Chapter 388
Full of Suspicious Points
Chapter 388 Full of Suspicious Points
After receiving Guan Tong's call, Shang Yuanzi rushed to the rehabilitation center.
When she arrived, Guan Tong and Shi Jingyi were in the monitoring room.
"Did you find anything?"
She asked Guan Tong, trying to keep her voice calm.
But she couldn't calm down inside.
Anyone who had a long talk with someone yesterday would find it hard to accept the news of that person's suicide today—they might even wonder if the suicide was related to them. Otherwise, why was everything alright before, but they committed suicide the day after talking to them?
"We didn't see anything from the surveillance video. Apart from your visit, no one other than the doctor and nurses entered Suzuki's room or had any contact with her."
"..."
"Don't overthink it, I didn't mean to doubt you." Guan Tong frowned. "But she wouldn't suddenly commit suicide for no reason, there must have been a reason."
"How did she commit suicide?" Shangyuan Zi asked. "There shouldn't be any in her room..."
The doctor then replied, "It was a hanging, but she probably used some kind of prop that she bought with her own Sublime Coins. Our rehabilitation center has a rule that no dangerous items will be placed in the patient's room—even the walls are made of soft material."
After the doctor finished speaking, he looked at Guan Tong and said, "Sir, if I may be so bold, there shouldn't be any conspiracy involved in Miss Suzuki's case, and no one is trying to harm her. She probably couldn't bear any more pain."
"pain?"
"...You may not know, but once the addiction to those alien spores takes hold, it plunges people into extreme pain, far more intense than any other addiction."
Ordinary people would succumb to the ordeal after a few times, and even those who have transcended their physical limitations would eventually succumb to it... Ms. Suzuki was far from the only one who chose to end her life.
"Then why was she able to hold on until now, but suddenly couldn't hold on after I met her?" Shangyuan Zi questioned. "Yesterday she promised me that she would wait to be visited and that I would take her back to meet her friends. Why did such a big change happen in just one day?"
The doctor said helplessly, "We don't know either. But perhaps Ms. Suzuki had already suffered a mental breakdown, and your visit was the last straw that broke the camel's back—I mean, the reason Ms. Suzuki has been able to hold on until now is because of her obsession with 'waiting for someone to visit her.' Your appearance allowed her to fulfill that obsession, so..."
Shang Yuanzi fell silent.
She recalled the manuscript papers scattered all over the floor and the profile drawings covering the walls in Suzuki's room; those chaotic contents did indeed reveal a bit of Suzuki's mental state.
Could it really be that way? Did my visit actually cause her death?
She looked at Guan Tong, who shook her head slightly: "Let's go check out her room. Also, I need to make a copy of these surveillance videos."
"Copy? That won't do!" The head of the rehabilitation center in the room shook his head. "These data are private. Allowing you to view them is already a violation. Taking a backup is absolutely out of the question!"
"You can talk to your superior. If your superior doesn't agree, then have him contact his superior."
"This……"
The person in charge, looking grim, took out his phone and went outside the monitoring room to make a call.
Guan Tong manipulated a shadow to emerge from under his trouser leg and followed the person in charge outside to monitor and listen in. At the same time, he took out a backup device from his storage ring and copied the video data wirelessly.
When the staff tried to stop him, they immediately withdrew their hands after meeting Guan Tong's cold gaze, letting him copy the document.
Since Guan Tong was determined to get to the bottom of things, he wouldn't overlook any detail. Just because he couldn't see any problems with the surveillance footage didn't mean there weren't any, so he needed to have a professional examine it.
At the same time, he also clearly overheard the conversation between the person in charge and his superior outside the room.
"Minister, that person is going to copy all the surveillance videos now."
"What? That's crucial data from the rehabilitation center! How can we let him copy it!"
“That’s what I said too, but he told me to contact you. He also said… if you don’t agree, he’ll have you contact your superior again.”
"This kid is completely out of control because of his connections with the Countermeasures Research Lab!"
"So, Minister, are we going to let him take them away or not?"
"...Never mind, let's not argue with him for now. I'll figure out how to handle this."
"understood."
The person in charge hung up the phone and turned around, only to find Guan Tong standing right behind him.
"what!"
He didn't hear a single footstep and was startled.
