Isn't it very scientific to use the Death Note to kill people?

Chapter 398: A Twist of Fate, About to Be a Sensation! (Two Chapters Combined)

A deceased mystery writer uses a "cryptic puzzle-solving competition" to determine the heir to his vast fortune.

The stage is set in the treacherous "Lucia Mansion." Kindaichi, who has been appointed as the match's assistant, unexpectedly encounters the "Hell Puppet Master" there!

"I just want you, someone who considers yourself a righteous person, to understand a little bit about the dark side that exists in everyone's heart. It doesn't matter if you don't agree, anyway, you and I are two parallel lines that will never intersect—but, precisely because parallel lines never intersect, they will never be separated."

Just reading the preface and the lines on the title page made Conan Edogawa, who was back at the agency, eager to get back to work.

The Hell Puppet Master, Takato Yoichi, was a new character introduced by Hayashi Yoshiki in his previous work, "The Magic Train Murder Case".

Just as the famous Sherlock Holmes needed a rival like Moriarty, the rivalry between them is enough to pique the reader's interest just by looking at the opening of the book.

Conan opened the book.

The story begins with the death of the famous mystery writer "Yamachi Kosei," who left behind an estate of over 1 billion yen. Having no descendants, he decided to give the estate to his five close friends free of charge.

But this is conditional.

He hid his will in his villa in Hokkaido and left a coded message; only the person who deciphered the message and found the will could inherit his estate.

One of the heirs is named "Kouji Takarada," who was Yamanouchi's editor before his death. In order to obtain the inheritance, he hired Kindaichi, hoping that he could help him solve the mystery and get the treasure.

The band members were beheaded in order from front to back during the pilgrimage.

Okay, let's count now!

Try placing the second child's head to the right of the fifth child's head; a cheerful melody is about to begin, about to begin.

After reading the riddle, Kindaichi found it interesting and accepted Koji Takarada's invitation to travel with him to the villa located in the middle of a deep mountain lake.

The villa's butler ordered everyone to refrain from contacting the outside world and using the phone for the next five days, and that the boat would not come to pick them up until five days later, thus setting them into the "locked room in the snow" scenario.

Then the other four heirs also made their appearance.

They are mystery critic "Kamikage Tadashi", a guy who likes to drink and always gets himself drunk;

The mystery writer "Kaoru Umezon" achieved great success with her debut mystery novel, but her later works had nothing to do with mystery novels.

High school student "Inukai Takashi" is rumored to be just as good at deduction as Kindaichi.

The last person was an illustrator who also brought an assistant, a masked man named Rozes who claimed to be a magician—but his identity was soon revealed to be Takato Yoichi.

After everyone gathered, the lawyer invited them all to a room, where the deceased "Koji Takarada" served as a witness to the entire game.

He played the videotape of Yamanouchi's last words in front of everyone.

He stated that the key to obtaining the inheritance is meaningless on its own; it requires the combination of five Russian puppets in the villa to unlock the secret—a set of Russian puppets holding different musical instruments, each of them being a different height.

Then there are five different musical instruments in the room that match the instruments. Each of the five heirs takes one, which represents the puppet holding the corresponding instrument.

"..."

Upon seeing this, Conan seriously recalled the mystery from the previous text and tried to match it with the doll that was given a detailed description, but he couldn't solve anything for the time being.

In stark contrast, Cohen arrived at the bar early and sat at the bar counter.

He was bad at solving puzzles and had no interest in reasoning; all he wanted to see was his own blood flowing like a river, so he turned the page without hesitation.

Soon, the first victim appeared.

On their first night at the villa, mystery critic "Kamiji Tadashi" secretly took a measuring tape to measure the dimensions of five dolls when no one was looking, and the murderer took this opportunity to kill him.

When his body was found, he was dead, lying face down in a bathtub filled with water, with a doll floating in the tub—representing him, and also the smallest "double bass doll, Ivan."

Everyone quickly realized the meaning of the code: "The orchestra was beheaded in the order from front to back during the ceremony." It foreshadowed that the dead would die one after another, starting with the dolls and moving up the ranks.

In order from front to back, the second shortest person is Kindaichi's client, "Kouji Takarada".

Despite the other party's extreme caution, and after Kindaichi confirmed that his room was locked and impossible to enter, Koji Takarada still died before the next morning—and similarly, a corresponding doll was placed next to his body.

When Cohen saw that despite everyone's precautions, a third person had still died—the illustrator—he couldn't help but chuckle.

"..."

He sat there, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably.

They didn't even notice the bar door was opened.

