Conan's corpse picker

Chapter 393 The Experienced Haibara Ai (Joint Chapter)
"!" The three children didn't dare to make a sound, and quickly withdrew their hands, getting closer and closer, and huddled together skillfully, probably because they instinctively felt that the area to be beaten would be smaller.

Jiang Xia watched them silently for a while, then quietly looked away.

Of course he didn't beat the child. After all, the child is not murderous... Make an account first, and he will have to deal with them a few more cases in the future.

……

Next to him, Yuan Shanheye, who stepped on a human skull, gradually recovered from the shock.She had often seen corpses with Hattori Heiji before, and she was more resistant than ordinary people.Now that she suddenly encountered a skeleton, she subconsciously looked at Hattori Heiji...but she couldn't find it.

...Oh, he's still working on the case in the Spider Mansion.

The terrified eyes of Yuan Shan and Ye turned into half-moon eyes in an instant, and for some reason there was a lot of nausea in their hearts, but they felt that the scene was not suitable, so they silently swallowed it back.

Eventually, her attention fell back to the present.

Fortunately, there is a reliable detective next to him.

Yuan Shan and Ye moved closer to Jiang Xia and asked in a low voice, "What's the matter with these bones?"

Jiang Xia borrowed the ghost's eyesight, and even in the middle of the night, her vision is very clear.

He shook the flashlight meaningly, and finally let the aperture stop somewhere, and said while observing:

"It should be a human bone, with lime sprinkled next to it—lime absorbs water and releases heat, which can speed up the decay of the corpse and shorten the time for bone ossification."

In other words, the traces of man-made are heavy.

Rob asked subconsciously, "Murder?"

"Probably." Jiang Xia is not interested in analyzing these things standing in the wilderness, he wants to go and see ghosts first.

So after observing for a while, he walked to a flat stone with a diameter of more than 30 centimeters beside him: "There seems to be traces of moving here..."

As he said that, he squatted down and lifted the stone hard.

I thought there would be things like scorpions, ants, and gnats under the pressure.

But it didn't... Maybe it's because the seasons don't change regularly, and it's hard for the fragile bugs to adapt.

This made Jiang Xia feel more at ease.

He asked Rob to take a few pictures, then found the glove he was carrying, and picked up the thing that had been crushed under the flat stone.

—a mottled ring, and a crushed cigarette case.In addition, there were some cigarettes scattered around.

Jiang Xia opened the cigarette case and poured it into his hand.

Six cigarettes fell on his palm through the glove, two of them were torn from the middle, four long and two short.

...very typical death message.

I don't know how the victims had a flash of inspiration before they died, thinking of these...

Hui Yuanai squatted next to Jiang Xia with a flashlight, helping him to illuminate.

Seeing the ring Jiang Xia was holding in her hand, she was a little startled—a few letters were engraved on the inside of the ring, ETSUKO to ASAO.

Etsuko to Mao
"This may be the pair of rings that Ms. Etsuko Nonomiya gave to her fiancé Mr. Mayo Kono." Huihara Ai said in a low voice:
"Ms. Nonomiya is a resident of the hotel we were in. I heard that she came here with Mr. Kono a year ago. After the two had a big fight, Kono left the hotel alone and disappeared.

"For the past year, Mr. Kono hadn't heard from him until last week when he suddenly sent out several invitation letters, inviting those who received them to come to the hotel here.

"Miss Nonomiya came here immediately after receiving the letter, but she couldn't wait for anyone..."

...and now, there is a white bone under the mountain, and beside the bone is the ring of Kono Mao.

From this point of view, Etsuko Nonomiya and others were gone about a year ago.

Hui Yuanai sighed inwardly, looked up at the starry sky for a while, and felt that he had encountered a sad story.

Then she turned to Jiang Xia and asked in a low voice, "Do you want to call the police?"

If it was normal, she must have called the police proficiently.

But now, Jiang Xia is also there.And Hui Yuanai always feels that Jiang Xia is sometimes not so innocent and not afraid of investigation... So she thinks that things like calling the police should be restrained as much as possible and ask Jiang Xia's opinion first.

Jiang Xia nodded.

Then he hesitated to say: "But this place..."

Before he could finish speaking, the disappointed voices of Yuan Shan and Ye came: "No signal."

Jiang Xia looked up at her.I almost forgot, this person is also a professional caller, and his hand speed at 110 is not weaker than that of Mao Lilan.

