At this moment, Eguchi Ryusei was filled with doubt and uncertainty. He was certain that Kitaoka Ryoko had another purpose. But what was that purpose?

He turned his gaze to Yabe Jinkazu, his tone unusually stern: "Explain yourself clearly. What is Yoshiko's purpose in doing this? Speak!"

Yabe Jin quickly explained, "Chief Eguchi, I really don't know. My orders from the beginning have been to guard Hirayama Jiro, and I still do. As for Chief Kitaoka's intentions, I don't know, and I dare not inquire. I'm just following orders."

He hesitated for a moment before continuing, "However, although Chief Kitaoka ordered us to guard him, he only restricted his movements. In other aspects, he was treated very well and was not treated as a prisoner."

"Where is Hirayama Jiro now?" Eguchi Ryusei pressed.

"I don't know. They were already gone when I came back. Only the four corpses of Chief Kitaoka remained. But there's something I need to mention. Chief Kitaoka wasn't in the house when I left. He must have come back when I went to buy lunch and was then murdered. Do you think it's possible that Hirayama Jiro killed them in an attempt to escape?"

Ryusei Eguchi waved his hand without speaking. He knew very well that Ryoko Kitaoka was subdued, taken to this safe house, and then shot dead. This was not the primary crime scene where Ryoko Kitaoka was subdued.

Hirayama Jiro has been under house arrest here and unable to go out, so he could not possibly be the real murderer.

As for why Hirayama Jiro wasn't killed along with them, there are two possibilities.

The first possibility is that someone came to rescue Hirayama Jiro, killed everyone in the house, and then rescued Hirayama Jiro.

But if the goal was simply to save people, then killing the people inside the house would have sufficed. There was no need for them to expend the effort and resources to capture Kitaoka Ryoko, bring her to this safe house, and then shoot her. This doesn't make sense.

The second possibility is that the target was not Hirayama Jiro, but Kitaoka Ryoko. After subduing Kitaoka Ryoko, they brought her to this safe house to find an excuse to kill her, then subdued everyone, took Hirayama Jiro away, and shot the others to create the illusion that Hirayama Jiro had escaped and committed murder.

No, perhaps Hirayama Jiro didn't escape either; the other side took away a corpse as well.

Because Hirayama Jiro was a garrison officer stationed in the Suzhou area, he fled back to Shanghai and had no friends there, let alone friends capable of killing numerous professional agents.

Who would come to his rescue? There are plenty of people who want to capture and kill him and claim the bounty from the Fujiwara Company, so Hirayama Jiro is just a decoy; the real target should be Kitaoka Ryoko.

Ryusei Eguchi thought about it more and more and felt that the second possibility was more likely. This would match the situation found at the scene. However, it was obvious that the other party was not professional enough and the scene setup was full of loopholes. Needless to say, it was not the work of a professional agent.

He then asked Yabe Jinkazu, "Are you aware of any recent moves by Yoshiko?"

Yabe Jin shook his head and explained again, "I have a low rank, I'm just an ordinary operative, and I'm usually only responsible for simple tasks. I've been staying here these days, and I haven't even gone back to the Tsuchihara Agency. I only participated in this one operation led by Kitaoka, and I really don't know anything about other things."

You won't get anything of value from Yabe Jin-kazu; his position is too low, and Kitaoka Ryoko would never entrust him with confidential matters.

So who exactly would target Ryoko Kitaoka?

It couldn't be a Chinese agent; Ryusei immediately ruled that out.

The reason is simple: this is inconsistent with the usual style of Chinese spies. Chinese spies assassinate Japanese spies to undermine their morale and expand their terrorist influence, thus serving as a deterrent. Therefore, they prefer to use violent and public displays of force, such as targeted explosions and street shootings, as these methods are more effective. Moreover, this is what they have been doing for the past two years. If they were to kill Kitaoka Ryoko and these spies, they would want to publicize it to everyone. Why would they go to the trouble of capturing them alive and then painstakingly moving them to this safe house to stage a scene and frame Hirayama Jiro? Besides, these spies are professional agents after all; their methods would not be so crude that he could see through them at a glance.

So who else could it be? The Tsuchihara Organization? One of Kagesa Hiroki's men?

That shouldn't be the case either. Although Eguchi Ryusei knows that Kagesa Hiroki is currently eager to seize power in the Tsuchihara Agency and is excluding and attacking the old subordinates of Tsuchihara Keiji, making Kitaoka Ryoko's life in the Tsuchihara Agency difficult, to Kagesa Hiroki, Kitaoka Ryoko is just a minor character. Kagesa Hiroki only needs to say one word to make Kitaoka Ryoko sit on the sidelines. There is absolutely no need to use such extreme methods.

Another possibility is that we can deduce from Hirayama Jiro's case that Kitaoka Ryoko captured Hirayama Jiro but did not hand him over to the Fujiwara Company in exchange for a huge reward. Instead, she imprisoned him and kept him under her control. This could be interpreted as Kitaoka Ryoko not being very friendly to the Fujiwara Company, or even that she had ulterior motives.

What problems existed between her and the Fujiwara Company? Why did she do this?

Could it be that she did something detrimental to the Fujiwara Company, and the Fujiwara Company, having discovered Kitaoka Ryoko's intentions, decided to strike first, eliminating Kitaoka Ryoko and Hirayama Jiro in one fell swoop, thus creating the illusion that they killed each other and Hirayama Jiro escaped?

Considering the crude setup at the scene, Eguchi Ryusei knew that the Fujiwara Company had a group of armed guards. These men were selected from the Japanese community in Shanghai. They were physically strong, had undergone some military training, and were well-equipped, but they were all novices when it came to intelligence and special agents. This could be explained.

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