The Mysterious Score Concealing a Message of Death / Don't Go Assassinate Him-Go Straight to Wushuang

If Jiang Hang hadn't used Revealing Eagle Vision to scout things out, Hirata Kazuaki would probably have noticed his arrival the next day.

But since he had discovered it, Jiang Hang didn't waste much effort. He simply switched to a spot without cameras and approached the man's residence.

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

Although the system had yet to reward him with any climbing-related skills, a mere two-story building was easy enough for someone with Assassin blood.

Before entering, he had already used Revealing Eagle Vision to clearly see that a large amount of illegal drugs was still hidden inside the house.

It seemed Hirata's role in the group was transportation and distribution.

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

It wasn't anything remarkable, just a drug meant for extracting information.

Its effect was simple. It wasn't much different from those knockout drugs, except after taking it, a person would feel mentally foggy. It could also be used to pry information out of those with weak wills.

He didn't believe someone who had used drugs for years could possibly have much willpower.

Naturally, this wasn't anything legitimate. Jiang Hang had spent quite a bit of effort making it.

The method might have been somewhat underhanded, but how could the identity of a detective be such an inconvenient thing?

As long as no one knew he had come, it was the same as if he had never come.

Hirata Kazuaki would only think he had dreamed something strange that he couldn't remember, and when he woke up, Jiang Hang would have cleared away every trace.

After finishing everything, Jiang Hang casually found somewhere to hide and watched Hirata finish showering, then drink a glass of water before bed.

Of course, even if the man didn't have a habit of drinking water before bed, it didn't matter. Jiang Hang also had an ignitable sleeping drug, though cleaning up afterward would be more troublesome.

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

If he were an assassin, one strike of the sword at this moment would have made for a perfect assassination.

But Jiang Hang had come for information. Looking at Hirata Kazuaki's increasingly hurried breathing, he unceremoniously dragged him out from beneath the covers. An ordinary person would have long since awakened from being pulled around like that.

Yet Hirata Kazuaki still hadn't regained consciousness. He seemed to be trying hard to open his eyes, but couldn't open them at all, while muttering meaningless words under his breath.

This was exactly the groggy state Jiang Hang wanted. It meant the drug had fully taken effect.

Jiang Hang had no intention of beating around the bush. He immediately began by asking the most crucial question: who made up the drug trafficking group?

Hirata Kazuaki seemed to hesitate for a while, but under Jiang Hang's repeated questioning, he slowly gave the name Kawashima Hideo.

What surprised Jiang Hang, however, was that Hirata only named that one person. This was somewhat different from what he had expected.

He had thought all four witnesses from back then were members of the criminal group. There was only one?

But that didn't mean Jiang Hang had been wrong. Under questioning, Hirata Kazuaki admitted that he had begun helping Kawashima Hideo transport drugs two years ago, but he didn't know much about anything earlier than that.

In short, after questioning him thoroughly about his crimes, Jiang Hang stuffed Hirata Kazuaki back into bed, erased the traces he had left in the room, and departed through the second-floor window once more from the house full of drugs.

He had already gotten the answers he wanted from Hirata Kazuaki. If he wished, he could message Officer Takagi and Inspector Megure in Tokyo right now and have them come arrest the man.

A huge quantity of drugs was hidden inside Hirata Kazuaki's home. As long as the police came to search it, they could catch him red-handed. Jiang Hang didn't need to worry further, and Hirata would never suspect him.

Although cracking down on a drug trafficking group should have been at least a three-star case, in the end, it couldn't be directly connected to Keiji Aso's case.

Jiang Hang found that somewhat regrettable.

He had gone through the trouble of infiltrating somewhere for once, only to head in the wrong direction.

But there was still plenty of time. He planned to have a good "talk" with the witnesses from back then tomorrow.

The Mysterious Sheet Music Hiding a Dying Message

The next day, while Jiang Hang was still considering where to begin his investigation, new information arrived from Koharu Yoshino.

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

The only item of real value was a handwritten score stored in a safe.

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

Unfortunately, aside from having no artistic talent, Jiang Hang also lacked musical talent.

When it came to singing, he wasn't quite at the level of Fatso or Conan, but anyone who had heard him sing basically wouldn't want to hear it a second time.

But he quickly remembered that one of Shizuka Sakaki's talents was performance. Though it was only a beginner-level skill, reading sheet music shouldn't be a problem.

So he contacted Shizuka Sakaki, and the two of them headed to Koharu Yoshino's location together.

