Chapter 212: How to Be Invincible
After arriving at the river above the waterfall, Jiang Xia and Hattori Heiji pulled the rope and pulled the body onto the river bank.
One end of the hemp rope was wrapped around the neck of the corpse, and the other end was connected to a wooden stake that was firmly nailed to the river bank.
Jiang Xia placed the body by the river, and Conan immediately moved closer. The three of them observed the rope around Kaihara Nami's neck.
The hemp rope was tangled in several circles and piled up in a mess. The knots were so messy that it was difficult to tell whether they were formed naturally or tied by humans.
But no matter what, the place and time where Haiyuan Nami fell were too coincidental. And although the current of this river was turbulent, it didn't seem to be so fast that it could make a person turn so many times in a short period of time.
Therefore, Conan and Hattori Heiji are more inclined to believe that this was a murder case.
Jiang Xia looked at the body on the ground and said nothing. After all, it was the mermaid who caused this accident. And the mermaid is not a human, so the death caused indirectly can only be considered an accident...
Hattori Heiji asked in confusion, "Since Miss Kaihara was hit by an arrow, why didn't she go to collect it? Instead, she had to run into the woods at this time?"
A strange voice sounded from the side: "It's for the mermaid's tomb."
Jiang Xia looked in the direction of the voice and saw a woman with short mushroom-like hair. Her name was Nao Kuroe, and she was the "lucky person" who had just drawn the dugong arrow.
He was also one of the three people who set fire to the shrine's warehouse three years ago.
Nao Kuroe clenched the magic arrow in her hand: "Na'vi must have been waiting at the bottom of the waterfall to shoot the arrow, and she misunderstood the slightest movement as a hint from the mermaid, so she rushed into the mountain... She was too impatient, she should at least wait until she got the dugong arrow before taking action."
The "mermaid's tomb" in the words caught the attention of the two detectives.
——They remembered that Saori Kadowaki had mentioned this word on the ship coming here, but she didn't elaborate at that time.
…
Nao Kuroe didn't know that the person who was burned to death in the warehouse by them three years ago was actually a human.
Therefore, she, like her other two companions, firmly believed that the charred bones found in the warehouse at that time were the flesh and bones of the mermaid.
While she was giving a few outsiders an education about the Mermaid Tomb with a pious look on her face, Jiang Xia pretended to listen while looking at the dugong arrow in Kuroe Nao's hand.
The weather is getting cold, and this arrow should break.
…
It was already late in the evening. After observing the situation at the scene, the few people took the body back to the bottom of the waterfall.
Toyama Kazuha, Mao Lilan and Suzuki Sonoko were frightened by the "mermaid" hanging on the waterfall and did not follow up the mountain. After they came to their senses, the three of them immediately called the police and tried to help - they were already very experienced in doing this.
However, there is no police station on Mermaid Island, and the wind and waves on the sea are very strong. It will take some time for the police to arrive.
Jiang Xia handed the body down to the islanders and returned to the hotel with several classmates.
He was going to go back to his room to rest, but when he entered the room, before he could close the door, several other people had already squeezed in naturally.
Jiang Xia: “?”
"Since the police can't arrive for the time being, we have to solve this matter first." Hattori Heiji pulled a stool over and sat down, straightening his crooked baseball cap. "I always have a bad feeling - this incident may not be over yet."
Jiang Xia: “…Yeah.”
Your intuition is pretty accurate...
Conan, holding the earmuffs, also sat down next to him.
He felt that Jiang Xia's speed in solving cases had returned to normal recently - although he was still much faster than other detectives, he was no longer as scary as the scanner before. Perhaps he had reached a bottleneck... It was really hard to imagine what Jiang Xia would look like after breaking through the bottleneck.
In this incident, Conan and Hattori Heiji had the same premonition, and the two quickly reached a consensus - in this special period, it would be best to bring Jiang Xia along, and the three of them should work together to solve the case as soon as possible to avoid more victims.
As for why he had to wear earmuffs when discussing... when the two key words "Jiang Xia" and "solving the case" were put together, the earmuffs could make Conan feel more secure and allow his thinking to flow more smoothly.
And Conan soon discovered that he was not alone - he just saw Hattori Heiji's hand move towards the pocket where the earmuffs were placed, but he quickly put it down again.
Hattori Heiji and Conan go through similar mental journeys.
——On this island with intermittent signal, he couldn't play with his mobile phone, couldn't buy the latest mystery novel, and didn't even bring homework with him, so he had a lot of time to think about life.
As he was thinking about it, Hattori Heiji suddenly realized that for the time being, he could not crush Jiang Xia in reasoning. No matter how many times they competed, the result would be the same.
In this case, it would be better not to compete from the beginning, and to solve the case boldly and confidently, treating Jiang Xia as a reference book placed next to him that would announce the answers from time to time - as long as he did not actively create a competitor for himself, no one could defeat him.
Moreover, to put it in a higher sense, solving a case is not something that is suitable for competition.
There is only one final truth, that is, what is important is not who solved the case, but the training he gained in the process of solving the case...
Thinking of this, Hattori Heiji firmly moved his hand away from his pocket in an attempt to take out the earmuffs.
…
If we rule out the factor of accident and treat Kaihara Nami's death as a homicide, then in addition to investigating the traces at the scene, finding out why she ran to the mountain at that time is undoubtedly a key point.
At present, the most obvious clues in this regard are the Mermaid Festival and the "Mermaid Tomb" mentioned by Nao Kuroe.
Especially the mermaid tomb - there are not many reports about this matter from the outside world, and all we can find is what Nao Kuroe said about the "mermaid corpses in the warehouse."
Even on Mermaid Island, there is not much information about it. Most islanders only know that there is such a tomb in the mountain, but they don't know the specific location of the tomb. It is said that only Mingyang and someone she trusts know where the tomb is hidden.
Therefore, I can only inquire more about this matter on the island.
It's too late today. Even if we knock on the door, the islanders will be disturbed and may not provide useful clues. It's best to go tomorrow.
(End of this chapter)
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