Chapter 506: Shocking Major Discovery!

At 4:30 PM, North Maru Park and the nearby forest were completely sealed off.

Watanabe Minami formally obtained the highest authorization from the Cabinet Emergency Crisis Center; from now on, she was qualified to directly command the entire Imperial Household Agency and the Imperial Guard Headquarters.

Watanabe Minami did not dare to be negligent; after taking command, she immediately organized the Imperial Palace Special Investigation Headquarters around herself, with her presiding at headquarters and Nango Yui responsible for commanding the frontline, and began a carpet-search of North Maru Park.

The Imperial Guard units and the Metropolitan Police Department Special Mission Unit joined forces, centering on the area where the special shoe prints and abnormal silica diatoms were discovered, and began gradually searching any suspicious areas.

Likewise, Uesugi Muneyuki and Ishihara Mikoto also arrived at the scene; Ishihara Mikoto was responsible for testing the humus and leaf characteristics, while Uesugi Muneyuki stood by the lake, thinking.

There was no doubt the perpetrator was an Inner World existence; what could be known at present was that he could hide inside shadows, but when faced with the Imperial Household Agency's flashlight's strong light, he had no choice but to reveal himself.

Uesugi Muneyuki had seen the flashlights issued by the Imperial Household Agency; frankly speaking, they were a bit too bright — even at a hundred meters away, the strong-light mode could illuminate things.

Therefore, Uesugi Muneyuki concluded that since he could be illuminated out by the strong light, the perpetrator absolutely could not cross water.

North Maru Park's forest was dense, separated from the Imperial Palace moat only by a road (Chidorigafuchi-dori 6), but its boundary was not completely seamless; the perpetrator most likely used the night and tree cover to approach from the park's periphery.

He chose a section of the outer wall and a surveillance blind spot (possibly obscured by tree growth or slight terrain undulations), used his special ability to enter the Imperial Palace through shadows, dropped inside the wall, then quickly infiltrated the dense woods, moving along the forest edge toward the interior water bodies. This route avoided most open areas and surveillance on main passages.

During this process, his shoe soles picked up the unique mud of the North Maru forest, rich in humus and pine needles.

At a concealed spot near the North Maru water area, he encountered Shizuo under strong-light illumination, committed the crime, and pushed the essence-refining body into the water.

The essence-refining body then drifted along the weak current or wind force to the more central discovery point.

Therefore, there must be traces of his movements here in North Maru Park!

Then the question arose: what exactly did the perpetrator infiltrate the Imperial Palace to do?

Did an Inner World person get a new ability and impatiently want to test it?

Unlikely; even to test, one would not come to the Imperial Palace to test.

Did he enter out of curiosity to see what the Imperial Palace interior was like? Or did he come in to steal something?

Both were possible.

Did he have a grudge against the Imperial Family or someone in the Imperial Household Agency?

This probability was not very high, but there was a faint possibility.

And the more important question was: where was he now? Had he left the Imperial Palace?

Uesugi Muneyuki did not know, but he thought he should be able to find some clues.

"Search! Search for me ruthlessly! Don't let a single blade of grass or tree go! Every inch of land, every inch of movement trace — search it all for me!" The Imperial Guard was practically fully deployed, meticulously checking North Maru Park step by step, extremely carefully; these idlers who had enjoyed prolonged peace now showed twelve-tenths enthusiasm.

If this matter wasn't handled well, the whole lot of them would be finished!

But one person's power has limits.

Uesugi Muneyuki looked at the hundred-odd Imperial Palace police and Special Mission Unit members conducting a gradual search along this North Maru Park, and could only wait — wait for the search results.

"Mikoto-nee, did you send those fiber particles for analysis?" Uesugi Muneyuki found himself with nothing to do at the moment, so he spoke to Ishihara Mikoto beside him.

"Mm, sent them to the laboratory for analysis and spectral mapping." Ishihara Mikoto also wore a worried expression; the forensic beauty said in a low voice: "Sōsetsu, what if that person is still hiding inside the Imperial Palace?"

"Then the story gets interesting, but I think it's unlikely." Uesugi Muneyuki shook his head slightly: "First, the Imperial Palace interior is very open, hard to find a hiding place; second, after such a big incident, staying inside the Imperial Palace would be purely idiotic, unless—."

"Unless?" Ikeda Erena asked curiously; the tall beauty had always been responsible for feeding Uesugi Muneyuki lines and following up, responsible for pressing him when he hesitated.

This role suited her extremely well; she loved playing it immensely.

"Unless the perpetrator was originally from the Imperial Household Agency or the Imperial Palace police." Uesugi Muneyuki said blandly.

"Hiss—" Hearing Uesugi Muneyuki say this, Ishihara Mikoto and Ikeda Erena gasped.

If the perpetrator was on the inside, then wouldn't that mean—.

"No rush, don't jump to conclusions yet; let's first see if we can find some clues." Uesugi Muneyuki gazed into the distance at the search teams.

If there really was an insider, then this matter would be even more troublesome!

The search went on for a full hour; finally, around 5:30 PM, the search team made a discovery!

"Uesugi Chief, we have a discovery! We have a discovery!" Igarashi came jogging up, emotionally agitated: "Under a tree on the inner side of a palace wall, in soft soil, we found shoe prints of the same type as the lakeside — even clearer! And in a nearby wall corner, we found extremely minute bright blue plastic fragments of the same type as those in the deceased's nail crevices — most likely caused by a rope or tool the perpetrator carried rubbing against the wall as he passed!"

"Where?"

"Please follow me!"

