Chapter 731: , Detonate the Skyscraper!

PS: This chapter took a long time to write; I felt it was still better to release it in one go as a combined 5000-word chapter. That is all.

Marie's move this time was fast, precise, and ruthless — completely the form of a trained assassin!

However, just as the stun gun's dim blue arc was about to touch Uesugi Muneyuki's coat in that split second,

Uesugi Muneyuki seemed to have eyes in the back of his head; his body slid diagonally forward at an inconceivably fluid angle, not only precisely dodging the stun gun's attack line, but his left arm simultaneously snapped back like an iron whip, striking with a crisp "crack" and accurately hitting the wrist of Marie's weapon hand!

"Ugh!" Marie's wrist flared with pain; the stun gun flew from her grasp, crashing into a concrete pillar and bursting into a cluster of electric sparks.

Before she could recover from her shock, Uesugi Muneyuki had already spun around like a whirlwind; his right hand clamped like an iron pincer on her other hand — which had at some point reached toward her calf for a hidden dagger — and his left hand shot out like lightning, snatching away that coldly glinting micro-dagger and flinging it far off.

Everything happened in the blink of an eye.

Hayase Mary was completely subdued, both arms restrained, looking up at the man before her.

There was not the slightest surprise or panic on his face, only a bottomless calm; those eyes, always gentle or focused, now reflected the firelight outside the window, yet were cold as ice, clearly mirroring her wretchedness now that her scheme was exposed.

The disguise on her face utterly collapsed; astonishment, unwillingness, a trace of incredulous horror flickered and intertwined.

She understood — her meticulously planned, near-perfect dual identity as "victim" and "mastermind" had been seen through by this man long ago! "You..." Marie's voice was dry, stripped of all performance, leaving only cold essence: "When did you find out?" Uesugi Muneyuki gave a cold snort, shoved her away, and did nothing further to her, instead saying: "It was after I performed a second autopsy on Koyama Shigeo. If I haven't guessed wrong, Miss Hayase Mary — no, that's wrong, it should be Miss Hondou Mary — the call girl Koyama Shigeo summoned via a dating-service call was you, right?"

"Or rather, you are the true 'Red Goldfinch', aren't you?" Uesugi Muneyuki shook his hand: "Actually, you were never some prop the Red Goldfinch used to threaten Honda Atsuhito."

"You, from the very beginning, were a member of the Red Goldfinch!"

"Even, to a certain extent, the prime culprit who lured Honda Atsuhito back to the country and used him to plan and manufacture the bombing cases was you! Hayase Mary!"

Uesugi Muneyuki said coldly: "You played all of us in the palm of your hand, Miss Mary."

Hayase Mary clutched her aching wrist, staring at Uesugi Muneyuki with a complex gaze: "You... really did find out!"

"Yes." Uesugi Muneyuki nodded; he glanced at the stun gun and dagger on the ground. He knew Hayase Mary hadn't wanted to kill him, but to take him hostage — though that didn't matter to him: "Actually, I suspected many people before. I suspected there was a mole beside me. I suspected the Red Goldfinch group might have some genius hacker or crime master. I suspected there was a mole inside the APA Hotel. I even suspected Nango Yui!"

"But, I suspected and suspected, and I just never suspected you!" Uesugi Muneyuki said coldly: "Because both I and Nango Yui subconsciously believed that a Miss Mary who was abandoned by her father, suffered much hardship, lost her mother early in a single-parent household, and struggled alone as a temp worker living hand-to-mouth, could not possibly be the problem!"

......" Hayase Mary's eyes fixed on Uesugi Muneyuki, a flash of contempt passing through them — unknown whether she was despising herself or despising Uesugi Muneyuki.

"But, we were both wrong." Uesugi Muneyuki smiled bitterly and shook his head, a trace of helplessness appearing on his face: "'He is merely my biological father' — that is a brilliant line, and likewise a special attack against us intellectuals. In short, this story is specially effective against guys like me and Nango Yui who graduated from Tokyo University and Kyoto University. Once you finished telling this story, we both subconsciously immersed ourselves in empathizing with your experience, and naturally lowered our guard and cleared your suspicion, because we could understand the whole story context and the pain you endured and the 'original sin' you bore. So when you called us asking for someone to help buy personal items, we also subconsciously wanted to offer a little help, as a thread of solace and compensation, right?"

