What a cautious guy.
Seeing Nishiki Ken like this, Jiang Hang bluntly said, "I know someone wants to kill you. You must not have had an easy time hiding at home for the past two years, right?"
"Y-You... what are you talking about? I have no idea what you mean."
Hearing Jiang Hang's words, a flash of panic crossed Nishiki Ken's face. He seemed to want to shut the door.
However, this strange guy who had suddenly appeared was far stronger than he had imagined. Nishiki Ken pulled the door with both hands, but it did not budge at all.
Seeing the look on Nishiki Ken's face, Jiang Hang could not help confirming his suspicions.
He had a guilty conscience.
"You should be very familiar with the name Keiji Aso, right?" The moment Jiang Hang spoke that name, the other man's face turned pale.
That expression already explained a lot.
"If you don't want to be killed, let's have a talk. Of course... if you don't want to, that's fine too."
Cold sweat began to form on Nishiki Ken's forehead. After a moment, under Jiang Hang's calm gaze, he chickened out.
Perhaps two years of constant fear had made him sick of this kind of life.
He silently nodded, then opened the door for Jiang Hang.
"Come in."
Good. No need to put on a violent door-smashing performance.
Thinking this, Jiang Hang entered with the Sword Cane in hand.
The house looked like it had not been cleaned in a long time. Enduring the foul smell, Jiang Hang frowned and followed Nishiki Ken into the living room.
Even now, Nishiki Ken's expression still looked off.
After all, a secret he had hidden for years had suddenly been exposed by a complete stranger. How could he possibly look good now?
"Who exactly are you?" Nishiki Ken looked Jiang Hang over from head to toe, seemingly trying to figure out how he knew about him.
"Just an ordinary detective. Please don't mind me."
"A... detective?" The answer caught him off guard.
Jiang Hang took out the invitation from "Keiji Aso" from inside his coat.
"I came here because of his invitation. The case where Keiji Aso burned himself to death twelve years ago—sure enough, the four of you did it together, didn't you?"
The moment Nishiki Ken saw Keiji Aso's name on the invitation, he shot to his feet.
"It was him... He told you? He really isn't dead!"
If his face had merely been pale before, now he was utterly terrified!
"On the night of the full moon two years ago, he killed Kameyama! Has he come back now? Did he come back to kill us after all?!"
Sure enough, Nishiki Ken believed that Keiji Aso was still alive and wanted revenge on them. That was why he had stayed hidden in his house for the past two years, unwilling to go out.
But you were the ones who did it back then. Shouldn't you know whether he was dead or not?
Still, if Nishiki Ken had mental issues, it would be even easier to pry information out of him. Jiang Hang's expression did not change as he thought this.
"Then tell me everything about what happened back then. Perhaps I can still help you."
Help send you to prison for the rest of your life, so you won't have to worry about Keiji Aso coming for revenge.
Jiang Hang thought to himself.
From Today On, I Am the Three-Red Assassin
Jiang Hang patiently waited for Nishiki Ken to reveal the truth of what had happened back then.
However, even after waiting for quite some time, Nishiki Ken seemed to still be struggling with something inside.
"I can't say it. I can't say it. If I say it, I'm finished..."
Clearly, Nishiki Ken was in the midst of an intense internal struggle. On one hand, he felt that something might happen to him if he did not speak. On the other, he knew that if he confessed everything from back then, he would truly be finished.
Jiang Hang watched as Nishiki Ken's expression shifted from fear to struggle, yet he remained unable to make that crucial decision.
Seeing how he kept dragging things out, Jiang Hang stood up with his Sword Cane in hand.
"If you're unwilling to talk, then on the night of the full moon two days from now, Mr. Nishiki, take care of yourself."
He wanted to put some pressure on Nishiki Ken. He did not have all day to keep accompanying him through this indecision.
Speak up already, or I'll get ready to beat you up.
Sure enough, the moment Nishiki Ken heard that, his head broke out in cold sweat.
Seeing Jiang Hang apparently preparing to leave, panic surged inside him.
"N-No! You... you can't leave! Stop right there!"
He suddenly shouted at Jiang Hang. When Jiang Hang turned to look at Nishiki Ken, the man grabbed a fruit knife from the side—one that looked like it had not been washed in ages—and pointed it at him.
"I can't say it. If I say these things, even if Aso doesn't come for me, I'll still be finished..." As he muttered this to reassure himself, Nishiki Ken's expression grew twisted.
