Ke Xue: Xiaolan delivers goods to your door at the beginning

Lin Xiaofeng interrupted him, then took out disposable gloves and shoe covers from his body, put them on, went to the door, pushed Kogoro Mouri aside, and waved his gloved hand.

"Uncle Mori, you shouldn't be wearing any protective gear, right? Entering a crime scene without protection and randomly stepping on and touching things is a big no-no. Even police academies teach this, right?"

"This……"

Kogoro Mouri choked on his words.

Indeed, that's what we learned in our first practical training class at the police academy.

Now that he no longer works in the police force, he is relaxed and, being the famous Detective Mouri, possesses the passive skill "Everyone in the world knows you" which is 100% guaranteed to trigger. Normally, if someone finds him at a crime scene, they would be overjoyed, let alone suspicious.

Because as long as he's there, it means the case will definitely be solved, and he won't care about trivial details like whether he's wearing gloves or shoe covers.

And now, because of this, he's being stopped at the entrance to the crime scene by some young punk.

Unfortunately, he couldn't refute it.

"Oh, right, this is yours."

Before entering the room, Lin Xiaofeng stopped, thought for a moment, and then took out another pair of gloves and shoe covers from his body, tossing them to Conan, who was looking on expectantly.

Seeing this, Kogoro Mouri felt completely resentful.

"Sorry, there are only two sets, and..."

Lin Xiaofeng shrugged and gestured towards the room with his eyes.

Looking into the room, even though the lights were off, the light from the corridor made it easy to see that the body of "Lady Yashiro" lying on her side in the bedroom had fallen with her legs facing the door, and there was no sign of her wearing underwear under her bathrobe.

"Speaking of which, I remember this morning on the deck, Uncle, you seemed to have publicly praised Mrs. Yashiro's legs, right?" Conan suddenly asked.

Kogoro Mouri immediately glared at him angrily, but he remained silent.

After all, he did say those words, and he even said them in public, so many people around him must have heard them.

Lin Xiaofeng shrugged and said, "Therefore, to avoid being sued by the Yashiro Group for desecrating a corpse, let Conan handle some of the trivial matters. At least the Yashiro Group wouldn't be so petty as to sue a seven-year-old child."

After saying that, he led Conan into the room and closed the door behind him.

Still standing in the hallway outside the door, Kogoro Mouri stared wide-eyed at the clearly written gold-plated door number, and suddenly realized a serious problem.

Wait a minute, what do you mean he's inconvenient? But isn't it even more inappropriate to let a little kid go through a corpse?

But it was all too late.

338. Husband and wife in harmony

Inside the room, the moment Lin Xiaofeng closed the door, he turned on the bedroom light from the control switch by the door.

Bright lights shone down from the ceiling in an instant, and in the air filled with the smell of blood, the body of a woman in her fifties with a good figure lay supine on the ground.

It seems that because he had just taken a shower before the incident, he was killed with a towel on his head used to dry his hair, which covered his wide-open mouth and grotesque death.

"So this is Mrs. Yatsudai." Lin Xiaofeng approached the corpse and examined it closely. "So who is she? The wife of the Yatsudai Group president? Yesterday, when the Yatsudai Group president appeared, he looked to be in his seventies or eighties, right? An old man and a young woman?"

"Of course not, she's the daughter of the president of the Yashiro Group!" Conan corrected. "As far as I know, her husband was named Yashiro Eito, a ship designer who married into the Yashiro Group. He recently passed away in an accident. He suffered a heart attack while driving home, which caused him to crash through the guardrail and fall off a cliff with his car."

"That's it."

With Conan's reminder, Lin Xiaofeng gradually understood the case. He only remembered that the murderer was Akiko Minami, but he couldn't recall the details clearly.

"Alright, that concludes my investigation. Conan, the rest is up to you. Here's a hint: watch out for Minami Akiyoshi."

After saying that, Lin Xiaofeng was about to walk towards the door of the room.

Conan quickly stopped him: "Hey, wait a minute! What do you mean by telling me to keep an eye on Minami Akiyoshi? Is she connected to the case? Can you explain yourself clearly?"

Lin Xiaofeng was still hoping Conan would find evidence so he could reap the rewards: "It means exactly what it says, with Akiyoshi Minamiko as the main suspect, just investigate along that line of thinking..."

"This..." Conan didn't know whether he should trust Lin Xiaofeng or not, but anyway, he should gather clues first.

Lin Xiaofeng returned to his room, where Qiu Tinglianzi had just boiled water and was making tea at the coffee table.

