Swire was not fighting alone.
Her doubts and confusion about that man had been acknowledged, and a portion of people were strongly backing her investigation and actions.
Swire's affection for Lungmen—her willingness to protect it—was obvious to anyone with eyes. She had even been willing to set aside the "heir to a major conglomerate" identity and join the Lungmen Guard Department.
Of course, "set aside" didn't mean she'd actually lost her inheritance rights. Those were still there. But her choice earned her an enormous amount of goodwill—enough that a lot of doors opened without anyone needing to say it out loud.
For example: special conveniences in surveillance work, access to certain linked archives, and even a small, targeted team made up of reliable backbone officers she had personally cultivated under her command.
Because Li Lin's existence might point to a security breach so deep Lungmen couldn't even detect it internally, Swire had no choice but to operate at this level.
Naturally, she also suspected some people in Lungmen simply found her too irritating and deliberately tossed her a thorny "problem" to keep her busy. But it didn't matter.
Swire genuinely loved this city. She was never going to refuse work like this.
She organized the relevant logs, pinned detailed comparisons and eyewitness reports to a large board, and built the connections into a dense web—like a spider's nest of lines and nodes.
Swire stood beneath that looming "conspiracy web," faced the trusted LGD core staff in the room, rapped the table, and said with a grim expression:
"Well? Let's talk. He's confirmed as a dangerous individual. We can use the special administrative statutes to detain him and place him under supervised custody for a baseline, non-violent investigation. He's been roaming around Lungmen without a proper identity for two full months. We're seriously telling me we can't run an investigation now?"
"Inspector Swire," a female Lupo officer said, pushing her glasses up as she looked down at a thick stack of files. "I'm afraid we can't."
"At 2 p.m. today, Penguin Logistics' Emperor came to pay social insurance contributions. He included Li Lin under the company's registration. His vehicle operator record card and identity card have already been processed through Emperor's channel. As of now, he is a fully registered Lungmen resident under Yan jurisdiction."
"He's no longer unregistered."
Swire's brow twitched. "Then what about public-order obstruction? Harassment? Vagrancy?"
"I'm afraid that won't work either."
"What?" Swire snapped. "Didn't that 'pink-sausage dragon' say he had harassment reports on record? You didn't find them?"
At their superior's casual nickname, the room collectively adopted the classic posture of professional survival: eyes down, minds blank, as if they hadn't heard anything at all.
The same cool, steady Lupo officer pushed her glasses again and, from a thick pile of dossiers, precisely pulled out several dozen pages and handed them to Swire, who was visibly irritated.
"He has no recorded criminal conduct."
She pointed at the complaint logs.
"Officer Ch'en's 'harassment offense' statement was only her unilateral assertion. Our report files do not contain it."
"More specifically: the A-class complaint archives don't show it. We can't confirm whether a non-urgent B-class entry exists."
Swire exhaled sharply, almost laughing from sheer frustration. "Exactly as expected. Perfectly airtight."
She narrowed her eyes. "What about the lifestyle investigation team?"
"We did conduct detailed questioning," a male clerk blurted out, visibly flinching under Swire's unfriendly stare. He thumped his chest as if that would help.
"We concluded he likely presents… as not particularly clever. He doesn't seem to grasp subtle inquiry techniques, non-adversarial conversational probing, or even basic daily-life common sense. There's unfamiliarity and instability in how he responds."
Swire stared at him. "And that's why you found nothing?"
"…Yes. That's correct."
"Ha."
Swire looked at the man's awkward smile and felt a laugh bubble up—purely from anger.
"So let me get this straight. We spent a month cleaning out problematic points around his rental area. We arranged an absurdly cheap place for him to live. We ensured his privacy and personal safety."
"And after all that, we know nothing."
She leaned forward, voice turning razor-sharp.
"For a moment I thought the LGD had renamed itself the Lungmen Secretarial Office."
"I pay you people to entertain me now? Is this funny to you?"
"Inspector Swire," someone said cautiously, "we can't investigate absolutely everything. What if we dig up something we shouldn't? We can't possibly scrutinize every single person around him in that level of detail—"
Swire's eyes hardened.
"…What?"
"Oh—no, I mean…" The speaker swallowed. "…I mean, from above."
Swire's jaw tightened. "So the old fossils gave you an order?"
"It's not exactly that," another officer hurried to explain. "But Officer Ch'en has consistently insisted this line of investigation should stop. She believes we should extend him a certain degree of trust."
A third officer leaned forward slightly, speaking in a tentative tone.
"Maybe we should follow Officer Ch'en's judgment. She hasn't shared any materials or data, but… I don't believe Officer Ch'en is the kind of person who would let a dangerous individual wander around Lungmen causing trouble."
"Subjectively, he may not 'intend' danger," Swire said coldly, "but objectively, his arrival coincides with an explosive rise in armed incidents around Lungmen's poorer districts."
"Since Penguin Logistics expanded their manpower, the attack rate and injury rate in the surrounding area have increased by nearly thirty times."
"You're still going to call that a coincidence?"
She slammed a finger onto the board.
"Ch'en wants results. I want justice."
"…Well," someone offered weakly, "is it possible Penguin Logistics is the one responsible?"
Swire turned her stare on him as if he'd grown a second head.
"So you're telling me: a logistics company founded by a music producer and a Columbian Lupo, which merely recruited a few helpers, can single-handedly spike Lungmen's crime rate across the entire area…"
"…and the mysterious man who appeared out of nowhere—who knows too much, who speaks and acts like a walking riddle—is somehow completely innocent?"
"That's what you're trying to tell me?"
"…No. I'm not," the third officer said, forcing an embarrassed smile and refusing to meet Swire's eyes.
And if you actually thought about it, it was obvious.
Penguin Logistics had a relatively clean background. They operated on the edge of danger, sure—but their public identity and documentation were open and consistent. There was no reason they would suddenly become a source of chaos the moment they set foot in Lungmen.
More importantly, they had a Sankta among them. The Laterano treaties and related constraints alone were enough to prove Penguin Logistics was not a team that could "cause trouble" on that scale.
Maybe there'd be armed scuffles while delivering packages.
But not this many.
No matter how anyone tried to spin it, everything pointed back to one conclusion:
All of this was triggered by a man who had no business being here in the first place.
As for the idea that he might be innocent—that had long since been thrown out.
The outer gangs. The influx of Columbian syndicates. Siracusan groups beginning to cluster.
Each time node on the Lungmen map formed a tightening net. And at the center of that net sat the same name:
Li Lin.
And—uncomfortably—Ch'en's presence as well.
"…Was all of it calculated?" Swire murmured.
She frowned at the board. Within the chaos of lines and nodes, there was one single unresolved riddle that also looked like the only possible answer.
Swire straightened.
"Call Hoshiguma. Get her here. I have questions."
"If Hoshiguma can't give me a satisfactory explanation… then I'm going to confront that 'pink-sausage dragon' in person."
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