Slacker Assassin's Multiverse Daily

If Jiang Hang hadn't used Revealing Eagle Vision to check, Hirata Kazuaki would likely have noticed his arrival the next day.

But since he had spotted it, Jiang Hang didn't waste any effort and simply moved to a spot without cameras to approach the other man's residence.

Hirata Kazuaki was currently showering in the bathroom, and Jiang Hang slipped into the house through an unlocked window on the second-floor hallway.

Although the system hadn't rewarded him with any climbing-related skills, just two stories was easy enough for someone with the Assassin bloodline to scale.

Before entering, he had already used Revealing Eagle Vision to confirm that the house still concealed a large amount of illegal drugs.

It seemed this man held the role of transporter and intermediary within the gang.

Maintaining Assassin's Footwork, Jiang Hang boldly took advantage of Hirata Kazuaki still being in the shower, found the kettle in the living room, and poured some powder into it.

It wasn't anything serious—just a truth-telling sedative.

Its effect was simple, not much different from those knockout drugs. After ingestion, it left a person feeling dazed and confused, making it useful for extracting information from those with weak willpower.

He didn't think a longtime drug user would have much strength of will.

This stuff wasn't exactly legitimate, of course. Making it had cost Jiang Hang considerable effort.

Though the method was a bit underhanded, the identity of a detective was hardly so inconvenient a thing.

After all, as long as no one knew he had been there, it was as if he had never come.

Hirata Kazuaki would only think he'd had a strange, unrememberable dream, and by the time he woke up, all traces would have been cleaned up by Jiang Hang.

After finishing that, Jiang Hang found a spot to hide and observed Hirata Kazuaki finish his shower, then drink a glass of water before bed.

Of course, even if the man didn't have the habit of drinking water before sleep, it wouldn't matter—Jiang Hang also had an incense-type sedative, though cleaning up after it would be more troublesome.

About twenty minutes after Hirata Kazuaki lay down in bed, Jiang Hang judged the sedative should be taking effect, and silently slipped into the other man's room through the darkness.

If he were an assassin, a single sword strike now would be a perfect assassination.

But Jiang Hang was here to extract information. Watching Hirata Kazuaki's breathing grow a bit ragged, he unceremoniously yanked the man out of his futon. If it were an ordinary person, being dragged like this would have woken them up long ago.

Yet at this moment, Hirata Kazuaki still hadn't come to. He seemed to be struggling to open his eyes but couldn't manage it, mumbling meaningless words under his breath.

This was exactly the dazed state he wanted—it meant the sedative had fully taken effect.

Jiang Hang didn't beat around the bush and went straight to the most critical question: who made up the drug trafficking group.

Hirata Kazuaki seemed to hesitate for a moment, but under Jiang Hang's relentless questioning, he slowly uttered the name Kawashima Hideo.

What surprised Jiang Hang, however, was that Hirata Kazuaki only gave that single name—different from what he had originally thought.

He had assumed all four witnesses from back then were members of the criminal gang, but it turned out only one was?

Still, that didn't mean Jiang Hang's guess was wrong. Under his questioning, Hirata Kazuaki admitted he had started helping Kawashima Hideo transport drugs two years ago, but he wasn't clear on anything before that.

In any case, after thoroughly interrogating the man about his criminal activities, Jiang Hang stuffed Hirata Kazuaki back into bed, erased all traces of his presence in the room, and left the drug-filled house through the second-floor window again.

He had gotten all the information he needed from Hirata Kazuaki. If he wanted, he could send a message right now to Officer Takagi and Inspector Megure in Tokyo, asking them to come make the arrest.

Hirata Kazuaki's house was packed with a large amount of drugs. As long as the police came to search, they'd catch him red-handed. Jiang Hang didn't need to worry about it at all, and the man wouldn't suspect him.

Though taking down a drug trafficking ring should at least be a three-star case, in the end, it couldn't be directly linked to Keiji Aso's case.

Jiang Hang found that a bit regrettable.

He had gone to the trouble of pulling off an infiltration for once, only to find he had been looking in the wrong direction.

But there was still plenty of time. He planned to go have a good "chat" with the other witnesses from back in the day tomorrow.

Chapter 50: Chapter 50: The Mysterious Score Hiding a Death Message

The next day, while Jiang Hang was still pondering where to start his investigation, Koharu Yoshino had already sent him new news.

After searching all night yesterday, the old policeman had finally found the belongings Keiji Aso had left behind back then.

The only thing of value was a handwritten musical score stored in a safe.

But Koharu Yoshino didn't know much about sheet music, so she called to ask if Jiang Hang could read it.

