Conan: The Self-cultivation of Fake Wine

Old lady Tanaka's answer was crisp and clear, but it made Lu Ren feel something was wrong.

For the sake of her grandson's "chastity", the old woman forced Akane Ota to sleep in the same room with her.

Let's put the story into context. If Lu Ren himself was the old woman, he would definitely let the deceased sleep on the inside of the room and he would sleep near the door.

In this way, even if the deceased wants to leave the room in the middle of the night, he will inevitably be alarmed.

Or maybe the old man slept too deeply, so even if such protective measures were taken in advance, it still had no effect.

Anyway, trick her first.

"Old lady, you have to think carefully. Akane Oba died outside the house, and your family is the only one living on this mountain. So the murderer must be one of the three of you. I don't want the police to make a wrong judgment because of your deliberate concealment."

"No, I didn't lie."

"Okay. That's it for now."

Seeing that the old woman insisted on her statement, Lu Ren did not make things difficult for her. After sending her away, he began to organize the testimonies he had obtained.

The first thing that must be made clear is that one of these three people must have told a lie.

Some or all of his testimony was fabricated.

It is not known who lied.

Therefore, the testimonies of these three people can only be believed selectively, such as the common parts of the three people's testimonies.

[The screams of the deceased Akane Ohba were heard outside the house]

There is no problem with this for sure.

Because of this, the suspicion of murder against old lady Tanaka can basically be ruled out.

Because of the murderer's method of killing, she couldn't do it.

The murderer cut the victim's neck, and to do that, the two had to be at least of similar height.

The two gigolos were about 175cm tall, the deceased was 165cm tall, and old woman Tanaka was probably only 140cm tall, or even less.

The height difference, physique difference, and age difference are all obvious.

In Lu Ren's opinion, the only effective way for Tanaka Ihejiang to kill someone was to sneak attack her from behind with a sharp weapon while Oba Akane was sitting at the entrance putting on her shoes with her head down.

But if they did that, then the screams heard by the other two people should not have been outside the house, but inside the house.

As for Lu Ren’s initial assumption—the murderer took the deceased hostage and walked all the way out of the house.

This was a fantasy for Tanaka Iwae. She was not tall enough and not strong enough. She couldn't just jump on Akane Ota's back and force her to run out of the house.

After ruling out Tanaka Iwae, the murderer had to be one of the remaining two people.

At present, Inoue is more likely to be the suspect.

Assuming he was the murderer, he did not put on the shoes just after hearing the scream, but he put on the shoes with the deceased beforehand and agreed to go to the woods together.

Because it was raining heavily outside, he changed his plan at the last minute and killed the victim in a hurry.

Judging from his physique, he was fully capable of taking the victim all the way to the crime scene and then killing him there.

At the same time, he was also the first eyewitness to the case. If he was the murderer, compared to Tanaka Shota, he would have saved time by running back to the house to avoid being exposed.

However, these speculations alone are not enough to convict him.

If he was not the murderer, and assuming that Shota Tanaka was the murderer, the situation might be more complicated.

As the grandson of the owner of the house, Tanaka once lived here for a long time and is very familiar with the environment here.

If it were him, he could kill someone and then quickly find a place to hide in complete darkness without destroying anything in the house.

Of course, he had to take off his shoes first, because the bottoms of his shoes were covered in mud, and running into the house with his shoes on would not only make a lot of noise, but would also leave very obvious traces.

As for the fact that he mentioned that he was barefoot, it was probably intentional. The purpose was to make Lu Ren place the main suspicion on Inoue.

Because when he rushed out of the room for the second time, he noticed that Inoue was wearing shoes.

And during this whole process, it is very likely that Tanaka Ihejiang did something shameful.

For example, when the deceased left the room, she had actually woken up.

However, after seeing that it was his grandson who invited the deceased to go out with him, Tanaka Iwae did not immediately speak out to alarm the two.

She had two choices at the time.

One is to close your eyes and keep silent; out of sight, out of mind.

The second is to follow them quietly and see what they are going to do.

No matter which approach is taken, Tanaka Ihejiang will eventually determine that the murderer is her grandson.

So she chose to lie and to cover up for her grandson.

He lied that he was sleeping soundly when the deceased left the room, so he didn't know who called the deceased away.

If this is true, the case will become more complicated and difficult to solve.

Because two out of the three people lied.

The reasoning came to a temporary deadlock. Lu Ren gathered his thoughts and prepared to go see what the police were doing.

"How is it, have you found the murder weapon?"

"Tanaka's house has kitchen knives, sickles, axes, scissors, and shovels. We are conducting blood reaction monitoring one by one. The two gigolos said they didn't bring any sharp weapons, so we also searched them."

"That's all?"

"No." Shancuncao shook his head. "They confessed this voluntarily. We are still doing further investigation to see if this is all."

"Captain Yamamura, we have a new discovery!" A police officer ran to Shancuncao and showed him the kitchen knife in his hand.

This is a fish-killing knife with a red handle and the words "Xiang Tai" engraved on the blade.

"Where was this found?"

"It was found on the cupboard. It was in a wooden box. The child climbed up on the cupboard and took the box down."

Yamamura Cao glanced at the child the police officer was pointing at.

Oh, it’s Conan, that’s not surprising.

"Well done." After casually praising Conan, Yamamura Cao signaled his police officers to take the knife for a blood test.

"Wait a moment." Lu Ren stopped this action, "Officer Yamamura, this weapon is not included in the weapons that Tanaka Iwajiang just explained, right?"

Seeing Shancuncao nodded, Lu Ren immediately asked: "Then why did she hide the existence of this knife?"

