Conan and Gin are both my brothers, what's wrong with meeting them once?

"What is fate? This is fate!"

After asking around, Kudo Kazuma and Conan learned that Hattori Heiji had received a letter of request and had come to Puppet Ridge with Toyama Kazuha on his motorcycle.

As a result, the two who came here for the first time got lost. To make matters worse, their motorcycle ran out of gas and they didn't have a phone. If it weren't for Takeda Yuzo's car passing by to pick someone up, they would have had to spend the night in the mountains.

In the small truck that continued driving, Hattori Heiji breathed a sigh of relief: "Thank goodness you guys passed by..."

The motorcycle was loaded onto the truck bed, and Kazuha sat in the driver's seat. Kogoro Mouri, however, also came to the truck bed to make room for Kazuha.

"So..." Kogoro Mouri looked at the foreigner beside him, "And what's up with this guy?"

“My name is Robert Taylor, I’m American, and I’m a photographer. I’ve been here before, and the young lady from the Takeda family took great care of me, so this time I came specifically to photograph this memorable place.”

Kogoro Mouri and Conan nodded in unison, and then paid little attention to the foreigner after that—anyway, it wasn't his business here.

Only Kazuma Kudo tilted his head and glanced at Robert.

This guy, who had been communicating in Romanized English, suddenly started using an English word to try and be romantic, which led to his girlfriend misunderstanding his meaning and ultimately became the trigger for her suicide.

This murderer is quite tragic. However, the person who shouldn't have died had already died years ago, and he couldn't bring him back. As for the one who should have died, he certainly wouldn't stop him from dying.

After arriving at the Takeda residence, the group learned that the girl Robert had been in love with, the eldest daughter of the Takeda family, Takeda Misa, had hanged herself three years prior.

Misa's second aunt, Yoko Takeda, explained to the group, "Just two or three days after Robert left, she hanged herself on the second floor of the puppet house. Not long after, my sister-in-law, Misa's mother, also hanged herself in the same place."

Their family was known as the "Spider House of Puppet Ridge" because of these two somewhat bizarre events, which seemed to be cursed.

“But the tragedy isn’t over yet…” Yoko Takeda sighed. “Two days ago, a gentleman named Negishi, who had always taken good care of my older brother, hanged himself in the warehouse…”

According to Yoko Takeda's explanation, Shinichi Takeda, the head of the Takeda family, inherited the skill of making puppets from his father-in-law and is currently a puppeteer, while Mr. Negishi is in charge of the sales and transportation of the puppets.

Yoko Takeda's husband, Ryuji Takeda, also said that Shinichi Takeda invited Kogoro Mouri to find out how Mr. Negishi died.

For this reason, Shinichi Takeda even kept Ryuji Takeda and his family, who had come from Tokyo to visit their hometown, so that they could stay until they found out the truth.

While Shinichi Takeda and Kogoro Mouri were exchanging pleasantries, Kazuma Kudo pulled Conan away from Ran and whispered to Heiji Hattori, "He didn't hire a detective when his wife and daughter committed suicide, but now that his business partner has died, he immediately goes to a detective... It seems this business is very important to him."

Conan said, "Maybe he knew why his wife and daughter committed suicide, which is why he didn't hire a detective."

Heiji Hattori then thought of something else: "If an outsider dies in your own home, it's hard to explain, right? That's why we hired a detective to find out the truth."

Kazuma Kudo scoffed, "Then why didn't he call the police?"

Isn't it because we can't call the police?

Now he finally understood—just like how Keiji Aso used a piano to hide drugs during a tour, and the librarian used books to hide drugs, Shinichi Takeda must have used puppets to hide drugs, and Negishi was the one who helped him sell them.

That's why he was so anxious when Negishi died, but their secret dealings could easily be exposed if reported to the police, so he could only try to get a detective to find out the truth.

As the three huddled together whispering, Takeda Shinichi asked Mori Kogoro curiously, "These people behind you, are they your disciple Edogawa Kazuma, and your two children? Who are these two extra people?"

Kogoro Mouri chuckled and said, "That's a long story..."

Kazuma Kudo, Conan, and Heiji Hattori exchanged glances—clearly, the letter of request that Heiji Hattori received was not sent by Shinichi Takeda, otherwise how could he not know about the arrival of Hattori and Kazuha?

While Shinichi Takeda and Robert were chatting, a pair of eight- or nine-year-old twin sisters arrived. They were Ryuji Takeda's two daughters, Sae Takeda and Emi Takeda.

Robert went up to greet them, but the two women exclaimed in unison, "Murderer!"

"He's come here to kill again." "Yeah!"

"How scary!" "I'm so afraid..."

Yoko Takeda quickly stepped forward to stop him: "Alright, children shouldn't talk nonsense!"

Upon seeing this, the two children immediately screamed and ran away.

Kazuma Kudo blinked: "Oh? So the murderer was that foreign guy?"

Conan was speechless and said in a low voice, "What nonsense are you talking about? At least have some evidence!"

Kazuma Kudo shrugged: "Didn't the two sisters already say so? Isn't that evidence?"

Conan lightly kicked him and then simply stopped talking.

Heiji Hattori smirked and leaned close to Conan, whispering, "Hey, Kudo, is your brother really this unreliable?"

Kazuma Kudo glanced at him sideways: "I'm listening!"

Conan remained calm and explained to Heiji Hattori, "It's nothing. Kazuma just talks nonsense all the time. He's actually quite reliable when things really come to a head."

"When have I ever talked nonsense all the time?" Kudo Kazuma casually scooped Conan into his arms and followed the others into the house. "Especially with you, I rarely lie or talk nonsense, okay?"

Of course, his use of "rarely" does not refer to the number of times, but rather that each time he speaks, eight parts are true and two parts are false. How can that not be considered "rarely"?

During dinner, Kogoro Mori and the three Takeda brothers, Shinichi, Ryuji, and Yuzo, ate and drank, making quite a lively scene.

Kudo Kazuma and his group were also having a lively time. The twins were unhappy when they saw that everyone else had a whole fish while they each had half a fish.

Yoko Takeda, who hadn't been allocated any fish for herself, was a little embarrassed: "I'm sorry, Mom bought the fish according to the number of people. I didn't expect there to be two extra guests. I'm sorry to trouble you two."

Upon hearing this, He Ye smiled and said, "Then you can have this fish."

Hattori Heiji's eyes lit up: "What's wrong, Kazuha? If you can't finish it, then you can eat it."

After saying that, he picked up Kazuha's fish and started eating it without any hesitation.

In the end, Xiaolan, both amused and exasperated, gave her fish to the two girls.

When the meal was almost over, Shinichi Takeda, who was half-drunk, stood up and said, "A puppet is almost finished, and I have to do some final touches, so please excuse me. Mr. Mori, I'll have to trouble you to begin a thorough investigation tomorrow."

Before leaving, Shinichi Takeda tried to avoid going alone, saying, "Yūzō, why are you still drinking? Aren't you going to help?"

Half-drunk, Takeda Yuzo swirled his wine glass and said, "Brother, you go ahead. I want to drink a little longer."

Having failed to recruit any teammates, Shinichi Takeda staggered away on his own.

After a short while, Robert spoke up: "Excuse me, could I borrow your car for a moment? I'd like to visit Misa's grave."

Kazuma Kudo's gaze fell directly on Robert.

That's good, now the dead and the murderer are both alive.