Persona: Devil Summoner

Teacher Sadyo Kawakami came to visit him today, which surprised him a lot.

"Um, Mr. Maruki... this is what happened to my friend..."

Kawakami Sadayo mumbled and stammered, and it was a classic opening. Maruki Takuto was brewing tea while thinking to himself: (It seems that this is Kawakami-sensei's business.)

This is what is called speaking from experience.

Thinking of this, Maruki Takuto couldn't help but recall a few days ago, when it was here that Jiang Tianwei talked to him about the accumulation of experience.

Unexpectedly, he would be able to use his experience so quickly. Based on his long experience as a psychologist, whenever someone says "this is my friend's business", it is almost 100% the person's business.

Especially Mr. Kawakami's series of little expressions, which simply wrote "This is my business" on his face.

"So, Mr. Kawakami, what is it like?"

"Ah...well...that's it, my...my friend, she, she is also a teacher. She is about the same age as me. And then, one day, a student suddenly told her that he liked her..."

"Oh, that's a very beloved teacher."

"Um, no, no, the like that students talk about is not the kind of like in the broad sense, not like, but the kind of love..."

The more Mr. Kawakami spoke, the redder his face became, and the more embarrassed his expression became.

She didn't know much about psychology, but Maruki Takuto knew a lot about it. Often, when people can't make up their minds, they are willing to flip a coin to decide, which is very normal.

However, sometimes, after people toss a coin and see the result, they will try their best to find various reasons to convince themselves to toss it again.

When people have this mentality, it means that they are more willing to accept the other side's situation from the bottom of their hearts. It is exactly the same as Mr. Kawakami's current situation.

Maruki Takuto knew very well that if Teacher Kawakami had no feelings for the boy, she would have rejected him neatly or laughed it off. Only when she really wanted to date and marry the boy would she keep trying to find the problem.

She thought her current problem was [she was confused and didn’t know what to do], but Maruki Takuto keenly noticed that her problem should be correctly described as [she wanted to accept it, but couldn’t accept it directly because of the teacher-student relationship, and because there was no way to solve it, she was confused and didn’t know what to do.]

In today's society, which encourages true love, age gap is not a problem. However, the management of forbidden relationships such as teacher-student love is very strict. Basically, as long as such rumors spread, the teacher is considered socially dead.

Listening to Teacher Kawakami's intermittent description of the situation, Maruki Takuto responded incoherently, nodded from time to time, and occasionally praised her.

Teacher Kawakami was also under too much pressure. She couldn't tell anyone else about this forbidden relationship. The result of keeping this matter in her heart was that her mental stress was increasing. Today, she was able to talk to Teacher Maruki about it, and she felt a little relieved.

Seeing how distressed she was, Maruki Takuto swallowed his saliva and prepared to say to her, "If you hesitate, you will suffer the consequences. Some things are better to be done quickly..."

This is what Maruki Takuto always does.

Since it has been determined that he may get hurt in the future because of his choice, then of course it is better to try every means to avoid it, right? With his strength, judging from how thoroughly he hypnotized Yoshizawa Sumire, it is very easy to make Kawakami completely give up this relationship.

However, before he could say anything, he felt his throat was dry, as if it was resisting saying it... His glasses had just been smoked by the hot tea and were now fogged up. In the blur, he could still clearly see Kawakami Sadyo's expression, that special expression that was a mixture of [expectation for conclusion], [fear of argument], and [reluctance to accept reality].

(Ah…Is that so…)

For a moment, the appearance of Mr. Kawakami overlapped with someone in his memory.

"It's okay, Mr. Kawakami."

He smiled slightly and said the comforting words most commonly used by psychologists.

"Everything will be fine. After all, whether it's a teacher-student relationship or worldly prejudice, those two really love each other, right? You see, that always appears in stories, right? Two people who love each other regardless of everything."

Takuto Maruki himself didn't quite know what he was saying. As a psychologist, he had now lost control of his emotions and was just speaking out of passion.

"Don't worry, this world is not as cruel as you think."

Maruki Takuto already had an idea in mind.

He hates pain, so he doesn't want anyone to suffer, and the seeds of pain must be nipped in the bud as early as possible.

But, on the other hand, just like Jiang Tianwei had shown him another option for Fang Ze Jin before, he also thought, could he change his thinking occasionally?

Teacher-student love equals pain.

This is natural, because of ethics and secular views, and this will inevitably lead to tragedy for both people.

The simplest way to resolve this tragedy is to make the two people in love forget each other.

But... isn't there another method that, although it takes a roundabout way, is very effective?

As long as...ethical morals and secular views change and people think that teacher-student love is not so unforgivable, can't we have a happy ending?

Or... to put it more simply, there is no need for them to change, as long as they [turn a blind eye to teacher-student love], isn't that fine?

Maruki Takuto's essence has not changed. He is still the gentle psychologist who doesn't want anyone to get hurt. But, in order to avoid getting hurt, he can occasionally try to take some detours and choose some troublesome things, right? After all, he likes to see other people "get happiness" the most.

