Jiang Shiyu's voice was muffled as she slumped over the table and murmured, "You smell... so nice."
Kannazuki remained leaning back in his chair.
The faint blue glow of his phone screen lit his profile. A piece of dark web intelligence was displayed on it.
Berlin serial cardiac arrest case: police confirm cross-border criminal network; proxy suspected of going rogue.
Kannazuki swiped his thumb lightly, clearing his browsing history.
"It's just ordinary laundry detergent."
He placed the phone facedown on the table, his voice gentle.
The girl rested her chin on her arms, struggling to keep her eyes open. "Liar... some random detergent... wouldn't smell like fir trees after the snow..."
The moment she finished speaking, her breathing grew slow and steady, and she fell into a deep sleep.
Kannazuki turned his head. The desk lamp cast a yellow glow over Jiang Shiyu's face.
He glanced at the clock on the wall.
Eight seventeen.
At that moment, six thousand kilometers away in Berlin, his proxy, Hans, was probably plotting something he thought was clever.
And over the past hundred and forty-two days, Kannazuki had used the black notebook at the bottom of his drawer to erase exactly one thousand seven hundred and forty-three people.
There was no scent of snow-covered fir trees on him at all.
It was merely the invisible aura of death formed from more than seventeen hundred names, a chill seeping out of ink and paper.
Only someone as innocent and ordinary as Jiang Shiyu would mistake it for the scent of fir trees.
Kannazuki rose, took his dark gray coat from behind the door, and returned to the table to drape it gently over her slender back.
Just as the coat was about to settle over her, the phone lying facedown on the table suddenly erupted