Chapter 952

Tokyo, Meguro Ward, "Special Investigation Headquarters for the Series of Violent Assault Cases Occurring Within the Metropolis," "Special Investigation Headquarters for the Violent Murder Case of a Metropolitan Diet Member" — On the night when Uesugi Muneyuki finished the autopsy and returned to the Special Investigation Headquarters, the Special Mission Division had already assembled in full.

Minami Ojou-sama sat by the window, with an open case file spread before her.

Nango Yui leaned against the desk edge, holding a half-drunk cup of green tea, Kai Toru sat in the corner with arms crossed, his gaze falling on the names circled in red on the whiteboard, Ikeda Erena stood by the window, her back against the windowsill, her eyes fixed on the night outside, Date Nagamune and Maeda Toshihide sat on one side of the long table, Date Nagamune was playing with his phone, Maeda Toshihide held a pen but was not writing.

Asō Kōta stood near the door, holding an unopened notebook, his eyes scanning back and forth across the room.

"Uesugi-san, you're back? Any findings?" Okada Masayoshi asked urgently.

"Yes, but still not much." Uesugi Muneyuki shook his head: "So far, the killer has acted very cleanly and efficiently."

"Eh?" Minami Ojou-sama was clearly surprised, even Muneyuki didn't have enough findings?

"Anyway, first tell me how much information we have here at the bureau!" Uesugi Muneyuki said.

"About that?" Nango Yui nodded, he had already exchanged information with Investigation Division 1.

Uesugi Muneyuki sat down in the main seat at the long table, draped his trench coat over the chair back, and placed his hands on the table: "The interpersonal relationships of Overbought — the Metropolitan Police Department's Special Investigation Headquarters has already looked into them; we'll review again, see if anything was missed."

"Okay." Nango Yui opened the notebook in front of him and read out item by item the investigation content compiled by the Metropolitan Police Department's Special Investigation Headquarters, his voice spreading steadily across the room: "Overbought's associates mainly fall into three categories."

"First category: political colleagues, members of his faction regularly gather for meals, and those he interacts with more frequently are three to four fellow faction members, all normal work-related interactions and social engagements, with no abnormal records."

"Second category: business figures, during his tenure as a Diet member, he had multiple contacts with senior executives of several large corporations, including the company with which he had consulting fee transactions; these individuals are already within the police's screening scope, but none have shown suspicious motives."

"Third category: media reporters, he maintains contact with political reporters from several newspapers, the content mainly consists of accepting interviews and providing information, and the reporters' evaluation of him is 'not particularly close, nor particularly distant.'"

"Very clean." Okada Masayoshi sighed: "If the Dark Knight targeted Overbought through his interpersonal network, then these people should have been thoroughly vetted. If all are clean, then it suggests the Dark Knight's information source may not lie within Overbought's social circle." "Unexpectedly, no loopholes." Kai Toru also nodded: "This just touches on my knowledge blind spot, so how was he arranged?"

Everyone turned to look at Minami Ojou-sama.

Minami did not look up: "The Special Investigation Headquarters also ruled out suspicion from his family members. His wife and children have already been questioned, with no abnormalities found. Their relationship with Overbought is not particularly close, but there is no obvious conflict. His wife has some dissatisfaction with some of his behaviors, but not to the point of wanting to kill him."

After saying that, Minami hehe-laughed, giving Uesugi Muneyuki a meaningful look: "After all, if it were just because her husband had other women during marriage that she killed him, Muneyuki should already be frozen in the fridge by now."

"Hahahahaha ahahahahahaha~" A burst of cheerful laughter suddenly came from within the Special Investigation Headquarters.

Only Ikeda Erena did not laugh; she lowered her head shyly and averted her gaze embarrassedly.

Asō Kōta also laughed along very fittingly with the atmosphere, knowing that laughing at this moment would absolutely not make him stand out.

"You think you can freeze me? You believe that?" Uesugi Muneyuki said unhappily.