Hearing the sound from the doorway, Akiba Reiko put down the kettle in her hand and turned around to look. She saw a boy who had just entered the door with gloves on his hands and shoe covers on his feet. She frowned in confusion.

"How's it going? Did you find any clues about what happened earlier?"

"The clues are still very limited... However, we've already called the police. After some time, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department will send a helicopter to transport detectives over to investigate." Lin Xiaofeng took off his gloves and shoe covers and threw them on the sink counter next to the bathroom door. He then closed the door tightly before stepping into the room.

"Hmm. I think it's best to leave it to the police; you shouldn't get involved."

"Are you scared?"

"I'm worried about you."

"The only known victim so far is Mrs. Yashiro. Considering the missing President Yashiro, we can roughly guess that the killer's target was the Yashiro family..."

"But we can't be careless; our own safety is the top priority."

Akiba Reiko didn't care about the murderer; she only cared about Lin Xiaofeng.

"Yes. Don't worry about me."

Lin Xiaofeng touched Qiu Tinglianzi's cheek and smiled gently.

……

After receiving an emergency call from the Aphrodite informing them of the assassination attempt on Mrs. Yatsushiro and the unexplained disappearance of Chairman Yatsushiro, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department immediately dispatched a helicopter to the cruise ship.

As a black-and-white police helicopter bearing the words "Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department" roared down from the sky, most of the passengers on the luxury cruise ship realized that something big might have happened.

The scene shifts to a conference room inside the cruise ship, where familiar faces—Inspector Megure, his subordinate Inspector Shiratori, and Inspector Takagi—sit upright on the front row of the stage.

The conference room is quite spacious. Although it is built on a moving island at sea, such as a cruise ship, its capacity is comparable to that of a typical city hall or a tiered conference room in a prestigious university.

However, apart from Inspector Megure and his group, only Lin Xiaofeng, Conan, Kogoro Mouri, Reiko Akiba, and Kaho Tsujimoto remained in the large conference room.

"Uh, so... you guys were the first to discover the crime scene, right? ~?"

Inspector Megure asked the question as usual, while Takagi, standing beside him, held a small notebook and a ballpoint pen, looking ready to record important information at any time.

"Yes," the five replied.

Next, the five of them described the scene of the incident as requested by Inspector Megure.

"Based on your deduction, the culprit is most likely someone who knew the detailed itinerary of Chairman Yatsushiro and his wife," Inspector Megure asked Kogoro Mouri.

“Then I think it should be…” Kogoro Mouri pinched his chin and looked up as if he was thinking.

Inspector Megure coughed lightly and turned his gaze to Tsujimoto Kaho, who was Mrs. Yashiro's secretary and the one who arranged the itinerary.

“Ms. Tsujimoto, we also regret the matter concerning Mrs. Yatsushiro and Chairman Yatsushiro. If possible, we would not like to ask you about these things at this time, but for the sake of the case's progress, could you please disclose some information about this schedule?”

"This... is the schedule I made." Tsujimoto Kaho snapped out of her daze and murmured as she glanced at the schedule in Inspector Megure's hand.

“We know you did it,” Inspector Megure stated, getting to the point. “Now we want to know, besides you, how many other people knew about this schedule?”

"……not much."

After thinking for a moment, Tsujimoto Natsuho shook her head and said.

"I arranged the schedule for Chairman Yatsushiro and Mrs. Yatsushiro yesterday during the day. I went to Chairman Yatsushiro and Mrs. Yatsushiro's room last night to read it to them and then left. Theoretically, only the three of us know the full details."

“But Ms. Tsujimoto couldn’t possibly have committed the crime,” Conan immediately added. “Because as an assistant, Ms. Tsujimoto has to make reservations in advance before Chairman Yatsushiro and Mrs. Yatsushiro go to meet them, and she spends almost the entire day running around on the cruise ship. There’s no way she would have time to commit the crime…”

"Hey! You brat, don't interrupt! This isn't a game!" Sure enough, Conan was immediately met with a roar from Kogoro Mouri, who was so startled that he quickly made an excuse to leave.

"Yes, Brother Xiaofeng told me that."

Inspector Megure, sitting behind the table, also tried to smooth things over: "Well... Brother Mori, don't get too worked up. Even if Conan is right, it's really unlikely that Ms. Tsujimoto would have had time to commit the crime."

"That means it's possible that this schedule was somehow leaked to others." The quick-witted Akiba Reiko immediately understood the situation.

At this moment, Lin Xiaofeng suddenly remembered something else: "Speaking of which, has the missing Eighth Chairman been found?"

