Conan Rick's Investigator

Yamamura Cao turned around and screamed in fright. Maori Kogoro could only try his best to prove that he was still alive and the one who died was an imposter.

……

After Maori's explanation, Yamamura Cao realized that he had not lost his thigh, and the other hotel staff also understood the truth.

"So you are the real Maori Kogoro!"

"That's what I told you! No wonder I always felt like I'd seen you somewhere before!"

Maori Kogoro coughed lightly and said handsomely, "Impostors are so harmful, especially fake detectives..."

There was something hidden in Kogoro Mouri's words, and he glanced at the counterfeit Qin Zhibo next to him.

But the impostor didn't care and pretended to be a detective, staring at the briefcase at the feet of the corpse.

This guy really has no sense of shame...

The fake's indifferent attitude made Kogoro Mouri more determined to embarrass the fake in public.

"This is... Detective Qin, right?"

"Excuse me, what are your thoughts on this case?"

Kogoro Mouri walked up to Qin Zhibo with an arrogant attitude and asked for his opinion on the case.

Qin Zhibo looked around the room and said seriously, "I think this is a homicide..."

"The murderer must be someone in the hotel."

Chapter 714 The Curse of Qin Zhibo

"The murderer must be someone in the hotel..."

As Qin Zhibo finished speaking, everyone present was stunned.

This made Qin Zhibo feel a little overwhelmed.

When a professional team is present, there is a 99% probability that it is a homicide and the murderer has not escaped.

Isn’t this basic common sense?

Faced with this inference, if someone else said it, Maori and others would still ask why.

But the one who made this inference was the fake Qin Zhibo. As the real Maori Kogoro, he has a very strong self-esteem and certainly would not "ask questions without shame".

So, Kogoro Mouri looked around and began to look for his own clues.

First, Kogoro Mouri saw the mobile phone on the table, which belonged to "Mouri Laogoro".

I picked up the phone and saw a sticker with my surname on it, which was "Sen".

"Tsk, you're not a child anymore, why are you still putting this kind of thing on your body..."

Maori Kogoro complained, causing Maori Ran's dissatisfaction. She gave her old father a helpless half-moon eye and said, "It's not just children who can put it on. I can put it on too."

"Hmph, you're still a child so it's okay..."

Kogoro Mouri responded with the same look as his daughter, because in his eyes, Ran Mouri will always be a child.

I looked through "Sen's" phone again, and all the call records had been deleted, leaving no clues.

There was no data restoration technology in this era, so Kogoro Mouri had to give up looking for clues on the phone and turn his attention to the suitcase on the table.

After an entire afternoon of hard work by "Moli Lao Liulang", the suitcase was finally pried open, and the broken lock was scattered on the table.

Kogoro Mouri snatched the gloves from Yamamura So and opened the box, which contained a sports newspaper that was five years out of date.

He picked up the newspaper and saw the headline on the front page was about a sumo wrestler named "Akagi Maru" who won his first victory in 18 years.

Kogoro Mouri was looking through the newspaper to see if there was any clue that could bring down the fake Qin Zhibo. Yamamura Cao, who was standing next to him, came over from below and saw something tucked into the newspaper.

"What is this... black silk?"

Shancuncao carefully unraveled the so-called "black silk" and found that it was actually human hair.

"what!"

"what--"

Ran Mouri screamed in fright and immediately hugged Conan tightly in her arms as a talisman.

Yamamura Cao was also startled by Mao Lilan's shout.

Maori Kogoro responded with a disdainful look, "It's just a few hairs stuck in the newspaper, what's so scary about it..."

Shancuncao tremblingly grabbed a handful of hair and said, "But, but these hairs are too long, aren't they?"

"Could this be the curse of the man in the red coat who died in the forest four years ago?"

"Hmph..." Maori Kogoro snorted disdainfully, "If curses can kill people, then detectives and police like us won't have to eat."

Kogoro Mouri spoke of his materialism in a handsome manner, but a different voice came faintly from the side.

"The curse may really exist, but you chose to turn a blind eye to it..."

The person who spoke was Qin Zhibo.

Maori Kogoro was stunned for a moment, looking at this fake detective with disdain. He didn't even have the basic common sense to be a detective. "Do you know what you are talking about?"

Qin Zhibo's face was solemn. "I have seen curses before, and I have also experienced curses myself..."

"I don't want to experience that feeling a second time..."

The fake Qin Zhibo's tone was deep and his expression was vivid, as if he had really experienced something unspeakable.

Everyone in the room fell silent.

After all, both Ran Mouri and So Yamamura have weak willpower and are easily afraid of gods and ghosts.

Conan has personally experienced some things that are difficult to understand, such as flying skeletons and giant pink creatures.

Seeing that no one spoke for him and he didn't want to waste time arguing with this impostor on ideology, Kogoro Mouri came up with a good plan to embarrass the impostor.

"Since you believe there is a curse in the world, do you think someone is using the curse to kill people?" asked Kogoro Mouri.

Qin Zhibo looked at the research point on the hair in Shancuncao's hand and shook his head. "No, this should be just a simple murder, not a curse."

Tsk~~ After all this talk, there's still no mention of a curse?

Kogoro Mouri looked at the impostor with disdain, refocused his thoughts on the newspaper, and immediately came up with a set of reasoning that was different from Qin Zhibo's and logically self-consistent.

"I know! It must be like this!"

