Chapter 23 The First Player

"Why, Canada, don't you think so? Or do you have any other evidence that Bourbon is fine?"

Morobushi Kagemitsu asked back, his eyes cold and deep, as if he was just a casual colleague with whom they had a very cold relationship - although in order to avoid being exposed, on the surface their relationship was indeed casual colleagues, but seeing Morobushi Kagemitsu suddenly turn around and join Passeto in targeting Furuya Rei, Asahina still found it a little unbelievable.

After all, judging by Fushigi Jingguang's behavior, he was not only a stranger to him, but he was also adding insult to injury, wasn't he? Was he really seeing things? Or did they have a falling out?

...No, no, calm down...Furiya Rei hasn't said anything yet, maybe there's something behind it?

Asahina glanced at Furugaya Rei secretly and saw that he had his arms folded, his posture relaxed, and there was no sign of tension or anger on his face. There was even a faint smile at the corner of his mouth. Suddenly... he was not so panicked anymore.

Hey, no matter what they are doing, but with Furuya Rei's performance, it must be fine. Asahina relaxed. Why should he, a double undercover agent, worry about them?

"Ah... Is this the Scottish boy?"

Passetto gave Morobushi Jingguang an admiring look: "As expected of a sniper member, you have good vision and have perfectly complemented my thoughts."

Morobushi Kagemitsu was equally indifferent to Pasetto. He simply glanced away when he approached him, saying in a flat tone, "I just made a reasonable guess."

After hitting a soft nail that was neither big nor small, Pasetto touched his nose and then shifted his gaze to Xihai Qingdou.

"I say, Cointreau, what do you think? Is this enough evidence?"

"I think what Pasetto and Scotland said makes sense. And when I left the Silver Sands Casino that day, I seemed to see a back figure that looked a bit like Bourbon. Oh, I'm old now and my memory is not good, so I can't remember clearly."

Saikai Haruto stroked his chin and nodded, then threw the words to Furuya Rei himself: "Why not let Bourbon speak for himself?"

"I say, are you going to sentence me to death so quickly?" Furuya Rei leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and said with a smile: "Even if he is a criminal, he should be given a chance to defend himself."

Bourbon looks completely relaxed... Is he fearless?

Cointreau's attitude is also somewhat ambiguous... He said "seemed to have seen it" and also "can't remember clearly", so does he suspect Bourbon or does he believe that he is not an undercover agent?

Lei continued to watch the show calmly.

Furuya Rei continued, "And don't you think that what Pasetto said is a little untenable?"

Xi Hai Qing Dou: “Is there?”

"I admit that if what Pasetto said is true, I do have the suspicion of being an undercover agent... But this is also based on the premise that what Pasetto said is true."

Fūya Rei's tone changed: "But——Based on Pasetto's one-sided statement, it doesn't seem to be credible, right?"

He turned to look at Xi Hai Qing Dou: "Jun Du, you know that I told you that I went to the bar that afternoon, right? I also sent you messages and photos, telling you where I was."

Things seem to have turned around.

"Ah, it seems so." Xi Haiqing Dou nodded with a smile, as if he suddenly remembered it.

"I remember... it was in the afternoon, right? Bourbon told me that he was going to gather some intelligence, and he went to the bar and texted me during that time. From this perspective, Bourbon seems to be clear of suspicion."

"Wait, but Cointreau, you also said that you saw something similar to Bourbon in the casino, right?"

Pasetto groaned. "Bourbon, what you said is also unconvincing. You can go to the bar in advance and then go to the casino at night. Or you can even not go to the bar at all. You can ask someone else to send the pictures and messages to Cointreau. In short, if you say that, don't you have a lot of loopholes? As an intelligence officer, I don't believe that you can't even think of these little tricks. I am an undercover in Yokohama for many years. What good does it do me to slander you?"

Saikai Haruto then nodded lightly to show his agreement with what Pasetto said, and he looked like a person who just went with the flow and had no opinion of his own: "Yes, Pasetto has a point. Bourbon, it seems that you don't have enough evidence here."

...This guy's attitude is really infuriating, isn't it? He is like a fence-sitter who says "you all seem to be right". He didn't directly say that he doubted Rei Furuya like Passetto did, but why did he feel so annoyed and wanted to punch him?

Asahina thought hard. Obviously, Jundu didn't do anything. And even if Jundu suspected Furuya Rei, it would not affect him. But why? He didn't even have time to think about Furuya Rei.

Fūya Rei had no idea what his friend was thinking. He just nodded calmly and reached into his pocket.

——This action…

"Hey, Bourbon, you're not going to pull out your gun, are you?!"

Pasetto became nervous in an instant, staring at Furiya Rei without blinking, and quickly hid his body behind the chair, fearing that he would really take out a gun from his chest.

Vodka was also misled by his words, and nervously stood in front of Xi Haiqing Dou, and then began to take out his gun: "So Bourbon, you are really an undercover?! Damn it, put the gun down!"

Fūya Rei was speechless.

He opened his palm, and a black cell phone that looked brand new lay quietly in his hand.

Pasetto immediately emerged from behind the chair and breathed a sigh of relief. "Ah, it's not a gun."

"Sorry, sorry, I tend to overreact when I stay in Yokohama for too long... I'm sorry."

After hesitating for a moment, he added cautiously, "It shouldn't be a fake bomb, right?"

"……no."

"Before coming to Yokohama, Cointreau, you gave us the cell phone to bring with you."

Furiya Rei said calmly, "It should have a location on it, so it can be used to find out where I went that day. As an intelligence officer, you should know that you should never leave your phone with your important data, right? I can't just give such an important thing to anyone - especially since we are in Yokohama, not Tokyo."

