Tokyo: I'm really not a killer

Gunshots rang out at the Mengmeng Dating Phone Club.

Sumiyoshi-kai acted swiftly, with two yakuza members bringing a scapegoat upstairs. The scapegoat repeatedly confirmed whether there was money to be made by going to jail... When the three arrived at the scene, a strong smell of blood assaulted their senses.

Sato Kanon lay face up in the center of the pool of blood.

Her skirt was lifted up to her waist, and a large muscle on the outside of her right thigh was neatly cut off, exposing the white femur below, with tendons and dark red tissue still attached to the bone.

The three men felt nauseous, but having been paid, they had to do their job. They quickly cleaned up the scene, had the scapegoat pick up the murder weapon lying in the corner, and checked the testimonies to avoid any mistakes.

……

Rewind two minutes, and Yuan Zhensheng was sitting in the restaurant diagonally opposite when he heard the gunshot.

The couple at the next table looked out the window and asked curiously:

"Huh? What was that sound just now?"

"I don't know, I think it's a construction site?"

The buckwheat noodles in front of Yuan Zhensheng had gone cold. He pretended to eat the noodles while looking down, but actually spat them into a tissue and threw them into the trash can.

As a professional assassin, not eating unfamiliar food is a basic requirement.

His peripheral vision never left the entrance to the telephone club.

A middle-aged man wearing a wrinkled gray jacket came out, carrying a plastic lunch bag commonly found in convenience stores.

The man's pace was neither hurried nor slow, even somewhat sluggish, making him seem no different from any other middle-aged man struggling to make a living in this noisy neighborhood.

But Yuan Zhensheng noticed something was wrong.

First, there was a small, inconspicuous brown stain on the back of the man's right hand, near the base of his thumb—a trace of what appeared to be dried blood, very tiny.

In addition, on the left side of his jacket, near the zipper, there were two or three spots of the same color and texture, as if they had been stained by some tiny splatter.

The man's demeanor and movements had a familiar quality. Assassins have a connection with each other; they can tell at a glance whether the other is a fellow assassin.

The other party maintained a habitual vigilance, and as they stepped out the door, their gaze quickly swept across the street, including the small restaurant where Yuan Zhensheng was.

Their gazes met briefly in the noisy street. Yuan Zhensheng naturally turned his head toward the counter, pretending to study the menu posted on the wall.

The middle-aged man didn't stop. He turned and walked along the sidewalk toward the street corner, quickly merging into the sparse crowd and disappearing behind the sign of a billiards room.

Yuan Zhensheng withdrew his gaze, put down his chopsticks, and raised his hand to indicate that he wanted to pay the bill.

As the sirens blared, a few scattered customers and the restaurant owner peered out and began to whisper among themselves.

Yuan Zhensheng picked up the change without speeding up his movements at all. Like a passerby simply watching the excitement, he strolled out of the store with a few other curious people, stood under the eaves, and lit a cigarette.

The police car doors slammed open, and uniformed officers quickly set up a cordon and dispersed the gathering crowd.

The wait took longer than expected.

The crowd of onlookers changed several times, and the focus of their discussion shifted from "What happened?" to "I heard someone died and there was a lot of blood."

The cigarette between Yuan Zhensheng's fingers slowly burned out.

Finally, there was movement again at the entrance of the apartment building. First came out several plainclothes detectives with serious expressions, talking in hushed tones; then, two forensic officers wearing masks and gloves pushed out a stretcher.

It was the body of Sato Kanon.

Yuan Zhensheng couldn't see the corpse's face, but he remembered its height and build, and guessed it pretty accurately.

Sigh, they're defaulting on their debt again.

Yuan Zhensheng flicked away his cigarette butt, withdrew his gaze, and walked in the direction the middle-aged man had left.

We have to get the money tonight. If we don't get it, we'll lose our lives.

That guy seemed to have headed east; there's a small park there. Yuan Zhensheng remembered that the guy was carrying a lunchbox, so he might have gone to the park for dinner... This guess wasn't based on anything special, it was just an assassin's intuition.

Yuan Zhensheng walked quickly, but with a relaxed gait, occasionally pausing briefly at alley entrances or corners to observe the situation on the main road.

About fifteen minutes later, he walked to the vicinity of the park, where the greenery was sparse, the benches were old, and during the day only a few homeless people or idle old people occupied the area. At night, it became even more secluded and somewhat eerie.

A moment later, he saw the man on the bench.

it's him.

The middle-aged man in the gray jacket sat on a bench with his back to the path. The lunchbox in front of him was open and placed on his lap. He was eating with stainless steel chopsticks in his hand.

Yuan Zhensheng walked over and sat down at the other end of the bench, like a tourist. After looking around, his gaze fell on the bento box.

Scattered on the rice were a few pieces of dark brown, seemingly teriyaki-sauce-infused minced meat, possibly chicken or pork, a little bit of pickled yellow dried radish, and two or three wilted cabbage leaves.

However, next to these ordinary side dishes, in one corner of the rice, there was a piece of deep red meat.

The rice was coated with the deep red sauce that had seeped from the meat chunks.

The middle-aged man chewed on the raw meat, glancing at Yuan Zhensheng out of the corner of his eye with a hint of wariness in his expression.

"What kind of dish is this?" Yuan Zhensheng asked, taking the initiative to speak.

"Chicken sashimi," the middle-aged man said.

"Oh, it looks delicious," Hara Masaki said politely, then added, "My name is Shinomiya Komei, what's yours?"

"What's the matter?" the middle-aged man asked.

"It's nothing really important, I just wanted to ask you something." Yuan Zhensheng shifted his position closer to the middle-aged man and whispered, "I want to know who hired you."

As soon as he finished speaking, the middle-aged man spun the sharp chopsticks in his hand and thrust them back towards Yuan Zhensheng's eyes—Japanese chopsticks are very short and hard, with very sharp ends, and can be used as weapons.

In the blink of an eye, Yuan Zhensheng pulled out a folding knife and pinned the hand holding the chopsticks to his thigh, avoiding the carotid artery: "Don't move, or I'll shoot."

Yuan Zhensheng didn't bring a gun, only a silencer. He put his right hand into his pocket and pinched the silencer to simulate the outline of a gun muzzle.

The middle-aged man's forehead was beaded with sweat, and he dared not move again. He swallowed hard, finally taking a serious look at Yuan Zhensheng: "You are... Swamp Man?"

"What a lame nickname... Oh well, it's not important."

Yuan Zhensheng stared into his eyes: "Now I'll ask you a question, and you answer it. As long as you tell the truth, I won't kill you."

"I've already seen your face, how could you not kill me?" the middle-aged man said.

"This isn't my real face." Yuan Zhensheng didn't care. He wasn't using Suzuki Shinya's face now, but a randomly copied face of a passerby.

"Is the rumor true? Can you really impersonate someone else?" the middle-aged man pressed.

Yuan Zhen twisted the dagger sharply, and the middle-aged man groaned in pain.

"My patience is running out. I've said I'd ask and you answer; now you're not allowed to utter another word of nonsense, understand?"

"clear."