Kannazuki swiped across his phone screen. The local news portal for Linhai City loaded its latest page.
His finger stopped.
At the top of the page, a bold announcement in white letters on a red background dominated the headlines:
[Linhai City Construction Group's chief financial officer, Li Jianguo, has been formally arrested on suspicion of serious crimes committed in office. He is currently being held at the City Detention Center. Further investigation is underway.]
Kannazuki tapped the announcement to read the details.
The article included a front-facing photograph of Li Jianguo being escorted into a police car. His face had not been blurred. Beneath the photograph, his legal name, age, and place of origin were clearly listed.
The Construction Group.
Kannazuki recalled the night of Sun Ming's throat-slashing murder, and the flushed face of Sun Jianguo, chairman of the Construction Group, in the third-floor banquet hall of the Grand Hyatt Hotel.
A vast network of vested interests. A key figure with access to its core financial data.
Most importantly, Li Jianguo was now being held at the City Detention Center.
The detention center had the tightest surveillance in all of Linhai City.
Around-the-clock camera coverage with no blind spots, Armed Police on guard, and a completely sealed facility.
If Li Jianguo died mysteriously inside the detention center, and the police could confirm with absolute certainty that Kannazuki had never gone anywhere near it at the time...
That would be the perfect alibi.
"You're going to kill him?"
Ryuk leaned his massive body closer, his bulging eyes fixed on the photograph on the phone screen. His long tongue swept over his lips.
"A human locked in a cage. Where's the fun in that?"
"He can clear me of suspicion," Kannazuki said evenly.
He uncapped the Black Water-Based Pen.
He opened the Death Note.
The pen tip hovered above the page.
According to the notebook's rules, he had forty seconds after writing a name to specify the cause of death, and six minutes and forty seconds after that to write the detailed circumstances.
Most crucially, he could control the victim's actions during the twenty-three days before death.
Like a precision computer, Kannazuki's mind began working through every detail of what would happen forty-eight hours later.
The pen touched the paper.
[Li Jianguo.]
Without pausing after the name, Kannazuki immediately wrote the cause of death after it.
[Cause of death: a sudden episode of mania, resulting in death from bashing his head against a wall inside the detention center's interrogation room.]
The cause was set. The countdown began. With a steady hand, Kannazuki continued filling in the detailed circumstances.
[Time of death: forty-eight hours from now, at three thirty in the afternoon the day after tomorrow.]
[Actions before death: at three o'clock in the afternoon the day after tomorrow, Li Jianguo will request a meeting with the Special Task Force's detectives. Inside the interrogation room, he will ask for pen and paper and spend twenty-five minutes writing a suicide note containing a list of the key people who have accepted bribes through the Construction Group over the years, along with the movement of the funds. After writing the final word, he will suffer a sudden episode of extreme mania and violently bash his head against the metal barrier in front of the interrogation chair, fracturing his skull and dying.]
He finished the final stroke.
Kannazuki capped the pen.
Hanging upside down from the ceiling, Ryuk read everything Kannazuki had written, then suddenly burst into a shrill, grotesque laugh.
"Gahahahaha! Human, you're vicious!" Ryuk tumbled through the air.
"You're not just using him as an alibi. You're making him implicate more people! Once that list comes out, the people running this city will go insane!"
Kannazuki ignored Ryuk's glee.
He knew exactly how much weight that suicide note would carry.
The Construction Group's acquisition of the South City Plot involved a fathomlessly deep chain of vested interests.
Once Li Jianguo wrote that note in the interrogation room, right in front of the detectives, it would send an earthquake through Linhai City's political and business circles.
Chen Lei's Special Task Force would be completely overwhelmed by this sudden, explosive case.
The murkier the water, the easier it was for a fish to escape.
Kannazuki closed the notebook.
He walked to the bed, lifted the worn sheet, and slid the black notebook flat into the gap at the very bottom of the mattress.
Once that was done, he picked up his phone from the table.
He closed the background apps and cleared the browser cache.
He opened the delivery app.
He tapped "Go online."
The system notification sounded: You are now available to accept orders. Please ride safely.
Kannazuki walked over to the sink and picked up the yellow outdoor jacket, which had not quite dried.
It smelled faintly of mildew. He put it on, zipped it up, and tucked his helmet under his arm.
"Going out?" Ryuk landed on the doorframe, blocking his way.
"I'm a Delivery Worker.
Three thirty in the afternoon is peak time for afternoon tea.
If I don't go out and earn money, how am I supposed to buy you apples?" Kannazuki reached out and opened the door.
Ryuk moved aside, grinning broadly. "I'm looking forward to your performance. Remember, I'm only here to watch."
Kannazuki left the room and locked the security door behind him.
The stairwell was dim, its walls plastered with small advertisements for drain clearing and locksmith services.
Kannazuki descended the concrete stairs, his footsteps echoing through the empty stairwell.
He knew that from the moment he stepped through the building entrance, his every move would once again fall under police scrutiny.
But being seen was exactly what he wanted.
He wanted the police watching him twenty-four hours a day, watching him deliver food, watching him eat, watching him sleep.
Until, forty-eight hours later, that dull thud sounded inside the detention center.
Across the road from Happy Home Building 3.
An old black Santana was parked in the shade of a tree. Dust coated its body, making it utterly unremarkable.
The air conditioning was off, and the interior was as stifling as a steamer.
In the passenger seat, a young plainclothes officer wiped the sweat from his forehead, raised a pair of high-powered binoculars, and stared intently at Building 3's entrance.
"Will Captain Chen's approach actually work?" the young officer asked quietly.
"Can we really spot a serial killer just by sitting here watching?"
In the driver's seat, a veteran detective in his thirties chewed gum, his gaze hawklike. "Cut the chatter. If Captain Chen says it's him, then he's a prime suspect. Big data doesn't lie. There are too many coincidences surrounding this kid."
A figure in a yellow outdoor jacket emerged from the building entrance.
"He's out!" The young officer perked up.
The veteran detective immediately picked up the DSLR camera from the center console, fitted a telephoto lens, and lowered the window a crack.
He aimed the lens at Kannazuki.
Kannazuki stood in the sunlight outside the entrance. He put on his yellow helmet, secured the face shield, and mounted the electric scooter parked by the curb.
His movements were practiced and mechanical, carrying the particular weariness of a worker at the bottom of society.
Click.
The camera shutter sounded.
Kannazuki twisted the throttle. The electric scooter rolled slowly into the street and merged with traffic.
"Follow him." The veteran detective spat out his gum and started the Santana.
The car eased smoothly out of its parking space, trailing far behind Kannazuki's electric scooter.
They kept three intersections between them.
"He's accepted an order," the young officer said, looking at the Police Tablet on his lap.
"The cyber monitoring unit has synced the data.
He just grabbed a milk tea delivery to the High-Tech Zone.
Twelve kilometers away."
"Twelve kilometers." The veteran detective frowned. "This kid has some stamina.
Keep a close eye on him. See who he meets along the way."
The Santana wove through traffic.
Ahead of them, Kannazuki rode steadily. He did not run red lights or ride against traffic. He obeyed every traffic rule.
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