Ichieda looked out the window anxiously and quietly suggested, "It's getting late... It's dangerous to stay in the mountains at night. Let's split up and search the area quickly."
Jiangxia glanced at the murderous aura clinging to him, stood up, and decided to follow the call of destiny for a stroll.
The others had no objections — running into the mountains alone at night might sound insane to normal people, but for Yotsui Reika...
She would absolutely do something that unhinged, just to make people mad.
A group of them quickly rushed out the door.
Jiangxia glanced around and picked a random direction to walk in. Mouri Ran, Suzuki Sonoko, and Conan followed along.
The four of them trudged nearly a hundred meters, shouting Yotsui Reika's name along the way, but no one answered.
Suzuki Sonoko frowned at the gloomy trees around them and reasoned aloud, "She probably didn't come this way."
—Because if it were her and someone called her name even once, she'd immediately rush out to show off. Someone as flamboyant as Yotsui Reika wouldn't be able to resist. Her attention-seeking skills were surely even better than Sonoko's own.
But now, despite Jiangxia calling and searching, there wasn't even a shadow of Yotsui Reika.
Sonoko thought: if Reika really left the villa, she must have gone the other way.
The others didn't really follow Sonoko's weird reasoning chain, but they still agreed with the conclusion.
Around them, the pattering sound of rain hitting leaves gradually grew louder.
Jiangxia raised a hand to catch the thickening raindrops and decided it was time to wrap this up. "Miss Reika is still a normal adult, even if her personality's...special. She wouldn't have gone too deep into the woods. Plus, if someone had kidnapped her, no way they'd drag her through a forest full of obstacles... Anyway, let's go back. Maybe the others have already found her."
They struggled through the wet undergrowth, using a dim flashlight, and returned to the villa.
As expected, everyone else had come back.
But Yotsui Reika was nowhere in sight.
Strangely, none of the others had gone inside the villa. Instead, they were gathered around the fountain in the yard, staring at something.
Jiangxia and the others walked over.
Before they even squeezed through the crowd, Jiangxia caught a glimpse through a gap: a drenched body lay crumpled at the edge of the fountain.
It was Nikaidou — the man who'd been secretly entangled with Yotsui Reika.
And he was dead.
All signs pointed to him being pushed into the fountain and drowned.
Conan's face shifted slightly as he recognized the murder.
He shook the water off his earmuffs, pulled them on, and lowered his gaze to study the crime scene.
Several minutes passed. Conan still hadn't figured out who the murderer was — he had only gathered a few useless clues.
He sighed and took off his earmuffs.
Only then did he notice that Jiangxia hadn't said a word about the murder either.
He just stood there silently, staring at the corpse, lost in thought...or maybe just zoned out.
Conan squinted at Jiangxia suspiciously, then glanced at the floating water in the fountain.
A terrible idea flashed through his mind:
Could it be that Jiangxia was triggered by the combination of "a tank of water" + "a corpse lying by the tank"... and switched into his "off" mode?
...But wait.
Last time, during Yoko's concert, there was that fake wrist-cutting scene. Jiangxia hadn't been affected at all back then. And the wrist-cutting bathroom horror was way closer to Jiangxia's supposed psychological trauma than a soggy fountain corpse.
Still... thinking it through carefully, Conan realized there was a key difference.
Last time, Jiangxia had already picked up clues — a bloody hairband, blood smears by the cat's eye, cardboard, tape — before seeing the bathroom scene. His brain had been warmed up for reasoning.
But this time?
Wham!
First thing Jiangxia saw was a dead guy faceplanted at the fountain. Then he started observing.
The timing of "impact" vs. "observation and reasoning" was totally different.
No wonder Jiangxia got rattled this time.
Fortunately, judging from his occasional flickering eyes, the scene hadn't hit him too hard. Certainly not car accident levels of bad...
...
Nikaidou hadn't been dead for long.
Jiangxia walked closer and spotted something on the back of the corpse — a spirit was quietly rising.
It was just a normal shikigami.
Jiangxia stared at it for a moment, then looked away.
At that moment, he noticed Conan staring at him with a strange, complicated expression, a mix of worry and... sadness?
Jiangxia: "?"
...He had no idea what Conan was thinking, but it looked like the detective kid's imagination had gone off on its own again.
When that happened, it was best not to say anything.
Just let the detective brain run its course.
...
Another body had turned up at the villa.
Plus, a missing person.
With accidents piling up, the already tense atmosphere thickened into something almost suffocating.
To preserve the crime scene, no one moved the body.
They simply found a tarp and respectfully covered Nikaidou up.
Afterward, they went back inside.
It was the classic suburban horror setup: no cellphone signal, landlines cut, no transportation, and nothing to do but wait for Chairman Yotsui to send people the next morning.
On top of that, the missing Yotsui Reika was now suspected of being Nikaidou's killer.
The situation was a complete mess.
Jiangxia tried to calm everyone down: "No point worrying now. Let's sit and go over the situation together."
The eldest, Rokuda Masashi, nodded in agreement.
He glanced at Yone Nanao, the servant, and said, "Make some coffee for everyone. Whoever killed Nikaidou might be among us... Now's definitely not the time to fall asleep."
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 31 - 90 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 51/60(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS
Goal #2: One BONUS CHAPTER per review for the first 10 REVIEWS.
Progress:2/10*