The Split-Actress in Conan's World

In the shrine.

"Hey! Detective, why are you calling everyone here?"

The strange police captain who led the team had a round bald head and said in an impatient tone: "We police officers don't have that much free time."

Benzang, the doorman who was brought in by the police, still had a drunken look on his face, and his eyes were wandering as he stood by the door.

The wooden door was suddenly opened. Everyone looked and saw an old figure walking in, with Mao Lilan following behind the old priest.

"Maybe he is waiting for me." The old priest said indifferently and sat down in a corner.

"Now that everyone is here, let's get started."

A deep male voice was heard, and everyone followed the sound and saw Kogoro Mouri leaning against the wall with his head lowered, looking confident.

That is "Sleeping Kogoro".

Of course, it was caused by Conan knocking the old man unconscious with an anesthetic needle.

"To understand the three murders that occurred on this island."

"First, Miss Sumi was hanged on the Mermaid Falls, then Miss Naoko was strangled and hung in a fishing net, and then Miss Kimie was burned to death in a warehouse."

"Of the three cases, the most concerning is the second one."

Kogoro Mori spoke in a deep voice and told the story slowly and leisurely.

"At first glance, it looks like the murderer killed Miss Naoko and fled towards the sea, leaving behind such footprints..."

"But in fact, this is exactly the trap left by the murderer."

"In fact, the real sequence is that the murderer came from the sea, walked backwards to the funeral hall, left such footprints, and then killed Miss Naoko."

"That is to say, the murderer was the person who was in the mourning hall at the time!"

The bald police inspector cast a hostile look at the drunkard beside him: "Then only Mr. Menxie and Mr. Fukuyama are left."

Maori Kogoro continued: "Before that, there is something I want to ask Mr. Menxie."

"The person who sold the dugong arrow for one million yen the morning before the festival was you, right?"

Benzo Menkyo burped, his eyes misty for a moment, and he said nonchalantly: "My daughter Saori won that lottery a year ago. It's my freedom to do what I want, right? I'm her father!"

The bald police inspector stared at him suspiciously. "You are not satisfied with the 1 million after tasting the sweetness. After realizing that Miss Sumi was hit by the dugong's arrow, you invited her to the mountain to kill her. It is reasonable, right?"

"You came to the shrine to steal the list just to prevent this matter from being exposed, right?"

He sneered and took out the inspection report from his bag: "We found your fingerprints from that suspicious lifebuoy, and we also found the list on you. This is the best evidence!"

"I'm afraid you locked Miss Jun Hui up in the warehouse and burned her to death because she discovered your actions!"

Menkyo Benzo's face turned red, and he opened his mouth to say something, but was too anxious to speak.

"No...he is not the murderer." Kogoro Mouri spoke up for him.

"What?!" The bald police inspector looked over in surprise.

"The murderer who could think of using a lifebuoy to commit the crime and leaving footprints to mislead others is undoubtedly a meticulous person. It is hard to imagine that such a person would directly touch the crime props with his hands and leave the most deadly fingerprints."

"No, that's right, Mr. Detective is right. I just happened to pick up the winning sign by the river. I saw a lifebuoy floating in the river and was puzzled. I picked it up and took a look. That's why my fingerprints were left on it!"

Menkyo Benzo immediately shouted to defend himself.

Seeing this guy grabbing at straws, the bald inspector glared at him and said to Maori Kogoro: "You can't say he is not the murderer just because of this reason!"

"Of course, if this is the only inference that doesn't count, it would be too irresponsible, so I have something else to say."

Maori Kogoro chuckled.

"I think everyone should remember, right? When we found Ms. Sumi's body, Ms. Naoko told us to be careful of her alcoholic father."

"She is obviously wary of Mr. Menxie. How could he ask her out of the mourning hall alone?"

"And if he was the one who set the fire, wouldn't he have just thrown the list into the fire and burned it? How could you have the chance to search for it from him?"

Mao Lilan turned around in surprise and looked at Fukuyama Rokuro who had been silent from the beginning: "Then, could it be Mr. Rokuro?"

