Chapter 63: Chi Feishir, the Mask-Ripping Maniac

Nearby, the two of them waited while Vodka unwrapped the express delivery to verify the contents.

"You're early," Gin remarked.

Chi Feichi hadn't expected Gin to initiate the conversation, feeling a brief, faint flicker of surprise before quickly calming himself. "You're early too."

Gin didn't dwell on it, glancing instead at the glass in front of Chi Feichi. "You're not drinking?"

Chi Feichi replied as a matter of course, "If you drink, don't drive. If you drive, don't drink."

Vodka looked up at Chi Feichi in speechless exasperation. What kind of answer was that...

He couldn't help but suspect that this guy named July might not be entirely sane!

Gin let out a light, amused scoff. "A bounty hunter who doesn't even respect the law cares about traffic rules?"

"If you run into traffic police on the road and haven't been drinking, you can calmly submit to an inspection. If you've been drinking, the only option is to run," Chi Feichi said, sipping his non-alcoholic cocktail. "If you encounter a stickler for the rules, it takes a massive amount of effort to shake them off. It's just asking for trouble."

"The art of disguise is indeed a distinct advantage," Gin pointed out, hitting the nail on the head.

If someone didn't know disguise and looked suspicious, they would be interrogated even without drinking—leaving escape by vehicle as the only choice.

Vodka finally tore open the box, pushed the printed paper reading [This is a mysterious document] aside, pulled out the envelope, and couldn't help complaining once more, "You sure are busy. You run into you everywhere..."

"You guys are plenty busy yourselves. I'm just here occasionally," Chi Feichi retorted.

He needed to make that clear; they absolutely must not mistake him for a model worker.

Vodka: "..."

If everyone was so busy, why bother with courier boxes in the first place? Out of his mind!

"Still, it's quite surprising," Gin murmured nonchalantly. "I thought July only ever delivered people to the police headquarters."

Chi Feichi quietly continued sipping his mocktail. "If we didn't test each other, we'd still be friends."

Gin sneered, "I don't need friends."

Non-Red: "..."

Listen to that talk!

Chi Feichi replied calmly, "I was just being polite."

Vodka: "..."

Listen to that talk!

Whatever, whatever. He felt completely out of his depth in this psychological duel, so he'd better just focus on checking the goods...

"Boss, the envelope shows no signs of being opened, and the contents are correct."

Seeing Vodka pack the items away, Gin stood up, preparing for one final probe. "If we..."

Before he could finish the second half of the sentence—*say we never received anything*—a young man in the group of customers coming over to pay their bill laughed and drew out his words drunkenly, "Non-alcoholic cocktails—"

Chi Feichi looked over. Was today just an unlucky day to go out? He kept running into people looking for trouble...

Seeing the balding middle-aged man turn his head to look, the young man couldn't help letting out a whistle.

Vodka felt a sudden surge of schadenfreude. Taunting and whistling was precisely what he had wanted to do earlier. Ah, refreshing...

Swoosh—

A flash of fire erupted from the muzzle of the suppressed PPKS, and a bullet zipped closely past the young man's cheek.

Taking advantage of the moment before anyone else could react, Chi Feichi pocketed his gun, grabbed the glass he had been drinking from off the bar counter, turned around, and walked out.

So what if it was a non-alcoholic cocktail? So what?!

Passive-aggressive snark was one thing, but whistling was crossing the line!

Vodka: "..."

Should he be grateful he hadn't whistled to provoke him just now?

Otherwise, they would have ended up in a gunfight before even getting their delivery!

"Let's go," Gin muttered, motioning for Vodka to head outside while also pocketing the glasses they had been drinking from.

The young man finally reached up to touch his cheek, pulled his hand back, and shrieked at the sight of the bright red blood smeared across his fingers, "Ah—!"

In a blink, the screams and chaos were shut behind the heavy door.

Outside the bar, a silver car was already pulling away.

Through the flashing window, Vodka caught a glimpse of July tearing off his face yet again, revealing a shining bald head with an eerie patch of exposed white bone on his forehead, looking as though he had torn off his skin with so much force that the bone showed through. "Boss, I think I saw..."

"Fake." Gin got into the car without the slightest hesitation.

Someone had fired a gun, which would inevitably attract police investigation.

Since July was wearing a disguise and the car likely wasn't his own, he naturally didn't have to worry about the trail leading back to him.

However, because they had just been chatting with July inside, they couldn't risk undergoing police questioning and had to leave early. It would be easy for them to be mistaken for accomplices; if they didn't get away from the area immediately, a police pursuit would spell trouble.

Fake?

Vodka climbed into the driver's seat as well, speeding away from the scene while his mood remained thoroughly complex. "Just how many faces does that guy actually have...?"

***

Beika Town.

Parked outside a quiet park, Chi Feichi cut the engine, released Non-Mo into the air, checked his reflection in the rearview mirror, and spotted the white bone effect on his forehead. "Isolating the layers always tends to cause issues. Accidentally tore off this layer too."

Non-Mo flew out for a quick circle. "Master, there's no one suspicious nearby, and no security cameras pointing this way!"

