The Phantom Thief of Heart! But Conan.

Chapter 894: Like a Dream Bubble

Shi Lian closed his eyes and clasped his hands together, not knowing whether he was praying or confessing.

"Yes. I didn't mean to hurt her. I just felt sorry for Chuanjiu who was abandoned by her. When I heard her say that, I took out the photo album of the young monks practicing in the temple from childhood to adulthood. In addition to Chuanjiu, I have adopted two other children. They look very different from Chuanjiu in personality. If the female donor really paid attention to Chuanjiu, there is no reason why she couldn't recognize him. But she didn't recognize him."

Shi Lian turned around and looked at the wall behind him.

The four rooms of the villa are interlocked like a windmill. Behind this wall is Chuanjiu, who is standing with other detectives, thinking hard.

"Moreover, when she broke down and cried because she couldn't recognize him, she didn't notice that the person who came over with the photo album and kept comforting her for unknown reasons was her biological son. I couldn't understand the donor's thoughts when we met but still didn't recognize each other, so I didn't tell her the truth. But Chuanjiu actually longed for his mother. He fantasized about having a healthy family, or at least having relatives who loved him. Now that she came to me, I had no reason to hide it from Chuanjiu."

Xingchuan Hui tilted his head, looked at the complicated and regretful expression on Shi Lian's face, and said nothing.

His family relationships were equally dysfunctional. His father viewed him as a disgrace and a stain and never looked at him straight in the eye, so much so that even if Tang Ze hadn't seriously disguised himself to look like him, the other party wouldn't have recognized that his son had become a different person. His mother might have had some weak feelings for him, but compared to the affection between mother and son, it was closer to sympathy for a fellow sufferer. It was not easy for a woman like a floating duckweed to still give him food to eat and let him grow up safely.

Shi Lian's tone was full of guilt, but he felt that there was nothing wrong with Shi Lian's thoughts and actions. Even if the woman felt so guilty because of his words and chose to commit suicide in the end, it was not the fault of Kuanhe's adoptive father who had adopted many children.

If he really did do anything wrong, it was probably because he didn't tell Chuanjiu the truth in time. Children without a family who grow up to this age are actually stronger than many adults think.

"I was in a complicated mood, so I had to let Chuanjiu leave first, and then I said to her in a stern tone, 'Please stay in the courtyard tonight, clear your mind, carefully savor the sorrow your child has experienced in the past 18 years, and remember it firmly in your bones'..."

"And then the next morning, you found out that she had committed suicide?" Xingchuan Hui guessed what would happen next.

A woman who is irresponsible to her own child and comes to you eighteen years later and says, "Give my child back to me" is as irresponsible to her own life as she is to her own life. It is not surprising that she falls into such a situation.

"Yes, she found a sharp weapon from somewhere and committed suicide by cutting her wrists in the room." Shi Lian touched his forehead and sighed, "I sent her to the hospital, but she bled all night, and the amount of bleeding was too heavy. Before I could deal with the marks on the tatami, Chuanjiu had already..."

"Wait, she's not dead?" Feeling something was wrong, Xingchuan Hui raised his hand to interrupt him.

Shi Lian looked at him in bewilderment: "It is true that a lot of blood will flow from cutting the wrist, but it is difficult to commit suicide successfully by simply cutting the wrist. Of course she is not dead."

Although suicide by cutting wrists is very common, Shi Lian is right. This is actually a very long method of suicide. Unless the wound is very deep, the blood will continue to coagulate during the process, and it is very difficult to reach a fatal level.

This is why many people who commit suicide by cutting their wrists choose to do so in the bathtub, because only in this way can they ensure that the wound will not scab over and keep the blood flowing.

In other words, it is difficult for people who don't have a bathtub to successfully commit suicide by cutting their wrists. Considering the expensive land prices in Tokyo, people who live in pigeon-cage-like apartments are not worthy of committing suicide by cutting their wrists.

"Then why don't you just tell Chuanjiu?" Xingchuan Hui was really confused now, "Since she is not dead, she will come to you after she wakes up, right? Mr. Chuanjiu will know the truth sooner or later, so it's better to let him prepare himself mentally in advance."

