Ke Xue: The thief Cao is actually myself

Chapter 523: A Golden House Hiding a Beauty! (Seeking monthly tickets!)
"This should be Mr. Ichiro's room, right?"

Standing at the door of the room, looking at the furnishings inside, Mao Lilan's beautiful eyes flickered slightly, with a hint of doubt and curiosity in her eyes, "Look, there are paintings here."

“So we have to be extra careful.”

As Maori Kogoro spoke, he looked around cautiously and vigilantly as if he was facing a great enemy, "Mr. Xiaowu, who is holding the murder weapon, may be hiding somewhere."

He became more nervous when he thought that the potential murderer, Hatamoto Takeshi, might be lurking in the dark, holding a weapon, ready to attack at any time.

"Wow, the painting is really good!"

Mao Lilan didn't think too much about it. As soon as she entered the room, her attention was attracted by the paintings in the room.

Gazing at the paintings, she blinked her sparkling eyes with admiration, and exclaimed sincerely, "Miss Xia Jiang in these paintings seems to have been injected with a living soul, and is so vivid that she is about to come out."

As she spoke, she leaned forward slightly to appreciate the details of the painting more closely, an intoxicated look on her face.

Standing beside her, looking at the many portraits of Hatamoto Xia Jiang in the room, Bai Ye nodded slightly and said, "Well, these paintings really show Miss Xia Jiang's charm to the fullest. Maybe one of them will depict the scene when the murder happened. After all, many artistic creations draw inspiration from life."

I have to say that Ichiro Hatamoto is indeed good at painting, and Hatamoto Natsue in those paintings is extremely beautiful and moving.

Conan listened from the side, with a dry laugh on his lips, but he kept muttering in his heart: "How is this possible? How can it be such a coincidence?"

Although he was complaining, his attention was involuntarily drawn to a painting that Mao Li Ran was looking at.

In the painting, Hatamoto Natsue was lying on the railing alone, quietly looking out at the sea, her back seemed a little lonely. Not far away, a female figure was slowly walking towards the stairs to the second floor.

Maori Kogoro carefully searched the room, not missing any corner where someone might be hiding. While he was busy, he reminded Maori Ran, "You can look, but don't touch anything."

If he accidentally broke something, it would be easy for people to say that he was an uneducated person.

"Okay..." Mao Lilan nodded obediently and gently put the painting in her hand back to its place.

Standing beside her, Conan picked up the charcoal on the easel as if he had discovered a mysterious treasure, pretended to look at it carefully with interest, and deliberately raised his voice and asked crisply: "What is this?" His eyes were wide open, pretending to be innocent, but there was a hint of cunning in his eyes.

Bai Ye raised his eyebrows slightly, glanced at him, and patiently cooperated with his performance, saying: "This is a charcoal pencil, which is a tool often used when painting, especially when sketching."

"What about this?"

Conan picked up another strange-looking object from the easel. At first glance, it looked like a crumpled piece of paper. He shook it in his hand, his eyes sparkling with curiosity...

……

“It doesn’t seem to be here either…”

After checking, but still unable to find any trace of Takeshi Hatamoto, Butler Suzuki shook his head helplessly.

Maori Kogoro sighed slightly, "It seems so..."

Having said that, he wanted to finish the search of Hatamoto Ichiro's room and go to the next room.

Just then, Conan's voice reached his ears, interrupting his thoughts.

Seeing Conan asking questions, Maori Kogoro, who was already in a bad mood because he had not found any clues, became even more upset. He stood at the door, tightly gripping the door handle, the veins on the back of his hand bulged, and shouted impatiently, "What the hell are you doing? Why don't you leave?"

Really, after searching for such a long time, no clues were found, and yet that little brat was still hanging around like a fly, asking questions all the time, which was really challenging his patience.

If it weren't for his daughter and a stranger, Butler Suzuki, who was nearby, he would really want to give that naughty and annoying kid a good beating.

"Dad, don't worry, we'll be there soon!"

Mao Lilan responded quickly, then lowered her head slightly to answer Conan's question: "This is called an eraser. It is used to erase wrong lines or marks."

