The Daily Life of a Salted Fish Assassin in Anime Crossovers

From all perspectives, this seems to be the only jewelry heist where the timing matches up and the perpetrator hasn't been caught.

The problem is...

Is there something wrong with this amount?

According to the jewelry store's statement, it is "reported" that rare jewelry worth over one billion yen was stolen.

A billion is certainly a lot; that's how much the brewery paid Miyano Akemi to save her life.

There are plenty of people in the underworld who would risk their lives for so much money.

However, these claims made by the jewelry store are likely heavily exaggerated, and some of them may have been used to balance the books.

In short, as a professional assassin with connoisseurship skills, Jiang Hang did some digging into the news about that jewelry store from back then.

The stolen jewelry was indeed valuable.

But if we remove the inflated prices, the undervaluation of these treasures on the black market, and consider the jewelry market trends over the past eight years...

This batch of jewelry, supposedly worth 1 billion yen, might only fetch 300 million yen at best.

Today, 100 million yen is roughly equivalent to 600,000 to 700,000 dollars.

The total value of this batch of jewelry is approximately three million dollars.

In other words, these two guys nearly killed hundreds of people and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in economic losses this morning.

Now they are going to blow up this more expensive dam, threatening the lives of thousands of people in Beize Village downstream of the dam.

All for those three million dollars!?

Chapter 583: The Truth from 8 Years Ago

Jiang Hang confirmed that he had not miscounted.

Keisuke Yamao and Shogo Hikawa did indeed devise these plans because of that piece of jewelry from back then.

The whole story is now quite clear.

Eight years ago, Keisuke Yamao, burdened with gambling debts, robbed a jewelry store in Tokyo when he was desperate. Whether or not Shogo Hikawa, an insurance investigator, provided him with information during this incident is another matter.

However, after the robbery, Hikawa Shogo must have done something to cover for Yamao Keisuke so that he wouldn't be discovered by the police and could return to Kitazawa Village safely. He planned to hide the stolen jewelry in the old Kitazawa Village and then sell it for money after things calmed down.

As a result, because he was too excited after robbing the jewelry store, he drank alcohol on his way home and ended up hitting and killing someone.

Keisuke Yamao probably knew that the traces he left behind were too obvious, that he couldn't escape punishment, and that he couldn't escape with a pile of jewelry that hadn't been converted into money.

So he simply turned himself in, and was eventually imprisoned for eight years for killing someone while driving under the influence.

He was probably quite pleased with his decision to spend eight years in prison, so the police in Tokyo would never have guessed that the jewelry store robber was already behind bars for something else.

Then, once he finishes serving his eight-year prison term, he can exchange all that jewelry for cash and never have to worry about his future again.

But things don't always go as planned. He thought he had made a good plan, but by the time he was released from prison, the original Kitazawa Village had already been completely submerged by the river.

In order to retrieve his jewelry, he discussed an even more radical plan with Hikawa Shogo.

First, they would seek revenge against Yuichiro Asakura, the man who built the dam, and then use this to attract media attention.

Take this opportunity to target the dam, and then go to the ruins of Kitazawa Village to search for the jewelry that was hidden back then.

This should be the complete account of the case.

Jiang Hang, however, still had his brows furrowed tightly.

So why couldn't the other party just get some diving equipment like him and sneak up at night when no one was around to bring the jewelry up?

Or is it because he hid it too well back then, so even Yamao Keisuke himself doesn't know where those treasures are hidden or can't retrieve them from underwater, and needs to drain all the water before he can find the whereabouts of those jewels?

Thinking about this, Jiang Hang didn't know what to say.

In the cases he handled, there were quite a few people who wanted something of higher value than the perpetrator in this case.

But indeed, no one could go to such extremes for this kind of money.

Those ordinary people who had no connection with him, the villagers he had known since childhood in Beize Village, these thousands of people were simply placed on one side of the scale without any regard from the other party, and were directly crushed by the "jewelry worth 1 billion" on the other side.

Jiang Hang looked at Hikawa Shogo, who still dared to put on airs in front of Yamao Keisuke.

This guy isn't much better.

Moreover, he wasn't as ruthless as Yamao Keisuke; he was simply a petty person who thought he could suppress Yamao Keisuke for life by relying on these secrets.

But Jiang Hang could see clearly that in the darkness, Yamao Keisuke had repeatedly revealed his murderous intent to Hikawa Shogo without him noticing.

I'm afraid that once they find the treasure, Hikawa Shogo will be killed by Yamao Keisuke.

Thinking about how he would have to save this scumbag's life later, Jiang Hang couldn't help but sigh.

Consider it an extra bonus.

So Jiang Hang watched as the two men busily transported gunpowder.

He didn't rush to make a move, since he had already contacted the Hokkaido police and notified them to prepare to come and take action.

