Conan: I'm really not the mastermind behind the scenes

The police officers present and the relevant personnel who were called in for questioning all looked at the teenager.

He raised his right hand and saw that the back of his hand near the base of the palm was swollen, and two small holes side by side were clearly visible, but no longer bleeding.

Hearing the police officer's question, the boy's hands trembled slightly, as if he wanted to make a fist, but he failed. His fingers could not be curled up at all.

"He was bitten by something."

The policeman who brought the teenager in explained, "When we found him, he was hiding in the bathroom, cleaning his wounds by himself. Not only was his hand unable to write, but his throat was also hoarse. Because he was mentally clear and it didn't look serious, we just..."

"Isn't this serious?!"

Veins popped out of Yokomizo Shigego's forehead. "How can someone who can't speak or write take a statement?! Hurry up and call the hotel's medical staff to check it out!"

His men were scolded and shrank their necks in anger, then pulled their men away.

The young man came quickly and left even faster. There was even a hint of unwillingness on his face when he was taken away. He tried to speak, but no words came out of his open mouth.

Kawada Kagami followed his back with a look of worry on her face, and Amano Shoichi's expression was also a little subtle.

"Is he really the famous high school detective?" Amano Shoichi said in surprise, "I saw him twice during the competition, and I thought he was an ordinary staff member at the time."

Yokomizo Shigego looked at him and asked, "Where did you see it?"

"Both times were backstage. One time was at the entrance of the contestant's rest room. He came out from inside. The other time was at the entrance of this prop room. I ran into him when I was leaving. He was following a foreign man..."

Amano Sho paused and recalled: "But the clothes were different both times."

Yokomizo Shigego's focus was not here. He stared at him sharply: "You were in the prop room at that time? How long have you been here?"

Amano Shoichi's face turned pale. "My performance was about to start, so I asked the staff to help me move the puppets I needed. I didn't stay for too long."

Yokomizo Shigego looked at his expression suspiciously, then turned around and looked around the room, and found no one with foreign appearance. He was about to ask his other men to continue looking outside, but at this moment, the door opened again.

A long-haired man of foreign appearance walked in.

"It was him." Amano Shouichi said, "The person I saw at that time was him."

"Mr. Aoyagi?" Kagami Kawada was stunned for a moment.

Aoyagi nodded politely to her, and Yokomizo recognized him as the bodyguard of a foreign judge. He watched him enter the room, walk to the pile of spray paint cans in the corner, and pick up the one at the front.

He looked at the mouth of the bottle, raised his hand and took out a small object from it, then calmly threw down a thunderbolt.

"I think I know who the murderer is in this case."

……

The banquet hall outside the venue.

"There was also a case backstage?"

Miss White came alone to the remaining police officer.

"Yes." The police officer from Nagano responded considerately in English, "Do you know any clues?"

"I'm one of the judges," she said simply.

"In addition to the contestants' appearance, figure and talent, the personal connotation and quality are also an important part of the screening of this beauty pageant. In order to see the contestants' true performance behind the scenes, I asked my male partner..."

She seemed to have some difficulty in uttering the word.

"I had him place cameras in the backstage lounge and prop room to see if they were arguing during the match or doing anything with their opponent's props."

"——If there was a crime there, those cameras might have captured the murderer."

Her calm words made the others look at her.

In the brief silence around them, the anxious voice of the person in charge not far away was particularly eye-catching: "Strange, why don't you answer the phone..."

……

Aoyagi Akimitsu is not a detective.

His intelligence and analytical ability are average, so it is better to bring all the suspects in front of him than to ask him to find clues - based on his intuition about their kind, he can guess almost exactly.

Moreover, this method of catching criminals based on intuition was not recognized by his colleagues, mainly his FBI colleagues, so his daily method of investigating cases was very simple, which was the method that all police officers would use.

Check surveillance.

In the small prop room, everyone was looking at a mobile phone, which was playing a video shot by a pinhole camera.

"So, sister had been dating Amano before? No wonder you looked so unhappy when he came to see me this morning."

The intact Shou Hualian stood in front of her biological sister Shou Meimei.

She was wearing a wedding dress, and it must have happened around the first game. "Oh, don't be sad, I didn't know you were dating before, I just noticed that he kept coming to watch my games and often came backstage, so I jokingly asked him if he liked me, and he nodded. In fact, I have no interest in him..."

