The yard is overgrown with weeds, roughly knee-high. He bends down, parts the grass, and searches back and forth for a while, but finds nothing, nor does he smell anything unusual.

The only evidence that could prove Nishino Fuyu once fired a crossbow arrow might be the window in the front yard, with a piece of glass broken at the bottom right corner.

Fushimi Roku follows the angle of the broken glass in his mind to reconstruct the incident. If Nishino Fuyu was lying on the windowsill firing the arrow into the yard, she would likely hit an adult's private parts—if she raised the crossbow, the window glass wouldn't just shatter a small piece.

In other words, from this angle, there's no way to hit an adult's head.

Could it be that Nishino Fuyu hit a child's head?

Fushimi Roku estimated the child's height and found it plausible. If it were a teenager standing about a meter outside the window, the crossbow would hit the head.

How grim.

Fushimi Roku felt this speculation was too much like Hell, so to confirm further, he traced the arrow's trajectory, parted the grass, walked to the wooden fence, crouched down for a closer inspection, and found a small hole on the board with dark red stains.

He reached out and rubbed it, confirming that the stains were blood.

It seemed Nishino Fuyu did hit someone or an animal, but the arrow and the corpse were nowhere to be found, indicating that someone had disposed of them.

Fushimi Roku surmised that the body wouldn't be moved very far. If it were him, he would probably bury it in the backyard as fertilizer for the plants.

He went around to the backyard, searching for signs of digging.

Perseverance pays off, and he unexpectedly found something—not a burial site, but a place where something had been burned.

In a corner of the backyard near the fence, there was a pile of black, tar-like substance, likely residuals left after burning plastic or something similar.

Fushimi Roku put on gloves, searched through it for a while, and found some small parts. He laid them on his palm, rubbed off the surface ash and the black substance, vaguely recognizing them as a copper metal shaft, a short metal strip, and a metal pulley.

What is this thing?

Fushimi Roku searched his mind, comparing daily objects to these parts one by one. Before he could make sense of it, he heard the sound of a car braking in the front yard. He raised his head in the grass and glanced outside the fence, just in time to see Miyazaki Shizuka getting out of the car.

He recalled the unpleasant hypnosis experience last time, lowered his head pretending not to see Miyazaki Shizuka, and continued examining the parts in hand.

Hmm, it looks really familiar...

Fushimi Roku pinched a piece of the part between his fingers, facing the sunlight, squinting and contemplating for a long while, finally remembering what item these parts belonged to.

The metal shaft should be the axis of a tape, and some professional reel tapes have metal guide posts and pulleys, which correspond to the metal strip and metal pulley.

These small parts are made of copper, having a higher burning point than plastic, hence they survived.

Fushimi Roku dumped the metal bits into a plastic bag, considering it evidence. If he wasn't mistaken, the zombie howls Nishino Fuyu heard were likely a recording.

Another possibility was that the 'guest' played a hypnosis tape, causing Nishino siblings to experience various hallucinations.

As he gathered these insights, Fushimi Roku patted himself clean, stood up, and planned to return to the basement to join Minamoto Tamako.

The back door was locked, likely locked by Nishino Fuyu upon returning home. Without tools, Fushimi Roku couldn't pick the lock, so he circled back to the front door. As he passed by the car outside the fence, he noticed the car windows were covered with anti-peeping film.

In 1990, Japan had just introduced the third-generation metal reflective film, which provides one-way viewing protection. Such films had been on the market for less than three years and were rare on cars.

Moreover, according to Japan's regulations, the front driver and passenger windows are prohibited from having any film, while rear windows can have any type of coating—this car clearly violated this rule, both front and passenger windows were covered with dark film.

Clearly, Miyazaki Shizuka didn't want to be seen. But Fushimi Roku was so impudent that if the car glass were transparent, he wouldn't look twice; but if it were covered, he had to check whether anything illicit was inside.

Certainly, he wouldn't go as far as breaking into someone's car just for a look inside. His curiosity would only lead him a step further, perhaps have a glance through the front window—but he wouldn't bother if it required two more steps.

This one more look revealed something monumental to Fushimi Roku.

Through the front car window, he saw a stretcher on the backseat. Given that Miyazaki Shizuka was a doctor, needing it for patient transport made sense... but why was there a burlap sack on the stretcher?

Fushimi Roku circled back to the rear side window, shielding the glare with his hands and pressed his face against the glass, seeing several hydraulic metal canisters on the backseat floor, with English labels on them, possibly containing ether-like chemical gases.

Is such a fuss necessary for dealing with a teenager girl?

Puzzled, Fushimi Roku recalled the conversation tapes between Fujiwara Homare and Yoshikawa Ritsuo, and the hypnosis tapes of Kazama Tatsuya, noticing that both were from the same professional brand. Considering Miyazaki Shizuka's abnormal skill level and her unshown vices... claiming it all to be coincidences seemed excessive.

Fushimi Roku always expects the worst from people. So he prepared himself for the worst scenario, gripped the fruit knife tightly, unbuttoned two shirt buttons at the collar, kicked off his leather shoes, and barefooted, silently approached the basement entrance.

The door to the basement remained pitch black.

He bent down, pressed his ear to the floor, hearing an extraordinary silence underneath, his heart sinking, and immediately flipped and jumped in, landing with agility like a cat on the stairs.

A pink flip phone was illuminating a corner of the basement.

Scanning the room with his eyes, Fushimi Roku found Minamoto Tamako still sitting by the bed, holding the phone, maintaining the position of her conversation with Nishino Fuyu; while Nishino Fuyu remained hidden under the covers, not budging at all.

He quickly turned his head, finally spotting Miyazaki Shizuka, standing in the basement corner on tiptoe, seemingly reaching for something on the shelf.

"Tamako?"

Fushimi Roku tried calling softly: "Captain?"

Minamoto Tamako turned around, seeing his nervous face, instinctively asked: "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Fushimi Roku sighed in relief, but remained vigilant, reaching out to pull Minamoto Tamako's arm, attempting to lead her out of the basement: "Come with me."

Minamoto Tamako felt puzzled and stood up, curious about what insight the rookie teammate had that might, by a stroke of genius, provide the captain a breakthrough to resolve the case...

Before she could move, another hand grabbed hers.

Both Minamoto Tamako and Fushimi Roku lowered their heads to see Nishino Fuyu's small hand extending from the covers, clutching her sleeve, whispering: "Don't go... I have something very important to tell you..."

"What is it?"

Minamoto Tamako paused, her curiosity naturally strong, and given that Nishino Fuyu was a key witness, all testimonies and statements were crucial—they couldn't be ignored as they are evidence pivotal to solving the case.

Nishino Fuyu gestured her to come closer, her eyes hidden beneath the blanket, reflecting the phone's flashlight.

Minamoto Tamako bent over, alongside Fushimi Roku, as they watched Nishino Fuyu lean towards Minamoto Tamako's ear, softly saying:

"That woman behind you..."

"...is that guest."

Startled, Fushimi Roku turned sharply, only to hear a crisp sound in the darkness, as the phone's light suddenly went out, engulfed by darkness once again.

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