Tang Ze did not tell him the truth directly, but when Shi Lian was halfway through her speech, he guessed what would happen next.

It was simply that the woman couldn't bear the pressure and committed suicide. The old monk didn't want his disciple to face such a cruel truth, so he took great pains to abandon the woman's body and clean up the scene before the police arrived.

Now that the other party is not dead at all, Chuanjiu will have to face his incompetent mother sooner or later. What is the reason for doing this?

"I did intend to tell him. After he found the blood, his mental state was not very good. I was afraid that the scene would leave him with too deep a shadow... But I didn't expect that the hospital contacted me and said that Chuanjiu's mother had lost some memories after waking up." Shi Lian said this and patted his bald head again, making two helpless crisp sounds. "She completely forgot about coming to Shengyue Temple and even forgot that she had a child."

"Huh?" Xingchuan Hui's expression became even more strange. "Will excessive blood loss lead to brain disease?"

Is he pretending? This is too...

"I don't know. It's hard for the hospital to give a definite answer to brain problems. I can only assume that she really lost her memory." Shi Lian sighed loudly, as if she had finally let out the anger that had been pent up in her chest for the past few days. "It's also possible that after waking up, she regretted coming to the temple to try to reunite with her son, so she pretended to forget about it... No matter what the situation is, I think it's not appropriate for Chuanjiu to know. It's too cruel and will make him sad."

The image of Chuanjiu's mother is indeed quite typical, as she would have a child that she cannot raise at that age.

Therefore, Shi Lian was unable to determine which of the situations was happening. Was she really suffering from regressive amnesia after being stimulated, or was she regretting it and wanted to pretend that nothing had happened? He had no choice but to wait and see before she made the next move.

"I see..." Hoshikawa Teru pretended to think, his attention secretly shifting towards the headphones.

The old monk has explained the cause and effect clearly enough. We have to wait for Tang Ze's decision on what to do.

After a while, Tang Ze's words accompanied by chewing sounds came from the headphones, and Xingchuan Hui slowly opened his eyes.

Is, is that so…

----

In the room on the other side, the three detectives who had found nothing for the time being walked out of the small Japanese-style room and looked at the cherry blossoms flying in the snow outside the temple wall. They had different expressions, but none of them seemed satisfied.

Mingzhi seemed to have reached a conclusion after just one look. It was a bit frustrating that they tried so hard to investigate but had no direction.

There was no progress for the time being and it was almost noon, so they had to go out to eat something and relax.

"Maybe Chuanjiu really saw it wrong." Maori Kogoro curled his lips, and took the opportunity when Chuanjiu left to find Shilian, whispering, "If there really is such a large pool of blood, instead of cleaning it up, it would be more effective to directly replace the tatami with a replacement and then discard the bloodstained part directly, right?"

"But Denkyu said he was definitely not mistaken and was very confident in his memory." Hattori Heiji shook his head, "Well, it feels like something is not right..."

"Master Chuanjiu described that he found the bloodstains in the room and then went to find the abbot. But when the police arrived, the bloodstains were gone. If this sequence is correct, then he should have discovered the scene earlier than the abbot." Conan analyzed calmly, "But if this is the case, then where is the victim's body?"

"You're still calling him a victim." Maori Kogoro slapped him on the head. "We don't even know if the person is dead or not, or if he ran away. How can you call him a victim?"

Conan hugged his head and replied unconvincedly: "He said the amount of blood was really heavy..." "That person may not be dead yet." Maori Kogoro shook his head unhappily, "People nowadays sometimes like to go crazy, suddenly come to visit someone's temple, and then suddenly have a mental breakdown, leaving a lot of blood in someone's room and suddenly run away, it's not impossible..."

It's true, he had really met similar people in the past, and it felt like their existence in the whole world was like the metabolic mechanism that human beings as a whole left for themselves.

If his career as a criminal police officer has left him with any experience, it is that the unreasonable is the norm. If humans are logical creatures, they should know that the cost of committing a crime is very high and should not choose to commit a crime from the beginning.

"But……"

Conan wanted to argue, but his next words were interrupted by the sound of hurried footsteps behind him.

The three turned around and saw Chuanjiu pointing at the courtyard behind him with a panicked look on his face. He started to shout while gasping for breath, "It's there again! Those bloodstains are all over the ground!"