"How foolish. If we were idiots like Date or Maeda, who don't understand what 'cup-water-ism' or 'old-left stories' are, we'd just make one call to the hotel front desk and be done with it — where would all this trouble come from? But even so, you surely already had other plans; it's just a pity Nango took that blow."

"Heh heh." Mary finally shed her disguise coat; she sneered and nodded: "If ordinary police or public security had come, it would actually be somewhat troublesome — those stupid pigs suspect this one and that one. Precisely the opposite, you and Inspector Nango, this kind of intellectual elite, because you pride yourselves on being professionals who like to use your brains, are instead easier to fool!"

"Sure enough, after we returned to the hotel and were still discussing your matter..." Uesugi Muneyuki stared at this former Red Goldfinch boss's daughter, now the Red Goldfinch leader or at least one of its collaborators: "The first time I suspected you was after you were kidnapped."

"That time window was too perfect — so perfect that even when I had the Public Security Police's simulated crime master run a simulation, it was extremely tight just to discover you had broken surveillance and vanished, tail you to the APA Hotel, then formulate a plan and complete everything within 50 minutes and leave swaggeringly with you, and on top of that he would have to know you asked Nango Yui to buy sanitary napkins."

"So at that time I had a bold conjecture." Uesugi Muneyuki paced, staring at Mary: "What if — I'm saying what if — your being taken away by us was also part of the plan? Because if you personally cooperated, everything would make sense!"

......" Hayase Mary sneered: "You react quite fast."

"But even at this step, I still didn't want to believe you were that mole!" Uesugi Muneyuki continued: "That's why I performed a second autopsy on Imaizumi Yukio... I quickly discovered this guy was a former Red Goldfinch executive who participated in the Taihei Bank Heist case back then, Koyama Shigeo. Based on this identity, I discovered one thing."

"You told us before that from birth until now, you never had even a single word of communication with Honda Atsuhito. Because Honda Atsuhito indeed cruelly abandoned you, both I and Nango Yui subconsciously believed it was true." Uesugi Muneyuki continued: "But actually, this is a lie — a thorough and complete lie!"

"If I haven't guessed wrong, Koyama Shigeo frequently went traveling abroad, and during his travels he occasionally communicated with Honda Atsuhito in Brazil through special means. In the process, he must have brought some of Honda Atsuhito's letters and passed them to you through special means. However, this instead unilaterally exposed his own information, and thus he met his death, right?"

"Thus, an exquisite and massive plan was slowly plotted by you all, and what you waited for was nothing but the opportunity of Koyama Shigeo going abroad!"

"Hahahaha! Hahahahaha!" Mary listened to the end and finally couldn't help bursting into loud laughter; that smile carried incomparably complex emotions — resentment, satisfaction, madness: "That's right. That old geezer was my mother's 'comrade' back then, and the one who watched me be born. But just like my father, he chose evasion and hiding, living a carefree life on the organization's money, yet turning a deaf ear to my mother's death and my suffering. He deserved to die. You're smart, Doctor Uesugi — smart enough to make one feel regret, just like the already-dead Osikawa. After meeting you, I thought: if only I had met you from the start, at least... you could understand my pain, and even offered to compensate me 100,000 yen and find me a job, showing your conscience wasn't entirely dead."

She straightened her body, eyes burning with flames of destruction: "But killing him was only the beginning. The one I want revenge on is the man who gave me life and destroyed my everything — Honda Atsuhito. I want him to watch with his own eyes as his most 'proud' art of destruction is used by his only daughter to destroy this city, and also destroy his last possible fantasy of atonement. Takakura and those fools thought they were using my father? No, they are merely actors and fuel in my script."

"What a pity, Doctor Uesugi — you only got married last year, and you're only twenty-five or twenty-six this year."