Before the police arrive, let these two criminals, who have long lost their conscience, continue to strive for their "pursuit" for a little longer.

In the dead of night, the two of them braved the wind and snow, carefully moving the gunpowder piece by piece, and checking whether it was intact and had not been damp.

It can only be said that people have energy when they have a goal.

They worked like that for over an hour without stopping to rest.

Meanwhile, the staff on the other side of the dam are already fast asleep in their offices, having drunk too much.

It was precisely because they were sleeping soundly that Yamao Keisuke did not take action immediately after confirming the situation.

That's why Jiang Hang allowed them to continue moving gunpowder for another hour or so.

"Having done so much, it should be about time, right?" Despite it being winter, Hikawa Shogo was already covered in sweat as he wiped his forehead.

"The dam is almost done, but we still have one more place to deal with."

Keisuke Yamao turned his head to look in another direction.

"Is that Takehiko Muto's cabin over there?"

"I think so? I heard Mizuki and the others talking about it tonight. They said that after that guy was relocated from Kitazawa Village, he has refused to move into the new Kitazawa Village, saying that he still can't accept that kind of thing."

At this point, Hikawa Shogo couldn't help but reveal a mocking smile.

"In the end, his wood carving shop only got a little business because of the tourist attractions that have been built up in Xinbeize Village. I really don't know what he's still persisting in after all these years?"

Keisuke Yamao retorted sharply to Shogo Hikawa without any pretense, "That's still better than a traitor like you."

Hikawa Shogo was about to explode, but Yamao Keisuke simply waved his hand, not intending to say anything more on the topic.

Their relationship wasn't particularly close to begin with. It was only when he was at his wit's end that he sought the other's help. The other, an insurance investigator, gave him a list of jewelry stores that refused to be insured by the other's company, implying that he could rob these poorly guarded jewelry stores.

Having no other options at the time, he gritted his teeth and went for it, and to his surprise, it went very smoothly, resulting in the theft of a large quantity of jewelry.

It was precisely because of this that Hikawa Shogo began to extort money from him.

During the years he was in prison, the other party did visit him a few times, and their words always seemed to be an attempt to get him to reveal the hidden location of the jewelry.

Of course, he couldn't say these things out loud.

Moreover, after spending a long time in prison with that group of all sorts of people, Yamao Keisuke gradually realized that he seemed to be really suited to doing these things.

So after his release from prison, he contacted the people he knew in prison and secretly did some work with them. He also managed to get a batch of gunpowder through some connections.

All of this was in order to retrieve the jewels he had hidden in the old Kitazawa village.

They took out those jewels, exchanged them for money, and used that as capital to start building their own power in Hokkaido, a place where yakuza forces were not prominent.

This is what Keisuke Yamao is planning now.

As for Hyogoro?

They are only temporarily bound together by interests.

If the other party had some sense of propriety, he might have spared their life.

Perhaps once my own power base is established, I can make him a minor leader.

Unfortunately, the other party doesn't seem to understand.

Even now, Hikawa Shogo still sees him as that desperate gambler from eight years ago.

A cold glint flashed in Yamao Keisuke's eyes. By the time the jewel was found, this guy would already be a corpse.

Hikawa Shogo was also startled by the fierce glint in the other party's eyes.

But he thought the other party was trying to do something to Muto Takehiko, so he wasn't too worried about himself.

"So why did you suddenly bring him up?"

Keisuke Yamao snorted coldly: "Don't you think we should find a scapegoat for doing something like this?"

"I think Muto is a good fit. After all, he's the only one among our group who's still posting those kinds of comments online that nobody cares about."

"If we're talking about how much people hate the Beize Dam, who in Beize Village doesn't know about it?"

"It's not surprising that someone who lives alone outside Kitazawa Village, rarely shows his face, and whose actions are unknown to everyone, and who also utterly despises the Kitazawa Dam, would do something like this under such extreme circumstances, is it?"

He did this because he wanted to stay in Hokkaido and build up his own power base, so he couldn't afford to be easily targeted by the police.

It's still quite necessary to find two scapegoats.

Shogo Hikawa didn't really have much affection for these childhood playmates.

What's more, the other party has repeatedly called him an ingrate.

Their relationship had already fallen apart long ago.

Therefore, when he heard that Yamao Keisuke wanted to shift the blame onto Muto Takehiko, he didn't think too much about it and agreed immediately.

"So what do we need to do now? How can we get him to be suspected?"

Keisuke Yamao gave a cold laugh.

"It's good that the dead can't prove anything."

"Then we'll put the remaining gunpowder in his workshop and detonate it along with the dam, then make him write a will expressing his attitude of sharing life and death with the old Kitazawa village. Isn't that simple?"

"So we have to kill that guy Muto?" Hikawa Shogo's main concern wasn't the other guy's life, but how to create such a false impression.