Guan Tong stared at him for a few seconds, and then went with Shi Jingyi, Shang Yuanzi, the doctor and nurse in charge of Suzuki, who came out of the monitoring room, to the ward where Suzuki had previously stayed.
Pushing open the door, Guan Tong immediately saw the side notes covering the floor and walls, as well as manuscript papers scattered all over the floor.
The doctor said, "Ms. Suzuki likes to draw, and we consider it a way for her to relieve stress, so we don't usually interfere."
"Guan Tong, look." Shi Jingyi picked up a piece of paper in surprise and handed it to Guan Tong.
Above is a large mass of dark lines, all of which extend from a black figure.
"Isn't this a painting of..."
Shi Jingyi didn't say it aloud, but she knew very well that the painting depicted Guan Tong's ability, "Shadow."
Guan Tong took the drawing and looked at it; it wasn't unfamiliar to her. Previously, when Suzuki helped Misawa Jun find him, he had used the [Profiling] ability to draw his figure and abilities.
But Suzuki later got to know him and saw through Jun Misawa's true colors. Why does he still paint this kind of picture now?
No one could sense any goodwill in the painting; anyone who saw it would immediately think that the black figure in the painting was a chaotic and evil monster.
Uehara Yukari also realized this: "Suzuki couldn't possibly have drawn someone like this. Could it be that her mental state is really... or that she has a memory problem? But she seemed perfectly normal when I visited her."
Shi Jingyi asked the doctor, "When spore addicts experience an attack, do they experience memory loss or mental confusion?"
The doctor nodded: "Indeed, some patients have been driven mad by the pain."
“Suzuki isn’t crazy,” Uehara Yuki said confidently.
"...In short, you all know the situation, and we didn't want this to happen either. But please believe us, as medical staff, we have no reason or motive to harm patients."
The doctor exchanged a glance with the nurse and said, "Then we'll go out first, you can stay here by yourselves for a while."
Guan Tong ignored them and simply flipped through the profile drawings, many of which were related to his image and all of them looked like evil figures.
This puzzled him. He felt that he was not seen this way in Suzuki's mind, so why did she draw him like this?
"Commander, is there anything you can think of?"
"...This matter is very strange. If it weren't for these paintings of mine, I might not have thought so."
"I think so too."
"Should we go and see her body?" Shi Jingyi asked.
Guan Tong thought for a moment and said, "Of course I'll go, but Shang Yuan and I will go."
Shi Jingyi and Suzuki don't know each other, so there's no need for her to run around with them.
Moreover, if there really was some shady dealings involved, Guan Tong didn't want to drag Shi Jingyi, an unrelated person, into it before she had any leads. "Okay, then I'll go back and wait for your news."
"it is good."
After Shi Jingyi left, Guan Tong and Shang Yuanzi also left the withdrawal center.
Before leaving, Guan Tong collected all the scattered manuscripts into her storage ring and took them with her. These were Suzuki's belongings and could also be clues to the investigation of her suicide. She couldn't let the people here dispose of them carelessly.
The shadow left by Guan Tong will secretly monitor the person in charge, doctors, nurses and others, and will be able to detect any mischief immediately.
On the way to the medical department, Guan Tong and Shang Yuanzi remained silent.
The two of them didn't know what to say, nor were they in the mood to say anything.
Upon arrival at the address, someone proactively greeted us and led the way, presumably because Zhang Minglu had already given all the necessary instructions.
Upon arriving at the mortuary, staff members removed a body from the freezer.
When Guan Tong and Shang Yuanzi saw Suzuki's lifeless, pale face, their hearts sank.
Before seeing the body with your own eyes, you can still hold onto a sliver of hope. But once you see it with your own eyes, that hope crumbles into certainty, leaving no room for escape.
Afterwards, Shang Yuanzi carefully examined her body and found no external injuries, only obvious ligature marks on her neck, confirming that she died by hanging.
After leaving the room, Uehara Yuki said, "I'm going to take her body back to Sakura Inori and hold a funeral for her so that her colleagues from the Public Security Bureau can attend and pay their respects... She told me before she died that she wanted to see her former colleagues one last time... Now that she's gone, I still want to fulfill her wish."
Guan Tong nodded: "Let's do it this way."
