Miss Izumi

Izumi borrowed the phone from Kunikida Doppo, revealing that he was making a cross-country call, but promised to finish the matter as soon as possible.

Kunikida Doppo agreed.

But before that, he called his partner who was searching nearby, explaining his current location, and a very informative sentence: "Victim No. 4 has been found."

Huh?

No.4 victim?

Quan blinked his eyes and looked at the guy who fell on the ground.

The man was no longer breathing, and his chest did not rise or fall.The eyes were kept wide open and never blinked again.

Thinking back carefully, when the opponent fell down just now, there was a "pong" sound, like the sound of a hard solid falling to the ground, not the sound that a person with muscle and fat as a buffer can make.

The opponent's body was very stiff and unnatural, which was extremely weird.If I want to describe it, it feels like a model doll in a clothing store. After a fixed posture, it will not change no matter how you move it.The whole person is like being frozen, but there is no frost on the body, and there is no chill.

After Kunikida Doppo notified his partner, he lent his mobile phone to Izumi who wanted to make a call, and asked him casually, "Why are you here?"

"I just got home from get off work."

Kunikida Doppo was puzzled: "You moved? Also, isn't the coffee shop you worked in far away from here?"

Quan explained that he had moved after the last incident of stalkers and murderers breaking into his home.Because of the chest injury, he had been in the hospital for a long time, so he directly resigned with the coffee shop owner.But after recovering from his injury, he changed to a new job, and now works in the personnel department of a certain company.

Kunikida Doppo had naturally heard of the name of that company, but he didn't know that the company was under the name of Hong Kong gangsters.Quan's reason for moving was plausible, so I didn't get to the bottom of it.

Kunikida Doppo began to examine the body of the man who fell on the ground before the partners from the detective agency arrived.

He carefully checked the other party's pockets to see if he could find anything suspicious.

Quan watched him check, and didn't forget to call Zhongyuan Zhongye, explaining why the phone call was suddenly cut off just now.

Because it was an unfamiliar number, Izumi also mentioned that he borrowed Kunikida Doppo's mobile phone to call him.

Hearing that Izumi was calling him on Kunikida Doppo's mobile phone, Nakahara Chuya didn't know what to say for a while.

This kid's physique of always bumping into dangerous incidents is nothing.And...why is there Kunikida from the detective agency everywhere?

In connection with the corpse that suddenly appeared on Quan's way home, the presence of people from the detective agency seems to make sense.but……

Zhongyuan Zhong was also inexplicably upset.

"Since you are fine and have nothing to do with you, then go home early." Zhong Yuanzhong also urged.

"Yeah, I got it. If there's nothing else, I'll hang up?" Izumi promised well, but he squatted next to Kunikida Doppo to see how he searched.

"..." Isn't this tone exactly the same as what Izumi said casually while watching cartoons when he was talking to him?The meaning of perfunctory should not be too obvious, okay?

Zhongyuan Zhongye's molars creaked.

Just can't understand why Quan stayed and dealt with trouble.

It's not just him, Kunikida Doppo who lent out his phone also has a somewhat indescribable expression.

how to say……

When Izumi called the opposite "Mr. Nakaya", he didn't think about it at all, and he directly contacted the port mafia—yes, that's right, the guy who punched him in the bathroom of the bar.

He said, why does Quan suddenly have overseas friends who need to be contacted?

But the future is unpredictable.

Back then, Quan was followed by an admirer, and later a murderer broke into his house. It is said that this "Mr. Chuya" appeared in time and rescued him.

Now it seems... these two people really became friends?

If Doppo Kunikida knew that after the kidnapping of Chotaro Mizuno, Junichiro Tanizaki sent his grandfather and grandson back to the hospital, and the acquaintance who came out to pick them up was Chuya Nakahara, I don't know what expression he would have.

Also, if he knew that these two were no longer just friends, but cohabiting lovers, the expressions on their faces would definitely be even more exciting.

But from the present point of view, those are insignificant things, and the more important thing right now is the corpse that suddenly fell to the ground.

Kunikida Doppo checked and found nothing unusual in the man's clothes, it could even be said to be clean.

Without the key wallet and mobile phone, this is exactly the same as the previous three victims.

"Four people have been killed within a week." Kunikida Doppo's expression was not very good.

Quan was curious, so he asked a few more questions.

Kunikida Doppo didn't hide it.They haven't figured out the murderer's pattern of attack yet, telling Quan what he said would be a precaution - even though they don't even know how the murderer committed the crime now.