"The story began five years ago. The bearded man pretending to be me and the long-haired man in red who had stored the suitcase had a gambling affair."

"They made a bet on what Akagi Maru, who had already shone so brightly five years ago, would be like a year from now, and they staked their entire fortunes on it..."

"I'm afraid the long-haired man said this to the bearded man. My answer is in this suitcase. Let's reveal it together in a year."

Yamamura Cao also emerged from the shadow of the curse, remembering his responsibilities, and asked, "Who was that man with sunglasses and a beard who came here to pick up the box five years ago?"

"I think he must be pretending to be my little mustache..." Maori Kogoro smiled slightly, "That 'May you be cursed to death' letter is his punishment for breaking his promise and coming to the hotel early to seek answers."

"As for the long-haired man's answer to the bet, it was the hair stuck in the newspaper, because sumo wrestlers shave their heads to signify retirement."

"The long-haired man thought Akagi Maru would retire in a year, but he never imagined that Akagi Maru would win consecutive matches in Nagoya and even advance to the level of Ozeki."

"Seeing that Akagi Maru had no hope of retirement, he came to the forest where he had established the bet and chose to hang himself."

Shancuncao looked back at the hanging "Moli Lao Liulang" and continued to ask, "But why did this guy commit suicide now?"

Maori Kogoro continued seriously, "Because he heard that the long-haired man's body was found recently, he couldn't wait to know what was in the long-haired man's suitcase."

"Later, he learned through some means that the hotel owner had asked me to investigate. He thought that if he pretended to be me, he could easily get the suitcase and see the answer the long-haired man had given him."

"The long-haired man's answer was to retire, and Akagi Maru, just as the long-haired man had predicted, announced his retirement due to injury shortly after being promoted to the Ōzeki level."

"The long-haired man won the bet, but committed suicide before the outcome. The bearded man, aware of his grave sins, is using his own life as an explanation here."

Kogoro Mouri's imaginative reasoning immediately won the applause of the audience.

As Maori's biggest fanboy, Yamamura Sou was even more convinced, "Mr. Maori is really amazing! Seeing is believing!"

"Nothing, this is just a trial run! Haha——"

Kogoro Mouri laughed exaggeratedly, as if the case was already settled.

I killed the fake Qin Zhibo out of justice!

But Qin Zhibo on the side was deeply skeptical about this.

From Kogoro Mouri, Qin Zhibo learned the part of the timeline that he didn't know.

Five years ago, a man in red clothes and long hair left his suitcase and letters at the Aoiya Hotel.

Not long after, a bearded man in sunglasses wanted to take the suitcase, but he received a letter saying "May you be cursed and die".

Four years ago, the man in red clothes and long hair died in the forest, but his body was only found recently.

Today, the fake Maori Kogoro came to claim the box, but because his neck was not strong enough, he was strangled to death by the rope...

Everything Kogoro Mori said sounded plausible to bystanders.

But in the eyes of Qin Zhibo, who could see the investigation point, all hypotheses were self-defeating.

Conan, who was standing by, looked at the smug Kogoro Mouri and felt a little helpless.

Although the curse is unlikely, Kogoro Mori's reasoning is simply out of the blue.

There was evidence at the murder scene that immediately refuted this theory.

If the real Qin Zhibo was present, he would definitely be able to provide this evidence on the spot without me having to speak.

But now there is only one imposter here. Can we still count on the imposter to carry?

Forget it, I have no choice but to do it myself...

Conan was just about to say "Ah, lie, lie" when "Qin Zhibo" in the room suddenly spoke.

"It really is a curse..."

"Hmm?" Kogoro Mouri, who was feeling smug, suddenly froze in his tracks and turned to look at Qin Zhibo.

This impostor came to our door without waiting for us to expose him.

"Stop pretending, you're just..."

Before Maori Kogoro could finish his words, Qin Zhibo picked up the long hair in Yamamura Cao's hand and analyzed it: "These hairs are of different lengths, some are curly and some are dyed, and they feel moist to the touch."

"If you smell it..." Qin Zhibo put his nose close to his hair, "it smells like shampoo..."

"Isn't this a curse?"

Kogoro Mouri was shocked. He looked down at the hair in Yamamura So's hand and found that it was just as the fake Qin Zhibo said.

"This, this, this is..."

Kogoro Mouri naturally knew what this meant. It meant that these hairs had not gone through a five-year time span at all, and were most likely just put in there by someone.

But if we admit this, all the previous ideas will no longer exist, and we must also admit that the initial reasoning of the fake Qin Zhibo was correct.

At this critical moment when the genuine product was about to be defeated by the competitor's counterfeit, Kogoro Maori had an idea and thought of his savior.

Another "self"!

Kogoro Mouri knew that he had another personality. Whenever he made an outrageous statement, this personality would appear accompanied by a tingling pain in his neck, saving the company from collapse.

It's time to come out, another me!

"This is actually the result of that hippie who dyed and permed his hair and died with regret..."

"Huh?"×N

Kogoro Mouri said something extremely unreliable, which shocked everyone present and also surprised Conan next to him.

What nonsense is this uncle talking about?

Although Conan did not understand Kogoro Mouri's "distress signal", he had to take action himself in order to save the face of his future father-in-law and the reputation he had worked so hard to build for him.

"By the way, Sister Xiaolan's hair got wet just now, right?"

"Of course I did, because I just took a shower."

"But when I went to see you in the evening, you clearly said you hadn't taken a shower yet..."