An infinite journey starting from paradise

"I want to take you back to my home to attend a wedding of a friend of mine. In this kind of occasion, if you bring your boyfriend, you won't have to worry about being laughed at by others for not being able to get married... Is that okay?" Kujo Reiko said a little shyly.

"When?" Lin Shangren asked.

"Well... the week after next, right after the first trial in the Kidd case. The wedding will be in Izu, and we can also take a seaside vacation while we're there."

"The week after next? Hmm... probably. If everything goes well for my business trip next week."

Thinking he could easily handle the situation in Aomori Prefecture, Lin Shangren agreed without hesitation. Little did he know that he had already laid the groundwork for a thrilling and ultimately tragic ending, a scene of both humiliation and shame...

As for now, it is more important to feed Kujo Reiko first.

I'll be posting more this weekend.

as the title

Chapter 319: The Doll House

"What happened three years ago... three years ago..."

Kindaichi and Miyuki were walking back to the hotel. His eyes were a little dull and he was still ruminating on what the two girls had just said.

Kindaichi had originally wanted to get to the bottom of this disaster and the deaths they were talking about. But perhaps his barrage of questions had irritated the girl with red hair and twintails, and after saying, "Outsiders should leave quickly to avoid being implicated," Akazawa Izumi dragged Ayano Aya and left the library with a few stacks of newspapers.

"Every three years, a person who died suddenly will be resurrected in Class 3, Grade 3, bringing a series of disasters. The students in Class 3 and their families will continue to die because of the disasters. The solution to this curse is to collectively isolate this person and pretend that he doesn't exist... How can such a strange legend be true?

It's probably just a case of middle school students experiencing chuunibyou. Maybe they're both fanatical believers in urban legends and the occult.

But how could I really not remember what happened three years ago? Hmm…"

"Hajime."

Miyuki patted Kindaichi on the back and said, "What are you thinking about? Why are you so listless?"

"Nothing...just...eh, which store is that?"

Kindaichi's eyes fell on a shop on the street, a slightly old two-story house with a Gothic-style sign hanging on the door with the meaningless romanization "Misaki" written on it.

"'Misaki, it is the deep blue eyes that truly see the dusk', what is this?" Kindaichi read the store name on the sign and the small words below it.

"Isn't this the store we asked for directions to when we first arrived in town?" said Odagiri Susumu.

Wada Haruna continued, "Speaking of which, we have to thank that kind lady. If she hadn't lent us some gasoline, we would have called a tow truck to tow the car to the gas station."

"Ha, why not just push it?" Kindaichi said with a smile, "After all, we have the super-strong woman Wada and the Sanda Club's consultant, Six Star Sensei."

"Hey, Kindaichi, you deserve a beating, right?" Wada Haruna clenched her fists.

"Just kidding, just kidding. By the way, why don't we go in and take a look? I'm curious what this store sells." Kindaichi suggested.

So, several people walked into Misaki.

The lights inside the puppet workshop were dim and soft, as if the setting sun had finally sunk into the space. Unlike its outward appearance, the interior was meticulously decorated, with an elegant dark red carpet covering the floor. Facing the door was a translucent display window. Inside, something both beautiful and eerie was displayed.

A doll, the upper body only, rested on a black, solid wood round table. It had long golden hair and a veil, which she was about to lift with both hands. Her skin was smooth, white, and her features were flawless. Her blonde hair fell across her chest, but her pupils were dark green. The red dress that enveloped her body, like her body itself, ended below her navel.

"How beautiful!" Wada Haruna exclaimed, "What kind of doll is this?"

"This should be the so-called BJD ball-jointed doll." Kindaichi said.

At this time, several people heard an old voice.

"welcome."

There was a long table at the side behind the window, and behind the table sat an old woman in her sixties. She was wearing dark clothes that almost blended in with the dim lights in the store, making it difficult to see her figure when one first entered the store.

The old woman continued, "It's amazing that there are so many customers at this hour. Are you here to buy something or just to take a look?"

At one end of the table sat an old cash register. In front of it stood a small blackboard with "Tickets 500 yen" written on it in yellow chalk.

"Is this where they sell dolls?" asked Odagiri Susumu.

