Survival Manual of the Science Fiction World

"He probably wants to blame this murder on the curse of the piano!" Chu Ming stroked his chin thoughtfully.

When was this piano placed here?

"This piano was donated by Mr. Aso 15 years ago and has been here ever since. His name is even engraved on the keyboard cover."

Chu Ming happened to be standing next to the piano, and upon hearing this, he casually lifted the piano lid.

—Under the lid was a sheet of music!

Chu Ming frowned and reached out to take out the sheet music. Kogoro Mouri walked over and took it: "Strange, I didn't see this when I looked at it during the day."

Just as everyone was curiously crowding around to take a look, Ken Nishimoto suddenly trembled with fear, screamed, and ran away.

Chu Ming watched his departing figure, a smile flickering in his eyes. Very well, the next victim is about to be booked.

"Who was that?" Kogoro Mouri asked, holding the sheet music. "What was that thing that just ran past?"

Hirata's secretary chimed in, "That's Mr. Nishimoto. He used to be quite powerful. He spent a lot of money on women, alcohol, and gambling, but after the previous village chief died two years ago, I heard he was afraid of something and started going out less often..."

Just as everyone was exchanging clues, Xiaolan, panting, led an elderly policeman through the crowd.

"The police...the police are here..."

"Ran, you're moving way too slowly!" Kogoro Mouri said with some dissatisfaction.

Xiaolan said with some grievance, "I can't do anything about it. He's not at the police station. I've been looking for him everywhere."

The policeman adjusted his hat: "Why did you call me here in such a hurry?"

"Ah, it's Mr. Kogoro Mouri."

"It's that famous one—"

Kogoro Mouri stared at him expectantly; as expected, some people had heard of his name.

"—A space pilot?"

Chu Ming, hiding to the side, couldn't help but laugh.

Chapter 20 Why are you pulling my pants?

Because it was so late, the group laid out Kawashima Hideo's body and went home.

After leaving the community center, Cheng Shi and several others walked together.

On the way, Narumi asked curiously, "Conan's reasoning is really amazing."

Xiao Lan felt proud: "Because this child loves playing detective."

Chu Ming chimed in with praise: "This child is very talented, a little genius! He'll definitely be a famous detective no less than Shinichi Kudo in the future."

Conan, feeling embarrassed by their praise, scratched his head and said with a smile, "Oh, not at all! I was just imitating Uncle. I've been learning how he works, and I want to be a famous detective like Uncle someday!"

Suddenly, a pair of large hands pressed down on his head, causing him to shrink down a few centimeters.

Kogoro Mouri, holding Conan down with one hand, said, "He's still far behind me."

Watching Kogoro Mouri angrily rubbing Conan's head, and seeing Conan's utterly dejected expression, Narumi Asai let out a silvery laugh.

"Then we'll part ways here; we need to head to the hotel now."

"Okay, see you later. I hope you can solve the murder case soon, because I really don't want to do autopsies anymore."

Looking at the beautiful Asai Narumi under the moonlight, Chu Ming understood her unspoken meaning.

She wanted to avenge her father, but also hoped that Kogoro Mouri would stop her quickly, as the helplessness of her increasingly depraved state, with her hands stained with blood, drove her to despair.

But the only one who understood her implied meaning was Chu Ming, who knew the whole story. Kogoro Mouri patted his chest and assured her, "No problem, cases handled by the famous detective Kogoro Mouri are all very simple!"

Conan chuckled and said, "Easy for you to say. I still have many mysteries to solve."

Suddenly he frowned, reached out to tug at Chu Ming's clothes, but couldn't reach them, so he had to settle for tugging at Chu Ming's pants instead.

As Chu Ming was still deep in thought, he suddenly felt his pants slipping down. He quickly reached out and grabbed them, glaring angrily at the young detective: "What are you doing? Are you being a pervert? Why did you suddenly pull my pants?!"

Conan reluctantly withdrew his hand: "Brother Chu Ming, is it possible that the phrase 'beginning to disappear' in that letter means the murderer will continue killing?"

Feeling that looking down at the little detective wasn't good for his neck, Chu Ming squatted down again to look Conan in the eye: "How do you interpret it?"

Hearing their conversation, Kogoro Mouri quickly took out the notice and carefully read it under the dim streetlights.

"The so-called disappearance of the shadow is actually being enveloped in light. And the light he refers to is the piece of music he heard at the murder scene—'Moonlight Sonata'."

“That makes sense. The piece that Mr. Keiji Aso played in the flames 12 years ago, the piece that was played when the former village chief died two years ago, and the piece that was played when Mr. Kawashima died today, are all Beethoven’s sonata, Moonlight Sonata!” Kogoro Mouri affirmed Conan.

Chu Ming added, "So far, all the cases have occurred near the piano. Why don't we go back and take a look at that piano?"

Kogoro Mori took off running towards the community center: "You guys go back to the hotel first, I'll go check it out!"

Chu Ming glanced at Conan and Ran and suggested, "Let's go take a look too. There's strength in numbers, and maybe we can find some clues!"

When they arrived at the community center, Kogoro Mouri had already asked the police to give him a bedding set, looking like he was going to sleep with the corpse.

