Chapter Summaries

Police questioned the victim’s four coworkers, whose accusations formed a circle of mutual suspicion, while Jiang Xia watched Rum’s interest in the case. After Koshimoto Eiji was found hanging in a storage room with the murder poison and a will, Jiang Xia suspected murder, and Xiao Bai approached a waitress who had been watching him.

• Toda Junnosuke blamed Kamijo Hiroo for President Wuno’s murder, and Kamijo redirected suspicion toward Wuno’s ex-girlfriend, Narita Mayu.
• Narita Mayu accused Koshimoto Eiji, who denied it and blamed Toda, leaving Sato Miwako with a circular chain of accusations.
• Jiang Xia considered whether Rum had come to observe Kamijo, but waited for more clues while the police questioned the restaurant staff.
• A waiter reported seeing Koshimoto handle the poisoned bouquet, and police found him hanging in the storage room with a will and the poison used in the assassination attempt.
• Jiang Xia said the apparent suicide looked like murder, and Xiao Bai floated toward a waitress who had been watching him.

Jiang Xia exposed Narita Mayu as Koshimoto Eiji’s killer after realizing the supposed hanging was staged. After the police took Narita away, Rum sent Curacao toward the parking lot as Jiang Xia and Amuro Tooru left the restaurant.

• Xiao Bai identified the disguised waitress as suspicious, and Jiang Xia suspected she was Curacao, Rum’s subordinate.
• Jiang Xia pointed out that the victim’s marks suggested he had been strangled with Narita Mayu’s bag strap before being staged as a suicide.
• Narita admitted she had killed Koshimoto Eiji after he insulted the president she admired.
• Narita explained that Koshimoto had confessed to poisoning President Wuno and tried to persuade her to help him evade justice.
• The police took Narita away, and Jiang Xia and Amuro Tooru left the restaurant after giving statements.
• Rum watched Curacao bypass the surveillance cameras and head toward the parking lot.

Curacao approached Kamijo Hiroo after Wuno’s death and offered him a job with the Organization, denying that it was responsible for the murder. Convinced that the company’s tangled relationships explained the killings and wary of refusing the Organization, Kamijo agreed to join and move into its base.

• Curacao appeared in Kamijo Hiroo’s car and offered him work for the Organization.
• When Kamijo accused the Organization of killing Wuno, Curacao denied involvement and blamed the murders on the company’s internal conflicts.
• Kamijo recalled the company’s rivalries and Narita Mayu’s arrest, and concluded the killings needed no outside instigator.
• Fearing the consequences of refusing, Kamijo accepted Curacao’s offer.
• Curacao told Kamijo to move his belongings and program to the Organization’s base that night.

Amuro Tooru struggled to get Jiang Xia out of Tokyo while suspecting that a case-prone child might be disrupting their trip. Meanwhile, Kazami Yuuya examined Jiang Xia’s phones and found evidence that other people often chose where Jiang Xia went, leaving him less convinced that Jiang Xia caused the cases; he also wondered whether Jiang Xia might join Public Security.

• Amuro Tooru told his subordinate to block the Chewing Gum Transmitter’s location tracking and realized that, nine hours after leaving, he and Jiang Xia were still in Tokyo.
• Jiang Xia asked whether Amuro Tooru had a Case Magnet Constitution, and Amuro dismissed the idea while considering how he would handle another flat tire.
• Amuro Tooru decided that traveling by train with Jiang Xia might be more reliable next time and hoped they would leave Tokyo before dawn.
• Kazami Yuuya reviewed Jiang Xia’s phone records and found that Jiang Xia usually went places after receiving invitations from other people.
• Kazami Yuuya read Jiang Xia’s messages with Edogawa Conan and noted that the child’s tone seemed unusually adult.

Kazami Yuuya reviewed Jiang Xia’s phones and sent his findings to Amuro Tooru, while Conan and Mouri Ran worried because Jiang Xia could not be reached. Mouri Ran found a photo showing Jiang Xia at a murder scene and concluded he was too busy to answer.

• Kazami Yuuya sent Amuro Tooru his notes on Conan’s background and urgently forwarded Professor Agasa’s message about Jiang Xia’s worried clients.
• Kazami Yuuya examined Jiang Xia’s Organization phone, found only a few unimportant messages and an unknown woman’s teasing emails, and sent the records to Amuro Tooru.
• Kazami Yuuya reviewed Jiang Xia’s messages from Kinoshita Yoko, then finished checking both phones and planned to monitor future contacts.
• Conan worried over Jiang Xia’s unanswered calls and messages while staying at a hotel with Mouri Kogoro and Mouri Ran.
• Mouri Ran showed Conan a photograph of Jiang Xia at a murder scene and guessed he was too busy to respond.

