The Cause and Effect of 14 Years Ago

Upon entering the lobby, Jiang Hang was greeted by a man in his early twenties who looked somewhat frivolous.

"So this is the detective you found, Madam? Weren't you supposed to be looking for the Sleeping Kogoro? Why is someone so young here?" He said, while suddenly pointing to Miyano Shiho behind Jiang Hang.

"Young lady, is something bothering you?"

He deliberately walked up to Jiang Hang and reached out to grab Miyano Shiho's hair.

The next moment, Jiang Hang took out a pigeon that he had prepared in advance from his sleeve and handed it to Kutsuku Nanae, who was standing next to him, intact.

Then Jiang Hang casually glanced at a few seemingly normal parts of the other person's body.

The other party has hidden a pigeon in each of these locations. Given a chance, they can release all of these pigeons.

Seeing his magic trick so easily broken, an embarrassed expression appeared on the man's face.

This was the magic trick he was most proficient in practicing, but the detective only glanced at him and immediately noticed the places on his body where he was hiding pigeons.

I originally wanted to use this method to test the detective that my teacher's wife had hired, but I didn't expect the other party to have such a sharp eye.

Then, another young woman dressed in office attire walked over from the side.

"You're the detective here to investigate the teacher's death. You seem much more capable than I thought."

The young woman didn't try any tricks; after all, she was also skilled in pigeon magic, and clearly couldn't gain the upper hand against the detective.

She introduced herself and the other man to Jiang Hang with a normal expression.

Her name is Mako Miyoshi, and she is currently one of the leading female magicians in Japan.

The one who was about to perform the pigeon magic trick was Momochi Yuji apprentice whom her teacher had recently taken in.

These matters had already been briefly mentioned by Kutsuku Nanae on the phone, and Miyano Shiho had already discovered the identities of Kutsuku Motoyasu's three disciples while in the car.

If nothing unexpected happens, this case will be another classic three-way choice in Conan, with the person who poisoned Kutsuku Motoyasu being one of his three disciples.

After assessing Jiang Hang's detective skills, Momochi Yuji somewhat awkwardly retrieved his pigeon from his teacher's wife.

"So, the teacher's suicide is indeed still very suspicious."

Mako Miyoshi Asako nodded matter-of-factly. "After all, there are still quite a few doubts at the scene. Aren't those playing cards left at the scene proof? It's been a long time since the teacher has done any card magic tricks."

"Playing cards?" Jiang Hang asked, and Kutsuku Nanae took two playing cards from the side, with their backs touching but not overlapping, and handed them to Jiang Hang.

"These are playing cards found on a table in the basement. Although we don't know why they were glued together, the police took them apart but didn't find anything wrong. I specially restored them for Mr. Jiang Hang to see."

Upon hearing the name Jiang Hang, Momochi Yuji and Mako Miyoshi exchanged peculiar glances, as if they had heard of Jiang Hang before.

Jiang Hang was about to take the two playing cards, but the next moment, another hand reached out and took the two playing cards first.

"These playing cards are meaningless now. Even if we find out the truth about the teacher's death, he can never come back. What we need to do now is to carry forward what we have learned from the teacher and let the Tsukumo-style Magic continue to appear in front of the audience."

"And I will become the teacher's best successor in the future."

As he spoke, the man tore off the playing cards in his hand without hesitation and then casually threw the card fragments around.

But even after he finished doing all this, Jiang Hang did not do anything to stop him. He just silently watched as the debris, after flying to its highest point, fell back down and turned into complete playing cards.

"When the police came to investigate, you didn't perform a whole magic trick for them like you did today, did you?" Jiang Hang said, while reaching out and pulling two playing cards from the other person's breast pocket.

Eagle Eye is definitely the bane of magicians who like to do fancy tricks.

Let alone these magicians, even if the more talented Kaito Kuroba and his father were here, the magic tricks he used would not be able to escape Eagle Eye's detection ability.

After Jiang Hang so effortlessly deciphered his magic trick, the man in front of him revealed an even happier smile.

"As expected of the legendary Eagle-Eyed Detective, known as the Kid's Nemesis, such a crude trick can't fool your eyes."

