Conan: Death is Watching Me

Chapter 342 The Collapse of Tokitsu Junya

Wooden villa.

The sky soon began to darken, and dark clouds, accompanied by a damp wind, drifted in from afar, making it look like a heavy rain was about to fall that night.

Gao Mo looked out the window and was surprised to see a few stars.

While researching literature on death, I came across mentions of stars, which are said to be projections of souls.

Whether it was due to the ignorance of the ancients or a fluke, the projected notes also used stars to quantify the power of the soul.

Gao Mo checked the projection information.

In just a few days, the number of stars in the storage pool has recovered to 1200.

Nothing else has changed.

The ability of the Divine Eye to copy knowledge makes it exceptionally easy for him to absorb knowledge, but the problem now is that he doesn't have enough professional books. He has already devoured several of the existing professional books, making it difficult to improve his abilities further.

It's worth mentioning that two new professional abilities have been added: swimming and gaming.

also……

Gao Mo turned his gaze to the still glowing text on the projection—the maid's last wish.

In a daze, I saw a girl with pigtails wearing a black and white maid dress, looking pitiful with her arms crossed. I only returned to normal after I looked away.

That's unbelievable, he can actually see the dead too.

And it wasn't as scary as I imagined; it didn't seem much different from being a living person.

"Hattori-kun?"

The square-faced butler knocked on the door several times.

"Dinner is ready. Please come to the dining room."

"it is good."

Gao Mo noticed that more than an hour had passed. When he went to the restaurant with the butler, he also took a look at the other people's rooms.

I was just thinking about how to handle the maid's last wishes, and I also did some deduction about Koshimizu Nanatsuki's plan.

Lavender potted plants were placed in every corner of his room and villa, and a full range of toolboxes were placed in the room.

Everyone else's rooms were the same, even the room layouts were largely identical.

They are all simple single rooms, with one door and two windows, scattered in four corners of the villa.

Just as he suspected, Nanatsuki Koshimizu was probably trying to find out exactly who the high school detective who had intervened in the Shikoku incident was.

The Lavender Villa incident in Shikoku was initially treated as a suicide by the police because it was an absolutely locked room incident. However, six months ago, Tokitsu Junya deduced that someone had cut the screws fixing the window frame and then glued the window frame back on, which led to the maid, who had no alibi, being suspected.

In the absence of other clues, replicating that incident for testing is indeed the simplest and most direct method.

“Finally, we can eat,” Tokitsu Junya said, having changed into a school uniform that looked like a suit. “I almost fell asleep while waiting, but why wasn’t it the director who called us?”

"This doesn't seem good," Hakuba Saguru said, leaning against the hallway with his arms crossed. "The strange requirement that we stay in our rooms and not go out, plus the bloodstains I just saw on Mr. Tsuchio's doorknob..."

"Could the match have started now? I haven't seen any hidden cameras anywhere."

“It is indeed a bit strange,” Tokitsu Junya asked, stroking his chin. “If they were afraid we would discover something in advance, they wouldn’t have bothered to come here for a rehearsal, unless we are already in the deduction phase.”

"This one……"

The square-faced butler broke out in a sweat under his gaze.

"I did try to find him earlier, but there was no response no matter how much I knocked. I don't know anything else."

"Do you have a spare key here?" Hakuba Saguru asked, walking ahead. "The director's room is locked; you can't open it."

"There is no spare key. All the rooms here are the same; you can only lock them from the inside."

"There's no other way, we can only see if we can get in through the outside window..."

"If it's like our room, I could open it."

Gao Mo followed to the door of the control room, inserted a card into the crack in the door, lifted it gently, and opened the door with his other hand.

"Crack!"

"you……"

Bai Ma Tan glanced at Gao Mo in astonishment.

His practiced movements reminded him of Kaito Kid, and he was about to ask him a question, but the next moment he was drawn to the scene inside the room.

Tsuchio Hiroki, bound by ropes, lay in the center of the room, his fate unknown, and the windows were locked from the inside...

An absolutely secret room!

“He seems to still be alive,” Nanatsuki Koshimizu stepped forward to check on the director, “but he didn’t tie the rope himself, which means this is an impossible locked-room crime!” “Ahem!”

The director was awakened by the noise and tried to break free of the rope in fright.

"What's going on? What are you doing?"

“That’s what we should be asking you,” Tokitsu Junya said, stroking his chin as he looked out the window, a slight smile playing on his lips. “Is this a riddle you deliberately set up?”

"What mystery?" The director rubbed his forehead after the rope was untied. "I heard someone knocking on the door and went to check, but I was attacked from behind with a handkerchief, it was like some kind of sleeping potion, and I passed out immediately..."