Muraka Hana Palace is here, he himself can be frozen for a long time!

After everyone had laughed enough, he continued: "Then what about that lover I mentioned, Sasaki Ayaka?"

After Uesugi Muneyuki finished the autopsy, he proposed that the victim's stomach contained large chunks of Western-style whole meat, so he traced back to the restaurant, then traced back to that night's guests, and quickly identified Overbought's lover, Sasaki Ayaka.

Nango Yui lowered his head and flipped through: "Sasaki Ayaka, twenty-four, a regular employee at a large corporation. The Special Investigation Headquarters has already investigated her. She indeed has no issues. Her relationship with Overbought lasted about half a year, they met frequently, but her social circle and Motoki Honke's work circle did not overlap. On the night of the incident, she was at home talking on the phone with friends; her family, friends, surveillance, and apartment manager can all testify she was not at the scene. Her bank account and communication records also show no abnormalities, with no financial transactions or contact with any suspicious individuals." Asō Kōta's voice came from the corner: "I read the Special Investigation Headquarters' report. They even checked her and Overbought's spending records when together — even the money for love hotels was split AA. This doesn't look like a woman approaching a politician for money."

"Wow, it's pure love!" Maeda Toshihide exclaimed in surprise.

"Pure love is good, pure love must be learned!" Date Nagamune was even more moved, wiping his eyes with his hand: "Just like me and Akane-chan! Akane-chan also never lets me spend an extra penny! Even the money for us to go to Jeju Island and eat Korean black pork together is AA! Akane-chan is a good girl!"

Is she a good girl?

Uesugi Muneyuki glanced at him sideways, thinking: Is your Akane-changry for your two pennies? Is she lusting after your Special Mission Division status and your Uwajima Date! The office air fell silent for a moment.

It was as if someone were slowly stirring a pot of non-boiling soup with one hand, those fragments floating on the surface, not scooped up. Okada Masayoshi continued: "If Overbought's interpersonal relationships are clean, then how did the Dark Knight know his whereabouts? How did he know Overbought would appear at his own doorstep at that time? How did he know that night Overbought had just returned from Sasaki Ayaka's? If he has no insider, then he can only rely on surveillance. But someone who can commit five consecutive murders cannot possibly rely solely on surveillance to gather information. He must have some more systematic method to collect and filter information."

He paused, as if waiting for his voice to fully settle: "Perhaps his method fundamentally does not need interpersonal clues. Perhaps he is calculating Overbought's appearance at that time and place through some more indirect means."

The investigation again fell into a deadlock.

"Anyway, since we're here, let's eat first." Minami Ojou-sama glanced at the time: "I know there's a pretty good Chinese restaurant nearby!"

Soon, two staff members brought the Special Mission Division's dinner over.

Minami Ojou-sama's dinner was very lavish.

Sweet and sour pork, sugar-virgin pork loin, lychee meat, tiger-drunk spare ribs, squirrel fish, sugar-virgin shrimp balls, General Tso's chicken, new-style wrapped meat, sugar-virgin eggplant boxes, paired with honey-glazed char siu rice and lemon tea.

Date Nagamune ate a few bites, couldn't help but complain: "Tiger eating heaven, nowhere to start. This case is just like that. All investigable directions have been investigated, all interviewable people have been questioned. The conclusion is still no conclusion. This case has made my head big."

Okada Masayoshi nodded, sighed: "For the previous Dark Knight cases, the reason no one was found is because he chose targets who were wandering on the legal edge but not formally convicted. The public sympathized with his actions, and the police didn't want to expend too much effort chasing a 'heaven's enforcer' type. But this time is different. He killed a Diet member, the Cabinet directly ordered the case solved, the Metropolitan Police Department deployed all available personnel to investigate this case. If he truly exists, he shouldn't still be able to slip through the search net as before. If he can, then it means this case's complexity has already exceeded everyone's expectations."

