Inspector Megure froze for a moment. Looking at the young man who had voluntarily stepped forward, his gaze gradually turned suspicious. "You can narrow it down to the exact minute. You're pretty impressive."
The movie theater manager saw that he was suspicious of the male college student and hurriedly smoothed things over. "Mr. Ide is a special-effects movie fan. He knows movie schedules better than we do. It's perfectly normal for him to remember the time."
Inspector Megure quietly glanced at Jiang Xia.
Seeing that Jiang Xia seemed to still be waiting for clues and did not appear to suspect the college student, he nodded steadily and did not press the student any further.
He had someone question people using the newly obtained time. Before long, a young officer came running back with a notebook in his arms. "Inspector! We obtained testimony from the Ticket Office—around the victim's time of death, the only people in the Movie Theater were Jiang Xia and those children, the Cinema's three employees, and a male college student who comes here often. Also..."
He hesitated. "About ten minutes earlier, three people hurriedly left the Cinema."
"Oh?!" Upon hearing the word "hurriedly," the police instinct ingrained in Inspector Megure's genes stirred. He wanted to wave his hand and immediately have his subordinates bring those three people back for questioning.
But he quickly remembered something, sighed, and waved a hand. "Focus on investigating the Cinema first."
Countless witnesses had confirmed that the shadow on the screen had appeared at 12:44. That meant the killer had hung the victim up at that time, blocking the projection. Moreover, after the lights came on, the suspended corpse was still swaying slightly. This further proved that the killer had not gone far at the time. Otherwise, the body would have stopped