Ke Xue: I picked up a bottle of sherry at the beginning.

"That's right, ma'am, you and Mr. Hamura are accomplices!" Mr. Doi shouted.

"What nonsense are you talking about? Mr. Doi!" Mrs. Torakura was furious.

"If you drop a rope from the window of your room, you can go to the collection room. Using this rope, Mr. Hamura will climb back to the second floor and reach the study from the roof of the corridor. Then, he can just climb over the roof of the study and jump in front of the window. Then, he will ask Mr. Torakura to open the door, enter the study, and find an opportunity to kill him. Just use the same method to get back here. Right, Officer Bai!" After saying this, Doi looked at Izumi with pride, as if seeking his approval.

Quan Yi really didn't realize that Doi had the same train of thought as Maori. This reasoning really captured the essence of Maori.

"That's pure nonsense!" Mrs. Torakura said, her arms folded. "Tell me why I must join forces with Mr. Hamura to kill my husband."

"That's because of you and Mr. Hamura..." Doi didn't finish his words, but everyone understood what he meant.

"Where's the evidence?"

"Etsuko, we don't have to hide this anymore." Hamura said bluntly, and everyone was shocked.

"Hamura!"

"If the police start investigating, this matter will be exposed immediately..."

"So, you admit it?"

"I admit...but we have always been a pair of lovers..."

"That's right! The only one I truly love is Hamura! I have never loved Daisuke Torakura!" A pair of lovers faced the reality, and Mrs. Torakura's words were no less shocking than an atomic bomb explosion.

"Then why do you want to marry him?" Mingmei asked curiously.

"Eight years ago..." Mrs. Torakura recalled sadly.

"My father's company was on the verge of bankruptcy due to poor management. Torakura and my father were old friends, and he agreed to help the company with its cash flow, but in exchange he wanted to marry me, a recent college graduate. If the company went bankrupt, a large number of employees and their families would suffer. So I was helpless... Later we found out that the company's poor management was all the result of Torakura Daisuke's behind-the-scenes manipulation of power. However, by the time I found out about this, my family's original company had already been transferred to Torakura's name. He threatened me that if I divorced him, he would let the company fall apart..."

"Why is this happening?" Tansho asked in surprise.

Doi still insisted, "Right? As long as you kill Mr. Torakura, the company under his name can be returned to you in the name of inheritance!"

"That's not the case. We really didn't kill him!"

"What evidence do you have? You said he is one of us, you should have evidence, right?" Hamura was much calmer than Mr. Torakura.

"Well, since that's what you said, I'll prove it to you!" Doi led everyone towards Mrs. Torakura's room, saying along the way, "After you come out of her room, jump from this window to the roof of the corridor connecting to the study, and then directly into the study!"

It seems that my arrival this time has stimulated his crime-solving gene... Quan Yi had a helpless smile on his face.

"The footprints you left behind must still be on the roof!" Doi walked to Mrs. Torakura's room and flung open the window. He was stunned when he saw it. "No, no?! Where are the footprints..."

Quan Yi also narrowed his eyes.

(There aren't even any footprints! If we don't use the corridor connecting to the study, there's no other way to get there except by using this rooftop... It seems the murderer is trying to lure our target to a vampire with the ability to evade heaven and earth...)

"Really?! We all made this trip in vain." Everyone left the lady's room haggardly, complaining about Doi all the way. Hamura and the lady didn't even look at him well.

"Huh?" Quan Yi, who was walking at the end, suddenly retracted his foot and noticed a strange mark on the eaves outside the collection room window... "What?! That dent in the snow..."

There was a thoughtful glint in Quan Yi's eyes.

Impossible Crime

After returning to the scene, Izumi used his camera to take pictures of Torakura from various angles, then handed the camera to Tanosho to take pictures, while he untied Torakura from the cross and examined the body.

As he was fiddling with the body, Quan Yi suddenly remembered that when he rushed to the collection room after the crime, he didn't smell the same scent of paint as he did the first time he entered. He moved a little closer and sniffed the wooden stake, but there was no scent of paint.

(The source of that smell wasn't the wooden stake...)

Quan Yi covered the horrifically dead Torakura with a piece of cloth, then stood up and said: "Now, I will sort out the whole incident. First of all, Torakura went to the study at around 8:30. Mr. Tadokoro, I, Akemi and Ai went to the collection room together to get the movie that Mr. Torakura wanted. At that time, the murder weapon, the wooden stake, was still there. In other words, the murderer stole the wooden stake after we left the collection room. And every window in the collection room has been locked from the inside. Akemi confirmed this personally. The only way to get to the collection room is to walk through the living room. Then, Mr. Tadokoro brought the movie tape and wine to the study..."

"Yes, it was around 8:50." Tansho took over the conversation. "I put the movie and the wine away and left the study."

