Chapter 276 Twenty-one Villains

Ida Kou looked around and broke the silence in the room with a silent thought: "It seems that the contents of our three dreams are very contradictory. Speaking of this, Hagiwara and I actually guessed that time has gone backwards, and I'm afraid..."

"I'm afraid time has gone back more than once."

Hagiwara Kenji looked dazed for a while, and he fell into a brief state of recollection: "In my memory, Kojinpei died from a failed bomb disposal attempt, and Konanzuki appeared in front of me at that time and took the initiative to admit the identity of the murderer... Then I don't know why, when he told me that I could kill him to avenge him, my body moved uncontrollably."

"But in my memory, the person who died became Hagi, and in the squad leader's memory, none of us died, and the one who got into trouble became the squad leader's girlfriend." Matsuda Jinpei took over the conversation calmly, and led the topic back to the differences between the three people's memories. While showing his concern, he gave You Xunran time to come back to his senses. "What remains unchanged is that he admitted to being the murderer every time."

And similarly, every time Akajangazuki dies at the hands of the person who 'lost someone important', after his death, the world will restart.

...This is really bad news.

An important person died, Akae Nayue was inexplicably identified as the murderer and died, and the story was restarted.

If there is a causal relationship between these three, it is hard not to suspect that Chijiang Nayue chose to be killed by them in order to restart the world and change the result of someone's death.

And based on their meager knowledge of Chi Jiang Na Yue, that person deliberately let them mislead him even though he knew what kind of people they were. This means that being killed by them must be one of the conditions for restarting.

The three of them sighed heavily at the same time.

"If you put it all together, it seems like he has been trying to make us think he is the murderer, probably so that we can kill him as 'without burden' as possible... But how is this possible? Not to mention that we are friends at the same time on a certain timeline, let's say we are all police officers. Even if he is really the criminal, none of us can go and 'retaliate' privately!"

Ida Hang said with a headache: "That guy is really good at nitpicking... Really, I can't think of any adjective to describe him."

Matsuda Jinpei, who was sitting cross-legged beside him, suddenly froze, feeling guilty for a second.

Could it be what he thought?

This brings us to the part that he skipped over in his previous explanation, which was the reason why they quarreled in front of Kenji Hagiwara's body.

In fact, at that time, the inexplicable stranger said a lot of provocative words to him, and he was completely using the tone of a criminal, not to mention that the traces at the scene all seemed to point to the other party.

However, Jinpei Matsuda knew that it couldn't have been done by that person.

Officer Curly clenched his fists tightly. In his eyes, this stranger was gradually labeled with two irritating labels: "obstructing official duties" and "preventing him from finding the damn bomber". If the other party had not been holding a gun in his hand, he might have punched him.

Why was he so sure the other party was lying?

Matsuda Jinpei sneered: Because he also just learned that when Hagi was taken away, he didn't know why this guy was wearing that stuffed cat suit and hiding in the crowd to listen!

If he hadn't taken a quick glance before leaving and saw the man in the alley taking off his doll clothes and riding a motorcycle, he probably wouldn't have thought that the Curry Man from many years ago might be this person who didn't look mentally ill at all.

Anyway, judging by the time, unless this person can fly, at most he can catch up with him. Pretending to be a murder scene is suspenseful enough, let alone shooting Hagi? His childhood friend is not a fool who can't fight back!

Judging from the bloodstains on the ground, Hagi had obviously been... killed for a while. Judging from the time alone, the stranger had no time to take action.

Of course, even though he knew it, when he saw the corpse of the child, Jinpei Matsuda's emotions were basically on the verge of exploding. It was only because of his obsession with the murderer and his terrible willpower that he managed to maintain his composure.

So even though they knew the stranger was not the real murderer, they still ended up fighting - Jinpei Matsuda suspected, well, he was certain, that this person must know the murderer's situation, and what he wanted was to get from him where the real murderer was!

Then, the guy raised his hand and wiped the blood stains on the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, and said with a bright and sunny look -

“It no longer exists.”

"……?"