(Don't worry, Mr. Kawakami, everything will be fine. There will be a happy ending. Otherwise... her sacrifice will... I will make everyone happy.)

The glasses that were smoked by the white mist gradually lost their confusing color. Maruki Takuto looked at Teacher Kawakami again with gentle eyes, and a smile even gentler than before appeared on his face.

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 367 Those who are willing to seek your skin are not necessarily tigers

In a nutshell, the reputation of the Phantom Thieves has been rising rapidly. Now it has gone beyond being popular and can be said to be known to everyone.

Does anyone remember that Mishima Yuki once made a Phantom Thieves website? There was a voting function on it. Now, the support rate for the Phantom Thieves has soared to over 80% of the preview number.

Recently, even the super hacker organization Medjed that caused the Tokyo blackout, the super villain organization that was domineering all over the world and that countries all said they could do nothing about, has now been solved by the Phantom Thieves!

Although we didn't see the hackers crying in front of the camera, everyone always felt like something was missing - just like not having a birthday cake on your birthday. But considering the current environment of internal competition among modern people, there's nothing particularly wrong with not having the energy to buy a cake for yourself to celebrate.

Apart from anything else, Medjay is a hacker organization, and its official website was hacked by thieves, which is enough to make people imagine.

I have said before that what people need most of the time is not the truth, but the truth as I think it is. Did Medjade have his heart changed, did he cry bitterly? It is not important. Based on past experience, everyone can imagine these people kneeling in front of the computer and crying loudly. It is not important whether you have actually seen it.

What’s even more satisfying is that Interpol immediately issued a notice to the world, saying that it had arrested more than 90% of Medjay’s members, and that Medjay was already dead in name only.

From a news perspective, these two pieces of news actually have no causal relationship, but the timing is so close that people still [think] this is the masterpiece of the Phantom Thieves.

Of course, from a factual point of view, this is not wrong. It's just that the derivation process is a bit problematic. Fortunately, mathematics is just a subject and not the foundation of everything. Otherwise, this kind of derivation with only the correct answer and completely wrong process would be worth only one point at most.

"Oh my, you are indeed the Phantom Thieves. I didn't even do anything and you won."

In a jazz bar, the handsome and famous detective, Goro Akechi, was expressing such sentiments.

As a detective, he certainly wouldn't talk to himself. Opposite him was Jiang Tianwei.

The two of them also sat in the corner of the jazz bar today, and as if looking for trouble, they each ordered a soda at the bar.

The two of them clinked their glasses, drank the cool juice inside, and let out a long sigh at the same time.

Seeing that he didn't say anything, Akechi Goro took the initiative to ask: "So, how did you give Medjade to..."

"do not know."

Jiang Tianwei spread his hands innocently, looking confused: "You know what I mean. I know nothing about programming. If you ask me to destroy a computer with my bare hands, I can do it, but if you ask me to write a program to destroy a computer, I can't do it."

"Then you are really a man..."

Goro Akechi looked at Jiang Tianwei's right hand wearing a black glove. Although there are always GIFs of macho men smashing monitors with one punch on the Internet, in fact, it still takes some strength to break a computer (especially a desktop computer) with bare hands.

(He didn’t wear gloves before… Why did he suddenly start wearing gloves recently… Is it because he saw me wearing them? Or does he want to avoid leaving fingerprints like me?)

Goro Akechi noticed this detail.

However, no matter how he reasoned, he could not have imagined that this was because Jiang Tianwei had performed brilliantly in the Demon War and was now covered in blue-gray lines... How should I put it... Has anyone seen a circuit board? The lines on Jiang Tianwei's body were like circuit boards.

Because the area is so large, Jiang Tianwei thought about preparing a piece of artificial skin to cover it. But Wu Jianmiao calculated the cost for him, and Jiang Tianwei suddenly felt that having a tattoo is not a bad thing, it is also a kind of masculinity!

Regardless of the random thoughts in Akechi Goro's mind, Jiang Tianwei took another sip of soda, exhaled a mouthful of carbon dioxide, and said, "I originally thought that Akechi-kun would help me deal with Meijed, but it turns out that you don't know either?"

"Ahahaha, they are a world-class hacker group after all - wait, did I just miss a great opportunity to 'brush up my favorability'?"

"Yes."

"Well, I regret it. Can I take back what I just said?"

"Please."

"Thank you. Ahem, well, actually, I helped capture Medjed."

"Hahaha, actually I was the one who dealt with Medjed. I flew to Italy specially to crush them."

Jiang Tianwei said this, fanning his hands on both sides, as if to express that he had grown wings and flew over. This action made Akechi Goro burst into laughter: "Haha, how is it possible - are we talking about manzai?"

Akechi Goro and Jiang Tianwei looked at each other, and both of them smiled as bright as the spring breeze.

You see, the trust between people is sometimes so thin. Jiang Tianwei clearly told the truth, but Mingzhi didn't believe it and just thought it was a joke.

"Speaking of which, are you okay?"

Jiang Tianwei asked. As he said this, he opened his mobile phone and randomly clicked on a video of Goro Akechi. It was full of comments and messages greeting Goro Akechi, his family, and their ancestors.

