Chapter 986

In the suite, Senior Student Mai had already settled Sakura and Asuka.

When Uesugi Muneyuki pushed the door open, Senior Student Mai stood with her hands on her hips, likely because this matter was significant, her usual smile absent, her brow slightly furrowed; even so, she glowed with pallor in the room, gazing at Uesugi Muneyuki with three parts reproach and seven parts complexity on her porcelain-perfect face.

As a being of One Lotus Together Born, she could naturally sense in broad terms what Uesugi Muneyuki had encountered underwater, though many details and contents remained unclear, yet she knew not a little.

"Did you see the Old Gods? Did the ritual succeed?"

"Hmm." Uesugi Muneyuki nodded: "That bunch of idiots performed a ritual, and it actually succeeded, and they succeeded not because of their own foolish ways, but because of us—us on the first night."

"Pfft, this works too?" Senior Student Mai couldn't help but roll her eyes, recalling what happened on the cruise ship's first night, her face flushing slightly, though compared to Sakura and Asuka, her skin was thick, so she immediately asked: "Strange, what was the offering? Wasn't that corpse already dealt with? And Eto didn't die either?"

"It was Sakura." Uesugi Muneyuki said silently.

"Sakura?!"

Uesugi Muneyuki told Bai Chuan Mai what happened; between them there was nothing to conceal.

————Don't do this again next time, this time it was just luck." Senior Student Mai sighed: "If someone told me you saw the Old Gods and could still converse with them, I'd think he was mad, so-called Old Gods being like the craft-loving Cthulhu, theoretically unable to communicate, and staring too long would make one lose sanity, but if it's you—you communicated freely with that Rain Maiden and came and went in the High Plain of Heaven, I believe your words, but don't do this again, I cannot bear the cost of losing you, just as you cannot bear losing me."

"It won't happen again." Uesugi Muneyuki embraced Senior Student Mai tightly from behind, his voice suddenly trembling: "I also—"

"You finally get scared?" Senior Student Mai couldn't help but smile.

"I get scared." Uesugi Muneyuki swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

"Forget it, bothering you now won't help, and to some extent you're not wrong, it wasn't you who killed Sakura, it was those cultists, but now things are somewhat troublesome." Senior Student Mai patted the cushion beside her on the sofa: "What about Sakura—how do you plan to tell Minami?"

Uesugi Muneyuki sat down, leaning against the sofa back: "Tell the truth. Tonight's events can't be concealed. The National Police Agency side is likely already acting; in Fukuoka, once we dock, police will come soon, and you also killed someone."

"What do we do? The omnipotent Japanese Police Final Weapon, think of something quick!" Senior Student Mai raised her eyebrows.

"No problem, now we must utilize the Sakura lead." Uesugi Muneyuki closed his eyes and nodded: "You forgot? Sakura is a Public Security Police informant, an undercover in the Security Planning Division under the Security Bureau, the Security Bureau's deepest secret is the Inner World domain, and that guy named Tsugawa Shouichi in our Special Mission Division is the one who can shapeshift, so let the Public Security Police take full charge then.

"Are you sure?" Senior Student Mai pondered: "This incident cost several lives!"

"I'm sure." Uesugi Muneyuki smiled and nodded: "Because I am Uesugi Muneyuki, the Metropolitan Police Department must listen to me and must protect me, otherwise who gives them the gavel to render judgment, who gives them to solve cases? You don't see, now the entire Japanese police system, once faced with a major, serious, key, or cold case, the only one who can and dares to make a judgment is me—of course, perhaps also Old Ren, but Old Ren often makes mistakes—"

"Pfft~" Senior Student Mai was amused, she puffed a laugh, yet couldn't help but nod: "This is roughly our Japanese tradition of gekokujō, professional forensic pathologists must dare to render judgment."

Uesugi Muneyuki, hearing this, also couldn't help but shake his head.

The Japanese understood "ambiguous politics" quite early.

What is "ambiguous politics"? This is not easy to elaborate in detail, but everyone should grasp it: saying something amounts to saying nothing, a dozen pages of speech filled with officialese, platitudes, and empty talk, one question left unanswered whether it is yes or no, talking half a day without answering, for example, the classic Yes Minister, where others ask Humphrey "yes or no?" and Humphrey replies "or" or "yes——————andNo!"

The Japanese grasped this early, from after the ancient sea people's prince, the emperor lost real power, real authority fell to the Fujiwara regents, thus all state affairs had to be decided by the Fujiwara clan, who felt the weight of responsibility, thus they created the regency system.

Put plainly, nobody wants to take the blame, the emperor throws the blame to the court nobles, the court nobles throw it to the warrior houses.

A very typical example is the emperor's intention, say the emperor wants to support a certain Fujiwara direct line to become Kanpaku, so he lets it be known that tonight the Emperor will dine and compose poetry with this person.

But does the Emperor truly support him?

Saying support is support, the Emperor personally bestowed banquets and yet it is not support? Saying no support is no support, but it's merely eating a meal, why over-interpret? Has the Emperor ever personally said he would appoint him as Kanpaku?

Once in power, that's "I ordered it, thus it succeeded"; once out of power, that's "it failed, not my fault."

What about the warrior houses?

Unfortunately, the warrior houses also don't want to take the blame.

