Chapter 50: The Terrifying Grasp of Zhengyi

The next day, Ai secretly managed to get a copy of the Justice Daily, a newspaper she had been subscribing to.

As she looked at the contents inside, Ai frowned deeply.

Although it still consisted of attacks against Masakazu, many parts mentioned the movie, blaming Takeshita's death entirely on the terrifying nature of the film.

Ai crumpled the newspaper into a ball and tossed it directly into the trash can.

This was a shameless whitewashing of Masakazu.

It twisted Masakazu's malicious and calculated murder into a case of accidental homicide.

"What are you throwing away?" Masakazu suddenly asked as he walked down the stairs.

Hiding her nervous little hands behind her back, Ai stammered, "I saw this newspaper slandering you, so I got angry and threw it away."

"Such a good girl."

Masakazu walked over and stroked Ai's cheek.

Though she detested his intimate gesture and wanted to bite his hand fiercely, Ai forced a blush and acted spoiled, perfectly mimicking the behavior of a young child.

Living with such a dangerous individual for the long term required maintaining a flawless performance at all times.

Ai even felt that she truly had what it took to become a movie actress.

Her acting skills were already far superior to those child stars.

"There's no need to get angry over things like this. Come and have breakfast," Masakazu told her.

After washing her hands, Ai continued to play the role of the obedient, well-behaved child in front of Masakazu.

As they enjoyed their leisurely breakfast time, Sato was already dressed in plain clothes, secretly tailing Takeshita's former mistress.

The mistress was behaving entirely normally, showing no signs whatsoever of preparing to leave Japan.

This only heightened Sato's anxiety.

She worried that Masakazu would send someone to silence her.

"Kogoro Mouri? Why is he showing up here?" Sato frowned as she spotted Kogoro Mouri entering the cafe.

His appearance could never possibly bring anything good.

Just as Sato had anticipated, Kogoro Mouri, accompanied by his family, had not even been in the same cafe as Sato's surveillance target for twenty minutes.

A piercing, miserable scream echoed from inside the cafe.

Sato rushed over swiftly, only to find the mistress bleeding profusely from her neck.

Seeing Sato arrive, Kogoro Mouri, who was just about to call the police, blinked in surprise and said, "Officer Sato, is the police response time really this fast nowadays?"

Sato clenched her teeth and said, "Call the police."

"Oh, oh."

Before long, Inspector Megure arrived with the members of the First Investigation Division.

Sato said to Inspector Megure, "I request that Masakazu be summoned for questioning. He is heavily implicated in this case."

"How is he implicated?" Inspector Megure asked with a frown.

It was connected to him again?

If he could possibly avoid it, Inspector Megure really did not want to get entangled with that man.

Every single time he got involved with him, he ended up getting chewed out by the news media.

"This woman was Takeshita's mistress. It's highly likely that Masakazu made her seduce Takeshita to force a divorce from his wife, ultimately driving Takeshita's wife to murder him," Sato explained.

Inspector Megure frowned and said, "That's far too much of your own speculation. It sounds a bit like you're forcibly dragging Masakazu into this."

He certainly did not want to transition from being one of Masakazu's lackeys to an evil cop falsely accusing Masakazu.

"This... I understand." Sato sighed.

Indeed, even though Masakazu had said those things to her, he certainly wouldn't admit to them now. Demanding his presence by force would just be making a baseless fuss.

Even without Masakazu.

Sleeping Kogoro would still continue his work.

It did not take long before the boyfriend of Takeshita's mistress knelt on the ground and began to confess.

His girlfriend had betrayed him to become the mistress of a wealthy man. Consumed by anger and unable to accept it, the boyfriend had simply committed murder.

A very standard reason.

In Beika, where murder motives were notoriously absurd, this particular motive was actually quite reasonable.

Yet, as she watched Inspector Megure lead the man away, Sato's frown refused to dissipate.

Could a verdict like this really be correct?

Kogoro Mouri was undoubtedly one of Masakazu's running dogs.

Chief Medical Examiner Chosokabe was even more of a running dog than Kogoro Mouri.

As for Inspector Megure, it was now quite difficult to determine his stance on justice.

With these three individuals gathered together, could the verdict they arrived at truly be correct?

Sato felt as though she could see a giant invisible hand manipulating everything behind the scenes.

Although there were no clues whatsoever, Sato's intuition told her that this murder case was definitely connected to a certain someone.

...

Meanwhile, on Masakazu's end, he had successfully signed revenue-sharing and screening schedule contracts with the three major corporations.

The treatment secured for Masakazu's movie rivaled major Hollywood blockbusters, and in terms of theater allocation, it even surpassed major Hollywood releases.

All of this was earned through Masakazu's earnest negotiations.

The theaters even provided offline promotional recommendations.

They truly treated Masakazu like an esteemed ancestor, not only fully executing all of his demands but even going above and beyond to show additional filial piety.

Furthermore, a significant amount of money had been spent on promotion through print media.

National and regional newspaper offices alike had received public relations fees from Masakazu, and newspapers were plastered with reports about The Ring.

As for the Justice Daily, it launched a direct attack claiming that The Ring had scared someone to death, and that Masakazu was attempting to cover up the truth.

Because the premise of a movie frightening someone to death possessed a bizarre novelty, the Justice Daily even expanded its circulation to regions outside of Tokyo.

Online promotion was even more frantic; the video of Takeshita being scared to death began circulating widely, and discussions surrounding The Ring grew increasingly intense.

A dead person meant nothing to them.

Just some unfamiliar stranger, what did it have to do with them anyway? A movie that could actually scare someone to death was definitely a must-watch.

With Yoko Okino's movie premiering, Kogoro Mouri, being the devoted fan he was, naturally had to come and show his support.

He dragged his entire family along to the cinema.

"Dad, why did you have to choose the midnight screening?" Ran asked with a puzzled expression.

"Horror movies, of course, are best experienced at a midnight screening!" Kogoro Mouri declared as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Conan let out a yawn.

Glancing at the hands of his watch, it was currently three o'clock in the morning. Tickets for this time slot were definitely the cheapest, weren't they?

Uncle Mouri was truly a piece of work; the only time he was ever willing to spend money generously was when purchasing idol photobooks.

Yet, despite it being three o'clock in the morning, the theater still had quite a few people around.

Conan noticed light spilling out from one of the screening rooms, yet there were neither shadows nor sounds of people coming from within. Filled with burning curiosity, Conan crept closer to take a look.

He saw that it was a screening hall playing The Ring, but not a single audience member was inside.

"Little kid, what are you doing wandering around here?"

A figure suddenly appeared behind Conan.

Startled, Conan took a cautious step backward, then put on an innocent expression and asked, "Mister, when my uncle was buying movie tickets earlier, the ticket seller clearly said that tickets for this time slot were sold out. Why is there not a single person inside here?"

The man smiled and said, "Oh, this is our theater's special horror session. Look, a screening room with absolutely nobody in it—doesn't that create quite a terrifying atmosphere?"