The Daily Life of a Salted Fish Assassin in Anime Crossovers

Almost instantly, the name of Goji Sotaro appeared in Hattori Heiji's mind.

Could it be that the real culprit in this series of murders is actually Goji Sotaro, who first captured and controlled Numabuchi Kiichiro before carrying out his plan to silence him step by step?

Hattori Heiji stood up and looked at the wooden house not far away.

He hadn't forgotten what happened in Kyoto a few days ago. The precious Buddha statue was hidden in the ceiling of the bell tower by the leader of the Genji Firefly. If Numabuchi Kiichiro was indeed under house arrest here, then the ceiling of that wooden house was the most likely place.

“I think I know where Numabuchi Kiichiro is now. Jiang Hang, have you found anything over there?” Hattori Heiji turned around to ask Jiang Hang if he had found any new clues, but when he turned around, he realized that Jiang Hang, who had come with him, had disappeared without him noticing.

Hattori Heiji blinked, a hint of doubt flashing in his eyes.

What about Jianghang?

How could someone so grown up suddenly disappear like that?

It was a police officer who came up and explained things to Hattori Heiji.

"About ten minutes ago, Consultant Jiang received a phone call. He must have seen you were still diligently investigating the scene, so he didn't want to disturb you. He just borrowed a police car from us and left in a hurry..."

Hearing the policeman's words, Hattori Heiji's heart skipped a beat.

Could it be that Jiang Hang has discovered some other important clue?

But now that they're only one step away from capturing Numabuchi Kiichiro, he can't possibly go to Jiang Hang to find out what he's discovered.

“Let’s hurry to that cabin. If my reasoning is correct, Numabuchi Kiichiro is there. If we can catch him and get information about his accomplices from him, the truth behind the recent serial murders will probably come to light.” Since they couldn’t catch up with Jiang Hang anymore, Hattori Heiji quickly made a decision to use Numabuchi Kiichiro as their breakthrough point.

Hattori Heiji called over several policemen, put on protective gear, and then cautiously entered the wooden house.

Meanwhile, Jiang Hang, who had quietly left, was driving to the residence of Goji Sotaro.

Indeed, if we can find Kiichiro Numabuchi, we will most likely be able to learn from him who the real culprit in this series of murders is.

But Jiang Hang already knew who the murderer was, he just didn't have any evidence.

To be honest, whether or not there is evidence has never been the most important factor in Jianghang.

Stalking, coercion, manipulation, fraud, drugging, and violence...

If Jiang Hang wanted to, he had plenty of ways to get those prisoners to honestly tell the truth.

After all, he was never like Conan or Heiji Hattori, anime protagonists who put "procedure" and "logic" in their life creed.

If we were to describe them, placed in the nine-square grid of factions, Conan and Heiji Hattori would be considered members of the Lawful Good or Neutral Good factions. For the sake of the truth and the justice in their hearts, they are willing to risk their lives.

Jiang Hang, on the other hand, should belong to the chaotic good camp.

He appears to be no different from a neutral and kind person in ordinary times. If others need help and he is able to help, he will take the initiative to lend a helping hand. In the eyes of most of the people he has helped, he is a kind and compassionate good person.

But that's only because those things didn't touch his own moral principles and bottom line, plus he could get rewards from his own system for doing good deeds.

When conventional laws and regulations clash with his ideas, he is more inclined to act according to his own thoughts rather than considering whether doing so violates those so-called rules and regulations.

For example, when he realized the identity of the real culprit in this case and understood what the murderer was planning to do next, as an advisor to the Jianghang Metropolitan Police Department and a famous detective, he should have taken the initiative to stop the murderer's actions.

But Jiang Hang did not do that.

It took half an hour to get from Higashijiri Precinct to Meiji Forest Park, and then almost twenty minutes to get from Meiji Forest Park to Goji Sotaro's house. That round trip took an hour, which was the time Jiang Hang left for the real culprit who wanted to avenge his father.

“Officer Sakata, this is your last chance to avenge your father. You should know that from the moment you dialed the police yourself downstairs at Sumie Okazaki’s house, you had no way out.”

Chapter 385: Chapter 381: When the Law Fails to Bring Justice

Shiho Miyano's research was very detailed.

Yusuke Sakata, or more accurately, Yusuke Inaba, is the biological son of Tetsuji Inaba, the notorious driving instructor who died in a car accident 20 years ago due to drunk driving.

After his father died from drunk driving, public opinion put immense pressure on the Inaba family and young Yusuke Inaba.

