars and industry also exploded in distrust toward the police, with complaints pouring in.

The Second Young Lady's family is also a small landowning family in Sendai, with connections; her daughter was bullied, and her parents naturally flew into a rage, forcing the Nagoya Police to apologize.

By the third day, external pressure on the Special Investigation Headquarters suddenly intensified.

The editorials of Japan's major newspapers began in unison to adopt the same phrasing: "The investigation into the Hirate assault case is progressing slowly, and social unease is intensifying."

On television news commentary programs, former prosecutors and former detectives took turns analyzing whether the police's search direction had problems.

It was also on the third day that the fan club of Red Slope 46 held a gathering of over five thousand people in Nagoya City's Central Ward, demanding "Quickly find the culprit"; when the video of the gathering was broadcast on national television, the camera captured someone in the crowd holding a sign that read "Nagoya Police, what are you doing?"

"Why not request support from the Police Agency?"

"Where did Uesugi Muneyuki go? Request support for the Special Mission Division!"

"We need to know the current"

And in South Korean media reports, the Hirate case was labeled with the tag "The most incompetent investigation in Japanese police history," appearing on the international sections of multiple mainstream media outlets.

This is retaliation against Japan!

Who let you harm our Heavenly Older Brother?!

On the third night, Nagase Ren's phone rang again.

This time it was his father calling. His father's voice has always been loud and proud, full of the traditional Showa-era man's authority at home, comparable to the unreasonableness of Mr. Muscle Toilet Cleaner Spirit, Mr. Muscle, powerful stain removal, fresh scent!

Mr. Muscle, technology removes stubborn grime!

When Nagase Ren passed the professional exam back then, his father set up twenty tables of wine and food at his hometown, invited all relatives and neighbors, and kept saying my son passed the professional exam, his future is destined to become a big star like Inspector Kashiwagi Jin!

But tonight his father's tone lacked that pride, leaving only a mixed tone of anxiety and reproach: "Ren, the case is on TV every day. You're in charge? What's going on? Not even a suspect? Your mother told me you're under a lot of pressure, what's the use of your pressure? You need to produce results. Relatives are all asking me about progress, I don't know how to answer!"

Nagase Ren leaned back in the office chair's backrest, closed his eyes, and listened to his father's words: "Dad, I'm still investigating here. I'll talk later."

He hung up the phone, flipped his phone over, and placed it face down on the desk.

There are still dozens of people working overtime in the office area.

But he doesn't know what to do.

At this moment, a phone call suddenly came through to Nagoya Police Headquarters.

This voice was very gentle, but immediately caused Headquarters Chief Shimada Motonobu to spring into action.

"Mò sī mò sī, I am Toyoda Akio, may I ask whether there has been any progress regarding Hirate's case?"