Facing his confused and shocked look after he understood the meaning of that sentence, the stranger gestured and explained to him in a brisk tone: "He's dead, huh? His head was shattered like a watermelon on the beach. There's nothing we can do about it. The impact of the bullet is so strong... If you want to see, the body should still be in the open space behind the warehouse."

Who taught him to use food as a metaphor for a corpse?

At that moment, Jinpei Matsuda felt that he would never want to eat watermelon again in his life.

And since they are neither the murderer nor the murderer's accomplice, what on earth is this guy talking nonsense in front of a policeman?

Thanks to him, they gradually moved away from the location of Hagiwara Kenji's body during the fight, and Matsuda Jinpei, who could not see that scene, gradually calmed down.

Confirming whether the murderer is really dead, and dealing with... dealing with Hagi's funeral, are all things that must be done later, and now, he should find out the purpose of this stranger for both emotional and practical reasons.

"Purpose, let me think about it." The stranger was stunned for a moment and distanced himself from him. "I was originally planning to let you take revenge without any burden and kill me directly. Now it's a bit troublesome... Or you should continue to try to identify me as the murderer?"

As if talking about something that had nothing to do with him, the stranger said lightly: "Just use this gun and pull the trigger. The shooting skills you learned in the police academy should not cause you to miss, right? Here, aim right here."

He pointed to his forehead with a smile on his face: "Bang, it happened very quickly."

When Jinpei Matsuda looked at this stranger, the question 'Are you crazy?' immediately accounted for at least two-thirds of his thoughts, and the remaining one-third was 'You are really crazy.'

The stranger understood.

"You have no choice." His smiling face was like a mask welded to his face, making people feel cold. "Let me think about how to put it... Oh, this is it."

He spun the gun in his hand and raised his eyebrows at him: "Jinping-kun, don't you want to save Kenji-kun and let him come back to life?"

Intentionally or unintentionally avoiding thinking about the fact that Hagiwara Kenji was dead, Matsuda Jinpei was silent for a few seconds, and once again looked at the stranger with a gaze so cold that ice could fall off: "Don't joke about his death, you bastard...!"

The stranger finally sighed, took off his mask-like smile, and said calmly: "I'm not kidding."

"Kill me, Zhen Ping, please." This man, who was clearly meeting him for the first time, called his name affectionately and pleaded, "This is the only way to save him. I'm not lying, I'm serious."

Matsuda Jinpei realized at this moment that even though he was asked to kill him, the stranger's red eyes were filled with...

【I don’t want to die.】

【Save me.】

The gun was stuffed into his hand by the other party when he lost his voice. The stranger was very close to him, with the muzzle of the gun against the other's forehead. As long as the trigger was pulled, no matter whether Hagi would be rescued or not, at least this strange stranger would die on the spot.

Without hesitation, Jinpei Matsuda threw the gun far away, beyond the reach of either of them, and then punched the stranger hard in the side of the face, trying to make him pour out the water in his head.

"I'm not in the mood to give you counseling at this time." He looked down coldly at the man who had fallen to the ground because he failed to dodge the punch. "But, the most basic point... Why on earth do you think that I will agree to kill you just because of Hagi?"

Even if...even if what this person who appeared out of nowhere said was true, Jinpei Matsuda would still choose to reject this ridiculous proposal.

Even though he was a complete stranger to the other party, and the other party seemed to have a lot of lives on his hands, it was not him, Jinpei Matsuda, who should have taken action, and it was not him, Jinpei Matsuda, who was qualified to kill the other party. Not to mention, it was impossible for Jinpei Matsuda to accept preventing the death of his child by the death of an "unrelated person".

Even if one end of the scale is his childhood influence and the other end is a stranger.

"… Forget it. What's the point of telling you?" Matsuda Jinpei recalled the stranger's nonchalant expression when he mentioned the murderer's body, and glanced at him. "You, don't fool others for too long, or you'll fool yourself too."

"What are you talking about?"

"I said."

Matsuda Jinpei recalled the scene he saw when he first arrived, and the expression on this man's face when he closed Hagiwara Kenji's eyes, and turned his face away: "You can actually feel it clearly, the weight of life. If you want help, you should just say it directly. Who would know what you are thinking if you keep smiling so ugly!"