Unfortunately, Jiang Hang not only lacked artistic talent but also had little musical ability.

When it came to singing, though he wasn't quite at the level of Takeshi or Conan, anyone who had heard him sing generally didn't want to hear it a second time.

But soon he remembered that Shizuka Sakaki had a talent for performance. It was only a basic skill, but reading a score should be no problem.

So he contacted Shizuka Sakaki, and the two of them headed together to where Koharu Yoshino was.

However, when Shizuka Sakaki saw the score and studied it for a bit, she frowned.

"This score... seems a bit strange..."

Jiang Hang leaned in to take a look. Indeed, it was strange—because he couldn't understand a single note marked on it at all.

He recalled that this score had only been briefly mentioned in the police case files. The officers back then had judged it as unrelated to the case and simply recorded it as a personal belonging.

"Is there something wrong with this score?" he asked Shizuka Sakaki, the professional, while also glancing at the old policeman, who looked like he hadn't gotten enough sleep.

"Old sir, was this score ever investigated by the police back then?"

Hearing Jiang Hang's question, the policeman, who was nearing retirement age, yawned and slowly answered his doubts.

"Well... let me think... seems like it was looked into, and then again like it wasn't. It's been a while, and this old man's memory of such details isn't too clear anymore."

The old police officer's eyes were half-closed, looking like he might fall asleep at any moment.

"Oh, that's right, I remember now—it was taken to a pianist for inspection, but in the end, he gave some messy evaluation, so the police decided from the score that it was probably something Keiji wrote while he was mentally unstable before his death. It's been sitting here untouched ever since."

Shizuka Sakaki looked at the score and nodded.

"It really is a mess. Even just humming a few bars feels off—it doesn't seem like something a pianist would leave behind... Was Keiji Aso already losing his mind before he died?" As she said this, Shizuka seemed to want to find a suitable instrument to play the score through, but in the end, she couldn't find one.

While Shizuka continued puzzling over the score, Jiang Hang took the chance, while the old officer was still awake, to ask about the last eyewitness from back then.

"By the way, old sir, I heard that Keiji Aso's self-immolation case had four eyewitnesses at the scene, right?"

"That's right... Are you reporters interested in that too?" The old officer seemed a bit puzzled, but he still recited the four names.

"Come to think of it, all four of them grew up with Keiji. I remember... they even learned piano together as kids... But fifty years have passed in a flash. Keiji's dead, Kameyama's dead, the remaining three—Kuroiwa became the village chief, Kawashima turned into the island's big moneybags, and only Nishimoto... His family used to be pretty well-off too, but ever since Kameyama died two years ago, he's been acting a bit off. Now he basically stays shut in his house every day and won't come out. No idea what set him off."

"Come to think of it, Nishiki was the closest to Keiji out of all of them back then. When Keiji was touring abroad later, Nishiki would often go overseas to support him..."

Old people really do get lost in memories easily. Jiang Hang only asked casually, and the officer immediately spilled all the information he wanted. Jiang Hang even managed to get Nishiki Ken's current address from the old officer by claiming he wanted to interview him.

Just then, Shizuka Sakaki seemed to have found something else, drawing Jiang Hang's attention.

"Wait, there's definitely something wrong with this score."

Shizuka pointed at the score in her hand. "I'm a pianist too. When I mapped this score onto piano keys just now, I noticed that almost all the notes are on the far left of the keyboard. I took a quick look, and not a single note appeared anywhere else."

Jiang Hang's interest sharpened at this information.

Keiji Aso was a famous pianist. For a score he wrote to have no beauty at all—the police said he was mentally unstable, which could be an explanation.

But Jiang Hang knew the truth couldn't be that simple. If Keiji Aso had truly lost his mind, then this trip to Moon Shadow Island wouldn't have happened.

Now Shizuka had found a clue. When someone's mind is unhinged, would they still remember to only use the left-side notes on the keyboard? That didn't add up at all.

Unless this wasn't a score at all, but some kind of message he deliberately left behind!

Thinking this, Jiang Hang couldn't help but grab at his own hair.

Great. Finally, he'd reached the area he was completely useless at.

Deduction was nothing more than finding clues and stringing them together to uncover the truth.

In orthodox reasoning, death messages were a very common key clue.

But these so-called "death messages" came in all shapes and sizes—every type imaginable.

Who knew why the dying had so many thoughts running through their heads right before death?

If they were afraid their death message would be too obvious and destroyed by the murderer, that was just nonsense.

If the killer left the scene right after the crime and never came back, then even the most straightforward death message would never be found by the murderer.

