Chapter 5 [Full Moon Reflection Murder Case]

"What? You're asking me 10,000 yen a day!" A funny roar came from a store, and the voice seemed very familiar: "Your place is even more expensive than Beika Town, is your car inlaid with gold diamonds?"

"If it's inlaid with diamonds, it would be more than 10,000 yen," the sarcastic voice replied, "Are you going to rent it or not? If not, get out now and don't disturb my business!"

Pei Zhen's hand stopped on the handle as he pushed the door. He looked inside the store and saw that there were no other customers except the person walking in the middle. He didn't know whether he should go in. The most observant little fellow among them had already cast his gaze over, as if he had not expected to see him here, and there was a hint of surprise in his eyes.

Pulling the corner of the clothes of the person next to him, Conan whispered: "Sister Xiaolan, look!"

Xiaolan, who was originally looking at her father and the store owner worriedly, also turned her head and said, "Ah, it's Amano-kun."

Pei Zhen walked in anyway. He smiled and greeted them, "I didn't expect to see you here, Mao Li and Jiang Dogan."

Kogoro was still immersed in an argument with the owner of the car rental shop and didn't notice the arrival of the people here. Xiaolan was a little embarrassed. She explained, "Dad accepted an invitation to come here, but he didn't expect that this place is too remote. The host's house is on the mountain. If we walk by ourselves, we may not be able to get there until dark, so we want to rent a car."

"You bastard," Maori Kogoro said with a tic-tac-toe on his forehead, "you must have raised the price on purpose because you knew the nearest hotel is several kilometers away from here!"

The shop owner smiled deliberately and said, "It's OK as long as you know it."

Ignoring them, Conan tilted his head and asked curiously: "Why did Brother Amano come here? Could it be that he also received an invitation from Nagakawa Usuke?"

"Are you talking about the famous writer Nagagawa Usuke?" Thinking of the information he had researched on the Internet, Pei Zhen touched his chin, bent down and said, "No, I am going there too, but I am looking for someone else."

"Have you received a commission to investigate a case?" Conan asked persistently.

"Conan!" Xiaolan said angrily.

"It's nothing." Pei Zhen knew the enthusiasm of the young detective, so he didn't mind saying it out loud: "It's a commission my grandfather received in the past. Since the time hasn't passed yet, I came to take a look."

Seeing that his sad story was mentioned, Xiaolan said quickly: "It seems that Amano-kun has decided to inherit the detective agency's business. The old man has a successor."

"I don't know if it will work," Pei Zhen didn't finish his words: "I hope I can survive in the big city." He looked at the light liquid in the lower corner, +27. This encounter was equal to his previous two encounters with them in the coffee shop. Perhaps emotions would also affect his acquisition of light spots.

It was getting dark.

The car started with a rumbling sound. Maori Kogoro, who finally negotiated the price, turned the steering wheel with a sullen face and drove all the way to the winding and narrow mountain road. He stared at the front and said mercilessly: "Damn fat guy, he opened a store in a place like this just to rip us off? And that writer built his house in a place like this, I don't know what he is doing secretly..."

"Dad." Every time at this time, Mao Lilan felt helpless.

"Haha," Pei Zhen tried to liven up the atmosphere. "Luckily I met you guys here, Mr. Maori. This way the car rental fee isn't that much. Otherwise, I would be crying without tears."

"Amano-kun," Mao Lilan wanted to say something.

Seeing her expression, Pei Zhen immediately had a headache and said, "Ms. Mao Li, please don't say anything. I'm not used to this kind of push and pull. If you don't want me to be entangled for a long time after returning, you'd better not refuse the help I should give."

Mao Lilan had no choice but to shut her mouth.

Conan sat between the two of them, with a book open on his knees. Although the road was winding, it was not bumpy at all, and the lighting in the car was also soft, which did not hinder him from reading. Suddenly, he said, "This book by Nagagawa Usuke won the Mystery Association's annual best award that year."

