Coroner Coroner

Hattori Heiji sparred with Toyama and Ye.

In this peaceful atmosphere, the ceremony was going on lively and lively.

Everyone seems to have forgotten the panic that the death of Saori Kadowaki brought to the island.

In other words, the strange death of this young girl, in turn, added a touch of mystery to the legend of the mermaid, making believers more devout in their belief in the mermaid.

And Kimie Shimabukuro, who played the longevity mother-in-law on stage, was not affected at all by the murder of her best friend, and still completed her performance very well.

With her efforts, the ceremony finally came to a successful conclusion.

But there is still a second half of this festival, and now it is just the end of the "Longevity Mother-in-law" scene.

The main role of "Longevity Mother-in-law" is to pray to the mermaid, and personally select three lucky numbers from the audience, and give them the precious qualification to exchange for the limited edition peripheral "Mermaid Arrow".

After finishing these "longevity mothers-in-law", they will leave.

The festival held at the shrine also came to an end.

The stage location for the second half of the ceremony is a place called Mermaid Waterfall in the forest outside the village.

According to the sponsor's publicity process:

Next, the long-lived mother-in-law will take the shrine maiden, that is, Miss Junhui Shimabukuro, to pray to the mermaid in the shrine, and bestow strange powers on the three mermaid arrows.

This process will last for 1 hour and is not open to outsiders.

During this 1 hour, outsiders are not allowed to enter or leave the shrine, only the shrine staff can come and go freely.

Outsiders could only wait for the maiden lady to finish her preparations inside, and then walk out of the shrine with three "enlightened" mermaid arrows, and lead everyone to the mermaid waterfall to hold the second half of the ceremony.

This is the official caliber.

But Lin Xinyi can roughly guess that this 1 hour may be the makeup removal and rest time prepared by Junhui Shimabukuro for herself.

Because it is impossible for outsiders to discover the secret that the longevity mother-in-law and Miss Miko are actually the same person, she arranges such a time that no outsiders are allowed to disturb.

And those fishermen who temporarily guested at the shrine are also the older elders on the island.

They probably all knew the secret of the long-lived mother-in-law, so they tacitly helped Junhui Shimabukuro implement this rule, and implemented it extremely strictly.

So gradually everyone recognized such a rule:

Longevity mother-in-law needs to spend 1 hour to "consecrate" the arrow of the fish. During this time, outsiders must not enter the shrine to disturb.

Since you can't enter the shrine to worship the gods, it's still early for the second half of the festival.

This 1 hour has naturally become the free time for tourists.

And now it's still time for dinner, and many people haven't had dinner yet in order to participate in the festival.

So when the first half of the festival ended, the tourists immediately dispersed like students who heard the bell for the end of get out of class.

There are many tourists on site.

In this dispersal, there were countless surging streams of people.

Among the long crowds, it is difficult to guarantee that one target can be fixed on.

"Ebihara Sumi is gone!"

Lin Xinyi and the others were just stunned for a moment, and found that there was one person missing from their attention list.

Ebihara Sumi had already disappeared into the crowd.

Heijiang Naoko could still see her back, but she also seemed to be leaving with the trend.

"Mr. Lin." Hattori Heiji asked with some concern: "Do you want to assign people to find someone?"

"This..." Lin Xinyi frowned and thought about it carefully: "Forget it, let's stay near this shrine and keep an eye on Junhui Shimabukuro."

There are so many tourists on the island, it's really hard to follow if they spread out.

Although Ebihara Sumi and Kuroe Naoko were also suspected by them, they were related to the fire three years ago and the murder of Saori Kadowaki.

But look at their frail state of mind that is frightened out of their wits and in a trance:

No matter what role they played in the fire case three years ago:

In the current case of Kadowaki Saori's murder that needs to be dealt with first, these two superstitious believers who were frightened by Kadowaki Saori's death are very likely to be the murderers.

It was Junhui Shimabukuro, she was more like the murderer.

Instead of distracting your efforts to stare at others, it is better to focus on the number one suspect.

Anyway, as long as the "murderer" is secretly controlled, nothing bad will happen on the island.

With this in mind, Lin Xinyi and the others stayed near the shrine.

