Chapter 22

Lin Xinyi chased after Kudo and the others, crossing the street.

Miyano Shiho gazed thoughtfully at his back before finally stepping forward to follow.

Before long, they reached the alley beside the department store, following the direction from which the earlier commotion had come.

Ishikawa, Aoki, Kudo Shinichi, and Mouri Ran, who had arrived ahead of them, were already standing at the entrance of the alley.

A closer look inside revealed that the alley was narrow—and a dead end.

It was completely empty, save for a rusted iron fire escape attached to the exterior wall of the department store. The stairs led straight from the ground up to the fourth floor.

The fire escape looked dangerously old.

Its steps were covered in patches of rust, and the railings were so corroded that they seemed on the verge of crumbling. Even the iron door on the fourth floor, the only access point from the stairs, was entirely consumed by rust, likely sealed shut long ago.

Clearly, the fire escape had been out of use for years.

And this dead-end alley, with no other exits besides the rusted fire escape, was clearly not a place where pedestrians would wander in by chance.

Compared to the bustling main road outside, this silent, deserted alley felt like another world altogether.

And now, in this isolated pocket of the city—

The high school boy named Uchida, the one who had just been standing on the rooftop, lay motionless on the ground.

"Uchida!"

"Hey, Uchida!"

Ishikawa and Aoki called out in a panic.

Perhaps they had finally realized the consequences of their bullying. Their faces were tense, and they stood frozen, staring at Uchida's lifeless body in silence, uncertain of what to do.

At that moment, Lin Xinyi sprang into action.

Almost by instinct, he rushed to the fallen boy's side at full speed.

Without hesitation, he crouched down and carefully turned Uchida over.

The boy's face was exposed to everyone.

His cheeks were covered in abrasions and bruises, and his forehead bore a gruesome indentation from a skull fracture.

The youthful face that once held a smile was now nothing but torn flesh, twisted wounds, and eternal silence.

"His skull is completely deformed from the impact..."

Lin Xinyi's heart sank. He knew that an injury like this was unquestionably fatal.

Ignoring the fact that he wasn't wearing gloves, he reached out to check for breath under Uchida's nose, then lifted an eyelid to examine his pupils.

No breath. Pupils fully dilated. No light in his eyes.

He checked the wrist—no pulse. The muscles in the arm had already gone slack.

"Well?" Kudo Shinichi asked as he stepped closer.

"He's dead," Lin Xinyi said, his brows furrowed. His tone was complex.

He had seen many corpses before, but stumbling upon a death like this, outside of a professional setting, was entirely different. It was one thing to be summoned to a crime scene in advance—but to witness death firsthand in the course of everyday life carried a completely different weight.

A sigh welled up inside him.

By contrast, Kudo Shinichi was far calmer.

Watching someone die in front of him, he remained composed—even more so than the former forensic expert.

As if... he had long since grown accustomed to such sights.

And the moment he confirmed Uchida's death, he immediately shifted into his famed detective mode.

Kudo began observing. Thinking. Fully immersed, like an actor stepping onto a stage or a student sitting down for an exam.

"A suicide by jumping?" His voice was analytical. "This alley is a dead end. The fire escape is rusted beyond use. Normally, no one would come here."

"If that's the case, most of the objects on the ground must be related to the deceased's fall."

With that thought in mind, Kudo carefully examined the ground near the body.

First, he noticed a brown baseball cap.

It was the same cap Uchida had been wearing earlier. But now, it was lying next to the body—likely having fallen off during the descent.

Next, Kudo spotted several ordinary broken bricks.

And finally—

A rusted iron railing.

"Did this fall from the fire escape?"

Kudo lifted his head and looked toward the fire escape clinging to the department store's outer wall.

Sure enough, at the very top—by the fourth-floor door—a large section of railing was missing.

"So the fire escape was so deteriorated that part of the railing broke off..."

"Or perhaps..." Kudo's eyes narrowed. "The railing was dislodged by the victim during his fall?"

He frowned slightly.

A baseball cap. Some broken bricks. A rusted fire escape leading to the fourth floor. A missing section of railing.

All the clues at the scene were assembling in his mind.

"Could it be..."

"Is that what really happened?"

Kudo's eyes lit up—he had figured something out.

Then, he suddenly turned to the two silent delinquents. His gaze was sharp.

"Ishikawa, Aoki."

"That's your names, right?"

The two boys remained silent, standing stiffly to the side.

"The deceased, Uchida—he was the classmate you bullied, wasn't he?"

"When was the last time you saw him? Where exactly did you beat him up?"

Kudo's questions were direct and cutting.

"Uh..."

Ishikawa hesitated for a moment, his eyes flashing with hostility.

"Why—why are you asking us that?"

"Are you a cop or something? Why should we tell you?"

"And anyway..."

He swallowed hard, then straightened his neck and barked out, feigning bravado:

"So what if we hit Uchida?"

"We didn't hit him that hard, and we definitely didn't kill him!"

"He jumped off the building himself! You all saw it—everyone on the street saw it!"

"So his death has nothing to do with us!"

"At most, we just bullied him a little! The police will scold us, and that's it!"

Ishikawa's confidence grew as he spoke, as if his actions were nothing more than a trivial matter.

He even turned to Lin Xinyi, Kudo, and the others—Mouri Ran and Miyano Shiho, who had arrived shortly after—and spoke with an air of entitlement:

"By the way, you all better stick around."

"You're witnesses! You saw Uchida jump on his own!"

"His death has nothing to do with us! When the cops get here, you need to make that clear!"

A brief silence followed.

Lin Xinyi remained quiet, still focused on the body.

Kudo, however, let a knowing smirk play on his lips.

Miyano Shiho, on the other hand, wasn't interested in the case at all. Instead, she was watching Lin Xinyi, intrigued by his serious demeanor as he studied the body.

Finally, the silence was broken by Mouri Ran.

"You... you bastards!"

She clenched her fists so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

Her pent-up anger erupted.

"Uchida was bullied to the point of jumping to his death!"

"And you two—do you feel no guilt at all?!"

Aoki averted his gaze, unwilling to meet Ran's furious eyes.

But Ishikawa was the opposite. Instead of showing remorse, he sneered and barked back:

"What do you mean 'bullied to death'?"

"He just had a weak mentality and killed himself! How is that our fault?"

"If you've got a problem, go tell the cops!"

"See if they'll arrest us for this!"

"You—!"

Mouri Ran was rarely this angry.

She had seen Uchida's lifeless body. And now, Ishikawa's shameless defiance only fueled her rage.

The stark contrast between the deceased and his tormentor made her seethe.

"Calm down, Ran!"

At the crucial moment, Kudo Shinichi stopped her.

"But, Shinichi—!"

She couldn't just stand by while the bullies continued to act smug.

But Kudo's voice was firm. "It's the police's job to deal with criminals."

Ran slowly lowered her fists. She knew he was right—she couldn't resort to violence.

But she couldn't accept it either.

"The police never care about school bullying..."

"Bullying victims are always ignored..."

Her voice was laced with sorrow.

"No," Kudo whispered seriously.

"This time is different."

"You haven't noticed, have you?"

"Lin Xinyi has been studying the body this entire time—with the same look in his eyes as before."

Ran froze.

"You mean..."

"Yes."

Kudo's gaze sharpened.

"He's figured it out, too."

"Bullying gets ignored."

"But murder... that's another story."