Chapter 50: Secret Investigation

"This is the place where you two will have to make do for now." Inside the Odaiba Building, a security guard led Uesugi Muneyuki and Ikeda Erena to a small artist dressing room: "The police are searching floor by floor. If you need food or water, there is a convenience store on this floor, but please do not wander around; the Metropolitan Police Department is conducting a search."

"Thank you." Uesugi Muneyuki said to the security guard.

The door closed, and the two were left alone in the room again.

The small artist dressing room was truly not large. In a room of about fifteen square meters, many things were crammed in. Aside from a row of vanity mirrors and makeup tables, there were only four sofas and a coffee table in the middle, and a washroom in the corner.

"I'm going to take a shower first." Ikeda Erena discovered the washroom had a shower function. The tall beauty, who had been out in the field all day, couldn't help but say this. She waved her fist at the man: "If you don't want to die, don't you dare pull anything!"

"I'll go out and check the situation." Uesugi Muneyuki clutched his stomach, thinking to himself, who would be suicidal enough to peek at you?

Earlier, the security guard had asked if the two wanted to be arranged separately—Uesugi to squeeze in with the male staff, and Ikeda to squeeze in with the female artists. It was said that Ikeda Erena would be arranged with a former idol, Kawabe Mayu.

Erena had decisively refused. First, she really disliked being around strangers; staying with a female artist she didn't know at all was not as comfortable as staying with Uesugi Muneyuki. Furthermore, she had absolute confidence in her own skills. If Uesugi Muneyuki really wanted to do something to her, she would beat his brains out!

Damn it, this guy seems to have already done it!

The culprit had already gone out. The tall beauty locked the dressing room door, took an angry shower, and after washing up until she felt refreshed, she changed back into her police uniform skirt. The only difference was that she finally took advantage of Uesugi Muneyuki's absence to peel off those damn pantyhose, stuffed them into her bag, stepped barefoot into disposable slippers, and let out a long sigh of relief while holding a hair dryer to her hair.

This feels much better!

However, after waiting for a while, Uesugi Muneyuki did not return, leaving Erena alone, sitting blankly on the sofa.

For the first time, the policewoman suddenly didn't know what she should do.

He was not by her side, there was no work to do, and going outside meant only strangers. She didn't need to cook or eat, didn't need to do housework, and it wasn't time to exercise or sleep.

What was she supposed to do now?

She didn't know. After being partners with Uesugi Muneyuki for so long, she had become accustomed to not thinking, listening to his arrangements, and watching him perform.

Staring blankly at the ceiling, Erena let her mind go blank.

She was safe; she had national-level martial arts, a locked door, and people everywhere outside.

She was not safe; that man was not by her side. She only felt that she had no support on any side, no clue what to do, and a sense of panic at not being needed gradually began to spread.

Fortunately, Uesugi Muneyuki did not make her wait too long. After about 30 minutes, there was a knock at the door. Erena sprang up from the sofa as if electrocuted, her slippers clattering as she ran to open the door.

Sure enough, it was Uesugi Muneyuki who had returned. He gave Erena an apologetic smile and lifted the convenience store bag in his hand: "Waited a long time? Sorry."

"Where did you go?" Seeing this man, Erena subconsciously relaxed her expression and complained: "Why so long?"

The comfortable sense of security had returned!

"I walked around a bit." Uesugi Muneyuki sat down on the sofa: "The Odaiba Building is truly locked down; they won't let anyone out anywhere. Megure is preparing to conduct a search."

"Didn't they say they didn't need our help?" Seeing Uesugi Muneyuki sit down, Ikeda Erena took cosmetics out of her bag to touch up her makeup. Speaking of being rejected, she still pouted angrily.

"Oh right, this is for you." Uesugi Muneyuki took a bottle of sugar-free Suntory Oolong tea out of the bag. He remembered that Erena liked this brand, just as Erena remembered he liked Coca-Cola: "And this."

The man took an unopened pack of Atsugi pantyhose out of the bag: "You've been running around all day, change into a new pair."

Erena took the Atsugi-brand extra-long standard commuter pantyhose in silence.

"These are 40D extra-long ones made of ultra-soft velvet material." Uesugi Muneyuki said naturally: "They should be more suitable for you."

"I always feel like you're particularly knowledgeable about this... Even if you were going to buy them for me, you should have bought flesh-colored ones, right?" Erena muttered, but she still took the pantyhose.

Having bare legs is a very rude behavior, at least in formal occasions in Japan.

"There were gray, flesh-colored, coffee-colored, and black. I compared them and thought you looked best in black." Uesugi Muneyuki said casually: "So I chose black."

"Who asked you to choose! Police uniforms are always paired with flesh-colored ones; you must remember that next time."

