“Who are you?” The face in the mirror really spoke back to Feng Bujue. “I don’t know you.”
“Who I am is not important,” Feng Bujue replied. He tossed his reflection a sharp gaze. “The important thing is, who are you?”
“Of course, I am Hirata Shuichi,” the reflection answered.
“No, you are not. You simply look very much like him,” Feng Bujue said confidently. “Stop pretending. I know there is another persona living in this body. No one knows about your existence. Not Taka, not Hirata, not Tachibana, not Watanabe… None of them know about you. You are the culprit for the crime that happened fifteen years ago.”
“Hahaha…” The man started to guffaw. “No matter who you are, at least you are much brighter than that idiot.”
“You can call me Mr. F,” Feng Bujue said.
“And you can call me Hirata Shuichi,” the man replied.
“If you are Hirata Shuichi, who is the mental patient who has been locked behind bars for the past fifteen years?” Feng Bujue asked.
“Merely an idiot who shares my appearance and name,” the man answered.
“I understand now…” Feng Bujue added. “I wish to know, when did you and that idiot go your separate ways?”
Feng Bujue followed the man’s words and sneaked in a question.
“After our university graduation, I suppose,” the man replied.
“Hmm…” Feng Bujue smiled. “I get it now. How about this? For the sake of convenience, for the rest of this conversation, may I refer to you as Shuichi and that idiot as Hirata?”
“Suit yourself.” Shuichi shrugged.
“After the graduation from Kyoto university, you, Shuichi, wanted to go to expand your horizons in a big city, but Hirata insisted on returning to his hometown. Is that so?” Feng Bujue asked.
“That is a truly brief summarization of the momentous event… That idiot…” Shuichi put on a cruel snicker. “He gave up the chance to work in Tokyo and voluntarily broke up with Miss Miko. She was the daughter of a big corporation’s CEO. Do you know how many men were vying for her attention?
“But lo and behold, our idiot abandoned all that. He returned to this small town to marry his childhood friend and went to work at that small, unknown company. Look at his ending. Haruko, that bitch, cheated on him with Fukui, the man whom he had spent years working so hard for. The company still went up due to the ministration of a corrupt man. Those six years of my life, the future that was supposed to be bright, all of that was destroyed single-handedly by this idiot.”
“Hmm… Is that so?” Feng Bujue commented. “During the year of his university graduation, Hirata made a big, painful life decision, and that was when you emerged from his main persona. Hirata is a kind, honest man; he chose to return home to marry. You, Shuichi, are a man of ambition and quite honestly have the ability to turn that ambition into reality. Plus, you’re cruel and harsh enough, but in the end, you still lost to Hirata.
“That was until six years ago, on November 24th, 1990. When Hirata overheard his colleagues’ conversation in the bathroom, he suffered a mental breakdown, and it was then that you took the chance to reclaim possession of his body.”
“Bingo, Mr. F,” Shuichi replied.
“You hated Hirata, hated the choice that he made back then, hated his personality, and I believe most of all, you hated him for ruining your bright future,” Feng Bujue said. “You wanted to seek revenge, to completely ruin his life.”
He paused to think for two seconds to reconstruct the actual process of the crime. “As someone who had received a good education, someone who was cautious and quick to move, in terms of committing a crime, you make a much better criminal than Hirata. There are so many ways to kill Fukui, but killing Fukui was not enough… if we’re just talking about the elements of the case and the factors surrounding it. After Hirata was revealed to have killed Fukui, his sentence wouldn’t have been serious. Hirata’s colleagues, perhaps even Haruko, would have appeared in court on his behalf, and he would have been imprisoned for only several years.
Feng Bujue laughed. “So, you had to kill a police officer and use this officer’s gun to kill Fukui. With the involvement of law enforcement, there is no way Hirata was going to escape unscathed.
“Ha… you’re good, I’ll admit that. In terms of logic, his action of killing the police officer can be explained. Even if Hirata cannot remember anything, the evidence said more than he needed to. If you’d killed another random stranger on the street, without any motive, then the memories that Hirata couldn’t remember could be viewed as the result of split personality disorder. With that precedence, his murder of Fukui could also be argued as a manifestation of his mental problem.
“So, this is why I’ve always said, those who are good at analyzing and plotting are the scariest characters. Hmm… If it was me who conducted this crime… then on the morning of November 25th, I would have taken the necessary equipment with me to the spot where I was going to bury the body. The foundation of Hirata’s old home is indeed a suitable spot.
“First, you are familiar with that place, and second, be it morning or night, even if you were spotted, you could have easily come up with an excuse as to why you were there.
“In any case, when night fell, you found a random armed officer who was patrolling and came up with an excuse to lure him to the location. Then, you ambushed him and stole his gun. Actually, you didn’t think the officer’s body would be so well-hidden for so long. You only needed it to remain hidden until after Fukui was killed. But you didn’t expect the government to have ignored that piece of land until seven years ago.”
“Oh? You came up with all that with mere speculation?” Shuichi asked.
“Yes. Actually, I should have known this a long time ago, but initially, I didn’t suspect your existence,” Feng Bujue replied. “Hirata wouldn’t have done these things. He is so much weaker than you. Even if he wanted to kill Fukui, he would not have murdered an innocent person for it. At most, he would have knocked the officer unconscious from behind and prayed that the officer would not wake up before he dealt with Fukui. But you, Shuichi, are different. If you are the culprit, then I can confidently say that my hypothesis is correct.”
“Hmm… Well, why don’t you try to hypothesize what happened next?” Shuichi challenged.
“What happened next is simple. When you were controlling the body, Hirata had no memory of it,” Feng Bujue explained. “On the afternoon of the 26th, you knew for sure that Haruko had left home again to enjoy her rendezvous with Fukui. Therefore, you placed the note written with the address of Rokubancho No. 4-5 in your pocket, carried the gun, and went to the area close to Fukui’s manor. Then you temporarily returned the body to Hirata.
“Hirata was disoriented from the sudden recovery. He panicked because he found a gun in his possession. He was afraid and then found that piece of paper. Following the directions, he arrived at Fukui’s manor, and on the second floor, he ran into them in the middle of their frolicking. Based on my understanding of Fukui, his reaction must have been to scold Hirata while stomping toward him, making it seem like it was Hirata’s fault for interrupting him.
“Pain, anger, loss, or perhaps something you did—endless possibilities muddled Hirata’s mind, and he fired the gun. This is something that you calculated, a trap that you laid.
“And for that, Hirata obtained the second part of his memory. Not long after he fired the bullet, you retook possession of the body and carried out the next step of the plan…”