Two in the morning. Old Ma's food stall, West District, Linhai City.
The rain had stopped, leaving a foul smell rising from the sewers. Kannazuki sat on a plastic stool, wolfing down stir-fried rice noodles. He had ridden a hundred and thirty kilometers that day, pushing his stamina to its limit.
Two middle-aged men sat at the next table, with seven or eight empty beer bottles lying between them. Their eyes were bloodshot, and they reeked of alcohol.
"Old Li's wife drank pesticide yesterday.
They couldn't save her. She's lying in the hospital morgue."
The man on the left, who had a crew cut, took a huge gulp of beer, his voice trembling.
"That bastard Lei Bao drove her to her death.
They borrowed fifty thousand. In six months, it snowballed to six hundred thousand. Old Li lost his house, and now he's lost his mind, too."
"Shh! You got a death wish?"
The fat man on the right hurriedly clapped a hand over his companion's mouth, looking around in terror. "You think you can just say Brother Bao's name?
He's got dozens of thugs working for him. They'll cut your tongue out, you hear me?"
The crew-cut man pulled the fat man's hand away and gave a bitter laugh. "What's there to be afraid of?
The whole city's talking about a Shinigami who only takes out scum. Zhao Gang, Wang Hu, Zhang Wei, Sun Ming-they're all dead.
I wish Shinigami would go after Lei Bao tomorrow!"
The fat man lowered his voice. "Don't count on it. Brother Bao's too cunning.
He's been so scared these past few days that he hasn't dared show his face.
He's hiding in the casino on basement level two of the Golden Sand Building. He's unplugged every network cable and doesn't even carry a smartphone.
Four armed bodyguards stay with him around the clock.
Even if Shinigami wanted to kill him, he wouldn't know where he was or what he looked like."
Kannazuki swallowed his last mouthful of noodles.
No internet. Physical isolation. Staying out of sight.
This loan shark named Lei Bao had a keen sense of counter-surveillance.
With his internet disconnected, there would be no real-time updates about him on the Cape Community. Hiding two floors underground also kept his face off the city's surveillance cameras.
Kannazuki took out his phone, opened a search engine, and typed in "Linhai City Lei Bao."
No photos. Only a handful of vague pleas for help on discussion boards.
Without a face, the notebook wouldn't work.
Kannazuki paid and stood up.
He climbed onto his electric scooter. Instead of returning to his rented room, he manually restricted his delivery area to within three kilometers of the Golden Sand Building.
Two thirty in the morning.
There weren't many late-night food orders near the Golden Sand Building. Kannazuki watched his phone screen, his finger hovering over the "Accept order" button.
Ten minutes later, the system displayed an errand order for a food purchase.
[Items to purchase: three servings of premium seafood congee, fifty sets of grilled skewers.] [Delivery address: Golden Sand Building, B2. Turn left out of the elevator, iron door at the end. Knock three times, pause for one second, then knock twice.] [Recipient: Brother Bao.]
Kannazuki tapped the button to accept.
After collecting the food, Kannazuki parked in the alley behind the Golden Sand Building. He unzipped his outdoor jacket and took out the black Death Note.
He wasn't going to carry the entire notebook with him. An underground casino was bound to have strict security.
Kannazuki turned to a blank page, pinched its edge, and tore off a square of black paper measuring two centimeters on each side.
He folded it twice and tucked it deep beneath the nail of his left index finger.
Then he dismantled a black rollerball pen, cut off a short section of its ink-filled refill, and concealed it in the crease of the lifeline on his right palm.
With everything ready, Kannazuki picked up the food and entered the building's freight elevator.
He pressed B2. The elevator descended.
The doors opened. Basement level two was unlit except for a dim yellow incandescent bulb above a heavy iron security door at the far end.
Kannazuki walked to the door. He knocked three times.
He paused for one second, then knocked twice more.
The peephole slid open, and a pair of bloodshot eyes stared at Kannazuki for three seconds.
The lock turned. The door opened a crack.
Four burly men in black tank tops stood behind it.
The bald man at the front held a powerful black flashlight and shone it straight into Kannazuki's face.
Kannazuki instinctively narrowed his eyes and raised a hand to shield them.
"Leave the food and piss off," the bald man said hoarsely.
"Sir, this was a purchase-on-demand order. The customer didn't pay through the app. It's cash on delivery.
