The Tokyo Police Journey Begins with the Ability to See Evil Thoughts

Just then, there was a knock on the interrogation room door. Kamiya Gen got up and opened the door, only to find that it was Sato Ichiro.

"Inspector Kamiya, as per your instructions, we have apprehended Hasegawa at the station and are escorting him this way. He should arrive in about ten minutes."

"Okay, you guys go ahead with your work. I'll see if these two recognize each other."

Kamiya Gen nodded, sat back down in his chair, and then said to the two, "Hasegawa has been brought back. Believe me, anyone involved in this cheating incident, no matter how many or how few, will be interrogated. If you don't confess today, then tomorrow; if you don't confess tomorrow, then the day after."

He twisted his neck and leaned forward slightly. "Most importantly, do you think anyone can withstand this pressure? This case involves 400 million yen, and the mastermind will face at least ten years in prison."

At this point, whoever confesses first can be considered to receive leniency for confessing, and those who report or expose crimes can be considered to have performed meritorious service. They may receive a suspended sentence at best, and a sentence of three to five years at worst.

Do you really have to wait until the mastermind throws all the dirty water on you and steals your chance to confess before you realize your mistake?

After he finished speaking, the interrogation room fell into a deathly silence.

Hideaki Yoshioka froze, cold sweat dripping from his forehead down his jawline onto the table.

A young man in his mid-twenties is hardly able to withstand such psychological warfare, especially when he heard that Hasegawa had been captured; his last line of defense collapsed almost entirely.

His lips trembled, his throat bobbed twice, and just as he was about to speak, a sharp pain suddenly shot through his ankle—it was Xin Yuanyang, who was sitting next to him, who had kicked his leg hard with the tip of his leather shoe.

Yoshioka Hide winced in pain and instinctively turned to look at Shinjuku Yo.

The latter's face remained expressionless, but a fierce warning surged in his eyes, and his brows were tightly furrowed.

Hideyoshi Yoshioka immediately came to his senses, swallowing back the words he was about to say.

This brief exchange was witnessed by Kamiya Gen.

He had originally considered getting the two men to confess, which would be a way to save their lives. After all, every family has its own troubles, and since the money had already been spent, if they confessed honestly, they might receive a lighter sentence.

But unexpectedly... in the end, both of them stubbornly refused to admit their guilt.

Then you really can't blame yourself.

"I was wondering how they managed to pull off this case."

After careful consideration, Kamiya Gen slowly spoke, his gaze sweeping over the two faces.

"What kind of high-tech cheating method was used—was it installing a remotely controllable chip on the horse? Was the race system hacked and the data altered? Or did the higher-ups pull the strings and control every step of the way?"

He paused, a knowing smile playing on his lips: "But I just took a lap around the racetrack and it suddenly dawned on me. What you're using isn't some high-tech stuff at all; it's the dumbest, most ingenious, and most daring method."

Muhe You paused slightly in her hand holding the pen, then looked up at Kamiya Gen, her eyes full of doubt—she had also been thinking about it, but still couldn't figure out how such a nationally televised competition could be cheated so flawlessly.

As for the two people sitting opposite, their faces, which had been trying to appear calm, instantly tightened, and their hands on the table unconsciously curled up.

"This cheating didn't require any special methods, didn't require tampering with the race system, didn't require touching the horses' chips, and didn't require any high-level authority."

Kamiya Gen's voice clearly reached the interrogation room, "All you need to do is have all the participating horses run the entire course once before the race ends, according to your pre-set finishing order, and record the footage."

Hideaki Yoshioka suddenly raised his head, his eyes filled with disbelief and terror.

"Wait... Kamiya-kun, what does it mean to record the footage once?" Yuzu asked in a low voice.

"Don't interrupt."

Kamiya Gen responded in a low voice, then continued to look at the two people opposite him, "On the day of the live broadcast, Yoshioka was in charge of signal switching. The live footage from the scene was only kept in the monitor at the control room. The national live broadcast signal that was broadcast, as well as the large screen dozens of meters in front of the audience, all showed the videos that you had recorded in advance."

"How could that be? Officer, you're talking nonsense... There are so many spectators here. Would you dare to do something like that? Aren't you afraid of being seen? This is simply a fantasy..."

"I can't speak," said Yoshioka Hide, his voice filled with nervousness.

Muheyou also looked at Kamiya Gen; this was indeed the most critical problem.

There were at least a thousand people at the competition venue at the time, so how could no one have noticed the discrepancy between the image on the big screen and the actual scene of horses running around?