Eventually, his mother took him back to her parents' home and changed her son's surname, Inaba, to her own family's surname, Sakata.

For the past twenty years, Yusuke Sakata has probably lived in the shadow of that incident, and his becoming a policeman was likely to investigate his father's car accident.

If Jiang Hang wasn't mistaken, he probably discovered Numabuchi Kiichiro's whereabouts by chance recently and learned the truth about his father's death from him, which made him determined to avenge his father.

As an excellent police officer, Yusuke Sakata was well aware of police investigative techniques. Once he made up his mind, killing someone silently without leaving any clues was not a difficult task for him.

Of the six people who caused his father's death in that training class, probably only Sotaro Goji, who is now an Osaka senator, is someone he can't easily get close to.

How could he possibly get in touch with Soutaro Goji, the politician who usually hates the police?

It's simply a matter of making the other person a potential victim or perpetrator in this case, so that he can legitimately approach them as a police officer and find an opportunity to attack Sōtarō Gōji.

So he found a way to take on the task of entertaining Jiang Hang, and then deliberately drove a police car to the place where he killed Ye An and set a trap, thus involving Jiang Hang and Hattori Heiji in the case.

Then he took out a news article from six years ago to show the connection between the first victim, Hidetoshi Nagao, and the third victim, Kazuto Noyasu, through Sotaro Goji.

If there was anything unexpected, it was probably that Hattori Heiji noticed Okazaki Sumie's strange behavior at the scene.

Or rather, Hattori Heiji's discovery of Okazaki Sumie's strangeness was probably all within his expectations; what truly disrupted his plans was Jiang Hang's unpredictable behavior.

Jiang Hang's simple "keep the call going" ensured Okazaki Sumie's safety until she met them, rendering all of Sakata Yusuke's previous preparations futile.

Furthermore, since Sumie Okazaki directly recounted what happened back then over the phone, Yusuke Sakata must have known at that moment that he needed to accelerate his revenge plan.

After all, once the car accident from 20 years ago is investigated, and the family relationships of Inaba Tetsuji, who died back then, Sakata Yusuke's identity cannot be hidden for long.

So when Jiang Hang and Hattori Heiji walked up to Okazaki Sumie's apartment, Sakata Yusuke vented his frustration in the car.

What Sakata Yusuke never expected was that Jiang Hang, with his eagle eyes, after suspecting from Miyano Shiho that there were members of the Black Organization involved in the case, casually put Sakata Yusuke, who had a slight possibility of being an undercover agent for the Black Organization, on his radar.

When Jiang Hang was scanning the Okazaki Sumie's house with Eagle Eye, he immediately spotted Sakata Yusuke, who looked unusual in the car, thanks to Eagle Eye's wall-penetrating function.

Afterwards, Jiang Hang discovered everything clearly, including Sakata Yusuke's decision to use another phone to call the police and tell them the whereabouts of Numabuchi Kiichiro.

However, at that time, Jiang Hang was unaware of Sakata Yusuke's motive for murder.

He was just going to watch from the sidelines and arrest Sakata Yusuke on the spot when he was about to make his move.

It wasn't until he returned to the Higashijiri Precinct and saw the 20-year-old photo, looking at Tetsuji Inaba in the photo who had the same hairstyle as Yusuke Sakata and whose appearance was also five or six parts similar, that Jiang Hang connected these clues and made more than one deduction.

Asking Shiho Miyano for help was simply to add an extra layer of insurance to this hypothesis.

The reason Jiang Hang didn't go to find Shizuka Sakaki and the others was that his attitude changed after he guessed the reason why Yusuke Sakaki committed the murder.

The hatred for the murderer of one's father is irreconcilable, and it is only natural for a son to avenge his father.

If Conan or Heiji Hattori were here, they would definitely stop Yusuke Sakata and make him give up his revenge plans.

But if you really ask them to come up with any way to exonerate Tetsuji Inaba, they probably don't have any ideas.

After all, this is no longer something that can be resolved by law.

Tetsuji Inaba's death was 20 years ago.

The police officers who wrote the case file back then and determined that Tetsuji Inaba caused the car accident due to drunk driving may have retired or been promoted by now.

Whether they are willing to lose face for the sake of this so-called "justice" is another matter.

Even if Kiichiro Numabuchi were to confess to the police now about the crimes he committed back then, the councilor, Koji, would not confess so easily for the sake of his political career. And the others who took Koji's hush money do not seem willing to confess everything to the police for the sake of so-called "justice".