Although she didn't know what clues her childhood sweetheart had discovered, since her boyfriend didn't expose it and instead actively cooperated, she didn't mind joining in the show and cooperating with the performance of a high school detective.

"Eraser?"

Conan stroked his chin, lost in thought. His eyes became deep, his brows slightly wrinkled, as if he was trying to think about something, like a scholar who was solving a difficult problem. He murmured, "This eraser looks ordinary, but it seems to have the magic power to erase all mistakes. It would be great if it could erase the traces of the murder just like erasing the wrong part of the drawing."

Maori Kogoro glared at him fiercely and said unhappily: "Stop talking nonsense here. This is just an ordinary eraser. It doesn't have any special functions at all."

At this point, he paused, thought for a moment, and then continued, "We've been looking for so long, and the person is not in our room, nor in Xia Jiang's room. Now the only one left is Qiu Jiang's room. I hope we can find some useful clues there, otherwise this case will become more and more difficult."

"Um……"

Mao Lilan nodded slightly, her eyes were attracted by the paintings again, and she seemed to be thinking about something.

Conan's eyes were fixed on the eraser in his hand, as if there was some key code hidden in it that could reveal the truth of the case.

"Let's go, let's go check out Qiu Jiang's room."

Kogoro Mouri's voice broke Conan's thoughts. Conan quickly put away the eraser and followed quickly behind everyone.

The group walked slowly along the corridor and soon arrived at Hatamoto Akiie's room.

Kogoro Mouri took the lead and reached out to push open the door of Akie's room. The light in the room was a little dim, and a faint fragrance quietly permeated the air.

Everyone entered the room one by one in an orderly manner and immediately began to search carefully and attentively.

Kogoro Mouri's eyes were like searchlights, scanning every inch of the room sharply, not missing any clues.

He searched the room carefully, not missing any corner where someone might be hiding. He checked every hidden corner that might hide clues or even people.

However, to his dismay, this time, after a long period of effort, he still came up empty-handed and gained nothing. "Sure enough, he is no longer on this boat!"

Kogoro Mouri sat down on the edge of the bed, his tone full of helplessness and loss.

Although he had had similar speculations in his mind before, when this result was preliminarily confirmed, he couldn't help but reveal a little frustration, and his head unconsciously drooped slightly.

While he was talking, Conan slowly opened the closet next to him, wanting to see if there were any hidden objects or clues inside. At that moment, he almost cried out in surprise, but fortunately he reacted quickly and hurriedly closed the closet door again.

Maori Kogoro noticed that Conan's face looked a little strange, so he immediately stood up, walked straight to Conan, and asked, "What did you find?"

Conan was startled, and subconsciously pressed his back against the wardrobe, pretending to be calm and saying, "No...nothing, nothing!"

He deliberately avoided Mori Kogoro's gaze, fearing that his flaw would be discovered. He quietly clenched his hands into fists behind his back, his palms full of sweat.

"Forget it, there's really no other way. It looks like we'll have to go back to the restaurant first!"

Seeing that he did not find any strong clues in the room, Kogoro Mori decided to leave the room and go to the restaurant, hoping to find a new breakthrough there.

"Uncle Maori, I think it would be better to search again!"

Taking in all of Conan's little movements, Bai Ye's lips curled slightly.

In fact, even if he didn't remember the original plot, when he entered the room, Bai Ye keenly sensed that there seemed to be other people in the room. However, after thinking about it again and again, Bai Ye finally did not choose to reveal it immediately, but waited for Conan to find out.

This was not only because he wanted to see a high school detective perform, but also because his girlfriend was near the closet at the time. If he rashly revealed the secret in the closet, no one could guarantee that someone in the closet would not take risks out of desperation and attack people nearby.

Even with Takeshi Hatamoto's skills, even if he took advantage of his girlfriend's unpreparedness and attacked her, he would not be her opponent.

But if possible, he still doesn't want his girlfriend to be in danger.

Maori Kogoro paused, "Hmm? Bai Ye, did you find something?"

