The Split-Actress in Conan's World

"Alright, alright, there are so many questions. I can't eavesdrop properly." Xiaoyu waved his hands impatiently and prepared to climb up the tree again.

So you were eavesdropping too...

Hattori Heiji looked at her speechlessly.

He glanced at Conan who was doubting his life and decided to ignore him for now and talk to him in detail later.

The most important thing now is to listen to what Lilith and the others are saying.

What if you overhear some crucial information, or learn a magic trick or two?

However, just as he was thinking this and was about to look through the gap in the bushes, a pink and white hand lifted the bushes aside.

Lilith looked at the two people hiding in the back, turned back and asked Professor Lecter calmly: "Are these two children your guests?"

Professor Lecter narrowed his eyes and chuckled: "Are uninvited guests also considered guests?"

Hattori Heiji sat down on the ground, swallowed unconsciously, and pulled his lips in embarrassment.

The little fish's movement in climbing the tree also faltered.

Conan stared at Professor Lecter, trying to read something from his expression.

The wind on the mountain suddenly calmed down.

Fortunately, neither Lilith nor Professor Lecter seemed to have any intention of pursuing an investigation.

"The child finally cried and said, 'I'm sorry, there may not be another witch here.' I think she must have made up her mind."

Lilith squatted down and gently stroked a small piece of bright baby's breath, her expression somewhat gentle.

"It seems that the extinction of mermaids is an inevitable trend."

“I don’t know if I can see such beautiful flowers next year.”

She picked a small flower seedling, blew it away gently, and it scattered in the air and fell down.

"Then I'll take the little fish away first."

When Xiaoyu heard this, he stuck out his tongue as if he had been pardoned, jumped down from the tree he was halfway up, and followed closely behind Lilith.

Conan looked at it blankly and found a strange scene.

Their steps seemed slow, but in a short while, they had walked a long way.

If you look closely, you will find that each of their steps lands in the air a few millimeters above the ground and does not actually touch the muddy ground.

The two girls quickly disappeared from his sight.

After a long time, he came back to his senses and looked at Professor Lecter who seemed to be smiling in front of him.

Even though he didn't say anything, Conan felt more stressed.

"Um, good evening, professor..." He touched the back of his head and laughed dryly.

"I don't know whether I'm good or not, but you guys have the leisure time to come to a place like this to hang out late at night." Professor Lecter glanced at the two of them lightly, with a teasing tone.

"Actually, there was a murder nearby, so we came here to look for clues." Conan tried his best to defend himself.

Before Professor Lecter could continue, Hattori Heiji suddenly said, "You seem to be very familiar with Lilith, so you must know about it, right?"

"Who is she?"

Professor Lecter looked at the starry sky and murmured, "Ah, who is it?"

The Milky Way was reflected in his eyes, and he smiled: "Guess for yourself."

"Eh?"

Hattori Heiji was stunned.

Professor Lecter left in the completely opposite direction of Lilith, and left them a kind reminder before leaving.

"By the way, you mentioned that a murder happened nearby. I suggest you go to the pool under the waterfall and look for it. You may find something there."

"Because I saw something very strange in this river not long ago."

"Try to find the truth, detectives."

He waved his hand casually and walked away in a bored manner.

For a moment, Conan and Hattori Heiji were left looking at each other.

After discussing for a while, the two decided to put magic aside for the time being and solve this case first before discussing other things.

Although Hattori Heiji was very reluctant.

However, human energy is limited after all. If you are always thinking about other things, it will be difficult to solve the case smoothly. Hattori knew this, so he finally compromised.

After taking another quick look around the mountain, the two found nothing more, so they hurried down the mountain and headed towards the pool of water that Professor Lecter had mentioned.

Then a lifebuoy was found floating on the water, stuck by rocks.

"If the strangled Miss Sumi was placed on this life buoy, then anyone could have done it and hung her over the waterfall like that!"

Conan looked at the lifebuoy that appeared here at an inopportune time with a serious expression.