Kamiya Genichi nodded: "You're right, but here's the problem. I'm interrogating you now, and you're under a lot of stress. Have you noticed that I've dimmed the lights in our interrogation room?"

Upon hearing this, Yoshioka Hide and Aragaki Yo instinctively looked up at the overhead light in the interrogation room, and then both froze.

The originally cold, glaring lights were indeed two shades dimmer than when they first entered, and the light was much softer. However, from the start of the interrogation until now, the two men's attention had been entirely focused on dealing with the police's questions and figuring out their defense, and neither of them noticed this change that was so close at hand.

"That's the core answer."

Kamiya Gen withdrew his gaze, his tone calm, and used the most objective logic to dissect the underlying logic of this method: "From a psychological point of view, human attention resources are extremely limited. Under a state of high tension and high engagement, there will be obvious selective attention, which is often referred to as attention narrowing."

"Your brain will automatically focus all cognitive resources on the information you consider to be the most core and crucial, and will directly enter a state of 'inattentional blindness' for other non-core and peripheral information—even if it is happening right in front of you, you will not be aware of it at all."

He paused, then continued:

"Just like you right now, all your attention is focused on how to deal with my interrogation, how to cover up your lies, and how not to let me catch you in the act. You can't even notice that the lights above your head have changed. The same goes for the audience on the day of the event."

"In that final, there were thousands of spectators at the venue and tens of millions of viewers in front of their screens. From the moment the match started, everyone's attention was firmly fixed on three places."

"The horse rankings are displayed in real time on the big screen, the odds for each horse are updated simultaneously, and the commentators break down and explain the progress of the race."

"Especially in the latter half of the race when Yukimimaru started to overtake, everyone's nerves were stretched to the limit. All attention was focused on Yukimimaru's catching-up progress on the screen. The brain simply did not have any extra resources to allocate to the distant track, to check the images on the screen and the horses on site, to see if there was that tiny time difference of less than a second."

"Moreover, the closest point on the track to the stands is fifty meters away. With more than a dozen horses rushing past at speeds of over sixty kilometers per hour, the naked eye can only capture a blurry, fast-moving shadow. It is impossible to accurately distinguish the number and real-time position of each horse, let alone notice the subtle differences from what is shown on the screen."

—Perhaps only I could see that.

Kamiya Gen added in his mind.

Thanks to the system's assistance, he possesses an extraordinary level of focus.

Gen Kamiya tried to test his concentration and found that he could almost rival some of the superhumans that appear on TV.

That's why he was able to discover the frame skipping when watching the recording, and later figure out the whole cheating method.

Without further ado, facing the two people in front of him, and the attentive Muhe Yuzu beside him, Kamiya Gen continued:

"The deafening cheers at the scene, the commentator's passionate voice, and the emotional atmosphere of those around you will further amplify this focus of attention. Even if one or two people feel that something is wrong, they will only subconsciously attribute it to the signal delay or their own visual error. No one would ever think that this national-level event, which is being broadcast live across the country, was actually broadcast as pre-recorded footage from the very beginning."

As he spoke, he pointed to the paused video on his laptop:

"The frame drops and camera switching you mentioned are not equipment malfunctions or normal operations. They are used to cover up the slight time difference between the recorded footage and the live footage to avoid giving away the mistake."

"Aragaki was responsible for switching camera positions at critical points, while Yoshioka was responsible for adjusting signal latency, covering up those few millisecond errors with frame drops and stuttering, making it seamless."

"The only thing that needs to be precise is the timing of crossing the finish line. After the horse crosses the finish line in the recording, Yoshioka immediately switches the signal back to the live footage of the scene, leaving no room for error."

Kamiya Gen smiled, his tone carrying a hint of "admiration" for this technique:

"What a brilliant idea, and incredibly audacious! Everyone was focused on the technical flaws in the event itself, and on the authority of the higher-ups. Who could have imagined that the live stream was fake from the very beginning?"

"What no one could have imagined was that such a national-level event scam could be carried out without any high-ranking officials in charge. It only required a few low-level employees who could access the live broadcast signal, control the camera positions, and manage the on-site big screen."

After he finished speaking, the interrogation room fell completely silent.

Muheyou's pen fell to the table with a "thud." She looked at the two people opposite her, her eyes filled with shock and sudden realization.

She considered countless high-tech cheating methods, but she never expected that the other party would use such a simple yet extremely audacious approach.

All the doubts that I couldn't understand before suddenly became clear.

Yoshioka Shu was already ashen-faced, slumped in his chair, his eyes unfocused, muttering "It's over," his mental defenses completely shattered.

