Yue, you're becoming more and more like a devil

"Yue, you've been staring at those green bugs for an hour."

Ryuk crouched on the windowsill, half his body leaning outside, greedily breathing in the cool predawn air.

"Is this more interesting than killing people?"

"It's more effective than killing people."

Kannazuki had infiltrated the logistics company's underlying business logic layer.

He discovered that when the system processed historical data from six months ago, it called an outdated weight-calculation function.

He created an extremely well-hidden integer overflow vulnerability.

Whenever the system queried packages from that specific period within a specific weight range, it would trigger the function, and the overflow would make every returned result point to one fixed constant: 0.30.

Next, Kannazuki randomly selected twelve hundred unrelated orders from the database.

Some had originally been large household appliances, others crates of cement, but at that moment, their numerical attributes were all devoured and assimilated by the Borer virus.

Within the backend logic, those thousand-plus packages all became 0.3 kg.

"The logic is airtight." Kannazuki closed his phone, the bloodshot veins in his eyes betraying a cold madness under the light.

Now, even if Chen Lei brought in the world's finest data recovery experts, they would reach only one conclusion: the logistics company's system had suffered a serious logical fault six months ago, corrupting the weight data of a large number of packages.

His "0.3 kg" was no longer a lone piece of evidence, but an ordinary bug buried in a mountain of junk data.

"Ryuk, let's go."

"Where?" Ryuk flapped his wings excitedly. "More names to write?"

Municipal Public Security Bureau, Criminal Investigation Detachment.

Chen Lei jolted awake at his desk, his shirt soaked with cold sweat.

He instinctively looked at the monitor before him.

On the screen, Kannazuki lay curled beneath his blanket, his chest rising and falling gently with his breathing.

"Captain Chen, you slept for less than two hours."

Xiao Li pushed the door open, holding a fax stamped with a red official seal. His expression was grim. "The logistics company... sent a reply."

Chen Lei snatched the document.

His eyes raced over the technical terms: [Underlying system function overflow], [Historical data logic failure], [Widespread assignment errors].

The report's final line read: "Upon investigation, our company's system suffered a large-scale logical fault six months ago, affecting over a thousand orders. All weight data displayed the system's default constant of 0.3 kg.

This data has no evidentiary value."

Attached was a three-page list of erroneous orders.

Chen Lei's hands began to tremble.

He opened the list and found Kannazuki's name among those thousand-plus entries.

There it was, utterly unremarkable, sandwiched between customers who had purchased "high-powered range hoods" and "industrial lathe parts."

The packages belonging to the range hood buyers also weighed 0.3 kg.

"Impossible... this is absolutely impossible!"

Chen Lei snarled, crushed the report into a ball, and hurled it into the corner.

It felt as though he had finally found a marker to guide him through a vast desert, only to approach it and discover that identical markers stood everywhere across the sand.

Someone had done this deliberately.

His instincts screamed that Kannazuki was responsible.

But reason mocked him: could a delivery worker who couldn't even afford his internet bill, ate instant noodles every day, and watched The Eight Parts of the Heavenly Dragon late at night to pass the time really hack into one of the country's three biggest logistics companies and alter its underlying architecture?

"Captain Chen, the Technical Section confirmed it too."

Xiao Li sighed, a trace of uncertainty in his voice. "That data really was affected by a systemic error.

The last piece of physical evidence we had... is gone."

Chen Lei said nothing.

He walked to the window and watched the sky gradually brighten outside.

"Xiao Li."

"Yes, sir."

"On the Skynet surveillance feed, is Kannazuki still inside?"

Xiao Li glanced down at his tablet. "He just went out."

"Heh heh heh, Yue, hurry up."

Ryuk floated above Kannazuki's head like a huge blot of ink.

His red eyes were fixed on a fruit stand at the end of the street, his long tongue licking his cracked lips. "I can smell it already. It's nothing short of salvation for the soul."

"Shut up, Ryuk."

Kannazuki answered softly in his mind. The police are watching.

"So what? He can't see me anyway."

Ryuk performed a contorted tumble in midair, his bones scraping together with a teeth-grating sound.

Kannazuki entered the morning market.

It was the liveliest corner of Linhai City's Old City District.

The rotten stink of discarded vegetable leaves mingled with the tobacco smell of cheap cigarettes and the vendors' hoarse cries.

Kannazuki stopped at a stall with a paper sign reading, "Yantai Red Fuji, 12 yuan per jin."

He reached into the fruit basket and carefully picked through the apples. Their skins felt cool and smooth beneath his fingertips.

He picked one up and turned it before his eyes.

"This one's too red. It might have been artificially ripened."

Kannazuki muttered at a moderate volume, setting one down and picking up another, pressing his thumb against it to test the firmness.

In Kannazuki's eyes, that apple was no ordinary food.

Ryuk was already on the verge of madness.

The Shinigami's body folded into a bizarre shape in midair. His fingers trembled as he tried to touch the fruit, yet some rule forced him to restrain himself.