Conan grew suspicious of Amuro Tooru after Jiang Xia failed to answer his messages, but he found no proof of danger. Meanwhile, Amuro drove Jiang Xia out of Tokyo for an organization assignment, and Jiang Xia woke early after sleeping through the journey.

• Mouri Ran browsed the restaurant’s prize-draw information while Conan examined the crime-scene photos and worried about Jiang Xia.
• Conan checked the Transmitter on Amuro Tooru’s car, found it had stopped working, and guessed Amuro had thrown it into a stream.
• Conan searched online for photos of Jiang Xia, saving several images as possible clues even though they showed no sign of distress.
• Amuro rolled the Dice and drove southwest with Jiang Xia, deciding to use the organization assignment to test Jiang Xia’s identity away from Tokyo.
• Amuro continued driving through the night to Nagano Prefecture, where he and Jiang Xia ate, checked into a hotel, and slept.
• Jiang Xia woke early the next morning after sleeping during the drive.

Jiang Xia traveled with Amuro Tooru while hoping to find Killing Intent to harvest, but their quiet journey offered little excitement. After snow forced them to stop at a gas station, they continued driving until the car suddenly braked, waking Jiang Xia without revealing the cause.

• Jiang Xia searched the hotel for people who needed help or might release Killing Intent, then returned to find Amuro Tooru awake and reviewing information from Jiang Xia's phone.
• Amuro Tooru finished reviewing the materials and drove Jiang Xia away from the hotel toward a remote destination.
• Snow began falling heavily, so Amuro Tooru gave Jiang Xia a warm jacket at a gas station before they continued their trip.
• Jiang Xia fell asleep in the car after telling his Ghosts to wake him if they sensed Killing Intent or wild Ghosts.
• The car abruptly braked on the road, jolting Jiang Xia awake; he checked the dashboard and his Puppet Clay but found no clear explanation.

Amuro Tooru and Jiang Xia picked up Suzuki Sonoko, Suzuki Ayako, and their driver after their car got a flat tire in the wilderness. The group headed for Dracula Villa to visit novelist Daisuke Torakura, whose vampire collection interested the Suzuki sisters.

• Amuro Tooru noticed a stranded luxury car and stopped to help its driver and passengers.
• Suzuki Sonoko and Suzuki Ayako joined Jiang Xia and Amuro Tooru in the car.
• Suzuki Sonoko happily greeted Jiang Xia and invited him to join a future trip to Osaka.
• Suzuki Ayako explained that the sisters planned to visit Daisuke Torakura about vampire-related exhibits for their museum.
• Suzuki Sonoko described Torakura's Dracula Villa, which came into view as they drove toward it.

Jiang Xia and Amuro Tooru drove the Suzuki sisters to Dracula Villa, where they met Daisuke Torakura’s student and noticed the villa’s striking residents. With heavy snow and collapsed roads trapping them nearby, Amuro asked to stay the night.

• Suzuki Sonoko offered to introduce Jiang Xia to a fantasy-drama production team, and he reluctantly agreed to consider it.
• Amuro Tooru drove Jiang Xia and the Suzuki sisters to Dracula Villa, where Tadokoro Shunya greeted them and identified himself as Daisuke Torakura’s student.
• Jiang Xia noticed Etsuko Torakura and several guests in the villa’s reception room, including a familiar-looking person.
• Amuro Tooru received Kazami Yuuya’s warning that snow and road collapses had stranded travelers and blocked access for rescue vehicles.
• Amuro Tooru abandoned his plan to leave and asked Tadokoro Shunya if the group could stay at the villa for one night.

Jiang Xia and Amuro Tooru arrived at the snowbound villa, where they met its residents and several other guests, including the vampire researcher Shuichi Hamura. The guests prepared to meet the villa’s eccentric owner, Daisuke Torakura, who had been seeking a detective.

• Tadokoro Shunya learned that the landslide would keep the guests at the villa and led Jiang Xia and Amuro Tooru inside.
• Etsuko Torakura greeted the arrivals, recognized Jiang Xia, and returned to her room without discussing her commission in front of the others.
• Jiang Xia and Amuro Tooru met Ikumi Soda, Editor-in-Chief Doi, and Shuichi Hamura in the reception room.
• Matsuda Jinpei and the other ghosts reacted to Hamura’s name as Amuro Tooru’s killing intent briefly surfaced and then subsided.
• Suzuki Ayako asked to see Daisuke Torakura, and Ikumi Soda said her scheduled meeting with him was due to begin in three minutes.

Jiang Xia and the others visited Daisuke Torakura’s strange, vampire-themed study, where Torakura revealed that he had hired Detective Gunoda to investigate his wife. The snowbound guests left Torakura to discuss the commission, then gathered in the living room after dinner, with the evening’s events still unfolding.