Izumi suddenly realized that the plastic seal on the wine bottle that Tansho had brought in and placed on the table in a bucket of 27 had not been removed...

"Did Mr. Torakura show any abnormality at that time?" Izumi asked.

"No, there isn't."

"It was already past nine when I returned to the living room..."

"After that, you check to see if every door and window in the house is locked."

"Yeah, it took about ten minutes to get back."

It was no longer snowing at this time... Quan Yi remembered that scene.

Izumi looked directly at Mrs. Torakura and said, "Not long after, Mrs. Torakura got up and went back to her room. Later, she was found on the first floor around 12 o'clock, which should be around 9:15. Later, when the body was found around 12 o'clock, she came down to the first floor again... You have no alibi for this period!"

Mrs. Torakura was speechless. Izumi turned to look at Hamura, "Mr. Hamura, you left the living room at the same time as Mrs. Torakura and went to the library, right?"

"Well, it was almost half past ten when I returned to the living room... I don't have an alibi for this period of time." Hamura said with a frown.

"In other words, you have a good chance of stealing the wooden stake from the collection room," Quan Yi said.

"Hmm!" Hamura was lukewarm.

Izumi turned to Doi and asked, "Mr. Doi, when Mr. Hamura returned to the living room, you immediately went to the bathroom. You were away from your seat for about twenty minutes, right?"

"Uh-huh……"

"If it's twenty minutes, the crime could have been committed." Mingmei said from the side.

"But I didn't even go to the collection room..."

"Yes, Mr. Doi was just going to the restroom at that time." Quan Yi nodded. "At that time, Mr. Doi even bumped into me."

(If Uncle Mori was here, and the person who was hit was someone else, he would definitely say that the person secretly took the wooden stake in his hand, and then Mr. Doi pretended to hit the person, but actually took the wooden stake away...) Quanyi's thoughts were a little distracted.

"Even if it's a joke, I have no reason to kill Mr. Torakura," Doi said with a sly grin.

Quan Yi habitually leaned on a pile of documents on his desk and thought, but unexpectedly, the document stuck in the envelope slipped out.

"Ah!" Doi screamed, looking very frightened.

While helping to clean up, Quan Yi asked, "What is this? Mr. Doi, you seem very worried and nervous... Could it be something shameful..."

"That, that is..." Doi said hesitantly.

"Hmm? This is..."

The manuscript only read: "The Call of the Night" by Nakajima Yuhiko...

"Is this Mr. Torakura's original manuscript?" Izumi asked in surprise as he looked at it.

"That seems to be a novel submitted by a reader to Mr. Doi's magazine." Xiao Ai pointed at the envelope and said, "It has the words "Horror Times Monthly" on it."

"Oh right! A friend who organized a horror fiction club at my university once told me a legend..." Hamura said angrily, "The stories they submitted to Horror Times Monthly were all plagiarized by Mr. Torakura in his own novels."

"Plagiarism?"

"Could it be that you, the editor-in-chief, are helping him behind the scenes?" Mrs. Torakura looked at Mr. Doi coldly.

"H-What evidence do you have?"

"In that case, how about we compare Mr. Torakura's original manuscript stored in his computer with this reader's novel?" Izumi held up the manuscript in his hand. "Mr. Doi, it would be better for you if we could clarify things now!"

Doi broke out in a cold sweat and stammered, "Tora... Torakura ran out of ideas years ago."

"What!?"

"About seven years ago, I owed a huge debt due to a failed stock investment. Hu Cang was willing to take on the debt for me, but... he wanted me to help him plagiarize the novel he submitted."

"In that case, you'll most likely recalculate the interests of both parties and decide to kill Mr. Torakura."

"It's not me!" Doi yelled hysterically at Izumi.

"But you have a strong motive to kill."

"As for motivation, he has it in Tadokoro over there too!"

"Hmm?" Izumi turned his gaze towards Tadokoro, "Could it be..."

"That's right, Officer Bai, he is the ghostwriter for Torakura all these years!" Doi shouted and stated an incredible fact.

"Ghostwriter?"

No one could have imagined that such a famous writer in Japan actually hired ghostwriters to write for him, and their impression of him was greatly reduced.

"Five years ago..." Tsuchimimi said, looking heartbroken. "I couldn't stand the rumors that we were stealing submitted novels, so I introduced Tadokoro from the doujinshi club to 217 Torakura."

"Come to think of it, Mr. Torakura also started publishing heroic fantasy novels about five years ago."

"Those are the stories Tian wrote for him."

"Really? Mr. Tadokoro?"

"It's true." Tansho lowered his head and said, "But I don't hold a grudge against the teacher because of this incident. Even if I really do hate him a little, I have my reasons for not killing him!"

"Why can't we kill him?"