The mobile phone was useless, and Hui Yuanai quickly thought of another way: "I remember that there is a landline in the hotel we are staying in."

But halfway through the conversation, she stopped.

——In the hotel where she was staying, there were three people who were invited by the "invitation letter from Kono".

But Kono is dead now, so there must be someone else who sent the invitation letter.

And now, Kono's bones are scattered in front of this famous observation point... It seems that someone deliberately arranged it like this, just waiting for the body to be found.

If the news of "there are dead people here" is brought back to the hotel step by step, no one knows whether the intention of the mastermind behind the scenes will be fulfilled.

Hui Yuanai hesitated for a moment, but didn't say these conjectures - she had to maintain the image of a "six-year-old child" in the presence of strangers.

And just now she mentioned Kono's invitation letter to Jiang Xia, needless to say, Jiang Xia must understand the hidden dangers.

So Hui Yuanai directly jumped to the conclusion, she looked at Jiang Xia, and said briefly: "Where do you come from? If it's not far away, why don't you go to your place and call the police..."

Before the words were finished, a figure walked out of the deep forest.

Immediately afterwards, a strange male voice sounded, and the man asked hesitantly, "Call the police? What happened?"

Jiang Xia looked up and saw a middle-aged man with long cheeks and short curly hair, holding something like a thick discus in his hand.

Dr. Ali seemed to know him: "Mr. Tiantu?"

As he spoke, the doctor thought of the strange bones at his feet, and couldn't help becoming suspicious: "What are you doing here?"

Boss Tiantu is the boss of the hotel where Dr. Ali and his party stayed.

Run telescope rental business.

He handed over the lead weight in his hand, and said honestly: "I just remembered that there is a pair of lead pendants missing in the set of binoculars you borrowed. I forgot to put it back after using it last time."

After he finished speaking, he still seemed to be very concerned about what Hui Yuanai said just now. He glanced casually, and soon saw the skeleton on the ground.

The air froze for a moment.

The next second, Boss Tiantu let out a scream and ran back to the hotel.

Jiang Xia looked at his back silently, feeling that his acting skills were a bit exaggerated.

but……

"Since we have been discovered, let's use the hotel phone to call the police." Jiang Xia said helplessly, with a hint of expectation in his heart.

Yuan Shan and Ye nodded, not daring to look at the skeletons on the ground, and their minds were full of "calling the police".

Rob did not expect to encounter another murder case.He actually didn't really want to deal with the police, but he was out now, and if the police testified, the alibi from the Spider Mansion would look more solid.So he quickly nodded in agreement.

……

A group of people on their way to the hotel.

More than ten kilometers away, in the spider mansion.

Hattori Heiji was chatting with Takeda Ryuji.

At this time, Takeda Yongsan hurriedly opened the door: "Have you seen the elder brother? He just said to go to the studio to be a puppet, but I searched all over the house, but I couldn't find him."

"what?!"

Even though an adult had only been missing for an hour or two, it wasn't a big deal.

But Hattori Heiji still had a bad feeling.

He searched with the members of Takeda's family, and suddenly thought of a place:
"Have you looked for the abandoned warehouse built on the Spider Temple?"

Takeda Yusan had seen hanged corpses there three or three years ago, and now he felt guilty when he mentioned the warehouse, so of course he didn't take the initiative to go there: "No, no."

"Go up and see!"

A group of people stepped on the dusty stairs and rushed to the door of the warehouse on the second floor.

I saw that the warehouse door was firmly locked.

Hattori Heiji turned the doorknob, only feeling some kind of alarm bell screaming in his mind.

He immediately asked someone to find an ax and smashed the door.

A few axes hacked down, and the cracked wooden door creaked and slid open.

A dead body hanging in the air appeared in front of him.

Shinichi Takeda hangs in this dusty warehouse like a poor insect stuck in a spider's web.

"..."

Hattori Heiji stared at the corpse, his mind went blank for a moment.Takeda Shinichi had just left the meeting for over an hour.In such a short time... who killed him?

"Spider-sama, this, this is the same as the legend of Spider-sama..." Takeda Ryuuji felt chills when he saw his elder brother dying, and at the same time, he couldn't help but think of his niece and daughter who was hanged here.

When mentioning his niece, Takeda Ryuji thought of the two people who went to the cemetery to worship Misa just now: "By the way, Rob and the others are going to the cemetery now. I heard that there are often spider-samas around!"

"?!" Hattori Heiji thought of Toyama Kazuha, his face turned brown.