It is easy to imagine that now that the Phantom Thieves have become the mainstream, people like Goro Akechi who once criticized the Phantom Thieves have naturally become pariahs.

Even though Goro Akechi has stopped making similar remarks and has even begun to speak in support of the Phantom Thieves, it is already too late.

Some people still dug out Goro Akechi's old videos, posted them, and gave them funny titles to entertain the public.

People quoted Goro Akechi's past hostility towards the Phantom Thieves as irrefutable evidence to convict him.

People dug up Goro Akechi's later comments in support of the Kaito, compared them one by one with his previous videos, and angrily criticized him for being two-faced.

Some people even copied Goro Akechi's words and repeatedly posted them under various Phantom Thieves' videos. Now there are so-called "Akechi Quotations" - if you don't know, you might think that the Meiji Restoration has begun to revive in this era...

Goro Akechi laughed and said, "If we care about rumors, we public figures won't be able to survive - but it's true that because of these rumors, I don't have much work now. It's a good opportunity for me to participate in the work here~"

Goro Akechi clearly hinted that Jiang Tianwei could take him with him on the mission.

Jiang Tianwei didn't give him any face, and said with a smile: "It's not that there is no work here, it's that we don't have a target right now. We are righteous men, we can't just pick a target and start it casually."

"That's right. It sounds like something a righteous man would say, just like the Shinsengumi."

Akechi Goro smiled and added in his mind: (Just like the Shinsengumi, they will eventually disappear in the long river of history...)

"Speaking of which, I saw a new ranking on our website?"

As Goro Akechi spoke, he took out his phone. Jiang Tianwei took a look at the black and red colors on it and knew that this was indeed the Phantom Thief website made by Mishima. On it, there was indeed a real-time dynamic ranking with the title: "Ranking of the Targets You Hope to Change Your Heart".

Many names kept scrolling on it, many of which looked familiar, including the names of leaders of many large companies and enterprises.

Jiang Tianwei was startled, and felt that something bad was going to happen...

"So - I say, Captain, should we choose our targets according to the ranking above?"

Goro Akechi laughed, and this time, it was a laugh from the heart.

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 368: Choose the target by voting?

If it were China instead of Japan, the scene would be like this: Akechi Goro was wearing ancient court robes, holding a rolled-up map in his hands, slowly unfolding it for King Jiang Tianwei, explaining the details of the map to him as he unfolded it. And when the map was fully unfolded, a sharp dagger appeared inside!

(The truth is revealed! It’s exposed, great detective.).

Jiang Tianwei thought so calmly.

The view put forward by Goro Akechi can be said to be the most widely circulated fallacy.

Are things that most people agree on necessarily correct?

Now everyone generally has a thought that the minority should obey the majority.

But if everything is really done in this simple way of counting heads, then order will be disrupted.

The most typical example is video games. There are so many pirated free players. According to the principle of minority obeys majority, genuine games should be free. After all, everyone wants it to be free, so why should you charge for it?

For example, who buys lottery tickets to [not win]? According to the theory that the minority obeys the majority, then everyone who buys lottery tickets should have a 100% chance of winning the jackpot.

A similar scene was depicted in the movie "Bruce Almighty". Jim Carrey, as the agent of God, satisfied everyone's desires. As a result, the entire society became extremely chaotic and riots broke out.

Similarly, if the Internet wants a person to change his mind, does that mean he is a bad person? Not necessarily. It only means he is a nasty person, not a bad person. For example, Socrates, a great philosopher and thinker, died in a referendum. How ironic is that?

For example, his business enemies, people with different positions, or netizens who voted in anger because of hatred of the rich, or centrists who simply don't have any ideas and are driven by the herd mentality of "seeing everyone voted for him, I voted for him too." Or, they just didn't think about anything and just randomly voted for him because they didn't like him. All of these are possible. There are also online water armies, who can become your most loyal supporters at any time as long as you are willing to spend money.

Especially, now that the Phantom Thief is very popular, a considerable number of voters on the Internet are "fun people". They are not actually being persecuted, they just simply want to have some fun, and they don't really care who the Phantom Thief is.

In this case, taking the rankings as the goal?

If nothing else, you can see the status of Goro Akechi. At the beginning, everyone was his supporter because he criticized the thieves, so the thieves were hated by everyone on the Internet. Now, the thieves have become popular, and the thieves have more fans, so Akechi has become a rat crossing the street.

The most terrifying thing is that there is a considerable overlap between the people who criticized the Phantom Thief back then and the people who criticize Akechi now... Just based on this, you can see how watered down this ranking is.

(I don’t believe Mingzhi didn’t think of this. If he couldn’t think of this, he wouldn’t be a famous detective. So, this is a deliberate trap for me? Although I have strong limbs, don’t really think that I’m simple-minded…)

Jiang Tianwei sneered in his heart, but an excited expression appeared on his face: "Oh, that's right! Why didn't I think of it? Are you a genius?"

"Ahahaha, I'm really pleased to be praised - so when you set your goals, remember to call me."