Substitute Toyokawa Shoko, you can become stronger by breathing

"I really want that guy to disappear from the world completely. It would be best if he jumped off the building himself, cleanly and completely put an end to it."

At that time, Kageyama just asked in return: "Will it be clean if I jump down?"

How did he respond?

"Yes, for people like us, sometimes 'respectability' is more important than being alive."

"Dignity" is more important than being alive.

These forgotten words, spoken by his own mouth, were now spoken back to him in a cold and cruel way from the mouth of the "Xiangzi" in front of him.

"Will you let Kageyama go?"

no answer.

The call was hung up.

The phone slipped from his weak hands and fell to the ground, the screen shattering.

........

at the same time.

In another unknown, cold and damp basement in Tokyo.

The air was filled with the smell of concrete dust and a faint hint of mold.

A lone incandescent lamp hung in the center of the ceiling, casting a pale and dazzling light, tinging everything in the room with a sickly color.

"He's dead! My brother is dead, right? You've achieved your goal! I'm useless... I'm no longer of any use to you!"

"Please... please, let me go... I won't say anything, I'll pretend nothing happened, I'll leave Japan, I promise! I swear!"

However, the only response she got was a slight sigh that seemed to be a bit bored.

The girl, or rather, Kujo Renji, just glanced at her indifferently, as if she was looking at a noisy insect.

She slowly turned her head and calmly instructed the man in black who had been standing respectfully in the shadows by the door, with a tone that was emotionless, as if she was handling a piece of trash:

"Tokyo Bay, be clean."

Just six simple words.

The man in black standing beside him didn't even hesitate for a moment. He immediately bowed and replied in a deep voice:

"Yes!"

The hope in Toyokawa Kageyama's eyes immediately turned into despair.

"no no..."

Her lips moved, but no more cries or pleas came out.

Chapter 143: Dead Tsundere

"...Early this morning, Mr. Takaaki Toyokawa of the Toyokawa Group was found dead after falling from the rooftop of the Toyokawa Commercial Center, which he led in its construction. Police have initially ruled it a suicide, but the specific cause is still under investigation. According to relevant sources, Mr. Takaaki Toyokawa was under tremendous pressure due to recent setbacks in his overseas investment projects and financial problems within the group..."

[…Affected by this incident, Toyokawa Group's stock price plummeted at opening today, triggering an emergency trading halt. The market is generally concerned about this, and rating agencies have urgently downgraded its credit rating. The Toyokawa Group's board of directors has issued an announcement that the head of the family, Mr. Toyokawa Sadaharu, will resume management of all group affairs in an effort to stabilize market confidence…]

On the TV screen, a female financial news anchor read her script expressionlessly, with the towering, cold glass curtain wall of the Toyokawa Business Center looming in the background. In the corner of the screen, an official portrait of Toyokawa Takaaki, depicting him in high spirits during his lifetime, was filtered through a black and white filter.

Everything is happening exactly as if it were a script that had been written long ago.

...

In a luxury apartment in the city center, sunlight shines through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, casting warm and bright spots of light on the floor.

The air is filled with the rich aroma of freshly ground coffee beans, mixed with the burnt "ding" sound coming from the toaster, forming a very ordinary and peaceful daily picture.

The news on TV was turned down very low, like meaningless background noise.

News reports on the violent turmoil within the Toyokawa Group were cleverly kept within the scope of a "business scandal" and did not cause any greater waves.

However, beneath this apparent calm, undercurrents are surging, and the map of power is being redrawn in an invisible way.

Sanjiao Chuhua knew nothing about all this.

Outside the huge floor-to-ceiling windows is Tokyo’s bustling night scene that is almost unreal. The traffic is like a golden river and the buildings are like silent forests.

It's safe and comfortable here, but also as cold as a mausoleum.

During this period of "protection", Sanjiao Chuhua's life fell into an unprecedented, regular and empty state.

She tried to understand her current situation. She was like a snail that carefully poked its wet tentacles out of its shell after a storm to observe this world that was both familiar and unfamiliar.

And her only and most complicated object of observation is the current "Toyokawa Shoko".

She no longer thought about "why" because this question was too big and too heavy, enough to crush her already fragile nerves.

She began to observe the "what" and "how" instead.

She observed that Xiaoxiang's life was divided into precise modules measured in minutes.

Get up at seven in the morning, do half an hour of morning exercise, and then work in front of the laptop for several hours.

Conference calls came one after another, and she could hear "Xiaoxiang" talking to the people on the other end of the line in fluent, accent-free English, French, and even German, but the content was full of terms and... jargon that she couldn't understand?

She could sense that the jargon she didn't understand didn't mean anything good.

And this is exactly what she wants to explore.

What do those words mean...?

She felt that if she could guess the meaning of those words, perhaps she could lift the veil that was currently covering Xiaoxiang and making her feel hazy.

But unfortunately, she did not understand the meaning of those words.

Just confirmed one thing.

That was not the Xiaoxiang she knew.

In her memory, Xiangzi's fingers would tremble slightly when he played the piano, his eyes would sparkle with stars when he talked about his dreams, and he would fall into a long silence because of a small setback.

She is warm, emotional, and a living person.

But the "Xiangzi" in front of him is more like a mature, steady, calmer... "adult"?

For high school students, perhaps graduating from college can already be called an adult.

But what Sankaku Hatsuka considered an adult was obviously someone more like Toyokawa Sadaharu, an "adult" who was irresistible.

In order not to appear like a complete loser and to break the suffocating silence, Chuhua began to clumsily try to do some housework.

She learned how to use the coffee machine from the Internet, and after wasting half a can of expensive coffee beans, she finally made a decent cup of coffee.

Holding the cup of fragrant coffee, she walked barefoot on the cold marble floor, step by step towards the figure sitting in front of the floor-to-ceiling window.