"No, he is not the murderer." Kogoro Mouri quickly denied this answer, which made her feel relieved.

"Who is the murderer? Are you saying there really is a mermaid?" The bald police chief had lost his patience.

"Let's look at these three cases together." Kogoro Mouri did not reveal his conclusion directly because of his urging, but slowly gave the reasoning process.

"No matter which case it is, it is undoubtedly closely related to the attribute of 'mermaid', or 'festival'."

"This strong sense of ritual shows that this is a planned serial murder case!"

"In the first case, Miss Sumi was attracted by the news of the mermaid's tomb and came to the mountain alone, which means that in her eyes, the murderer did know the whereabouts of the mermaid's tomb."

"She is also someone that Ms. Naoko trusts and can be alone with."

“Even the shrine was accessible to her, and she was there when the warehouse was engulfed in flames.”

"She's—"

Maori Kogoro pointed out the real culprit he had deduced in a shocking voice: "It's you, Priest!"

Fukuyama Rokuro laughed and looked back at the thin old priest: "Please stop joking, Mr. Detective."

"What on earth can a hundred-year-old woman do?"

"And the one who was burned to death in the warehouse was her great-granddaughter who was directly related to her..."

Speaking of the deceased Miss Jun Hui, his eyes darkened.

"How could she possibly kill Jun Hui who has always taken care of her?"

"What if the person who was burned to death in the warehouse was not Miss Jun Hui?"

He was stunned by what Kogoro Maori said.

"What are you... talking about?"

"What if the tooth shape of that charred corpse is not Miss Kimie's at all?" Kogoro Mouri repeated.

Mao Lilan was also a little confused and asked, "But doesn't the tooth shape given by the hospital match the corpse?"

Maori Kogoro's tone was very serious: "She did say such a thing. She said that she once took a boat with Miss Saori to the main island to see a dentist."

Everyone finally thought of the incredible possibility.

"Is it difficult? Could it be..."

"Yes, it was actually Ms. Saori who went to the dentist."

"Her medical insurance card and the Dugong Arrow were stolen by Mr. Menxie, so she had to borrow Miss Junhui's medical insurance card to receive medical treatment. Therefore, the records kept by the hospital will be in Miss Junhui's name."

"In order to confirm this inference, I contacted the doctor who treated the patient by phone. According to his description, the patient had brown hair and wore glasses."

"That's Ms. Saori."

"On the way back to the island, Ms. Saori was killed and kept in the warehouse until the fire, when her body was discovered."

"This is also the murderer's trick, to make us mistakenly believe that it was Miss Jun Hui who was burned to death."

Mao Lilan's pupils trembled, and she looked at the calm old priest in disbelief: "So the murderer is actually..."

The bald police inspector also looked at him with a sharp gaze: "So, these three cases were planned by Miss Jun Hui and this old woman?"

"No, these three cases were planned by one person." Kogoro Mouri quickly denied his statement.

Benzo, who had been huddled by the door and looked drunk, suddenly spoke up: "After all, the shrine maiden and the priest on this island are actually just one person."

"What, what?!" Everyone was shocked when they heard this.

The drunk uncle burped and continued, "Old people on the island know that the so-called mermaid festival was just a celebration for the village to celebrate the harvest at sea."

"The young witch dressed herself up as an old woman to express her gratitude to the forgiving sea god. Later, it seems that she was misunderstood by people from outside the island, who mistook her image for another person and called her a mermaid priestess."

"Later, more and more rumors spread, and the story of the longevity lady became widely known. Considering that it was a good thing for the residents of the island, and everyone's income has increased due to the development of tourism, so it was retained."

"The Dugong Arrow was originally a harpoon, and was later changed into an arrow. I have never thought that this kind of thing is easy to deal with, so I didn't feel anything when Saori won the prize last year."

"I didn't expect someone would be willing to pay a million for something so useless. I received that call by chance, and that's when I decided to sell Saori's arrows for money."

