Tokyo: I'm really not a killer

On that day, Prosecutor Hiroki Kurokawa entered the police station, where the chief personally came out to greet him, and the two had a private conversation in the office.

The Hideaki Shiraishi case is about to enter the prosecution stage, and Prosecutor Kurokawa needs to finalize the chain of evidence and the suspect's confession.

Meanwhile, in the police station's underground parking lot.

Yuan Zhensheng was wearing an old-fashioned repairman's uniform that he had dug out from the Koban warehouse, along with a baseball cap, and was pushing a trolley full of cleaning supplies.

Using his position as a patrol officer, he learned about the police station's internal structure in advance, especially the shift change times and personnel flow patterns in the detention area.

According to the plan, Shinomiya Rin and Komi Yui should already be in place.

The detention area is located on the west side of the third floor of the police station building. Yuan Zhensheng is pushing a trolley and swiping a limited access card—a copy he borrowed from a careless civilian police officer a few days ago when he was helping with paperwork.

The card can open doors in some areas, but higher privileges are required to access the core area of ​​the detention zone.

He went to the storage room at the corner of the second-floor staircase, which was filled with discarded office furniture and file boxes and was rarely visited.

Yuan Zhensheng put down the trolley and took out a square object wrapped in a waterproof cloth from the bottom box.

This is a timer device connected to several smoke bombs and a small number of firecrackers, with the detonation time set to fifteen minutes later.

He placed the device deep in the clutter, partially covering it with several cardboard boxes to ensure the smoke could diffuse smoothly but wouldn't immediately reveal the source of the fire. Then he quickly left the clutter room and continued pushing the cart up to the third floor.

At this moment, at the main entrance of the police station.

Komi Yui, leaning on her guide cane, walked steadily into the hall.

She was wearing a simple dress and carrying a file folder. The police officer at the front desk glanced up at her, and noticing her visual impairment, proactively asked, "Hello, is there anything I can help you with?"

"Hello," Komi Yui said softly, turning her head slightly. "I'm here to provide supplementary testimony in my father Kuwata Kenkichi's case. A police officer contacted me before. May I ask... who should I speak to?"

The front desk police officer knew about Kenkichi Kuwata's case and had also vaguely heard about the deceased's blind daughter.

He glanced at the file folder in Komi Yui's hand, and seeing that she indeed couldn't see, his wariness lessened considerably. "Please wait a moment, I'll ask for you."

Just then, in the alley outside the side gate of the police station.

Shinomiya Rin pressed herself against the wall nervously. She was wearing makeup, a wig, and glasses, and loose clothes that she had taken from Komi Yui's closet. She looked like an ordinary female college student.

She was clutching a small black bag tightly in her hand, inside which were props that Komi Yui had prepared in advance.

As instructed by Yuan Zhensheng, her task was to create an accident at a designated time to attract the attention of the guards at the gate.

As for how to do it, Yuan Zhensheng only said, "Act according to the situation, make a commotion but don't get caught."

She glanced at her watch; there were still twelve minutes until the appointed time, and her heart pounded.

Meanwhile, on the third floor of the police station, Yuan Zhensheng encountered trouble.

At the entrance to the corridor leading to the detention area, besides the access control, there was a duty officer sitting behind a desk. It wasn't the usual dozing-off old patrolman; instead, it was a young, unfamiliar officer, energetically reading a newspaper.

As Yuan Zhensheng approached with his stroller, he lowered the brim of his hat.

"Repair, check the ventilation ducts," he mumbled, flashing a card with limited access in his hand, but didn't swipe it on the access control—his card couldn't open the door at all.

The young officer looked up and sized him up: "Repairs? I didn't receive any notification. Which department are you from? Let me see your work ID."

"The logistics department notified me downstairs that there's a strange noise coming from the pipes here, and they asked me to come and take a look." Yuan Zhensheng remained expressionless, reaching into his pocket as if to pull out his work ID, while quickly calculating what to do in his mind.

Just then, a muffled "bang" was faintly heard from downstairs, followed by a woman's scream and the sound of something breaking.

The young officer immediately stood up and listened intently: "What's that sound?"

A thought struck Yuan Zhensheng: he knew that things might have started on Shinomiya Rin's side, or something else might have happened.

He seized the opportunity: "It looks like the lobby on the first floor? Has something happened?"

The young officer hesitated for a moment. His duty was to stay here, but the commotion downstairs definitely sounded like something was wrong. He picked up the walkie-talkie: "First floor, first floor, what's going on?"

The walkie-talkie crackled with noise, interspersed with the somewhat flustered voice of a police officer at the front desk: "It's nothing! A blind lady accidentally fell and knocked over a thermos... We're handling it!"

A blind woman? Komi Yui?

Yuan Zhensheng immediately said, "Oh dear, a blind person might fall and get burned! Go check on him quickly, I'll watch this place for you, I need to wait for someone to open the door anyway."

The young officer glanced at Yuan Zhensheng, then at the tightly closed gate of the detention area, thinking that no one could get in without a pass, and there were colleagues inside. The blind man downstairs seemed to be a family member of someone involved in an important case; if something happened, it would be troublesome.

"Then wait here for a moment, don't wander off, I'll be right back," the young police officer said, and strode towards the stairs.

Yuan Zhensheng watched him disappear at the stairwell, then immediately turned around, but he didn't try to crack the access control that required high-level privileges—there wasn't enough time, and it would easily trigger an alarm.

He pushed the trolley and quickly walked to the other end of the corridor.

There was an inconspicuous iron gate with a sign that read "Equipment Room, No Unauthorized Personnel Allowed".

This was discovered during his previous survey. The equipment room contained ventilation ducts and cable wells, which theoretically connected to parts of the detention area. However, he was not entirely sure where it connected or whether it was passable.

This is the planned backup route, which is very risky.

Downstairs in the lobby, hot water had spilled on the floor. Komi Yui apologized repeatedly and fumbled to clean it up, only appearing more flustered. The front desk police officer and the young officer who rushed over after hearing the commotion quickly calmed her down and cleaned up the scene; for a moment, no one paid attention to anything else.

Hearing the commotion, Shinomiya Rin, who was in the alley outside the side gate, knew it was her turn to step in.

She took a deep breath, took out a small bottle from her black bag, filled with rotten eggs and sewage, and threw it forcefully at the wall next to the main entrance of the police station.

"Crack!" The bottle shattered, and a strange smell, like rotten eggs mixed with ammonia, filled the air.

"What does it taste like?!"

"It stinks!"

The two guards standing at the gate and the police officers in a patrol car that happened to be passing by were all drawn to the scene and covered their noses to look.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Shinomiya Rin ran away from the other end of the alley, blowing a sharp sound with a prepared whistle as she ran, and then quickly turned into another alley, evacuating according to the route planned by Komi Yui.

Her mission was accomplished—to create chaos and suspicious activity to distract the police station from the outside world.

On the third floor, Yuan Zhensheng was still at the entrance of the equipment room.

He was about to pry open the lock when he suddenly heard a "beep" of a card being swiped and the sound of a door opening coming from the direction of the detention area gate behind him.

Someone's coming out!

Yuan Zhensheng immediately pushed the trolley back into the shadows at the corner of the corridor, keeping his body low to the ground.