The Woman I Was Flirting With Turned Out To Be A Chaebol Heiress - Chapter 39

Exhaustion.

Extreme exhaustion.

It was a kind of exhaustion that was indescribable, beyond words.

Since filming that video, Suzuki suddenly felt her life had undergone a drastic change.

What exactly had she recorded?!

Her mind replayed the conversation of the people in the video over and over.

She had originally thought that the Kurosaki-kai (Black Society) had long been silent, but they were still actively operating not only petty extortion but large-scale financial fraud. In the video, those people spoke about these things as casually as if they were talking about eating or drinking.

Suzuki’s camera was filming through a black plastic bag. The plastic bag wasn’t very high quality, so only two blurry shadows were visible, but the conversation was recorded clearly.

Especially the young girl her voice was innocent and sweet, but the words she spoke chilled Suzuki to the bone.

“Can you actually get things done? Last time we were almost discovered, and I had to work hard to get your people out.”

“Oh, my Lady Dai, business has been tough these years. The cops at the Metropolitan Police are always raiding our offices. You know, such a huge sum of money isn’t easy to hide.”

“Then send more people, set up more points, get that money laundered and done before Christmas. Don’t leave any loose ends… Deal with the unclean ones early or they’ll bring trouble.”

“Yes, yes, I’m all ears. I promise, before Christmas this year, I’ll get it all done properly for you.”

The money they talked about was a large amount of illegal income left by the last boss of the Kurosaki-kai, secretly transferred to overseas accounts and never frozen by the police. Now, these people wanted to quietly retrieve it.

Why did she have to get involved in this…

Originally, she could quietly watch the world, but this incident made her clearly realize she could never be isolated from it.

Suzuki began to blame herself for not staying home and resting when she was sick, for wandering around instead.

But she also knew her own nature no matter what, she wouldn’t have given up the chance to film that day… It seemed an unsolvable dilemma.

What to do, call the police?

But from the conversation, it seemed even the police had their own people inside; reporting might put her in danger instead.

Her mind clouded with confusion and helplessness, she felt isolated and alone. That night, she called her mother for the first time in years.

She felt as if she had truly stepped into a completely unfamiliar and dangerous world, where one careless step could lead to disaster.

If something really happened to her, maybe she should leave some final words for her family.

“Suzuki? Suzuki?!”

“Ah?”

Hearing someone call her, Suzuki suddenly snapped back to reality.

“Are you still not feeling well? Why have you been so listless these past few days?”

Seeing her teacher’s kindly and concerned face, Suzuki suddenly felt like crying.

“Teacher, I…”

As if sensing Suzuki’s thoughts, Tanaka patted her hand gently: “If something is troubling you, you can tell me. It’ll feel better to say it out loud.”

Yes, yes, the police are untrustworthy, but she still had her teacher.

Her throat moved anxiously up and down, and finally, she confessed everything to her teacher. She watched the expression on Tanaka’s face grow increasingly serious. Outside, the morning rain fell softly. Everything seemed to be moving toward the worst outcome.

At this moment, confiding in someone didn’t bring Suzuki much relief.

“So, where did you hide the USB drive?”

Tanaka’s urgent look made Suzuki feel uneasy. Instinctively, she dodged the question.

“It’s… in a very safe place, no one can find it.”

How had she gotten home that day?

Suzuki couldn’t remember, only that her thoughts had shut down and her body seemed out of her control.

That night, she couldn’t sleep. In fact, she hadn’t been sleeping well recently. The huge terror brought by this ordeal made it hard for her to calm her restless mind.

Knock, knock, knock.

Wait?

Had she heard wrong?

Suzuki focused carefully. She was sure she hadn’t imagined it someone was knocking at her door. She glanced at the clock.

2:40 AM.

Such a strange hour, it couldn’t be a normal visitor.

Almost instantly, she thought of the only person she had confided in the teacher she trusted most. Tanaka’s anxious face flashed in her mind. Was there anything else she didn’t understand?

Yet Suzuki suddenly breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe this matter was finally coming to an end. Though the outcome wasn’t very just, reality wasn’t a passionate manga where justice always prevails.

Suzuki calmly opened the door.

The person was wearing a black plastic raincoat and looked a bit frightening, but Suzuki was stunned.

She had seen this person before.

“Are you here to kill me?”

“No, I don’t have such a bad habit. I just need to get something from you.”