Pei Zhen wanted to check the cell phone. If at the beginning he just wanted to see how the client was doing, then when he saw this family, he understood that what was going to happen next would probably be like a criminal investigation drama.

"It seems to have been very popular back then." Surprisingly, even Mao Lilan, who didn't pay attention to these things, had heard of it. "Because it is very sad and beautiful, many girls have talked about this book."

"That's because it's going to be adapted into a TV series," Conan complained, "so the media started promoting it everywhere. As a result, the reasoning part was weakened." He closed the book.

This kid really likes reasoning. Mao Lilan thought to herself.

Pei Zhen glanced at the cover of the book and saw a picture of a woman in a white dress. She was standing barefoot, with her long black hair blowing lonely and desolately in the wind. Several black and red artistic fonts were engraved on her right side, intertwined with the ends of her hair.

——"Moonlight Celebration"

The car was about to turn a corner, and Kogoro Mouri's anger was not yet completely gone. He turned the steering wheel, and the lights in front swept through the grass on the side of the road. Suddenly, a horrible and hideous face came into his eyes. His heart suddenly tightened, his pupils suddenly shrank, and he slammed on the brakes. The harsh friction sound echoed in the dark night.

The seat belts stopped their bodies from falling forward suddenly. The book in Conan's hand fell to the ground, Mao Lilan screamed, and Pei Zhen almost dropped the phone in his hand.

"What's wrong, Dad?"

Kogoro was frightened at first, but soon he reacted and anger appeared on his face. "Don't move, Xiaolan." He said this and quickly got out of the car. The car lights illuminated a bright area and the grass on both sides was quiet.

There was nothing where the human face had appeared before, as if what he had just seen was all an illusion. But Kogoro would never doubt himself, could it be...

"Someone was squatting here just now." A childish voice sounded in his ears. Kogoro immediately realized something, and the series of accidents made him unable to suppress his anger any longer.

"Ah!" Conan held his head that was hit with tears in his eyes.

"Didn't I tell you to stay in the car?" Kogoro Mouri yelled out rudely after venting his anger.

"Haha, maybe this kid is worried about your safety." Pei Zhen followed behind him, saying words that he didn't even believe.

"Hmph!" Seeing that it was the child of his fishing friend, Kogoro didn't want to scold him anymore. He looked at Conan with disdain.

Conan has discovered something. "The grass here has been stepped on, and there's a smell here..." He was keenly aware of something strange, and lightly traced his finger along the edge of a blade of grass, with a dark color staining his fingertips. "This is..."

"It's blood." He said secretly in his heart, "It's still fresh. It just came out not long ago."

He was injured but instead of running out to ask for help, he turned around and ran away. What is the origin of this guy hiding here?

"What bad luck," Kogoro muttered, "Nothing good has happened to me since I rented this car. The owner of the store must have passed on his bad luck to me."

Conan turned around and saw that everything around him was pitch black. This mountain is very remote from the city. There are very few people living nearby, and there are only dozens of households in the settlement at the foot of the mountain. He had asked before coming, and they had to drive to the town to transport some daily necessities. These people were self-sufficient, and most of them cultivated fields and grew their own food.

"What are you still doing there?" Maori Kogoro said to Conan impatiently, "Hurry up and get up the mountain. Who knows if there will be anything else other than wild monkeys running out of the mountain?"

"Wild, wild monkey?" Conan's eyes widened.

"Mr. Kogoro thinks that it was wild monkeys hiding in the haystack and spying on us," Pei Zhen said as he approached. "Monkeys in the mountains are wild and difficult to tame. When they see people coming up the mountain, they always steal things when they're not paying attention. Once discovered, some of them stop hiding and start snatching things openly. It's not uncommon for them to scratch people."

"No, that's not right!" Conan said to himself. "Monkeys aren't that big, and," he pushed aside a clump of weeds a little further away, "they don't leave any human footprints!"