The Truth from Eight Years Ago

Then, following Mizuki Tono, who was chatting with Fuyumi Tachihara while sitting on a bench in the hotel, they struck up a conversation.

Jiang Hang knew that it was Shogo Hikawa, who was among the first group to agree to give up the land and take the compensation.

He works as an insurance investigator in Tokyo, but ostensibly returned to Kitazawa Village from Tokyo to attend a festival.

But what is the truth?

In any case, as things stand, while the other party is not the perpetrator of the bombing, they are the most likely to be an accomplice.

Jiang Hang observed the other person from a distance.

Although the distance was quite far, I could still make out some of the conversation if I listened carefully, and I could even tell what they were saying by reading their lip movements.

It was mostly just some pointless chatter, and then he explained to Mizuki Tono that he had made plans with Keisuke Yamao tonight and probably wouldn't be back.

Upon hearing the name Keisuke Yamao, both girls displayed somewhat unusual expressions.

They were probably all recalling the misfortune that happened on that night eight years ago.

Shogo Hikawa probably noticed it too, but he didn't care about what others thought.

If he had really cared about what others thought back then, he wouldn't have been the first to sign the consent form and then used the compensation to buy a house and settle down in Tokyo.

Jiang Hang knew that the other person was probably mentioning to someone that he was going to find Keisuke Yamao.

After all, the two of them must have become accomplices for something, and this should be related to their plan to blow up the dam.

If something really happens to Shogo Hikawa, the police can find out that the last person he met was Keisuke Yamao as soon as they come to investigate, and Keisuke Yamao will not get away with it either.

It seems that although this guy doesn't have much counter-surveillance ability, he is still somewhat wary of his accomplice in daily life.

With these thoughts in mind, Jiang Hang watched from afar as the other person left the hotel.

After taking out his phone and telling Miyano Shiho and the others, Jiang Hang kept a low profile and followed them discreetly.

Even though it was snowing outside, Jiang Hang could still step perfectly on the other person's footprints without leaving any extra traces.

Keisuke Yamao's house is located on the edge of the village, in an inconspicuous place, but it is quite large.

Takehiko Muto also briefly mentioned this point. Although Keisuke Yamao was one of the opponents of building the dam, he was later imprisoned for eight years for drunk driving without a license, killing someone in Keisuke Yamao accident.

Then the villagers only allocated a piece of land on the edge of the village for Keisuke Yamao. It was only after Keisuke Yamao was released from prison this year that they helped him a little more and built a simple house for him.

Because of his criminal record, Keisuke Yamao decided to stay in the village and do odd jobs to make a living, citing the difficulty of finding work outside.

Anyway, these are all the official statements. Only Jiang Hang knows that in the past six months, the other party has probably been secretly bringing back a lot of gunpowder to his home in batches.

This is probably something he achieved through the connections he made in prison over the years.

After observing the situation of the other party's house and confirming that the gunpowder should be hidden inside the house and in the cellar, Jiang Hang found a position where he could hear the other party's conversation and continued to lie in wait.

A short while later, a series of somewhat restrained insults came from inside the house.

It sounds like the voice of Shogo Hikawa.

It seems he didn't know about this before.

It's likely that Keisuke Yamao had been keeping a close eye on the news reports, and after discovering that Yuichiro Asakura had once again announced that his original schedule remained unchanged and that he would still be coming to Kitazawa Village, he contacted his accomplice and told him about it.

"So, you prepared for so long and made such a big fuss, and I took such a big risk to help you, only to end up accomplishing nothing and possibly attracting more attention to this place?"

It was obvious that Shogo Hikawa was furious after learning about this.

He vented his anger on Keisuke Yamao, and after a while, he seemed to realize that Keisuke Yamao's expression was not good, so he stopped complaining about him and asked him what his plans were.

"Originally, I was planning to fine-tune the detonation controller to ensure that the signal connection issue from this morning wouldn't occur again. Then, I would wait until the day of the celebration, when everyone is in the village and no one at the dam will notice us, before making my move. But now it seems that this plan will have to be brought forward." Keisuke Yamao's cold voice rang out.

"Let's move the plan forward. That governor will definitely be bringing a lot of media with him. If anyone's camera catches us, we'll be in trouble. After all, we'll need some time to find the original location of my house after we blow up the dam and move those jewels away." Shogo Hikawa naturally had no objection to this.