"????!!" Uesugi Muneyuki narrowed his eyes.

What do you mean?

Mary glanced at her watch, smile eerie: "What a pity, Doctor Uesugi — although you're smart, you're too late. From the moment I was 'rescued', the real countdown started. Not three days later, but now. The load-bearing structural key points of this building have already been pre-installed with micro-explosives; as long as we manually trigger them — the entire Tokyo Chūjō Building will begin collapsing from the inside in fifteen minutes." She pointed at her own temple: "It's in here. You can't save anyone, including yourselves."

Uesugi Muneyuki's expression completely darkened.

Madmen — truly a bunch of madmen!

These people intend to detonate a skyscraper?!

As if responding to his thoughts, another cluster of fireworks was ignited in the gunfight downstairs.

Gorgeous fireworks burst open just outside the void raw concrete layer, lighting up the faces of Uesugi Muneyuki and Hayase Mary.

Amid the sound of fireworks, only the legendary forensic doctor and the terrorist leader's daughter who is simultaneously victim and perpetrator faced off; both were unarmed, but gazing at each other, they knew things had reached this point — it could only be a fight to the death!

At the same time.

Below Tokyo Chūjō Building, emergency lights converged into a red-and-blue ocean; sharp emergency sounds intertwined with the wailing of fire trucks and ambulances, tearing apart the Harbor Ward night's tranquility.

The cordon was pulled two blocks out; uniformed police with stern expressions evacuated onlookers and residents of surrounding buildings; the megaphone repeatedly broadcast the announcement: "Fire in the building — please evacuate immediately."

But the true heart was in the temporary command center on the fifth floor of a commercial building across from the tower.

The atmosphere here was so stagnant it was almost palpable.

The massive electronic screen displayed in split sections: thermal imaging, building structure diagram, surrounding real-time traffic feed, and footage from drones and distant high points showing Tokyo Chūjō Building, where thick smoke and sporadic eerie firelight were gushing from multiple windows on the 35th floor and above. Smoke twisted and rose in the night wind; occasional bursts of colored light points drew gasps from the crowd below.

"SAT First Assault Team has reached the 33rd floor, encountering heavy smoke and sporadic resistance; the enemy is using non-standard explosives (black powder fireworks) to create obstacles; advance is stalled!"

"Fire ladders can only reach the 20th floor at most! Internal fire suppression system partially failed!"

"EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit) reports: multiple suspected unidentified explosives distributed on the 35th floor and above; structural scan detected abnormal heat sources; requesting further instructions!"

Urgent reports rose and fell in the radio system.

Shinzou Kamiya, temporarily serving as frontline commander — the Director of Security of the National Police Agency, a middle-aged man with greying temples and hawk-like eyes — stood before the screen with hands behind his back, brows knotted into a deep "川" character.

The pressure on his shoulders was like a mountain — the incident had escalated from a possible terrorist attack into a compound disaster of skyscraper fire and potential explosion; if mishandled, the consequences would be unthinkable.

Minami Ojou-sama stood at the edge of the command platform, hands tightly clenched, nails nearly digging into her palms.

Muneyuki, Muneyuki is still inside!!

"Okada, confirm the situation!"

Okada Masayoshi's voice came through the walkie-talkie, carrying suppressed anger and smoke-roughened hoarseness: "Director! Enemy firepower isn't strong, but the terrain and explosives are too troublesome! SAT is clearing remnants, but speed is too slow! Chief Uesugi's side..."

His words were cut off by a violent, dull explosion sound transmitted from inside the building; the command center lights shook along with it. On the screen, the thermal image representing a certain area of the 35th floor instantly turned a glaring red!

"Another black powder detonation! Possible structural damage!" a technician reported in a sharp voice.

At this moment, all of Tokyo saw the thick smoke and sparks spraying from the high-rise of the Tokyo Chūjō Building.