Three hundred and eighty altogether." Kannazuki kept his head lowered, his voice carrying a delivery worker's familiar exhaustion and ingratiating tone.
"If I don't collect the money, I'll have to cover it myself."
The bald man frowned and glanced back down the corridor.
"Come in and get your money. Keep your hands to yourself."
Kannazuki carried the food inside. The bald man immediately shut the iron door.
"Hands up." Another burly man approached with a metal detector.
Kannazuki raised both hands. The detector swept close over his clothes, beeping.
"Take out your phone. Helmet off.
Leave your scooter keys." The man held out his hand.
Kannazuki obediently took out his phone, removed the yellow helmet with its miniature recorder, and placed them on the iron table beside him along with his keys.
The physical isolation was complete. He now had no electronic devices, no way to record video, take pictures, or contact anyone outside.
"Go with him." The bald man jerked his chin.
Carrying the food, Kannazuki followed one of the men down a long corridor and through two soundproof doors.
Deafening bass-heavy music and the pungent smell of cigars hit him.
The underground casino covered more than a thousand square meters.
Over a dozen gambling tables stood inside, with dozens of bloodshot-eyed gamblers placing bets. Bundles of cash were piled in a corner, and money counters rattled shrilly.
At the very back of the casino was a semi-open lounge.
A heavily built man sat on a leather sofa.
His back was to Kannazuki, and he was watching more than a dozen surveillance screens on the wall. They showed the building's various entrances and exits.
Lei Bao.
Kannazuki stopped. He could only see the back of Lei Bao's head and his thick neck. Without his face, writing his name would do nothing.
"Brother Bao, the food's here," the man leading him called.
Lei Bao didn't turn around. He simply waved irritably. "Put it on the coffee table. Give him five hundred and get him out."
Kannazuki carried the plastic bag over to the coffee table.
Lei Bao continued watching the screens, a cigar in his right hand and two walnuts rolling in his left.
Kannazuki bent down and set the containers of seafood congee on the glass coffee table.
The instant the plastic bag touched the table, the fingers of Kannazuki's right hand made an almost imperceptible movement beneath one of the containers.
He pried the plastic lid open a crack.
As Kannazuki straightened, he pretended his wrist had given way, tipping the plastic bag sharply.
Scalding seafood congee spilled through the gap, landing precisely on the edge of Lei Bao's Hermès leather sofa. A few drops splashed onto his suit trousers.
"Fuck!"
Lei Bao sprang up and flung his cigar aside. He turned and slapped Kannazuki across the face.
Smack!
Kannazuki staggered backward, half his face instantly swelling red.
Instead of covering his face, he immediately bowed at a ninety-degree angle, his voice shaking. "I'm sorry, boss! My hand slipped! I'll clean it up!"
Still bent at the waist, Kannazuki lifted his head.
Their eyes met.
Less than half a meter apart. Kannazuki stared fixedly at Lei Bao's face.
A dark red knife scar crossed the brow bone on his left side. Narrow, triangular eyes with yellowed whites. Thick lips and a black mole at the right corner of his mouth.
Features memorized.
"Clean it up, my ass! You couldn't pay for these trousers with a whole year of deliveries!"
Enraged, Lei Bao drove a vicious kick into Kannazuki's stomach.
Kannazuki let the momentum carry him to the floor, covered his head with both hands, and curled into a ball.
He didn't scream once. He merely curled up tighter.
The survival rules of those at the bottom.
Take the beating. Fighting back would only bring a worse one.
"Brother Bao, calm down. Don't waste your time on some delivery guy. It's bad luck." The man beside him hurriedly offered tissues, then pulled five hundred-yuan notes from his pocket and threw them in Kannazuki's face.
"Take the money and get out! If I see you again, I'll chop your hands off!"
Kannazuki picked up the money from the floor and limped out, clutching his stomach.
Through the soundproof doors and down the corridor.
The bald man tossed Kannazuki his phone and helmet, then opened the iron door.
Kannazuki stepped outside. The iron door slammed shut behind him with a dull crash.
Kannazuki entered the freight elevator.
He pressed the door-close button.
The two metal doors slowly slid together, sealing off the filth of basement level two.
Kannazuki was alone in the elevator.
He straightened.
The back that had been hunched in pain became rigidly upright.
The timidity and terror vanished from his face, and his gaze turned glacial.
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with his thumb.