Chi Feichi peeled off the rest of the disguise, changed his clothes, and thoroughly cleaned the car interior.

He burned the disguise and clothing, grabbed his backpack, abandoned the car, and walked over to his own nearby vehicle.

As long as one knew the right connections, there were plenty of arms-smuggling rings operating in Japan. However, the weapons he purchased not only had to be unregistered, but brand new as well. Very few sources dealt in brand-new firearms, and even fewer possessed any actual reliability.

It was truly a pity that particular arms dealer had just died like that...

Back at the apartment, Non-Red and Non-Mo crouched in front of the computer, opening a document to chat via typing.

Chi Feichi began inspecting his firearms, stashing the PPKS in the bathroom ceiling as usual.

He sliced open the headboard along a hidden seam, storing the new gun and extra ammunition inside.

The bottom drawer of the study bookshelf had been modified; he slid the sniper rifle and remaining bullets in, locking the mechanism into place.

Finally, a pile of miscellaneous small parts remained in his backpack.

Perhaps he couldn't easily whip up high-tech gadgets like Professor Agasa, but as long as he had enough parts and raw materials, tinkering things together wasn't difficult.

Inside the room, the clatter of a keyboard interwove with the occasional low whine of an electric drill, continuing right up until 7:30 in the morning.

Chi Feichi got up, walked over to the computer, picked up Non-Mo, and slipped a slender black cord around the bird's neck.

A black plastic pendant roughly the size of a coin hung from the cord, blending seamlessly into the dark feathers, light and inconspicuous.

Non-Mo jumped in fright. It had been chatting with Non-Red about Chi Feichi's live-fire demonstrations when it was suddenly collared, nearly assuming Chi Feichi wanted to murder his own pet. Realizing he was merely attaching an accessory, it let out a sigh of relief. "Master, could you give a warning before doing that next time..."

"Apologies." Chi Feichi slipped a necklace around his own neck as well. The chain was metallic, suspending a black-and-silver interlocking ring.

Non-Mo's neck pendant emitted a faint, barely audible sound:

"Apologies..."

Birds possessed exceptionally sharp hearing; they didn't require high volume.

"The communication range is roughly two thousand meters, though it starts degrading past fifteen hundred meters. Your pendant has a backup battery installed, so it should last a long time. Non-Red is with me all day, so she doesn't need one for now." Chi Feichi reset the ring on his necklace, tucking it beneath his collar, and picked up a newly crafted cigarette lighter, sliding it into his pocket.

This was a compact stun device, internally compartmented to store a small amount of ether—though it could also function as a normal lighter if desired. Coated with anti-security-detection layers internally, it was an indispensable artifact for home, travel, and kidnapping.

After locking the remaining components back into the drawer, Chi Feichi went out, found a bottle of low-proof alcohol, splashed a tiny bit on his clothes, and cultivated a faint, subtle scent of liquor.

"Clear the documents you two created. Time to head back."

"Got it!" Non-Mo hopped over to push the mouse, deleting the typed chat log from the computer screen. "Master, later I want to go check on my injured subordinates."

"Go ahead," Chi Feichi agreed. "I should be around the villa all day today. If I need to go out, I'll give you advance notice."

When they returned to the villa, it was already past eight in the morning.

Shinnosuke Chi sat at the dining table. Hearing Chi Feichi enter, he glanced up briefly before lowering his gaze back to his newspaper. "Eat something with me if you haven't had breakfast. Where were you last night?"

"Went out with some former classmates," Chi Feichi replied, stepping forward to take a seat and picking up a newspaper of his own.

Aside from current events and gossip, there was no shortage of crime reports. Tokyo had suffered two armed robberies, a homicide, and three attempted murders just yesterday alone. Reading through them made the world feel utterly unsaveable. "How long are you staying this time?"

"About ten days." Shinnosuke paused, then asked abruptly, "Have you taken your medication?"

Chi Feichi: "..."

Taking medication was something he had almost completely forgotten about the moment he left the hospital...

Shinnosuke raised his eyes to fixate on Chi Feichi, speaking in an unyielding tone. "Dr. Fukuyama said you cannot skip your doses."

Chi Feichi answered casually, "I know."

Taking medicine was out of the question; he wasn't sick.

Only then did Shinnosuke withdraw his gaze, softening his tone slightly. "Tomorrow I'm announcing your appointment as a corporate consultant. If you have free time, take a trip to Hokkaido to meet the regional manager there, and drop off a document for me while you're at it."

"These next two days?"

Chi Feichi pondered for a moment. Aside from taking on occasional bounty tasks, he didn't have pressing obligations. "Sure, I'll head over tomorrow."

"Good. I'll have Darcy accompany you," Shinnosuke said, turning his head to look at the bodyguard standing behind him. "Darcy, I don't need to spell out the protection details. Just make sure to supervise his daily medication."

Chi Feichi: "..."

Fine, it seemed Shinnosuke was taking this whole "taking medicine" business seriously. Faking his way through it in the future probably wouldn't be so easy.