After dinner, they passed the time in the Hall of Masks. The cameraman and the rock singer went to play billiards, while Kogoro pestered the mysterious fortune-teller and asked her to divine his luck this year.
As for Fangzheng, he sat in a chair. Generally speaking, everything was calm — well, the calm before the storm.
"Mr. Fangzheng."
At this moment, Xiaolan walked over with Conan and sat beside Fangzheng.
"Aren't you bored? Why don't you play chess with us? "
"Chess …. That's a little boring for me."
Looking at Lan, who raised the chessboard at him with a smile, Fangzheng put down the book in his hand and thought for a moment.
"Well, I'll tell you a story."
"A story? Okay, okay! "
Lan immediately became interested when she heard that Fangzheng was going to tell them a story. Conan looked at Fangzheng curiously, wanting to see what kind of story he would tell.
"Hmm … Let me think. The protagonist of the story is a girl named Rizzo …."
As he spoke, Fangzheng began to tell the story to the two of them. Simply put, the story began with a girl named Rizzo who lost her memory. Because she lost her memory, she walked on the street in a daze. She was discovered by her boyfriend, who then brought Rizzo to her house.
Although her family took Rizzo to the hospital for treatment, the doctor diagnosed that the girl was likely to have suffered some mental trauma, which caused her to lose her memory. After that, Rizzo began to have nightmares at night. She always dreamed that a huge caterpillar came in from the door and wanted to climb into her bed. Every time, Rizzo would wake up in fright.
Conan also became interested when he heard this. He began to try to use his ability to infer how the girl lost her memory.
"She couldn't have been scared by the caterpillar, could she?"
Xiaolan quickly voiced her conjecture, while Conan shook his head.
"Sister Lan, you're exaggerating. Even if someone is afraid of caterpillars, they shouldn't be so scared that they would lose their memory. I suspect that she might have seen something similar to a caterpillar …."
"But ordinary caterpillars can't be that big."
According to Fangzheng's description, the caterpillar's body was as wide as a basketball. How could there be such a caterpillar?
But then again, if there really were such caterpillars, Xiaolan would probably scream in fright.
"Could it be a python? Maybe it was because he suddenly encountered a python and got scared? "
"But you don't have to treat pythons as caterpillars …"
The two of them discussed for a while, then listened to Fangzheng continue. Following that, Fangzheng told the story of the young woman named Risa, who had been invited by her boyfriend, Mu Tian, to be a guest at his house, but Mu Tian's house had left Risa feeling of unease and unease. Faced with the nervous Risa, Mu Tian told her that this was actually not the first time she had been to his house. She had been here before …. However, this only made Risa more and more uneasy. After returning home, she felt as if she had recalled something. She suspected that she must have seen something in Mu Tian's house that scared her and caused her to lose her memory.
Just as Risa was feeling uneasy, Mu Tian suddenly came to her house and told her that his father was seriously ill and was about to pass away. He hoped that she could see his father for the last time. However, when Mu Tian opened the door, Risa finally saw the true face of Mu Tian's father.
"… It was an old man lying on a tatami. He looked haggard, as if he was going to die soon. However, what frightened Risa even more was the old man's head. On top of the old man's head were numerous skulls, like hundreds of bowls upside down …. Those skulls were the skulls of the ancestors of the Mu Tian family. Whenever a member of their family died, their skulls would grow into the body of their next child. Risa was originally chosen by them to give birth to the next child of the Mu Tian family …. "
Fangzheng's voice reverberated in the entertainment room. Lan's face had already turned ashen, and she held onto Conan tightly. Conan also sucked in a breath of cold air. Although he knew that this was only a ghost story, the thought of hundreds of skulls connected together like a huge caterpillar gave him goosebumps all over his body.
The story ended with Mu Tian's father dying, and Mu Tian inheriting his father's skull. Under the control of the skull, he pounced on Risa. Faced with Mu Tian, who was being controlled by countless skulls in the air, Risa was so scared that she once again lost her memory. Just like that, she fell into Mu Tian's hands ….
"Ugh …. That's really, really scary …."
After listening to the story, Lan felt that she did not dare to sleep alone tonight. Conan was also speechless. Not only was this a ghost story, the ending was actually BAD ….
END ….
At that moment, the twin maids came out and told everyone that it was time to rest. They hoped that everyone could return to their rooms to sleep. Every 12 o 'clock, they would completely seal off the Hall of Masks from the east and west sides to prevent the Masks from running around …. Well, this was just a legend, but it was enough to scare Lan so much that her face turned pale.
