Cunning Murderer

Under Lin Xinyi's relentless pressure, Ishikawa's psychological defenses completely collapsed.

This unusual "detective" was not deducing anything. He was listing evidence, step by step.

And in the face of evidence as solid as steel, sophistry was utterly powerless.

But Ishikawa was still unwilling to accept it.

He had clearly been just one step away from getting off scot-free. How could he fall here?

"No, no, I'm innocent!"

"If you don't believe me, go check the mall surveillance footage—"

As if he had suddenly remembered something, Ishikawa seized upon this final lifeline:

"The cameras never captured Aoki and me entering the mall at all!"

"Since you say I killed Uchida and threw him down from upstairs, then explain this—"

"How did I transport the body to the roof of the Department Store without being caught by any cameras?"

Ishikawa questioned him hysterically.

This was the carefully planned misdirection he had prepared, and his final trump card.

He had worked so hard to devise this murder trick. If they wanted to arrest him, shouldn't they at least solve this mystery first?

That was what Ishikawa had always thought.

But faced with his question, Lin Xinyi merely smiled contemptuously.

"Heh. You pull a petty trick like this and expect someone to explain it?"

"You've read too many Detective Novels!"

"In reality, the more complicated a murder method is, the more traces it leaves behind."

Years of work experience had taught Lin Xinyi that the hardest cases to investigate were often the wandering murder cases with the simplest methods.

The killer and victim did not know each other. For some reason, the killer went up, stabbed the victim once, then turned around and ran.

If there were no cameras at the scene, cases like that were enough to make investigators' scalps tingle.

As for the idiots who considered themselves clever, painstakingly created alibis for themselves, and after killing someone not only failed to flee but even pretended nothing had happened and stayed at the scene—

Nine out of ten were in prison, and the remaining one had been sentenced to death.

And in Lin Xinyi's eyes, Ishikawa was the biggest idiot of them all.

"You only thought about using misdirection to fool investigators' eyes, but never considered how to deal with the eyes of science."

"You want me to explain your murder method?"

"Why would I need to explain it?"

Lin Xinyi said with a disdainful smile:

"The victim has been proven to have died by homicide, and by measuring his body temperature, we can further determine his actual time of death."

"There are flakes of your skin beneath the victim's nails, and there are scratch marks left by the victim on your body."

"More importantly, I doubt you can provide an alibi for the victim's actual time of death, can you?"

"So you're the one who needs to explain yourself now!"

The cause of death could be determined, the time of death could be determined, and the skin flakes could identify the killer's DNA.

Ishikawa could only provide an alibi for when "Uchida committed suicide," but he could not provide one for Uchida's actual time of death.

A complete chain of evidence had already formed.

There was no need to know the murder method at all. This was enough to convict Ishikawa.

"H-how could this be..."

"My method was completely useless."

Ishikawa fell completely into despair—and broke down.

He had come up with this trick only after watching a thousand episodes of Great Detective Samonji.

How could you skip the proper process, arrest me directly without even cracking the murder method?

This wasn't Conan-science!

Then again, although Lin Xinyi regarded him as the biggest idiot of all, Ishikawa's planning had actually been quite shrewd.

Because Japan had very few forensic examiners, and families generally believed the dead should be left in peace and resisted autopsies, the autopsy rate for Unnatural Deaths in Japan had remained below 12 percent for many years.

In other words, as long as someone had a little professional knowledge and put some effort into disguising a murder scene as a suicide, there was a 90 percent chance that the killer would escape investigation entirely.

And those were figures from the real world.

In this world, where the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's capabilities had been weakened without limit and medical examiners had virtually no presence, the success rate of staged suicides was even higher.

For someone like Ishikawa, who not only staged a suicide scene but also knew to fabricate an alibi—

As long as he did not run into a great detective by bad luck, it would have been far too easy for him to fool everyone.

And this time, he had terribly bad luck and ran into the great detective Kudo Shinichi.

But what Ishikawa had never expected was that the great detective he had guarded against so carefully had not exposed him. Instead, it was some weirdo staring blankly at the corpse who dealt him the fatal blow.