"Selling dolls..." the old woman muttered incoherently, tilting her head slightly. "It's half a store, half an exhibition hall... Please buy a ticket if you want to visit. As for buying dolls, the puppeteers here only accept orders made in advance. The ones on display here are not for sale."

"Oh, so, then give us five cards." Odagiri Jin had already taken out his wallet from his pocket.

"I don't need to," Liu Xing Long Yi said, "I suddenly remembered that I need to buy something. I'll go back to the hotel first."

"Oh, then four tickets." Odagiri Susumu put two thousand yen on the table.

"Those guests can take their time to visit. There won't be any other guests coming anyway..." As she spoke, the old woman supported herself on the table with both hands, slowly leaned forward, and moved her whole face closer to Wada Haruna.

"If you need, we have tea for you. If you get tired of watching, you can rest on the sofa over there," said the old woman.

Wada Haruna felt like her breath was about to blow on her face.

"Ah, I... understand. No need for tea."

Wada Haruna backed away repeatedly. She had always been afraid of wrinkled old ladies, no matter how kind they were. She couldn't quite put her finger on the specific reason.

"I see. Please help yourself, everyone."

Kindaichi and his companions walked into the shop, or rather the museum. String music, matching the dim lighting, played inside. It was probably a cello. Kindaichi couldn't quite pinpoint the specific piece or the selection. He had never been interested in art.

However, even so, he was still attracted by the many dolls in the museum.

In the dim twilight of the room, dolls stood, sat, and lay. Some stared with eyes wide open in surprise, others drooped in thought, and still others dozed. Most of the dolls were beautiful young girls, but some were animals, even half-human, half-beast monsters. Besides the dolls, the walls were decorated with paintings, vibrant oils depicting dreamlike landscapes. Like the dolls in the window display, half of these dolls were so-called BJD dolls. The wrists, elbows, shoulders, ankles, knees, thighs... every joint was spherical, allowing for free rotation and a variety of poses, giving them a uniquely alluring aura.

How can I describe them? Although they resembled real people, even more beautiful than real people, they weren't real. No one in the world looked like them. They looked alive, but in reality, they weren't alive—as if they existed in this form, somewhere between reality and unreality.

"It's so beautiful." Miyuki exclaimed softly.

But no one responded, and everyone else's attention was completely focused on the dolls, especially Wada Haruna.

Wada Haruna stared blankly at the dolls in a large glass cabinet. They were arranged like some kind of family portrait or group photo. The figure in the center depicted a married couple. The man, wearing a black coat that completely out of place among the others, had deep, resolute features. The woman beside him, embracing his arm, resembled a wife, adorned in a homely beige outfit, her ponytail casually draped over her left shoulder.

Before the couple-like puppets stood three petite girl puppets. The two on the left had short black hair, one in a black dress, the other in a white one, and both wore eye patches. The girl between them had similar features, but her hair was chestnut brown, and her eyes were exposed normally. They looked like triplets.

Surrounding the family of five were numerous female dolls, some in maid outfits, some resembling butlers, others in police uniforms and nurses. The one that really caught Wada Haruna's eye was a young girl doll in a blue school uniform.

"This is the uniform of Teitan Junior High School..."

Wada Haruna muttered softly.

A gentle and lovely face, a warm and cheerful smile, and... an "outstanding" hairstyle - the girl doll has smooth long hair that falls over her shoulders, but the bangs on her forehead are combed a little too abruptly, and at first glance, they look like a unicorn's horn.

"Mouri Ran? It seems so."

Wada Haruna's mind flashed back to the powerful girl who had challenged her for the championship in the Kanto Regional Karate Tournament. Behind this doll that looked like Ran Mouri, a female doll in a business suit, a bun, and glasses, was embracing the Ran doll with her arms.

Wada Haruna continued to look to the left. There were three women in tights, a woman wrapped in bandages like a mummy, a doll very similar to the Mori Ran doll, a doll wearing an evening gown and a crown... and...

Wada Haruna was stunned. What she saw was a doll wearing a black school uniform, black stockings on her legs, and red twintails. Next to her was a girl wearing the same school uniform and with short yellow hair. They looked exactly like the two girls they had just met in the library.

