Ke Xue: Shinichi and I are childhood friends.

Chapter 1355 The Will of 3

At that moment, Ran Mouri suddenly brought up something.

Just as it was almost their turn in line, one of the older candidates suddenly left the line and ran away as if chasing after someone.

Yuanshan and Ye echoed, saying that the man was muttering something as he ran away.

Conan asked the man what he had said, out of curiosity.

Ran Mouri thought for a moment and said, "He said, 'As expected of the Matchmaking Shrine, there are three people here alone.'"

?

Just as the two half-detectives were pondering the meaning of that sentence, a terrified scream suddenly rang out from the shrine.

Yu also looked up and instantly recognized the source of the sound: "It's from the stairs at the back."

The two adults and one child immediately ran in that direction.

Ran Mouri and Kazuha Toyama were stunned for a moment.

Kazuha Toyama angrily exclaimed, "Ugh, really, are all boys like this?!" Despite her complaints, she still followed after them.

"He rushes into anything related to a case without hesitation, just like Heiji!"

Ran Mouri gazed thoughtfully at the fox-masked figure's back, and the more she looked, the more she felt he resembled Heiji Hattori.

Shiho Miyano sighed softly. Had the susceptibility of these individuals to incidents reached a point where even the shrine could no longer suppress them?

When the group arrived at the stairs, they saw a slightly overweight man lying at the bottom of the stairs, with blood all over the ground beneath his head.

Yu went over to check on him and shook his head regretfully: "He's already dead."

Conan searched the man's body for anything that could prove his identity.

To Toyama and Kazuha were surprised to discover that the man who had fallen to his death was the same examinee they had just seen.

Looking at the scene, she guessed, "Did he lose his footing and fall down the stairs? There's still snow on the ground."

“No,” Hattori Heiji immediately refuted her statement. “If he fell down the stairs, he would definitely have used his hands to protect his body when he was about to hit the ground, but there are no such marks on his body.”

"There were marks on his forehead indicating he had been beaten. Considering the circumstances at the scene, it looks more like someone pushed him after he lost consciousness, so..."

"This is a murder!"

Hattori Heiji's resolute manner startled Toyama Kazuha, who murmured, "Hikiko-kun, his tone of voice is exactly the same as Heiji's!"

Hattori Heiji was completely absorbed in the case. He stood up and took a few steps up the steps, looking at a blood-stained flag on the steps. He said, "Judging from this blood-stained flag, the perpetrator must have knocked the victim unconscious with the flagpole with the flag hanging on it at the top of the steps, and then pushed him down the steps to kill him."

"But because the flag was quite conspicuous, the prisoner simply pulled out the flagpole and escaped with it."

Ran Mouri felt a pang of pity: "But why would a test taker encounter something like this?"

Conan said, "He's not some kind of examinee."

He found the booklet in the man's arms, but it turned out to be not a vocabulary book at all; it was full of ID photos.

Yu also leaned over for a look and said with some surprise, "These people are all wanted criminals!"

"So, the three people he was just muttering about must have been the three wanted criminals he discovered, right? If I'm not mistaken, the victim must have been a police officer."

"Huh?" Kazuha Toyama and Ran Mouri were very surprised and hugged each other in fear. "A... wanted criminal?"

Yu couldn't help but mutter to herself, "What's there to be afraid of about wanted criminals? With your skills, you two could easily take them down."

He looked up, about to say something, when Shiho Miyano waved her phone and said, "I've already called Inspector Megure. He said he'll send Officer Takagi and Officer Sato over immediately and we need to protect the scene."

Yu also twitched the corner of her mouth. It was because she had been with him for so long that she had become so adept at calling the police.

Because today is a special day, the police deployed some officers in the vicinity, and Takagi Wataru and Sato Miwako arrived shortly afterward.

They cordoned off the scene and, after searching it, were surprised to find that the three wanted criminals were still there.

The three wanted criminals are two men and one woman: female habitual thief, Tsurumi Shamoto; Kawano Ken, who drove without a license and caused a hit-and-run, whose clothes were inexplicably dirty; and Kyoma Kamui, a marriage fraudster.

The victim's identity was quickly confirmed by Inspector Hikari Soji of the Metropolitan Police Department's Criminal Investigation Division.

The cause of death was similar to Hattori Heiji's guess: he was beaten with a flagpole by a prisoner at the top of the stairs, lost consciousness, fell down the stairs, and his head hit the ground again, causing him to die on the spot.

Before leaving the team, Bing Gaochuangzhi mentioned that there were three other people there, and since his profession was a search team specializing in hunting down wanted criminals, three more wanted criminals were discovered at the scene.

Therefore, it is highly likely that this murder occurred during Binggao Innovation's pursuit of the wanted criminal.

Sato Miwako glanced at the three of them and said coldly, "Based on the current situation, we can roughly deduce that the person who committed the murder is among you. It seems that one of you will be punished even more severely."

Ran Mouri asked with some confusion, "Why did that police officer come here to ask for a talisman?"

Kazuha Toyama thought that his daughter might have asked him to buy it.

Hattori Heiji said, "I once heard that a police officer in a search team would go to a shrine to buy amulets for good luck in order to avoid running into wanted criminals."

Kazuha Toyama looked at him and said admiringly, "Mitsumoto, you're really amazing! The things the police officers found after investigating the scene were exactly the same as what you deduced! You could be a detective!"

Hattori Heiji immediately said proudly, "Oh! Leave everything to me!"

Kazuha Toyama snorted: "However, I don't think you can beat Heiji."

As if by conditioned reflex, Hattori Heiji shouted back, "Idiot, how could I possibly lose to someone like that!"

Yuya and Conan, standing nearby, were speechless, thinking to themselves that Hattori Heiji was beyond saving.

Shouldn't we admit defeat at this point, making Hattori Heiji's image even more towering and majestic in Toyama Kazuha's heart?

You better put down your competitive spirit!

Yuya pinched his chin, looking thoughtful.

Seeing this, Conan asked, "What's wrong? Did something come to mind?"

Yuya exclaimed "Ah!" and replied, "I'm wondering why these three wanted criminals are still here. Officer Takagi and the others arrived quickly, but they should have had enough time to escape, unless..."

Conan continued, "They have reasons why they can't leave."

Yuya nodded slightly: "And then there's the murder weapon."

"Although the condition of the flag suggests the murder weapon was most likely the flagpole, but..."

He glanced at the flagpoles on both sides of the steps: "Can those soft, squishy things really knock someone out?"

The flagpole used at the shrine was the kind that wasn't very heavy or sturdy, and Yu doubted whether it could even knock someone unconscious.

Conan also showed a thoughtful expression.

Yuya added, "That's not the most important thing. The thing I care about most..."

"What?" Conan's expression changed, and he looked up at Yuya.

But then Yuya turned around and glanced at Kazuha Toyama, then whispered to Conan, "Do you really think that Kazuha Toyama, who is a childhood friend, would not recognize Hattori just because her voice has changed?"