Chapter 178 Interrogation
There was a hint of coolness in the early morning air, and the aroma of porridge wafting from the kitchen mixed with the taste of pickles filled the Lu family's small dining room.
Lu Gucheng put a spoonful of steaming porridge into his mouth, picked up the remote control and skillfully switched to the morning news channel. While drinking the porridge, he listened to the host's news broadcast casually: "Emergency news, a major earthquake occurred in Japan yesterday, with a magnitude of , causing huge damage. According to the latest statistics, the number of casualties has exceeded , and the economic losses may reach hundreds of billions..."
A scene of ruins flashed across the TV screen, with collapsed buildings, scattered rubble, pervasive dust, and the terrified faces of the survivors all vividly displayed under the cold lens.
The host continued to report in a steady tone, "What is even more shocking is that almost all the senior government officials, including the prime minister and several cabinet members, were killed in this disaster. The Japanese government has urgently appointed former House of Representatives member Minamoto Yusuke as acting prime minister."
“Oh no!” Lu Mingze on the other side put down his chopsticks and complained with a worried look on his face, “My series will definitely be discontinued now, as a new episode is supposed to be released today!”
Lu Gucheng put down the bowl, glanced at him, and said unhappily: "It's already this time, and you're still thinking about your crappy cartoons! Can't you improve yourself a little bit, kid?"
"But this is..." Lu Mingze muttered, and suddenly lost his voice. His eyes were attracted by the TV screen, and his mouth opened slightly, as if he had seen something unbelievable.
Lu Gucheng followed his gaze and the next second, his mouth also turned into an "O" shape. The bowl in his hand shook and the hot porridge spurted out of his mouth and sprayed all over his wife's face opposite him.
“Lu Gucheng!” Lu Mingfei’s aunt stood up suddenly. Porridge dripped down her cheeks onto her apron. She wiped it with her hand and slammed the table hard. “Are you tired of living?”
"Honey, watch TV!" Under normal circumstances, Lu Gucheng would have been frightened to the point of his legs going limp by his wife's roar, but now he no longer cared about that and stared at the TV screen in amazement.
Seeing her husband's expression, Lu Mingfei's aunt also turned her head to look at the screen. When she saw Lu Mingfei appear on the screen, she was stunned. For a moment, she didn't know whether she was crazy or the world was crazy.
“That…that…is Lu Mingfei?” The fat boy Lu Mingze finally found his voice, raised his voice, and jumped up.
Lu Gucheng stared at the screen, wiped the porridge from his mouth, and muttered, "It's Mingfei, but... but why is he called Yuan Yusuke? Could it be that he changed his nationality and became a Japanese after no news for a year?"
"Maybe he just looked like someone else. Didn't you see that the other person's name was Gen Yusuke? There hasn't been any news about that ungrateful bastard Lu Mingfei for more than a year. Maybe he has died in that corner of Emilia! And he wants to become the Prime Minister of Japan? What a foolish dream!" Aunt came to her senses and shouted at Lu Gucheng mercilessly.
"You can't say that, wife. After all, Ming Fei is still a member of our Lu family..." Lu Gucheng wanted to refute, but under his wife's fierce gaze, he swallowed the second half of his words.
“Hurry up and eat. After dinner, it’s time to go to work or school. Seeing Lu Mingfei’s ugly face so early in the morning, you will be in a bad mood for the whole day.” The aunt knocked hard on the table with the chopsticks. Seeing his wife in anger, Lu Gucheng and the fat boy Lu Mingze didn’t dare to say anything and started to eat in silence.
At this moment, there was a knock on the door. Aunt Lu Mingfei completely exploded when she heard the knocks and yelled at the door, "Who is so uncultured that you knock on the door so early in the morning? You are knocking on your mother's door!"
She pushed her chair aside and walked towards the door, still cursing as she went, but when she opened the door she suddenly stopped talking.
Outside the door, several policemen and soldiers in uniform stood in a row. The leader was tall and straight with sharp eyes. He pulled out an ID from his jacket pocket and said in an unquestionable tone, "Good morning. We are from the National Security Bureau. We need your cooperation in investigating some matters."
