Conan’s Corpse Picker

In this temple, there seems to be no rule of "Don't talk about eating".

Opposite Jiang Xia and Amuro Toru, a few young monks chatted quickly. The topic unknowingly turned to an ancient legend.

——The legend about the fog tengu.

In fact, it cannot be regarded as "unknowingly".

The location of Shanni Temple is too remote, and there are few tourists.

Every time there is a guest staying, the old abbot will secretly lead the topic to "foggy dog"-this is also the selling point of their remote temple.

...

In this area, there has always been a legend of "foggy dog".

But what really made it a topic was a murder case two years ago.

——Two years ago, the monk Zhongnian in the temple was suspected to be killed by the monster "Mist Tengu".

After this incident was published in the newspaper, there was a surge of tourists visiting the temple, bringing in a lot of income.

Now that the heat has passed, the number of tourists has decreased again, but there are still people who are attracted by Wutiangou every now and then.

Some of these guests read old newspapers, and some of them heard the monks in the temple say these things and passed them on by word of mouth.

...

The old abbot has a guilty conscience in the matter of "the murder of the Wutian dog".

——Because the one who killed Zhongnian was actually not Wutengu, but him.

But conscience is not something to eat.

So he chose to increase his popularity without hesitation.

At this time, the old abbot said to the two new tourists in a gloomy tone:

"The Wutiangou is a kind of ancient monster that can fly. On rainy nights, they will sneak into the village like fog, break through the walls, and kidnap the kind people. Then hang the corpses of their prey in high places and store them for food."

Speaking of this, the old host originally wanted to make a sudden and terrifying turn, leaning over to scare the two guests on the opposite side.

But at this time, he suddenly felt intuitively that it was impossible—there was always a premonition that if he really scared people, he would be slapped on the head and thrown into the vegetable soup immediately.

"..." And it's meaningless to scare two big men.

The old abbot hesitated for a moment, and finally just stroked his beard.

He skipped the scary steps and said the concluding remarks directly: "But don't worry, this is just a legend when technology is not developed."

"...But, it doesn't necessarily have to be a legend." The youngest in the temple had an ugly face, and he muttered nervously, "Didn't a very similar thing happen two years ago, Senior Brother Zhongnian..."

"Mu Nian!" The elder brother interrupted him with a frown, "Don't talk about this kind of thing with the guests."

"It's okay, let's talk about it." Jiang Xia seemed very interested, and looked up at them, "We are detectives, and we are best at solving strange things."

"!"

"!"

"!"

"!"

"?!"

Four young monks, plus an abbot.

Above the heads of the five people, there seemed to be five exclamation marks, but the meanings were different.

The four monks looked at Jiang Xia.

The youngest one hesitated and said, "Actually, I've wanted to say it a long time ago. You look familiar. It's the one who suddenly became popular recently...Jiang Xia? Is that the surname?"

"Oh, I've heard of it! I went shopping in the city a few days ago, and when I was queuing up, I happened to hear the girl next to me discussing this person." The third child also remembered, and he said excitedly, "Since he is a detective , maybe we can really solve the mystery—it was two years ago..."

"Shut up!"

The old host slapped the table and interrupted the apprentice.

His face was extremely ugly, and he stared at the four apprentices: "Didn't you say that you are not allowed to mention this matter again?! Well, the meal time is over, let me go back and rest!"

He gasped angrily, turned to Jiang Xia and Amuro Toru again, his tone was much stiffer than before: "This is an internal matter of our temple, and there is no need for detectives to mix it up."

After speaking, he stood up, with a sullen face, shook his sleeves and left.

The words "guilty to be a thief" were written all over his face.

...

The old monk became very unfriendly.

Fortunately, his apprentices are still very service-minded.

A few young monks packed up the dining room.

Then he took Jiang Xia and the others to the guest room, found out the clean bedding, and even took out two sets of disposable toothbrushes and razors from nowhere.

...

Jiang Xia packed up early and was ready to pick up ghosts.

