"Just now, I passed by Dad's room and heard you arguing with him," said Mariko Hatamoto, staring sharply at Takeshi. "You're not Takeshi Nishimura at all — you're Takeshi Zaiko! The son of that so-called 'hero' from the Zaiko family, aren't you?!"
Takeshi Zaiko's face turned ashen the moment his real name was spoken.
Mariko smirked, clearly convinced she'd nailed it. "You hated my dad for taking over your father's company. So you waited for the perfect chance to kill him, then tried to make it look like a suicide. You even wiped up the blood in a panic — and in the rush, your handkerchief got sliced by the knife and a little piece tore off! After that, you went back to the restaurant and tried to frame Jiangxia by tossing the handkerchief at his feet!"
Hatamoto Ichiro listened to this and got a bit emotional.
As expected of my own mother, he thought. I never even told her my plan, but somehow she pieced it all together perfectly… Is this what they mean by mother-son telepathy?
But... there's a small problem.
Too telepathic.
In Ichiro's plan, all this "truth" was supposed to unravel slowly — after Jiangxia had been steered away from the core of the case. That way the detectives wouldn't poke holes in it. He'd even planned to act like a guilty person and disappear from the scene just to avoid crossing paths with Jiangxia.
Ichiro quickly tried to salvage the situation. Maybe he could pivot and frame Jiangxia as colluding with Takeshi? After all, the distance between their seats had been too wide for Takeshi to just casually toss a handkerchief right at Jiangxia's feet. That was suspicious, right?
But before Ichiro could open his mouth, he saw his mother walking straight toward Jiangxia.
Hatamoto Mariko snatched the bloody handkerchief from Jiangxia's hands and casually chucked it onto Hattori Heiji's lap.
Then she kindly handed Jiangxia a wet wipe. "Don't worry, Takeshi's practically one foot in the grave already. We'll deal with him. No way we'll let some weirdo like that frame you!"
Jiangxia silently stared at the fallen handkerchief. "…"
…From that overly intense female robber the other day to Mariko Hatamoto now — something's definitely off.
Actually, even the aunts who'd been showing up at the office recently to look for missing cats and dogs had been a bit... much. Like, too enthusiastic.
What exactly was wrong, though?
As Jiangxia was mulling this over, Akie Hatamoto also joined the scolding bandwagon. She gave Takeshi a withering look. "I used to think you were a man of backbone. Turns out you're just a coward who won't even admit to murder, trying to pin it on an innocent student."
"I didn't kill anyone!" Takeshi leapt up, panicked, and looked at Natsue. "Really, I didn't — you believe me, right?!"
Natsue looked between Jiangxia and her fiancé. If she had to choose who looked more like a murderer…
She burst into tears and ran off without a word.
Even though she didn't say anything, the sheer disappointment in her eyes said it all.
Takeshi let out a roar of heartbreak and frustration: "I really didn't do it—!"
Too bad no one was buying it.
The Hatamoto crew restrained the so-called "murderer" and stuffed him in the warehouse, bolting the door from the outside.
Jiangxia watched Takeshi get forcibly yeeted off the battlefield and felt… mildly jealous.
He tried again: "Then maybe I should also…"
"Say no more." Akie Hatamoto took his hand and clapped his shoulder. "We believe in you. No matter what, you don't look like a bad guy!"
Hattori Heiji, thankfully still operating on logic, added, "When we were on deck earlier, I wasn't watching Jiangxia the whole time, so I can't give him an alibi. But he really doesn't have any motive. On the other hand, the killer clearly had a reason to throw the handkerchief at him — whoever did it probably figured it would make Jiangxia look suspicious so no one would listen to his reasoning. That way they could hide more easily."
Ran, Sonoko, and Kazuha all nodded with righteous conviction.
Jiangxia: "…"
Ichiro Hatamoto: "…"
…Okay, no, this script is seriously broken.
Jiangxia glanced over at Ichiro.
He found the guy biting his thumb, lost in deep regret — either over the script going off the rails, or because he couldn't come up with a backup plan fast enough.
Stamping Ichiro as a "confirmed shady useless person" in his heart, Jiangxia knew he'd have to sort this out himself. "Anyway, I know I look suspicious. So, to avoid getting in the way, I'll go back to my room for now."
Before anyone could stop him, he zipped around the corner and disappeared.
Once out of sight, Jiangxia power-walked back to his room at triple speed and locked the door behind him.
"Evading suspicion" was a decent enough excuse.
As for the illogical parts? Let the detectives handle that. That's what they're for.
He locked the door and studied himself in the mirror, frowning.
This weird uptick in auntly affection — and robbers trying to be his shikigami — it all felt like it was coming from his aura.
Compared to before, his "aura" was definitely more intense. And lately, it'd been trending from "mysterious" to "sexy bachelor?"
If this continued, suspects might just decide to wait until he wasn't around to commit crimes — which would make things annoyingly boring.
He needed to dial it down.
To do that, he had to find out where this change was coming from.
His physical condition was fine. His soul state? Stable. So it had to be something else.
He retraced the timeline of when people started acting weird — then looked down at the new additions by his legs.
…If there's anything different lately, it's these guys.
The parent ghosts.
Because of their, uh, "round" shape, they couldn't float very fast. While the other ghosts zipped around, these two mostly clung to Jiangxia's legs like they were his furry little shikigami.
Sensing his gaze, the parent ghosts looked up and beamed warmly at him.
Jiangxia sighed and picked them up for inspection.
They froze briefly at the sudden lift, then gently patted his wrist, like good little ghost elders reminding him to be careful with fragile antiques.
He was deep in thought when a knock came at the door.
Startled, Jiangxia gently set the ghosts down and went to open it.
Standing outside were Kazuha, Ran, and Sonoko.
They shoved a pile of food into his arms. "You didn't eat dinner, did you? The restaurant's a mess, so we brought you some from the kitchen. Eat on time!"
With that, they hurried back to keep cooking for everyone else.
Jiangxia closed the door, placed the dinner plate on the table… then picked up the ghosts again.
But barely thirty seconds passed before — knock knock — the door rang again.
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 31 - 90 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 47/60(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS
Goal #2: One BONUS CHAPTER per review for the first 10 REVIEWS.
Progress:2/10*