HPDBC Chapter 221 Crimson
Chapter 221 Crimson
Presidential Suite, 47th floor, Keio Plaza Hotel, Shinjuku.
The ground was in mess.
Large, dark brown stains stained the Persian handmade wool carpet. A bottle of Romanée-Conti, costing tens of thousands of yen, along with a broken glass goblet, was carelessly smashed on the basalt floor tiles.
On the 29-inch color television screen in silent mode, the colorful lights and shadows of a late-night variety show flickered wildly in the dimly lit suite, alternately projecting onto the oil paintings on the wall.
"Where's the woman?! I spent a million! Why hasn't the PR person I hired arrived yet?!"
Matsuura was shirtless, revealing his chest covered in thick muscles and a Kansai blue dragon tattoo. He roughly pulled on the telephone cord, yelling into the receiver, spittle flying onto the black plastic microphone.
"If you don't deliver it within five minutes, I'll have your shop burned down!"
"Smack!" He slammed the receiver hard against the base, a corner of the plastic casing flying off. He grabbed a stack of ten thousand yuan bills from the coffee table and tossed them into the air like waste paper.
"I'm rich!! Rich!!!"
Green Fukuzawa Yukichi banknotes fluttered down, and a few landed right on Kudo's face.
The former section chief of the trading company sat sprawled among broken glass and food scraps. He had his silk tie, a symbol of the middle class, tightly bound around his forehead, like a comical drunkard. His bare feet, smeared with mud from the alleyway, trod on an expensive carpet.
He was clutching a handful of purple sea urchins air-freighted from Hokkaido, stuffing them haphazardly into his mouth. The orange-yellow juice dripped down his chin and into his open shirt collar, exuding the fishy smell of the sea.
"Hahahaha! Eat it! I've never eaten such expensive fish roe in my entire life!" Kudo laughed maniacally as he chewed, tears mingling with the mud on his face. "Five million in public funds is nothing! Tonight, I'm going to eat up the entire reimbursement amount from the trading company!"
Kudo grabbed a bottle of champagne from the table and poured it directly over his head. The cold liquid flowed down his thinning hair, making him shiver.
"That feels great! To be a dead man who doesn't have to pay back his debts is fucking awesome!"
Katayama slumped in the armchair by the floor-to-ceiling window. He had already removed the bandages because he found them cumbersome, completely ignoring his right hand, whose pale bone fragments were still exposed to the air. His perfectly intact left hand simply used his teeth to bite open the cork of a bottle of high-proof vodka.
He raised the bottle and toasted the bustling night view outside the window.
"40,000 points? Let it rise! Let the whole of Tokyo explode!"
He tilted his head back and poured most of the bottle of liquor directly over his head. The icy vodka splashed onto his hair, mixing with the muddy water as it flowed down. The high concentration of alcohol seeped into the wound on his severed right finger, triggering a piercing pain.
Katayama's features were contorted in agony, yet his laughter grew increasingly shrill.
He staggered to his feet, raising his bloodied and mangled right hand. He pressed the pad of his index finger against the cold, floor-to-ceiling glass curtain wall.
"squeak--"
The blood dragged across the smooth glass surface, making a teeth-grinding scraping sound.
The crooked Greek letters were written out stroke by stroke.
He was using his own blood to recreate the perfect model that would bankrupt him, over and over again.
"Delta...Gamma...Theta..." Katayama muttered absentmindedly, drawing blood-red symbols. "Everything was right...everything was within the range...but Wall Street pulled the plug...hahahaha!"
"Bang!"
A dull thud rang out without warning.
The heavy entryway door of the suite was shoved open from the outside, the door slamming heavily against the wall's safety mat. The cool air from the hallway rushed into the room through the open door, instantly dispelling the lingering smell of alcohol.
The cheers paused for a moment.
Matsuura stopped roaring, Kudo forgot to chew, and Katayama's bloodstained fingers stopped on the glass. The three of them turned their heads at the same time, looking towards the entrance.
A woman, supporting herself on the door frame, stumbled and stepped onto the thick wool carpet.
The well-tailored, dark Chanel tweed suit was stained with a mixture of vomit and some unknown liquid. She clutched a half-empty bottle of martini tightly in her right hand, her red-soled high heels twisting and turning on the soft carpet.
She was completely drunk, her vision blurred, and she had no idea whose room she had entered.
Matsuura's bloodshot eyes suddenly lit up. He swayed his massive body and scrambled to his feet off the carpet.
Alcohol completely clouded his judgment. Looking at the disheveled yet aloof woman before him, he naturally assumed she was a top-tier escort arranged by the hotel's room service.
"Hahaha! Finally here!" Matsuura strode forward. He roughly pulled a crumpled wad of ten thousand yen bills from his pocket and rudely threw them at the woman's face. "Come here and keep me company! I've got you covered tonight!"
The banknotes slapped against the woman's pale cheeks.
Ten-thousand-yuan bills fluttered down like a green blizzard, scattering across the entryway floor.