Uesugi Muneyuki immediately went to the place where the shoe prints were discovered.

Just as Igarashi said, the shoe prints discovered and the remaining bright blue particles indicated the perpetrator had passed through here.

Put that way, that means the perpetrator actually infiltrated from the outside after all?

Uesugi Muneyuki thought it over, considered for a bit, and still decided to investigate by normal methods first.

"Management Officer, immediately apply to the Imperial Household Agency to review surveillance and patrol records." Uesugi Muneyuki said to those behind him.

For privacy protection, most places in the Imperial Palace have no surveillance; only key entrances/exits and some major locations requiring vigilance have it, and even so, the Imperial Household Agency is extremely secretive about this.

"Okay." Minami responded very quickly from behind; she even said: "Rest assured, Sōsetsu, I've already applied to my father to review all external surveillance probes around North Maru, to see if there are more discoveries."

"Very good." Uesugi Muneyuki smiled faintly after hearing this; he suddenly laughed: "Minami, you've gotten pretty good at solving cases too, huh."

"That's from learning from you, the Uesugi case-solving three-piece set: surveillance, autopsy, analysis. I don't understand autopsy, can't do analysis, so naturally I look for surveillance!" Minami said puffily over the police radio: "I've followed you on so many cases, how could I not understand a little?"

"Then hurry up and act." Uesugi Muneyuki put down the police radio.

On the other side, Minami immediately found Imperial Household Agency Director General Maeda Toshisuke and Imperial Guard Headquarters Chief Kenji.

Facing Minami's request, Maeda Toshisuke naturally agreed readily, while Kenji muttered "this is the Emperor's privacy" and reluctantly agreed, having subordinates fetch the patrol records.

It wasn't that Chief Kenji was unwilling to give them; it was that he had a guilty conscience!

The Imperial Guard had enjoyed prolonged peace; daily patrols were just perfunctory routine. He knew how watered-down these patrols were — unless something absolutely requiring reporting was discovered, they were uniformly filled in as "no abnormalities."

This was the Emperor's feet, the model capital; who wanted to bring trouble on themselves?

Otherwise, why did Shizuo drown last night, but the gardener only discovered him this morning? Were these Imperial Guard police blind?

Not at all; it was simply that the Imperial Guard's patrols really were just patrols and nothing more.

Soon, the Imperial Guard Headquarters brought the patrol logs provided by the Imperial Guard; the logs showed that during the incident timeframe, two patrol teams "following prescribed routes" passed through the relevant North Maru areas, and the logs recorded "no abnormalities."

Watanabe Minami was not surprised by this result; she sighed, handed the patrol logs to Nango Yui, gesturing for him to cross-reference them with the surveillance records.

Nan'gō Yuiichi didn't pay much attention at first; he glanced a few times at the patrol log and then focused his attention on the surveillance footage, thinking everyone knows what the level of these routine patrols is like — as long as nothing happens, they only get more and more slack; that's human nature, no choice.

So he habitually cast a quick glance at the time in the upper right corner of the surveillance footage.

But just that one glance, Nan'gō Yui's pupils suddenly locked tight, shrinking sharply to the size of marbles!

"Wait a minute!" the Special Mission Unit Acting Unit Chief suddenly roared: "Right here!"

He shouted at the Imperial Police technician: "Here, fast-forward!"

"Like this?" The technician was startled, quite annoyed, but still did as Nan'gō Yui requested.

"Right, here!"

"Fast-forward! Here!"

"Rewind, here!"

Nan'gō Yui shouted several times in succession, locking the surveillance footage onto the surveillance camera nearest where the Imperial Police patrol squad passed and discovered footprints: "Right here!"

"Here, Nanxiang-san, nothing special, this is just when the patrol squad passed by." The technician was still puzzled.

"Not that, it's the time, the time's wrong!"

"Management Officer! Maeda Director! Kenji Chief! You guys look at this! At the critical time of the incident, the actual time the Imperial Police patrol squad passed the relevant area was about fifteen minutes later than the time recorded in the log!" Nan'gō Yui pointed at the time in the upper right corner of the screen, then pointed at the time the Imperial Police patrol squad passed: "This isn't right! It doesn't match the record!"

Everyone in the temporary command post held their breath.

This fifteen-minute blank was exactly enough for the killer to complete the whole process of scaling the wall, infiltrating, encountering, killing, dumping the body, and escaping back the same way!

"Someone altered the patrol record." Watanabe Minami's voice was cold as ice: "Not something an external intruder could pull off. This means, inside the Imperial Police — no, possibly even inside the Imperial Household Agency — someone knew about the patrol vulnerability in advance, or deliberately created this vulnerability, and afterwards tried to cover it up!"

Internal spy!

This conclusion made everyone in the know feel a bone-chilling chill.

Someone being able to infiltrate the Imperial Palace is already a shocking breach, but betrayal by internal personnel is even more vile in nature, meaning the Imperial Palace's security has been hollowed out from within, and the Imperial Family's safety may have been in extreme danger for a long time.

Inside the temporary command headquarters, Imperial Guard Headquarters Chief Kenji's face instantly turned pale as paper, while Imperial Household Agency Director Maeda's eyes, besides the original panic, now held an added shock and anger at being stabbed in the back by a trusted person.

The nature of the case instantly escalated from an internal accident or external intrusion incident into a super-major case of inside-outside collusion, an attempted terrorist attack targeting Imperial Family safety interwoven with internal betrayal.

"Call Sōsetsu back! Immediately summon Uesugi to hurry back!" Minami Ojou-sama exclaimed.

Incident occurred! Major incident occurred!