The topic was smoothly diverted. As the otaku and the graduate student listened to Conan's description, it sounded more and more familiar.
Before long, they realized something and all turned to stare at the grim-faced Puppeteer. "Isn't this..."
"That's right," Jiang Xia said. "It's that 'female ghost' that often appears on television. In other words, the disheveled woman in the footage wasn't a ghost at all, but a prerecorded fake image."
"The footage appearing on the television naturally wasn't the work of ghosts either. It was Mr. Puppeteer's handiwork.
"The TVs in this Apartment all shared the same antenna. As long as Mr. Banchō connected his room's TV output to the antenna, he could use that shared antenna to transmit the footage to specific television sets."
The graduate student considered the mechanics for a moment, nodded, then quickly shook his head. "Theoretically, that would work. But in practice, the television receiving the image would have to be tuned to a specific channel in advance.
"And the TV would have to be on, right? But the TVs in this Apartment are so old that none of us ever thinks to watch them. Under those circumstances, how could he make them happen to broadcast the female ghost footage?"
The elderly landlord had somehow come upstairs as well and was quietly listening in. Hearing this, he chuckled. "That's easy enough. Don't let the age of my TVs fool you—they're all major brands. There are plenty of universal remote controls on the market. Buy one, set it to the right mode, and you can freely control the TVs in every room."
Jiang Xia glanced at the rooms along the corridor. "This evening, we visited the landlord's room. We had originally planned to leave at eight, but before long, all of us fell asleep and