"I have a younger sister named Kaori, who was separated from me when she was ten years old. She has had kidney problems since she was born, and because both my parents died young, she has been trying to get comprehensive treatment. Now, thanks to Mr. Torakura's help, she can be admitted to a hospital in Tokyo. He asked me to be his ghostwriter in exchange for helping me pay for Kaori's huge medical expenses."

"If Mr. Torakura is killed, your sister will no longer be able to continue receiving treatment?"

"Yes."

"It seems that Mr. Torakura is not a good person..." Mingmei said with emotion.

Mrs. Hu Cang said fiercely: "He is simply a vampire!"

"Even if the victim's behavior is as despicable as a vampire, the fact of murder will not change! The murderer cannot be forgiven!" Quan Yi said coldly.

Mr. Hamura would not have been able to commit the crime without the help of Mrs. Torakura or Mr. Doi...

Clever killing method

Quan Yi analyzed the entire case and pondered. However, to get to the study, the connecting corridor is the only way, and you must go through the living room. It is impossible for the murderer to hide from our eyes and ears! Even if he could hide, the door to the study entrance is locked. The gap in the door is also sealed with rubber, making it impossible to do anything from the outside. Even if you go in and out through the window, there are only footprints in front of the window. Since the wooden stake used as the murder weapon was originally in the collection room, the murderer must be among the people staying in the villa tonight!

Wait a minute! Why did the murderer use that wooden stake to kill people? Besides, the victim died in the same way as the protagonist in the movie, which would actually be disadvantageous to the murderer. Why did the murderer use that weapon? Could it be that...

Quanyi leaped up to where the wooden stake had been and sniffed. Sure enough, there was still a faint lingering scent of paint. The window was locked from the inside, and the spring lock on the upper transom was also locked. There was a small branch on the ground below the window... and there was a strange indentation in the snow on the eaves outside the window. There had to be some connection. What could it be? Quanyi racked his brains.

Suddenly, Quan Yi's eyes lit up, and something in his brain seemed to become clear.

To confirm his theory, Quan Yi walked to the corner window of the entrance hall and saw a stepladder, a long broom, and a pair of pruning shears. A smile crossed his face. Then he saw a tied black plastic bag next to the plastic bucket and muttered to himself, "Hmm? What? This plastic bag..."

Everyone was still in the study when Quan Yi walked in.

(Now we know who the murderer is, but there is still one most vexing mystery that remains unsolved. How did the murderer do it? So... why did the murderer shine the projector on the corpse? Was it just to create the same effect as the last scene in the movie? No, that's definitely not the case...)

Quan Yi looked up and saw the window with a black curtain. He stared at a fold in the middle of the curtain and frowned.

(Huh? What? Transparent tape? How can there be something like this in a place like this... Wait? This, this is... I know!) Quan Yi's eyes showed a light of seeing through everything. He already knew everything about the criminal and his methods!

At this time, everyone in the room was getting a little impatient, and Hamura suggested, "It's getting late, I think we should go back to our rooms and rest."

"Please wait!" Quan Yi's voice came, "It's nice to sleep and have a sweet dream, but... I won't be able to sleep or eat well unless I get to the bottom of this matter!"

"What do you mean, Officer Bai?"

"Well... to put it simply, I already know who the culprit who killed Mr. Torakura is!"

"What?!"

"Yes, I figured it all out!"

"We're all ears, Officer Bai."

"First, there's the wooden stake used as the murder weapon. I originally thought that the only person who could get it was Mr. Hamura. But in fact, anyone could have stolen it from outside."

"From outside?"

"But there are no footprints on the snow outside!" everyone wondered.

"The reason there are no footprints is because the murderer was walking in the air." Quan Yi said with a smile.

"Walking in the air?"

"Are you still joking?"

"Everyone noticed, right? The window next to the stairs in the entrance hall and the eaves outside the collection room window are exactly at the same height. The murderer used this to build a bridge, using a horse chair!"

"Horse chair?"

"That's right. If you walk over it, not only will you leave no footprints, but you can also get to the closest place to the collection room window. The evidence is the traces of two horse chairs on the eaves."

"But the windows are locked."

"As for this, with a little forethought, the window could have been opened easily. The murderer could have used the small branch I found and placed it between the lock of the louver and the window glass. At first glance, the louver would appear locked, but the window would still be easily opened. That's where the murderer stole the wooden post! After stealing the murder weapon, all he had to do was close the louver, and the spring lock would automatically lock."

"But, Officer Bai... there's a two-meter distance between the table where the wooden stakes are placed and the air vent!" Tansuo shouted.

"All you need is a pair of pruning shears. Mr. Tadokoro used those during the day. Just take off the shears and replace them with a pair of tongs. With that, you can easily sneak through the air vent and steal the stake! Using this method, anyone can easily get the stake!"