After a while, Erena's pair of straight, long legs were wrapped in these 40D ultra-soft velvet black pantyhose. The plump flesh of her legs stretched the already thin black silk just right, the semi-transparent black silk setting off the fairness of the skin on her thighs. Beneath her delicate, petite, beautiful feet, she stepped into disposable slippers, the graceful curves of her entire arch and instep fully visible. Under the slightly thickened black silk toes, her ten crystal-clear, jade-like toenails were clearly visible.

Both sides ate a Snickers bar and drank some water, then Uesugi Muneyuki spoke of what he had seen and heard outside.

"It seems the situation with Ms. Hironaka is not right." Uesugi Muneyuki whispered to Erena: "The building was locked down four days after she went missing. Who would stay in a corner of the surveillance area for four days without eating or drinking?"

"Maybe there are some blind spots in the surveillance?" Erena smoothed the wrinkles on the surface of the pantyhose with her fingers.

"No, I checked just now. This is Fuji TV. The entrances and exits of the Odaiba Building are equipped with dozens of cameras. Theoretically, it is impossible for any surveillance blind spots to exist. Other places have fewer cameras, but most are covered. There are only two places without cameras: one is places involving personal privacy like restrooms, and the other is places involving important figures' offices or other television station secrets."

Uesugi Muneyuki pointed to the roof with his finger: "The Metropolitan Police Department is already checking with security. The first thing they are checking is the water tower, but I don't think Ms. Hironaka could have gone missing there."

"You mean, Ms. Hironaka managed to leave the building?" Erena agreed with Uesugi Muneyuki's view. The tall beauty thought for a moment; there were cameras everywhere in the hallways, elevators, and every hall and room, so how could she go missing in a high-rise building?

"That's also difficult." Uesugi Muneyuki pondered: "Ms. Hironaka is 163cm tall and weighs 53kg. Trying to stuff her into a suitcase would be very conspicuous. The police are also investigating that, or it's unrealistic to separate her and stuff her into trash bags to transport her out. But whether stuffed into a suitcase or a trash bag, Ikeda, do you know what this means?"

"It means... she is no longer in this world." Ikeda Erena looked at Uesugi Muneyuki's expression, seemingly realizing something.

"No, actually, by normal deduction, no matter what, there is a high probability that Ms. Hironaka is no longer in this world." Uesugi Muneyuki said in a low voice: "So my deduction is that she is somewhere in this building."

"I observed earlier that except for the high-level and public areas, the surveillance in other areas is not that dense. If an insider who is familiar with the terrain and environment and knows how to avoid surveillance secretly hid Ms. Hironaka somewhere, it is still possible." Uesugi Muneyuki whispered: "Shall we go look for her?"

"We look? Just the two of us?" Ikeda Erena was startled by Uesugi Muneyuki's suggestion: "But, the First Division..."

"The First Division is searching from the top floor down. As for security, Ikeda, aren't you a police officer? If you flash your Police Handbook and say you are assisting in the search, the security guards won't say anything." Uesugi Muneyuki blinked, eager to try: "As long as we don't run into people from the First Division."

"This is a secret investigation, Master Erena, let's act together!"

Uesugi Muneyuki just looked at Erena like this, nervous yet expectant.

Erena also looked at this man, really unable to hold back, she burst into a giggle. She used her hand to pinch his cold, handsome cheek, her eyes moist like water: "Aren't we partners?"

"Partners should act together. I'll go with you!"

"Alright~"

————I am the divider line for partners————

Time rewinds to one hour ago.

In the Fuji TV conference room, representatives from four parties were seated. Because some people hadn't arrived yet, the Metropolitan Police Department was connected via video link.

On the other hand, two high-level executives from Dentsu and Hakuhodo were already seated. At the same time, the COO of Nippon Life Insurance had also rushed over temporarily.

Nippon Life Insurance is the number one insurance company in all of Japan. If the building is to be locked down, Nippon Life must definitely assess the economic losses and then negotiate the amount of compensation.

The other two were representatives from Japan's Dentsu and Japan's Hakuhodo.

Dentsu is a famous Japanese advertising and communications enterprise, which is an intermediary for advertising. On one hand, it collects planning and production fees from companies to produce advertisements for them; on the other hand, it buys out advertising slots and space in media such as television stations and newspapers, and arranges for the placement of the advertisements produced for the companies, thereby earning the price difference. Japan's advertising agency market is highly monopolized by Dentsu.

Almost all large enterprises are clients of Dentsu, with Dentsu handling everything from advertising to even external public relations.

Because Dentsu decides where these companies' tens of billions of yen in annual advertising and promotion expenses go, and media rely on advertising fees and program sponsorship fees for income, Dentsu undoubtedly became the "breadwinner" of the media.