Vodka, who was walking ahead, was speechless at Cohen's behavior, but by now he had gotten used to Cohen's madness and just muttered, "Cohen is really sick, bro."

"..."

Gin remained silent, but walked to the bar and took out the same book as Cohen.

Seeing this, Vodka wiped away non-existent sweat.

Although my older brother looks down on detective and mystery novels, he reads every single one of Cointreau's novels, and he usually starts reading them on the day they're released... What's this, saying one thing but doing another?

Seeing his older brother flipping through the book with a blank expression, Vodka didn't dare to make a sound and disturb him.

But to his surprise, Gin suddenly chuckled and grinned halfway through the video.

"..."

On one side was a sick guy with his shoulders shaking and a creepy chuckle, and on the other side was the big brother grinning. Vodka, sitting in the middle, felt completely out of place.

Gin's progress was similar to Cohen's.

After the illustrator was strangled and beheaded, the magician who had been invited to the villa—namely, Takato Yoichi—was enraged when he saw his body.

Gin knew that the illustrator used the name Cohen, and in Gin's view, Takato Yoichi was an embodiment of himself that Cointo had put into his work—Cointo was angry because of "Cohen's" death, which Gin found somewhat meaningful.

In the story, after the illustrator's death, Takato Yoichi directly challenged Kindaichi to a duel: the murderer killed someone and then shifted the blame onto him, which was a disgrace to Takato Yoichi's title of master criminal. Therefore, Takato Yoichi decided to compete with Kindaichi. If Kindaichi found the murderer first, he would hand the murderer over to the law; otherwise, Takato Yoichi would personally punish the murderer.

"..."

The detective and the mastermind of crime are now on the same side, and Conan feels a strange excitement when he sees this.

He couldn't help but admire Hayashi Yoshiki.

Although he only appears twice, Takato Yoichi is, in my opinion, a complex and charismatic character—a delightful criminal who equates murder and revenge with artistic creation, extremely obsessed with winning and losing, and possessing a strong sense of self-respect. But at the same time, Takato Yoichi also has a glimmer of humanity within him; he harbors compassion for others and is willing to reason and keep his word.

Then, a fourth person died.

Mystery writer Kaoru Umezono was found dead in a room. Her head had been cut off and placed on a table, while her body sat quietly in a chair next to it.

Upon seeing this, Takato Yoichi turned directly to the remaining heir and said that he would look at the motive rather than the method: the only person who would want these four people to die together was the high school student "Inukai Takashi". Under his aggressive pressure, Inukai Takashi was cleanly and swiftly killed by Takato Yoichi in the process of resisting.

At this moment, apart from Cohen still reminiscing about the illustrator's death, Gin and Conan, who had already seen this, both frowned in unison.

This case is not something to be taken so lightly.

At this moment, both of them thought of Gao Yuanyao's identity as a "magician" and suspected that there might be a trap involved.

After Kindaichi and his group cornered Takato Yoichi in his room, the butler announced that the five heirs had died and that, according to regulations, Yamanouchi's estate would be donated free of charge.

But soon after, the maid in the villa, Kirie Koko, suddenly became hesitant and said that she had deciphered the code of Yamanouchi.

Then, Tongjiang Xiangzi began to solve the mystery, pointing to the clock in the villa as the location of the will. Sure enough, following her instructions, everyone found a letter in the hidden compartment of the clock.

The lawyer promptly opened and read aloud:

[The person who deciphered the code I set up and found this will is the true culprit behind the series of murders surrounding my estate!]

Instantly, Tongjiang Xiangzi looked completely bewildered, as if she had been struck on the head with a club.

She immediately denied it, stating that someone had definitely switched the suicide note. Her resolute words made Kindaichi scratch the back of his head and chuckle sheepishly, saying that he had accidentally given himself away, and then he took out the real suicide note from his pocket.

[The person who can decipher the code I set up in the mountains and find the location of this will will inherit my estate. The five pre-designated individuals are eligible to inherit, but if none of these five candidates can decipher the code by the deadline, then the eligibility requirement will no longer apply, and the estate will be given to the person who deciphered the code.]

After the lawyer finished reading the will, the door next to him opened.

Emerging from within are Takato Yoichi and Inukai, the high school student he "killed," along with Umeen, whose body should have been separated from his own.

Kindaichi and Takato Yoichi staged a play together, just to make the murderer believe that the heir was dead and take the initiative to solve the code. The dismemberment of the body in the plum garden was just a basic magic trick, and the headless body was made from the body of another victim.

Kirie tried her best to deny it, but as Kindaichi refuted her point by point, she finally had to admit it.

However, in the end, Tongjiang Xiangzi also revealed a previously unknown past.