"And I seem to have forgotten to mention that the bar I went to was "Minato"? That's the bar we went to the day we went to Yokohama and met you for the first time, Pasetto."

There seemed to be a slight smile in Rei Furuya's eyes. He continued, "I think you should know the owner of that bar, right? He won't give false testimony for me. I did stay there for the whole afternoon and evening. If you can contact the owner now, you can ask him for confirmation."

"I didn't say that you, Pasetto, were slandering me." Furiya Ling said slowly, "But it's also possible that it was too late that day, and you saw it wrong just like Cointreau? Maybe you mistook someone else for me. Didn't Cointreau also say that he wasn't sure if the person whose back looked like mine was me?"

"Maybe there really was a person who looked like me who went to the Silver Sands Casino that day and happened to run into you and Cointreau. I don't think you really saw his face clearly, right? Otherwise, you wouldn't have remembered this only now. After all, I can't be able to clone myself and appear in the bar and the casino at the same time, right?"

A completely reasonable explanation.

That's right, if Cointreau or Pasetto had confirmed that the man in the casino was Bourbon that night, they should have identified him as an undercover agent a few days ago, and it would be impossible for them to suspect him now that the mistake has occurred.

So it's really a coincidence?

Looking at Bourbon, who looked relaxed and at ease, and then at Pasetto, who was in a stage of doubt in his life and had called the bar owner out of disbelief and confirmed from the owner that Bourbon had indeed stayed in Minato's bar for the whole day, Lei fell into deep thought again.

But for some reason, he intuitively felt that there might be some other cat poop in this... Was Bourbon really so innocent? Why didn't he believe it?

...Forget it. This matter has nothing to do with him anyway. Just watch the show.

Lei gave up thinking.

"That's not right..." Passetto was still talking to himself. He felt like he was about to die. He couldn't even care about doubting Bourbon anymore. He had already fallen into a state of crazy self-doubt.

"Is it really me who is seeing things? Has my eyesight become that bad? That's impossible. Has my eyesight become as bad as Cointreau's memory?"

He scratched his hair, his tone was inexplicably flustered - he used to be known for his sharp eyes, which was something he was always proud of as an intelligence agent. When would he make a mistake in judging someone? Doesn't this clearly mean that he is no longer qualified as an intelligence agent?

...If you say your eyesight is bad, just say that you are good. Why do you have to criticize his memory for no reason?

Xi Haiqing Dou couldn't help but give Pasetto another glare.

"Bourbon's itinerary three days ago was indeed correct, and the location record showed that he was indeed at Minato Bar."

Xi Hai Qing Dou clapped his hands and said simply: "If you don't have any other evidence, Pasetto... then the evidence you just mentioned is indeed invalid - it seems that your investigation skills have regressed."

Unable to hold back his words and retaliate against Pasetto, Xi Haiqing Dou continued, "So if you look at it this way, Bourbon is indeed not a suspect, right?"

"Does anyone have any other objections?"

"No!" Asahina was the first to respond positively.

Oh, he knew that Furuya Rei would have a solution! But he didn't expect that he would actually go to the bar that day... Asahina was disappointed.

If he had known, he would have insisted on going to the bar with Rei Furuya. He had a bad experience at the casino that day... He just watched Cointreau win all the time. It would have been fine if he had won, but he was still Versailles, saying that he lost because he was bad at math and his IQ was not high enough. It was really abominable. What was even more abominable was that he couldn't even refute it - because he had indeed been bad at math since junior high school.

And later that day, Cointreau caused trouble in the casino! They were almost chased out by the casino staff. Asahina swore that if he was given another chance, he would never go to the same casino with Cointreau again, and would rather die than go to the bar with Furuya Rei.

Ley gave up.

In addition to him, even Passetto, who was still immersed in his own thoughts, cast aside his doubts about Furuya Rei.

The doubts about Rei Furuya were also dispelled.

Xi Haiqingdou put his hands together and apologized to him with a smile: "I'm sorry, Bourbon, maybe I really made a mistake in the casino that day... Oh, although the back of that person did look a lot like you, I was still suspicious that it was you, but unfortunately I was stopped by Vodka and the others and couldn't stop that person to take a closer look."

He said with regret: "If I had stopped him that day, maybe I could have found your relative for you...ah, I can only say that this is too much of a coincidence."

Fūya Rei slightly suppressed the smile in his eyes, and his expression suddenly turned cold: "That's probably unlikely - my parents died when I was young, and they didn't leave me any brothers. It's probably just a coincidence."

Xihai Qingdou blinked and fell silent.

Zhu Fu Jingguang secretly exchanged an inconspicuous glance with him, and a smile seemed to flash in his eyes.

——Now I guess only the two of them know... The one who went to the casino to trade with the Takase-kai that day was indeed Furuya Rei himself, and the one who went to Minato's bar... was actually Morobushi Kagemitsu pretending to be Furuya Rei.

That day, Ryoji Ya's cell phone was also in Morobushi Kagemitsu's hand, and it was naturally Morobushi Kagemitsu who sent the message to Kundu.

The two of them have been good friends for many years, so it is very easy for them to imitate each other. Minato's boss and Rei Furuya had only met once before, not to mention that he had pretended a little when he went there. If there were only slight differences, it would be impossible to find out that something was wrong simply by comparing the memories unless they confronted each other face to face - human memory can deceive itself and automatically repair itself.

Unlike what Pasetto knew...he deliberately let Pasetto "see" him at the entrance of Silver Sands Casino.

Although I didn't expect Jundu to go there that day and almost found him...but fortunately it has been resolved now.

——This was something he had thought of long before, taking advantage of a small "game" set by Pasetto.