Before Conan could look into what he meant, Heiji Hattori, who had rushed into the room ahead of him, had already lifted the Buddha statue from the floor. As expected, he found bloodstains hidden in the corner.
The dried reddish-brown marks had been concealed beneath the tatami pattern stuck directly under the glass by the Buddha statue, covering quite a considerable area. Considering that this was probably only a quarter of the original bloodstain, it was not hard to imagine how horrifying the scene Denkyu had seen the morning before last must have been.
Shakuren sighed and pressed his palms together. He hesitated as he looked at Denkyu's expression, then turned back toward Tangze, who was smiling at him. In the end, he merely recited a Buddhist invocation and stopped concealing the truth, honestly describing everything that had happened.
A mother who had failed for eighteen years had suddenly found her conscience and returned to the place where she had abandoned her child, hoping to reclaim the affection she had lost. But having never been a mother, and having fled from that role for more than a decade, she was clearly not a good mother. This had displeased Shakuren, so before they formally recognized one another, he had hoped that she would at least sincerely repent for what she had done.
Denkyu was the most obedient and well-behaved child among those he had raised. His incomplete family had left too much missing from his upbringing, yet it had not stopped him from becoming a good person.
Shakuren, who had never considered himself particularly skilled at raising children, felt that this was the good karma Denkyu had cultivated himself. Thus, he had always hoped that heaven would treat this lonely child a little better.
From love came worry; from love came