"That's the one! Yue! It's round, plump, and its color is as pure as fresh blood!

"Buy it now!" Ryuk roared in Kannazuki's ear.

Kannazuki selected five and placed them on the scale.

"Six yuan eighty. I'll take six fifty." The vendor was a middle-aged man with a brutish face. As he spoke, he sprayed water into the plastic bag to add weight.

Kannazuki looked at the digits on the electronic scale.

"Six thirty." Kannazuki's tone was flat, his gaze as clear as a pool of stagnant water. "That apple had a blemish. I didn't sort it out."

The vendor paused and met Kannazuki's eyes. There was no hostility in them, only an almost obsessive seriousness.

"Fine, fine, six thirty. You delivery workers are unbelievable, quibbling over a few cents."

The vendor swore as he yanked the bag over.

Kannazuki took the plastic bag.

Instead of heading straight home, he walked toward the small park in the middle of the morning market.

Kannazuki's hand stopped in midair, then drew back, and he took a bite himself.

Crunch.

A crisp sound.

Juice burst between his lips and teeth.

"Why do you like apples so much?"

Kannazuki asked, looking at the empty park bench.

Ryuk crouched on its armrest like a huge, starving ape.

He stared at the apple with a bite missing in Kannazuki's hand, drool dripping from his chin onto the paving tiles and vanishing into nothing.

"You have no idea, Yue." Ryuk's voice grew low and hoarse. "To find you, the things I ate in the void... were shriveled, gray garbage that tasted like sand.

If you ate that for a thousand years, you'd understand what something this bright, round, and full of life really means."

"Is it food to you, or a drug?" Kannazuki took another bite, chewing slowly.

"It's life." Ryuk suddenly leaned close, his huge, fang-filled mouth almost pressing against Kannazuki's face.

"Without apples, my body twists, and my insides feel like they're burning.

Yue, give it to me. Give it to me now!"

Watching Ryuk lose all reason, Kannazuki's eyes flashed with an almost imperceptible cold gleam.

Addiction.

It was another chain he held in this contest, besides the Death Note.

Even a Shinigami who commanded life and death had a weakness once he possessed desire.

"What if I never give you any?" Kannazuki asked softly.

Ryuk froze. His red eyes slowly turned, fixing on Kannazuki.

At that moment, a terrifying chill radiated from the center of the little park, sending the nearby sparrows scattering with frightened cries.

"That would put me in a difficult position, Yue."

Ryuk stretched his mouth into a smile uglier than a grimace.

"I might not be able to stop myself from writing something in that notebook while you're asleep.

Something like... Kannazuki, dead of cardiac arrest?"

"You won't." Kannazuki took out another apple and casually tossed it.

The apple traced an arc through the air.

To an ordinary observer, it seemed to strike some invisible barrier and abruptly vanish in midair.

In reality, Ryuk had opened his enormous mouth and swallowed it whole at a speed too fast for the naked eye to follow.

Crunch! Crunch!

Ryuk chewed frantically, a look of sickly satisfaction spreading across his face. His body stopped twisting, and the cold killing intent vanished instantly, replaced by an almost fawning delight.

"So delicious... Yue, you're such a good person," Ryuk mumbled.

"Remember this feeling, Ryuk."

Kannazuki stood and brushed the dust from his trousers. "As long as I'm alive, you'll have all the apples you can eat.

But if I go to prison or die, you'll have to crawl back to your Shinigami Realm and chew on sand."

Ryuk swallowed the fruit and chuckled coldly. "Humans really are interesting. Are you threatening a god?"

"No. I'm talking business."

With the plastic bag in hand, Kannazuki turned and headed home.

Kannazuki returned home.

The security door swung shut.

He sat at the desk and opened the drawer. The black Death Note lay quietly inside.

He picked up his pen and wrote a few words on the page:

[Owner of Li's Fruit Stand, South District, Linhai City.]

"Yue, you're going to kill him?" Ryuk leaned over, half an apple still stuffed in his mouth. "He's just a fruit seller."

"He sprayed water into the bag," Kannazuki said calmly. "And he insulted delivery workers."

"Just for that?"

"He doesn't respect working people." Kannazuki pressed down with the tip of his pen.

"The worker-peasant class is the greatest in this world, yet he shows them no respect."

He paused, then crossed out the name.

"No, I can't kill him now." Kannazuki raised his head, his gaze profound. "If he dies right after I have contact with him, the police will definitely suspect me."

He turned to another page in the notebook.

On it was a name he had been watching for a long time.

[Sun Daqiang]

Linhai City's biggest loan shark, the one who had been most active since Lin Yaodong's death.

Kannazuki glanced at the clock on the wall.

"Ryuk, tell me, wouldn't it be more interesting if someone died under heavy police protection?"

"Heh heh heh! Yue, you're becoming more and more like a devil!"

Kannazuki uncapped his pen.