Chapter 42: When Will the Cycle of Vengeance End?

Wee-woo! Wee-woo! Wee-woo!
An ambulance quickly arrived at the wedding venue, rushing a bleeding Matsumoto Sayuri off to the hospital for emergency treatment.
A forensics officer from the crime lab reported, "Inspector Megure, we found a partially dissolved capsule inside Ms. Matsumoto's lemon tea, and traces of sodium hydroxide were detected inside it."
"What?!"
Upon hearing this, both Inspector Megure and Matsumoto Kiyonaga turned pale with horror.
A capsule filled with poison hidden in the lemon tea meant this was no simple accident; someone had deliberately poisoned Matsumoto Sayuri.
Sensing the terrifying aura of rage emanating from Matsumoto Kiyonaga, Inspector Megure hurriedly asked Mouri Ran, "Ran, apart from Sayuri, did anyone else touch that pitcher of lemon tea just now?"
"Inspector Megure, you don't need to ask Ran-姐姐—I already know who the culprit is!" Suzuki Seimei suddenly grabbed Takasugi Toshihiko's right hand and shouted with absolute certainty, "The culprit is this guy!"
"Ding! Congratulations on successfully signing in with Takasugi Toshihiko. Reward: 1 point of mental energy. The host may claim it at any time."
"Little brother, stop talking nonsense! How could I possibly poison Sayuri?" Takasugi Toshihiko forcefully shook off Suzuki Seimei's hand, deliberately putting on an aggrieved and indignant expression.
Seeing this, Sonoko's expression shifted slightly, and she couldn't help asking, "Seimei, did you actually see him put the poison in?"
Sonoko placed a great deal of trust in her younger brother's words. Furthermore, given Suzuki Seimei's precocious nature, he would never joke about a matter like this.
Suzuki Seimei pointed right at Takasugi Toshihiko's nose and scolded, "Although I didn't see this bad guy put the poison in, the only person who could make Sister Sayuri willingly drink the poison is this guy right here!"
"What?! You're saying Teacher Matsumoto drank the poison on purpose?" Mouri Ran cried out in involuntary shock.
"When sodium hydroxide dissolves in water, it generates a tremendous amount of heat and severely corrodes human tissue. Unless Sister Sayuri had absolutely no sense of pain or touch, how could she possibly fail to notice something was wrong with the lemon tea? Only an idiot would choose sodium hydroxide for poisoning!"
Suzuki Seimei looked up, glaring fixedly at Takasugi Toshihiko's drastically altered expression, and shouted with furious indignation, "Although I don't know why Sister Sayuri would do such a thing, if I hadn't knocked the lemon tea out of her hand in time, she might actually have died.
I don't know what kind of bewitching spell you cast on Sister Sayuri, bastard, to make her willingly die for a man like you!"
Before Takasugi Toshihiko could recover his wits, Matsumoto Kiyonaga grabbed him by the collar and demanded in a frenzy of rage, "Bastard! Why did you do this? Why did you hurt my daughter?!"
If Matsumoto Kiyonaga hadn't been a disciplined and competent police officer, he would have desperately wanted to put a bullet straight through Takasugi Toshihiko's head.
Hahaha...
Looking at Matsumoto Kiyonaga's hateful face, Takasugi Toshihiko suddenly burst into frantic, unhinged laughter.
"I wanted to make you taste the exact same feeling I went through—the feeling of losing a loved one!" Takasugi Toshihiko said with a vicious glare. "Do you remember? Twenty years ago, while you were chasing a fugitive, the criminal's car suddenly came crashing through, resulting in the death of my innocent mother!
At the time, my mother was still alive. If you had immediately used your police car to rush her to the hospital, she might have been saved.
Yet you bastards only cared about chasing the fugitive and completely ignored my pleas. Fifteen minutes later, I could only watch helplessly as my mother took her final breath right before my eyes.
I will never forget your cold and merciless face for the rest of my life."
Upon hearing this, Inspector Megure felt a pang of sympathy for Takasugi Toshihiko and couldn't help asking, "Chief, is this true?"
"..."
Faced with Takasugi Toshihiko's deeply resentful gaze, Matsumoto Kiyonaga wore an expression of profound self-reproach and guilt. He sighed and said, "That's right. Back then, I was solely focused on pursuing the criminal and completely failed to notice that there was another person beneath the criminal's car. I only found out about the accident afterward. I tried to look for him later, but they had already moved away."
For Matsumoto Kiyonaga, that accident from the past had always been one of his deepest regrets.
Because a police officer's primary objective is to protect innocent civilians rather than chase criminals, had he known at the time that Takasugi Toshihiko's mother had been struck by a car, he undoubtedly would have chosen to save her first.
"I had no other family besides my mother. Back then, I was adopted by the Takasugi family, who had no children of their own, and became their adopted son." Seeing Matsumoto Kiyonaga's tormented expression, Takasugi Toshihiko said with a cold sneer, "It wasn't until seven years ago that I met Sayuri. When I found out she was your daughter, I could no longer control the urge for revenge burning in my heart."
"If that's the case, why didn't you just kill me instead? Why..." Realizing that Takasugi Toshihiko's goal was to exact revenge on him, Matsumoto Kiyonaga was consumed by a self-blame so intense it brought him to the verge of a breakdown.
To be honest, even if Takasugi Toshihiko had shot him dead on the spot, Matsumoto Kiyonaga probably wouldn't have blamed him, because he truly bore an inescapable responsibility for that accident years ago.
However, what Matsumoto Kiyonaga could not accept was that Takasugi Toshihiko had poisoned his own daughter, and on her wedding day of all days—the happiest day of a woman's life.
This was psychological torture of the most cruel and devastating kind!
"I wanted to make you experience firsthand the agony of losing the person you cherish most. That foolish woman Sayuri probably still doesn't know that my true purpose in proposing to her was simply to get back at you..."
"No! You're wrong, Toshihiko." Hearing this, Takenaka Kazumi couldn't help interrupting Takasugi Toshihiko. She shook her head and said, "Actually, Sayuri knew your true identity long ago, and she knew about the accident from the past as well."
"Impossible! If she knew my true identity, why would she have agreed to my proposal?!" Takasugi Toshihiko flatly refused to believe Takenaka Kazumi's words, nor could he believe that a woman as naive as Matsumoto Sayuri existed in this world.
"Don't you understand yet? Have you forgotten your first love from twenty years ago? Weren't you always deeply nostalgic for that first love of yours who loved drinking lemon water?"
Takenaka Kazumi said with a face full of anguish, "Sayuri was your first love, and she had never forgotten you either.
The very first time she laid eyes on you, she already suspected your identity, so she specifically asked me to help investigate your background.
I knew that both of you had been longing for each other for twenty years and couldn't let go of the past in your hearts, which is why I chose to step aside and fulfill your happiness. But I never expected... never expected..."