"I think about it. After so many years, the small fights on this island have become more serious."

He felt a little emotional, and as he got drunker, he slowly fell down along the door frame, snoring loudly.

Everyone looked at him like this and didn't know what to say for a moment.

But what he said was very interesting.

"I didn't even know there was such a thing..." The old priest sighed, grabbed his face, pulled hard, and pulled off the leather cover, revealing a young and beautiful face behind it.

Shimabukuro Kimie gently untied the red rope that she used to tie her calves and smiled somewhat miserably.

"It's quite troublesome to create this kind of makeup, and it's also very stuffy inside, and I often feel short of breath."

"In order to shorten my height and assume the posture of an elderly person, I often had to fold my calves behind my thighs and tie them up, so that I could walk only on my knees. At the beginning, the pain was unbearable."

She smiled, but tears came out of her eyes.

"But over time, I got used to it."

Mao Lilan suddenly understood something and said with emotion: "Could it be that the charred corpse three years ago..."

Shimabukuro Kimie nodded slightly.

"She is my mother."

"She is a witch of the previous generation and also plays the role of the high priest. She inherited her grandmother's work and worked hard for the benefit of the entire island..."

"When she was burned to death in the warehouse, she tied her legs like this and dressed up as an old woman, so she couldn't escape and died."

"The so-called mermaid bones are just the lower half of the body that was burned by the fire and melted together, and then smashed by the pillar."

She rubbed her ankle as if to make fun of herself, then stood up and looked at Mouri Kogoro who was lowering his head against the wall with a wry smile.

"It seems my little trick didn't work at all. I even put a speaker in the bathroom to create the illusion of a conversation between two people."

"If I had known earlier, and everyone was aware of what was happening at the shrine, maybe everything would have been different, right?"

Shimabukuro Kimie looked gloomy.

"I have never really studied the duties of a shrine maiden or the management of a shrine. These have always been managed by my mother."

"She taught me with all her heart, but I was absent-minded every time. I was always thinking about irrelevant things. I was really stupid at that time. I looked at the pier every day and yearned for the outside world."

"Later, my wish came true. I was admitted to a university on the main island and was finally able to leave this small island that I had been tired of for more than a decade."

"I was really happy at that time. I didn't have to worry about mermaids or listen to those things related to the shrine. I was with like-minded partners and worked hard for the career I loved. When our movie won an award, it was the happiest moment of my life."

"But I was too naive at that time and didn't understand that all the gifts of fate had already been secretly marked with a price."

"I don't know how my mother, at that time, worked so hard to play the role of a longevity lady, to maintain the legend, and to devote herself to the false prosperity of this small island, all by herself."

"My grandfather and great-grandmother passed away long ago. My father also died at sea five years ago. My mother has always been alone and worked hard to the end."

"In the end, even I abandoned her..."

Shimabukuro Kimie did not shed tears or cry, and her expression could not be described as sad, just a little regretful.

"I should be thankful that I was at home the day she died in the fire and was able to see her for the last time."

"I should hate it too. I could only helplessly watch my mother being devoured by the fire and dying in an ugly manner, with her face disfigured, but I could do nothing."

"My mother said two things to me at the end of her life."

"One line is 'This island cannot be without a mermaid priest.'"

"The other one is 'I'm sorry'."

The room was very quiet and everyone was silent.

Shimabukuro-kunie breathed a sigh of relief and smiled faintly: "In the end, I rejected the opportunity to stay in Tokyo and work, returned to this island, and began to learn to be a shrine maiden."

"It was really embarrassing at the beginning. I started to regret why I didn't listen to my mother carefully before. I was afraid that I would look ridiculous in front of those old people who knew the inside story, right?"

"There's nothing we can do. Mom doesn't want this shrine to disappear. She doesn't want this island to return to its former backward and closed state."

"I was shocked when I found the family tree in the shrine. I didn't expect that our Shimabukuro family had been serving as shrine maidens here for nearly three hundred years."

She closed her eyes and whispered softly.

"It's like being cursed by a mermaid."