Tokyo: The Player Behind the Scenes

"Who?"

Stop.

The eldest brother ignored everything and continued digging. Soon, he had dug out the entire area surrounded by the barrier rope.

"Well, this way I can finally get some rest, but you guys... you're in trouble."

The moment it was dug up, the barrier rope silently broke into several pieces and scattered, then turned into black ash.

In an instant, as if a cold storage door had been opened, a sinister atmosphere spread out, startling the other two, who couldn't help but take a few steps back, their faces filled with hesitation.

This scene looks like something I've seen in movies when I was a kid.

Their actions are tantamount to courting death, and what follows is the unleashing of some terrifying being.

And they, as extras, are about to be eliminated.

"Found it! Almost found it! Hahaha, extraordinary, extraordinary! I will be extraordinary! All those who disobey, die!"

The eldest brother seemed to have been provoked by something. He was panting heavily, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was moving recklessly, digging at the mound of earth in the middle with his shovel with a clear objective.

The two men, who had been hesitant, were suddenly stirred up by their leader's actions. Their breathing became heavy, and their rationality began to crumble.

Why, why should he be the one to dig me up? I'm the one who should be qualified to become an extraordinary being! Who does he think he is!

"Found it! This is it, that's right, I can feel it—click!"

The eldest brother felt a tickling sensation in his throat, and then his mouth was tightly covered.

Blood flowed down the cut in his throat, quickly soaking the boss's clothes and dripping onto the iron box that was tightly bound by several chains.

The eldest brother in his arms gradually fell silent, but before the man with the sword could even smile, he was suddenly struck on the back of the head, and everything went black.

clap clap!

The last man still wouldn't let go of his unconscious companion, grinning maliciously as he repeatedly smashed him with stones until he was completely smashed into a pulp. Only then did he stop with a sigh of relief, and then impatiently pried open the iron box that the leader's corpse was tightly clutching.

"Mine, this is mine, you damned bastards, you two piles of dog shit dare to call yourselves extraordinary?! Haha, hahahaha."

Bang.

A gunshot rang out.

The last survivor lay down in the mud with a smile on his face.

The man in the suit was standing on the edge of the pit at some point, holding a pistol with a silencer in his hand, and the formulaic smile on his face was gone.

He changed into a raincoat, put on gloves, took an oilcloth and rope, walked to the bodies, packed them all in, and then carried them into the van by himself.

Only after this process was completed was the phone call successfully made.

"Father, everything has been taken care of."

"Okay, give it to the cleaner. You take that thing there."

"Yes."

The man in the suit carefully wrapped the iron box with an even larger box, seemingly unaffected by the cold, evil aura emanating from it.

He drove the van out of the construction site and into a desolate wilderness. He got out of the van, left the clothes he had used for the crime behind, and drove away in another car that had been parked there earlier.

Not long after, the van was driven away by a hooded man, and its destination was unknown.

The man in the suit arrived at a relatively remote detached house, carrying the iron box, opened the door and went into a room on the second floor.

Tuk Tuk.

"come in."

The man in the suit opened the door and walked in. The entire room had been transformed into a hospital ward, filled with various medical instruments.

A gaunt old man lay on the hospital bed, looking as if he was about to die.

"Father."

"Let me see the item first."

"Yes."

He took out the iron box, which still carried a mixed smell of dirt, rust, and blood.

But the old man was completely captivated by the aroma.

"I didn't expect the map to actually be there. Did they deal with that guy named Kawakami?"

"He died at home from a brain hemorrhage caused by excessive drinking."

"I always trust you to handle things well, child. Come closer and let me take a good look—heh, it's definitely not a good thing. Are you so eager to stir up people's minds?"

The old man had a smile on his face that was hard to decipher.

"As long as there's still vitality, then it's best to open it up and take a look."

"Yes."

The man placed the box on the table, took out the hydraulic pliers he had prepared beforehand, and snapped the iron chain binding the box with a soft snap.

His expression turned solemn as he slowly opened the iron box, staring silently inside.

"How is it?" the old man asked when he didn't respond.

“There are three shriveled hearts inside, but,” he reached out and carefully lifted them, “they seem to have stopped moving.”

In his hand were three barely discernible, dried-black hearts. Two of them were particularly small, about the size of walnuts, each connected to the other heart by a red, blood vessel-like tube. These were the best-preserved hearts, about the size of a small peach, and not as shriveled.

As soon as he finished speaking, the two walnut hearts turned into powder and fell into his palm, as if confirming his words.

"Quiet." The old man gently shook his head and closed his eyes.

The man held his breath.

In the silence, apart from the ticking of the medical instruments, they seemed to indeed hear the beating of a third heart in the room.

The heart is still beating.

The old man coughed twice and got out of bed.

He picked up the scalpel beside him, lifted the clothes covering his stomach, and made a precise incision, then another.

"Put it in."

The old man put down the knife and used his hands to pry open the layered abdominal cavity.

The man in the suit's eyes flickered. "Father, perhaps we can try it with blood first. We don't know what the reaction will be yet."

"Reaction? I left a will. After I die, all my assets are yours, including my corpse. You can use it for whatever you want, cough cough."

