Chapter Ninety-Eight: The One Who Understands You Best Is Your Enemy

Unexpectedly to Chen Ziang, the relationship between the two was not particularly complicated.

When Kazuto worked at Yu Ashiya’s detective agency, everyone regarded him as a child because of his impulsive and carefree personality, so they didn’t take him too seriously.

Only Chihiro Yozakura, with her easygoing temperament, treated him like a normal friend, and since Kazuto was not entirely oblivious, he gradually developed feelings for her.

What followed was the classic story of “I see you as a little brother, please stop bothering me.”

“Can’t you just confess to him directly and clear things up?” Suzuna Tsukimiya suggested.

“That wouldn’t be good.” Chihiro Yozakura shook her head. “If he confessed outright, I would definitely make things clear.”

“But Kazuto is just a kid, he doesn’t even have the courage to confess. I can’t just expose him directly—that would be rude. Yet no matter what he says, his attentiveness is downright annoying…”

“Is it possible that he’s pretending?” Suzuna speculated. “He knows you’d reject a confession outright, so he’s using a slow and steady approach to gradually breach your defenses?”

“Hmm, now that you put it that way, it’s not impossible…”

The two girls whispered to each other, and Chen Ziang suddenly felt as if he had been hit by an unseen arrow. Losing interest in eavesdropping any further, he returned to his workstation to continue his work.

“Come here.” Qingyu Xia pinged him in the chat window.

Chen Ziang stood up and made his way to the supervisor’s office. He knocked and entered, finding Qingyu Xia deep in thought before her computer.

Today, Qingyu Xia was dressed in her usual professional attire: a white blouse, pencil skirt, and black stockings, her legs crossed elegantly with heels swapped for sneakers. She looked completely different from Suzuna Tsukimiya, who wore a different outfit every day.

Black stockings paired with sneakers seemed odd, but when you have a great figure, you can pull off any footwear—so when would she consider changing her mouth instead?

“Chen Ziang,” Qingyu Xia said without looking up, “Are you planning to watch until you’re satisfied before starting work?”

“Sorry,” Chen Ziang quickly made an excuse. “I was just lost in thought. My apologies.”

Qingyu Xia didn’t bother to call him out and simply said, “Look at these materials.”

Chen Ziang took the printed documents and examined them carefully.

The first page detailed a murder case from a month ago.

A pet-food video blogger with 100,000 followers was killed in their apartment in the Mikawa district.

Analyzing the motive and method, the prime suspect was Miho Nishikawa.

Further down, instead of case descriptions, there was a series of timestamps.

This blogger specialized in pet food videos, cooking expensive delicacies and feeding them to their dog.

Such content was niche and didn’t gain followers quickly, but at a certain point, the channel experienced explosive growth.

Looking further, it turned out to have caused a public relations crisis: some viewers thought the dog was being pampered too much, leaving critical comments that were banned by the blogger, sparking a small-scale flame war and public controversy.

This was when the follower count began to surge, surpassing 10,000 views after three days. However, the blogger had little time to celebrate, as they were killed just seven days later.

Chen Ziang then reviewed a second file, detailing another murder.

A kind-hearted woman living in the Twilight district had set up a stray dog feeder outside her yard. Whenever a dog pressed the button, bamboo tubes would dispense dog food.

She was murdered on a Saturday. The first timestamp noted she had given a news interview the previous month.

The interview was a serious news segment, which clearly didn’t perform well on short video platforms until the Wednesday of the week she was killed, when views reached 10,000.

“So,” Chen Ziang pondered, “appearing in a video with over 10,000 views is a key factor in being targeted by Miho Nishikawa?”

“It’s the short video platform’s algorithm,” Qingyu Xia said coldly. “They first push content to a small ‘test audience.’ If it meets the required views, it’s then promoted to ‘targeted groups.’”

“From the data, Miho Nishikawa certainly has an account on this platform and watches similar short videos intensively every day. The platform classifies her account as ‘pet lover,’ so any pet video that reaches 10,000 views is very likely to be recommended to her.”

“Impressive!” Chen Ziang admired. “To find the common link that all victims appeared in popular short videos and deduce from that that Miho Nishikawa is binge-watching those videos—that’s brilliant. How come I never thought of it?”

“Because you still have a long way to go on your path of evolution,” Qingyu Xia replied expressionlessly. “This Thursday is the anniversary of Governor Ishikintou’s death. At the Takamagahara Historical Memorial Hall, there will be a memorial ceremony for him.”

“Speaking of which,” Chen Ziang hesitated, “I checked after I got home, but there’s no mention of this event on the memorial hall’s official website or social media.”

“That’s because we’re organizing it,” Qingyu Xia sneered. “If the memorial hall were to hold it, they’d have started promoting it at least a month in advance. Miho Nishikawa would have stopped that well ahead of time. So how do you estimate when she’ll attempt sabotage?”

“Honestly, I can’t figure it out,” Chen Ziang admitted. “Even with videos reaching 10,000 views, it’s uncertain whether they’ll be recommended to her account, and I don’t know when she’ll act.”

He thought for a moment longer before realization dawned.

“If the event is held and only promoted on the day itself, Nishikawa would have no choice but to appear at the scene that day if she wanted to sabotage it!”

“Is that the best your intelligence can come up with?” Qingyu Xia said with disappointment.

Chen Ziang: ?

“Is there something wrong with my deduction?” he asked, puzzled.

“Explaining it to you won’t help,” Qingyu Xia waved dismissively. “Get out. There’s a tough battle this Thursday. If you’re unprepared and die there, I’ll have to split your ashes in two.”

Why split them in two… whatever.

Just as Chen Ziang was about to leave, Qingyu Xia added, “Let Izumo train you in swordsmanship this afternoon. Make the most of your time.”

Back at his desk, Chen Ziang saw Suzuna Tsukimiya cracking sunflower seeds while watching a morning drama on her screen.

“Hey, Suzuna, this is work time!” he admonished.

“What does it matter?” Suzuna replied nonchalantly. “There are no cases to attend to or reports to write right now.”

“There’s a tough battle this Thursday,” Chen Ziang reminded her.

“What battle?”

“The one I told you about last time…”

After explaining Qingyu Xia’s instructions in detail, Suzuna frowned.

“If it’s an ambush against Miho Nishikawa, this fight will definitely be extremely dangerous.”

“Senior, we have to be well-prepared.”

Her words echoed Qingyu Xia’s warning exactly, though expressed differently.

Chen Ziang found it odd because Suzuna and Qingyu Xia had a poor relationship—even clashing openly in meetings—yet on certain matters, they moved in remarkable unison.

(End of chapter)