Even Sumie Okazaki's first reaction upon seeing the police was to run away. It was only after realizing that her life was indeed threatened that she recklessly confessed what happened back then.

Given Goji Sotaro's current financial resources, if Sakata Yusuke wanted to pursue procedural justice, he could easily hire a few good lawyers and shift all the blame for the crimes committed back then onto Numabuchi Kiichiro, without suffering any substantial harm himself.

In the style of Conan or Heiji Hattori, in the end they would probably just use their fathers' social status to forcefully overpower Soutar Goji outside the courtroom, and ruining his reputation would be the best outcome.

But this was clearly not the outcome that Sakata Yusuke wanted, and Jiang Hang himself did not like this compromise.

Sherlock Holmes once said: When the law fails to bring justice to the parties involved, private revenge becomes justified and even noble from that moment on.

Jiang Hang's thought was that if Sakata Yusuke was already prepared to take on everything, then he had no reason to stop Sakata Yusuke's revenge.

Clearly, when Yusuke Sakata made the emergency call to the police, hoping to temporarily divert the Osaka police's attention from the car accident 20 years ago to Kiichiro Numabuchi, thus giving him time to carry out his final revenge, he had already made such preparations.

With a somewhat serious mood, Jiang Hang parked the car near the residence of Goji Sotaro and entered the mansion where Goji Sotaro lived as the sky gradually darkened.

Chapter 386: Chapter 382: We just wanted to play a little prank.

The time was a little earlier than usual, at the Higashijiri Police Station.

Sitting in the police station's break room, Sumie Okazaki felt utterly exhausted.

The stressful life she's been living these past few days has certainly been a bit of a struggle for her.

First, the news of Hidetoshi Nagao's murder made her a little concerned.

At that time, she didn't think much about it. She just assumed that Nagao Hidetoshi had offended some people he couldn't afford to offend and had been dealt with. So she just sighed in her heart and didn't take it too seriously.

It wasn't until two or three days later, when news reports surfaced about the murder of Nishiguchi Tayo, that she realized something seemed amiss.

Then, around noon today, she received a mysterious phone call asking her to meet her "old friend" again.

Because it was daytime, and the place the voice on the phone was directing her to was a public place, she hesitated for a moment before driving there anyway.

As soon as she arrived there, she saw the gruesome death of Noyasu and Hito.

Suddenly, memories of 20 years ago flooded her mind. First, there was the annoying face of Numabuchi Kiichiro, who threatened her not to tell anyone. Then there was Goji Sotaro, that fierce-looking guy, who offered her money and told her to obediently forget about it.

So she fled back to her home.

But the threatening message that the mysterious killer sent her immediately shattered her mental defenses.

The phone call from Yusuke Sakata was the last straw that broke the camel's back. After hearing the other party reveal his identity on the phone, Sumie Okazaki even felt a sense of relief.

In this situation, faced with a secret from 20 years ago on one side and one's own life on the other, any normal person would choose the latter without hesitation.

So she confessed everything that had happened in the past, and then went back to the police station with Jiang Hang and his group and was placed under their protection.

At this point, Sumie Okazaki thought she was safe.

After all, no matter how skilled the murderer is, it's impossible for him to barge into the police station in broad daylight and attack her.

She had only been at the police station for less than half an hour when Officer Sakata, who had driven her there and seemed vaguely familiar, suddenly appeared before her. He said that Goji Soutarō was unwilling to meet with the police and that she needed to come over and confront him in person.

Although Sumie Okazaki was reluctant to leave the safe police station, according to Officer Sakata, there were still three or four police officers outside Sotaro Goji's house, and no matter who the murderer was, it was impossible for them to do anything to her there.

After hearing Sakata Yusuke promise to guarantee her safety, Okazaki Sumie hesitated for a while before reluctantly agreeing.

She was then taken to the entrance of Goji Sotaro's mansion.

And just as Officer Sakata said, Goji Sotaro, who had been having his secretary refuse to meet with the police under the pretext of preparing meeting materials, eventually let Okazaki Sumie and Sakata Yusuke into his house after learning of Okazaki Sumie's arrival. Perhaps worried that Okazaki Sumie might say something outside his house that would damage his image, he still put on a sour face and let Okazaki Sumie and Sakata Yusuke into his house.

Several other police officers originally wanted to go in with them, but after Officer Sakata said something to them, they stayed at the entrance of Goji Sotaro's residence and did not go in with them.