Japan's political history is just such a layered outsourcing history: by the Muromachi Shogunate, the shogun threw the blame to the kanrei and only managed to uphold public order while watching tigers fight, when idle he whipped the kanrei, the kanrei hurriedly threw the blame to the shugo, stipulating that shugo could levy and retain half the tribute, resulting in shugo growing powerful, the shogun seeing this wouldn't do, hurriedly ordered the shugo to remain long-term stationed in Kyoto, the shugo, having no choice, could only appoint shugo deputies, and those deputies actually replaced the shugo to become Jikoku Daimyo, and further developed into Sengoku Daimyo, even some shugo deputies were emptied out by powerful provincial clans, great clans, or retainers, looking back, oh my, the Sengoku period began.

Thus in the end, it is always whoever is willing to step forward and take responsibility, whoever truly fights on the front lines, whoever truly controls military force and the grassroots, who achieves gekokujō, grasping true power.

The funniest is Itō Hirobumi and his group after the Meiji Restoration, those who have read that history will notice a strange point: this group feels especially young.

The reason is simple: because this group actually consists of the white-gloved hands of the behind-the-scenes domain cliques, in that chaotic age, nobody wanted to take the blame, so they pushed these young people forward.

The result is unfortunate, because whoever is on the front line who can render judgment, whoever grasps true power, leading to Itō Hirobumi's group prematurely mounting the historical stage.

Likewise, during the Shōwa era, the Emperor was also quite confident, because if you truly argue, the emperor in fact never issued any clear edicts or judgments, spoke yet it seemed as if he hadn't, but always had a veiled attitude expressing itself that everyone nonetheless had to obey, all his meanings were "ambiguous politics," you cannot even find any evidence of what he concretely did, so he once felt quite confident he would not be held accountable, worst case a hundred million shattered jewels.

Unfortunately, the Americans' atomic bomb does not listen to this.

Likewise, the Imperial Japanese Army at the time was also very profiteering, many orders were issued then read aloud at the front lines, after reading they destroyed the scene on the spot, leaving no trace, all are non-stick-blame, actually much evidence of war criminals is insufficient, many atrocities at the time it is already hard to trace who gave the order.

However, MacArthur also does not listen to this, Yamashita Tomoyuki and Nagano Osami must die!

Thus at this time everyone can understand why the Japanese then so liked to be "colonels," but many were unwilling to be promoted to major general?

Because in this system, the colonel is the one truly controlling the front lines and main power.

Yo sa!

Colonel Uesugi of the Metropolitan Police Department!

At the same time, in the thin mist rising from the hot water, Miyawaki Sakura's fingers slid back and forth twice on the phone screen, deleting the trace of that read message.

She was looking at a line of brief reply on the screen, that came from the reply receipt of the National Police Agency Security Bureau.

"Received. Committee Chairman Nankōtarō has departed. Awaiting further instructions. Signing off."

She locked the screen, placed the phone on the ceramic tile at the edge of the bathtub, then buried her face in the hot water and exhaled a string of bubbles.

When she lifted her head again, the dew on her delicate little face had been turned by the hot steam into a fine mist of water droplets.

She leaned against the bathtub wall, gazing at the night color of the Setouchi Sea outside the window, that bone-china-bright and smooth hand quietly clenched the edge of the towel.

Three years and three years, if this continues Sakura will become a big shot!

You Public Security Police won't give Sakura a promotion to Assistant Police Inspector, this matter is hard to handle!

And meanwhile in her own cabin, having washed up, Eto Miyabi began preparing.

—

Unlike any previous time.

She sat before the dressing table, one by one, slowly and carefully, solemnly.

The base makeup took a long time, the hairstyle was coiled and undone, undone and coiled again, until not a single strand of hair was disordered.

Then she opened the drawer, took out a pair of brand-new black mottled sapphire-blue pearl luster silk stockings.

With her back to the mirror, Eto Miyabi pinched the stocking waist with both hands, pulling that layer of delicate tight black silk from the toes all the way up, wrapping the extremely fleshy calf, the round knee bend, until the snow-white plump thigh, finally with a soft "pop," that layer of black silk settled firmly at the waist and abdomen.

Lastly, she put on that red haute couture evening gown, the maple forest falling mist vermilion vermilion dream kite crimson color draped shoulder dress fabric in the bedroom's lamp light giving off a layer of deep matte, the excellent cut pinching her waist line with not an ounce of flab, the high-heeled shoes also new, black lacquer leather red sole thin high heel, stepping on the floor crisp and arrogant.

Although Uesugi Muneyuki thought he was just playing around, Eto Miyabi was actually serious.

She truly admired him.

Just as Souda Sosuke's precise home run on the baseball field attracted her, what attracted her to Uesugi Muneyuki was the same terrifying decisiveness and confidence.

Of course, the popularity was something to ride on, and the History of Ming indeed needed to be read, and naturally the benefits could not be lacking.

But Eto Miyabi was originally supposed to grow wings and land in such a place.

Soon, she waited a little longer, and with the knocking sound, a scene like this appeared right before Uesugi Muneyuki.

Eto Miyabi knelt properly inside the private room, her red evening gown's skirt hem spreading like a pool of gorgeous bloodshed across the luxury car's carpet.

She knelt there, her waist bending deeply, her carefully coiled long hair intentionally loosened, falling like a waterfall onto the man's inner thigh, the fine calves wrapped in black silk faintly visible at the edge of the skirt hem, a pair of patent leather high-heeled shoes placed to one side.

"Please, please give me your guidance!"

Uesugi Muneyuki raised his eyebrows, looking at the woman before him who had caused countless troubles yet brought countless opportunities, he fell silent for a moment, finally nodding.

"Please give me your guidance!"

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