He raised his left hand, rubbed his index finger and thumb together, and extracted the black paper from beneath his nail, unfolding it.
He turned his right hand over, and the tiny section of pen refill slid to his fingertips.
Kannazuki pressed the black paper against the elevator's metal wall. The pen tip pierced its surface.
[Lei Bao.]
His real name. His face. Both confirmed.
Next came the cause of death.
Kannazuki pictured the woman who had drunk pesticide because of loan sharks, then the mountains of cash piled in the casino.
The pen tip moved.
[Cause of death: five minutes from now, he will suddenly rush toward a gambling table and frantically stuff cash and chips into his mouth. He will shout, "I owe a life, so I'll repay it with money." Swallowing too much will block his airway, and he will die after struggling for two minutes in extreme oxygen deprivation.]
He finished the final stroke.
Kannazuki snapped the refill and dropped it through a gap in the elevator's ventilation grille.
He stuffed the black paper into his mouth, chewed it to pieces, and swallowed.
The elevator reached the ground floor.
Kannazuki put on his helmet and left the building. The night breeze brushed his face, making his swollen cheek sting.
He climbed onto his electric scooter, twisted the throttle, and disappeared down the street.
At the same time, on basement level two of the Golden Sand Building.
Lei Bao had changed his trousers and settled back onto the sofa.
He picked up the seafood congee from the coffee table and took a mouthful.
His movements suddenly froze.
His pupils contracted violently, and the brutality in his eyes was instantly replaced by an indescribable madness.
"Brother Bao? Is the congee too hot?" the thug beside him asked.
Lei Bao didn't answer.
He surged to his feet, shoved the thug aside, and charged toward the nearest gambling table like a rabid beast.
More than a hundred thousand in cash and stacks of dense plastic chips lay on the table.
Lei Bao lunged onto it, grabbed fistfuls of hundred-yuan notes, and frantically stuffed them into his mouth.
"I owe a life, so I'll repay it with money! I owe a life, so I'll repay it with money!"
Muffled roars came from his throat as he swallowed the banknotes along with the hard chips.
The casino instantly fell deathly silent.
Everyone watched the bizarre scene in horror.
"Brother Bao! What are you doing?"
Several bodyguards rushed forward to restrain him. But Lei Bao's strength was astonishing. He sent one bodyguard flying with a punch and kept grabbing chips and stuffing them into his mouth.
The banknotes blocked his windpipe.
His face turned purplish red, his eyes bulged, and both hands clamped tightly around his own neck.
He rolled across the floor, knocking over chairs and smashing bottles.
Two minutes later.
Lei Bao's body abruptly went rigid, and a dull thump came from his heart. Then he collapsed stiffly among the scattered banknotes and never moved again.
The command center at the Municipal Public Security Bureau.
Chen Lei stood before the large screen, his eyes bloodshot.
After six hours of intensive computing, the list of more than three thousand delivery riders had been narrowed down further.
"Captain Chen." The head of technical investigations hit Enter. "We pulled the riders who spent more than ten minutes in the four hotspot areas during the time of the crimes and whose routes showed clearly abnormal detours. We have the shortlist."
The densely packed profile pictures vanished from the large screen.
In the end, fewer than three hundred remained.
Chen Lei's gaze swept over them like a hawk's.
"Group them by delivery station," Chen Lei ordered.
The profile pictures rearranged themselves.
Chen Lei walked up to the screen and jabbed his finger hard at one section.
It was the delivery station serving the area around Splendid Garden.
Among the profile pictures in that section was a young man in a yellow delivery uniform.
His face was unremarkable, his eyes calm.
Name: Kannazuki.
Chen Lei stared at the name, his brow furrowed.
Just then, the phone in Chen Lei's pocket vibrated.
He answered, and the voice of Lao Liu, the forensic examiner, came through the earpiece, tinged with shock he could not quite suppress.
"Chen, a report just came in.
Lei Bao, the loan-sharking boss, is dead. It happened in the underground casino beneath the Golden Sand Building in the West District.
The cause of death was an acute heart attack triggered by a foreign-body obstruction of the airway. His mouth was stuffed with chips and banknotes."
Chen Lei's grip on the phone tightened sharply, his knuckles turning white.
The sixth.
Under the tight surveillance of the citywide big-data network, inside an underground chamber cut off from all network connections.
Shinigami had put pen to paper once again.
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