"What?" Matsumoto Kiyocho asked. "You mean Tanabata two years ago?"

"Yes," Chiba nodded. "On July 7, 1992, a fire broke out at Hotel Vega in Kyoto, in which a woman named Nanako Honjo, who lived in Mitaka City, died."

"Tanabata, Kyoto?" Matsumoto Kiyoshi muttered. "That's pretty much in line with ...... Is this the reason why the murderer killed him? ”

"I don't know," Chiba replied. "That's why I'm asking you if you know her home address, and I'd like to visit her relatives or friends and investigate her personal life."

"If it had been a deceased person two years ago, it might have been a bit difficult for me to find the address here. (The main documents of the family register in Japan are kept at the city hall, town office, or village office; The annex is kept in the headquarters or branch of the Legal Affairs Bureau and the local Legal Affairs Bureau under the Ministry of Justice (they are in charge of the family register) After all, I don't have any information about the case in the Kyoto area, but I can get the case file from a police officer I know well in Kyoto, and maybe I can find more documents or people who are still alive to learn more. Matsumoto Kiyoshi said. If there's any news, I'll get in touch with you right away, and you may need to go there when the time comes—you're a kid after all, and if you just ask a few questions, you won't get the killer's attention as long as you don't run headlong into the murderer's house. ”

"Okay." Chiba replied. The voice on the other end of the phone immediately changed to a busy tone.

…………

About five minutes later, Matsumoto Kiyonaga had already contacted the police at the Kyoto Prefectural Police Headquarters and asked him to retrieve the fire case file that occurred during Tanabata two years earlier, and sure enough, a deceased person named Nanako Motogami was found, and the file did contain more detailed information about Nanako Motogami - including home addresses and relatives related information.

"Don't tell anyone about it, you know?" After writing down the news, "Matsumoto Kiyocho" admonished the policeman, who had a deep friendship with the real Matsumoto Kiyocho. "Don't mention it to anyone, just because I haven't looked into these issues with you."

"Understood," the cop responded. "I'll keep it a secret."

"Okay, I'll invite you to dinner when the case is settled." Matsumoto Kiyoshi said a few perfunctory words before hanging up.

The policeman was about to put the file back in the filing cabinet when he heard the phone hang up, but he felt pressure on his right shoulder, as if someone had put something on his shoulder. When he turned his head, he saw a squirrel holding a pine cone, standing on his shoulder and looking at him.

"What are you doing?" A cold male voice asked.

Behind him, Fumiro Ayakoji, who was the police department of the Criminal Division's Search Division 1 and happened to be the officer's immediate boss, looked at him and said.

…………

Mitaka City, the doorway of an apartment.

"......" Qian Yu looked at the door of the room with a heart-shaped sign hanging in front of him, and looked at the name on the sign.

Nanako Motogami; Kosuke Mizutani. And between the two names is a heart shape.

Sure enough, as the information provided by the management officer Matsumoto said, Nanako Honkami's boyfriend is called Kosuke Mizutani, and Nanako Honjo lived here before her death.

However, Nanako Hongami has passed away two years ago, why is her name still written on this sign? If Qianyu and Gray Yuan Ai wrote their names on the door number in the future, if Gray Yuan Ai suffered something else, he would definitely take down this sign - if he didn't remove it, every time he saw this sign, he would inevitably see things and think about people, and carve scars on his heart again and again, and the carved scars would only get deeper and deeper each time.

With such doubts, Qian Yu knocked on the door with a slight hesitation.

Half a minute later, no one responded, so Qianyu knocked again.

This time, someone finally opened the door, but it wasn't Kosuke Mizutani who opened the door, and even the door that opened wasn't the one that Chiba was knocking on.

"Oh?" The door next to it was opened, and a somewhat fat young man poked his head out and looked at Qian Yu with some curiosity. "Are you here to find Mizutani? He shouldn't be at home. ”

"I'm indeed here to find Mr. Mizutani," Chiba bowed slightly to the young man. "Do you know where Mr. Mizutani is?"

"Mizutani?" The young man frowned slightly. "Is there anything you're looking for him?"

"Does Brother Mizutani come back every day?" Qian Yu asked.

If he had to come back here every day, it would be unlikely that Kosuke Mizutani was the murderer - according to the information that Kiyocho Matsumoto had received, Kosuke Mizutani had not been able to get a driver's license, which meant that he had no way to drive a vehicle and could only maneuver in other ways. Several of the seven bodies that had been found were so far away that it was unlikely that he would have visited them if he had returned home every day. What's more, most of the bodies were found in the early morning, which is impossible for a person who returns home every day to do that.

"Mizutani hasn't been back here for a month," the young man said. "Or rather, he's only been back once in the year."

"Can you tell me more about that?" Qian Yu asked. "I was sent here by the Metropolitan Police Department's Matsumoto management officer to visit the nearby residents to see if anyone knows enough about Kosuke Mizutani and Nanako Motojo."

With that, Chiba pulled out a certificate - a certificate issued for him by the town office under the order of Matsumoto Kiyocho, proving that he had indeed visited the Metropolitan Police Department at the request of the Metropolitan Police Department to investigate the relevant information.

"Metropolitan Police Department?" The young man glanced at the core content of the certificate and his eyes widened. "Little one, come in and talk slowly, I can barely understand the relevant things."

With that, the young man introduced Chiba into the house, then went to the kitchen and fetched a bottle of unopened orange juice for Chiba, and poured another glass for Chiba. "My name is Jun Sawamura, and I am a graduate student at the Faculty of Law of Shangnan University, please advise."

"......" Chiba looked at the juice in front of him, and then observed the window in this room that could be used for escape - no way, until everything settles, it is still unknown who the murderer is, and Sawamura Jun, a neighbor who lives next door to the presumed murderer and has some knowledge of Kosuke Mizutani and Nanako Motogami, does not rule out potential suspicions - if he takes advantage of the fact that Kosuke Mizutani lost his girlfriend because of these seven people, it is entirely possible to commit the crime in his name.

Eventually, though, Chiba let down her guard against the juice - because Sawamura Jun poured himself a glass and drank it all.

"Did you say that Brother Mizutani only came back once this year?" After taking a sip of orange juice, Qian Yu asked.

"yes," Sawamura nodded. "Last year, he went out on a trip around Tanabata, and I thought he had come out of the shadows and found a new lover. He never came back after that—but because he had paid enough rent in advance, the landlord didn't clean up his belongings. ”

"He must have come back until a month ago, because when I woke up that morning, I found that they had an extra heart-shaped sign on their door - the same sign you saw that said Kosuke Mizutani, Nanako Hongami and a heart symbol - that sign was taken off after Miss Honjo's accident, but it was hung up again from that day on, so I guess he must have come back secretly once and put the sign back up."