The advertising share represented by Dentsu accounts for over 40% of the total revenue of TBS, NTV, and Asahi TV, and 33.4% for Fuji TV. It can be said that Japan's five major commercial broadcasters are effectively under the control of Dentsu, and in terms of print media, major newspaper groups such as Asahi, Yomiuri, Chunichi, Mainichi, and Sankei are also dependent on Dentsu.

People who work at Dentsu (especially those in charge of sales) are known in Japan as "Dentsu Man," and there is a saying in the Japanese entertainment industry: "If you want to become popular, actress, go marry a Dentsu employee!"

Being able to marry a Regular Employee of Dentsu means countless endorsements, advertisements, acting roles, and exposure, which is something actresses crave intensely; furthermore, the salaries of Dentsu's Regular Employees are very high, and by the age of forty or so, they can earn over 12 million yen annually based on seniority alone.

Of course, the trade-off is that the work intensity for Dentsu employees is extremely high; leaving work at eight or nine in the evening is practically a miracle, and one only sees employees heading home one after another after ten or eleven at night; it is not rare to work until three in the morning if there is something to do, and every year there are one or two cases of "death from overwork" at Dentsu, but because of Dentsu's monopoly on the media, you won't see this in newspapers or on the news.

Hakuhodo is the second-largest media giant, second only to Dentsu.

After the four parties negotiated for a while, they finally managed to reach a consensus.

The representatives from Dentsu and Hakuhodo stared coldly at President Kameyama of Fuji TV.

They had tentatively agreed to Fuji TV's request to change its program broadcast and advertising schedule because, after hearing the "Live Broadcast" proposal put forward by Department Director Abiru, the two representatives felt... it was actually quite attractive.

It was precisely by relying on this flash of inspiration from the Department Director that the Dentsu and Hakuhodo sides reluctantly agreed to Fuji TV's proposal to change its broadcast plan.

"Although we intend to do this, how long do you actually plan to keep the building locked down?" the Dentsu representative asked coldly: "If you can't find Hironaka Mariko, do you intend to keep the building locked down forever? Our patience at Dentsu is limited!"

"And regarding this matter of a live broadcast investigation, if the person isn't found, how long can a live broadcast be maintained?" the Hakuhodo representative also raised a question: "Fuji TV does indeed have some materials and files prepared, but if you never find the person and just play repetitive content, the audience will lose interest too!"

"This..." President Kameyama took his blood pressure medication: "Please trust the Metropolitan Police Department's investigative capabilities, representatives; we will strive to find where the person is in the shortest time possible."

"How long is 'as short as possible'? Kameyama! Give us a specific time!" the Dentsu representative shouted.

"If this matter isn't handled well, you should resign, or better yet, prepare to be dismissed for disciplinary reasons!" the Hakuhodo representative was even more vicious: "Don't think we don't know about you and those female anchors!"

"At most three hours; within three hours, Hironaka Mariko's corpse must be found." The representative from Nippon Life also said coldly: "Beyond this time, our headquarters will not bear any compensation costs, and besides, this is a matter you created yourselves in the first place!"

"Wait for your insurance premiums to go up next year!" After saying this, the Nippon Life representative left in a rage.

The Dentsu representative and the Hakuhodo representative did not act as decisively as Nippon Life, but they also left, followed by a Fuji TV employee.

The employee whispered in President Kameyama's ear: "President, NHK and the other three commercial stations all know about the lockdown at the Odaiba Building, and all the major newspapers know as well!"

"Everyone who got the news is rushing here!"

Only the senior executives of Fuji TV remained in the conference room, led by President Kameyama; they felt an iron wall slowly descending, pressing against their breathing and stinging their hearts.

"Abiru, prepare to start." President Kameyama's mind was blank by now; the pressure came crashing down like a tidal wave, which instead made him much calmer: "Let's not rush to start the live broadcast; wait until the other TV stations have been broadcasting live for a while, and wait until the Metropolitan Police Department has fully arrived and attracted the attention of the entire Kanto public, then we will start the live broadcast."

"Yes." Abiru nodded; unlike President Kameyama, he was very eager to try.

Looking down from the floor-to-ceiling window, President Kameyama saw that the garden below the Odaiba Building was already packed with people, a vast, dark mass.

"To think there would be a day when Fuji TV is of one body with the Metropolitan Police Department." President Kameyama gazed toward the direction of the Metropolitan Police Department and murmured with a bitter smile: "Eiji, you really aren't afraid of death."

"If we can't find the person, we're all finished."

The Fuji TV Case is not some minor case like before!

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(End of this chapter)