Kunikida Doppo described the whole incident in a few words.

It turned out that yesterday evening, the Armed Detective Agency suddenly received an entrustment from the military and police to help investigate the "Frozen Man" incident.

There is such a nickname, mainly because when the bodies of the three victims were found in different places, they were all like the office worker in front of him, as if they were frozen into ice.

The victim was well-dressed and well-groomed.But when they were searched, nothing was found, as if they had been "cleaned up" by the murderer on purpose.

Although the victims did not have anything to prove their identities, the police took some time to investigate their relevant information.

A student just entering college, a delivery guy for a shipping company, a cashier for a supermarket.

There are men and women, ranging in age from eighteen to forty-seven.The three of them were strangers to each other, neither the place of residence nor the place where the body was found seemed to have the slightest connection on the surface.

The police investigated the surveillance near the place where the body was found and found a very strange thing.

These victims walked to the place of discovery by themselves.At that time, they moved freely, and their body flexibility and softness were no different from normal people.

But when they walked out of the surveillance range, they found a secluded corner, put their hands on the seams of their trousers, and leaned their backs against the wall.Well-behaved, like a primary school student who was punished to stand - the reason why this was discovered was because the police saw this scene from the dash cam of a nearby taxi.

After that, they didn't take any action.Passers-by have been noticing that something was wrong, so they called the police.

The victim's body remained at the moment of death, as if time on the body had been suspended forever.

The police investigation could not be carried out smoothly, and even the forensic doctor could not give the approximate time of death of the victim based on the state of the body.

Such a strange way of death is undoubtedly beyond the reach of ordinary people.

Helpless, the police, who really couldn't find a place to start, simply applied and entrusted an armed detective agency to help.

After the armed detective agency took over the matter, it first went to the place where the victim's body was stored.

Osamu Dazai activated Disqualification from Human World by touching them, and the supernatural power that had been acting on them disappeared.The body was no longer stiff, and soon there were varying degrees of decay and plaque.

Osamu Dazai said that this is what their respective bodies should look like after they die.

He also said that the supernatural power that acts on the victims is more like "packaging" the moment of their death than freezing them, and forcing them on them.The passage of time is actually still reflected in their bodies under the "package".

The forensic doctor conducted the inspection smoothly this time and deduced the time of their death.

What is horrifying is that the time of these people's death was earlier than the time when they appeared in the surveillance!In other words, when they went to a remote corner to "stand for punishment", they were already dead!

After listening to Kunikida Doppo's narration, Izumi pondered for a moment.

He actually... always had a question.

"Mr. Kunikida..." Izumi finally decided to speak out.

Kunikida Doppo said without turning his head, "Hmm?"

"Didn't you notice..." Izumi hesitated, and said something that he always felt was wrong after watching Kunikida Doppo's inspection from the sidelines.

"What did you find?" Kunikida Doppo frowned, and looked back at Izumi.

Then he saw Quan reach out and point to the victim's tightly buttoned collar... no, to be precise, the small piece of exposed skin on the neck.

He said suspiciously: "Didn't you notice... there is a purple pattern here?"

Kunikida Doppo was taken aback for a moment, then looked at the place pointed by Izumi's finger, and said strangely: "What? Where? No!"

"..." Quan frowned indistinctly.

Kunikida Doppo suddenly had an idea in his mind, and stretched out his hand to unbutton the tightly buttoned collar of the victim, revealing the skin from the neck to the collarbone—it was clean and free of anything.

The purple patterns in the mouth of the spring simply don't exist.Although Kunikida Doppo didn't think he was lying or joking, just in case, he still asked cautiously: "Did you read it wrong just now?"

Quan shook his head.

He looked at the purple pattern on the skin of the victim's neck, pursed his lips and said, "It's a purple butterfly, located between the neck and collarbone..."

While he was talking, he was still gesticulating with his fingers in the air, and circled the position of that thing for Kunikida Doppo who couldn't see it.

"..." Then why couldn't he see it, but Quan could?

Kunikida Doppo looked at Izumi silently, with a serious expression on his face.

Quan was very calm, he had some premonitions.

He straightened up and walked over to a car parked on the side of the road.

Today he is wearing a one-shoulder dress, with his neck and collarbone exposed.

Therefore, through the exterior rearview mirror, he could clearly see that, like the victim lying on the ground, there was also a huge, coquettish purple butterfly entangled from his neck to his collarbone.