Corpse collector in Conan

"!" The three children did not dare to say anything. They quickly retracted their hands and moved closer and closer, squeezing into a ball skillfully. Perhaps they instinctively felt that the area where they would be beaten would become smaller.

Jiang Xia stared at them silently for a while, then looked away.

Of course, he didn't beat the child. After all, the child didn't have murderous intentions... Let's write down the account first, and he would take more cases from them in the future.

…

Next to him, Toyama and Ye, who stepped on a human skull, gradually recovered from their shock. She had often seen corpses with Hattori Heiji before, and her resistance was stronger than the average person. Now that she suddenly encountered a skeleton, she subconsciously looked at Hattori Heiji... but couldn't find it.

...Oh, he is still concentrating on investigating the case in the Spider Mansion.

Yuan Shan and Ye's horrified eyes turned into half-moon eyes in an instant. For some reason, they had a lot of things in their hearts that they wanted to vomit, but they felt that the scene was not appropriate, so they swallowed it down silently.

Finally, her attention returned to the present.

Fortunately, there is a reliable detective nearby.

Yuan Shan and Ye turned to Jiang Xia and asked in a low voice: "What's going on with these bones?"

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

He waved the flashlight in a meaningful way, and finally let the aperture stop somewhere, observing while saying:

"It should be human bones, with lime sprinkled next to them - lime absorbs water and releases heat, which can accelerate the decay of the corpse and shorten the time for the bones to turn into white bones."

In other words, the human traces are very heavy.

Rob asked subconsciously: "Murder?"

"Probably." Jiang Xia was not interested in analyzing these things while standing in the wilderness. He wanted to see ghosts first.

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

As he spoke, he squatted down and pushed the stone away with all his strength.

I originally thought there would be scorpions, ants, centipedes and the like underneath.

However, it didn't... maybe it was because the seasons changed irregularly, and it was difficult for the fragile bugs to adapt.

This made Jiang Xia feel a lot more comfortable.

He first asked Rob to take a few photos, then found the gloves he had brought with him and picked up the things that were pressed under the flat stone.

——A ring with a mottled appearance, and a crushed cigarette box. In addition, there were some cigarettes scattered around.

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

Six cigarettes fell into his palm through his gloves, two of which were torn from the middle, four long and two short.

...a very typical death message.

I don’t know how the victims had an idea before they died and thought of this...

Hui Yuan Ai squatted next to Jiang Xia holding a flashlight to help him illuminate.

She was slightly startled when she saw the ring in Jiang Xia's hand - there were several letters engraved on the inside of the ring, ETSUKO to ASAO.

Etsuko to Asao

"This may be the ring that Miss Etsuko Nonomiya gave to her fiancé, Mr. Asao Kono." Haibara Ai whispered:

"Ms. Nonomiya was a guest in the hotel where we were. I heard that she came here with Mr. Kono a year ago. After the two had a big quarrel, Kono left the hotel alone and then disappeared.

"This year, there was no news from Mr. Kono, until last week, he suddenly sent out several invitations, inviting those who received them to come here to the hotel.

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

...And now, there is a white skeleton at the foot of the mountain, and next to the bones is Kono Asao’s ring.

It seems that about a year ago, Nonomiya Etsuko and others were gone.

Hui Yuan Ai sighed inwardly and looked up at the starry sky for a while, feeling 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?"

Normally, she would have skillfully called the police.

But now, Jiang Xia is also there. And Haiyuan Ai always felt that Jiang Xia was sometimes not so innocent and not afraid of investigation... So she thought that she should try to exercise restraint when calling the police and ask Jiang Xia's opinion first.

Jiang Xia nodded.

Then he hesitated and said: "But this place..."

Before they could finish speaking, Yuan Shan and Ye's disappointed voices came: "No signal."

Jiang Xia raised her head and glanced at her. I almost forgot, this person is also a professional alarm caller, and his hand speed of pressing 110 is not slower than Mao Lilan.

The mobile phone couldn't be used, so Haiyuan Ai quickly thought of another way: "I remember there was a landline phone in the hotel where we stayed."

But mid-sentence, she stopped.

——In the hotel where she stayed, three people were invited by "an invitation letter sent by Kono."

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

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 discovered.

If the news that "there is a dead person here" is brought back to the hotel step by step, no one knows whether it will fulfill the intention of the mastermind behind the scenes.

Haihara Ai hesitated for a moment and did not express these speculations - she had to maintain the image of a "six-year-old child" when there were strangers around.

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

So Haiyuan Ai jumped directly to the conclusion. She looked at Jiang Xia and said briefly: "Where are you from? If it's not far, why not go to your place and borrow a phone to call the police..."

Before he finished speaking, a figure walked out of the deep forest.

Then 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. He was holding something like a heavy discus in his hand.

Dr. A Li seemed to know him: "Mr. Tiantu?"

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

Boss Tiantu is the owner of the hotel where Dr. Ali and his party are staying.

Also engaged in telescope rental business.

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

After saying that, he seemed to still care about what Huihara Ai had just said. He glanced casually and quickly saw the skeleton on the ground.

The air was stagnant for a moment.

The next second, Boss Tiantu let out a scream, ran away, and rushed 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 phone in the hotel to call the police." Jiang Xia said with helplessness on her face and a slight expectation in her heart.