In my impression, this junior is not the kind of person who does things without a purpose.

Now the other party took the initiative to call me. Could it be that he had caught some clues that I had overlooked?
Bai Ye narrowed his eyes slightly, with a hint of depth in his eyes, "I have discovered something!"

As he spoke, he gently reached out and opened the wardrobe, only to see all kinds of clothes hanging inside, filling the entire space.

And in the depths of the closet, there was a shivering figure curled up, it was Takeshi Hatamoto.

After being discovered by Bai Ye, Takeshi Hatamoto's face instantly turned as pale as paper, his fear was beyond words, and his eyes were filled with endless panic and fear.

He was like a prey that was cornered by a hunter. His body began to tremble violently and uncontrollably. The amplitude of the trembling was so severe that he seemed as if he was about to fall apart.

His teeth chattered, making a crisp "clack" sound that was particularly harsh in the silent room. His lips trembled violently, and he tried to speak, but could only make a weak and broken "hiss" sound, as if his throat was tightly strangled by an invisible big hand, and he could hardly utter a thousand words.

"Mr. Xiao Wu, what's the matter? Do you still want me to invite you out?"

"Bai Ye's voice was calm and powerful, his eyes were like torches, fixed tightly on Hatamoto Takeshi. It seemed that his eyes could penetrate his soul and see through the deepest secrets in his heart, leaving Hatamoto Takeshi nowhere to hide.

When Takeshi Hatamoto heard this, his body shook violently, as if he was briefly awakened from an endless abyss of fear by this voice.

He slowly raised his head, his eyes full of pleading, and his body trembled more violently involuntarily, because he knew that he had nowhere to escape.

Under Bai Ye's gaze, he felt unprecedented pressure, a pressure that made him almost breathless.

"me……"

Hatamoto Takeshi stammered and was unable to speak. His face became even paler and his eyes revealed despair, just like a helpless person lost in the depths of a dark forest, swallowed by fear and despair, unable to find a glimmer of hope.

"Mr. Xiao Wu?"

Seeing Takeshi Hatamoto emerge from the closet, Mao Lilan couldn't help but cover her mouth, her eyes full of surprise and confusion. Her eyes moved back and forth between Takeshi Hatamoto and the others, as if she was trying to think about the truth behind this sudden situation.

Butler Suzuki's eyes widened in disbelief, and he muttered to himself, "What...what's going on? Why is Mr. Xiaowu hiding in the closet?"

His voice trembled slightly, as if this sudden scene had shocked him to the depths of his soul, causing his mind to fall into a brief state of confusion.

Not to mention them, Kogoro Mori was also stunned by this scene, because he had no idea that Takeshi Hatamoto was hiding in the closet.

After taking a deep breath, Maori Kogoro quickly regained his composure. He stood up and said to Hatamoto Takeshi seriously, "Mr. Hatamoto Takeshi, you'd better come out by yourself so that we can have a good talk."

In order to prevent Takeshi Hatamoto from becoming desperate and doing something extreme, he didn't mind giving him a chance and listening carefully to his self-defense.

Hatamoto Takeshi hesitated for a moment, and finally, under the pressure of Bai Ye and Maori Kogoro's gazes, he slowly stood up from the closet and walked out.

His legs were still shaking, and it was obvious that he had not fully recovered from the fear.

Looking at Hatamoto Takeshi standing in front of everyone, with his body slightly hunched, his eyes dodging, and not daring to look anyone in the eye, Maori Kogoro could not help but frowned and slowly said: "Mr. Hatamoto Takeshi, now can you tell us what is going on?"

"I...I was really wronged. I didn't kill grandpa."

Hatamoto Takeshi lowered his head and was silent for a while, as if trying to calm the surging panic in his heart. Then he slowly raised his head, his eyes full of pleading, trying to make Maori Kogoro and others believe that he was innocent, "Please believe me."

Hatamoto Takeshi shouted at the top of his lungs, and the sound echoed in the silent room, like the last struggle of a desperate man.

But in the face of this confusing case, how could his feeble and feeble excuses easily convince others?

(End of this chapter)