Chapter 235: The Visit

This was an office. But calling it just an office was a bit too simple. Maybe it had nothing besides a sofa and a desk.

Right now, a stack of documents sat on the desk.

Nono massaged his neck, pounded his back, changed his sitting position, and then started going through them carefully. Reports and data were mixed together. Because they came from different places, someone under him probably moved them all from the review room and put them on his desk.

“Hah…”

He couldn’t help but have a bitter laugh. It couldn’t be helped. Their department was kind of slapped together at the last minute. Basically, it was a new unit certain powerful people built up because of faction fights.

Officially, it had the proper name “anti-terrorism,” and fell under the Public Security branch of the National Police Agency.

In any organization where power existed, internal factions and fights were almost unstoppable.

This temporary group was made for that same reason.

Its job badly overlapped with another secret group inside the country.

Hmm…

He stopped thinking about these annoying things. Brooding over such messes really wasn’t like him.

Yawning, Nono went back to looking through the documents. Midway, he couldn’t stop himself from frowning tightly.

…This really was a very violent case.

Starting a while ago, their placed investigators had noticed this point.

Simply put, it started as just fights between gangs. That shouldn’t have drawn their attention. But this incident had gotten some unwanted notice because it was way too awful.

Yakuza groups were deeply rooted here. Groups like the Murakami Group or the Kanto Confederation? Trying to completely wipe them out was basically impossible.

As long as these fleas and roaches didn’t jump around near people’s feet, nobody paid much attention… as long as they didn’t become too noticeable.

Now, Nono and his group received some news. Their intelligence division spotted a dangerous “mark.”

The photos spread out before Nono were all materials collected through different means.

They were bodies that had died violent deaths.

Most of these bodies had been destroyed, but some traces remained at the crime scenes too.

The victims in these violent killings were all actually from the “Inner World.”

Originally, they were like flies in rotten meat. No matter how many died, it shouldn’t have mattered.

But this time was a bit different.

If it was just humans killing humans, then as long as things didn’t blow up too badly, it could probably be swept under the rug.

But if something “not human” got mixed into these things and carried out such violent acts? That changed the situation.

Considering this point, Nono wondered if they should take needed actions.

————————

From the bloody message hidden in his dream, Fang Jing learned he needed to get an ancient relic called the “Keystone” to break the Apartment’s Curse.

But this was only one side’s story—just the Apartment talking. For someone as suspicious as Fang Jing, he might not believe it.

He’d never given up on investigating Ichinose Apartment further.

By digging into old reports over and over, he finally found something quite interesting.

Almost all of the Ichinose family—who originally owned Ichinose Apartment and gave it that name—were dead.

The house changed hands multiple times before finally landing with Yuasa Junichi.

Digging even farther back, he found more interesting things.

For instance, tracing back the family’s head ancestors? The Ichinose family line actually went back to people connected to the Kinugawa Clan.

In other words, the Ichinose family was actually an offshoot of the Kinugawa Clan.

“No wonder—!”

He couldn’t help it.

“Looks like I need to go back to the start after all.”

The Kinugawa Clan’s status was a problem too. It seemed they needed careful looking into.

This time, Fang Jing decided to go visit the mansion where the Kinugawa Clan once lived.

…

Talking about the Kinugawa House mansion? It was the area’s famous “haunted house.”

After the burglary event that wiped out the Kinugawa family, the Western-style mansion sat empty for many years.

It was a very old Western-style mansion. After being deserted, it became hollow inside and looked creepy and scary on the outside—full of Yin Energy.

Maybe because of this, people made up wild stories about Kinugawa House. They added more details and rumors spread.

People often called Kinugawa House a “haunted place untouched for years,” but actually, that wasn’t true.

The ownership of this mansion had switched hands many times. Several owners had changed over.

Right now, the resident in Kinugawa House was someone Fang Jing knew slightly.

…Sakuya Sakuya.

Yes. The current master of this mansion was likely Sakuya Sakuya.

Though, according to the mansion’s property registration, the official owner was someone else.

But no denying it—Sakuya Sakuya definitely lived inside the Kinugawa Clan mansion.

Because of this, Fang Jing decided to visit that house.

…

The car left the city roads and started driving along a small path through a big forest.

The old Kinugawa mansion sat near a patch of woods close to an old shopping district built around the local harbor.

During the city’s industry boom, there had been many silk reeling companies here, and several silk reeling factories were built.

Matsubara City, next to Kitsuwa, used to be famous for its silk and mulberry business—but that was over half a century ago.

Now, Japan’s silk industry faced hard times making money. Almost nothing remained—that was the progress of time. Old industries slowly vanished. New ones took their place. During the decline in silk and silk goods production year after year, many silk reeling factories shut down.

“The Kinugawa family got rich running the silk reeling business. This place is near the harbor and the factories. No wonder they built the mansion nearby…”

The Kinugawa clan built its wealth through the silk business. Remember, when the Kinugawa rose—in the 1870s and 80s? Silk reeling boomed. Silk was shipped from Yokohama trading port to Europe. Later, big amounts of raw silk were sent to America too. With the success of mechanical silk reeling, they heavily competed overseas and won.

The fancy car traveled for about forty minutes and reached the mansion’s grounds.

The area around the house was large, surrounded by greenery. The boundary walls were made of red brick, elegant yet old-fashioned, with ivy crawling over them.

The iron front gate had a complex design and serious structure. Past the gate, a path led into thick forest woods.

After the Kinugawa Clan’s “break-in” event, so many years passed. The house got damaged and got fixed up many times over.

If you really paid close attention, you saw that even when fixed, this old house didn’t feel like somewhere new. It kept that worn, older-era Western manor vibe.

The mansion itself was surprisingly huge. It had a complex spiked roof made from black pillars and white plaster walls. There was a horseshoe-shaped balcony in the Netherlands building style. Tall, thin windows stood in orderly rows. All this naturally gave off a very foreign feel.

This was all he could see standing outside the place.

Ōsumi parked the car nearby. As soon as Fang Jing got out, he spotted something surprising right in front of Kinugawa House.

A name-brand sports car was parked there.

That car seemed a bit familiar. Had he seen it somewhere before?

Shifting his gaze toward the main gate, he saw a woman dressed in business clothes standing nearby.

Had another visitor arrived just now?

But he himself had sent notice ahead to the Sakuya household.

This woman… looked kind of familiar.

Oh, that professional mediator he’d met.

Her name should be “Myoken-in Ogata.”

Since Higashi Yuantai introduced her before, Fang Jing remembered clearly.

“You are…?”

Myoken-in Ogata noticed the young man approaching the gate. She frowned slightly.

Quickly, she seemed to think of something. Her expression turned questioning.

This wasn’t her first meeting with this young man.

She recalled vaguely seeing this teen hanging around with that Sunao-gumi boss, Higashi Yuantai.

For a moment, Myoken-in couldn’t understand why such a young guy was involved with yakuza types. This made her eye Fang Jing with a bit of suspicion.

“Welcome to the mansion, both of you…”

A blonde maid appeared right at the gate without any sign, making it feel dreamlike at first glimpse.

She stood inside the latticed gate and used a slim hand to unlock it.

“Well, Mr. Nishizuka, and Miss Myoken-in, please come this way.”

Speaking on behalf of the mansion’s owner, she invited both Fang Jing and Myoken-in to enter.

Behind this blonde maid sat that Yin Energy-heavy Western mansion—like it swallowed even the very last ray of the setting sun.