Chapter 694

Uesugi Muneyuki sig: "Inspector Yamanaka, I'm not questioning your ability, but — can't you at least look at the murder weapon first?"

"Ah?!"

Uesugi pulled up ultra-high-definition microscopic photos of the victim's neck wound and placed them side by side with photos of Kuroki Nobuo's mountain-splitting knife.

"Kuroki's mountain-splitting knife has a blade length of 35 centimeters, thick blade and spine, typical of a chopping tool, with a slight arc on the edge. Meanwhile, the wound on Nishino Miki's neck has an extremely straight cross-section, almost no curvature, and the deepest point is only about 2.8 centimeters."

He pointed the laser pointer at details in the photo: "What does this mean? It means the weapon's blade is extremely thin, extremely straight, and has a very small blade angle, similar to the edge of a heavy chopping knife, large paper cutter, or specially made bone-cutting knife — absolutely not something that could be produced by Kuroki's heavy, curved mountain-splitting knife. Using his knife, even with great strength, would produce a wider, more irregular wound, with more crushing and compression marks on the bone cross-section. This is a fundamental difference in blade mechanics and morphology, impossible to disguise."

"Are you saying the mountain-splitting knife is the weapon!" Uesugi Muneyuki said impatiently: "Can't you bring some science instead of mysticism?"

Inspector Yamanaka and the others fell silent, also somewhat speechless.

"We here, the most mystical person is you!"

"Second, Kuroki Nobuo was unemployed before, and recently did odd jobs mostly related to construction and moving. His clothes,

tools should have large amounts of metal cutting oil, concrete gray, specific types of paint or glue, etc." Uesugi Muneyuki displayed the preliminary test report from items seized at Kuroki's home: "Indeed, these substances were detected, however — "

He switched to the trace substance analysis extracted from the victim's clothing and wound depth: "Nishino Miki has none of these!"

"One has it, one doesn't — can't that explain the problem?"

Many police remained silent.

"And, whatever he says goes?" Uesugi Muneyuki roared even more: "I even said I teamed up with the shampoo guy to promote British Shorthair cats and started World War II! Do you believe that? I even said I'm the Nine-Thousand-Year-Old of Seattle, processing five hundred corpses' organs daily, having seen a major American warlord with fifty thousand private soldiers! Do you believe that?"

"There's a classic joke: during the Cold War, to test the intelligence capabilities of major nations, God released a rabbit into a forest, and the Military Intelligence Section Six, CIA, and KGB were tasked with finding it."

"The Military Intelligence Section Six sent an agent who spent three months questioning every tree, observing every bush thicket, investigating every river, and finally concluded: there's fundamentally no rabbit in the forest."

"The CIA spent a week bombarding the entire forest with artillery, carpet-bombing it with bombers, then sent Marines to shoot every moving thing they saw, and concluded: yes, we've already solved the rabbit."

"The KGB only took ten minutes to crack the case — they captured a brown bear, put a gun to its head, and made it repeat 'I am a rabbit, I am just a rabbit.' When God indicated you're not a rabbit, the bear knelt, clasped its palms, and begged: 'Don't say that, my lord, I still have family and friends!'"

"You're police, not the KGB, let alone the Special Higher Police!" Uesugi Muneyuki shouted: "A perpetrator who views their actions as great achievements, and displays obvious purification totems and similar demonstrative motives, should have a behavioral pattern aimed at maximizing the spread of their 'ideology' and results."

"They would more likely choose a more symbolic, more public, or more easily discovered location to dump the body, possibly even leaving clearer, more provocative declarations." Whereas stuffing the body into the dirty toilet pipe of a remote rest stop is more like an act of concealment, defilement, and disappearance in filth, carrying strong connotations of discarding trash and humiliation, which internally contradicts the motive of erecting totems and warning the world. Kuroki's rhetoric is demonstrative, while the scene treatment is concealment-humiliation type."

"Motive and behavioral pattern do not match!"

"And, you guys aren't even looking at the surveillance footage? The surveillance timing still doesn't match — according to his statement and the footage, he'd have to park, search for and control the victim, commit sexual assault, complete decapitation, handle the weapon and himself, drag the body possibly several thousand meters from the initial crime scene to the toilet, complete a difficult insertion, clean or handle obvious traces, then drive off — all within 15 minutes!"

"Even I, a professional, couldn't do it! Do you think he could?" Uesugi Muneyuki fumed.

"I TMD thought I was already mystical enough, but this bunch of prefectural police are even less reasonable and logical than me, and there's scientific evidence too!"

"This is TMD outrageous!"

"As a necromancer, I have to teach these people science!"

"It's almost as beautiful as when Western missionaries came to the Ming-Qing coast to preach and found they had to teach the locals basic science first!"

