Fifteen minutes later, a secluded café.

"So, let's start our conversation here," Hotaru asked, choosing a seat for four people in a remote corner, asking Shinichi Fujimura. "Please sit down first."

"Ah, okay." Shinichi Fujimura immediately chose a double bench on one side and sat in the center. But something unexpected happened to him - Hotaru did not sit across from him as she normally did in interviews, but sat down directly here, gently squeezing around Shinichi Fujimura.

"Ah......" Shinichi Fujimura was taken aback.

"What's wrong?" Hotaru turned her head and looked at Shinichi Fujimura with wide, watery eyes. "Shinichi-sensei, can we start consulting on related matters?"

"Ah...... Can be, just ...... I thought you'd sit ......" At this point, Shinichi Fujimura couldn't say any more. Because in a sense, he still enjoys being squeezed together with a beautiful girl in this way.

"Ah, isn't it easier to hear you by sitting close to you, and it also allows you to check what I'm recording?" Hotaru asked with a smile. "So it's not bad for me to sit here!"

"Oh......" Shinichi Fujimura's response was a little stiff. That...... So let's get started, shall we? ”

"So, Shinichi-sensei, may I ask you that you should have gone with five of you at the time, right?" Hotaru took out her notebook and a piece of memo paper, and placed the tip of her pen a short distance away.

"Yes...... Yes. Fujimura Shinichi's answer was rather stiff, as if he was still a little absent-minded from the friction of Hotaru's body that moved his right arm from time to time because of his writing.

"......" Hotaru, who was about to write something, suddenly stopped and looked at Shinichi Fujimura with a rather playful expression. Well...... Mr. Shinichi, is it my delusion? You feel a little nervous! ”

"Ah......h

But...... It does seem to be a little hot, otherwise why would I feel a little dry mouth?

"In that case, do you need to ask some light questions to help you get back to being interviewed?" Taking off his shirt, revealing the low-cut V-neck underneath, Hotaru pretended to be completely unaware of Shinichi Fujimura's greedy gaze, which was almost materialized, and just continued to ask. "What do you think, Mr. Shinichi?"

……

"Well, yes, there were five of us at the time." Fujimura Shinichi was already a little fluttery at this time, with an unknown smile on his face, and his speech completely lost the steadiness that a scholar should have. "But then again, haven't you already read the whole book, and do you have to ask these questions again?"

"Well, after all, I'm a reader, and Mr. Shinichi, you're the author, so it's obviously a better way for you to confirm it again. And you also understand that there is always a complete process to go through. Hotaru smiled sweetly as she stepped the tip of her pen over the first few lines, ready to begin writing about the case.

As for the lines that crossed? It's just a way to make Fujimura Shinichi completely relax and open up the conversation box to him.

Education, favorite food, love experience, three questions from simple to complex, from the regular to personal privacy, in this way gradually opened Fujimura Shinichi's reserved line of defense.

Shinichi Fujimura, 44, made his name when he found the corpses of members of the Franklin Expedition 130 years ago when he traveled to Canada with Henry Ito 20 years ago.

But if this layer of identity is excluded, he is just an ordinary middle-aged dick - or maybe many people with bright identities are just dicks when they don't need or are not disguising themselves?

Of course, there is a reason why Hotaru has such a terrible slanderous thought in her mind - of course, in a sense, this can be regarded as despicable that she took the initiative to seduce: when she saw that Shinichi Fujimura signed a message for every female student who was good-looking, she used "enthusiastic", and when she signed for girls and boys with average appearance, she used "firm" and "patient" as the subject before her name, and from time to time she secretly looked at something she shouldn't see. She knew that the other party was a person who could be further attacked by evil paths.

So from such a standpoint, her complaints are really a bit of a bitch to set up a torii.

"Henry Ito is 51 years old, Mr. Fujimura Shinichi is 24 years old, the expedition guide Kamada Yoshiko is 24 years old, Mr. Ito's assistant Mr. Moritomo Masao is 29 years old, and then there is Gregory Asker, an intern brought by Henry Ito, 21 years old. Gently pushing the notebook in front of Fujimura Shinichi, and gently touching Fujimura Shinichi with the side of his body by the way, Hotaru asked.

"Yes," Fujimura nodded. "There were only a few of us at the base at the time, and the helicopter pilot arrived on the last day, and he had been missing for a day at that time, so it obviously had nothing to do with him."

"Okay, then the next question is ......" Hotaru suddenly showed a somewhat embarrassed expression as she said this. This ......"

Shinichi Fujimura seemed to realize something, and looked at the memo form in Hotaru's hand.

The neat and hard handwriting, clearly from a man, asks the question: "Why did you ask the helicopter to leave without finding the missing Henry Ito?" 】

"Ah, yes, I ordered the search for Ito to be abandoned," said Shinichi Fujimura after a moment of silence. "But...... There was a storm coming, and if we didn't leave, we would all die here. ”

"Okay, so may I ask if there was a high platform or anything like that in your camp at that time?" Hotaru made a shorthand note in beautiful handwriting, and then asked the next question in the order of the memo. "At least ten meters or more."

"I don't think so, why are you asking this?" Shinichi Fujimura thought about it and shook his head.

"Because...... Our analysis showed that Mr. Ito had fallen from a very high place during his lifetime, but he was found in a very shallow crevasse in the ice, which seemed to be just over a meter deep – and it was in this way that they were able to spot Mr. Ito's feet as seen through the frozen surface. ”

"......" Shinichi Fujimura pondered for a moment, then motioned for Hotaru to admit the book of his memories. Give me the book, I remember it seems to say it. ”

"Huh?" Hotaru was taken aback. "Is there one?"

Although she can't talk about memorization, she is definitely well-read and memorized, and it is hard to imagine that if there is a record of this in the book, she will ignore it.

"Sketches, I have a page with sketches written on ......," Shinichi Fujimura flipped through the pages quickly. Oh, and this is it – you see, there's a lot of natural highlands on the island, and a lot of very deep and dangerous rifts. If you fall into it from there, fish it out again, and freeze to a shallower ...... No, if global warming causes glaciers to melt and then become shorter, causing deeper glaciers to melt into their current superficial appearance, it would have the same effect! That's why you didn't find an ice platform that could make Ito fall from a great height, because of that big deep ravine...... I mean, the ice crevices, most of them have melted away. ”