If it weren't for Keisuke Yamao's desire to take revenge on Yuichiro Asakura and test the power of the explosion, he would have succeeded.

They should have already started working on the dam.

"So tonight, we'll first take care of those workers on the dam, then plant the bombs. Although the remote control might still have some problems, the explosive power is not an issue. Even if it gets temporarily out of control, we have enough time tonight to wait for the bombs to explode."

Hearing Keisuke Yamao's somewhat cold voice, even Shogo Hikawa was a little surprised by the other party's coldness.

Does the other party mean they should personally kill the reservoir staff first?

"You want us to do it ourselves? Can't we just take them all to heaven when the bomb detonates? Or you can do it yourself. Anyway, I told you from the beginning that I'll only help you handle and move the gunpowder and the jewels you stole back then. I won't do anything else that's not related to this."

It doesn't seem that Shogo Hikawa is against killing; he just doesn't want to get blood on his hands.

Keisuke Yamao snorted coldly, "After doing so little, you dare to ask me for half of the jewelry?"

Shogo Hikawa indeed a fearless person; at this moment, he still dares to use what happened back then as a threat.

"So what? After all, I'm the only one who knows about the jewelry store robbery you committed back then. I even covered for you back then, which is why the police didn't discover your problem and just thought you were drunk. If you hadn't refused to tell me where you hid the stolen jewelry back then, we wouldn't be in this mess right now!"

Keisuke Yamao continued to hum loudly, "Hmph, do you think I don't know what you're thinking?"

"Just like back then, you were the first person to run away to the village and then to Tokyo. If I had really told you these things back then, you wouldn't have waited for me to come out. You would have taken all those jewels and gone abroad to enjoy yourself."

Shogo Hikawa naturally couldn't admit it. "If that's what you think, that's your business. Anyway, I helped you, so I definitely have a share of the jewelry. If you don't want to give it, then we'll just have to part ways."

Although he said things like "let's break up," the threat in his tone was so obvious that even Jiang Hang, who was eavesdropping from behind, could hear it.

If you put it in an animation, it would be the first to die.

Jiang Hang made this judgment.

But Keisuke Yamao might really need someone to help cover for him right now, so he finally restrained his temper.

They discussed the amount of work they needed to complete that evening with the other party.

After listening to their plans for the evening and hearing that they had stopped chatting, Jiang Hang moved to a different spot.

Their words have revealed quite a bit of information.

It seems that Keisuke Yamao's current heinous plans are a result of the jewels he stole back then.

What exactly did the other party steal back then that caused such a serious illness and prompted them to make such a big move?

Thinking that the other party might have stolen some priceless treasure, Jiang Hang became curious and immediately began searching for information about jewelry stores that had been robbed in this world eight years ago.

Because a lot happened that night, the date was easy to find.

Soon, Jiang Hang identified a jewelry robbery that occurred in Tokyo, where the suspect has yet to be found.

From all perspectives, this seems to be the only jewelry heist where the timing matches up and the perpetrator hasn't been caught.

The problem is...

Is there something wrong with this amount?

According to the jewelry store's statement, it is "reported" that rare jewelry worth over one billion yen was stolen.

A billion is certainly a lot; that's how much the Black Organization paid Miyano Akemi to save her life.

There are plenty of people in the underworld who would risk their lives for so much money.

However, these claims made by the jewelry store are likely heavily exaggerated, and some of them may have been used to balance the books.

In short, as a professional assassin with connoisseurship skills, Jiang Hang did some digging into the news about that jewelry store from back then.

The stolen jewelry was indeed valuable.

But if we remove the inflated prices, the undervaluation of these treasures on the black market, and consider the jewelry market trends over the past eight years...

This batch of jewelry, supposedly worth 1 billion yen, might only fetch 300 million yen at best.

Today, 100 million yen is roughly equivalent to 600,000 to 700,000 dollars.

The total value of this batch of jewelry is approximately three million dollars.

In other words, these two guys nearly killed hundreds of people and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in economic losses this morning.

Now they are going to blow up this more expensive dam, threatening the lives of thousands of people in Kitazawa Village downstream of the dam.

All for those three million dollars!?

Chapter 583: The Truth from 8 Years Ago

Jiang Hang confirmed that he had not miscounted.

