Conan’s Corpse Picker

   Chapter 73 The vest seems to have wings

  This temple does not seem to have a "don't say anything" rule.

   A few little monks chatted quickly, and the topic turned to an ancient legend—the legend about the foggy dog.

   In fact, it cannot be regarded as "unconsciously".

  The location of Shanni Temple is too remote and there are few tourists. Every time there is a guest staying, the old abbot secretly leads the topic to "Fog Tengu", which is the selling point of their remote temple.

   In this area, there has always been a legend of "Fog Tengu", but what really made it a topic of conversation was a murder case two years ago.

  —Two years ago, the monk Zhongnian in the temple was suspected of being killed by Wutiangu. After this incident was published in the newspapers, tourists visiting the temple exploded for a while, bringing in a lot of money.

   Now that the heat has passed, there are fewer tourists, but there are still people who are attracted by the foggy tengu.

   These guests, some because they read old newspapers, and some because they heard people who lived in the temple say these things and passed it on by word of mouth.

   The old abbot had a guilty conscience on the matter of "Wustengou murder" - in fact, it was not Wutiangou who killed Zhongnian, but him.

   But his conscience cannot be eaten, so he chose to increase his popularity without hesitation.

  The old abbot said to the two new tourists in a dark tone:

"Misttengu is an ancient monster that can fly. They will sneak into the village like fog on rainy nights, break through the walls, kidnap the kind-hearted people, and then hang the corpses of their prey on high places for food. "

   Speaking of this, the old host wanted to suddenly take a terrifying turn and lean over to scare the two guests on the opposite side.

   But at this time, he suddenly felt that it was not good-there was always a premonition that if he really scared people, he would immediately be slapped on the head and slapped into the vegetable soup.

  ...And it's not interesting to scare two big men.

The abbot    hesitated for a moment, and finally just stroked his beard, skipped the scary steps, and said the conclusion: "But don't worry, this is just a legend when technology was underdeveloped."

   "...But, it's not necessarily a legend." The third child in the temple was not very good-looking, and he muttered nervously, "Didn't something very similar happen two years ago, Senior Brother Zhongnian..."

   "Mu Nian!" Senior Brother frowned and interrupted him, "Don't tell the guests about this kind of thing."

   "It's alright, talk about it." Jiang Xia seemed very interested, and he didn't eat, so he looked up at them, "We are detectives, and we are best at answering strange things."

   "!" "!" "!" "!" "?!"

  Four little monks, plus an abbot, five exclamation marks seem to appear above the heads of the five people, but the meanings are different.

  The four monks looked at Jiang Xia, and the youngest hesitated: "Actually, I wanted to say it for a long time. You look a little familiar. It's the one who suddenly became popular recently... Jiang Xia? Is that the surname?"

"Oh, I heard about it! I went shopping in the city a few days ago. When I was in line, I happened to hear the girl next to me talking about this person." The third child also remembered, and he said excitedly, "Since he is a famous detective , maybe it really solves the mystery—that was two years ago..."

"Shut up!"

   The old host slapped the table and interrupted his apprentice.

   His face was extremely ugly, and he stared at the four apprentices: "Didn't you say that you are not allowed to mention this?! Well, after the meal time is over, let me go back to rest!"

  Then the old abbot turned to Jiang Xia and Anshitou, his tone was much stiffer than before: "This is an internal matter of our temple, so don't ask more."

   After he finished speaking, he stood up and left with a sullen face.

   literally wrote the words "guilty of being a thief" on his face.

  …

  The old monk was very unfriendly, but fortunately his disciples were still very service-minded.

   After the little monks cleaned up the restaurant, they brought Jiang Xia and the others to the guest room, found a clean bedding, and even found two disposable toothbrushes and razors out of nowhere.

   Jiang Xia packed up early, pretended to fall asleep, and was ready to pick up ghosts.

  Amuro Toru seemed to be a little curious about what happened "two years ago", but he didn't ask too much - the detectives in this world seem to have the attribute of "never ask questions when someone sells them." Maybe it's some kind of intuitive professionalism born in order not to lose a job...