But if the killer returned to the crime scene afterward to clean up, then no matter how clever the death message was, it could be destroyed—or even twisted and used by the killer.

This was a common trope in mystery novels.

Even if the death message was intact, there was another key point: these victims never considered the possibility that their death message might never be discovered.

Like the police back then, and Jiang Hang now.

So, you people need to consider that the one finding your death message isn't some great detective, but a third-rate detective like me!

Jiang Hang stared at the score, feeling as if Keiji Aso, dead for twelve years, was saying to him, "Want to know my secret? If you do, then crack the code in the score. I've hidden all my secrets in this sheet music."

I want to know your grandpa!

Chapter 51: Don't Assassinate—Just Go Dominate

In the hotel room, facing the photocopy of the score, Jiang Hang, Koharu Yoshino, and Shizuka Sakaki kept their expressions serious.

After Jiang Hang suggested this might be a death message left by the deceased, the old officer scratched his head and let Jiang Hang make a few copies to bring back.

Now, in the hotel, the two girls had started brainstorming what kind of cipher Keiji Aso might have used and what message he left.

Everyone had plenty of ideas. Koharu thought there might be a hidden codebook somewhere, and only by finding it could they translate the message.

Shizuka, on the other hand, planned to approach it from a musical angle. She still believed it was a score, but with some useless interference notes added by Keiji. Maybe if they removed those useless notes, they could see the score's original form.

As for Jiang Hang... Jiang Hang had already given up thinking.

When it came to cracking ciphers, he was completely clueless. On top of that, sheet music was something he couldn't read. He'd even started considering using the emergency help charm.

Send this to Conan, then tell him, "Big brother came across an interesting case, so I'm testing you." Then Conan would obediently become his tool, crack the cipher, and relay the secret inside to him.

If Conan were an idiot, this would be a brilliant plan.

Watching everyone struggle with the score for a while with no progress, Jiang Hang made a decision.

The path of a detective was too brain-intensive. With his mortal intelligence, he definitely couldn't walk it.

The assassin route had also failed on his first secret infiltration last night.

Since that was the case...

"Then the answer is only one." As he said this, Jiang Hang suddenly stood up, startling the two girls, and silently took out his Sword Cane from his suitcase, holding it with both hands.

Then he looked down at his own knees.

Soon, he judged that even if he smashed his knees to pieces, he probably couldn't break this system-issued Sword Cane, so he gave up on that follow-up.

"Jiang Hang-kun... what exactly are you trying to do?" Koharu Yoshino looked at him with a strange expression.

"Ahem, I thought of something. I'm going out to verify it now. You two keep studying the sheet music here—contact me if you find anything." With that, Jiang Hang quickly strode out of the house.

First-generation Assassin Master Kang once said: don't assassinate, go full Musou. Life doesn't leave him enough time to gather clues and sneak around.

A certain Grand Assassin also never bothered to conceal his presence.

His past self really had been too impure. Jiang Hang thought so.

Since he didn't know the code on this sheet music, he would now go find someone who did. If the other party refused to talk, he'd beat them. If they still refused, he'd drug them. If they still wouldn't talk, he'd drug them and beat them at the same time—he wouldn't stop until they were thoroughly subdued.

With this mindset, Jiang Hang arrived at the residence of Nishiki Ken, the man the old policeman had told him about.

Bursting in and going full Musou on Kuroiwa Tatsuji and Kawashima Hideo's side would be tough, but this guy was different.

Jiang Hang clearly remembered the old policeman saying that Nishiki Ken had been holed up alone at home for two years, refusing to go out.

If he couldn't handle a single person, what kind of detective (assassin) was he?

Eagle Eye scan activated. Jiang Hang quickly confirmed there was only one person inside. At that moment, Nishiki Ken was sitting in his room, staring blankly at nothing.

Jiang Hang twisted the doorknob—it was locked from the inside. Even with a key, it couldn't be opened from outside.

This guy was even more cautious than Hirata Kazuaki. Jiang Hang looked around; every window in the house was locked from the inside. No surprise for someone who'd been holed up for two years. But Jiang Hang wasn't planning to play the infiltration game anymore.

He pressed the doorbell directly.

After a long wait—Jiang Hang was already considering using his Sword Cane to force the door open—Nishiki Ken finally cracked the door open a sliver, looking annoyed.

"Who the hell are you?"

Nishiki Ken was fifty years old now. With two years of refusing to leave home, his hair was a mess, and his body gave off a foul odor.

Jiang Hang noticed that even though he'd opened the door, a security chain was still hooked in place.