"Tell me! Where is Aso now? Tell me, how much do you know about him?!"
The hand holding the knife trembled slightly, but his bloodshot eyes remained fixed on Jiang Hang, as if he would stab him without hesitation the moment Jiang Hang showed any sign of running away.
"You'd better not force me to do this. Hurry up! Tell me about Keiji Aso!"
Seeing Nishiki Ken like this, Jiang Hang slightly raised the unremarkable cane in his hand.
"Put that stick down, or I won't be polite!"
This guy really seemed to have a mental problem.
Perhaps he thought he was holding a gun, not a fruit knife less than twenty centimeters long.
Not only did Jiang Hang ignore Nishiki Ken's words, he deliberately took a step closer.
"How exactly are you planning not to be polite? I'm rather curious."
That action made Nishiki Ken, who had already lacked confidence, panic even more.
"Don't come any closer! I'll do it! I really will do it!"
Though he wore a ferocious expression as Jiang Hang approached, his body unconsciously kept backing away.
When he retreated to the end of the room and hit the wall behind him, he nearly dropped the knife from fright.
And at that very moment, Jiang Hang moved!
He closed in on Nishiki Ken, raised the Sword Cane, and struck the back of his hand hard. The pain made him loosen his grip on the fruit knife. Then Jiang Hang twisted his head with his other hand, took a large step forward, and hooked his leg behind Nishiki Ken's.
With a burst of force from his hand, he slammed the off-balance Nishiki Ken heavily to the ground.
Nishiki Ken was completely dazed by the throw. Before he could react, Jiang Hang planted a foot on his chest, spun the Sword Cane in his hand, and flicked out the blade at its base, hooking it tightly against his neck.
Feeling as though the other man had already cut his neck and drawn blood, Nishiki Ken was so frightened he nearly wet himself on the spot.
He had always been exceptionally afraid of death. Otherwise, after learning of Mayor Kameyama's strange death, he would not have developed persecution delusions and spent all this time hiding at home, unwilling to leave.
And now, with someone standing on his chest and pressing a gleaming blade to his throat, Nishiki Ken immediately caved.
He nearly burst into tears as he begged Jiang Hang, "I'll talk! I'll talk! Whatever you want to know, I'll tell you!"
Seeing that Nishiki Ken had scared himself out of his wits, Jiang Hang coldly withdrew the Sword Cane, then gestured for him to get up and clearly explain what had happened back then.
Once he realized Jiang Hang was ruthless, Nishiki Ken finally became much more obedient.
Shivering, he rose from the floor while clutching his neck. Standing to one side, his legs trembling nonstop, he began telling Jiang Hang about what had happened back then.
Jiang Hang had already found most of the clues. He had identified the culprits and deduced their motive, but because he had been unable to crack the secret hidden in Keiji Aso's musical score, he had been stuck at the final step of solving the case.
Now, hearing it from one of the real culprits, he quickly learned the truth.
Moon Shadow Island had indeed secretly been involved in drug trafficking back then. This small island only twenty kilometers from Tokyo, yet overlooked by outsiders, had been the perfect transfer point.
Keiji Aso had not been a member of the drug-trafficking ring, but for a long time, he had knowingly helped them transport drugs.
That piano with the hidden compartment had come about that way.
But one day, Keiji Aso suddenly refused to continue helping them and parted ways with them. The other four, who had only recently entered the drug trade at the time, feared that Keiji Aso would expose their secret someday. So that very night, they locked the Aso family inside their own home and burned them alive.
Afterward, the four of them acted as witnesses and agreed on a single story: Keiji Aso had developed mental problems and committed suicide.
At the same time, for reasons unknown, Keiji Aso had left behind only a handwritten musical score that the police at the time could not understand. After an investigation, his death was ruled a "suicide."
After Keiji Aso was declared dead, the four of them continued their operation.
Until Kameyama Isamu's death two years ago made Kuroiwa and Nishiki feel that something was wrong.
By then, they had been in the drug trade for more than ten years and had made enough money. The four of them had killed Keiji Aso together, so they were all tied to the same rope.
After learning that Kawashima Hideo had no intention of stopping, the two simply handed the drug trade over entirely to Kawashima Hideo.
After that, Kawashima Hideo found Mayor's Secretary Hirata Kazuaki and gave him the job of transporting the drugs, a setup that continued until now.
