Traveling back thirty years to Conan, intercepting Princess Eri

The afterglow of the setting sun spilled onto the narrow alley, turning the mottled courtyard walls on both sides orange-red.

The air was filled with the aroma of tonkotsu ramen wafting from a nearby noodle shop, mixed with the sultry heat unique to a summer evening.

"This is where Mizuo Oi might have been kidnapped,"

Officer Matsumoto wiped the sweat from his brow and pointed to the alleyway in front of him, saying...
"After her parents reported the incident to the police, we searched the entire area and questioned all the residents in the neighborhood, but we couldn't find any clues."

Lin Xiuyi stood at the entrance of the alley, squinting as she surveyed the inconspicuous alley.

He noticed a few blurry tire tracks on the ground at the entrance of the alley, but they were quickly blurred by the crowd of people waiting in line for the noodle shop.

"Business is good," Lin Xiuyi said, glancing at the dozen or so people queuing outside the noodle shop, most of whom were people getting off work.

Eri Kisaki stood beside Hideaki Lin, curiously peering into the depths of the alley.

"Let's go in and take a look," Lin Xiuyi said, pulling Fei Yingli into the alley, with Officer Matsumoto and Officer Megure following closely behind.

The alley is less than 20 meters long, and the walls on both sides are about two meters high, covered with ivy.

In less than half a minute, the four of them had reached the other end of the alley, where a 24-hour supermarket was in front of them.

Through the supermarket glass, Lin Xiuyi sized up the female supermarket employee standing behind the checkout counter. She noticed his gaze and tilted her head in confusion.

"Is there anything else suspicious besides this alley?"

Inspector Megure shook his head, his face full of helplessness: "No, from Mizuo Koi's house to the station, this is the only place with few people. The rest are all busy streets."

He took out his notebook and started flipping through it.

According to her classmates, Xiaojing Ruixu always takes this shortcut to and from school.

Upon hearing this, Lin Xiu gestured with her hand to indicate the width of the alley, then looked back at the entrances at both ends: "Strange..."

"Did you find anything?" Eri asked, leaning closer.

Lin Xiuyi pointed to the alley behind her: "I thought the criminal might have knocked Xiaojing Ruixu unconscious in the alley and then put him in the car and taken him away. But this alley is only a little over 1.2 meters wide, and a car can't drive in at all."

"If the car is parked at the entrance of either alley, there will be a long queue at the noodle shop over there, and the supermarket staff over here will probably notice it too..."

Fei Ying thought for a moment: "Could the culprit have used a sedative to knock the person unconscious before carrying them away?"

“That’s certainly a possibility,” Lin Xiu nodded, her eyes scanning back and forth in the alley. “However, the alley is only about twenty meters long and has no turns. You can see from one end to the other.”

He walked to the middle of the alley and demonstrated.
"There's a supermarket on one side and a noodle shop on the other, and you can see into the alley from both sides..."

"Lin-kun, what do you mean?" Inspector Megure scratched his head, somewhat puzzled.

Officer Matsumoto, however, had a sudden thought. He stroked his chin thoughtfully and said, "If Mizuo Oi was the first person the criminal kidnapped, then he is far too audacious to choose such a place that is very likely to attract attention."

"Generally speaking, first-time offenders, due to nervousness and fear, will subconsciously choose places where they will not be noticed."

Lin Xiuyi walked to a cement block at the end of the alley, sat down, took out her phone and glanced at the time.
"If Mizuki Koi was really kidnapped in this alley, then the perpetrator is either not doing this for the first time, or is very bold and acts without any scruples."

He paused for a moment at this point.
"Besides that, there is another possibility."

"What's possible?" Inspector Megure quickly pressed for an answer.

Lin Xiuyi pondered for a moment and said, "Koi Mizuki did indeed encounter the kidnappers here, but the criminals didn't use violence. Instead, they used some excuse to lure her away." "Koi Mizuki is a high school student, after all. She shouldn't be so easily fooled, right?" Inspector Megure immediately objected.

"Women can be stupid sometimes..."

Lin Xiuyi was speaking when he suddenly realized something. He turned around and saw Fei Yingli staring at him with her slender eyebrows raised high.

He quickly coughed and changed his tune: "There are many reasons why people get scammed, and it's not necessarily related to their age or experience."

Eri Kisaki gave an angry snort: "It has nothing to do with gender!"

"Let's go," Lin Xiuyi quickly stood up, patting the dust off his pants, "to the place where Iguchi Haruko disappeared."

When Officer Matsumoto drove to an abandoned construction site, it was already completely dark.

A few temporary lights on the construction site emitted a stark white light, illuminating the jumbled outlines of building materials.

"From Haruko Iguchi's house to the station, this is the only suspicious place."

Officer Matsumoto parked his car and pointed to the construction site surrounded by barriers. His voice was particularly clear in front of the empty construction site.

"Why is this place abandoned?"

Eri looked surprised. As she got out of the car, she accidentally stepped into a puddle, and some mud splashed onto her calf. The girl frowned, took out a tissue from her bag, and wiped it off.
"Isn't real estate making a lot of money lately?"

"This place hasn't been abandoned, it's just temporarily shut down,"

Inspector Megure took out a flashlight and shone it on the road ahead.

“We inquired and found that the company that bought this land originally planned to build a five-story apartment building, but later found that Tokyo housing prices were rising sharply, so they planned to build a few more floors in the apartment building.”

He carefully stepped over a pile of scattered steel bars.

"That company has been busy getting the relevant documents sorted out recently, so construction has been temporarily suspended."

“When work was suspended, they surrounded the construction site with barriers as required, but some mischievous kids in the neighborhood pried open a gap and created a shortcut through the construction site in order to get home.”

Inspector Megure shone his flashlight beam on a clearly damaged gap in the barrier.

“We asked Haruko Iguchi’s classmates, and some of them had heard her mention this road,” Officer Matsumoto continued. “Haruko Iguchi was a lively person, and she probably used to walk this way. After she went missing, we had the construction workers reseal the opening they had pried open.”

As Officer Matsumoto spoke, he suddenly frowned because there was an opening in the barrier surrounding the construction site in front of him.

"Damn it, which bastard broke the barrier again?"

He kicked a pebble next to him in annoyance.

Officers Matsumoto and Megure led the way, guiding Hayashi Hideichi and Kisaki Eri through the pried-open partition and into the abandoned construction site.

The room was filled with various building materials and construction machinery, and the air was thick with the smell of cement and metal.

Eri unconsciously covered her nose.

The four of them had barely stepped inside when they saw a boy in a school uniform clasping his hands together, facing a bunch of purple lavender on the ground, and whispering a prayer. (End of Chapter)