"Why... maybe he forgot?" Shancun Cao scratched his head. "It's normal for an elderly person to have a poor memory."

"Give me this knife first, I'll take it and ask her."

"Oh, whatever you want."

Lu Ren went to find Tanaka Iwajiang with a knife, and Conan followed closely behind.

After seeing the knife, Tanaka readily admitted that it was hers. As for the reason why she didn't mention it before, it was the same as what Yamamura So explained. Because she was old and had forgotten it.

After she left, Conan immediately said, "Brother Ren, she is lying. This knife is well maintained, and you can tell at a glance that it is often taken out for cleaning and polishing. She didn't forget about it, but she deliberately concealed the existence of this knife!"

"Ah."

Lu Ren also noticed this.

But...why did Tanaka Ihei hide the existence of this knife?

Could it be that this knife is the murder weapon?

Shota Tanaka premeditated the murder. He used the knife with his name engraved on it to kill Akane Oba, and then put the knife back to its original place.

Tanaka Iwae, who witnessed all this, chose to conceal the matter.

Could it really be a case of covering up a crime?

Lu Ren returned the knife to Shancuncao, "This knife may be the murder weapon. Check the blood reaction and fingerprints. The box that contained the knife should also be checked for fingerprints."

If this reasoning is correct, there are likely to be Tanaka Shota's fingerprints on the box and the knife.

Unless, during the entire process of taking the knife - killing someone - putting the knife back, Shota Tanaka always wore gloves and was always careful not to leave fingerprints.

However, Lu Ren felt that this possibility was very low.

A guy who chooses to kill someone in a hurry because the original plan goes wrong is basically unlikely to be so cautious.

Even if fingerprints cannot be found, the blood reaction on the knife alone can be used to identify the murderer as Shota Tanaka.

Because if it was Inoue Toshihiro who used this knife to kill someone, then Tanaka Iwae would have no reason to hide it.

The worst case scenario is that the knife has nothing to do with the case, and there are neither Tanaka Shota's fingerprints nor bloodstains on it.

Half an hour later, Shancuncao brought some bad news.

No blood reaction was detected on any sharp objects in the house, including the fish knife.

"What about fingerprints?"

"There are fingerprints. However, after testing, the fingerprints on the box and the knife all belong to Tanaka Iwae. As the owner of the knife, it is normal for her fingerprints to be on it, right?"

"It's only her fingerprints? Are you sure there's no one else's?"

"If I must say it." Yamamura Sou glanced at Edogawa Conan, "There are fingerprints of this guy on the box."

"..."

There was no blood reaction and no fingerprints of Shota Tanaka.

Doesn't that mean that only Tanaka Iwae knows about this knife? If so, why did she hide the existence of this knife?

The most efficient way is to ask directly. But Tanaka Iwae is not an acquaintance like Kisaki Eri and Sato Miwako.

There's a good chance she'll play dumb and repeat her earlier excuse about her age.

Lu Ren began to try to think from another perspective and put himself in the shoes of Tanaka Ihejiang.

As a lonely elderly woman in her 70s, what Tanaka Iwae misses most is probably her grandson Tanaka Shota.

Although they had not been in contact for a long time, Tanaka Iwae still felt a little relieved when she knew that her grandson was a chef in Tokyo.

Last night she finally saw her grandson whom she hadn't seen for a long time, which should have been a very happy thing.

But who would have thought that her grandson had changed his appearance. Not only did he not recognize her, but he also lied to her about being a chef in Tokyo.

After he had plastic surgery, he became a gigolo in Tokyo.

After suffering such a blow, Tanaka Ihei was naturally extremely disappointed.

But she did not expose all this directly, but chose to continue acting according to Tanaka Shota's wishes, and continued to pretend that she did not know Tanaka Shota who had become Xiangyuan Fuma.

Could this fish-killing knife with the words "Xiang Tai" engraved on it be related to this?

Just like Xiangyuan Fuma wanted to hide his real name, Tanaka Ihe wanted to hide the knife.

Thinking of this, Lu Ren did not go directly to Tanaka Ihejiang to verify his direct guess, but came to Xiangyuan Fuma first.

"When you were still living here, did you ever see a fish-killing knife with a red handle?"

"A fish-killing knife?" Tanaka Shota seemed very puzzled. He shook his head. "We are in the mountains. We basically don't need a special fish-killing knife. If there is a fish occasionally, a kitchen knife can be used to deal with it."

His expression didn't seem fake and his reasons were well-founded.

It can be basically determined that he did not lie.

If Tanaka Shota was unaware of the existence of this knife, it was after he left for Tokyo that Tanaka Iwae specially prepared this fish-killing knife with his name engraved on it.

A knife that Tanaka Iwae doesn't use at all, but she takes it out from time to time to maintain and sharpen...

Lu Ren found Tanaka Iwae and asked directly, "That fish-killing knife is a gift you specially prepared for your grandson, the grandson who is a chef in Tokyo."

Tanaka Iwae's expression was obviously shaken: "I... I don't understand what you are talking about."

"Kōhara Fuga is your grandson Tanaka Shouta, and he confessed it himself. He chose to conceal his identity because he didn't want to disappoint you."

"That silly kid..."

Tanaka Ihejiang was mumbling something that was completely inaudible, and Lu Ren did not say anything to remind her, but just waited quietly.

After a while, Tanaka Iwae wiped the tears from her eyes and said, "I lied. I was not in the bedroom last night. I was sharpening a knife in the kitchen."

"Sharpening the knife?"

"Yeah." Tanaka Iwae looked sad, "Whenever I miss Shota, I take out the knife with his name engraved on it."