Chapter 080: A Deep Reflection in the Small Hours of the Night

Since it had already been basically confirmed that Old Zhao was fine, and to keep Fujiwara Mio from worrying at home, Chen Jiehua was preparing to return.

Before going home, however, he still had to go back to the hidden room in the pharmacy to tidy up. He changed into a fresh set of clothes, stuffed the bloodstained ones into his spatial storage, and loaded his pistol with a full magazine before cocking it.

In his storage, Chen Jiehua’s pistol was always kept fully loaded and ready, for emergencies. And today, at last, it had been used.

He walked slowly all the way to Old Cypress Road. The entire street was quiet; the ronin’s body still lay hidden in the shadows, undiscovered. Chen Jiehua returned to House Seventy-three, opened the door, went inside, and locked it behind him.

By the time he reached the bedroom upstairs, it was already two in the morning. Mio was still awake.

“Aoki, I heard faint gunshots. The kind from a Colt one-nine-one-one A-one, right together with the tolling of midnight. Was that you?”

Chen Jiehua nodded. There was nothing to be done about it. He had already tried his best to time the shot with the bell. Fujiwara Mio had keen hearing, and in Europe she had heard the sound of a Colt many times. This time, being so close, it was only natural that she noticed.

Fujiwara Mio brought him hot water, then helped him take off his coat.

After washing his face, Chen Jiehua said, “It was a Japanese ronin, a vassal of the Shimazu branch family. He was very skilled in Shigen-ryu swordsmanship. I was no match for him. Fortunately, the bells rang then, and I used the sound to cover the shot before I got him.”

“From your uncle’s side? Why would he try to kill you?”

“He was a branch retainer. The main house’s retainers and the ronin under them all practice the same Jibun-ryu sword style. Only the branch retainers use Shigen-ryu.”

“I once ran into this ronin on the train back to my hometown in Miyazaki last December. At the time, he should have been testing me on behalf of my eldest uncle.”

“This time it was too urgent. I still hadn’t figured out his identity. The second shot was too accurate, straight through the heart. He died before I had a chance to question him.”

“You’ve met him before? Your uncle?”

“There are too many branch retainers in the Shimazu family, and even more innumerable are the dead men and ronin they keep. By rights, the Shimazu family probably didn’t know about this. Otherwise, they could have acted within the clan last time, and there’d have been no need to send me back to Shanghai.”

“But which family sent him? Was he on some other mission and happened to run into you, or was he specifically after you?”

“That’s the troublesome part. If he was after me and died outside, right at my doorstep, then I won’t be able to wash my suspicion clean.”

The moment Chen Jiehua thought of this, he immediately realized he had been careless. He quickly took out a suitcase, tossed the medicine away, and changed his clothes.

“Mio, keep watch for me. I’m going to bring the body back.”

Fortunately, it was a winter night in a wealthy district, with hardly any pedestrians about. The constables did not like patrolling this street either, since there was no benefit in it.

The body was still there. Chen Jiehua swiftly put it into his spatial storage and climbed back over the wall from the other side into the house.

He would find a suitable place to dispose of it another day.

“Be careful these next two days, and try not to go out. I’ll arrange things on this side over the next few days, and then we’ll notify the family to send people over.”

“Let’s first see how the family reacts. The situation isn’t clear yet, and we still don’t know where he became suspicious.”

“But there’s one thing, Mio. You must pay attention to it, and remind the comrades to be careful too. Keep your voices very low, especially at night. This time, Old Zhao and I were speaking in the hidden room in the pharmacy, and he could actually hear us very clearly from the window ledge outside.”

“He said he heard Old Zhao call me Old Chen.”

“Aoki, do you mean that this ronin had especially good hearing?”

“Yes. He had already determined I wasn’t his match at that time. He said it himself.”

“That makes it easier. My father once mentioned, quite by accident, that the Matsukata family in Kagoshima, Kyushu, specially trains ronin to sharpen their hearing by the sea.”

“That must be it. The Matsukata family is the Shimazu family’s foremost retainer household. Their head has been ennobled as a duke, and they currently control the Fifteen Bank. But I have no conflict with them, do I?”

Once it was confirmed which family the ronin came from, the subsequent secret investigation had a direction, and Chen Jiehua was no longer in such a hurry.

But not being in a hurry did not mean he could sleep. Even lying in bed, he kept replaying the night over and over in his mind, frame by frame.

From the moment he began that one-handed overhead slash from the tree, his response should not have been wrong. The only problem was that after he closed in successfully, with that surgical blade side sweep, a strike that should have been certain death was somehow anticipated by the man in advance; he had actually blocked it with his own blade.

That was not normal.

Had he guessed that Chen Jiehua possessed a small, fast blade? Which people had Chen Jiehua killed with the surgical knife?

The first, Takemasa Sakurada, had not died by the surgical knife.

The second, Daisaku Kawamoto. Chen Jiehua had thrown Kawamoto’s body into the sea.

The third, the Japanese spy in America. He had not even asked the man’s name, and had killed him with poison.

In Japan itself, he had not killed anyone with the surgical knife.

Then it was highly likely to be Daisaku Kawamoto.

The Matsukata family’s business was the Kawasaki Shipyard in Kagoshima.

Could the body have drifted to the coast of Kagoshima in Kyushu, where the ronin found it and inspected the wound? Or was it simply that the Kawamoto family was investigating the cause of death?

There had to be things he did not know, details he had overlooked, and those details had been found.

With this identity of his, he had no helpers in Japan. He was indeed in a passive position. To go back and investigate further would take time and effort, and it would also be easy to expose himself. Annoying. He could not sleep.

The man had long ago discovered that something was wrong with him, that he was an impostor. The “Old Chen” from Old Zhao had merely been the final confirmation.

That left him completely at a loss.

Chen Jiehua sat up again and took the ronin’s katana from his storage to examine it, hoping to find some useful clue.

First of all, it was unquestionably a fine blade—heavy, yet not lacking in sharpness. Of course, Chen Jiehua was not foolish enough to test the edge with his finger. This was not some blood-drinking ritual of ownership.

The section of the blade that had crossed with his surgical knife bore only a tiny scratch, and when he lightly rubbed it with his finger, the mark actually vanished.

On the back of the blade, Chen Jiehua found an inscription.

He had never heard of it. The only famous blade name he knew was Muramasa, the demon sword.

“Senjudo” should have been either the name of a temple in Japan or a school of swordsmithing, while “Nagayoshi” was likely either the master swordsmith or the blade’s original owner.

Nothing else turned up.

Still, this katana was mine now. Just right—I was lacking a fast blade for killing. A surgical knife was, after all, too short, good only for ambushes.

As for enemies, I have never cared for chivalry. I use whatever is practical.

After dawn, Chen Jiehua got up. Once he had finished breakfast, he drove out, first stopping at the alley mouth opposite the pharmacy. Only when he saw Zhao Shiyu come to open for business as usual did the weight in his heart finally lift. Old Zhao was fine.

Next, he drove to the Japanese residential district in the Hong Kong area. He found a place to park and wanted to see what location here would be suitable for opening a second chain pharmacy.

After running around for a day, he discovered that there were indeed many Japanese here. As hoped, he found a storefront that was about to be transferred, and beside it an empty neighboring shop. The two could be joined together, making it perfect for a large pharmacy. Most importantly, the location was excellent, and the back door of the shop connected to the residential area, with access in all directions.

Of course, Chen Jiehua also discovered that many Japanese ronin lived here, and through conversation he successfully became acquainted with a ronin group from Kagoshima in Kyushu—outer ronin serving the Matsukata family.