Finally, Wada Haruna looked at the edge of the cupboard, where a black-haired girl in a karate uniform was sitting on the ground, her head slightly raised, as if she was staring at Wada Haruna's face.

"This is... me?!"

Wada Haruna was startled.

"Yona, what's wrong?" Miyuki asked from the side.

"This doll..." Wada pointed to the cabinet. However, the doll in the karate uniform was gone, replaced by a monster, a half-human, half-bat swaying monster. It looked like a monster from a special effects film, with a hideous face, a sexy body, and bat-like wings.

Not only that, but all the dolls in the window had changed. There were no more beauties, only half-human, half-beast "monsters."

"What? You're scared already?" Kindaichi leaned in closer, taking a closer look at the doll. "You know what, it's so lifelike. Even the breasts are showing... Ah, why are you hitting me?"

Kindaichi rubbed his neck which was slapped, and looked at Nanase Miyuki who hit him with a look of surprise.

"Who made you so H-like, Hajime?"

"What's wrong? It's just a doll..." Kindaichi muttered softly.

"Why has it changed? Did I see it wrong?"

Wada Haruna looked at the doll in the window in confusion.

At this moment, Wada Yona caught a glimpse of a petite figure passing by in the reflection of the window. She turned around quickly and met the eyes of Mizaki Mei who had just walked in.

"The puppet... the puppet is alive!!!"

The scream wasn't from Wada Haruna, who had just seen the triplets, but from nearby Odakiri Shin. He pointed panickedly at Mizaki Mei. Next to him stood a display case resembling a coffin. The case, lined with dark red velvet, held a life-size doll of a young girl. The doll bore a striking resemblance to Mizaki Mei, with the same short hair and eyepatch. However, the doll was wearing a dark purple dress and cradled a naked, blonde, three-doll doll.

"Teacher, why are you making such a fuss?" Kindaichi said helplessly, "It's obvious that this doll was created based on this little girl. Am I right? Hey, little girl."

"..."

Seeing Qi Ming looking at the group of people in front of her indifferently, the eye patch covering her left eye suddenly slipped from her cheek, revealing the covered left eye - a dark green eye that was no different from the glass eye of a doll.

"It's very dangerous." Jian Qiming suddenly said in a cold voice, "What you are about to do is very dangerous. It is very likely that many people will die as a result."

……

"Isn't this the Ijinkan Village Murder Case? Ten people died in one case... the famous 'Ten Killers Ryuichi' from the Kindaichi series. It seems the Kindaichi Case Files have indeed been sewn into this world."

Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, Investigation Division 1 Office.

Upon seeing the map of Rokkaku Village in the case file on Saeko Nogami's desk, Lin Shangren instantly recalled the origins of the case. The reason was simple: the dismemberment method used in the Ijinkan Village murders was inspired by the scumbag Shimada Soji's "Astrology Murder Magic," later adapted and recreated by a Chinese screenwriter as the "Mystery of the Hermit Village" in "Young Justice Bao 1." The "Mystery of the Hermit Village" was one of Lin Shangren's rare childhood traumas; the mummified corpses in the case even made him afraid to eat roast meat.

"If that's the case, we have to go to that Hexagon Village right away."

Hayashi Naoto recalled the plot of the Ijinkan Village murders: One of Kindaichi's classmates was discovered in a relationship with a teacher and expelled from school. She was then forcibly taken back home by her family to marry her childhood fiancé. After receiving a wedding invitation from that classmate, Tokita Wakaba, Kindaichi and Nanase Miyuki decided to go to Rokkaku Village with Tokita Wakaba's boyfriend, Odagiri, to see her again.

After arriving at Rokkaku Village, Kindaichi discovered that several major families in Rokkaku Village had a dried corpse with a part of the body missing in their homes. When he asked the reason for collecting the corpse, the people from the major families were very secretive about it.

Then, on the evening of her wedding, the bride, Tokida Wakaba, was found dead in a secret room, her head severed. Then another victim turned up: the head of one of the six great families, his leg missing—just like the mummies in his collection. In short, four more people died, their bodies also missing a piece, just like the mummies in their collections.