My aunt's eyes were wide open and her mouth was open, but no sound came out. She was cursing just now, but it seemed as if the mute button was pressed.
"Comrade police officer, we are all good citizens!" She swallowed and stammered, "You...you think you are mistaken..."
The leading police officer put away his ID and calmly replied, "Don't worry, we are not targeting you. This time it's about Lu Mingfei."
The air seemed to freeze for a moment. Lu Gucheng and Lu Mingze's eyes quickly turned to the door, and the whole room fell into silence so quiet that one could hear a pin drop.
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The lighting in the interrogation room was a little dazzling, and the white walls made the whole room look deserted and depressing. Lu Mingfei's uncle and aunt, the fat boy Lu Mingze, even Lu Mingfei's high school classmates and teachers, and even the owner of the newsstand where Lu Mingfei often bought novels were not spared. They were all scattered in their respective rooms for questioning.
"Your name is Chen Wenwen, right?" The interrogator flipped open the document in his hand and his eyes fell on the girl in front of him.
Chen Wenwen, who was sitting opposite her, was wearing a white dress, holding the edge of her skirt tightly with both hands. She nodded, her voice a little uneasy: "Yes."
The interrogator's expression remained unchanged, and his tone was steady: "Don't be nervous, I'm just asking you some simple questions. What is your relationship with Lu Mingfei?"
The girl was stunned for a moment, raised her head, and her lips trembled slightly. There seemed to be an invisible pressure in the air. She opened her mouth, but her voice was as small as a whisper: "We... We are just classmates."
The interrogator picked up a pen and made a few notes on the document. Without even looking up, he continued to ask, "According to the information, Lu Mingfei has had a crush on you for three years, and he even confessed his love to you in the cinema a year ago, but you rejected him."
Chen Wenwen's fingers were twisted together nervously under the table, her eyes were evasive, and the fragments of memories were pieced together in her mind.
Her mind began to piece together the scenes of that day: the lights suddenly turning on in the screening room, the moving soundtrack, Lu Mingfei standing in front of the screen with roses in his hands... and her own panicked expression. She remembered Zhao Menghua's sudden appearance and the noisy cheers of everyone, and Lu Mingfei's lowered head after being rejected and his back as he turned away.
"I..." Chen Wenwen was speechless for a moment.
I need you to recall," the interrogator's tone slowed down, but it was more stressful, "When was the last time Lu Mingfei contacted you? Did he show any abnormality at that time?"
"He... wore an expensive-looking outfit that day, and brought such a big bouquet of flowers." Chen Wenwen recalled, her eyes becoming a little blurry. "I remember that he was usually very frugal, and that bouquet of flowers... he couldn't afford such a big one."
The interrogator's eyes rested on her face and he nodded slowly: "And then?"
“Then…” Chen Wenwen lowered her head and gently twisted her fingers together. “Later, he… had a car accident, and we never contacted each other again. But I heard that he went to study abroad, and the rest… I don’t know.” The interrogator recorded this information and said calmly: “Okay, thank you for your cooperation.” He stood up, sorted out the documents, turned around and prepared to leave.
"Wait a minute!" Chen Wenwen suddenly looked up, with anxiety and uneasiness in her eyes, "Lu Mingfei...what's wrong with him now?"
The interrogator paused, looked back at her, and said calmly, "He is now the Prime Minister of Japan, but we haven't found any records of him changing his nationality, so we need to investigate."
Chen Wenwen sat in the interrogation room in a daze, the interrogator's words echoing in her mind over and over again: "He is now the Prime Minister of Japan."
She gradually loosened her grip on the hem of her skirt, her eyes fixed on the smooth tabletop, as if trying to find some kind of answer through the cold reflection. However, the news struck her like a bolt of lightning, confusing her thoughts.
"Lu Mingfei...how could it be..." She murmured, and even she herself found it unbelievable what she said.
What emerged in her mind was Lu Mingfei in the past: the boy who always walked around the campus with his head down, often wearing a wrinkled school uniform, holding a cheap novel or comic in his hand, and occasionally showing her a shy smile. He used to be so ordinary, even so ordinary that he was easily ignored. But now, she learned that he has become the Prime Minister of Japan, standing on the high platform that attracts the world's attention.