Toru Amuro seemed a little curious about what happened "two years ago", but he didn't ask too much - all the detectives in this world seem to have the attribute of "never ask someone when someone is tricking them". Perhaps this is some kind of intuitive professionalism born in order not to lose a job...

Jiang Xia was not curious at all.

After all, he is a "prophet" who knows a lot.

——It is said that two years ago, the loyal monk in this temple "hanged himself".

But in fact, he was killed by the old abbot.

The old abbot wanted his granddaughter to marry the heir of a large monastery, but the granddaughter fell in love with Zhongnian and even wanted to elope.

The old abbot worried about this matter for a long time, but he could not persuade his granddaughter. Finally, he had an idea and suddenly thought: As long as the loyalty is gone, of course the granddaughter will not be able to play "elopement".

...

So the old abbot took advantage of the terrain in the temple, combined with the legends nearby, and thought of a murder method.

——In the Shanni Temple, there is a narrow confinement room about 10 meters high. There is a window on the top of the confinement room near the waterfall, and the confinement room is of particularly good quality and does not seep water.

Two years ago, after the old monk killed Zhong Nian, he sealed the lower doors and windows with tape, and then used wooden boards to introduce water into this confinement room, floated the body to the top, and hung the body from the beam on the top. After that, the old abbot went back outside, smashed the wall below, and the water gushed out instantly.

Since there were no traces of climbing on the top of the dusty beam, it looked like the corpse was being carried up by a foggy dog.

Of course, the police couldn't close the case with "foggy dog ​​murder", so in the end, they had to treat it as a suicide.

...

Jiang Xia briefly recalled the cause and effect, but was not very interested in these.

His attention was quickly placed on the new ghost fetus.

The rooms are large and all are covered with tatami mats.

Jiang Xia dragged the bedding a little closer to the door, and lay down.

After the young monks had almost fallen asleep and Toru Amuro next to him stopped making any movement.

He was about to let a few pieces of shikigami fly into the corridor through the crack of the door to form puppets.

But before that, Jiang Xia suddenly felt something approaching outside the door.

This breath...is that new ghost fetus found?

"..." So active?

After a moment of doubt, Jiang Xia withdrew the shikigami. Pretend to go to the bathroom, get up and go into the hallway.

He closed the door behind his back, and when he lowered his head, he saw the new ghost running all the way along the corridor.

It looked quite anxious, as if it wanted to ask someone for help.

Jiang Xia looked around and found no one.

So he squatted down decisively, picked up the new ghost tire, and took it to a place where no one was around.

...

The new ghost obviously wants something from others.

It could be seen that when facing Jiang Xia, it was still flustered, but it no longer avoided him like it did during dinner.

As they got closer, Jiang Xia noticed that the extra bumps on the back of the new ghost tire were shaped like a pair of wings.

It took the ghost to the empty bathroom, and politely endured it for two seconds, but in the end it couldn't hold back, so it stretched out its hand under the trembling gaze of the new ghost, and pinched its wingtips.

With a little force, the wings were stretched by Jiang Xia. The new ghost jumped up in panic.

Jiang Xia let go of her hand.

The new ghost swished and hid behind the hand sanitizer, poignantly folded its wings and smoothed out the pinched feathers.

Jiang Xia watched from the side, feeling very magical.

The appearance of the ghost fetus is actually the product of the Q version of the real person.

But when this monk ghost died, it must have been in a normal human form, not with wings on its back—otherwise, the Wutiangou murder incident two years ago would not have been so well-known.

...

Many rules in this world are different from what Jiang Xia knew before.

He could only guess based on those messy theories that the sudden mutation of this new ghost was related to the legend of the Wutian dog killing people.

——That legend was widely popular in this area. It may be that these chanting influenced the form of the monk ghost.

I don't know if the wings are just a decoration, or they can really fly...

Thinking of this, Jiang Xia tentatively poked the ghost in front of him, trying to make it fly.

The monk ghost instinctively dodged to the side.

But soon, it remembered that it had something to ask the psychic in front of it for help, so it stood stiffly in place, letting Jiang Xia poke around.

"..." Because the ghost was too calm, Jiang Xia couldn't detect it.