Shinjuro's composure vanished completely. Cold sweat trickled down his face, soaking the collar of his shirt. He clenched his teeth, but his hands under the table trembled uncontrollably.

"I...I plead guilty." Finally, Shinjuku Yang spoke.

Then, Hideaki Yoshioka, who was standing next to him, nodded: "Yes, yes, we were cheating. It was Hasegawa-senpai who planned it. He was the one who came up with these ideas. We were just cooperating. Besides the two of us, there was also the commentator Akiyama, Shinohara, and other technicians..."

What happened next was simple: the two of them confessed to all their accomplices almost immediately.

Since there's nothing that can be done if they don't admit it, as Kamiya Gen said, once the police determine the direction of the investigation, arrest them all and interrogate them one by one, it's only a matter of time before they find the witnesses who can break the deadlock.

Moreover, given the current situation, no one can go to the control room to delete the recordings from that day.

Being sentenced was only a matter of time...

……

Half an hour later, in the interrogation room of the Fuzhong City Police Department.

"How... how could this be... how could it be Hasegawa who did this? He didn't even tell me..." Shiraishi Miwa was stunned, completely unable to believe reality.

She reported the case to the police, wanting to investigate the cheating, but in the end, it turned out that her boyfriend had been the one organizing everything behind the scenes.

Muhe You nodded: "That's the truth, Miss Shiraishi. Mr. Hasegawa has also been taken into custody in the interrogation room. According to their descriptions, you don't seem to have been involved, so you can go back now."

"I...I can't accept it...I still have to marry him..." Miwa Shiraishi shed tears.

Upon seeing this, Kamiya Gen immediately got up and left the interrogation room.

To be honest, he admired the man quite a bit. He had never seen anyone do such a cheating method and with such audacity before.

The only pity is that the other party insisted on showing murderous intent in front of me.

By this time, Kamiya Gen had confirmed that the red malice Hasegawa had shown at the time seemed to be his intention to go to Shibuya to kill the noodle shop owner who was receiving the award.

Otherwise, why would he get on the bus to Shibuya?

What a madman! Instead of trying to take the money and run away in this situation, he went and killed an innocent person.

He had just stepped out of the interrogation room when he bumped into Ichiro Sato, who was hurrying along, clutching a newly printed list of suspects, his face full of admiration and urgency.

"Inspector Kamiya, we have located all seven accomplices identified by Yoshioka and Aragaki, and the deployed police force has been dispatched. We should be able to apprehend them soon."

"You go ahead with your work, I'm not a person involved... The whole case is being investigated by Inspector Mokuha."

"Whoever investigated it is responsible for the investigation."

At this moment, Muhe Yu came out, glanced at Kamiya Gen, and then said to Sato Ichiro, "You can just report it normally. Inspector Kamiya solved this case."

"Okay...okay."

Sato Ichiro nodded, then asked, "Shall I be going now?"

Muheyou nodded, and the other person immediately turned and left.

Hearing the woman crying in the interrogation room, Kamiya Gen frowned slightly, wanting to say something.

Muheyou spoke first:

"You're something else. Only you could figure out such an outrageous method of committing a crime."

Kamiya Gen shrugged: "It's nothing special. Actually, if you think about it a bit more, you can find the key points..."

"I've discovered a problem."

Muhe Yu interrupted, "It seems that I've become much lazier since I started teaming up with Kamiya-kun."

"for example?"

"For example, the fact that I'm too lazy to think about it and just wait for you to figure out the answer."

"..."

Kamiya Gen didn't know how to respond to her, so he turned his head away and said...

"Let's contact the noodle shop owner; he's involved in the case, after all."

"Uh-huh."

Muheyu nodded in agreement, walked to the side, took out her phone, and dialed the Shibuya Police Station.

Looking at the crying woman in the interrogation room, Kamiya Genichiro thought to himself that Hasegawa was strong in every way and had a lot of courage, but how could he have found such a stupid girlfriend who ended up sending him to jail?

He could understand Hasegawa very well. If this woman knew about his entire modus operandi, he might not have succeeded at all. The main problem was, how could she have such a strange sense of justice?

Hmm—it seems like someone else is like that too…

Kamiya Gen thought of the noodle shop owner again, wondering if the other party had taken advantage of the few hours to transfer the five million. Logically speaking, the sentence shouldn't be too long.

But to his surprise, after Mu Heyou returned from the phone call, she said with a worried expression:

"Kami-Kamiya-kun, let's... let's go to Shibuya first. People there said that the noodle shop owner overdosed on sleeping pills two hours ago, and he's been taken to the emergency room. He might..."

She sighed, "He probably can't be saved."