Double Chapter
Jiangxia stared at the snack box in his hands, expression caught somewhere between blank and suspicious.
Why would Gin bring him snacks, specifically?
Gin didn't seem like the type to show up with a thoughtful breakfast for his teammates… Could it be that he was annoyed with Jiangxia freeloading on cases and acting all yinbi, so he'd poisoned the food instead?
Jiangxia looked up at Gin's calm face, trying to read him. He failed.
After a brief pause, he reached out and picked up a piece anyway.
Actually, there was no need to overthink it — he could just test it and find out Gin's intentions. Worst case, he could separate his stomach lining with puppet clay; even if it was poisoned, he'd be fine.
If he collapsed right after, it'd mean the snacks were laced for sure.
And if Gin didn't react at all, well, they were definitely poisoned. But if Gin looked startled, Jiangxia could just get back up and claim he'd been pulling two all-nighters in a row and passed out from low blood sugar…
As he raised the snack, he thoughtfully considered how to tell the difference between deadly poison and a mild sedative.
Before he could try, Gin raised a hand to stop him.
"Cyanide," Gin said flatly, a sharp smile playing at his lips. "Takeda Shinichi's cleanup team found it. He left it for you — with a sweet little gift card, no less."
Jiangxia: "…"
He immediately dropped the snack back into the box.
…Alright. No more jokes. He wasn't about to become like that drug-allergic senior executive. Or like Vodka, who needed constant reminders.
Gin, meanwhile, seemed to recall seeing Ouzo happily eating the Takeda family's food the night before, when he'd been watching the house from across the way. His voice turned colder.
"Not all criminals will cry and beg when threatened," he said, tapping the box with one gloved finger. "Some are jackals — they'll bite their hunters if you let your guard down. The darkness in the human heart is a double-edged sword. If you plan to wield it, be ready for the backlash."
After that, he rapped the box again. "Remember this. Don't make the same mistake next time."
Jiangxia went quiet, feeling that Gin was being unusually poetic today.
But then he remembered Gin's impromptu singing while waiting for Sherry on that snowy rooftop and thought — well, maybe it was normal. If Gin hadn't ended up in the Organization, he might have made a decent modern poet.
Gin, obviously lacking mind-reading skills, just saw Jiangxia standing there looking all serious. Satisfied that his lecture had landed, Gin gave a subtle nod, pulled out a wet wipe to clean the hand that had touched the box, then tossed both the wipe and the snack box at Vodka.
"Dispose of these."
He spared one last glance at the cyanide-laced gift.
Honestly, he'd thought Takeda Shinichi would try to control Ouzo with drugs, not straight-up murder him.
Being a detective seemed to be a more dangerous job than expected… Maybe Ouzo needed a gun permit?
But then he remembered the string of corpses they'd left behind just getting here, and that time Ouzo personally tried to send someone tumbling off a cliff.
Forget it.
A legally armed Ouzo would be an unmanageable mess.
At least now, the people trying to kill him were small fry like Shinichi Takeda — easy to dodge.
A gun would just make him even more of a walking pot accident.
…
While Gin and Jiangxia were lost in their thoughts, Vodka, who'd caught the snack box, fell into his own moment of quiet revelation.
…Ouzo really almost ate that just now.
Is he that careless about what he puts in his mouth?
Thinking about it, yeah — he'd seen Ouzo freeload Gin's sushi more than once, and he'd heard rumors that Vermouth had once gotten him drunk and hauled him off somewhere… So maybe Ouzo wasn't actually that scary.
A tranquilizer-laced snack could work just fine.
A person with a weakness was manageable!
Vodka, in unusually high spirits, tucked the snack box under his arm like he was carrying the blueprint for his grand counterattack. He strode off to dispose of the cyanide-laced gift, practically humming.
…
Gin and Vodka didn't linger long in Jiangxia's room. Soon they headed back to their own suite. To avoid looking suspicious, they'd booked a two-bedroom, one-living-room setup — convenient for sleeping off the overnight drive.
The boat was scheduled to depart at six in the evening.
Gin rested for a bit, then left early for the pier, wanting to check for hidden mics or trackers himself. He didn't trust the peripheral guys to catch everything.
When he got there, though, he saw the yacht was back on shore — and it looked like a giant had fished it up like a dead tuna.
The guard on duty stepped forward, bowing low:
"—There hadn't been any issues before, sir, but it suddenly started tilting and sank early this morning. We called in a crane crew to pull it up. We planned to send another boat for you, but the person in charge just confirmed all other vessels are in use — the earliest we can get you out is the day after tomorrow."
He bent at a perfect 90 degrees, nearly folding in half. "I'm terribly sorry!"
Gin: "…"
His perfect schedule — gone. And the fancy, expensive ship — sunk.
He slipped a hand into his pocket, gripping his gun so tightly that veins popped on the back of his hand.
But seeing the maintenance crew and curious dock workers hanging around, he didn't draw it. He just stared at the yacht lying half-buried in the sand, face cold.
"When was its last inspection?"
"Yesterday afternoon," the guard said, head still bowed.
Gin let go of his gun. Instead, he pulled out his lighter and a cigarette, lighting up with slow, visible irritation.
A ship didn't just sink for no reason.
It had been fine last night — so whatever went wrong must have happened sometime between then and dawn.
He narrowed his eyes.
…Ouzo had arrived late last night, too.
The thought struck out of nowhere — or maybe it made perfect sense.
Either way, the idea that Jiangxia might've done something to the ship immediately made Gin's cold, sharp eyes narrow further.
If that yinbi detective was behind this… well, Gin would be having a very special "employee review" tonight.
At that moment, on the road from the hotel to the pier, two middle-aged men with big travel bags strolled side by side, chatting and laughing.