—The reason why the famous writer Yamanouchi was able to become a mystery writer was entirely due to plagiarism of the ideas of Kirie's father. Even the villa where everyone is now once belonged to the Kirie family.

Yamanouchi went to Kirie's father to borrow money. Kirie's father, a mystery enthusiast, gave Yamanouchi his notebooks filled with various tricks and puzzles from his student days. However, after reading them, Yamanouchi said the contents couldn't be adapted into a novel, and Kirie's father gave up on his novel-writing aspirations.

Years later, Tongjiang's father passed away unexpectedly, and the villa was sold at a low price.

However, Yamanouchi, relying on the notes he saw from Kirie's father, used the ideas and notes to become a famous mystery writer and bought the villa.

Enraged by this, Kirie lies and says she wants to become Yamanouchi's student, thus infiltrating the villa as a maid.

"If you found a wallet full of money that you had lost in an unexpected place, what would you do? Ignore it or pick it up? Of course you'd pick it up, right?! All the money in Yamanouchi, including this villa, should have belonged to my father, it's mine! I just want to take back what's rightfully mine!"

As her scheme was exposed, Tongjiang Xiangzi became increasingly agitated, her eyes filled with determination. She picked up the dagger used by Gaoyuan Yaoyi and stabbed herself in the throat.

Now she has nothing and no desire to remain in this world.

However, when the dagger pierced her body, it suddenly transformed into falling rose petals, as if representing the withering away of Tongjiang's regret and loneliness.

Gao Yuanyao chuckled softly.

He stood by the window, watching this scene with pity.

"Kindaichi, you won the game of finding the culprit first, so I'm sparing her life."

“And Miss Tongjiang, if you choose to die just because the detective puts you in a little pressure, you can’t become a cold-blooded criminal. You’ve already died once, today is your day of rebirth.”

"Then let me embark on my journey to the sky while gazing at this magnificent Russian building floating on the beautiful lake."

After finishing his sentence, Takato Yoichi dropped from the windowsill, just managing to catch the rising helium balloon, and gracefully departed under Kindaichi's gaze.

The incident is over.

Upon reaching this final point, Conan had a feeling he couldn't quite describe.

Hayashi Yoshiki's work is very interesting.

It's very interesting in terms of technique, suspense, and mystery. The rivalry between Kindaichi and Takato Yoichi, two parallel lines that never intersect, is also very interesting.

However, he always felt that something was missing.

Is it cliché?

Yes, it seems like a cliché...

As for Hayashi Yoshiki, with his abilities, he should be able to write even better.

Perhaps it's because I couldn't come up with a better idea this time?

However, there were only two pages left. Conan turned the page and looked down at the next page.

But it was these last few pages that made him hold his breath and get goosebumps all over his body!

At the end of the story, Kindaichi receives a manuscript that Yamanouchi plans to release half a month later, which is also his last work after his death.

Kindaichi was shocked when he saw the contents of his posthumous work, because it was about the Lucia Doll Murder Case, and the content was almost exactly the same as what they had encountered in the villa. It was scheduled to be released in half a month after the will.

At this moment, Takato Yoichi appeared in front of Kindaichi.

"It seems you've also read Yamanouchi's posthumous manuscript."

"Have you noticed? The real 'mastermind' behind this series of murders is actually Tsunehisa Yamanouchi himself."

"That coded game was a clever trap designed to lure the five heirs to the villa and then trick Tongjiang Xiangzi into committing murder."

Yamanouchi probably saw through Kirie Shoko's identity as a maid who had infiltrated his side long ago, and those five heirs were exactly the five people Yamanouchi hated the most.

Critic Tadashi Kamiya frequently dismissed his novels as worthless.

The editor, "Kouji Takarada," was extremely persistent in demanding manuscripts.

The female writer "Umezono Kaoru" was Yamanouchi's mistress. She won a mystery prize that even Yamanouchi couldn't win by plagiarizing Yamanouchi's ideas.

The illustrator added clues to the mystery in the illustration without permission.

As for the high school student "Inukai Takashi," who is Yamanouchi's neighbor, he keeps many barking dogs. For Yamanouchi, a writer who needs peace and quiet, this is probably the person he most wants to kill.

This final twist reveals Yamanouchi's malice.

He attempted to use the exposure of the maid as the murderer to make his own prediction of murder go down in history, and if all went well, he could also get rid of the five people he hated.

"..."

After seeing this, Conan was simply shocked.

The real murderer used human greed and desire to commit the final crime after his death. This shocking reversal, which was not completed until the last two pages, gave him a sudden feeling of being in a cold storage room, and goosebumps rose all over his body!