Hattori Heiji also understood what he was thinking: "As long as we put Miss Sumi on the lifebuoy in advance and let her drift down the stream, we can return to the festival to prepare an alibi for ourselves."

"As time went by, the lifebuoy drifted to the waterfall and fell from the height. Miss Sumi was suspended by the rope around her neck, and the lifebuoy continued to drift until it disappeared into the sea along with the current."

As he said this, he was a little scared: "If this life buoy had not been stuck by the rocks, but had really drifted downstream to the sea..."

"I'm afraid the truth will be completely submerged in the waves."

They quickly found Uncle Maori and told everyone the news and their reasoning.

"In this case, everyone's alibi means nothing." Uncle Maori stroked his chin and looked at the tourists at the festival.

Seeing that he seemed to want to include all tourists as suspects, Hattori Heiji laughed dryly and said, "If we want to identify the suspect, it would be better to start with the deceased's interpersonal relationships, right?"

"It seems so." Uncle Maori also gave up his idea quickly without any opinion.

"Doesn't that mean that the murderer might be watching us somewhere right now?" Mao Lilan looked around fearfully and tightened her collar.

Yuanshan Heye smiled and comforted her, "Don't worry."

She pointed at Hattori Heiji who was chatting with Conan about clues not far away: "Look, Heiji has his hat on straight."

"Ah?" Mao Lilan looked over in confusion.

"That means he's on fire. The murderer will be caught soon!"

Yuanshan and Ye looked serious.

Mao Lilan was amused by her appearance and hugged her arms: "He Ye, you are so cute!"

"You, what are you doing?"

Yuanshan Heye was hugged by her, and swayed a few times in a bit of confusion, with a slight blush on her face.

The thick-lipped woman, Naoko Kuroe, suddenly came up to Hattori Heiji and turned her head to glance at the bearded, alcoholic uncle who was also a winner.

"If Sumi was really killed by someone, you'd better keep an eye on Saori's alcoholic father."

After saying that, she pulled away.

"Hey, Naoko." Fukuyama Rokuro shouted at her from a distance.

"Be careful on your way home."

She chuckled nonchalantly and took something out of her arms: "Don't worry, I have this dugong arrow."

Dugong Arrows...

Conan felt a little depressed and couldn't help but start to think wildly.

If magic exists, then so-called immortality wouldn't be that difficult to achieve, right?

What would it be like if mermaids really existed?

Shimabukuro Kimie cleaned up the mess of the festival, wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead, and looked at Uncle Maori: "Okay, now I can take you to Saori's house."

"But, look at her father's expression..." Uncle Maori looked at Benzo Monkyo who was still drinking not far away, and was a little hesitant.

"Then let's go see the High Priest!"

Conan suddenly spoke with an innocent smile on his face: "I have a lot of questions to ask that old lady."

Shimabukuro Kimie gave him a puzzled look.

"Is it not possible?" Conan tilted his head.

"No, of course." She smiled softly.

Soon, Shimabukuro Kimie brought them to the living room on the side of the shrine, where she and her great-grandmother, who was a priest, lived.

"Grandma will be here soon. I'll go and prepare the bath water for her. You just wait here for a while."

As she said this, she opened the wooden door and walked out.

Several people knelt in a circle around the kotatsu to keep warm.

Maori Kogoro looked up at the old wooden house and sighed, "It's really shabby."

Hattori Heiji was also a little surprised: "It seems that I didn't make a lot of money from the dugong arrow."

Yuanshan Heye looked at him unhappily: "What nonsense are you talking about? The number plate is only five yen a piece!"

"What, five yen?" Hattori Heiji looked at her in surprise.

"People on the island said that it has always been like this, and the price has not increased even after the festival became famous," Yuanshan Heye explained seriously.

At this moment, an old, wrinkled hand stretched out from the crack in the door and slowly opened the wooden door behind her.

A short old man gradually emerged.

Her hair was already very thin, but it remained jet black and had not turned gray with age.

The old man's back was almost hunched at a right angle, and he was leaning on a wooden stick. Although he looked shaky, he stood very steadily, which was completely unlike the state that a man over a hundred years old should be in.

