It has been nearly a month since Mori Kogoro received the commission from Nobuyuki Kawano, and the old things are still covered with fine gray grains when they are turned over. It may be that he naturally has a respect for Yingli's teacher, or it may be that the old man's attitude when he commissioned him was too sincere, in short, he choked people on one thing, and he seemed to have a nameless fire burning in his heart, and he didn't know where to burn.

Kazuhiko Esaka and Aiyuki Esaka are also famous, both of them are from scholarly families, they fell in love at first sight on campus, and they quickly got married after graduation, and then they both emerged in the legal world, and it was also passed down as a good story in that year.

At least there are still photos of them hanging on the alumni bulletin board of the University of Tokyo, and the figures of the two can still be pieced together from the mouths of those deceased:

It is said that they are kind-hearted and have extremely positive views;

They are said to be humorous and gentle and polite;

It is said that they are deeply in love with their young son, Tetsuya Esaka;

They are said to have died in a fire sixteen years ago and then became the heroes of black and white.

The 6-chome town of Okuhocho was once considered an upper-class neighborhood by the older generation — quaint townhouses, suit-clad elites — but those buildings have weathered out over the decades and then been left behind in Tokyo's growing real estate wave.

Tetsuya Esaka's family lived here before that fire.

Kogoro Mori recreates the fire from his neighbors: what was originally just a spark caused by aging electrical appliances ignited the curtains and carpets, and then turned into a raging flame that engulfed the entire block.

The fire broke out in the middle of the night, and by the time people woke up, the fire was already uncontrollable. The fire truck was inexplicably delayed by the police, and after the Esaka couple carried Tetsuya and his friends who were staying at their house out of the fire, they turned back with a wet blanket and a bottle of mineral water without looking back.

Frankly speaking, the Esaka couple were lucky, they broke into the fire three times, and rescued four more people before and after.

But it also turns out that good luck does not favor those who provoke death three times and twice - when they turn back for the fourth time, a slight beep sounded on the second floor, and then the ruptured gas pipe caused a second explosion, and an entire small building collapsed into ashes in front of Esaka's eyes with the explosion.

The fire engine belatedly with a hoarse siren, and the couple never came out of the building.

Nobuyuki Kawano was still far away at the time, and the police had to send Tetsuya Esaka to a welfare home after contacting his relatives several times to no avail. The director of the welfare home was less than a month away from retirement when he received contact from Mori Kogoro, and he had several furrows of age deeply embedded in his forehead, and the skin on his face was loose and yellow, but there were laugh lines on the corners of his lips and eyes.

"Tetsuya Esaka, you say?" The dean obviously still had some impression of the child, "He was a mature and well-behaved child, usually very quiet, just sitting on the sofa in the room and reading a book—but the people in the courtyard always helped when they needed it, and he coaxed many older children to do so." ”

"He's so sensible, not like a six-year-old child," the dean said of Tetsuya Esaka with some relief and sighing, "You know, children at this age should make mistakes, they should be more authentic and more self-conscious—if a child follows the rules and never makes mistakes at a very young age, then it must be an adult's mistake." ”

When the old man is caught up in memories, he always chatters, and there is a kind of trivial gentleness around him. The more stories I recall, the more senseless emotion I have, Maori Kogoro sat opposite the dean with a notebook, like a hairy boy who was pulled by an old man to chat, and he didn't sit or walk for a while, so he took over the conversation with his head.

"And then."

"Later, a policeman surnamed Yamazaki came, saying that he wanted to adopt Tetsuya Esaka," the old man's eyebrows curled, and his tone was soothing, "I don't know what they said, but the two of them seem to have an argument." ”

The two of them stood there in silence as if the deep sea met ice, neither melting nor condensing. As the dean walked through the door, the conversation between the two was nearing its end.

"You knew there was a fire there, but you stopped the fire truck. ”

"I'm sorry, but I have to stop the bigger sacrifice."

"So you gave up on us," the child, who had always been well-behaved in front of people, stood on the ground expressionlessly, and his words seemed to be mixed with ice slag, "Since you have the courage to weigh the living people in your hands, you must have the consciousness to carry both sides of life at the same time." ”

"I know I can't make up for it, but I can take you away and send you to a better education - I have no children, and if I die one day, then I can leave everything I have to you."

"Is this compensation?"

"No, I know that there is no greater sin in the world than to take away the parents of a happy child." The young police officer squatted down and looked at Tetsuya Esaka, "I don't say this to apologize, nor to make myself feel at ease, I have the consciousness to bear all sacrifices from the moment I make my decision - but child, you are still alive and deserve a better future." ”

"You could have kept me ignorant of this, and I would have always felt that it was their untimely mercy that took their lives."

"You have the right to know the truth, and sooner or later you will know all this."

Jiang Hanzhe was only silent for a long time before ending the topic between the two.

"I hate choices, and I hate your honesty - Mr. Gong'an, I hope you get out of here now." 】

Mori Kogoro didn't know what was going on between Tetsuya Esaka and the policeman, he only knew that judging from the dean's eloquent and even playful explanation, he probably listened to the corner for a short time.

However, these past cases have nothing to do with the current case, and Mori Kogoro's pen tip paused in his notebook, and then he raised his head and excitedly called out to his former boss.

This time, the victim, Seiichi Shimono, was the last survivor rescued by Mr. and Mrs. Esaka from the fire, and he died on October 25, the day of the fire in Rok-chome, Okuho-cho, sixteen years ago.

In addition, Yuzu Tsuji, Riko Hidaka, who appeared at the unveiling ceremony of the Minakami Group, and Hiroichi Tachibana, who appeared near Okuho on the day of the incident, were three of the four people who were rescued.

"The white petals found at the scene are a tribute...... This should not be a coincidence. Kenji Hagiwara groaned and took over the conversation.

In the Minakami Group incident, they ruled out the suspicion of the two because Yuzu Tsuji had an alibi, and Riko Hidaka had no chance to abandon the murder weapon. In the case of Seichi Shimono, they deduced that it was a serial homicide based on the drug ratio of the injections, ignoring Koichi Tachibana, who had never appeared at the scene of the Minakami Group.

"I remember that Hiroichi Tachibana was a medical graduate student - we had never been able to find the source of the poisons and syringes before, but if it was him, we should have access to these. So it's very likely that this is a gang crime - Tachibana Koichi provides poison and injections, Hidaka Riko kills the president of Mizumi and hands the syringe to Yuzu Tsuji to take out of the scene, and finally Tachibana Koichi uses the blind spot of serial murder to kill Shimono Seiichi. ”

Kenji Hagiwara flipped through the documents on the table, and his peach eyes were full of confident smiles.

"If you want to confirm it, you can start an investigation with Hirokazu Tachibana to see if he has been exposed to cyanide purchases in the near future - what is your expression?"

Toru Asada, who has been fishing since the beginning of the investigation, rolled his eyes at his own contemporary.

"Just you talk a lot."