Although he doesn't believe that there is such a thing as "Spider-sama" in the world, the death of Takeda Shinichi means that there is indeed a murderer who is using the name of Spider-sama to kill people.

And "Spider-sama" is often in the cemetery, maybe that means that the murderer also often haunts the cemetery!
This is too dangerous!
Hattori Heiji felt that he should be shocked at this time, after all his companions are now in the cemetery.

But in fact, when it comes to "danger", I think of Jiang Xia who went with me...

The combination of these two words made Hattori Heiji's thinking subtly turn - he thought of the murderers who had wailed in front of his eyes, but he couldn't help them.

...and a certain high school student detective who stepped on the murderer and kept beating him.

"..."

Hattori Heiji glanced silently at Takeda Shinichi who was hung in the warehouse, and suddenly realized that he should be more worried than worrying about Kazuha and Jiang Xia being assassinated by the murderer—he was nervously solving the case, and he was only a few clues away. When he was able to understand everything, Jiang Xia over there suddenly came back with a murderer who had been beaten to death, threw it on the ground easily, and said, "I accidentally met the murderer, and I felt suspicious so I pressed and beat him. Now he I've already recruited them all" or something like that...

"..." The blood pressure went up.

Hattori Heiji knocked on his head for the nth time, so that his thinking became like a normal high school detective, instead of always thinking about some messy things.

He cleared his throat and took a deep breath: "Call the police first."

……

deep in the mountains.

Boss Tiantu's hotel is indeed not far from the star observation point.

There are very few tourists in this season.After Jiang Xia entered the room, he glanced around and found that the few guests happened to be gathered in the lobby—a woman who was drunk with a jug on her chin, a middle-aged man with a tall hairline, and a man with a hedgehog head .

Except for the startled Boss Tiantu, the other three guests were all invited by the invitation letter of the late "Mr. Kono".

One of them is Mayo Kono's fiancée, Etsuko Nonomiya.

The other two have little to do with Kono—they are the editor and editor-in-chief of an astronomy magazine called "Space Sunday".The only intersection between the two of them and Kono was a year ago, on the day Kono disappeared, both of them had stayed in this hotel.

Haibara Ai's eyes first fell on Nonomiya Etsuko.

Some time ago, after Hui Yuan Ai defected from the organization, he had much more free time than before.She subscribed to many newspapers that often reported Jiang Xia's deeds in solving crimes.

And in a newspaper, there is not only one case, and Hui Yuanai often reads them all after flipping through them, so he also fills in a lot of experience in solving cases.

So in her opinion, the current lineup and configuration in the hotel, combined with the cause and effect, looks like someone is trying to find the enemy who killed Kono.

Hui Yuanai thought of the news she heard when Jiang Xia was away just now, and thought it might be useful.

So he came over again and quietly added information to Jiang Xia: "Boss Tiantu also seems to have a good relationship with the deceased—Mr. Kono and Ms. Nonomiya are his juniors in college, and the two often come here for vacations and travels together."

The moment Jiang Xia entered the door, he had already looked at everything that should be seen.And successfully saw a somewhat old shikigami on the leg of one of them, and confirmed the murderer of Kono Mao.

However, he remembered that there was still a ghost that could be picked up here.

So Jiang Xia withdrew her covert gaze, and like a real detective solving a case, she whispered to Hui Yuanai in a cooperative voice:
"From this point of view, the person who sent the invitation letter and planned all this is more likely to be between Ms. Nonomiya and Mr. Tiantu."

Of course, all of these have a premise—the deceased is really Mao Kono.

Fortunately, this is not difficult to confirm.

——The skeleton scattered under the hill had decayed front teeth. After asking Nomiya, it matched Kono's characteristics.

During their simple conversation, Boss Tiantu kept calling the phone, trying to call the police, but he didn't make it for a long time.

Jiang Xia looked at the boss who was hard at work, approached and tapped on the phone: "Don't press it, it's not plugged into the phone line."

"What?!" Boss Tiantu was shocked again, he looked at the landline, "No wonder I always feel that something is not right..."

Jiang Xia: "..."

In his memory, the boss was the one who sent the invitation letter, hid the phone line, and even found the bones on the mountain first.

Boss Tiantu only knew that his junior had died tragically, but he didn't know who killed him.

So he found all the people who lived here when Kono disappeared, and hoped that that person would turn himself in after seeing the body, or show his flaws, and be packed up and taken back by the police as a performance.

(End of this chapter)