Ishikawa simply could not accept such an unexpected turn of events.

"No, no, I'm not the murderer!"

"Great Detective Kudo Shinichi himself confirmed that Uchida died by suicide!"

"The Heisei Holmes said so himself—Uchida must have killed himself!"

Ishikawa shouted hysterically.

As though the great detective's "confirmation" could still turn the tables for him in such desperate circumstances.

"Hey, hey..."

"Don't drag me into this just because you're backed into a corner..."

Kudo Shinichi, standing nearby, felt his head ache.

What did he mean, "Kudo Shinichi confirmed Uchida died by suicide"?

I lied to you, okay?

How could I possibly fail to see through such a simple trick?

You're going to make people misunderstand my intelligence if you keep shouting nonsense like that.

Sure enough, after Ishikawa's round of frantic yelling, cries of surprise immediately rose from the crowd of onlookers.

"What? Kudo Shinichi was here too?!"

The great detective who had been standing around unnoticed for so long had finally been discovered.

But the looks directed at him this time were no longer admiring. They were full of astonishment.

"So he didn't see through the truth at all..."

"Even great detectives lose to criminals sometimes!"

"..."

Hearing those whispers, Kudo Shinichi helplessly covered his face.

My reputation is ruined. Completely ruined!

Kudo Shinichi was a little irritated, yet there was nothing he could do.

After all, hadn't he completely lost this contest?

He had followed his usual investigative method, starting from every clue at the crime scene and using intelligence and imagination to gradually unravel the killer's murder trick.

But Lin Xinyi had simply ignored the trick the killer had set up and directly reconstructed the truth from the corpse.

Before such a simple and direct investigative method, the killer's painstakingly devised misdirection seemed to have become a complete joke.

"Sigh..." Kudo Shinichi let out a soft sigh, but his desire to challenge Lin Xinyi only grew stronger.

At the same time, Ishikawa, the other loser at the scene, seemed to have finally calmed down somewhat.

At this point, he could already see that there was absolutely no way he could escape the charge of murder.

But Ishikawa had no intention of giving up completely just like that.

He lowered his head and pondered for a moment. When he raised it again, the fierce expression on his face had become one of pain and remorse.

After working up his emotions, he even forced tears into his eyes.

"I... I killed him."

"I killed Uchida, and because I was afraid of being caught, I came up with this way to stage the scene."

Ishikawa finally admitted to the murder.

Not only that, he dropped to his knees with a thud, covered his face with his hands, and began to weep bitterly.

"It was all my fault... I shouldn't have bullied Uchida."

"The police and principal found out about how we bullied him before, and the school was going to expel us. Only if Uchida forgave us would we have a chance to return to school."

"So... so the three of us thought we'd beat him until he was scared, then force him to sign the consent form for forgiveness."

"At the time, I only wanted to teach him a lesson. But I never thought... I never thought..."

"I lost my head and hit him too hard. I... I killed him..."

By then, Ishikawa's voice was trembling.

Tears streamed from his eyes. They were real, without the slightest hint of pretense.

"This bastard..."

"What a waste that he isn't an actor."

Lin Xinyi was almost angered into laughter by Ishikawa again. He had already seen through this murderer's scheme.

Since there was no escaping the murder charge, he might as well admit it outright.

But at the same time, he had to show obvious remorse before the police and emphasize one point—

He had "lost control" and hit too hard, "accidentally" killing Uchida.

That way, this would not be Intentional Homicide, but negligent homicide.

Japan's sentencing was already lenient, and Ishikawa was a juvenile offender. If the case were ultimately classified as negligent homicide, this little punk would not have to spend long in prison before getting out.

"Stop dreaming!"

Lin Xinyi said coldly:

"For negligent homicide, the perpetrator's actions may be conscious, or even intentional."

"But the most important point is that they must not have foreseen the result of causing another person's death. It must be negligence."

"Ishikawa, search your conscience."

Every word he spoke seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, causing Ishikawa's expression, so immersed in his performance just moments ago, to gradually stiffen.

"When you attacked Uchida, did you really not know that you were killing him?"