   Jiang Xia was not curious.

   After all, he is a "prophet" who knows a lot.

  Two years ago, the monk Zhongnian in this temple "hanged himself".

   But in fact, he was killed by the old abbot.

  The old abbot wanted his granddaughter to marry the heir of a large monastery, but the granddaughter fell in love with Zhongnian and even wanted to run away.

  The old abbot worried about this for a long time, but could not convince his granddaughter. Finally, he had an idea, and suddenly thought that as long as the loyalty is gone, of course, the granddaughter will not be able to elope any more.

   So the old host took advantage of the terrain in the temple, combined with the legends in the vicinity, and came up with a murder method.

  —In Shanni Temple, there is a narrow confinement room about 10 meters high. There is a window at the top of the confinement room near the waterfall, and the quality of the confinement room is particularly good, and there is no water seepage.

  Two years ago, after the old monk killed Zhongnian, he sealed the doors and windows below with tape, and then used wooden boards to introduce water into the confinement room, floated the corpse to the top, and hung the corpse from the beam at the top. After that, the old abbot returned to the outside, smashed the wall below, and the water flowed out instantly.

  In this way, since there is no sign of climbing on the top of the dusty beam, it looks like the corpse was carried by the fog tengu and flew up.

   Of course, the police couldn't use the "Fog Tiangou murder" to close the case, so in the end they had to treat it as suicide.

  Jiang Xia didn't think much about this case.

   I just think that the old monk can really toss. According to the average level of police handling cases here, maybe the abbot directly hangs people back then, and it can be regarded as suicide.

   However, none of this has anything to do with Jiang Xia. Right now, he only has that new ghost child in his heart...

  The rooms are large and all have tatami mats.

   Jiang Xia dragged the bedding towards the door and lay down.

   After the little monks almost all fell asleep and Amurotou stopped making a noise next to him, Jiang Xia let a few shikigami fly into the corridor from the crack of the door, ready to build a puppet.

   However, before the puppet was formed, Jiang Xia suddenly felt that something was approaching outside the door.

   Jiang Xia paused the puppet assembly, shifted his vision to Miyano Akemi, and let her go through the door to see the situation.

   saw the new ghost fetus running all the way, looking very anxious, as if looking for someone for help.

   Jiang Xia's eyes lit up.

  He took back his eyesight, went to the bathroom under the guise of going to the corridor, and communicated with the new ghost.

  The new ghost has something to ask for, and it can be seen that it is still panicked when facing Jiang Xia, but it does not keep avoiding him like before.

When    got closer, Jiang Xia discovered that the extra bulge on the back of the new ghost child was shaped like a pair of wings.

   Jiang Xia took the ghost to the empty bathroom and held it politely for two seconds, but in the end he couldn't hold it back, he stretched out his hand under the trembling gaze of the new ghost and pinched the tip of its wing.

   With a little force, Jiang Xia stretched his wings. The new ghost fluttered in panic.

  Jiang Xia let go of his hand, Xingui hid behind the hand sanitizer, put away his wings bitterly, and smoothed out the messed up feathers.

  Jiang Xia watched from the side, feeling very magical.

The shape of the    ghost fetus is actually the product of the Q version of the real person.

   But when the monk ghost died, it must have been a normal human figure, not dead with wings on its back—otherwise, the Misttengu killing incident two years ago would not have been so well-known.

   Many of the rules of this world are different from what Jiang Xia was familiar with before.

   He could only guess based on those messy principles, that the sudden mutation of this new ghost was related to the legend of Wutiangu killing people - that legend was widely popular in this area, and it may be these words that affected the form of the monk ghost.

   I don’t know if the wings are just a decoration or they can really fly…

   Thinking of this, Jiang Xia tentatively poked the ghost in front of him, and the monk ghost ducked to the side.

   But soon, it remembered that it still had something to ask the psychic in front of him, so it stood rigidly in place, letting Jiang Xia poking around.

   Because this ghost was too calm, Jiang Xia couldn't try it out.

   (end of this chapter)