While Kogoro Mori was still thinking about what he meant by this sentence, Hattori Heiji and Conan immediately shot out like arrows and rushed towards the room behind him.

It only took them more than half a minute to walk there. If they ran faster, they would reach the destination in ten seconds.

After taking a few steps up the stairs, the two men immediately went to the open sliding door of the Japanese-style room and looked inside.

...There was nothing. Everything was just as it was when they left. Although the tatami was faded due to age, it was spotlessly clean.

The two people looked at each other with bewilderment on their faces.

In such a short time, let alone doing anything, even magic tricks can’t be performed that fast.

Could it be that the truth of the incident is really that Chuanjiu was in a poor mental state, so he had severe hallucinations?

That's terrible. This is the kind of conclusion that a detective least wants to see. It's like writing a whole book of mystery and then telling you in the end that all the illogical things are just the protagonist's dream. It's totally shit.

"How, how could this happen, I clearly just..." Chuanjiu, who had caught up with him, held his head, looking panicked.

Now, even he himself began to doubt whether there was something wrong with his mental state, which was why he could always see things that others could not see.

"You, were you like this the other day?" Hattori Heiji turned around and looked at him, frowning in confusion, "So, you saw the blood, notified the abbot, and then called the police. You didn't see the blood with the abbot, right?"

"Yes, yes..." Chuanjiu became less and less confident as he spoke, "I went to inform the abbot, and then rushed to the front hall to find a phone to call the police..."

In other words, the only person who saw the blood from beginning to end was Chuanjiu, and he witnessed the blood alone without the support of other people's perspectives...

It sounds like an illusion, and combined with his description, it becomes more believable.

Maori Kogoro shook his head in dissatisfaction: "I was saying, maybe this little monk really saw it wrong. Instead of looking for us detectives, you should go talk to a psychiatrist. If you can even see hallucinations, that's a very serious situation."

He didn't have any knowledge reserves in this area. He was simply brainwashed by his daughter's recitation of scriptures at home in recent times. Some knowledge that shouldn't belong to him had sneaked into his brain without his permission.

Hallucination is one of the more serious symptoms of mental illness. If the condition has developed to the point where it affects a person's perception, then it's really time to take some medicine.

"I, but I...not only did I see it, I also smelled it, and...there was a pool of blood and a woman's long hair..." Chuanjiu touched his shiny head that was beginning to sweat, and became a little incoherent.

"Well, you are right, this is indeed not an illusion."

Chuanjiu, who was in a state of excitement, heard such a voice of salvation and turned his head quickly.

Akechi Goro, and the abbot Shi Lian who followed him, walked over leisurely.

After eating and drinking, Tang Ze, who had exchanged places with Xingchuan Teru, glanced at the detectives crowded at the door, raised his chin, and gestured to the Buddha statue at the innermost part of the room.

"I've basically figured out the situation. Go move the things over there and take a look. I think you'll be able to see the truth you want."

"Buddha statue? But, isn't it very valuable? Can it be moved at will?" Kogoro Mouri became puzzled.

"Authentic Buddha statues are very valuable, but which temple would place such precious Buddha statues that have been passed down from generation to generation in a branch courtyard that is uninhabited and almost overgrown with weeds?" Tang Ze waved his hand and said calmly, "Authentic ones must be enshrined in the main hall. Those are imitations."

Kogoro Mouri nodded as if he suddenly understood, and without thinking, he went over and tried to move the Buddha statue. Conan, who had originally focused his attention on the room, turned his head and subtly glanced at Goro Akechi who was in a leisurely posture.

What is the "truth you want"?

Isn’t the truth the truth? If it can be changed by people’s subjective thoughts, it only proves that the conclusion obtained is not the truth.

This is so vague, it seems like there is something else behind the words...

Receiving his gaze, Tang Ze curled his eyes, tapped his temple and made a mouth shape.

Conan tried hard to distinguish his lip reading and felt that he said a word that was not very common, but the shape of his mouth looked strangely familiar...

After his thoughts wandered for a moment, a word popped into his mind.

Did Goro Akechi just say, "Cognitive Science"...?