"Don't blame me. I only agreed to it because I was bored... I'm tired of him now and want to end it all with him. I can return him to you."

"But I'm not blaming you, sister. It's better to avoid dealing with such boring men in the future... If you delay your work for him again, mom will scold you."

The picture was a little blurry, but Shou Hualian's voice was clearly heard by everyone.

They didn't hear any apology in her words at all, not to mention the person involved who was at the scene at the time. After hearing what she said, Shou Meimei pounced on them angrily.

——Then Shou Hualian pushed hard when she grabbed her to get rid of her, and Shou Meimei let go of her hand. She lost her balance and hit the back of her head hard on the wall behind her.

Human life is so fragile, and she died just like that.

Shou Hualian saw her sister fall down, and at first she didn't take it seriously, until she didn't stand up for a long time, she began to panic, and then, the door was opened again...

Everyone saw the man on the screen and turned to look at Amano Shoichi.

Amano Shoichi's face changed slightly, but before he could say anything, Shou Hualian in the video grabbed him as if she saw a savior and begged him for help.

"Did you wipe the blood off the wall?" Yokomizo Shigego asked bluntly.

"It must be!" Kawada Jingmei said angrily, "Look at the time above, it's her turn to go on stage in ten minutes, she has no time to deal with it!"

In the video, Shou Hualian's face was filled with fear, and she begged Amano Shoichi pitifully. Outsiders could never imagine that such a seemingly weak woman would shine on the beauty pageant stage ten minutes later, without any sign of abnormality.

A staff member who had watched the first round of the game got goosebumps. He rubbed his arms quietly and looked at Shoichi Amano with strange eyes.

"…It was me." Amano Shouichi said dryly, "She asked me for help, and then she went to the competition, and I was left alone to deal with it…"

"We came to the prop room halfway and didn't see the body. Where did you put her?" Another staff member couldn't wait to watch the video and asked directly.

"In the box." Amano Shoichi whispered, "I was performing a puppet show, and all the props were placed here. I told you not to move the boxes at the bottom, so you didn't touch them. There was a smell of paint in the room at the time, so you didn't notice the smell of blood."

Yokomizo Shigego looked back at the large cardboard boxes, then compared them with Sumire's figure and confirmed that this was the truth.

"Then Shou Hualian's rope is..."

His tone was firm. A man had just killed someone and soon after he was in danger. He didn't believe that this was an accident or retribution.

The fist at Amano Shoichi's side gradually clenched.

"You broke it, too."

Aoyagi Akimichi paused the video and looked over.

puff.

Amano Shoichi fell to his knees.

"……it's me."

His voice trembled and tears flowed down his face. He did not make any excuses but simply admitted his crime.

"Why?" Kawada Jingmei was puzzled. "If you regretted it and didn't want to help, you could have called the police directly. Why did you kill her?"

Amano Shoichi lowered his head: "Because when I was dealing with the scene, I saw the painful and surprised expression on Meimei's face, and then I realized that what I really loved was..."

"Because you were at the door and heard their conversation. You knew that you were just a toy that the goddess in your heart took in on a whim to mock her sister, right? You killed people purely out of your own anger."

Aoyagi Bingguang interrupted him.

"Maybe there is indeed guilt for cheating."

He thought for a moment and added:

"But only a little bit... People who actively cheat will only regret it when the other party abandons them and they themselves are hurt - if it is revealed by others, their first reaction is to try to conceal, defend, get angry or even throw dirty water on others, thinking that the other party was wrong first."

He laughed softly, and that nonchalant smile inexplicably increased the credibility of his words, as if he himself was such a person.

Aoyagi Binguang noticed that the people around him looked at him strangely, and smiled helplessly again: "Don't get me wrong, I'm single, I'm just telling you some examples I've seen."

Shigeo Yokomizo reluctantly retracted his contemptuous gaze and signaled his men to pull up Amano Shoichi and handcuff him and take him away.

"You haven't contacted Shou Hualian yet?"

He asked a police officer who had just returned from outside. The other party's rank was only one level lower than his and he also had a certain say at the scene.

The latter shook his head, and Yokomizo Shigego frowned: "What about the case outside? Have you found any new clues?"

"This one……"

The other party looked at him and said hesitantly: "I took people to check again, and there are no new clues. Based on my personal experience, it can basically be judged as an accident." (End of this chapter)