"I don't have time. Whatever the outcome, even if I'm parasitized, I'll accept it willingly. If I become a threat to you, then kill me. Understand?"

The old man spoke calmly, and his eyes showed little fear.

"Yes."

The man cleaned the heart as thoroughly as possible, blowing away the fresh ash, and then stuffed it into his father's open abdominal cavity.

"Go in a little further."

".yes."

After finally managing to insert the suture, he pulled down the automatic suture machine and was about to disinfect and stitch the wound when his father suddenly reached out to stop him.

That force?

The old man's hand, which had been resting on the man's arm like withered tree bark, gradually became shiny and elastic. The granulation tissue on the man's abdomen healed automatically without leaving a scar.

"This is my new life."

The old man touched his face; though wrinkles remained, his strength was greater than ever before.

"I am extraordinary."

Chapter 180: The Heartless Person

The following is financial news:

Takatsukasa Group President Tatsuto Takatsukasa held a press conference at the company's Kyoto headquarters today, appearing to be in good spirits and completely dispelling rumors of deteriorating health.

[Affected by media reports last month that the company was critically ill, its stock price fell by as much as 8.8% in the past three weeks. However, after the press conference, buying poured in, and the closing price rebounded sharply by 6.2% compared to the previous day.]

Let's continue looking at the highly anticipated emerging and extraordinary sectors. Multiple antique institutions have seen consecutive days of price increases, boosting the global market. Currently, there's nothing...

Kyoto.

The Takatsukasa Group.

A company that started with hotels and restaurants has risen rapidly in recent decades under the leadership of Tatsutoshi Takashi, venturing into tourism, finance and daily chemical industries, and has become an undeniable conglomerate in the Kansai region.

Group headquarters.

The meeting had just ended, and the management team members walked out of the meeting room with expressions of joy and worry, whispering among themselves.

The man in the suit stood by the door, calmly responding to the cold and obsequious greetings. Only after those people had left did he enter the conference room and lock the door from the inside.

Inside the meeting room, the curtains were fully open, and slightly dazzling light shone through the glass.

His father, Takatsukasa, stood with his hands behind his back, facing the sunlight, overlooking the city's morning bustle.

He remembered that before his father became seriously ill, this was what he liked to do most.

Holding a cup of coffee, standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the busy masses below, he said that this gave him a feeling of being in control of everything.

He would rather die than lose this feeling.

“Father, the matter has been resolved. I think we need to find someone else to handle it next time.”

"Hmm." Takatsukasa Tetsuto closed his eyes, basking in the warm sunlight, enjoying this long-lost surge of energy, before continuing after a while, "Narita Company, you can contact them, they're better at handling people."

"Yes, the quantity for tomorrow?"

"Same."

The man in the suit left the conference room, made a phone call to someone from Narita Company, and then took out a location receiving terminal. He glanced at the location information on it.

That was a nearby mountain forest.

He changed his clothes, drove a car from a nearby parking lot, then went to another parking lot, switched to another car, and repeated this process several times.

More than two hours later, on a wild mountain road.

The man in the suit saw the van parked ahead, his expression turning puzzled. He stopped the van a few dozen meters away and turned off the engine.

The surroundings suddenly became quiet; even the birds were reluctant to speak, and the sound of falling leaves could be clearly heard.

He was in a sparse forest with no tourist attractions nearby. People wouldn't leave the trails to come to such a place, as they were afraid of encountering brown bears or wild boars, and cars were likely to crash into trees.

He managed to find it only by following the locator that had been placed on the body beforehand and by relying on his experience.

This was mainly because he didn't completely trust the cleaner, especially since the body he was dealing with this time was rather unusual, and he needed to ensure that nothing went wrong.

There were nine bodies in total, which he handed over to the cleaners last night.

But the fact that the car is still sitting there untouched can only mean that either the cleaners are being lazy, or...

Something unexpected happened.

The man in the suit took out the pistol from his pocket, installed the silencer, checked the spare magazine, and after confirming that everything was in order, he gently opened the door, got out of the car, and slowly approached the van in front of him, stepping on the fallen leaves and mud.

Three days have passed since the father inserted that shriveled heart into his stomach.

Almost from the moment it was inserted, my father's health became exceptionally good. He even needed to wear makeup when holding a press conference to make his health less obvious.

However, the cost of this is that three living people are needed each day for these three days.

The man in the suit's job now is to find three targets every day that won't attract much attention even if they go missing, then use the gang to target them, gather them in a certain place, and then hand the location over to his father.

After "enjoying" the body, he would hand it over to himself to dispose of, as the corpse had become so dark and unrecognizable for some unknown reason.

The only common feature among these corpses is that the heart is open, and inside is a hard, shriveled, dark heart.

His father told him not to touch the corpses, but to put them in body bags and hand them over to the cleaners.

It was around that time that he became worried about the cleaners and secretly placed a tracking device on them.

The van was facing the man in the suit. He could see that there was nothing in the front seat, but some glass shards on the ground were reflecting sunlight, and the side window was broken.

There was a half-hole on the edge of the van's cover, and a shovel lay beside it.