• Amuro Tooru thought the octagonal study would make an ideal locked room and worried about the couple’s circumstances.
• Tadokoro Shunya opened the study door, where the group found Daisuke Torakura watching a vampire movie in the dark.
• Daisuke Torakura recognized Jiang Xia and Amuro Tooru, then showed the guests his vampire-themed study and explained how its atmosphere inspired his writing.
• Suzuki Sonoko teased Torakura about not writing vampire novels for years, irritating him further.
• Torakura kept Ikumi Soda to discuss the commission and sent the others away, but Tadokoro Shunya warned that heavy snow had blocked the roads.
• After discussing the commission and eating dinner, the group gathered in the living room for tea shortly after eight.

Tadokoro Shunya showed the guests Daisuke Torakura’s sinister Collection Room, while Amuro Tooru grew suspicious of how often people connected to Jiang Xia kept appearing. Etsuko Torakura took Jiang Xia upstairs to discuss something privately, with Amuro following them, and Suzuki Sonoko noticed Jiang Xia was gone.

• Tadokoro Shunya led the guests through the Collection Room and showed them Daisuke Torakura’s Vampire memorabilia and favorite film props.
• Jiang Xia identified the Cypress Wooden Stake from Bloody Feast, while Suzuki Sonoko fantasized about getting closer to him and Amuro Tooru suspected she had an unusual hobby.
• The guests returned to the hall, where Tadokoro Toshihiko brought out playing cards and Etsuko Torakura came downstairs to invite Jiang Xia to collect a gift.
• Etsuko Torakura led Jiang Xia to her room and secretly signaled that she had something important to discuss.
• Amuro Tooru followed them upstairs, and Etsuko Torakura let him join them in her room.
• Suzuki Sonoko returned from the restroom, found Jiang Xia missing, and asked where he had gone.

Etsuko Torakura asked Jiang Xia and Amuro Tooru to help her conceal her long-running affair from a Detective hired by her husband. Amuro took charge of the commission and kept Jiang Xia with him, while the other guests briefly dispersed around the house.

• Suzuki Sonoko learned that Jiang Xia was upstairs with Mrs. Torakura and sneaked up the hall, worried about him.
• Etsuko Torakura asked Jiang Xia and Amuro Tooru to help her avoid being caught in an affair, then explained that she had married Daisuke Torakura after he sabotaged her father's company.
• Jiang Xia suggested ending the affair and destroying possible evidence, but Etsuko said Daisuke intended to watch her for years until he found proof.
• Amuro Tooru decided to accept the commission temporarily and handle it himself, then told Jiang Xia to leave before remembering he was monitoring him and ordering him to stay and learn.
• Tadokoro Shunya joined the card game downstairs, Shuichi Hamura went to the Underground Library, and Editor-in-Chief Doi went to the restroom, leaving Suzuki Ayako alone in the hall.

After Jiang Xia finished consulting Etsuko Torakura, he joined the others for cards while a new Shikigami appeared among the guests. At midnight, the group discovered Daisuke Torakura dead inside his locked study, leaving Amuro Tooru wondering whether they had been drawn into the case by a Case Magnet Constitution.

• Jiang Xia noticed a fresh Shikigami among the crowd, then joined the others for a poker game.
• At midnight, Ikumi Soda ended the game, and Tadokoro Shunya said Daisuke Torakura had failed to answer his calls.
• Tadokoro Shunya and the others went to check on Daisuke, but no one answered their knocks at the study door.
• Etsuko Torakura led the group around the balcony to the study's open french window, where they found footprints in the snow.
• Amuro Tooru looked inside and saw Daisuke Torakura dead, bound to a cross with a wooden stake in his chest.
• Amuro Tooru examined his dice and wondered if his Case Magnet Constitution had brought them to the murder.

After Daisuke Torakura was found murdered in a locked study at Dracula Villa, the snowbound guests began examining the crime scene and searching the Collection Room for clues. Ikumi Soda narrowed the investigation to two people who had gone toward the Collection Room during the possible time of the murder.

• Amuro Tooru considered whether Jiang Xia’s supposed Case Magnet Constitution caused the repeated murders around him, while Jiang Xia entered the study to escape the cold.
• Suzuki Sonoko called the police, but heavy snow blocked the roads, so Ikumi Soda began examining Daisuke Torakura’s body and estimated he had died between nine and eleven that night.
• Jiang Xia pointed out a bloodied wood carving that might have been used to strike Torakura, and Shuichi Hamura identified the Wooden Stake as a prop taken from Torakura’s Collection Room.
• The group inspected the Collection Room, where Jiang Xia noticed a wooden chip and Amuro Tooru photographed it; the locked windows and untouched snow suggested the killer was inside the Villa.
• Ikumi Soda reasoned that the killer had needed time to take the Wooden Stake and stage the body, and noted that only two people had gone toward the Collection Room during the murder window.

