"Progress? He said progress?" Ryuk's voice sounded like a rusty saw dragging through wood. He clutched an apple that had nearly rotted to mush, thick liquid dripping between his fingers. "You humans keep killing each other, and you're still thinking about some bullshit 'progress'? Hahahaha! This is way more interesting than apples!"
His entire misshapen body shook with laughter, but his crimson eyes stayed fixed on me, as though he were watching a fascinating experiment.
I didn't laugh. My fingertips tapped unconsciously against the desk, making soft, rhythmic sounds.
Progress.
The word was like a pebble dropped into a deep pool, sending ripples through my mind.
He was exhausted. Not physically, but mentally. The weariness of having his plans disrupted, his momentum dragged forcibly into the mud. He-or they-really did have a "plan." Some kind of "legal" purge using the evidence Sun Ming had released? But the way I'd executed Qian Huifang had brutally torn away every disguise, throwing the bloodiest corruption straight into the public eye and disrupting his sequence of moves.
That was why he'd warned me I would "destroy all our progress."
He wasn't protecting justice. He might not even be protecting the system. He was protecting... some kind of "process"? A controlled purge directed by them?
And I, the "false god" wielding the Death Note, had become an uncontrollable variable. A lunatic wrecking their game.
Interesting.
So very interesting.
Then what if I spiced things up a little more? With something he couldn't ignore, couldn't brush aside by "checking the details"-something so explosive it would force him to abandon his original "process"?
The target had to be exceptionally special. Someone who could hurt several sides at once: Liu Jianming and the powerful figures shielding him, that exhausted "tracker," and... the most easily ignited fuse in this numb society.
My gaze returned to the screen, searching through the surging public outrage and the new allegations constantly appearing. Qian Huifang's death had been like stirring up a hornet's nest. Insiders were "anonymously" releasing countless scandals involving Liu Jianming and his cronies, truth and lies tangled in a chaotic mess.
Amid that chaos, one name kept coming up, only to be swiftly deleted.
Zhao Tingting. Liu Jianming's only daughter, just eighteen. She attended a top private university overseas, and her social media was filled with pictures of lavish parties, private jets, and limited-edition sports cars. Anonymous posts claimed that the enormous "donation" securing her admission and the several overseas properties in her name had most likely been funded by the dirty money mentioned in Sun Ming's emails. But every related discussion was quickly suppressed.
The perfect target. A seemingly innocent "fruit" nourished by evil. Going after her meant tearing out Liu Jianming's roots, rubbing another handful of salt hard into his bleeding wounds. This would no longer be humiliation. This would end his family line.
And what international repercussions would follow if a heavily protected rich girl overseas suddenly died through "judgment"? How many hidden forces would it draw out? How furious would it make that "tracker," perhaps even forcing him to take more direct action?
The risk was enormous. But the payoff... was just as enormous.
The pen hovered over the faintly yellowed page, icy murderous intent and burning excitement surging and colliding in my veins.
[Zhao Tingting]
Cause of death: the daughter shall pay her father's debt. Time: tomorrow evening, at sunset, in the famous square outside the library of her university overseas. Cause of death: she will wrap the metal chain strap of her most frequently carried limited-edition Birkin bag around her neck and suffocate herself. Before dying, she must use lipstick to write on the ground where the pigeons feed in the square: "My luxury was forged from blood and bribes. Father: Liu Jianming."
As I wrote the last character, the air in the room seemed to freeze. In the corner, Ryuk stopped chewing and tilted his head. His crimson pupils contracted slightly, revealing, for the first time, something almost like... wariness.
"Wow," he murmured hoarsely. "This time... you really mean to tear the sky apart, kid."
I didn't answer. I simply gazed quietly at the name and the description of her death on the page, as though admiring a work of art nearing completion.
The next day, in the early hours at home-evening overseas.
The internet fell into an eerie silence once again, like the dead calm before a storm. Everyone was waiting, waiting for the next explosive news story, waiting to see where the Judge would step next.
Suddenly, a post on a forum for students studying abroad rocketed to the top! [Holy shit!!! Something happened at M University! That rich Chinese girl, Zhao Tingting!!! She killed herself in the library square! And she wrote... she wrote...]
The post was incoherent. Even through the heavy pixelation of the attached photograph, a girl dressed in luxury brands could still be seen lying on the ground, a conspicuous metal chain wrapped around her neck. Beside her, a large scrawl of blood-red writing covered the pavement! Despite the pixelation, the words "Father: Liu Jianming" were faintly legible!
The news smashed through every information barrier like a tsunami. People bypassed the firewall, shared posts, took screenshots... it swept across the domestic internet at an unimaginable speed!
This time, Liu Jianming's name was nailed into the public eye in the cruelest, most explicit way possible!
International public opinion erupted instantly!
In my room, the screen was flooded with news alerts in various languages and shocked emojis.
The call came sooner than expected.
Barely ten minutes after the news broke, the burner phone began vibrating wildly. Its ringtone was no longer a dull hum, but a sharp, urgent sound, almost an out-of-control shriek!
I answered.
No breathing. No electrical static.
Only a roar of absolute fury, compressed until it warped, almost piercing my eardrum and even overwhelming the voice processor!
"You fucking lunatic!!!"
The voice shook violently with sheer rage, even distorting for a moment.
"Do you know what you've done?! Do you know what this will bring down on us?!"
A brief, explosive silence.
Then came the sound of teeth viciously crushing something-perhaps the microphone? Next, the electronic voice cut down at me with a cadence I had never heard before, chilling to the bone and edged with mad resolve:
"Twenty-four hours."
"Stop everything you're doing."
"Otherwise,"
"I will drag you out myself and make you watch yourself..."
"...rot away, inch by inch!"
Click!
The sound of the phone being violently smashed, cutting off the call.
A busy tone.
I slowly lowered the phone.
Outside the window, dawn was about to break.
The first faint light slipped through a gap in the curtains and fell across the black notebook on the desk.
I licked my slightly cracked lips and smiled without a sound.
Your fangs...
Have you finally bared them?
Mentor.
I'll be waiting.
Before you continue