Shinzou Kamiya slammed a fist onto the console: "Damn it!" He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. "Notify SAT, prioritize your own safety, gradually compress their space, but avoid over-stimulation that could trigger a larger-scale explosion! EOD, at all costs, locate and assess all explosive risks as fast as possible! Fire teams, go all out to control the fire spreading upward!"

Just then, an independent channel transmitted Uesugi Muneyuki's voice, calm in a way that clashed with the surrounding chaos, yet carrying an unprecedented gravity:

"Command Center, this is Uesugi Muneyuki. Confirmed: Red Goldfinch remnants have installed large-scale explosive devices capable of causing structural collapse on the upper floors of the Tokyo Chūjō Building. Not only ANF0, there are other placements. They intend to detonate the entire building. Repeat, their target is to destroy the building. I am currently on the 36th floor. Miss Hayase Mary, who is being held hostage and coerced……"

He paused subtly for half a second: "……is under my control, but the situation is complex. Need highest-priority bomb disposal support, and prepare to respond to a possible general offensive or detonation order."

"Capable of causing structural collapse?!"

The command center fell instantly dead silent, leaving only the hum of equipment running and the faint, distant sound of explosions.

Everyone's blood seemed to freeze in that instant.

Minami Ojou-sama's legs went weak; she almost couldn't stand, and was held up tightly by Inspector Ozawa Sumiko beside her.

Department Manager Kamiya's face turned dark, blue veins bulging at his temples.

"Specific location? Type? Detonation method?" Kamiya's voice was hoarse, speech extremely fast.

"Unable to fully confirm. But based on intelligence and on-site signs, very likely distributed at load-bearing key nodes, including but not limited to the 35th floor and above. Detonation method…… may have both remote and timed dual safeguards." Uesugi Muneyuki's voice remained steady, but everyone heard the urgency within: "Enemy remnants may hold the final detonator. Time…… may not be much left."

"Not much left is how long?!" Kamiya pressed.

"Cannot estimate precisely, but given their action rhythm and degree of madness…… possibly minute-level." Uesugi Muneyuki gave the most terrifying judgment.

"Minute-level……" Shinzou Kamiya closed his eyes; when he opened them again, they held a desperate, do-or-die resolve. He grabbed the main communicator, his voice broadcasting through the PA system across the command center and all operational channels:

"All units attention! Incident level raised to highest! Red Code! Repeat, Red Code!"

"SAT, abandon gradual clearing, organize elite assault teams, at all costs, advance toward the 35th floor and above core area at maximum speed! Primary objective: search for and secure any suspected detonation devices or personnel!"

"EOD, all teams, follow SAT assault routes; once explosives are discovered, immediately assess, on the premise of guaranteeing building structural safety, if you can disarm then disarm, if you can't…… prepare for martyrdom by explosion!"

"Air units (helicopters), closely monitor building top and exterior walls; any abnormal personnel activity or devices, report immediately!" "Notify Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Cabinet Crisis Management Center, activate highest-level disaster emergency plan, expand evacuation range! Prepare for the worst-case scenario!"

Orders fell like a boulder into dead water, stirring up a thousand waves.

Atmosphere in the command center was grave to the extreme; everyone moved like clockwork, frantically operating, phone sounds, keyboard tapping, order read-backs unceasing.

The air was filled with anxiety, fear, and a tragic resolve to fight with backs to the wall.

However, Uesugi Muneyuki on the call said not to: "Don't rush deployment! Department Manager Kamiya, give me some time!"

"What?!" The entire temporary command center erupted in cries of surprise.

"I said, give me some time, I might have a way!" Uesugi Muneyuki growled low over the call: "No time to explain now, anyway, don't rush!"

"Fine!" Department Manager Kamiya hesitated a few seconds, then decided to trust Uesugi Muneyuki, but he suddenly gave Inspector Ozawa Sumiko a look. Inspector Ozawa, a Security Department graduate of MIT, also gave Department Manager Kamiya a look.

Super Security deployed!

And right then, in the raw concrete layer of the 36th floor, Hayase Mary finally asked the question she had been wondering about for a long time.

"Uesugi Chief…… you, aren't you panicking?"