Upon hearing this, Inspector Megure glanced down at his phone, his expression suddenly turning serious. He quickly stood up and looked up: "We just received news that they seem to have found the iron fan that Chairman Yashiro always carries in the lifeboat compartment on the lower level, and there's a record of the lifeboat compartment's safety door being opened and closed this morning, so it's highly likely..."

It's highly likely that Old Deng is in grave danger, right?

Lin Xiaofeng mentally completed the last half of the sentence and turned to look at Qiu Tinglianzi.

"I've gone with Inspector Megure and the others to check out the details. Reiko, would you like to go back to your room first?"

"Do not."

Reiko Akiba crossed her arms and refused outright.

“I’ll go with you.”

"Eh?"

"That way you can see me directly without worrying about whether the door is locked or not. I'll feel more at ease having you here, at least it's better than waiting in the room."

"……All right."

Before long, led by his personal assistant, Ms. Tsujimoto Kaho, Lin Xiaofeng and the others arrived at the lifeboat cabin on the lower deck of the cruise ship.

The lifeboat compartment is located at the very end of the cruise ship, right at the stern. It is the most inconspicuous yet indispensable part of the entire ship.

Its space is not very spacious, but it is long and narrow enough, somewhat like a water rafting project in an amusement park. There are docks on both sides where people can stand, and only in the middle is a long water tank in which life rafts are moored one after another.

The shallow blue waves in the tank rippled with the slight rocking of the ship, reflecting ever-changing white light waves onto the ceiling of the lifeboat compartment.

Several forensic officers from the Metropolitan Police Department were busy moving around near the pier when they saw Inspector Megure leading a group of people down the stairs leading to the upper level. One of the officers responsible for conducting blood tests stood up and raised his hand.

"Inspector, we've detected the blood of the Eighth Chairman on the ground here!"

“A blood reaction? I understand.”

Inspector Megure nodded.

"What about the iron fan that fell down?"

"...Right here!"

This time, it was another police officer who spoke up.

At his feet was a fallen iron fan, and three meters behind him were the lifeboat hatch and its gate.

"Um--"

Inspector Megure paused for a moment, drawing out his words, before turning to Takagi behind him.

"Brother Takagi, please contact the Maritime Defense Agency and request that a search and rescue operation be launched immediately."

"Yes!"

Takagi accepted the order, turned around, and quickly left.

At this point, it's basically impossible to talk about saving him. You have to know that according to speculation, the Eighth Chairman disappeared at around 10 a.m., and now it's almost 11 a.m., which is already an hour.

In addition, it will take another half hour for the Japan Maritime Defense Agency to send a helicopter over, and even if they find it as soon as they arrive, it will still take an hour and a half.

To ask a septuagenarian to spend an hour and a half in the freezing cold of winter water before talking about being rescued is simply a joke.

But... well, they're the Yatsudai Group, so the police still have to show the proper attitude, even if all they end up with is a bloated, floating corpse.

We need to see the person, whether alive or dead. It's that simple.

After giving Takagi his instructions, Inspector Megure quickly went to inquire about the progress of other related investigations.

Taking advantage of this moment, Lin Xiaofeng turned to the assistant next to him, who was staring absentmindedly in the direction of the gate.

"Ms. Tsujimoto, I have a question. Since the cruise ship's control room can access the gate opening and closing records, can the cabin door opening and closing records also be accessed?"

"Eh?"

Tsujimoto Natsuho was slightly taken aback when she was suddenly asked the question, but then nodded.

"I think that should be possible, because the cabin access on the cruise ship is controlled by electronic keypad locks, which are connected to the ship's local area network. Every time the access is unlocked, the corresponding key is recorded."

"These electronic locks usually have a master key, right?" Conan interjected.

"Yes, we do, but only our staff members possess them."

Kaho Tsujimoto nodded in confusion and pulled out a card from her inner jacket pocket that was slightly different in design from a regular tourist access card.

"This is it. You can use this to open all the doors on the cruise ship, but not many people have this level of access. Only Mr. Misaki Naoya, the restaurant manager, and I have it..."

At this point, Natsumi Tsujimoto suddenly stopped.

She wasn't stupid; being bombarded with such purposeful questions made Tsujimoto Kaho quickly realize Lin Xiaofeng's true intentions.

"Wait a minute, do you think the criminal is among our staff?"

"It's just a possibility," Lin Xiaofeng said, shrugging.

Akiba Reiko, in a thoughtful gesture, pinched her chin and said, "This will greatly narrow down the suspects, and it would be great if we could find out whose card was used to open Mrs. Yashiro's room."