Conan: Science Cartoonist Kudo Yuji

Just as everyone was beginning to make a judgment, the police gave them some instructions and then asked Kenzo Masuyama to take him to find someone. The car didn't return for about an hour.

"It really was that stuff. An overdose caused acute sudden death, and then someone took two pieces of flesh from his lower back."

A pale-faced man got up from beside the corpse. He nodded firmly to the people behind him and said, "My father used to do pharmaceutical business in China. He met many people like this and was persuaded to try it out. He never expected that he would take too much and die immediately."

The policeman grunted in response, then introduced the man he had brought back to the others: "He sells sake in town. His father died in China and never made it back."

"Is that so? Then his father..."

“I know he died a just death. Selling someone to any country is harmful.” The man coughed. “Of course, if we hadn’t been defeated, I would definitely say he did the right thing.”

"You're not hiding anything..." Yuuji sneered speechlessly, "Then do you know where around here you can get that stuff?"

"Huh? Don't talk nonsense, there's definitely no such thing." The man immediately waved his hand: "You can't keep this kind of thing to yourself, it'll kill you."

"It couldn't have just appeared out of thin air next to the murderer, could it?"

Everyone looked at Shiota Heihachiro. If the medicine wasn't local, then it could only have been brought by him.

“It wasn’t me. I’m from Kyoto, you all know that.” Shiota Heihachiro immediately shook his head: “If you don’t believe me, you can go through my bag.”

“I don’t even need to search the bag to know it’s not you. I was thinking, besides the medicine, where are the two pieces of flesh on the deceased’s body?” Shintaro pointed to the wounds on the corpse: “And the knife the murderer used to cut the flesh, we haven’t found either.”

“This thing is easy to deal with. Just burrow it into the mountains and dump it anywhere.” Neishi Matsu: “I think this will become an unsolved case.” “The shrine hasn’t been searched yet, has it? It’s too early to say that.”

After a lot of trouble, Kenzo Masuyama realized that if the case wasn't completely solved, the other two students wouldn't be willing to leave, and the young lady from the Kudo family wasn't very happy either, so he had to put in a little more effort.

“Analyzing it chronologically, Ryokawa Saihei left his room to get up in the middle of the night and then died. In the dead of winter, after using the toilet, his first destination was not to quickly return to his warm bed to rest, but instead he went to the front of the main hall. That’s the strangest thing.”

Therefore, without a doubt, the primary scene of Ryokawa Saihei's death was not the main hall at all; his body must have been moved there by someone.

“He must have been murdered on the short stretch of road from the toilet to the main hall. If it had happened in front of the main hall, in the courtyard of the shrine, the murder would have been easily seen by people in the rooms on either side.”

Masuyama Kenzo immediately asked Shintaro and the others if they had gone to the toilet. After receiving an affirmative answer, he looked to the right of the main hall and spotted the small bamboo roof.

"The ground was originally slanted."

The ground where the toilet is located is sloping, so it's not immediately obvious whether the small toilet built on top is sloping when you get close. However, it's clearer when you stand in the main hall. The longer side is thicker to withstand the downward pressure of the shorter wall.

"So at night, if someone is lying on the ground on the other side of the long wall, walking from the main hall, it looks like they are on the same side and are easy to miss."

The direction of the killer is much clearer now. (End of Chapter)