"You brat, you'd better thank me properly." Uncle Mori, wearing a trench coat and smoking a cigarette, leaned against the railing and said impatiently, "You suddenly said you were coming over and then suddenly said you had a case to handle in Fukui. I didn't come here because I had nothing else to do."
Heiji, whom Uncle Mori called a brat, turned around and replied, "Anyway, you didn't lose anything, Uncle. I covered all the travel expenses this time. I heard the seafood there is quite good. You can go and have a meal there sometime, Uncle."
"By the way, which island are we going to?"
After Heiji said that, Uncle Mori also got a little hungry. The seafood on the island was quite different from what you could buy in the city. The only pity was that you couldn't drink beer with seafood, and he didn't want to get gout at his age.
Heiji leaned against the railing, tilting his head toward the island that was getting closer to the group, and said, "The island we're going to is called American Island, but the locals call it something else."
"An island inhabited by mermaids."
Seeing Uncle Mori's puzzled expression, Heiji nodded: "Yes, it is said that there is an old lady on that island who eats mermaid flesh in order to achieve immortality."
Xiaolan had also heard of this fantastical island and said, "I've heard of it too! You're talking about the old lady who caused a stir three years ago because of her immortality, right?"
"That's right, I wanted to stay young and beautiful forever like him, which is why I came along this time."
Hearing Kazuha's words, Ran leaned close to Kazuha and teased, "You just want to use your youth and beauty to tie Heiji down, right?"
Seemingly having her thoughts spoken out, Kazuha's face quickly flushed, and she hurriedly said to Ran, "Keep your voice down! They'll hear you if you're so loud!"
"I heard you." Kwang-yu leaned against the railing, gazing at the boundless sea, a smile playing on his lips. "Eternal youth and beauty? Isn't that what describes her?"
Hearing Kousuke's mutterings, Ai frowned and asked, "Who are you talking about?"
Kōyū shook his head, clearly not wanting to mention that name. He knew that name was a nightmare in Ai's heart, so he changed the subject and said, "Ai, you should have been to this island before, right?"
"I've been here before. After all, what I'm researching has some similarities to this, so of course I came back to verify this potentially helpful rumor." Ai's tone was very calm.
Uncle Mori exhaled a puff of smoke, turned his head, and asked, "The person who sent you here didn't send you to find some mermaid, did they?"
Recalling the contents of the letter of request, Heiji frowned and shook his head: "Quite the opposite. The letter of request only contained a few simple sentences, and it was clearly written in a hurry. It said that the mermaid was about to be killed and asked you to come and save it."
These strange-sounding words caused the smiles on everyone's faces to vanish, except for Mitsuyu, Ai, and Conan, whose faces remained expressionless. Mitsuyu even seemed to want to laugh.
Conan unconsciously yawned. Seeing Conan's lack of interest, Heiji lowered his voice and said, "Hey, can you listen carefully?"
Conan's lips twitched, and he looked at Heiji as if he were an idiot: "Come on, mermaids are the protagonists of fairy tales. Only an idiot would believe that."
Heiji certainly had his doubts, but he noticed that although the envelope of the letter of entrustment bore the name Hattori Heiji, the letter itself began with the name Kudo Shinichi.
"Otherwise, why do you think I would have come all this way? It's because I thought this might be related to you, and I wouldn't have bothered coming all this way." Heiji's face practically screamed "I don't appreciate your kindness."
Uncle Mori suddenly asked, "Have you contacted the client to confirm this case?"
Heiji naturally understood Uncle Mori's concerns. If this was a prank, then it would be a complete waste. He had already contacted the client before coming, so he nodded and replied, "The person who sent me the letter, Kanojo Saori, did leave a phone number. However, what's strange is that no matter how many times I tried to call her the second time, I couldn't get through."
"And the call was immediately disconnected after the first connection. I still remember the sounds I heard on the phone very clearly. Besides the sound of the waves, there were only the sounds of a woman moaning."
A ship's horn pulled everyone back to reality from their reverie. The first thing they did after disembarking was to find their client, Kadokawa Saori. However, to their surprise, after asking a middle-aged man who worked on the island, they learned that Kadokawa Saori had apparently not gone to work three days ago.
She is still missing. Three days ago, when the letter was delivered to Heiji, the two middle-aged women told the middle-aged man that it was time to leave. The middle-aged man scratched his head and said goodbye to everyone. Before leaving, he told everyone that if they wanted to know about Kadoya Saori, they should go to the local products store where she worked on the corner and ask the owner.
After saying goodbye to the uncle, the group arrived at the local product shop he mentioned on the street corner. As expected of "the island where mermaids live," most of the products in the shop were related to mermaids, such as mermaid amulets, mermaid suspender frames, and mermaid-shaped pies.
But instead of a mermaid, it said dugong. Faced with this rarely seen term, Kazuha asked, "Hey, Heiji, what's a dugong?"
Heiji then explained to her, "Dugong is what is commonly known as a mermaid, a mammal. Since ancient times, it has been said that dugong meat can be regarded as an elixir of immortality."
Guangyou picked up the two shell-shaped amulets on the table and walked towards the counter. Uncle Mori and the shopkeeper were talking, and Guangyou didn't want to interrupt. Fortunately, the prices were listed, so Guangyou put the money on the table and planned to tell the shopkeeper later.
Kōyū gave one of the amulets to Ai, thinking it wouldn't hurt to buy a souvenir since they had come all this way.
When the landlady told him about mermaids, Uncle Mori naturally scoffed, "How could there possibly be such a thing as mermaids in the world?"
No sooner had she finished speaking than a shop assistant named Naoko Kuroe said, "There really are mermaids in the world, because there are real cases of people who have achieved immortality by eating mermaid flesh."
According to her, the long-lived woman who ate mermaid flesh and gained immortality could imbue dugong arrows made from hair grown with her mind power with the magic of granting immortality.
She believed that Saori's accidental loss of this miraculous item would provoke the mermaid's revenge, which was why she escaped the island.
Guangyou, however, had reservations about the existence of mermaids. The world is full of wonders, and humans are not omniscient. Perhaps mermaids really exist in some corner of the world, or perhaps they don't.
This is similar to the question of whether humans on Earth are the only advanced intelligent life in the universe. The universe is boundless, and human exploration is only a small part of it. How can humans be so sure that only one planet with life like Earth could be born in such a vast universe?
Guangyou sighed deeply: "Humans should have a sense of awe for nature. In the face of nature, humans are like ants, fragile and powerless."
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