"Although what I'm saying might offend some people, I still have to tell you that the teacher's death was indeed a suicide. In order to avoid tarnishing the reputation of the famous detective, you'd better head home now."

Upon hearing this, not only Kutsuku Nanae, but even the other two disciples couldn't help but show a strange expression on their faces, as if they hadn't expected the other party to utter such blasphemous words.

Watching the other person leave, Kutsuku Nanae Jiang Hang with a gloomy expression. "Mr. Jiang Hang, please don't misunderstand. In fact, Kazumi Sanada has been with my husband for a long time. You could even say he is my other child."

"He was actually the one who was most heartbroken about my husband's past a few days ago, and he was depressed for several days because of it. Now he's just disappointed with the police investigation, which is why he's saying this."

Jiang Hang nodded slightly, indicating that he didn't mind.

"Kazumi Sanada, the genius card magician who is known as the next 'Toichi Kuroba', shouldn't make such basic mistakes under normal circumstances."

He looked at the scattered playing cards on the ground.

The scattered playing cards weren't all the same type, suggesting that the props weren't checked before the magic show.

For magic tricks that rely heavily on visual appeal, this is a rather serious and basic mistake.

However, this guy seems quite certain that Kutsuku Motoyasu died by suicide.

Jiang Hang did not voice his guess.

The other party clearly knows some clues, but probably for some reason, they are unwilling to reveal them.

Jiang Hang began to feel that the situation in this case was becoming more complicated.

"Anyway, let's go to the basement and check out the situation first."

Just as Jiang Hang was about to take action, another little girl, about six or seven years old, suddenly appeared.

"Why are you all here? Do you have guests?"

Upon seeing the little girl, Kutsuku Nanae quickly went over to her. "Fumino, why did you get up alone today?"

"Because Mom, you promised to take me shopping for clothes for my birthday party tomorrow, so I got up by myself!"

It seems that Tsukumo Fumiya is unaware that her father has passed away. She has probably been fooled by the adults who told her that "Dad went to a very far place and won't be coming back for the time being."

Kutsuku Nanae hesitated for a moment.

Because of her husband's passing, she had completely forgotten that she had actually made that promise to her daughter.

But now that Jiang Hang has come over, she can't just leave him at home and go shopping for clothes with her daughter.

Besides, she really wasn't in the mood for that right now.

She had just shown an apologetic expression and was about to apologize to her daughter when Mako Miyoshi stepped in to help her teacher's wife out of the predicament.

"Fumino, we have guests at home, and your mother has to entertain these guests who have come from afar. How about I go shopping with you now? I'll definitely buy you a whole bunch of pretty clothes. What do you think?"

As she spoke, Fumino, who was naturally childlike, immediately nodded with a smile and took her second senior sister's hand, intending to go shopping for clothes with her.

Mako Miyoshi nodded slightly to Jiang Hang and her teacher's wife, then pulled Fumino towards the outside of the house.

After glancing at the backs of the two people, Jiang Hang looked away and followed the directions of Kutsuku Nanae to the basement of the villa.

Chapter 497: Chapter 493: The Cause and Effect of 14 Years Ago

The basement of the Tsukumo family's house was clearly the place where Kutsuku Motoyasu specifically researched new magic tricks.

According to Kutsuku Nanae, the basement door was not locked on the day Kutsuku Motoyasu died.

It was precisely for this reason that, although the police felt there might still be some doubts about the case, they ultimately concluded that Kutsuku Motoyasu had died by suicide.

However, Jiang Hang noticed something before entering the basement.

The walls of this basement are very thick, and soundproofing measures were specifically implemented.

Although it was not locked.

However, if the murderer used some method to prevent the room from being opened from the inside, the victim's cries would obviously not be able to reach the outside.

Upon entering the basement, Jiang Hang, using his Eagle Eye, discovered nearly a hundred different kinds of magic props.

These props don't look special at all, but Jiang Hang, who can see the mechanisms behind them, inevitably has to turn off his Eagle Eye to rest his eyes for a while due to the large amount of information he receives in a short time, before turning his Eagle Eye back on to figure out the uses of these magic props one by one.

"No wonder it's a place where famous magicians study magic; these props are truly ingeniously designed," Jiang Hang exclaimed, looking at the dazzling array of props.