A series of arguments, point by point, layer upon layer, from the weapon's physical characteristics, trace evidence exchange, behavioral psychology, physiological traits to temporal logic, constructed a solid, evidence-based scientific barrier, firmly blocking Kuroki Nobuo outside the door of "the real killer."

In the observation room, it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

The earlier doubtful, excited, or "so what" gazes now solidified.

Replaced by a shock and bewilderment after being overwhelmed by professional force.

Inspector Yamanaka gaped, the anger on his face long replaced by cold sweat.

He realized he had once again been blinded by a rush for success, nearly causing a miscarriage of justice.

Other detectives also showed faces of shame.

Are all police like this when solving cases?

Indeed — so lofty!

Uesugi Muneyuki put down the laser pointer, swept his gaze over everyone: "Kuroki Nobuo is suspected of online threats, possession of dangerous items, or possibly other issues, which can be handled separately under the law. But he is not the killer of Nishino Miki. Continuing to waste time on him will only let the real killer escape completely."

"Yes — " Inspector Yamanaka could only wave his hand to signal the police to take this person away.

"No, it was me who did it! I, am the embodiment of power!" Kuroki still roared angrily: "I personally beheaded her! Who let her leech off Mayu Watanabe's popularity! Since she loves leeching so much, I'll give her the popularity she deserves!"

"Go to hell, Akimoto Yasushi! You ruined Mayu Watanabe, you ruined everyone!"

Kuroki was taken away, but the scene's atmosphere did not improve.

Two seemingly "perfect" suspects were successively eliminated by Uesugi Muneyuki with near-cold scientific logic, making the atmosphere in the command vehicle oppressive to the extreme.

In the afternoon, the winter dusk of Yamagata Prefecture fell early, the light dimming at a speed visible to the naked eye, as if the hope of solving the case was being sucked away along with it.

Inspector Yamanaka braced both hands on the table covered in maps and photos, his knuckles whitening.

The sense of defeat and immense time pressure left him nearly unable to breathe.

Other detectives either silently smoked or stared blankly at reports with no progress. They followed Uesugi's profile to search nearby abandoned factories, warehouses, bridge holes, investigated many people, yet still came up empty.

In this near-desperate silence, Uesugi Muneyuki, who had been standing before the whiteboard staring at the clue map, slowly turned around.

Ihaveaplan!

Aprettyplan!

His gaze swept over every tired and confused face in the room, finally landing on the detailed regional map of Yonezawa City on the wall.

"We've always been looking for suspects." Uesugi Muneyuki spoke, voice not loud, yet like an ice pick piercing the stagnant air: "Following the criminal profile, we search within possible social networks, activity trajectories, and motive chains. This is not wrong, it's standard procedure."

He walked to the map, picked up the red marker pen.

"But could it be that from the very beginning, we've fallen into a cognitive blind spot based on social structure and habitual thinking?" His pen tip did not land on any residential area, commercial zone, or key industrial inspection zone, but fell on several places on the map marked in green — the city's edge woodlands, river buffer zones, and blank interfaces of large infrastructure.

"There are some people." Uesugi's pen tip traced those blanks: "Not belonging to any clear community, population registers almost never show permanent residency records, regular community visits and resident information screenings cannot cover them — they are the gaps in the human habitation network", the shadowed areas where city light doesn't reach". Usually, only one type of person can stably exist in these gaps."

He paused, then uttered the word that had long been ignored, or rather, subconsciously excluded from the category of "major vicious case suspects": "Vagrant!"

The room fell silent. This concept struck all the police's mental models.

Vagrant???

"This, this is impossible!" Inspector Yamanaka was shocked beyond words, he urgently said: "We've already investigated, Uesugi Chief! We've completely investigated! There are only seven vagrants possibly active and capable of committing crimes nearby, four of whom are mentally abnormal and unable to commit such crimes, the remaining three have no motive or opportunity, we've investigated them!"

"

"Uesugi Forensic Pathologist, I understand your profile points to manual laborers, but a vagrant — how could he so calmly complete sexual assault, decapitation, and body disposal? How would he obtain a sharp weapon? How would he have the strength to drag and insert? More importantly, how could he happen to encounter Nishino Miki and successfully control her? This — this sounds even more unbelievable than the previous two suspects." Forensic Pathologist Mikawa also said.

"No, the Rockman I speak of is not the Rockman in your mouths; the Rockman you speak of is the Rockman who sets up Cardboard Boxes under the Bridge piers, the Rockman who has no money and can only spend the night in Internet Cafes and Parks, the Rockman who collects junk and has an abnormal Spirit."

"What I speak of is the 'Rockman' who lives entirely on urban Waste and hidden corners, with almost severed Emergency police contact with mainstream society!"

"Because upon careful thought, only Rockmen who survive long-term on the fringes of civilized society have the Capability and willingness to commit such a Strange crime!"

Uesugi's voice, Stone Breaking Heaven Shock!