Her face was not covered with white powder like in the festival. Instead, she had removed her heavy makeup, revealing her deep wrinkles without reservation, and a few dark age spots were clearly visible.

Feeling like a monster...

Hattori Heiji thought very rudely in his heart.

"That's because 'five yuan' and 'fate' sound similar."

The old woman's voice had a unique hoarseness, making one wonder if she was about to spit out something stuck in her throat.

"I heard you guys have something to ask me?"

She opened her narrow eyes slightly and looked at the people in the room who were stunned.

"Please, grandma, how do you decide the winning numbers for the Dugong's Arrow?" Conan asked quickly.

"I just decided casually."

"what?"

The old man laughed playfully and said, "Sometimes I also use winning numbers from horse racing."

Hattori Heiji was also speechless by this answer. He quickly asked again: "Then why only send three a year, instead of just preparing more?"

"This is not okay."

The old man twisted his few remaining sparse hair and said, "Because I don't have that much hair to tie on the dugong's arrows."

A strong voice came from the bathroom in the distance: "Grandma - your bath water is ready!"

The old man tilted his head slightly to look over there, then slowly turned around.

"I'm sorry, if you don't have anything important to ask, I want to take a shower and go to bed..."

"Please wait a moment!" Conan called her hurriedly.

"Mermaid!"

“Are mermaids real?”

The old man stopped and looked at Conan with his eyes, which were a little cloudy due to his old age.

"Before you, many dignitaries and celebrities who came here to seek your help have asked this question..."

“I gave them all the same answer.”

The old man's expression was calm and expressionless as he said, "'It would be best for anyone who chooses to ask this question to pretend that mermaids do not exist.'"

Conan was slightly startled.

The old man stopped looking at him and glanced at Yuanshan and Ye who were sitting on the other side.

"And that girl over there, the one with the hair tied up."

Yuanshan Heye looked around, then pointed at himself hesitantly: "Hey, is it me?"

The old man continued, "The Cursed Arrow is a ritual weapon for exorcising demons. If you let it go, the demons will take advantage of the opportunity to sneak in."

Her hoarse voice and low tone made her sound a little creepy.

"Men will return to dust and become mindless hungry ghosts, while women will be lost in the ocean and become speechless mermaids..."

She walked tremblingly towards the back of the corridor, leaning on her wooden stick, and her voice still lingered inside the house.

"So never let it leave your side..."

Several people ran to the door of the room and looked at the old man's thin back with strange eyes.

"No matter how you look at it, she is just an old woman with a hoarse voice and a pale face, who looks like she could die at any time."

Hattori Heiji squinted his eyes. In his imagination, the appearance of an immortal person should be like Lilith and the little fish, with infinite youth and beauty.

In order to avoid disturbing the old man's rest, they left the shrine quickly.

Not long after, they received news that the island's office was holding Miss Sumi's funeral.

So they changed into black-dominated clothes and went to participate.

"By the way, is it really okay for us to come here and join in the fun?" Toyama Kazuha grabbed Hattori Heiji's sleeve and whispered in his ear.

She always felt a little uncomfortable.

"It doesn't matter. After all, we are acquaintances who have met once before, and I can take this opportunity to ask about the things on the island."

Hattori Heiji turned around to comfort her, and seeing that the hairband on her head was a little loose, he reached out to help her tighten it.

Uncle Maori turned his body speechlessly and looked at the two of them. He warned them neither lightly nor seriously, "Don't be so frivolous. This is a funeral hall."

"Okay, okay." Hattori Heiji followed suit.

"It is said that Miss Sumi's father decided to bury Miss Sumi at sea." Ran Mouri whispered to Conan beside her.

"The coffin and the body are placed on a boat and sunk into the ocean. The islanders believe that the deceased buried at sea will be protected by mermaids and enjoy a happy and healthy next life."

Conan laughed dryly.

So these islanders are really superstitious.

However, this custom is also a good wish, which is somewhat different from those more cruel and anti-human evil spirits.