Chapter Sixty-One: Movement

After flipping through several other newspapers, Wei Hua found that nearly all of them featured Ishii Kazumitsu's statement on their front pages, followed by a plethora of commentaries. What infuriated Wei Hua the most was that many of these commentaries actually supported Ishii Kazumitsu’s views. The sheer shamelessness of it all made Wei Hua’s blood boil. How could people like this even deserve to exist in this world? Wasn’t this Ishii Kazumitsu the same man with close ties to Goro Mori, the real mastermind behind the Black Dragon Society? Last time, Wei Hua had dealt with the Black Dragon Society and Goro Mori; it seemed this time it was Ishii Kazumitsu’s turn. Suddenly, while scrutinizing the newspaper again, another name caught his attention—“Japanese Youth Association.” As expected, this right-wing organization had jumped into the fray.

Wei Hua’s original goal in coming to Japan was to eradicate the notorious right-wing groups: the Black Dragon Society and the Japanese Youth Association. Now that the Black Dragon Society was nothing but ashes on the wind, it was time for the Japanese Youth Association to meet its end.

Before Wei Hua could go looking for Hirayuki Kinoshita, Kinoshita himself called his office. The first thing Kinoshita asked was, “Wei Hua! Have you read today’s newspaper?” Suppressing his anger, Wei Hua replied as calmly as possible, “I was just reading it.”

“These people are absolutely shameless! In 1972, when we restored normal diplomatic relations with the Chinese government, we had an agreement—the Diaoyu Islands issue would be resolved when the time was right. Now, with China and Japan discussing the signing of a Peace and Friendship Treaty, this Ishii Kazumitsu brings up the Diaoyu Islands again. He clearly wants to sabotage the treaty! This can’t go on—there must be peace and friendship between China and Japan. Not only do the Chinese need it, but so do we Japanese. We must strike back against this kind of rhetoric!”

“This is better left to you,” Wei Hua replied. “As an outsider, my words carry little weight. It’s you progressive Japanese leftists who need to stand up and refute these arguments.”

“You’re right! I got so worked up I lost my head. I’ll get in touch with all the progressive figures, organizations, and parties supporting Sino-Japanese friendship. We’ll organize a massive protest rally to denounce these right-wing troublemakers!” Without waiting for Wei Hua’s response, Kinoshita hung up. Wei Hua shook his head with a smile—Kinoshita was a good man, just a little too impatient.

Kinoshita was going to mount a non-violent protest, but Wei Hua was preparing to use more forceful means to put an end to this farce. This time, he planned a grand spectacle, a show the Japanese would never forget.

To facilitate his plan, Wei Hua learned to drive and bought a brand-new Honda. Every day, he would drive aimlessly around Tokyo, searching for the whereabouts of right-wing figures like Ishii Kazumitsu, Nobu Oda, and Kohei Matsumoto. For a politician such as Ishii Kazumitsu, tracking his movements was not difficult. Soon, Wei Hua had his daily schedule, habits, and preferences down to a science. Because Ishii Kazumitsu had brazenly aired his views on the Diaoyu Islands, Wei Hua decided not to assassinate him. If he did, the right-wingers would certainly blame radical Chinese elements for his death. Wei Hua had no intention of giving them such an opportunity.

By day, Wei Hua located the homes of these right-wingers. By night, after his three women had fallen asleep, he would slip out, break into their residences, and use his formidable “Soul-Gathering Art” to interrogate them, uncovering their criminal dealings in meticulous detail. He would then copy evidence of their corruption, bribery, and illicit dealings with major conglomerates, taking the originals and leaving behind the duplicates. With the power of the Soul-Gathering Art, these right-wingers never realized their incriminating documents were gone. It was through these interrogations that Wei Hua also gathered intelligence on the Japanese Youth Association.

The Japanese Youth Association was a militant right-wing organization with several thousand members and branches in more than a dozen locations across Japan. This radical youth group was led by several members of the Japanese Youth Council, with the current chairman being Sakamoto Toshiyoshi—a fervent militarist. Years ago, Sakamoto had applied to enter the Japanese Self-Defense Forces but was rejected, after which he began proclaiming that the Self-Defense Forces were no longer true Japanese soldiers, just a pack of useless cowards. Other council members included Kimiyoshi Murayama, Saburo Kurihara, Taro Ritsuo, and Takahira Kawano, all notorious right-wing militants who spent their days clamoring for a Second East Asian Holy War. (Note: The details of the Japanese Youth Association are fictional and cannot be found online.)

Wei Hua resolved to eradicate the Japanese Youth Association completely. He devised a cunning plan, and by mid-February 1978, all preparations were complete. It was time to act.

On February 21, all the major Japanese newspapers received the same explosive news: Senator Nobu Oda had hanged himself in his mistress’s home, leaving behind a suicide note. In it, Oda wrote that he had taken his own life because he was being threatened by certain forces who wanted to use him to accomplish things he deemed impossible. At first, Oda had refused, but these forces possessed evidence of his years of corruption, bribery, and illicit dealings with powerful conglomerates, so he had been compelled to do their bidding—buying off other senators among other tasks. But these people were never satisfied, giving him increasingly impossible missions. Recently, they’d even threatened the lives of his family, coercing him to sabotage the ongoing Sino-Japanese Peace and Friendship Treaty negotiations, their goal being to prevent the treaty’s signing. In his note, Oda revealed that Ishii Kazumitsu’s recent statement in parliament had been his idea, forced upon Ishii because he had evidence of Ishii’s own corruption.

Japan was in an uproar! Several members of parliament embroiled in a corruption scandal—such cases had not been seen in years. This time, the media broke the news before the police even arrived at Oda’s mistress’s residence, and the contents of the suicide note had already spread. Even if the Japanese government had wanted to suppress the story, it was now impossible.

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