People are in Conan, but Ace Attorney

Chapter 929 Reversing the Line of Thought
"Mr. Xiang Yuan, we can begin the investigation now."

"Ghost Moon Firefly said softly."

She took the autopsy report, which had been prepared overnight, from the forensic officer who had followed her. As she led Hikaru and Wataru into the building, she flipped through the autopsy report and read aloud the key points.

"There were no drag marks on the deceased's clothes, which can rule out the possibility that someone deliberately moved the body after the deceased was killed. In addition, the deceased was killed by a single blow from a longsword."

"There were no other injuries on the body... so the cause of death can be basically confirmed."

If the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's forensic division were to work on this autopsy report, it certainly wouldn't be ready overnight.

This is the result of the help from Asai Shigemi, who is currently working in the forensic department.

He originally only studied forensic medicine to help Xiang Yuanguang, but recently he seems to be getting better and better at it, often working overtime to help out in the forensic class.

Xiang Yuanguang has rarely seen Asai Narumi lately.

"I see. Since the cause of death was being pierced through the back by a longsword, and no evidence of a third party was found at the scene... were fingerprints checked on the sword?"

He took the autopsy report from Gui Yueying's hand, glanced at it briefly, and then handed it back to the forensic officer—given his physical abilities, a single glance was enough for him to understand the contents.

Ghost Moon Firefly's summary of the key points was quite accurate. However, since no other useful information could be found in the autopsy report, there was no need to read it in detail.

"I remember that the longsword was inspected."

"But there were no other people's fingerprints on the blade or hilt of the longsword. The second person present at the scene, Kanasan, was not wearing gloves. If he had used the longsword to kill someone, there should have been fingerprints on it."

Takagi Wataru followed behind, providing additional information.

In addition, he mentioned again,
"Of course, we can't rule out the possibility that Kanasan used something to erase his fingerprints, but we didn't find anything like that at the scene, so... we can basically rule out that possibility."

That's it.

He nodded slightly to Yuan Guang.

The two walked forward to the crime scene—the piano room of the Kanagawa villa.

The place remains exactly as it was last night, except for the location of the body and the murder weapon. Where the body used to be, it has now been replaced by a human figure drawn in white.

However, the bloodstains on the floor indicate that a heinous murder did indeed occur here.

Looking at the white line marking the deceased, Onizuki Hotaru's expression gradually became serious.

Everything around her changed again. The scene from last night was replicated within her sight. Both Gerald Pegasus and Kana Zenzo were standing in the same positions as last night.

The scene described by Kana Zenzuru occurred before her eyes.

After accepting Kana Yoshino's request, Geral Tenma pushed open the door to the piano room and went inside. Kana Yoshino followed him in and saw Geral Tenma standing next to the piano, facing him.

The two then got into an argument, during which Gerald Pegasus suddenly screamed and collapsed to the ground.

His back was pierced by a long sword, blood flowed to the ground, and he died on the spot.

The others inside the villa were drawn in and pushed open the door, while Ganashan was terrified, standing rooted to the spot, his hands and feet trembling, unable to move, and refusing to change his position.

"...There is no room for a third party to exist."

"Ghost Moon Firefly said softly."

In her preconceived scenario, regardless of how a possible third party killed Geralt Tenma, there was no way they could escape unnoticed from the piano room. Even if Kana Zen was lying, it was still completely impossible.

"Aren't there any signs that the window was opened?"

Xiang Yuanguang stroked his chin and asked.

In response, Takagi Wataru nodded and emphasized,
“That’s right. There are no signs that the window has been opened. We checked inside and out, and there are absolutely no signs of anyone moving around the window.”

"The so-called third party probably doesn't exist."

"From this perspective, it seems the only possible culprit is Kanazono, since he was alone with the victim in the room at the time of the incident, and he had ample motive for murder—"

"During this period, Kana Yoshinobu's wife, Kana Misaki, was frequently harassed and intimidated by others."

"And according to the investigation, both the flowers and the letters were exactly the same as the lyrics of the new song released by Gerald Tenma. Moreover, Detective Mouri and his team also said that they saw them in Kanami Saki's bedroom..."

"bedroom?"

Without listening any further, Xiang Yuanguang turned to look at Takagi Wataru beside him and interrupted him.

His eyes narrowed slightly, realizing that something seemed amiss.

— During this time, Gerald Tenma constantly harassed Kanami Saki, and even broke into Kanami Saki's bedroom to attack her when he was about to sign a cooperation agreement with Kanami Media Publishing.

This seems rather illogical.

Hearing this, Gui Yueying turned to look at Xiang Yuanguang and asked softly,

"Attorney Xiang Yuan, do you feel there's anything amiss here?"

Without answering, Xiang Yuanguang stroked his chin, his gaze sweeping across the surrounding windows before he looked up at the ceiling—where a very ornate chandelier stood.

Following Xiang Yuanguang's gaze, Gui Yueying also looked up at the chandelier.

Her gaze lingered briefly on the chandelier, as if she had thought of something. The scene in her eyes changed once again; it was no longer the case that a third party had stabbed the deceased, Geral Tenma, from behind.

Instead, the sword had been hanging in the center of the chandelier from the beginning, hidden by the decoration.

Then it landed and directly observed Gerald Pegasus's back, pinning Gerald Pegasus to the ground—that makes sense, but it's still a bit strange.

Ghost Moon Firefly asked softly,
"Attorney Xiang Yuan, what are your thoughts?"

After seeing Onizuki Hotaru and Mugen Hikaru looking at the chandelier together, Takagi Wataru also looked up, then looked down to see their expressions, but in the end he found nothing.

Several question marks seemed to appear above his head.

—Because he genuinely didn't know what those two people were referring to.

"Do you remember what I mentioned to you before?"

Xiang Yuanguang took a sip of coffee and replied.
"My reasoning method, in essence, is to reverse the thinking process. If you can't understand it, it's about going from the result to the cause, deducing the possible process from the result."

"So, Miss Ghost Moon, shall we now reverse our thinking?"

(End of this chapter)