But when Shizuka Sakaki saw the sheet music and studied it for a moment, she frowned.

"This sheet music seems a little strange..."

Jiang Hang leaned over to take a look when he heard that. Sure enough, it was strange, because he couldn't understand what the notes marked on it even were.

He remembered that the sheet music had only been briefly mentioned in the police files. The police at the time had judged it unrelated to the case, so it had simply been recorded as part of the deceased's belongings.

"Is there something wrong with this sheet music?" he asked Shizuka Sakaki, the professional, while also looking toward the old policeman, who seemed like he still hadn't gotten enough sleep.

"Sir, did the police investigate what was written on this sheet music back then?"

Hearing Jiang Hang's question, the old policeman, already nearing retirement age, yawned and slowly answered his question.

"This... let me think. It seems like... someone looked into it, but maybe they didn't. Too much time has passed. An old man like me can't really remember such details anymore."

The old policeman's eyes were half-closed, and he looked as though he might fall asleep at any moment.

"Ah, right, I remember now. It seems they took it to a pianist for examination, but in the end, the evaluation was that it was a complete mess. So the police concluded from the sheet music that perhaps Aso had written it while mentally unstable before his death. After that, it was left here untouched."

Shizuka Sakaki looked at the sheet music and nodded.

"It really is a mess. Even humming a few bars feels awkward. It doesn't feel like something a pianist would have left behind at all... Was Keiji Aso mentally unstable before he died?" As she spoke, Shizuka Sakaki seemed to be looking for a suitable instrument to play the score, but ultimately failed to find one.

While Shizuka Sakaki continued studying the sheet music, Jiang Hang quickly took the chance to ask about the final witness from back then before the old policeman fell asleep.

"By the way, sir, I heard there were four witnesses at the scene of Keiji Aso's self-immolation case back then, right?"

"There was such a thing... Are you reporters interested in that too?" The old policeman seemed to find it strange, but he still repeated the four names.

"Come to think of it, all four of them grew up with Aso. I remember... they even learned piano together as children... But fifty years passed in the blink of an eye. Aso died, Kameyama died too. Of the remaining three, Kuroiwa became the village chief, Kawashima became one of the island's wealthy men, and only Nishimoto... His family had been quite wealthy too, but ever since Kameyama died two years ago, he became a little abnormal. Now he basically hides in his house every day and won't go out. I don't know what kind of shock he suffered."

"Come to think of it, Nishiki was the closest to Aso among them back then. When Aso later went abroad on concert tours, Nishiki often went overseas to support him too..."

Old people really did love reminiscing. Jiang Hang had only casually asked one question, yet the man immediately told him everything he wanted to know. Jiang Hang even used the excuse that he wanted to interview Nishiki Ken to obtain the man's current address from the old policeman.

At that moment, Shizuka Sakaki seemed to have discovered something else and drew Jiang Hang's attention.

"Wait, there really is something wrong with this sheet music."

Shizuka Sakaki pointed at the score in her hand. "I study piano too. Just now, when I matched this score to the piano keys, I discovered that these notes are basically all on the far left side of the keyboard. I gave it a rough look just now, and not a single note appeared anywhere else."

That information immediately caught Jiang Hang's attention.

Keiji Aso had been a famous pianist, yet the sheet music he composed had no sense of beauty whatsoever. The police said he had suffered a mental breakdown, and perhaps that could serve as an explanation.

But Jiang Hang knew the truth couldn't be so simple. If Keiji Aso had been mentally unstable, there would have been no reason for this trip to Moon Shadow Island.

Now that Shizuka Sakaki had found this clue, would someone suffering a mental breakdown still remember to use only the notes on the left side of a keyboard? That was far too unreasonable.

Unless this wasn't sheet music at all, but some sort of message he had deliberately left behind!

Thinking of that, Jiang Hang couldn't help scratching his hair.

Great. He had finally reached something he was completely terrible at.

Reasoning was nothing more than the process of finding clues, connecting them together, and discovering the truth.

In classic detective fiction, dying messages were a very common type of key clue.

Yet these so-called "dying messages" came in all kinds of strange forms.

Who knew why those victims had so many thoughts right before death?

If they were afraid the murderer would destroy their dying message because it was too obvious, that would be rather ridiculous.

If the murderer left the crime scene immediately after committing the crime and never returned, then no matter how obvious the dying message was, the murderer wouldn't discover it.

But if the murderer returned to the crime scene afterward to clean up, then no matter how ingenious the dying message was, it could be destroyed. The murderer might even make use of the message the victim had left behind.

