Conan: What alias? That's my struggle!

Bai Niao stared at Lin Ye for a few seconds, then picked up her phone, walked to the window, and dialed a number.

The call connected quickly. Shiratori's voice was very low, and Lin Ye could only hear some fragmented words—"Dr. Hashimoto," "amnesia," "confirmation."

About a minute later, Shiratori hung up the phone, walked back, and sat down again. His expression was softer than before, but there was something new in his eyes—curiosity.

"Inspector Megure said you really have amnesia."

Lin Ye nodded.

Shiratori glanced down at her notebook, then looked up again. "I heard from the other nurses that you didn't treat any patients all day. You were there during rounds, but others did all the actual treatment. Is it because your amnesia has made you rusty?"

Lin Ye was taken aback. He hadn't expected Bai Niao to notice even this. He hadn't actually performed the surgery, not because he didn't want to, but because he didn't dare. His hands, which had only ever been used for circumcisions in the training space, couldn't even maintain sterility when holding a scalpel. How could he be qualified to perform surgery on a real patient?

"Yes."

Lin Ye nodded in agreement.

"I don't want to risk the patient's life."

That's the truth.

Shiratori looked at him for a few seconds, nodded, and didn't ask any further questions. He wrote a few words in his notebook, then closed it, stood up, and gave a slight bow.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Hashimoto, for taking up your time."

Lin Ye also stood up, said "It's okay", and turned to leave.

Before the door even opened, hurried footsteps echoed down the corridor. A young police officer jogged over, carrying an evidence bag containing a folded piece of paper. His breathing was rapid, and his voice was particularly clear in the quiet corridor.

"Officer Shiratori found this in Dr. Miyagi's desk drawer. It's a suicide note."

Shiratori took the evidence bag but didn't open it, only glancing at it through the transparent plastic. The handwriting on the paper was neat, written with a blue ballpoint pen, filling the entire A4 sheet. He handed the evidence bag to his assistant, saying, "Send it for handwriting analysis," and then turned to Lin Ye.

Lin Ye stood at the door, his face expressionless.

He watched as the evidence bag was taken away by his assistant, watched Shiratori reopen his notebook, and watched the police officers in the corridor begin a new round of work.

Suicide note.

Dr. Miyagi committed suicide.

That's at least what it's written on paper.

The suicide note was quickly skimmed. Dr. Miyagi wrote that he had been under immense work pressure and suffering from insomnia, feeling incapable of fulfilling his duties. He apologized to his colleagues and asked for their forgiveness for his weakness. The note made no mention of any specific person or event.

The wording is vague.

It's so vague that it can be applied to any patient with depression.

Shiratori read the suicide note twice from beginning to end, then placed the evidence bag on the table and stared at it for a few seconds. The letter was written so neatly. It wasn't impossible for someone contemplating suicide to write such neat characters on their deathbed, but it was rare. Most people's hands trembled when writing a suicide note.

The handwriting might be crooked, and there might be tear or sweat stains on the paper. This letter, however, is clean and neat, with every word written upright, as if it had been copied.

"Something seems amiss."

Shiratori said to the officer next to him, "Take it and check the fingerprints on it. Do a handwriting comparison too. Find Dr. Miyagi's previous signatures and documents."

His investigative methods are meticulous and rigorous, a testament to his formal training.

The officer left with the evidence bag. Shiratori stood in the corridor for a moment, then turned and walked towards the nurses' station. Several nurses were talking in hushed tones; they immediately fell silent when they saw him approaching.

Has Dr. Miyagi told you recently that he's under a lot of stress?

The nurses exchanged glances. One of the older nurses spoke first: "No. Dr. Miyagi never talks about his personal life. He doesn't seem to do anything unusual while he's working; he just goes about his business as usual."

Another nurse added, "He was joking with me yesterday. He said there were a lot of patients lately, and he wanted to take his annual leave to travel after this busy period. He didn't seem to be under a lot of pressure."

Shiratori asked several other people, and the answers were all similar. Dr. Miyagi was usually quiet, but his emotions were always very stable, and he had never shown any signs of depression or anxiety.

Shiratori closed the notebook, then opened it again, repeating this several times. He didn't speak, but his mind was already racing. A seemingly normal person wrote a smudged suicide note, then hanged himself in the storeroom. The rope was tied neatly, his toes thirty centimeters off the ground.

It was so precise that it seemed impossible for someone who was having an emotional breakdown to do it.

The situation is rather strange; it doesn't seem like suicide, but he has no evidence. Without evidence, the conclusion in the suicide note cannot be overturned, at least not now.

"The investigation needs to continue."

The police officers' questioning of patients one by one in the inpatient ward quickly attracted the attention of the patients. The corridor on the seventh floor was not long, with wards on both sides, and most of the ward doors were open. Patients and their families peeked out, gathering in twos and threes, whispering and asking what had happened.

"What happened? Why are there so many police officers?"

"I heard a thoracic surgeon died."

"Suicide? Or homicide?"

"I don't know, the police are still investigating."

The murmurs spread like ripples in the corridor. Some expressed regret, some curiosity, and some closed their doors expressionlessly.

Lin Ye stood at the door of the doctor's office, watching all of this with a calm expression.

He didn't want to participate in any discussion or attract anyone's attention. He just wanted to wait for the police to leave so he could check if Gin had woken up.

Just then, a voice came from the other end of the corridor, loud and carefree, with a natural and uninhibited tone.

"Excuse me, excuse me, what's going on here?"

Lin Ye looked in the direction of the sound.

A man in a dark blue suit was pushing his way out of the crowd. He looked to be about thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old, with a burly build, a small tuft of beard on his chin, and a loosely tied tie, as if he had just casually put it on before leaving the house. His face wore an expression that was a mixture of curiosity and excitement, like a hunting dog that had caught the scent of its prey.

"Damn it! Kogoro Mouri!"

Lin Ye felt as if something had suddenly struck his heart. His expression remained unchanged, but his pupils contracted for a split second.

What's this guy doing here?

Lin Ye's composure vanished completely. There was no way around it; Kogoro Mouri's deductive reasoning ability... well, his deductive reasoning ability was undeniable.

Lin Ye has always had a clear conscience.

He is not the murderer.

He had absolutely no connection to Dr. Miyagi's death; his timeline and movements were crystal clear. At most, the police could only identify him as a "related person" at best.

He's not even a suspect.

But then Kogoro Mouri arrived.

As everyone knows, Kogoro Mouri has an amazing ability to reason. Lin Ye is not the murderer, but precisely because of this, he will definitely identify Lin Ye as the murderer.