She placed the white bone china coffee cup next to "Xiangzi" gently and almost silently.

"Um...Xiao Xiang...coffee."

She whispered, with a hint of ingratiating humility in her voice that she herself hadn't noticed.

However, the other party didn't even raise his eyelids.

Her eyes were still fixed on the red and green data stream that kept scrolling on the screen. She just stretched out her beautiful, bony hand, picked up the cup, and brought it to her lips and took a sip with an attitude that was so matter-of-fact that it was almost arrogant, as if she were treating a diligent secretary or subordinate.

No praise, no thanks, not even a look to confirm receipt of the signal.

Then, the cup was put back in its place, and the crisp sound of keyboard tapping rang out again, as if nothing had happened just now.

Sanjiao Chuhua stood there, staring at the scene in a daze, but what surged in his heart was not the loss or grievance he had expected.

She found herself... relieved.

This extreme utilitarianism and indifference without any personal emotion, instead acted like an ice-cold scalpel, precisely removing the tumor called "guilt" deep in her heart.

She didn't need to think about whether Xiaoxiang became like this because of her.

She didn't need to guess whether the other party's silence at the moment was because he was still angry with her.

She doesn't need to worry about whether her existence will become a burden to the other party.

Because the other party's attitude has clearly told her everything.

She is here not as a "friend" who needs to be comforted and cared for, but as an "object" with a specific function.

She makes coffee, a task to be performed, just as a printer prints documents.

The reason she accepted the task was simply because it allowed her brain to process complex information more efficiently.

Everything is a transaction, everything has a functionality.

Under this pure logic without any emotion, Chu Hua's heart, which had always been suspended in mid-air because of carrying too much, actually found some twisted and definable "value of existence".

She is no longer the illegitimate girl Hatsune Miku, who has an awkward identity, may be abandoned at any time, and only brings trouble to others.

She is a missing but crucial cog in the intricate machine that is Ave Mujica or some larger project.

It is a "property" that has not yet fully realized its commercial value and therefore needs to be properly kept.

This cognition is absurd and cold, yet it carries a fatal attraction.

It liberated her from the quagmire of complex and messy interpersonal relationships.

She no longer had to play the "good friend" role and respond to expectations that she couldn't handle.

She just needs to stay here, take good care of her voice, and wait for the day when her value as "property" will be realized.

This is a negative way of living that is deprived of free will.

But for someone who once tried to give up on living completely, this is the easiest way of life she can imagine.

.....

While the external turmoil has temporarily subsided and Sanjiao Hatsuka is distortingly reshaping his self-awareness, the "teaching course" of Kujo Renji and Toyokawa Shoko deep in their consciousness has also entered a new and more in-depth stage.

It seemed that he was worried that Toyokawa Shoko might feel guilty because of his previous cruel methods, or that she couldn't bear it.

Jiujo Renji tried his best to teach the girl his own methodologies and techniques before doing things in order to divert her attention:

"So you see, human nature is actually much simpler and more fragile than you imagine. When dealing with an extremely conceited fool like Toyokawa Takaaki, the most taboo thing is to confront him head-on. Because that will immediately alert him and mobilize all his resources to deal with you. And you don't have that kind of strength yet."

His voice echoed in Xiangzi's mind.

"So, what you need to do isn't to shatter his world, but rather to follow his logic and weave a story for him that he's most willing to believe. In this story, he's not a passive victim, but a tragic hero about to stage a desperate counterattack. A story where a mysterious kidnapper threatens to blackmail him, but he uses his own wisdom and strength to fight back, solidifying his position in the process. Do you understand? You need to make him feel like he wrote the script himself."

Xiangzi "listened" silently.

"Once he has confidently stepped into the stage you've tailored for him, you only need to give him a gentle push where he's most confident and thinks he's in control, such as that 'deal' where he thinks he's got a perfect hook."

Kujo Renji's consciousness raised his hand and lightly tapped the virtual panel, and the icon representing "alarm call" flashed red.

"Then, 'inadvertently', you make the police, the most just, unpredictable, and powerful third-party violent institution, the sharpest and most deadly knife in your plan. It will instantly cut off all his escape routes, nailing him to the pillar of shame as a 'traitor,' leaving him no room for excuse."

“For the rest, you don’t even have to do anything.”

"Human greed, internal family suspicion, Toyokawa Sadaharu's long-suppressed desire for revenge, and the collateral elders' instinct to seek profit and avoid harm... these things will automatically complete all the finishing work for you like a school of sharks smelling blood. They will tear him apart until not even a bone is left."

Hearing this, Toyokawa Shoko had to admit that this "methodology" that treated people's hearts, rules, and social structures as chess pieces and played with them at will had an efficiency and power that she had never imagined in her well-protected, pure and flawless life of the past ten years.

Is this a kind of dark magic for adults?

But why did he suddenly start talking to me about this?

Shoko Toyokawa was a little puzzled, and at this moment, a flash of inspiration suddenly occurred to her mind.

Just as Kujo Renji was still talking incessantly about how to use information asymmetry and public opinion to completely erase the meaning of a social person's existence beyond the physical level, Toyokawa Shoko, who had been silently playing the role of "student", suddenly interrupted him.

Her voice was tentative and curious.

"So, you've taught me so much, do you really consider me your successor?"

"Uh--"

Hearing this, Kujo Renji's words were stuck for a moment.

Heir?

He was choked by this sudden and illogical straight shot.

When faced with this adolescent girl-like question that was almost like "Do you like me a little bit?", Kujo Renji was unable to give a quick answer at the first moment.

For a moment, he didn't know how to answer.

After a moment of awkward silence, he forced himself to restart his language system and regained his usual tone, which was full of mockery and alienation, as if he didn't care about anything.