The woman stood frozen in place. She blinked sluggishly, her gaze sweeping over the banknotes scattered on the ground, then over Matsuura's broad shoulders, to Kudo rolling on the ground and Katayama with his hands covered in blood.
A full five seconds passed.
The pride of a senior manager at a foreign investment bank, her Ivy League degree, and the poise of commanding from her penthouse office in the Midtown Tower—these so-called "elite self-esteem" that had sustained her for half her life shattered the moment she saw the pile of scrap paper and the group of men who resembled wild beasts.
The woman's shoulders began to heave violently.
"Hahaha...hahahaha!" The woman burst into maniacal laughter, a laugh filled with extreme self-destruction. A few tears welled up in the corners of her eyes from the intense laughter.
She kicked her right foot back sharply.
"Thump."
An expensive high heel slipped off her foot and flew off, landing on the wooden veneer in the entryway.
Barefoot, stepping on piles of ten thousand yuan in banknotes, she staggered to the coffee table. She plopped down on the leather sofa, stained with oil and wine, letting the stains soil her skirt.
She picked up a newly opened bottle of whiskey from the coffee table.
The bottle was tilted slightly, and the amber-colored liquor was poured precisely into the crystal glass that Matsuura had just used.
"Boss, your wine."
The woman raised her glass, flashing Matsuura an extremely bright yet utterly empty professional smile. She had completely accepted this absurd "hostess" role. On this night destined for destruction, the boundaries of identity became meaningless.
Katayama leaned against the floor-to-ceiling window, the vodka in his left hand hovering in mid-air.
On the glass curtain wall, half of a blood-red Sigma (Σ) symbol remains.
He narrowed his empty eyes slightly, scrutinizing the woman's smudged makeup and the tattered state of her business suit. The light shone on her profile, and gradually, the murky madness in Katayama's eyes was replaced by an utterly absurd clarity.
"Hahaha! Look! Look!"
Katayama suddenly pointed at the woman and burst into laughter. A violent cough interrupted his laughter; he clutched his stomach with his left hand, caught his breath, and then loudly mocked her in a shrill voice.
"Ms. Saki, Senior Account Manager, Salomon Brothers Asia!"
Katayama dragged his feet toward the sofa, his eyes filled with a morbid excitement and disdain.
"Last month's cover story in Toyo Keizai Weekly... 'Wall Street's most beautiful spokesperson in Tokyo.' Haha... I went to your recruitment event at Keio University! You were standing on that stage, teaching us how to leverage the world..."
Katayama stood in front of the coffee table, looking down at Saki, laughing until tears streamed down his face.
"A senior manager from a foreign investment bank is actually pouring drinks for a bricklayer foreman here!"
"Hey lady! Your hidden leverage went bust too, didn't it? All those client funds you had vanished without a trace, didn't they? You're a total loser, just like us!"
Saki listened to Katayama's shrill, maniacal laughter.
She held the martini bottle, her fingertips lightly rubbing the bottle twice.
"Heh...hehe."
She tilted her head back and let out a self-deprecating laugh, thick with the smell of alcohol. She looked at Katayama, whose face, though her makeup was ruined, still wore that extremely self-deprecating, seductive smile, as if she didn't care at all that her disguise had been torn off in public.
"Yeah... I'm just trash."
She laughed as she poured the martini from the bottle directly down her throat.
The spicy liquor slid into my stomach.
With each swallow, the seductive smile on her face could no longer be maintained. The smile gradually peeled away from the corners of her eyes and crumbled.
Tears mixed with smudged mascara slid down her pale cheeks, leaving two black tear tracks.
"Special Gold Investment Products." Saki's voice was unusually calm, instantly cutting off Katayama's maniacal laughter. "The entire base position has collapsed. The higher-ups cut off the bailout funds and flew to Hawaii with all the cash."
She lowered her eyes, looking at her hands, which were trembling slightly from the alcohol.
"They left my signature. All the authorization documents are covered in my name."
Saki's lips curled into a cold, bitter smile.
"The Special Investigation Department will issue the arrest warrant first thing tomorrow morning. My photo will be on the front page of the social section."
She turned her head, her gaze sweeping over Matsuura holding the empty wine glass, over Kudo whose face was covered in mud, and finally landing on Katayama's right hand with the missing finger.
"The principal of hundreds of clients turned to ashes in an instant."
Saki's voice gradually lowered, trembling slightly with suppressed emotion.
"I personally...threw my parents' pension and my high school teacher's retirement savings into the fire."
Saki's experience was like a bucket of cold water mixed with ice shards, instantly extinguishing all the madness and frenzy in the suite.
Yes, we're just scraps, why don't we hurry up and die?
The comedians on the television screen continue to fall and get up silently.
But in that instant, the air in the room dropped to zero degrees Celsius.
Matsuura's hand, holding the wine glass, froze in mid-air. The fat on his face twitched slightly, and his bloodshot eyes stared blankly at Saki.
Kudo stopped chewing. He opened his mouth, and a piece of raw beef, smeared with soy sauce, slipped from the corner of his mouth and fell onto the wool carpet.
Katayama lowered his hand from Saki. He staggered a couple of steps and slumped into the single sofa next to him, the vodka bottle slipping from his hand and spilling into the carpet fibers.