That was what had happened back then, and Jiang Hang easily got the code words they had used for communication from Nishiki Ken.
This code invented by Keiji Aso back then was not complicated at all. It simply matched the first twenty-six black and white piano keys on the left to the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. Converting the score into letters one by one, then reading them in Romanized Japanese, revealed what Keiji Aso wanted to say.
After learning this, Jiang Hang could not help rubbing his hair.
He had thought the code was incredibly complicated, perhaps even requiring some hidden codebook. Who would have thought it was simply matching the twenty-six letters from left to right?
Yet even though it had been that simple, he had still pondered it for ages without finding the answer.
Sure enough, cracking codes was not something a third-rate detective like him could handle.
Thinking about how something he could not figure out after racking his brain had been so easily solved after he decisively changed careers to become the Three-Red Assassin, Jiang Hang felt fulfilled and relieved.
King Hassan truly was worthy of being a Grand Assassin. Following his style could not possibly be wrong.
The End of Moon Shadow Island
Moon Shadow Island was exceptionally lively today.
Nearly half the officers from the Public Security Serious Crimes Unit had been dispatched to this neglected little island for the operation.
In just half a day, order across the entire island had completely changed.
For suspected drug trafficking and intentional murder, Moon Shadow Island's current mayor Kuroiwa, the mayor's secretary Hirata Kazuaki, the island's richest man Kawashima Hideo, and unemployed Nishiki Ken were all taken away by Tokyo police for questioning.
At Kawashima Hideo and Hirata Kazuaki's homes, the police quickly uncovered a staggering quantity of illegal drugs. If nothing unexpected happened, this was likely the largest drug cache and trafficking operation discovered in Tokyo in recent years.
Faced with ironclad evidence, Hirata Kazuaki was the first to crumble under police pressure before the interrogation even began. From the supply channels to the buyers, he spilled everything at once, saving the police a great deal of time.
He was still completely bewildered. How had Moon Shadow Island changed so drastically after he woke up from a single night's sleep?
Kuroiwa Tatsuji still seemed to want to argue afterward. After all, he had not engaged in the drug business for two years, and he had kept his outward image clean all these years.
However, after Shizuka Sakaki told the police what she had translated from the musical score, none of his arguments mattered in the slightest. Murder and drug trafficking—both were written in Keiji Aso's score.
As for Nishiki Ken, after confessing the entire truth, he seemed to have let out a great weight. Before the police arrived, he even cleaned himself up properly. In the end, under Jiang Hang's watchful gaze, he cleaned the inside of his house as well.
According to him, he had spent ten years pretending to forget what had happened and living hypocritically. Then, after Kameyama's death, he began fearing Keiji Aso's revenge and spent two years running from it.
Now that everything had been confessed, this torment could finally end for him. He felt that he should greet the police in a better state.
Jiang Hang had no particular opinion on that.
"Brother Jiang Hang, you've helped us again. When Takagi told me you'd started investigating a case from twelve years ago, I wondered what you might find. I never imagined that a place like Moon Shadow Island could be hiding such a huge secret." Since this was still within Tokyo's jurisdiction, Inspector Megure appeared as usual.
The police had made a mistake in Keiji Aso's case twelve years ago, and now the truth had been uncovered by a detective after twelve years. Naturally, that damaged the police's reputation. But Jiang Hang kept a low profile this time and pushed all the credit onto the tool man, Officer Takagi.
A detective suspected that a suicide case from twelve years ago had problems, so he invited a police officer to investigate with him.
In the end, the detective uncovered the truth from back then, while the young police officer unearthed a shocking drug-trafficking ring. Didn't that make the police look good?
In this incident, Jiang Hang said that it was enough to put Keiji Aso's self-immolation case under his name. As for the drug-trafficking case, it was best that he had nothing to do with it at all.
Jiang Hang had once again unhesitatingly handed most of the credit to the police while keeping only a minor supporting role for himself, making Inspector Megure feel a little embarrassed.
However, Jiang Hang did not care much about it. As he had said before, he did not lack commissions or fame now.
After the art museum case, because he could handle four or five lost-item commissions around Tokyo in a single day, people who hired him had even quietly given him the nickname "Eagle Eye Detective," specifically to describe how quickly and reliably he found lost objects.
Jiang Hang did not know who had spread that nickname, but it was rather fitting.
In short, his reputation for finding things quickly had already spread throughout Tokyo.
Before you continue