I am in Mihua, and the ladies all like me

But this makes sense.

But no matter how you look at it, Muto Takehiko doesn't look like the type who would kill someone on impulse...

Just as Conan was lost in thought, Serabelle suddenly interrupted.

"By the way, I heard that the first thing Mr. Yamao did after he was released from prison was to go back to Kitanozawa Village. Was it because he wanted to check out the location of his old home?"

"Hmm? Yeah, what's the problem?"

Yamao Keisuke was stunned for a moment and nodded first, then he came to his senses and realized that he was not familiar with the other party at all.

"Nothing, I'm just a little curious about how Mr. Yamao plans to find the location of his original home."

Serabelle spread her hands.

"As far as I know, the location of the old Kitazawa Village has become a reservoir three years ago. Even if the house is not soaked and eroded day and night, you have to dive underwater to see it... and the water in the reservoir is very cold in this season. Even if you are fully equipped, diving rashly may be life-threatening."

"This one……"

Somehow, the corner of Yamao Keisuke's eye twitched slightly, and he seemed to find it difficult to answer.

However, Serabelle did not continue speaking, but stopped there.

On the other side, seeing that no one raised any more objections, Inspector Qingzhen also consciously put away his paper and pen and stood up.

"Then let's stop talking here. Thank you for your hard work."

After saying this, he left with his two subordinates.

Afterwards, Yamao Keisuke, Tachihara Fuyumi, Muto Takehiko, and Tono Mizuki also left one after another, leaving only Serabelle and others in the restaurant.

"…What do you think? Could it be that the culprit is Takehiko Muto?"

Conan calmly walked up to Serabelle and asked in a low voice.

"It's possible, but not much."

Serabelle answered rather bluntly.

"At least from what we know so far, Muto Takehiko is not the type of person who would fight with others when he gets angry. He should be the type who would rather die than have anything to do with people he hates. And in my opinion, he probably doesn't hate Hikawa Shogo that much."

"Eh? Why?"

Conan looked curious.

Serabelle shrugged. "It's very simple. Although what we know so far is that Hikawa's family was the first to agree with the proposal to relocate the village, according to the fact that Miss Tachihara and Miss Tono also lived in the village, they obviously agreed to the proposal to relocate the village. But Mr. Muto seemed to have a good relationship with them."

"This……"

"By comparison, I think the most suspicious one is Yamao Keisuke. It just so happens that he shouldn't have gone far yet. You guys can continue to have fun this afternoon. I'll go see what he's planning to do."

Chapter 479: One word comes true

A quarter of an hour later, two figures, one tall and one short, were walking side by side on the dirt mountain road outside Kitanozawa Village.

"...So why did you come along too? Didn't you make an appointment to go skiing with those kids this afternoon?"

Serabel hid his hands in his pockets to keep warm, feeling the soft snow under his feet. He glanced at a Shinigami elementary school student beside him and asked.

"What does it matter?"

Conan shrugged nonchalantly.

"Anyway, when they find out I'm not here, they'll go have fun on their own. Don't think they're too sensitive. Besides, I didn't come here for tourism in the first place. Investigating the dam is my main purpose."

"Compared to you..."

Conan paused here and glanced at the boy next to him with a subtle look.

"If I remember correctly, you seem to be the one who said from the beginning that you would bring your sister here for a trip. Why are you investigating the dam with me now?"

"You really want to know?"

Serabelle asked back, unmoved.

Conan's expression changed and he closed his eyes silently.

"What? Are you threatening me or something?"

"Of course not, what are you thinking about..."

Serabelle coughed lightly.

"Isn't it true that this mountain road leads to the dam?"

Conan unzipped his windbreaker, took out his cell phone from the inside of his coat to block the cold wind, opened the map and took a look.

"Well, judging from the map, yes, it should be correct."

"That's good."

Serabelle nodded.

Although they had been following Yamao Keisuke all the way from Kitanosawa Village, the two did not keep too close to each other, but instead deliberately kept a distance between them.

It just so happened that the direction of the dam was not one of the main traffic routes in and out of Kitanozawa Village, and usually there were almost no people there except for the staff. In addition, it happened to snow heavily last night, so even in the afternoon the mountain road was still covered with thick snow.

There was a pit at every step along the way.

The two of them walked slowly following Yamao Keisuke's footsteps.

It is precisely because the distance is far enough that they can communicate so unscrupulously without worrying about being discovered.

"Uh, where were we just now? Oh yeah, you asked me why I followed you, right?"

Serabelle pursed her lips.

"Remember when we first found Mr. Glacier and I said his stun gun was missing?"

"Oh, I remember."

Conan blinked.

Serabel continued, "From the scene at the time, it was clearly homicide. Secondly, according to the police's preliminary appraisal, the deceased had no obvious external injuries and the cause of death was a sudden heart attack, so it can be determined that the murder weapon was most likely the stun gun."

"Hmm~ That sounds reasonable, so what?"

"So the question is, how many people know about this stun gun?"

"..."

Conan was suddenly stunned.

Yes, this is a very critical issue.

