22: I'M SUPER INNOCENT
Jiang Xia turned around and unsurprisingly found that Conan had accurately found the body in the exhibition hall, and shone his flashlight on it.
The two girls standing outside the exhibition hall looked at the suddenly illuminated body and were stunned.
After a second, their screams intertwined, piercing the corridor with high-pitched vibrations that were more ear-piercing than police sirens.
Mouri Ran and Suzuki Sonoko huddled together, looked at Jiang Xia, and remembered the blood on his shoes.
They spoke incoherently, "You, you, you..."
Jiang Xia said calmly, "I didn't do it."
The two girls on the opposite side covered their hearts and sighed in relief at the same time, "Oh, we also thought..."
Before they could fully relax, they suddenly saw Jiang Xia looking at them thoughtfully and said, "Do you believe everything I say?"
Mouri Ran: "...."
Suzuki Sonoko: "..."
This really sounded like the line from someone who's trying to defend themselves.
The two pairs of terrified eyes looked back at Jiang Xia again: "!"
"It wasn't me," Jiang Xia said patiently again.
***
However, this time, Mouri Ran and Suzuki Sonoko still looked horrified, with a hint of suspicion.
Jiang Xia looked at them and felt that these two classmates had quite an interesting reaction.
Indeed, if people are fooled too much, their guard will also be correspondingly increased...
***
Jiang Xia had played enough and softened his tone, "When I said 'Do you believe me when I speak?', it was just a simple question..."
Mouri Ran and Suzuki Sonoko: "..."
The two innocent and kind female classmates saw Jiang Xia's "innocent" expression and couldn't help but reflect silently.
"..." Indeed.
Upon careful reflection, Jiang Xia's earlier remark of "Do you believe me when I speak?" should not be interpreted as "Do you really trust me? It's touching" or something similar!
Thinking of this, Suzuki Sonoko cleared her throat to cover up her mistake, walked back to her original spot, grabbed Jiang Xia's hand, shook it firmly, and said firmly:
"We were just joking earlier! Of course, we trust you."
...Ah, this hand is really good to touch.
And it's not as cold as she had thought before.
When she held it, it was actually quite warm, and perhaps it could be used as a hand warmer in winter.
***
At the entrance of the exhibition hall, Suzuki Sonoko was lost in thought when holding Jiang Xia's hands.
Conan came back from beside the body.
He first reminded Mouri Ran to call the police, then looked at Jiang Xia:
"We don't think you killed the person, but you were the first to discover the body, so the police will naturally suspect you - you should carefully recall your itinerary today and try to find an alibi, and also consider if you saw any suspicious individuals on your way here."
Conan wasn't blindly trusting Jiang Xia's character.
It's just that the body in the exhibition hall was too gruesome, and the blood was splattered everywhere.
In other words, if Jiang Xia had killed the person just now, he couldn't have remained so clean.
Furthermore, Conan had seen Jiang Xia beating someone before - hitting him with a stick like playing Whack-a-Mole in the arcade.
However, the act of nailing someone to the wall, imitating an oil painting, had a strong sense of ritual and was quite complicated.
No matter how he looked at it, it wasn't Jiang Xia's style.
***
Therefore, Conan believes that the truth is probably that Jiangxia passed by here, for some reason, walked into the exhibition hall and took a glance, and then accidentally stepped on the blood.
As for why Jiangxia didn't turn on the lights, scream, or call the police...
...maybe it's related to his personality.
Everyone reacts differently when they see a corpse.
Conan really can't imagine the scene where Jiangxia screams and runs away.
"..." Thinking about it, Jiang Xia calmly walked out of the exhibition hall just now, which seemed quite reasonable.
Moreover, theoretically, Jiangxia's state is... not very stable. Anyway, some abnormal behavior on him is actually quite reasonable.
Conan: "..." Speaking of this, I don't know if Jiangxia has been honest and gone to the psychiatric department to see a doctor for more than ten days of sick leave and more than ten days of absence from class every month.
Thinking of this, Conan couldn't help but review what he had observed about Jiangxia's daily life: it seemed to be all about racing, fighting, and visiting exhibition halls...
Conan felt tired in his heart, and the answer was probably negative.
***
The exhibition hall is not far from the police station.
The high school students stood at the door of the Hell Exhibition Hall, waiting for the police.
The four of them from afraid to reasoning, and to wanted to catch the culprit...
Soon, the police arrived.
***
Inside the Hell Exhibition Hall.
The ceiling light was turned on, and the room was instantly bright.
Inspector Megure and the forensic police officers entered the hall together to search for clues and sent a few subordinates to inquire about the situation with witnesses.
Officer Sato came out and glanced at the four people. Her gaze stopped at Jiang Xia's back.
According to her experience, the probability of the culprit appearing among the first discoverers is not low.