Ikumi Soda investigated how the locked study murder could have been committed, but her theories about Shuichi Hamura and the roof failed to explain the crime. As she turned to possible motives, Hamura and Editor-in-Chief Doi pointed suspicion toward others, including Tadokoro.

• Ikumi Soda identified Shuichi Hamura as the only suspect with enough time, then tested a route from the Underground Library across the roof and found no footprints.
• Suzuki Sonoko said she had watched the second-floor corridor and seen no one pass, while Ikumi Soda questioned her lack of an alibi.
• Ikumi Soda reconsidered the locked study and blocked routes, then accused Shuichi Hamura of having an affair with Etsuko Torakura.
• Shuichi Hamura denied killing Daisuke Torakura and accused Editor-in-Chief Doi of having a motive because Torakura had stolen submitted manuscripts.
• Editor-in-Chief Doi admitted Torakura had paid his debts and demanded to see manuscripts, then claimed Tadokoro had ghostwritten Torakura's novels for years.

Amuro Tooru read an investigation linking Tadokoro Shunya’s sister, Tadokoro Kaori, to Jiang Xia and began to suspect Jiang Xia might be hiding his reason for withholding the solution. When Amuro asked whether he had found any clues, Jiang Xia identified Tadokoro Shunya as the killer and reminded Amuro that he had told him to rein it in.

• Tadokoro Shunya defended himself by explaining that Daisuke Torakura had funded his sister’s treatment and that he had volunteered to ghostwrite for him.
• Amuro Tooru received an email from his subordinates linking Tadokoro Kaori’s death and her doctor’s murder to Daisuke Torakura and Kazato Kyosuke.
• Amuro Tooru connected Jiang Xia to Yakushino Hospital and wondered whether Jiang Xia was deliberately avoiding the case or had planned the murder.
• Amuro Tooru asked Jiang Xia whether he had found clues, and Jiang Xia said Tadokoro Shunya was the killer.
• Jiang Xia reminded Amuro Tooru that he had told him to rein it in, and Amuro realized he had indeed said that.

Jiang Xia explained how Tadokoro Shunya had switched the Cypress Wooden Stake and staged a locked-room murder, prompting Tadokoro Shunya to confess that he had killed the man who had prolonged his sister’s suffering. Jiang Xia collected the Shikigami that had been clinging to Tadokoro Shunya.

• Amuro Tooru lifted Jiang Xia’s seal and told him to solve the case as usual.
• Jiang Xia explained that the murderer had replaced the real Cypress Wooden Stake with a fake, then used the real stake to kill the victim and staged a locked room with the Projector.
• The suspects realized Jiang Xia’s explanation pointed to Tadokoro Shunya.
• Tadokoro Shunya confessed that he had killed the man who had bribed his sister’s doctor and prolonged her suffering.
• Jiang Xia accepted the Shikigami that had been clinging to Tadokoro Shunya and hid it in his pocket.

After the murder at Dracula Villa, Jiang Xia turned down a writing offer and declined Suzuki Sonoko’s invitation to visit a maple-leaf attraction so he could continue traveling with Amuro Tooru. Meanwhile, Vermouth noticed that Jiang Xia had stopped replying to her messages, leaving her uneasy about his disappearance.

• Tadokoro Shunya stayed at the villa, prepared breakfast, and was taken into police custody after the road was cleared.
• Editor-in-Chief Doi asked Jiang Xia to publish detective stories, but Jiang Xia declined and left Doi baffled by his reaction.
• Suzuki Sonoko invited Jiang Xia to visit a maple-leaf attraction with Mouri Ran, but Jiang Xia refused so he could continue Amuro Tooru’s observation trip.
• Amuro Tooru left the villa with Jiang Xia and decided to keep monitoring him, despite finding no evidence of suspicious behavior.
• Vermouth reviewed the information she had gathered and noticed that Jiang Xia was responding to her messages only with an automated notice that he was busy.

Vermouth checked Jiang Xia’s Peripheral Member file and found that Bourbon had taken him on a prolonged investigation mission in Gunma. She called Gin to warn him, but Gin already knew and dismissed her concerns, leaving Vermouth feeling excluded.

• Vermouth searched the Organization’s records and found Jiang Xia’s Peripheral Member file, which had been updated with a new mission.
• Vermouth learned that Bourbon was investigating a failed transaction in Gunma and had included Jiang Xia in the mission, which had lasted longer than expected.
• Vermouth called Gin and told him that Jiang Xia had gone with Bourbon and stopped replying to her messages.
• Gin said Jiang Xia was playing a game with Bourbon and dismissed Vermouth’s warning that Bourbon might treat him as expendable.
• Vermouth fell silent when she realized Gin already knew about the mission, while Gin suspected her interest in Uzo had become strangely obsessive.