"Yeah, someone said the Dark Knight might not be a person but an organization. One person couldn't possibly have such a complete information source, couldn't always precisely locate targets, and still escape unharmed. If there really is an organization behind him supporting him, then this case isn't just a simple criminal case. It's an organized, long-term, systemic operation." Maeda Toshihide complained: "What Umbrella Corporation? V for Vendetta? Assassin's Creed?"

Asō Kōta also complained: "And someone said Overbought died due to persecution by the Japanese civil servant official group, Japan's system has an official group composed of professional and quasi-professional ranks, they control the government from above and... the Ming Dynasty fell just like that! Lessons from past cars guide future drivers! We must unite together, resist the official group! Sun and moon reopen, great Ming heaven!"

"The official group has come out." Uesugi Muneyuki was amused: "Was Zhu Qizhen just betrayed by the official group? Then on August 15th, the Slavic-Aryan Empire's Esen shattered the official group's conspiracy at the German Tumu Fortress, and then the Mongol-Slavic-Aryan great army immediately boarded the C-47 transport squadron, arriving at the Da Ming Xuānfǔ on August 16th to knock on the door?"

"C47? What's that?" Ikeda Erena's eyes widened round, she didn't understand.

"It's a U. S. military transport plane." Asō Kōta whispered a reminder.

Maeda Toshihide put his chopsticks on the bowl rim: "There's also a theory that the Dark Knight's target is not actually Overbought. Someone might have deliberately diverted the Dark Knight's gaze toward Overbought, using framing to conceal the true purpose."

Minami was sitting at the other end of the long table, with a steaming cup of barley tea in front of her: "Anyway, don't let these external conspiracy theories affect us, we just continue the investigation."

"But where should we start investigating? We've investigated everything we could investigate." Date Nagamune painfully clutched his hair: "What else is there left to investigate?"

"You say, could it not be that Sasaki Ayaka has someone secretly in love with her, who discovered her affair with Overbought, so..." Igarashi began brainstorming.

"Checked!" Date Nagamune painfully said: "Still nothing! You think those people in Investigation Division 1 are idiots? The Japanese police are best at starting from interpersonal relationships!"

"Then why is that?" Igarashi also couldn't figure it out.

The door was pushed open.

Kashiwagi Jin walked in from outside, wearing that deep gray wool overcoat, collar standing, holding a convenience store canned coffee, with a fine layer of moisture condensing on the can wall. His gaze swept around the room, paused when it fell on Uesugi Muneyuki, then he walked to the table side and sat down in an empty seat: "Ah hey hey~ Still not resting? Still discussing this case?"

"What are you here for?" Minami Ojou-sama said casually: "Is Investigation Division 1 that free?"

"Just passing by, came to say a word to Uesugi, earlier Investigation Division Chief said something." Kashiwagi Jin put the coffee can on the table: "He said the key to the problem might lie in Overbought's own statement 'I think I haven't embezzled.' Maybe we've always overcomplicated the problem. The Dark Knight's chosen targets might not actually need to have some concrete, quantifiable wrongdoing. He might be choosing those he himself thinks 'should be punished.' His standard isn't law. It's his own standard. If Overbought has always been saying he thinks he hasn't embezzled, then perhaps it's because he really thinks he hasn't embezzled. And the Dark Knight's reason for killing him might perhaps be precisely because he thinks he hasn't embezzled."

The room fell silent for a moment.

Uesugi Muneyuki thought carefully for a while, suddenly, an extremely absurd idea appeared in his mind.

"Wait, I said…… I am saying……" Uesugi Muneyuki's facial expression was very strange: "I am saying, will it not be as Investigation Division Chief thought, that we've overcomplicated the problem?"

"Perhaps this matter from beginning to end is not what everyone imagined, or perhaps from the very beginning it was very simple, very pure? Or perhaps this case from the start, the answer has always been hidden in the question?"

"Hah???" Everyone looked at Uesugi Muneyuki.

"You guys wait a bit, I'll make a phone call!"