Compared with the two high school girls who were pale and couldn't look at the body, and the elementary school student who was not as tall as Sato's legs, Jiangxia's suspicion suddenly skyrocketed.
However, after approaching, Jiangxia turned around, and Officer Sato saw his front face and was suddenly stunned.
...She had just seen this person in the office not long ago.
Although Sato is not a forensic police officer, she has dealt with so many homicide cases and has some experience.
-She can roughly estimate how long the body has been dead.
At this time, based on her rough judgment... when Mr. Manaka died, Jiang Xia was reporting a case in their office.
"..." It seems that this time, the culprit is not among the first group of people who discovered the body?
***
The police quickly completed their questioning.
However, unfortunately, the witnesses couldn't provide much information.
But soon, Inspector Megure was pleasantly surprised to discover that there was a surveillance camera in the Hell Exhibition Hall that was facing the crime scene.
Inspector Megure waved his hand excitedly and said, "Quick, check the surveillance footage!"
***
Five minutes later.
After watching the surveillance footage, Inspector Megure was no longer happy.
The footage did capture the murder process.
But it didn't capture the face of the killer - the killer was wearing a suit of Western knight armor with an iron mask covering the face tightly.
***
As the police looked at the surveillance footage with sighs, Jiang Xia quietly fiddled with his phone.
There was a video recording inside, which he had just secretly taken.
- Just now, while everyone else was watching the surveillance footage, the director of this exhibition hall, Mr. Ochiai, crouched down and pretended to tie his shoelaces.
- During this time, the old man with a white beard took the opportunity to secretly replace the pen used by the real boss who had died on the floor with a good pen that could write.
- This was part of Curator Ochiai's murder plan.
- Several hours ago, he put on a knight's armor to conceal his identity and deliberately killed someone under the surveillance camera. During this process, the old curator did not kill the real boss, but left some gaps for him - as expected, the real boss realized that he couldn't survive and reached for a piece of paper on the nearby table, and picked up a pen that was also placed there to secretly write down the killer's name.
- However, that piece of paper was actually placed there by the old curator beforehand. The name of another employee had already been written on the paper in advance.
- Moreover, the pen in the hands of the real boss was already broken and could not write at all.
- The lighting in the Hell Exhibition Hall was dim, and the surveillance camera could not distinguish such small differences.
- Therefore, as long as Curator Ochiai promptly replaced the broken pen used by the real boss with a normal one after the incident.
- Overall, the whole thing became "the real boss wrote down the name of the killer on a piece of paper before he died."
- But in fact, that name was just a framed employee.
***
While the police were contemplating in front of the surveillance cameras, Jiang Xia skipped all the reasoning steps and walked over to the old curator.
The curator, Ochiai, stood with his hands behind his back, gazing deeply at the oil painting on the wall - the painting of a knight killing a demon, but being splattered with dirty blood all over his body in the process.
In the curator's eyes, the new owner, Mr. Manaka, was untrustworthy - he had promised to keep the museum open after buying it, but now he suddenly wanted to demolish it and build a restaurant.
That's why Ochiai didn't regret killing him - he was punishing the man who defiled art.
Therefore, the curator felt that the bloodied knight in the painting was very similar to his own situation - handsome, tragic, sacrificing everything, just to eliminate evil.
While he was lost in thought, someone suddenly spoke next to him, "The righteous knight subdued the demon, but at the same time, he was also contaminated by the evil blood... Is that what you think?"
Ochiai was startled and turned his head to see the young man who had first discovered the body standing next to him.
He remembered Jiang Xia's words and felt that the young man might be hinting at something, so he hesitated for a few seconds.
***
After a moment, he stroked his waist-long beard and forced himself to calm down.
He thought that he was overthinking things - this perfect murder plan couldn't be easily unraveled by a little kid.
But then Jiang Xia suddenly brought up a topic that had nothing to do with the painting.
He whispered, "You should know that when signing a land sale contract, the seller can impose restrictions on the future use of the land - such as writing 'continue to operate the exhibition hall and not change it to other uses' into the contract."
Ochiai was taken aback.
Jiang Xia continued, "However, such restrictions will discourage many buyers. In other words, once you add a restriction clause to the contract, it will be difficult to sell the land."
"From the looks of it, your predecessor didn't include the agreement to restrict the land use in the contract. Promises that aren't written in the contract are not reliable, even a novice who has just started working for a few months knows that, let alone your predecessor who has been in this industry for decades..."
Jiang Xia paused and glanced at Ochiai, as if wanting to say something else but then held back.
Conan, who had been listening in the background "...."
Although he didn't understand the context very well but from Jiang Xia's words, it seemed like he was suspecting the curator is the murderer.
Although he didn't quite understand the cause, from what Jiang Xia said, it seemed like he was suspecting that the curator was the murderer.
Why?
Also, how did Jiang Xia know so much about the exhibition hall?
Could it be that the lady at the ticket office told him?
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