In the end, Kindaichi deduced the truth after Miyuki's "careless talk": the murderer was Odagiri Susumu, whose real name was Rokuhoshi Ryuichi, and his purpose of killing was revenge - the six major families in Rokkaku Village had been secretly growing marijuana, making and selling drugs under the leadership of a missionary.

Thirty years ago, a missionary adopted seven children, hoping to quit his marijuana business. However, the six major families of Rokkaku Village refused to relent, so they set fire to the village church, killing the missionary and his seven adopted children. However, one of the seven children survived the fire. To prevent the six major families from discovering this, she cut off parts of the bodies of six of her companions and pieced together a seventh body to confuse them. She later fled Rokkaku Village and gave birth to a child named Rokkaku Ryuichi. She trained him to be a killer, hoping he would avenge Rokkaku Village. Ultimately, Rokkaku Ryuichi fulfilled his mother's wish, becoming the highest-rated character in the Kaneda series, after Takato Haruichi.

"I don't know how this case will be transformed in this world. After all, there are a group of ninjas in Rokkaku Village."

Lin Shangren looked at the place marked in red on the map, which was Prajna's home.

"Hmm... and this, the Setagaya serial murders also involved killing and dismembering the bodies, leaving behind a symbol with the same crests as the six major families of Rokkaku Village. What's the connection between the two?"

Lin Shangren rubbed the back of his neck, and then carefully looked through the files.

Chapter 320: It’s really my arm?!

"What's wrong with everyone in this town? Every single one of them is trying to be mysterious. It's totally incomprehensible."

On the street outside the puppet workshop, Kindaichi and his group were preparing to return to their hotel. Kindaichi was still brooding over the girl's words.

"A lot of people will die? Who will die? She ran upstairs without even saying anything clearly... Seriously... She must be the same as those two girls in the library, just with a middle school kid's syndrome."

It is indeed difficult for a detective who believes in materialism to believe in legends and prophecies about gods and ghosts, but the next moment disaster befell Kindaichi.

Two girls appeared at the corner of the intersection. They were the two girls who were in the library just now, Izumi Akasawa and Aya Ayano. They were holding something in their arms and waiting for the red light to turn green.

"Meeting them again, what a coincidence. By the way, could they be going to the puppet workshop to look for the short-haired girl just now?" Kindaichi thought to himself.

At that moment, a light truck approached Kindaichi and his companions from behind. As it approached the intersection, it didn't slow down, didn't honk, and didn't use its turn signal. As it approached the two girls, it suddenly lost control, flipped sideways, and crashed into them.

"Danger!"

A second before the car flipped over, Kindaichi instinctively took a big step forward, trying to save the people. However, his reaction was still too slow. The overturned car hit the two girls at the intersection. If nothing unexpected happened, they must have been in an accident.

"Bang! Boom!"

The sound of the car overturning and then exploding startled Misaki Mei, who was on the second floor of Misaki's doll workshop. Just as she curiously wanted to stick her head out of the window to see what was going on, the necklace around her neck suddenly broke, and the silver ring fell to the ground.

Jian Qiming subconsciously squatted down and picked up the silver ring. Then when she looked out the window, she found that nothing had happened outside. There was no one else on the street except those people who were stained with the breath of death.

"very strange."

Mizaki Mei looked at the backs of Kindaichi and his group in confusion. Her left eye, the artificial eye of the puppet, could see the breath of death. People who were stained with the aura of death would either encounter misfortune or bring misfortune, and this misfortune seemed to be destined. Even if Mizaki Mei reminded them, even if Mizaki Mei tried to stop it, those who were destined to die would eventually die.

However, the deathly aura on the group of people had become much lighter at this time, from being extremely thick to being barely visible.

"What happened?"

"Hajime, what's wrong?"

Looking at the deserted intersection and her childhood friend who suddenly shouted "Danger" and rushed forward, Miyuki fell into deep confusion.

"Hajime, what happened? Did something happen?"

Miyuki hurriedly followed.

Kindaichi was staring at the deserted intersection in astonishment.

“Gone…Gone?!”

"Ayi, what's missing?" Miyuki asked worriedly.

"Kindaichi, what's wrong? What's wrong with you suddenly?" Wada Haruna also followed.