“You mean the USB drive?”

Backup plan?

What backup plan?

In the many days that followed, Li Nianyi kept thinking about what clues Suzuki might have left.

After all, only the video on that USB was direct evidence of Dai laundering money through the casino…

Of course, the ledger processed by Jiang Ji could also be counted. But as she said, Dai’s men were very cautious, buying chips with cash in small batches below the casino’s reporting threshold.

But numbers on the ledger alone couldn’t prove that Dai’s money was illegal.

If it weren’t for Jiang Ji spending a long time in Kurosaki-kai and being familiar with many released members, and having people keep watch on those faces, they wouldn’t have caught Dai’s weakness.

Jiang Ji never expected Dai to so openly bring people into her territory to discuss business, and that someone would accidentally film it.

Since discovering Dai’s little schemes, Jiang Ji had kept someone on the small boss who liaised with Dai, but still no results.

For now, things seemed to have no turning point.

Unless Li Nianyi could find that USB.

How could that be? She sighed and resigned herself. The police didn’t find any evidence at Suzuki’s house, so how could she find such an important thing?

Suddenly, Jiang Ji hugged her waist from behind.

“This whole thing had nothing to do with you, but somehow you got caught up in it. I’m really afraid you’ll get hurt…”

Jiang Ji’s head rested against Li Nianyi’s back, her voice muffled. She didn’t like seeing Li Nianyi so troubled by this.

Li Nianyi comforted her by patting Jiang Ji’s hand.

“If I hadn’t gone out to buy late-night snacks that night, maybe I wouldn’t have met you. Anyway, it can’t get worse now. We’re both free spirits at worst, we die together in a foreign land. That’s kind of romantic, right?”

Hearing this, Jiang Ji laughed out loud. Li Nianyi’s logic was so rigorous that Jiang Ji couldn’t say anything against it.

Jiang Ji stood and turned Li Nianyi’s chair around, sitting on her lap. Like self-therapy, she buried her head into Li Nianyi’s shoulder and neck.

“Stop talking nonsense. I don’t want to die with you.”

“Yeah, yeah, definitely not. Our Jiang sister is so strong, protecting me is easy. But my dear girlfriend, I suspect you have skin hunger syndrome. Why are you so clingy?”

Li Nianyi played with Jiang Ji’s hair and whispered close to her skin.

“Hmm, I’m seriously sick, only Nian Nian can cure me.”

Well, it wasn’t a complete dead end. At least Jiang Ji seemed to be becoming more honest.

But after cuddling with her beautiful wife, Li Nianyi still had to face the harsh reality she was going through all the information she knew about Suzuki, foolishly hoping to analyze where Suzuki hid the USB.

A dumb method.

But there seemed to be no better way.

Li Nianyi sighed as she looked at the computer.

“Jiang sister, think carefully again. Did she say anything else about the USB? Searching blindly like this is really hard.”

She tugged at Jiang Ji’s sleeve, whining like a spoiled child.

Jiang Ji thought carefully again.

“Should I tell you the situation that day again? Maybe if I say it a few more times, I’ll remember some details I forgot.”

Li Nianyi nodded repeatedly.

“I remember… when I asked her where the USB was, she seemed to say something like ‘I didn’t hide it; it’s not with me,’ and ‘maybe that was the only right decision she made.’ That’s true, no one found the USB so far…”

“Not hidden…?”

Li Nianyi looked thoughtfully at Suzuki’s award records on the screen.

“Could it be she destroyed it? That wouldn’t make sense either.”

A black water-based pen spun on her fingertips.

“Could it still be at the casino, left behind?”

Half-joking, Li Nianyi leaned her head on Jiang Ji’s stomach.

“Because it’s still in the original place, so technically it’s not hidden.”

Jiang Ji was stunned.

“Hey, what’s that expression? Could it be you haven’t even searched your own territory after all this?”

“Looks like… I haven’t.”

Li Nianyi was momentarily stunned.

“You actually never thought of that possibility?”

Jiang Ji honestly shook her head.

“Whether to interrogate about the USB or fix the accounts, those were explicit orders from Saionji Kiriko. If she didn’t assign it to me, I wouldn’t meddle.”

Li Nianyi sighed repeatedly: what a well trained workhorse.

“Since we can’t rule it out, I think it’s worth a try. What if we find it?”