After all, according to what Yamao Keisuke said during the police interrogation, Hikawa Shogo had stayed in Tokyo since the village moved and had never returned, so the other childhood friends naturally had no idea that Hikawa Shogo needed to carry a stun gun for self-defense when he worked as an insurance agent in Tokyo.

And Hikawa Shogo is not a child of six or seven years old. It is impossible for him to show off to others all day long just because he has an electric shock device in his hand.

Furthermore, the lack of obvious external injuries on the body proved that the stun gun was not accidentally snatched away by the murderer during the fight.

To sum up, there is only one person who can possibly do all of the above things, and that is Yamao Keisuke himself.

"And there is one more thing that I am confused about."

Serabelle glanced again at Conan, whose expression was becoming increasingly serious.

"Didn't you say that when you met Shanwei and the glacier at the visitor center, Shanwei was comparing two maps carefully?"

"um, yes."

Conan recalled carefully and nodded.

"I remember that he had a map of the visitor center in his hand, and another one he brought with him. It looked like a very old map. I glanced at it from the side and saw that the place where the reservoir should be now was not marked as a reservoir on the old map. It should be the map before Kitanozawa Village was relocated."

"Then the question is, what is he trying to do by comparing the map so carefully? Is he trying to find a sword by carving a mark on a boat?"

Serabelle shrugged.

"Although this idiom is not quite appropriate, at least the people who carved the boat to look for the sword jumped down to look for it but didn't find it. But he wanted to jump into the reservoir to look for his ancestral home in this weather... It's hard for me to say whether he is homesick or mentally ill."

"It seems to be the same..."

Conan also found it a little confusing.

Obviously, judging from Yamao Keisuke's current behavior, he is very anxious to find his ancestral home that has been sunk under the reservoir, otherwise he would not have rushed to the reservoir when the victim's body was still warm.

Besides, Yamao Keisuke's motive for killing Hikawa Shogo is also untenable.

It can't be that it was just because of the quarrel in the hotel lobby last night, right?

"Oh, come to think of it, I think I have thought of a way to find the underwater ancestral home even without diving."

Serabelle pulled her hands out of her pockets and clapped them together.

“It’s very simple, crude and effective, but a little crazy.”

"any solution?"

"Blow up the dam."

"..."

Conan was shocked by this indeed "simple, crude and effective" method.

He almost subconsciously turned his head to look behind him, then shuddered violently.

It was not for any other reason, but because the reservoir dam they were heading to was actually a triangular area separated by mountains and canyons, and Kitazawa Village was all the way along the canyon. Once the dam was blown up, a huge amount of water in the reservoir would pour out instantly, flooding the canyon and destroying Kitazawa Village in one fell swoop.

That will undoubtedly result in the deaths of hundreds and thousands of people!

"Pah, pah, pah, stop talking nonsense..."

“Just stating the facts.”

Serabelle put her hands back into her pockets.

"And speaking of which, have you thought of any motives for why Yamao had to kill Hikawa?"

"How could there be such a thing..." Conan said speechlessly, "Besides, we still haven't found any conclusive evidence that Mr. Yamao killed Mr. Hikawa. It's just a guess."

"But it can only be him," Serabelle said confidently. "Except for not letting the police come directly to arrest him, everything else is basically 100% confirmed."

"Uh-huh..."

Conan curled his lips and decided not to continue this topic, so he changed the topic.

"But before I went to bed last night, I did look up the incident about Mr. Yamao's car accident. I was in the third grade at the time, and the incident was even reported in the newspaper that year. On the same day, another incident in Niigata Prefecture was also reported."

"What incident?"

"I remember it was about a 48-year-old jewelry store owner who was killed by a robber. The suspect has not been arrested yet."

"Huh?"

Serabelle responded casually, not noticing anything at first.

However, after a few seconds, with a subtle change in his expression, he suddenly stopped and a golden exclamation mark slowly rose above his head.

At the same time, two uniformed reservoir workers came towards us on the mountain road ahead, talking and laughing, and seemed to be planning to come down the mountain to have a cup of coffee and join in the fun during the Snow Festival.

Chapter 480: Killed on the Spot

It only takes a moment to switch from a calm walk to a full-speed run.

Before Conan could even react to what was happening, Serabell grabbed Fate by the scruff of the neck and lifted him up into the air.

Of course, this "flying" refers to his subjective perspective.

The whistling sound of the wind passed by his ears, and Conan was extremely surprised with a lot of question marks on his face. When he opened his mouth, a mouthful of cold air filled it, forcing him to speak intermittently.

"Hey... So what's going on? Why... did he suddenly start running..."

"Because I suddenly thought of something."

Perhaps it was because the cold wind was too harsh, but Serabelle's face was tense for the first time while she was running.

Conan was startled: "For example?"

"For example—"

Serabelle took a breath and continued running wildly on the snow-covered mountain road, one step deep and one step shallow.

"Eight years ago, on the same day, there was a robbery and murder at a jewelry store and a speeding accident on a mountain road at night. Is there a possibility that these two incidents were committed by the same person?"