Muddied waters

"...Low-level?"

Ryuk tilted his enormous head, rotten apple juice dripping down his chin and pooling into a sticky stain on the floor. "He called you low-level? Over some lousy email address?" He let out a strange, rasping cackle like a leaky bellows. "Wow, your 'game' sure has a lot of rules. They're already dead, and you're still worried about whether the evidence is admissible? You humans are the most twisted creatures I've ever seen."

He wasn't looking at me. His crimson eyes stared at the stain, as though he could find something interesting in it.

I said nothing. A faint tremor from that phone call still lingered in my fingertips-not fear, but an extreme, icy exhilaration.

He was angry.

He had finally torn off that affectedly composed "mentor" mask, baring his fangs now that I had truly enraged him. He no longer critiqued my "performance" or offered pointers on the "details." He accused me of "muddying the waters," of nearly "compromising the admissibility of all the evidence."

Admissibility.

What an ironic word. Coming from someone who used the Death Note to hunt down criminals, the irony was almost unbearable.

But he had revealed more. Far more than an email address.

He cared about the admissibility of the evidence. What did that mean? It meant that he, or the forces behind him, weren't above the existing rules. They needed to use this evidence, needed to follow "legal" procedures. They weren't trying to destroy the system. They wanted to... clean it up? Or control it?

They were people inside the system. At the very least, people trying to use it.

And they were right there in the agencies receiving those emails. The response had been too fast, as though someone had been camping beside the inbox. The discipline inspection commission? The supervisory commission? A special police task force? The field had narrowed sharply again.

Muddy waters made it easier to catch fish. And now I knew that at least one fish had grown agitated enough by the murk to let some bubbles escape.

The next target. I had to strike while the iron was hot. I had to give him another hard shove while he was at his angriest, his most impatient. Force him out of the shadows completely-or force him to make his first mistake.

The target had to meet several conditions. First, a direct connection to the chain of evidence Sun Ming had released, enough to keep public outrage exploding and muddy the "waters" further. Second, the manner of death had to leave him unable to accuse me on grounds of "admissibility" again. It had to be personal enough, and... humiliating enough. Third, ideally, it would point straight to... Liu Jianming. The "forbidden territory" I couldn't touch directly yet, but could keep provoking.

My gaze searched through the news and exposés flooding the screen in the wake of Sun Ming's emails. Names surfaced one after another, only to be quickly rejected. Not direct enough, not devastating enough, not... humiliating enough.

Found her.

Qian Huifang. Liu Jianming's wife. A woman who relied on her husband's power to bully others and amass a fortune. Among the transaction records Sun Ming had released were several enormous sums of unknown origin, routed through complicated channels into an overseas shell company she controlled, suspected of being used to buy luxury goods and overseas properties. She herself was the most obvious, most vulnerable link in Liu Jianming's chain of corruption.

Going after her wasn't the same as going after Liu Jianming directly, but it would hurt him even more and send that "tracker" into a fury. This was humiliation and provocation in their most direct form.

Her death didn't need evidence. It only needed... a display.

I opened the notebook, the tip of my pen growing faintly warm with a malice that was almost boiling over.

[Qian Huifang]

Cause of death: the price of luxury. Time: tomorrow at noon, inside the most secluded VIP treatment room at the exclusive beauty club she frequented, where entry required a member's recommendation. Cause of death: she would plunge the treatment room's dedicated 24K gold infusion device into her own heart. Before dying, she must use lipstick to write the full addresses of her overseas properties and her safe combination on the enormous mirror.

As I wrote the last word, an icy, violent satisfaction flooded my body. No judgment, no repentance, only the most naked stripping away and display. Tear off every layer of finery she had built from stolen money and expose the ugliest greed beneath.

Was that "legal" enough for you, mentor?

At noon the next day, instead of the usual soothing music and drifting fragrance, a piercing scream tore through the VIP floor of that exclusive beauty club.

The staff forced open the locked treatment-room door and collapsed to the floor in terror at the sight before them.

Qian Huifang lay faceup on the lavish treatment bed in an expensive silk robe, a glittering gold beauty device plunged into her chest, blood soaking the snow-white sheets. Across from her, the enormous mirror meant to let clients admire the results of their treatments was covered in crooked rows of addresses and numbers, scrawled in crimson lipstick-a horrifying sight.

The news spread faster than a virus. This time, death came not with vague accusations, but with specific, verifiable locations where stolen assets had been hidden!

Although Liu Jianming's name hadn't been written outright, it was already burned into every discussion like a brand. Public outrage exploded, and all the pressure instantly converged on the very name I had previously been "warned" not to touch.

In my room, the screen was flooded with descriptions of the scene from every angle and frenzied speculation.

Ryuk had finally stopped gnawing on apples. He crouched in the corner, his crimson eyes like burning coals, staring at me without blinking, as though he were truly seeing his "partner" for the first time.

"You..." His voice was hoarse. "You're playing with fire. The human kind... the kind that burns you alive."

I ignored him.

I was waiting.

Waiting for that thoroughly enraged fish.

This time, the phone stayed silent for a long time.

Long enough for the bright sky outside the window to fade into dusk, then sink from dusk into night.

Until the early hours of the morning.

At last, the phone rang.

The ringtone was no longer shrill. Instead, it carried a dull, oppressive buzz.

I answered.

Neither of us spoke immediately.

Only heavy, suffocating breathing came through the receiver. Breath after breath. Even his voice processor seemed unable to filter out those genuine surges of emotion completely.

A full dozen seconds passed.

Only then did that electronic voice sound, every word seeming to have been dredged from an icy sea, carrying a chill that seeped into the marrow and... a trace of almost imperceptible exhaustion?

"The addresses were wrong."

He said it.

The anger had vanished from his voice, leaving only an absolute coldness.

"The safe combination was missing a digit."

"This reckless disregard for the consequences of yours..."

"Will ruin all our progress."

"Stop."

"Or else..."

He didn't finish.

The call ended.

The busy tone echoed through the deathly still room.

I slowly lowered the phone.

Wrong addresses. A combination missing a digit.

Of course. I'd made them up on a whim.

But he had "checked" them again.

Even in such a rage, he had still gone to verify those details.

He didn't even have the strength to be angry anymore. He felt... exhausted? And "progress"? What progress? Progress in cleaning house?

An icy smile crept silently onto my lips.

In these muddied waters...

I seemed to have finally felt a hint of

the fish's outline.