Keisuke Yamao and Shogo Hikawa did indeed devise these plans because of that piece of jewelry from back then.

The whole story is now quite clear.

Eight years ago, Keisuke Yamao, burdened with gambling debts, robbed a jewelry store in Tokyo when he was desperate. Whether or not Shogo Hikawa, an insurance investigator, provided him with information during this incident is another matter.

However, after the robbery, Shogo Hikawa must have done something to cover for Keisuke Yamao so that he wouldn't be discovered by the police and could return to Kitazawa Village safely. He planned to hide the stolen jewelry in the old Kitazawa Village and then sell it for money after things calmed down.

As a result, because he was too excited after robbing the jewelry store, he drank alcohol on his way home and ended up hitting and killing someone.

Keisuke Yamao probably knew that the traces he left behind were too obvious, that he couldn't escape punishment, and that he couldn't escape with a pile of jewelry that hadn't been converted into money.

So he simply turned himself in, and was eventually imprisoned for eight years for killing someone while driving under the influence.

He was probably quite pleased with his decision to spend eight years in prison, so the police in Tokyo would never have guessed that the jewelry store robber was already behind bars for something else.

Then, once he finishes serving his eight-year prison term, he can exchange all that jewelry for cash and never have to worry about his future again.

But things don't always go as planned. He thought he had made a good plan, but by the time he was released from prison, the original Kitazawa Village had already been completely submerged by the river.

In order to retrieve his jewelry, he discussed an even more radical plan with Shogo Hikawa.

First, they would seek revenge against Yuichiro Asakura, the man who built the dam, and then use this to attract media attention.

Take this opportunity to target the dam, and then go to the ruins of Kitazawa Village to search for the jewelry that was hidden back then.

This should be the complete account of the case.

Jiang Hang, however, still had his brows furrowed tightly.

So why couldn't the other party just get some diving equipment like him and sneak up at night when no one was around to bring the jewelry up?

Or is it because he hid it too well back then, so even Keisuke Yamao himself doesn't know where those treasures are hidden or can't retrieve them from underwater, and needs to drain all the water before he can find the whereabouts of those jewels?

Thinking about this, Jiang Hang didn't know what to say.

In the cases he handled, there were quite a few people who wanted something of higher value than the perpetrator in this case.

But indeed, no one could go to such extremes for this kind of money.

Those ordinary people who had no connection with him, the villagers he had known since childhood in Kitazawa Village, these thousands of people were simply placed on one side of the scale without any regard from the other party, and were directly crushed by the "jewelry worth 1 billion" on the other side.

Jiang Hang looked at Shogo Hikawa, who still dared to put on airs in Keisuke Yamao.

This guy isn't much better.

Moreover, he wasn't as ruthless as Keisuke Yamao; he was simply a petty person who thought he could suppress Keisuke Yamao for life by relying on these secrets.

But Jiang Hang could see clearly that in the darkness, Keisuke Yamao had repeatedly revealed his murderous intent to Shogo Hikawa without him noticing.

I'm afraid that once they find the treasure, Shogo Hikawa will be killed by Keisuke Yamao.

Thinking about how he would have to save this scumbag's life later, Jiang Hang couldn't help but sigh.

Consider it an extra bonus.

So Jiang Hang watched as the two men busily transported gunpowder.

He didn't rush to make a move, since he had already contacted the Hokkaido police and notified them to prepare to come and take action.

Before the police arrive, let these two criminals, who have long lost their conscience, continue to strive for their "pursuit" for a little longer.

In the dead of night, the two of them braved the wind and snow, carefully moving the gunpowder piece by piece, and checking whether it was intact and had not been damp.

It can only be said that people have energy when they have a goal.

They worked like that for over an hour without stopping to rest.

Meanwhile, the staff on the other side of the dam are already fast asleep in their offices, having drunk too much.

It was precisely because they were sleeping soundly that Keisuke Yamao did not take action immediately after confirming the situation.

That's why Jiang Hang allowed them to continue moving gunpowder for another hour or so.

"Having done so much, it should be about time, right?" Despite it being winter, Shogo Hikawa was already covered in sweat as he wiped his forehead.

"The dam is almost done, but we still have one more place to deal with."

Keisuke Yamao turned his head to look in another direction.

"Is that Takehiko Muto's cabin over there?"