When the two went to complete the formalities, the staff objected immediately upon hearing that they wanted to take the body away.
"That is the remains of a spore addict. The brain is to be dissected for spore research. It is of great value. You are not her relatives, are you? You cannot take the remains away."
“In this world, having relatives is already a luxury, having friends is considered lucky,” Guan Tong said. “We are her friends, we will not allow her to be dissected. Didn’t anyone tell you that we have the right to dispose of the body?”
"This... it only says that you can view the body, it doesn't say that you can take it away."
"Then you might as well go and ask again."
The staff hesitated for a moment, then went to confirm, and quickly received a reply.
"Alright, you can take the body away, but according to regulations, you need to register it."
The staff took out the registration book, and Guan Tong suddenly snatched it away.
"Hey? What are you doing?"
"Has someone previously registered to view this body?" Guan Tong pointed to a record above, where the signature read "Wei Huo".
The staff member nodded: "A woman did come to check."
Do you know who she is?
"do not know."
Guan Tong thought for a moment and said to Shang Yuanzi, "You take Suzuki's body to Yingqi. I'll investigate the clues about 'Wei Huo.' We'll contact each other by phone."
"……Um."
After completing the formalities, Shangyuan Zi took the body and left.
Guan Tong then requested to retrieve the surveillance footage to find the woman who had written "Wei Huo" on the registration form.
The woman in the video had a short ponytail and didn't look particularly special; Guan Tong had never seen her before.
But he was certain that this woman was no ordinary person. Because this special medical department was not open to the public, someone who knew about it and had the authority to examine bodies couldn't possibly be an ordinary person.
Guan Tong copied the video and, after leaving, contacted Zhang Minglu, asking him to help investigate the woman's identity.
After returning home, he contacted the hacker "Face" again and sent him a commission, asking him to use professional tools to analyze the surveillance videos of the rehabilitation center and medical department to check for any editing or falsification.
After all that commotion, it was already quite dark.
Guan Tong walked out of the shelter and looked up at the thick, gloomy clouds in the sky.
The dark-style drawings Suzuki sketched... the woman who registered under the name "Wei Huo" to view her body... even the somewhat guilty behavior of the head of the rehabilitation center... all these suspicious points combined were enough for him to be 90% certain that Suzuki did not simply commit suicide, but that there was some hidden reason.
"If I had intervened sooner, perhaps..."
Guan Tong frowned. He knew that saying these things now was pointless; what mattered was to investigate thoroughly and take action based on the results.
"Don't worry, Suzuki, I will definitely give you an explanation for this. If you were really murdered, I will definitely avenge you."
……
Nighttime, somewhere in Pinglu.
The woman with a short ponytail sat in the car, opened her storage box, and selected a [Call Scroll] item to use.
After selecting a target from her friend list, she immediately established a mental connection with that person.
The woman with the short ponytail said in her mind, "That woman is dead. It's a pity. If we had more time, we might have been able to get more information from her."
"You killed her?" A surprised male voice echoed in her mind.
“'Shadow' is going to find her. If I don’t act soon, I might be exposed. I don’t want to be targeted by that monster. But I can fake it as a suicide, so it should be fine.”
The male voice paused for a moment, then spoke again: "Fool... You only became a target of 'Shadow' because you killed her. Your disguise couldn't fool him."
"If I'm an idiot, then what about you, who doesn't even have personal freedom and can only communicate with the outside world through the [Secret Call Scroll]? Useless?" The woman with the short ponytail looked disdainful. "Hmph, even if he notices something's wrong, so what? Everything about me is fake, he can't find out anything."
"You..." The male voice was somewhat speechless, "You underestimate the resources that top-tier ascendants can mobilize."
"Don't lecture me. Get this straight, you're not my superior!"
“I just hope you can be smarter and not expose yourself before I even leave. Before you underestimate ‘Shadow,’ you should consider that he’s the kind of transcendent who dares to go against an entire country. For such people, no rules can stop them from doing what they want.”
Upon hearing this, the woman with the short ponytail began to feel a little nervous, wondering if she had really been too reckless.
"Leave Pinglu immediately," the man's voice continued. "Find a deserted area and stay there. Don't have contact with anyone for the time being."
"What? What about my mission?!"
"Only living people can complete the mission."
"..."
(End of this chapter)