He didn't see the stranger's expression, but he heard the stranger stay quiet for a few seconds before speaking in a low voice: "...Thank you, Zhenping."

then?

Matsuda Jinpei's narration came to an abrupt end here. Facing Hagiwara Kenji and Date Kou's questions, he turned his head away awkwardly: "And then... Then the bomb was found, and we were all killed in the explosion."

"No wonder." Hagiwara Kenji had a look of 'I've learned something' on his face. "No wonder Xiao Nayue's attitude towards Xiao Zhenping was the most different before... Is this the terrifying beast school intuition system?"

"...Hey, you called someone a Beast Faction in front of me!"

Ida Kou's expression looked a little subtle, he grasped the key: "Could it be that because he was exposed by Matsuda that time and was not the murderer, he simply did not show up afterwards, making himself the 'murderer' and then plotting for us to kill him..."

Three people: ...

What should we do? Thinking about it this way, it seems that this is something that the little bastard could really do... If they want to turn back time, they have to kill him. After being pointed out by Matsuda Jinpei this time, Akae Nazuki will definitely learn his lesson and retreat behind the scenes to control the situation in a more 'gentle' and cruel way.

After all, if they did the same thing as Matsuda, neither he nor Hagiwara would have taken action.

Their fists were itching again.

As for why Jinpei Matsuda's timeline is placed at the front in this conjecture, this can also be easily deduced.

Since he chose to save them, it means that the timeline of "contemporary with Chijiang Nayue" should be before the three of them, rather than the same timeline as them, because in their dream, Chijiang Nayue saw her as a "stranger", but Chijiang Nayue saw them as familiar.

In addition, in the timeline of Matsuda Jinpei, Akae Nazuki beat up Morobushi Kagemitsu at the beginning. They thought it was very strange before. Thinking about it this way, it might be because the person who killed Akae Nazuki in the timeline that was restarted before Matsuda was Morobushi Kagemitsu, so the little devil gave someone a beating.

Let's not talk about why that happened. According to the logic of this behavior, the same period line - that is, it is very likely the timeline of Morobushi Kagemitsu, and then before that, it is probably Furutani Rei... Hmm? Why?

Hagiwara Kenji: “…No wonder.”

Date Kou: “So that’s how it is…”

Matsuda Jinpei frowned: "What kind of nonsense are you guys telling?"

"You haven't remembered that we were from the same time, have you? ... In other words, in that timeline, our friendship was actually started when Xiao Nanyue beat Xiao Xiangya up in the middle of the night?"

Hagiwara Kenji explained with emotion: "Before that, we had no interactions, until that day when Nazuki-chan suddenly made a midnight appointment with Kofuruya... Well, that's how we gradually became familiar with each other."

"We've always been curious about why Na Yue looked like he was here to collect a debt. Well, now it seems that he really is here to collect a debt from Furuya." Ida Ko also tried to hold back his laughter.

So in this way we can sort out the roughly accurate chronological order. If we guess that it is arranged in reverse order according to the order in which their memories are restored, it would be Furuya, Morobushi, Matsuda, the class leader and finally Hagiwara.

They were silent a lot tonight, but none of the three of them cared about that. What they cared about more was——

"Doesn't this mean that all five of us are wiped out?" Hagiwara Kenji complained.

"However, this can also explain why Na Yue chose to go back in time because of Natalie's accident." Date Kou said dumbly, "After all, Matsuda has already said such words of advice."

The weight of life and all that...I really lost it to him.

"I'm still concerned about why Nazuki-chan seems to have forgotten what happened in those timelines." Hagiwara Kenji rubbed his brows and said distressedly, "If my timeline is the last one, it means that this time it was restarted to save Jinpei Ko? But this doesn't seem to be related to what he is doing now, right?"

Moreover, they had never thought about things in other timelines before, which made this timeline even more special.

This means something has changed... what?

Matsuda Jinpei groaned.

"Don't remember? Maybe not."

He crossed his arms and said firmly, "That little bastard remembers everything. He's just pretending not to remember."

This is the only thing he could never get wrong.

...At that time, what was that person thinking when he said to him, "If I am really the murderer,"? Jinpei Matsuda suddenly wanted to know the answer to this question.