That was something that often happened in detective novels.

Even if this dying message remained completely intact, there was still one crucial problem: the victims had never considered the possibility that no one would be able to discover their dying message.

For example, the police back then, and Jiang Hang now.

So you people should consider the possibility that the person finding your dying message isn't some great detective, but a third-rate detective like me!

Jiang Hang stared at the sheet music and seemed to hear Keiji Aso, dead for twelve years, saying to him, "Want to know my secret? If you do, then decipher the message on the sheet music. I put all my secrets in this score."

I want to know your ass!

Don't Assassinate Them—Just Steamroll Them

At the inn, Jiang Hang, Koharu Yoshino, and Shizuka Sakaki stared solemnly at the copy of the sheet music.

After Jiang Hang suggested that this might be a dying message left by the deceased, the old policeman scratched his head, then had Jiang Hang make several copies of the score and bring them back.

Now at the inn, the two girls had begun considering what sort of cipher Keiji Aso might have used and what message he had left behind.

Everyone had plenty of ideas on the matter. Koharu Yoshino believed there might be a hidden mysterious codebook, and only by finding it could they translate the score.

Shizuka Sakaki, meanwhile, intended to approach it from the perspective of musical theory. She believed it was still a piece of sheet music, except Keiji Aso had added some useless interfering notes. Perhaps once those useless notes were removed, the score's original form would be revealed.

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

He truly knew nothing about deciphering codes, and since he couldn't understand sheet music either, he had even begun considering using an outside-assistance lifeline.

He could send the thing to Conan and tell him, "Big brother came across an interesting case, so I'm testing you." Then Conan would obediently become his tool and tell him the secret in the score after cracking the code.

If Conan were an idiot, that would have been a brilliant plan.

Seeing everyone fuss over the sheet music for quite some time without making any progress, Jiang Hang made a decision.

The path of a detective required too much brainpower. With the wisdom of an ordinary man like him, he definitely couldn't make it work.

His first secret infiltration attempt as an assassin last night had also hit a wall.

Since that was the case...

"Then there is only one answer." As he spoke, Jiang Hang suddenly stood up beneath the surprised gazes of the two girls, then silently took the Sword Cane from his suitcase and held it in both hands.

Then he looked at his knees.

Very quickly, he concluded that even smashing his knees to pieces probably wouldn't break the system-produced Sword Cane, so he abandoned the next step.

"Jiang Hang... what are you doing?" Koharu Yoshino looked at Jiang Hang strangely.

"Ahem. I thought of something. I'm going out to verify it now. You two keep studying the sheet music here. If you find anything, contact me immediately," Jiang Hang said before quickly leaving the room.

The great assassin Master Kang had once said: don't assassinate them, steamroll them. Life didn't leave him with so much time to gather clues and sneak around.

A certain Grand Assassin had never disdained to conceal himself either.

The purity of his past self had truly been too low, Jiang Hang thought.

Since he didn't know the code on this sheet music, he would go find someone who did. If the other party refused to talk, he would beat him up. If he still refused, he would drug him. If he still refused after that, he would drug him while beating him up. He wouldn't stop until the man submitted.

With that thought in mind, Jiang Hang arrived at Nishiki Ken's residence, which the old policeman had told him about.

It would be difficult to barge into Kuroiwa Tatsuji's or Kawashima Hideo's places and steamroll them, but this man was different.

Jiang Hang clearly remembered the old policeman saying that Nishiki Ken had hidden alone in his home and refused to leave ever since two years ago.

If he couldn't handle one person, what kind of detective—assassin—would he be?

Eagle Eye scan activated. Jiang Hang quickly confirmed that there was only one person in the house. Nishiki Ken was currently sitting blankly in his room, seemingly lost in thought.

Jiang Hang twisted the front door handle. It was locked from inside, and even a key wouldn't open it from the outside.

This guy was even more wary than Hirata Kazuaki. Jiang Hang searched around and found that every window in the house had been locked from within. As expected of someone who had stayed shut inside his own home for two years. But Jiang Hang wasn't planning to play the infiltration game anymore.

He pressed the doorbell directly.

After a long while, just as Jiang Hang was preparing to use the Sword Cane in his hand to force the door open, Nishiki Ken finally impatiently opened it a crack.

"Who are you?"

Nishiki Ken was already fifty years old. Since he had spent the past two years hiding inside his house and refusing to go out, his hair was a mess and an unpleasant smell clung to him.

Jiang Hang noticed that although the man had opened the door, a security chain was still fastened across it.