They glanced curiously at the yacht laid out like a dead fish on the shore but didn't get close — instead, they stepped straight onto the "Kaihara" next door, which looked perfectly fine.
The man with brownish hair shook hands with the captain waiting at the bow. "I'm Kazuyuki Kawai — I made the reservation earlier," he said. Then he gestured beside him. "This is Mr. Tsuneo Yamazaki, who booked with me too."
This season didn't draw many tourists, so the captain easily matched their names to the guest list and welcomed them aboard with a smile.
A dozen meters away, a pair of cold, sharp eyes watched them from the shadows.
Gin narrowed his gaze, then leaned toward Vodka. "Check them out."
Vodka didn't hesitate. He pulled his laptop from his bag, tapped in the password, and opened the Organization's database — a messy sprawl of files not just on big shots but basically anyone halfway relevant. There was even a rumor that some bored intel guys had once compiled a whole list of pets owned by important targets…
Within seconds, the names he'd heard matched up with the files. Vodka turned the screen so Gin could see.
Gin scanned Kawai Kazuyuki's info first. The guy wasn't important — his data hadn't been updated in a year. He was just the owner of a construction company, with a single criminal record for drunken brawling.
Yamazaki Tsuneo, though, was flagged "useful" by the Organization. His file was much thicker.
On the surface, Yamazaki was the clean president of a financial company. But the deeper notes told another story — he specialized in shady loans, swooping in on struggling small businesses. Even worse, he forced debtors to take out high-value insurance policies naming him as the beneficiary.
The Organization's notes said that over the years, at least six borrowers who'd defaulted had "accidentally died" within a year — conveniently triggering huge payouts for Yamazaki.
Gin stood silent for a moment, piecing things together. He took out his phone and checked Kawai's construction company — its finances were on the brink.
So the two guys who'd just boarded the Kaihara were: one broke small-business owner and one bloodsucking loan shark.
And with Ouzo's habits? Yeah… Gin could already see the pot bubbling.
Vodka was still holding the laptop, eyes darting back and forth between the files and his boss's face.
When Gin suddenly spun around, trench coat whipping the air like a blade, Vodka nearly dropped the computer.
Gin stalked back toward the hotel, footsteps heavy. He'd felt it since last night — the sinking yacht reeked of Ouzo's handiwork. Ouzo had motive, time, and no real alibi.
And expecting evidence from Ouzo? What a joke. If there was one thing Ouzo did better than catching corpses, it was making sure nobody caught him.
…
In the hotel room, Jiangxia was stuffing his backpack, fully ready to embark on this "pleasant trip" to Moonlight Island — hoping to bag at least a double-digit haul of shikigami.
But the door clicked open behind him.
Before he could even turn, footsteps approached fast. Something cold and metallic pressed hard into the small of his back.
Jiangxia: "…"
This familiar chill. The boss was having another paranoia spike.
He turned his head halfway. "?"
Gin's eyes swept over Jiangxia's innocent, half-asleep face — unimpressed this time. His voice came out low and certain: "You did it."
Jiangxia looked even more puzzled. "What?"
Vodka, who'd been trailing behind, needed a second to catch up. But hearing Gin's tone — and remembering what they'd seen at the pier — he immediately got it.
He felt an urge to slap the coffee table for dramatic effect.
Unfortunately, the entire room was covered in tatami, and the tiny coffee table barely reached knee height. Vodka sized it up, decided slamming it would just look silly, and regretfully gave up.
Instead, he squared his shoulders, trying to radiate tool person intimidation.
"It's the ship," Vodka declared, voice deep.
"You got here late last night. The ship sank early this morning. You had plenty of time to tamper with it—"
Jiangxia, still pinned by the gun, slowly turned to him and said in an eerily calm voice, "You need evidence to speak."
Vodka's expression didn't flicker. He started pacing, moving behind Gin so Jiangxia couldn't watch him directly.
From that convenient cover, Vodka's voice rose again, stiff with forced menace:
"…You messed with the yacht so you'd have an excuse to switch to the commercial boat next door — and enjoy the murder you set up!"
Close. Very close. Just the part about Jiangxia "setting up a murder" was a bit off.
In Jiangxia's mind, Vodka's name got another tiny black mark in his mental grudge book.
He said stiffly, "I didn't."
Gin's finger twitched on the trigger. "I'm not here to watch you act."
"It's the truth," Jiangxia insisted, mild as ever. "I had no motive. If I wanted to switch boats, I could've just said so. Why sink anything?"
"Motive?" Gin's laugh was sharp and cold. "Without the right audience, your performance would fall flat. It's more dramatic to make it look like an accident — so we'd willingly hop on the Kaihara and 'stumble' into a murder… isn't it?"
Jiangxia: "…"
Absolutely not! He didn't care about "audience" or "drama." He cared about ghosts — full stop. If anyone liked elaborate murder theater, it was Gin himself!
But seeing Gin's eyes, Jiangxia hesitated. If he denied it too firmly, Gin might feel embarrassed for jumping to conclusions — and when Gin got embarrassed, he got trigger-happy. Plus, what if he stopped dragging Jiangxia to cases altogether? Risky.
And this boss… once he decided something, he was impossible to budge. Like when he convinced himself that Kudo Shinichi would just drop dead from APTX4869, or that Sherry would definitely squeeze herself up a chimney rather than use the door.
Paranoid was an understatement.
So Jiangxia just lowered his gaze like he was "reflecting."
As he did, his eyes caught Miss Spider — the new ghost perched demurely at Gin's ankle. She wasn't moving, but her eight steel-needle legs were spinning the leftover murderous aura into a fluffy ball, winding up Gin's rage like yarn on a spindle.
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 31 - 90 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 8/60(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS
Goal #2: One BONUS CHAPTER per review for the first 10 REVIEWS.
Progress:4/10*