Four people who originally came from completely different social classes.
A real estate tycoon controlling two billion dollars. A middle manager in a trading company desperately trying to maintain a respectable image. A brilliant but arrogant college student. A female financial elite who frequents the world of fame and fortune.
They... are all the same kind.
The collapse of physical leverage. The abyss of embezzlement. The devouring power of options trading. The trap of trust scams.
They finally understood. In the face of this massive and cold financial meat grinder, they weren't even prey. What they each perceived as their "personal tragedy" was all an inevitable product of the same grand deception.
They were all just a few drops of waste lubricating oil, ruthlessly discarded after the machine had squeezed out all their remaining value.
The room fell completely silent.
No one complained anymore. No one cried anymore. And no one offered a word of comfort.
A strange, almost unspoken understanding, seemingly originating from the depths of their souls, quietly emerged among these four dying men.
All the struggles were in vain.
The heart is dead; only the physical body, still lingering in the human world, needs to be dealt with.
Saki took a deep breath.
She opened the handbag studded with diamonds and took out a bright red Chanel lipstick.
Saki slowly twisted the lipstick, applying it crookedly to herself, before turning around and walking to the entrance.
He bent down and picked up the two red-soled high heels that he had just kicked away.
The lipstick left a red mark on her face, but she ignored it, casually tossed the lipstick aside, and walked to the corner by the French windows with her shoes.
The toe of the right foot touches the heel of the left shoe, bringing the two shoes together. The toes of the shoes point outwards, arranged meticulously.
Kudo slowly stood up from the carpet.
He walked to the sofa and picked up the dark blue custom-made trench coat that was stained with mud from the alley.
With his grimy hands, he carefully smoothed out every wrinkle on the collar of his overcoat. He folded the coat in half, then in half again, until the edges were perfectly aligned.
He walked over to Saki's shoes and laid the neatly folded trench coat flat on the clean wooden floor.
Matsuura roughly ripped off the loose tie from his neck and tossed it onto the coffee table.
He bent down, took off his custom-made Italian leather shoes, and placed them next to his trench coat. His bare feet touched the warm, smooth wooden floor. His massive frame, like a black iron tower, strode towards the floor-to-ceiling window.
Katayama stood up from the single sofa.
With his undamaged left hand, he took out the gold Dupont lighter he used for lighting cigarettes from his pocket. He walked to Kudo's trench coat, bent down, and gently placed the cool metal lighter on top of the coat.
The four people completed their final rituals in this world.
Saki arrived at the floor-to-ceiling window.
She reached out her right hand and grasped the heavy metal handle of the French window. She suddenly exerted force with her wrist.
"Splash—"
The glass door slid open to one side.
The torrential winter rain, mixed with the biting wind from 170 meters above the ground, instantly poured into the suite.
The warmth, the aroma of wine, and the last vestiges of human presence inside were completely shattered by the fierce wind.
The wind tousled Saki's short hair.
Without any hesitation, she stepped barefoot onto the spacious terrace.
Matsuura, Kudo, and Katayama. The three men silently followed behind her as they left the warm interior.
Four people.
They were lined up in a row.
They stepped onto the cold, rain-soaked tiles, standing on the edge of the low protective wall.
The wind howled and tore at their clothes. Rain streamed down their faces, blurring their vision.
Below, the bizarre and dazzling Tokyo resembles a monster with its jaws wide open.
"See you in hell, everyone."
Saki tidied the stray hairs at her temples that had been ruffled by the wind. Her tone was flat.
"I'll treat everyone to the first drink when we get down."
Matsuura's rough voice dissipated in the wind and rain, instantly swallowed up by the sound of the wind high in the sky.
"Uncle, do you have any money left if you go downstairs?"
Katayama chuckled dismissively.
Kudo did not speak.
Four people. At the same time.
Lean forward.
Toes leave the hard concrete edge. Center of gravity crosses the boundary of the protective wall.
come down.
The intense feeling of weightlessness instantly emptied my internal organs. The wind howled sharply in my ears, then strangely fell into an eerie silence.
One hundred and seventy meters. A physical gap of four and a half seconds.
Time was stretched infinitely during the rapid descent, collapsing into a bizarre and lengthy dream.
The building's glass curtain wall is stretched by the eye into a gray waterfall soaring upwards. Below, the neon sea of Shinjuku's Kabukicho melts completely onto the retina.
The red, blue, and purple halos completely lost their inherent boundaries. The colors twisted, intertwined, and swirled wildly in the black rain curtain, transforming into a huge, viscous, colorful vortex that rushed towards us.
All physical contours collapsed at that moment.
The city lights were forcibly shattered in a state of weightlessness, turning into countless glowing fragments that floated upwards against the current.
The blinding ball of light filled the entire field of vision at an extremely terrifying speed, until it swallowed up the body and consciousness together.
……
Everything fell silent.
The relentless winter rain continued to wash over the cold asphalt road.
Amidst the hazy reflections of those red, blue, and purple neon signs, an indelible crimson hue was added.