The priests of the shrine do not allow outsiders to enter or leave.

They also had no choice but to disperse, surround and monitor the shrine from all angles, and always pay attention to the movements of the witch lady.

And Junhui Shimabukuro seems to have been resting inside.

Lin Xinyi and the others guarded the shrine for an entire hour, but they didn't see the witch lady come out.

The only people who come in and out of the shrine occasionally are the shrine staff.

I stopped a few people to ask questions, and they all said that Shimabukuro Junhui and Changshou mother-in-law were still busy consecrating the arrow in the shrine.

Although they didn't see Miss Miko herself directly, there were always priests standing guard at the entrance and exit of the shrine. If Shimabukuro Junhui came out, they would definitely not be unaware.

In this way, 1 hour passed smoothly.

Junhui Shimabukuro finally walked out of the shrine in her white and elegant maiden costume, holding the legendary three mermaid arrows, and returned to everyone's sight.

She looked as usual, greeting tourists with a gentle and elegant smile.

Then, surrounded by a group of shrine workers, he led a group of tourists who participated in the festival to the mermaid waterfall outside the village, preparing for the second half of the festival.

The whole process is very normal.

There is nothing strange about it.

"But, Mr. Lin..." Hattori Heiji seemed to suddenly think of something.

He suddenly approached Lin Xinyi with an ugly expression, and asked, "Is all this too normal?"

"Huh?" Lin Xinyi was a little puzzled: "Is there something wrong with normal?"

"The work of presiding over the ceremony is not over yet, even if that lady priestess is really the murderer we are looking for, she will not behave strangely at this time, right?"

"This... this may be my occupational disease as a detective."

Hattori Heiji couldn't help frowning:

"I always feel that the timing of this festival is a bit weird."

"Especially during the one-hour break just now."

"During that entire hour, no one actually saw Miss Shimabukuro, but a group of shrine worshipers can attest that she did not come out from the inner room of the shrine."

"If, I mean if..."

Thinking of the countless cases I have experienced before, the murderers' methods of getting rid of crimes are different, but the principles are the same.

The big detective couldn't help feeling a little nervous:

"If Ms. Shimabukuro used some kind of trick to escape from the shrine quietly for an hour and do something outside."

"Those priests who were arranged by her to stand guard there in advance, even us tourists who have been waiting outside the shrine..."

"It can be proved that she has been staying in the shrine."

"Give her the perfect alibi?"

Hearing this, Lin Xinyi couldn't help but change his face:

"You mean, this festival has a special schedule."

"Maybe it was a trick that Shimabukuro Junhui set up for himself to commit another crime in advance?"

"Hmm... Heiji, do you have evidence to prove it?"

"Of course not." Hattori Heiji shook his head: "This is just my hunch as a detective."

"A premonition without reason or basis."

"I hope..." He sighed deeply, "I hope this premonition will not become a reality."

........................

A moment later, Mermaid Waterfall.

The mermaid waterfall is said to be in the mountains outside the village, but in fact the distance to the shrine is not too far.

After all, the island is only that big, and no matter how deep the mountains are, it won't go anywhere.

Moreover, those tourists came to pray to Buddha to seek longevity, and they were not really willing to work hard to seek longevity. How could the local residents arrange for them to climb mountains to exercise.

Under the leadership of Shimabukuro Junhui and the shrine staff, everyone walked for a total of ten minutes, and then they walked out of the village and came to the bottom of the mermaid waterfall.

The torches held high by the sacrificial workers illuminated the trickling waterfall.

With a burst of lively folk music playing, the second half of the American Island Fishermen's Art Show kicked off.

The tourists who had dispersed earlier also gathered here.

Kuroe Naoko is also there.

But one person is missing.

"Where's Miss Ebihara?"

Lin Xinyi and the others noticed that Ebihara Sumi, who prayed devoutly throughout the first half of the ceremony, was absent from the second half of the event.

This is a very unusual sight.

She was so in awe of the Mermaid before, and she also showed such importance to this festival.

How could he suddenly and quietly leave midway?

"Difficult, could it be..."

Hattori Heiji's black face was even darker.

The inexplicably bad premonition that he had before came to his mind again.