It must be said that these magic props really opened his eyes.

After this case, he might ask Professor Agasa to design some magic props; who knows, they might come in handy someday.

However, he did not forget that he was there to investigate Kutsuku Motoyasu's suicide.

After using Eagle Eye to confirm that these magic props were not closely related to the case, he quickly shifted his attention from the magic props to the overall layout of the room.

The basement floor had police-marked body evidence, and a pile of playing cards was scattered around a nearby desktop telephone.

On the walls of the room, there were more than a dozen photos of people.

In the background of the photo, Jiang Hang recognized the three suspects he had just seen in the lobby.

"Are the photos hanging here from the disciples your husband once took on?"

Kutsuku Nanae nodded.

"Yes, whether they graduated or gave up halfway, my husband frames their photos and hangs them here as a memento."

Jiang Hang looked at the photo frames.

Apart from the few disciples whose photo frames still look relatively new, among these dozen or so disciple photos, only one disciple's photo, although it looks to be more than ten years old, still shows signs of being wiped clean from time to time.

Seeing that Jiang Hang's gaze remained fixed on the disciple's photo, Kutsuku Nanae sighed and began to explain to Jiang Hang.

"This is Kinoshita Yoshiro, my husband's most valued disciple. Unfortunately, he died in an accident 14 years ago, which was my husband's biggest regret over the years."

Kutsuku Nanae was only talking about what she knew.

After all, she had only been married to Kutsuku Motoyasu for ten years, so she wasn't so clear about things that had been going on for much longer.

For her, Kichiro Kinoshita was her husband's biggest regret. And in Jiang Hang's eyes, looking at the light in this photo from Eagle Vision, it shows that Kutsuku Motoyasu's death may also be related to this magician who died fourteen years ago.

He glanced back at Miyano Shiho.

Although the two haven't played together many times, they still have a basic understanding of each other.

After receiving a signal from Jiang Hang, Miyano Shiho continued to use her phone to search for information about Kichiro Kinoshita.

Jiang Hang, on the other hand, continued to investigate the place where Kutsuku Motoyasu had died.

The cadaver traces are located in the middle of the basement.

With just a glance, Jiang Hang, a master of poisons, immediately noticed the problem.

Judging from the traces, the deceased's hands were tied behind his back, which made him look peaceful before he died.

But that's impossible.

According to the police autopsy report, no sleeping pills were found in Kutsuku Motoyasu's body. The poison he ingested before his death was aconitine, a highly toxic substance that can be fatal with just 2 milligrams.

After taking aconitine, symptoms of chest tightness and palpitations will soon appear, followed by nausea and vomiting.

No matter what pain Kutsuku Motoyasu experienced before his death, it's impossible for him to appear so "peaceful" now.

This is also the part that Kutsuku Nanae finds most incomprehensible about her husband's death.

"Your husband must have had his hand movements restricted for some reason before he died, otherwise he couldn't have died in this position," Jiang Hang gave his answer clearly.

"Perhaps that's why, even though the basement door wasn't locked, his physical movements were restricted, so he couldn't leave or ask for help from the outside world."

Kutsuku Nanae was stunned, not expecting that Jiang Hang, the detective, would make such a decisive judgment.

You should know that the police officers discussed this for several days but didn't come up with any useful information.

All she could do was repeat what the police had told her.

"Yes, that's what I thought too, but according to the police report, the police told me that there were no signs of restraint on my husband's body. If he had really been tied up, the struggle in pain would definitely have been physically manifested."

Jiang Hang didn't give this question much thought at all.

For the average person, accomplishing this would be quite troublesome.

But where is this place?

The basement of a magician whose fame ranks among the top five in all of Japan.

This basement contains over a hundred unique magic props that ordinary people have never even heard of.

Jiang Hang glanced around and found several rings with different styles, all of which had intricate thread mechanisms.

He picked up a few of the rings and then asked about Kutsuku Nanae.

Do you know what this prop is?

Kutsuku Nanae was quite familiar with the magic props her husband often used, and after a short while, she explained their uses.

"This is my husband's proudest thread magic trick. He uses the almost invisible threads on these rings to manipulate other magic props..."

As you say that, it seems like Kutsuku Nanae will remember you too.