"How is it possible..." She murmured, countless questions flashing through her mind, but none of them could be answered.
The interrogation room on the other side
Lu Gucheng sat in another interrogation room, rubbing his hands while glancing at the cold-faced interrogator opposite him, looking somewhat guilty and anxious. He moved his lips a few times, trying to say something, but swallowed it back under the other person's cold gaze.
"Lu Gucheng, right?" The interrogator looked up and flipped through the information in his hand. "Are you Lu Mingfei's uncle?"
"Yes, yes." Lu Gucheng nodded quickly, forcing a flattering smile on his face, "But to be honest, this kid hasn't contacted us for more than a year, and our family doesn't know much about his situation."
The interrogator ignored him and continued, "According to the information we have, Lu Mingfei had contact with your family before he disappeared. Did he mention anything strange? For example, did he have contact with some special organizations, or did he mention where he was going?"
Lu Gucheng was stunned and scratched his head. His expression changed from puzzlement to a little embarrassed: "This... No. At that time, he liked to hide in his room to play computer, and he didn't know what to do all day. What do you mean by asking these questions?"
The interrogator did not answer directly, but stared at him, as if trying to catch a clue from his uneasy expression: "When was the last time you saw him? What happened that day?"
"Uh..." Lu Gucheng frowned and tried to recall, "About a year ago, he said he was going to study abroad, and he seemed to have chatted with his cousin for a while... There was nothing special else."
"Is there really nothing special?" The interrogator's tone became a little colder, as if implying some kind of warning.
Lu Gucheng swallowed and quickly added, "Really not! But the school he went to was a little strange, and he also went to France and Prussia before going to school."
The interrogator thoughtfully wrote a few lines in his notebook, then nodded: "Okay, thank you for your cooperation."
After the interrogation, Lu Gucheng, his aunt, and Lu Mingze were taken home. They sat on the sofa, and the atmosphere was so depressing that it seemed as if the air had frozen.
"What on earth do those people want to do? They keep asking questions and just keep targeting Mingfei." Aunt frowned and crossed her arms, still looking frightened.
"Who knows?" Lu Gucheng lit a cigarette, took a deep puff, and frowned. "But it's really hard to understand how this guy became the Prime Minister of Japan."
Lu Mingze sat aside, holding his phone and repeatedly scrolling through the relevant news, muttering: "So Lu Mingfei really became the prime minister, that's really... I've never seen anything like this in my life." His tone was a little excited, but also mixed with a lot of doubt.
My aunt curled her lips and said, "Don't think he is honest. He might have done something bad without telling us."
"Can't you hope for something good?" Lu Gucheng waved his hand impatiently. "No matter what, Mingfei is a member of our Lu family now. It's considered prestigious if we tell others about it."
"What's the use of saving face? People from the National Security Bureau have come to our door. This matter is probably not simple." Aunt rolled her eyes, her tone full of worry, "If Ming Fei gets into any big trouble, our Lu family will definitely be in trouble."
The air became quiet again. Only the faint light from Lu Mingze's mobile phone screen was reflected on his face. He stared at the news pictures. Lu Mingfei on the screen was standing on a high platform with a calm face and deep eyes, as if he had completely become another person.
"What on earth have you been through?" He whispered to himself, sliding his finger across the screen, enlarging a photo to the maximum. He tried to find a familiar shadow in the photo, but found that the indifference and composure on that face was no longer the Lu Mingfei in his memory.
At the same time, in a conference room at the NSA headquarters, several agents were discussing a thick report.
"Lu Mingfei, this person's background is indeed problematic." A middle-aged agent pointed at the file on the projection screen and said, "He was born in an ordinary family, and his growth trajectory was normal. But just over a year ago, he suddenly disappeared. When he reappeared, he became the current Prime Minister of Japan, but we can't find any information about his parents."
"Moreover," another agent added as he flipped through the documents in his hand, "we found no record of him changing his nationality, nor any signs that he was supported by the Japanese government. His political resources and connections are completely blank."
(End of this chapter)