Seeing this, Chu Ming and Conan also volunteered.

"Seriously, you think it's abnormal, yet you bring a child to sleep here for the night!" the policeman muttered.

Kogoro Mouri was also somewhat speechless: "Didn't I tell the three of you to go back first? I can stay here and watch over things by myself!"

Seeing Kogoro Mouri's unusually serious demeanor, Chu Ming secretly pulled out his notebook and made another note of him. This sudden shift in demeanor when faced with a major crisis—was it a case of feigned wisdom or just a charade?

Chu Ming looked around and saw that Kawashima Hideo's body had been placed in a body bag. He asked, "Who moved his body?"

The police officer, who had already reached the door and was about to close it, poked his head in upon hearing this: "It's me. Even Buddha would feel sorry for him lying there like that."

Kogoro Mouri sighed and rubbed his forehead in exasperation: "This is really a headache. We haven't even verified it on-site yet."

Conan climbed onto the piano bench, intending to examine the sheet music the murderer had left at the crime scene, but was surprised to find it gone: "Huh, where's the sheet music? How did it disappear?"

Kogoro Mouri was shocked and rushed over to ask, "What?"

The policeman chuckled: "It's not missing! Look, it's right here with me!"

Kogoro Mouri was speechless as he watched the policeman constantly destroying the crime scene.

Xiaolan ran over and took the sheet music. After glancing at it, she exclaimed in surprise, "Oh, this is the sheet music for 'Moonlight'!"

Xiao Lan placed the sheet music on the piano stand and tried playing it. Chu Ming rested his chin on his hand and listened attentively.

Suddenly the music stopped and made a noise. Kogoro Mouri couldn't help but say, "Why are you suddenly being so clumsy! Play properly!"

Xiaolan protested, "No, it's this score! The fourth section of the score is really strange!"

The three of them quickly gathered around to look, and Kogoro Mori speculated, "If I'm not mistaken, this sheet music might contain a message about Mr. Kawashima's death, and the culprit might come back to retrieve it!"

Suddenly, Narumi's voice came from outside the door: "I went to the hotel to ask, and I heard that you guys are still here. I came to get some late-night snacks for you."

Chu Ming's eyes lit up, and he hurriedly ran over to take the bag, thanking her repeatedly: "Dr. Asai, you are such a little angel, thank you so much!" He was extremely hungry.

The group sat cross-legged on the ground, casually placed a towel on top of the corpse, and began to eat while chatting.

Since Dr. Asai performed the autopsy on the former village chief's body two years ago, Kogoro Mouri asked him about the details of the autopsy.

"The village chief did indeed die from a sudden heart attack, but his face was very tense at the time, as if he had seen something frightening... and there was a window open at the time."

As she spoke, she stood up, walked to the window, pointed to it, and said, "It's this window."

Chu Ming watched the figure flash by outside the window and shouted, "Who is it?!"

He leaped up, opened the window, and darted out, with Conan and Kogoro Mori quickly chasing after him.

Although it was dark outside, Chu Ming, who had just been strengthened today, was able to keep up closely with the dark figure in front of him.

The shadowy figure was familiar with the terrain and tried to shake off Chu Ming by swinging left and right.

Seeing an alley ahead, Chu Ming used one foot to push off the wall and flipped forward, then kicked the shadowy figure hard in the waist with his other foot, knocking him to the ground before landing gracefully.

Kogoro Mouri and Conan, who had been chasing after him, rushed over and pinned down the shadowy figure: "What? It's you!"

The person who was caught was none other than the village chief's secretary, Mr. Hirata.

Chapter 21 Moonlight 2

The three tied up Secretary Hirata and took him back to the community center. As soon as they returned to the piano room, Kogoro Mori shouted, "I knew I was right! The culprit would definitely come for this sheet music. We've caught him!"

Ran and Narumi were anxiously waiting inside. They were relieved to see the three of them return safely. They looked at him with surprise; how could it be Secretary Hirata?

Secretary Hirata looked up and shouted, "I'm not the murderer! I just saw light coming from the piano room and came to check!"

Kogoro Mouri clearly didn't believe his nonsense: "If you came here to take a look, why did you run away when you saw us?"

"You all looked over here just now, which startled me, so I turned around and ran away."

"You can tell those lies to the police tomorrow. Tonight we'll take turns watching this place, make sure he doesn't get away."

Chu Ming looked at Kogoro Mouri, who had just finished spouting his boast and then immediately fell asleep, and was speechless.

You said you were watching over me, how come you fell asleep first?

Chu Ming glanced at Kogoro Mouri, who was snoring happily, and the old policeman, and said to the other three, "Uncle Mouri is asleep, we can't sleep. How about we play cards to keep ourselves awake?"

Sitting idly was boring, so all three agreed to Chu Ming's suggestion.

Chu Ming pulled a deck of cards from his pocket as if by magic, which he had just redeemed from the system.

The four fought all night, and when Inspector Megure arrived, he opened the door and saw four faces covered with white strips, which startled him so much that he took a step back.

"What kind of setup is this? Playing cards in front of a corpse?" Inspector Megure was speechless.