"Conan, Conan, let's sleep together tonight, okay?"
After Fangzheng finished telling the story, he left, leaving Xiaolan alone. The more she thought about it, the more afraid she became. Finally, she could not help but look at Conan beside her. Faced with Xiaolan's invitation, Conan fell into a dilemma.
Oh, do you think I agree? Or should I agree?
After returning to his room, Fangzheng did not go to sleep. Instead, he turned on the computer and continued to set up his plan. After all, Fangzheng had already thought about it. Once he dealt with the Chaos-corrupted guy, the Four-Leaf Galaxy would definitely fall into his hands. Therefore, he had to make a plan in advance, especially in the apocalyptic world. He needed the cooperation of the "players" from various worlds to rebuild it.
Therefore, the focus was now on how to entice the players to spend money.
Although skins, outfits, and houses were all old tricks, Fangzheng knew that these alone were not enough. Any game update must have a new point of spending money that would excite the players …. Hmm, let's start with the Four-Leaf Galaxy. We'll entice the players to build a star city here, then let them spend money to buy a battleship.
After that, we'll be able to customize the battleship, and finally, we'll be able to build a factory …. Of course, all these would have to be sold step by step.
Of course, the battleship given to the players at the beginning must have a lot of flaws. Right, for example, free players can get fighters and shuttles, while paying players can randomly draw battleships of various factions? Should we lower the probability? Or should we just ignore the fake probability and go straight for the real thing?
Knock! Knock!
Knock! While Fangzheng was excitedly thinking about how to harvest the leeks, he suddenly heard a knock on the door in the corridor outside. Fangzheng had no choice but to put away his computer. He pushed the door open and looked down the corridor. Soon, he saw one of the twin maids hurrying up from the first floor. She quickly opened the locked Masquerade Hall. The moment the door opened, Fangzheng saw Kogoro Mouri and the others rushing over to the third floor.
"What's wrong? What's going on? "
The cameraman and the fortune-teller also came out to see what was going on. Seeing this scene, Fangzheng silently yawned.
Is there a need to ask? Someone must be dead, right?
Forget it, let's go up and take a look.
With that thought in mind, Fangzheng followed the others to the third floor.
Sure enough, the door of Ms. Su Fang's room on the third floor was locked. With no other choice, Kogoro had to break the air window on the door and send Conan in. Conan then opened the door from the inside, but it was no use …. It was too late.
At this moment, Su Fanghongzi was completely dead. Next to her body was a pile of masks ….
Moreover, Su Fang died from a stab to the neck. This was undoubtedly a homicide. The room at the time was a secret room. In other words …. It was a murder in a secret room!
After discovering the body, Kogoro immediately called the police. Officer Mumu quickly led his men to the crime scene. Based on the traces at the scene, Ms. Su Fang fell asleep after taking sleeping pills, so she died without a struggle. There was no place in the room that anyone could enter or leave. There were no fingerprints or any marks of the murderer on the blood-stained knife hilt. This was really puzzling.
Not only that, according to Kogoro Mouri, they were originally sleeping, but someone suddenly called them and told them that Mask was thirsting for blood. That was why Kogoro Mouri sensed that something was wrong and hurried to Ms. Su Fang's room to check the situation.
Not only that, Kogoro Mouri also made a bold inference.
"Because Ms. Su Fang's room can only be reached through the stairs of the West Wing, and the left and right doors of the Hall of Masks are both locked, so the murderer must be someone living in the West Wing!"
However ….
"Impossible."
Fangzheng's words completely shattered Kogoro's delusion.
"Why?"
"It's simple. Because my room is next to the stairs."
Fangzheng shrugged and looked at Kogoro.
"And I've been busy working until the incident happened. I didn't sleep. I'm sure that no one went to the third floor through the stairs."
"Ugh …."
Hearing Fangzheng's answer, Kogoro's face turned pale.
"Maybe the culprit deliberately avoided it..."
"That's impossible. I'm very confident in my ears. In short, no one from the West Wing went to the third floor before you, so the murderer can't be in the West Wing."
"How is that possible?!"
Hearing this, Kogoro began to complain again.
"So according to you, the murderer is one of us living in the East Wing? Then how did he get through the sealed Hall of Masks and go to Ms. Su Fang's room on the third floor? "
"Maybe he didn't get through the Hall of Masks at all."