Yuan Shan and Ye nodded, not daring to look at the skeleton on the ground, thinking "call the police".

Rob did not expect to encounter another murder case. He doesn't really want to deal with the police, but he is out of town now. If the police testify, the alibi at the Spider Mansion will look more solid. So he quickly nodded in agreement.

…

The group was 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 Yuzo hurriedly opened the door: "Have you seen eldest brother? He just said that he was going to the studio to make puppets, but I searched all over the house and couldn't find him."

"What?!"

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

But Hattori Heiji still had a bad feeling.

He followed the Takeda family to search, and suddenly thought of a place:

"Have you looked for that abandoned warehouse built on top of the Spider Temple?"

Takeda Yuzo had seen hanged corpses there three years ago. Now he was frightened when he mentioned the warehouse. Of course he didn't take the initiative to go there: "No, no."

"Go up and have a look!"

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, feeling some kind of alarm bell blaring in his head.

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

After several ax blows, the cracked wooden door creaked open.

A corpse hanging in the air appeared in front of him.

Takeda Shinichi was like a poor insect stuck in a spider's web, hanging in this dusty warehouse with his eyes open.

"..."

Hattori Heiji stared at the corpse, and his mind went blank for a moment. Takeda Shinichi had just left the table for more than an hour. In such a short period of time... who killed him?

"Master Spider, this, this is the same as the legend of Master Spider..." Takeda Ryuuji felt cold in his heart when he saw his eldest brother's dead expression. At the same time, he couldn't help but think of his niece and daughter who had been hanged here.

When he mentioned his niece, Takeda Ryuuji thought of the two people who just went to the cemetery to pay homage to Misa: "By the way, the cemetery where Rob and the others are going now, I heard that spiders often appear there!"

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

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

And "Master Spider" is often in the cemetery, which may mean that the murderer is also often in the cemetery!

This is too dangerous!

Hattori Heiji felt that he should be frightened at this time, after all, his companions were in the cemetery now.

But in fact, when I talk about "danger", I think of Jiang Xia who went with me...

These two words were linked together, and Hattori Heiji's mind couldn't help but turn subtly - he thought of the murderers who had wailed in front of him, but he couldn't help them.

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

"..."

Hattori Heiji silently glanced at Takeda Shinichi who was hanging in the warehouse, and suddenly realized that instead of worrying about Kazuya and Jiangxia being assassinated by the murderer, he seemed to be more worried - here he was nervously solving the case, and there was only a few clues left. When he was able to understand everything, Jiang Xia suddenly came back with a beaten half-dead murderer, threw it to the ground easily, and said, "I accidentally met the murderer. I thought it was suspicious, so I held him down and beat him. Now he We've already recruited them all" and the like...

"..." The blood pressure went up.

Hattori Heiji tapped his skull for the nth time to make his thinking become like a normal high school detective, instead of always thinking about messy things.

He cleared his throat and took a deep breath: "Let's 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 during this season. Jiang Xia took a quick look after entering the room and found that a few guests were all gathered in the hall - a woman holding a wine bottle and drinking drunkenly, a middle-aged man with a high hairline, and a man with a hedgehog head. .

Except for the surprised boss Tiantu, the other three guests were all invited by invitations from the late "Mr. Kono".

One of them is Asao Kono’s fiancée, Etsuko Nomiya.

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 interaction between the two and Kono was a year ago, when Kono disappeared. Both of them stayed at this hotel.

Haibara Ai's eyes first fell on Nonomiya Etsuko.

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

There is not only one case in a newspaper. Haiyuan Ai often read them all by flipping through them, thus filling in a lot of experience in solving crimes.

So in her opinion, the current lineup and configuration in the hotel, combined with the causes and consequences, looked very much like someone trying to find the enemy who killed Kono.

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

So he came over again and quietly supplemented the information for Jiang Xia: "Boss Tiantu seems to have a good relationship with the deceased - Mr. Kono and Miss Nonomiya were his juniors in college, and they often come here together for vacations."

The moment Jiang Xia walked in, she had already looked at everything she needed to see. And succeeded in seeing a somewhat old leg-picking shikigami on one of the people's legs, confirming the murderer of Kono Asao.

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 detective who was really solving a case, she whispered to Haiyuan Ai in a cooperative voice:

"It seems that the person who sent the invitation and planned all this is more likely to be between Miss Nonomiya and Mr. Tentu."

Of course, there is a premise for all of this - the deceased is really Asao Kono.

Fortunately, this is not difficult to confirm.

——The bones scattered under the hill had cavities in the front teeth. After asking Nonomiya, this matched the characteristics of Kono.

During their brief conversation, Boss Tiantu kept dialing the phone, trying to call the police, but he couldn't make the call for a long time.

Jiang Xia looked at the boss who was doing his best to perform, walked over and tapped on the phone: "Stop pressing, it's not plugged in."

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

Jiang Xia: "..."

In his mind, the boss was the one who sent the invitations, hid the phone lines, and even discovered the bones on the mountain first.

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

So he found all the people who lived here when Kono disappeared, hoping that after seeing the body, that person would voluntarily surrender, or expose his flaws and be packed up and taken back by the police as a performance.