"Detective Koshien First Question," the square-faced butler suddenly said with a serious expression, "Please solve this locked-room mystery and then replicate it in your own room."

“As I thought,” Tokitsu Junya said with a smile. “If it is a mystery of a locked room, then I have already solved it…”

"Really?" Hakuba Saguru was a little doubtful, his eyebrows twitched slightly, and he looked at Tokitsu Junya with surprise.

He wouldn't dare say he was the best high school detective, but he wasn't inferior to Tokitsu Junya either.

Knowing the answer from the very beginning, are you sure it's not cheating?

“Excuse me,” Tokitsu Junya thought to himself with a hint of smugness, “I once encountered a case that used the same locked-room murder method, so…”

"Are you talking about the lavender villa incident that happened in Shikoku a year ago?"

Gao Mo also walked to the window.

"This is not actually a locked-room trick, but just a thief's criminal method."

"What?" Tokitsu Junya froze.

"You found the cut screws outside that villa, and assumed you had solved the locked-room murder mystery. Without thinking, you called the local police, and a suicide six months later was therefore ruled a murder, leading to the maid, who was under intense suspicion, jumping into the sea and committing suicide..."

Gao Mo turned and glanced at the silent Shi Jin Junzai.

"The reason you didn't leave your name is that you quickly realized the problem, right? If it was the method used six months ago, the degree of rust on the cut screws would be very different, and even if the murderer was confused, they wouldn't just throw them around the villa."

If you had been more careful at that time, the tragedy could have been avoided. But fearing shame, you left the area without even explaining to the police, leading to the maid's suicide being reported as a suicide out of guilt.

"Hey," Tokitsu Junya said, sweat beading on his forehead, "what are you talking about? What suicide or homicide? And what does this have to do with thieves?"

“Shortly before you went to that villa,” Gomer turned to Tsuchio Hiroki, “this fake director pretended to be a cleaner and got into the house, then took the opportunity to tamper with the windows, probably to make it easier for him to break in later.”

The seemingly sturdy window frame was actually just held together with ordinary adhesive, which you unfortunately mistook for a secret room technique…

"Hey, hey," noticing the strange looks he was getting, Tokitsu Junya pointed at the fake director, who also had a grim expression, "Putting aside whether it's true or not, how do you know all this? You've never even been to Shikoku, have you?"

"Of course I have my own sources of information."

Gao Mo glanced at Koshimizu Nanatsuki, whose face was slightly pale.

The short-haired high school girl in her school uniform has a completely different charm from the tomboy; her shoulders are trembling, and she seems lost in thought.

"Don't you find it strange? Why is there lavender everywhere in this villa? Why are there only four people in the high school detective showdown? Why is the director a fake director? Why didn't any other TV station staff come? And why did the locked-room mystery happen, just like the lavender incident..."

"What...what do you mean?" Tokitsu Junya's face had lost its initial gloomy confidence, and he was sweating profusely, looking rather terrified upon closer inspection.

"Boom!"

Just then, a muffled clap of thunder sounded outside the window, and a torrential downpour began on the island. Soon after, lightning suddenly illuminated the window, and even more violent thunder and lightning struck down, as if they were hitting everyone around them. Tokitsu Junya's heart trembled.

"In the beginning, there was no North-South representation. We just wanted to find a high school detective with a strange accent who was famous and could influence the police."

The room lights went out.

Gao Mo's shadow was projected on the wall, appearing as if it were a demon baring its fangs and claws, making Shi Jin Junzai's legs go weak.

It was as if I could hear my deceased grandmother calling out to me.

"It's you? What do you want?"

Tokizu Junya took a step back, pointing at Gao Mo in a trembling voice, completely unexpected that the fool who could be provoked by a few words before would be like this.

It was all an act for him.

"You want to kill me?" Tokitsu Junya instantly understood everything. "You deliberately set a trap for me, and then used this method to kill me? Hey, the maid's death can't be entirely my fault!"

"How could I possibly kill someone? You're overthinking it. I wasn't the one who planned this Detective Koshien tournament."

Gao Mo's gaze was calm, but he could already see Tokitsu Junya's fate of death in his eyes.

As expected, the rules of death still existed, but they no longer affected him.

This should also be considered fulfilling his last wish.

Nanatsuki Koshimizu will no longer suffer the fate of being arrested for murder.

"Who is that?" Tokitsu Junya swallowed hard, scanning the others before finally fixing his gaze on the silent, square-faced butler. "It's you? It's you, isn't it? Are you seeking revenge for that maid? Or are you all going to kill me? Call the police! I'm calling the police!!"

(End of this chapter)