In the face of Kogoro's unreasonable pestering, Fangzheng shrugged his shoulders.
"In short, that's all I can say."
"…."
Hearing Fangzheng's words, Conan fell into deep thought. He was sure that Fangzheng would never say it if he was not sure. Since he said that no one would go to the third floor through the stairs from the West Wing, it meant that he was very sure of it. But as Kogoro wondered, if the murderer was not someone from the West Wing, how did he get through the sealed Hall of Masks to Ms. Su Fang's room on the third floor?
While Conan was thinking, he saw Lan looking at the police officers putting away the masks with a complicated expression. She seemed a little afraid.
"What's wrong? Sister Lan? "
Seeing this, Conan asked doubtfully. Hearing Conan's question, Lan smiled embarrassedly.
"No, it's nothing, Conan. I just saw the masks that were piled up and remembered the story Mr. Fangzheng told me before …. "
"Ah, that story …. Ah!"
Hearing Lan's answer, Conan nodded. Then, he suddenly had a flash of inspiration!
Looking at the masks again, combined with the story Fangzheng told him before, Conan said …. I know the truth!!
After that, Conan quickly announced his deduction through Kogoro Maori, pointing out that the murderer was the rock singer Lanchuan Dongya. The method he used to commit the crime in the secret room was also solved by Conan. Simply put, Lanchuan Dongya tied an elastic band to the bottom of the dagger, then put the masks through the elastic band one by one and sent them to Su Fang's room through the fence, then pulled them up.
Under the effect of the elastic band, the scattered masks on the ground would be pulled up and form a solid support point. Then, as long as the murderer pushed the mask on the other side of the vent, the dagger at the top would be thrust forward, and Su Fang's room would be easily killed.
Next, he only needed to cut off the elastic band and retrieve the masks. A perfect secret room would be formed.
Because Su Fang had already taken sleeping pills and fallen asleep, she would not react no matter how hard he stabbed her. Otherwise, the possibility of a person throwing so many masks through the vent without being discovered was basically zero.
So, look, Dukogaku.
Fangzheng was speechless as he looked at the "mask arm" that was pulled up.
If this happened in the real world, it would at least tie a knot. But in Detective Conan's world, it was as smooth as silk. There were more than two hundred masks strung on elastic bands, and they were scattered all over the ground in an irregular manner. If you pulled hard, wouldn't it be over if one of them got stuck?
But not a single one of them got stuck ….
Was it possible?
Was it scientific?
Forget it, it's meaningless to talk about science with Conan.
Let's talk about Dukogaku instead.
In short, the case was solved. After Conan exposed the lie of Lanchuan Dongya's alibi, he decisively revealed his motive for the crime. Just as Fangzheng thought, Lanchuan Dongya's mother took the blame for Su Fang's death 20 years ago and then committed suicide. After learning the truth of the matter, Lanchuan Dongya planned to take revenge.
So, young man, your path is narrow. Why don't you come to Hell Communication to vent? If you had me, you wouldn't have ended up like this ….
Fangzheng sighed as he watched Lanchuan Dongya being taken away by a police car. Not far behind him, Conan was also looking at Fangzheng with a complicated gaze.
To be honest, Conan found that today's reasoning was going too smoothly. First of all, Fangzheng directly ruled out all the suspects in the west wing. Out of trust in Fangzheng, Conan immediately narrowed down the scope of his targets. If the culprit was really in the east wing, then it must be Mr. Lanchuan and Ms. Shimasato other than the three of them. Conan focused on the two of them, and sure enough, he found some clues from Lanchuan Dongye's alibi.
As for the method used by the culprit …
After listening to Xiaolan's story, Conan immediately thought of it. That was indeed the case. Two hundred masks stacked on top of each other was really similar to the hundreds of skulls stacked on top of each other in the story ….
But, was this all a coincidence?
No matter how Conan thought about it, he felt that something was wrong. After all, the story Fangzheng told him before was too consistent with this criminal method. It felt as if Fangzheng knew that the culprit would use this method to commit murder, so he deliberately made up a story to tell them in advance.
But this was too illogical. It was as if Fangzheng could predict the future.
"… Hey, Brother Fangzheng."
Just as Conan made up his mind to ask, he saw Fangzheng turn his head and look at him. Fangzheng sighed helplessly.
"See, I was right. Every time I meet you outside, someone dies. Fortunately, only one died this time."
"…."
Conan didn't want to talk to him at all.
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