Chapter 60 Golden Radiance

Clang!

In the lavish second-floor corridor of a suburban villa, a portly man staggered out of the bedroom, clutching his bleeding abdomen tightly as he fled in panic.

“Who do you think you are? Do you know who I am? Do you really believe you can get away with this?” he shouted loudly while running.

Whizz!

Another bullet sliced through the dark hallway, aimed straight for the man’s head.

Bam!

At the last moment, as if forewarned, the man turned his head just in time to dodge the fatal shot to the back of his skull, but one of his ears was blown apart by the bullet.

“Ahhh—!” He let out a harrowing scream once more.

However, the villa was well-built with its own private garden, muffling the sound from reaching outside.

‘Again like this...’ Wakae, hidden in the dark ceiling, watched the scene unfold and fell into deep thought.

She had come here to find the husband of Hiroshi Mizuno’s sister—the so-called “big shot”—Takeshi Yamada.

In reality, he was a deputy section chief in the High School Planning Division of the City Education Bureau’s Development Department.

There were five deputy section chiefs in that division, and below them were just ordinary clerks—nothing more.

In Wakae’s previous life, his position was akin to a small team leader who swept floors in a classroom, not even a cleaning monitor.

She couldn’t understand why someone like him was considered a big shot by the Mizuno family.

“Though his rank isn’t high, he does seem wealthy—living in such a large villa, with three concubines...” Wakae thought bitterly.

Then she considered a more critical point: “Takeshi Yamada used his three concubines as shields for gunfire. How did he manage that? He looks fat and slow, but his sharpness and reflexes are completely abnormal.”

Thud, thud, thud...

In his panic, Takeshi tumbled down the stairs, rolling several times as his blood trickled down the steps.

“Almost there, just to the front gate!” He ignored the pain, crawling and rolling toward the door.

Unfortunately, his villa was enormous, featuring a living room of one hundred and fifty square meters.

The neuropeptide nerve array implanted at the back of his neck was running at full capacity. His eyes displayed an analysis of the surrounding environment, and his thoughts accelerated.

This was a perk of his deputy section chief position in the Education Bureau, provided free of charge—and it was why he had narrowly avoided Wakae’s gunshots five times.

“Almost... almost...” With about twenty meters left to the gate, a flicker of joy surfaced on Takeshi’s panicked face.

***

Inside the villa, severe electromagnetic interference was present, and the power had been sabotaged. Once outside, he could connect the neural array in his neck to the Security Bureau and receive computational assistance from the central intelligence system.

Rat-a-tat-tat...!

The silenced pistol fired again from behind.

The nerve array at the back of his neck sensed the noise through his sensory organs.

Instantly, it assisted in controlling his limbs, helping him adopt the posture that maximized his survival chances.

Pew, pew, pew...!

His neck was pierced, shattering the nerve array there. Subsequent bullets struck his head and heart.

His bulky body was flung forward by inertia, crashing heavily onto the floor.

“My father is a director at the Golden Radiance Group—he won’t let you off...” In his last moments, Takeshi glared into the darkness behind him, uttering a venomous curse before dying with eyes wide open.

Wakae felt her spiritual point increase again as she slowly approached him and spotted the shattered nerve array at the back of his neck.

“So this is what allowed a sedentary man to dodge five shots from me?” Focusing her vision, Wakae could just make out the tiny, yellow-bean-sized, ultra-precise biochip.

Once again, she realized the power of technology in this world.

Unfortunately, none of it concerned her.

The rich relied on technology, the poor on mutation. Although Wakae was kind and gentle, she was very poor.

Being poor meant being cut off from high technology.

“But that last thing he said—” Wakae recalled Takeshi’s dying words and grew solemn.

She pulled out her phone and searched for the Golden Radiance Group, which returned a whole page of information—scrolling to the bottom still revealed no end.

“This is bad!” Her heart pounded. “The last time I searched Ansen Pharmaceuticals, it wasn’t this extensive. Seems the Golden Radiance Group is much more powerful!”

She opened the group’s official website, greeted by a grand, elaborate introduction.

“Founded in Bright Era 2103, starting from real estate... owning an independent power plant... now spanning biopharmaceuticals, polymer chemistry, metallurgy and mining, precision instruments...”

The more Wakae read, the more unsettled she became.

“This company is unquestionably a major force!”

“Takeshi Yamada’s father is a director there—a definite big shot. Takeshi must be the son of such a figure, though probably illegitimate...”

“But even if he’s an illegitimate son, if they find out I killed his son, will they let me live?”

***

Just thinking about it, Wakae shook her head repeatedly.

“Impossible. Takeshi just said it—his father won’t let me go! Like father, like son. They’ll stop at nothing to kill me once they find out!

“With such a powerful figure, it won’t take long for them to trace me, especially since the Security Bureau already suspects me—they’re focusing on me.

“No matter how secretly I operate, or how cleanly, evidence doesn’t matter to people like that. Suspicion alone is enough to sentence me to death.

“Even worse... they might trace it back to my true self!”

The thought sent a chill through Wakae’s scalp.

“Unknowingly... I’ve already fallen into such a desperate situation—”

She felt drained, staggering as if about to collapse, staring hopelessly at the villa’s ceiling.

“Should I just wipe out the Golden Radiance Group now?”

“No! The Golden Radiance Group isn’t comparable to Ansen Pharmaceutical. And even Ansen has plasma cannons—Golden Radiance must have even more.”

“In the end, it’s my own lack of strength that put me in this perilous, hopeless position...”

“If only I were strong enough, I wouldn’t have to end up like this—waiting helplessly for villains to come knocking, unable to do anything myself...”

After lingering in sorrow for a while, she pulled herself together.

She grabbed a thick notebook from a table near the living room.

A pen was clipped to it, apparently used by one of Takeshi Yamada’s concubines for bookkeeping.

Wakae tore off the first few pages of accounts and wrote down “Takeshi Yamada’s father, Golden Radiance Group...” and other enemies’ names.

Then, on the notebook’s cover, she boldly wrote the words “Death Note.”

“From now on, every time I eliminate an enemy, I’ll cross out a name,” determination flashed in her eyes.

Before leaving, she thoroughly searched the villa as usual, finding only seventy thousand yuan in cash and some gold necklaces.

She then set the place on fire, especially dousing the area around the biochip with highly volatile fuel pellets to ensure it was completely destroyed.