Chapter 412: Tomb of Mermaid
After the doctor's rescue, Sumi Ebihara suddenly vomited water and then started coughing violently.
After spitting out the water, she opened her hazy eyes and saw the crowd surrounding her.
"Where...is this place?" Sumi Ebihara asked in a hoarse voice, her eyes blurry and out of focus.
She struggled to get up, her twisted hand subconsciously supporting herself on the ground, and before the doctor could stop her, she screamed loudly in pain.
“Oh, it hurts! It hurts so much! Mermaid, it’s a mermaid!”
Sumi Ebihara seemed to be frightened by something horrible. She screamed in fear at the doctor, her eyes rolled back, and she fainted with a snap.
The doctor was stunned for a moment, but his good professionalism made him calm down immediately. He lowered his head to check the situation and finally breathed a sigh of relief: "It's okay, he just fainted from the shock. But he needs to be sent to the hospital immediately, otherwise this arm will be useless."
He turned to the villagers and asked, "Where is the hospital on the island?"
A villager stood up and said: "There is only one small hospital on the island. It's okay to treat colds and fevers, but I'm afraid there is no way to treat injuries like this..."
The doctor frowned immediately: "In this case, we have to send him to Honshu Island immediately..."
"No," another villager said, "The waves here are very rough at night, and we can't sail. We have to wait until tomorrow morning."
The doctor was at a loss and said, "Please help me send him to the hospital on the island. I will do emergency treatment first and then send him to the hospital on Honshu Island after daybreak."
The villagers found some thick branches, made a simple stretcher, and carried Sumi Ebihara to the hospital.
Shimabukuro Kimie stood in the crowd, watching from beginning to end without saying a word, and didn't notice that there was a person behind her at some point.
"Ms. Junhui, you seem to be very calm about the death of your friend?" Youya stood beside her and said in a voice that others could hardly hear.
Shimabukuro Kimie's heart skipped a beat and her pupils dilated slightly, but her excellent acting skills allowed her to calm down immediately. She pretended to be sad and said, "I'm sad too, but I don't know any medical skills and can't help. I don't have much strength either. If I go in hastily, I'll only hinder you."
Youya was silent for a moment, with good reasons and couldn't find anything good to refute.
So he looked towards the river and said quietly, "I wonder if Miss Shoumei fell into the water accidentally or was pushed into the water by someone?"
Shimabukuro Kimie's expression changed slightly.
Yuya said to himself: "My friends and I heard screams coming from the mountain just now. When we came up to check, we didn't see anyone there. We didn't expect Miss Sumi to be hung by a rope in front of the waterfall, but..."
Shimabukuro Kimie subconsciously asked, "But what?"
Yuya narrowed his eyes, looked at Shimabukuro Kimie's profile and said slowly: "We found traces of heavy objects being dragged on the shore. There were also some fish scales falling in the traces, just like..."
"A mermaid appeared there once - and pushed Miss Sumi into the river."
Shimabukuro Kimie's body trembled uncontrollably, and her pupils suddenly shrank into a small dot.
Hattori Heiji stroked his chin, looked at the rope on the ground and muttered in confusion: "Why did she come to the top of the waterfall? The Dugong Arrow Awarding Ceremony is at the bottom, right?"
Conan touched his chin with the same gesture: "There are two possibilities. One is that he came here to find something, and the other is that he was invited up there by someone."
Hattori Heiji continued, "Then she accidentally fell into the water, or... was she pushed into the water by someone?"
Yuya came over and interrupted, "It's hard to tell right now. Judging from the way the rope was entangled, it seems more like Ms. Sumi grabbed the safety rope after falling into the water, but because the current was too turbulent, it got tangled up in the water."
Hattori Heiji and Conan nodded in agreement.
Hattori Heiji said: "Indeed, one thing is certain now, this rope should not have been tied by the possible criminal. If the other party wanted to kill someone with a rope, there is no need to tie the arms together, just strangle the neck directly."
Conan agreed, "Indeed, this river is not too deep. It shouldn't be a big problem for the islanders living near the sea to drown."
Yuya summed it up: "In short, whether someone harmed her or she fell into the water accidentally, it will be clear after she wakes up."
Conan was silent for a moment, then lowered his voice and said, "What do you think of that thing? Is there any connection between the two?"
Hattori Heiji and Yuya looked at each other and fell silent.
It’s not that they don’t want to express their opinions, but the drag marks and fish scales they saw before all pointed in one direction - mermaids had appeared here before.
But mermaids...are a little too absurd.
The three of them turned around to look at the traces they had discovered before, but unfortunately, because of the incident involving Sumi Ebihara, the area had been trampled into a mess by the crowd, and nothing could be distinguished any more.
The three detectives temporarily stopped reasoning, and Kuroe Naoko finally found an opportunity to express her opinion: "I think she might be here to find the mermaid's tomb."
Shimabukuro Kimie's face suddenly turned ugly.
The four girls also looked at Kuroe Naoko curiously. Aren't mermaids fake? How come there is a mermaid's tomb?
The three detectives were thinking about the relationship between traces and mermaids when they suddenly heard the words "Tomb of Mermaids". They immediately looked at Naoko Kuroe at the same time.
Naoko Kuroe was startled, took a step back and asked fearfully, "What, what happened?"
Youye said, "It's okay, can you continue?"
Naoko Kuroe patted her chest and continued, "During the Mermaid Festival three years ago, the shrine's warehouse caught fire and the mermaid's bones were reburied on this mountain."
Naoko Kuroe explained the story of the Mermaid's Tomb to a few outsiders with a pious look on her face.
She didn't know that the person they burned to death in the warehouse three years ago was actually a human.
The body found at that time was crushed from the waist down by a pillar. When the pillar was removed, it was found that there were no bones where the feet should have been.
"Hey, hey, hey," Hattori Heiji's expression changed slightly, "How is this possible? What did the police say?"
Shimabukuro Kimie said: "The police said that it was the body of a middle-aged woman. They suspected that a tourist stole the dugong arrows when no one was in the warehouse, but the candle caused the fire."
"But after a year, no one came to claim the remains, so they had to be buried at the shrine."
“But then something went wrong…”
Hattori Heiji asked in confusion: "What happened?"
Shimabukuro Kimie sighed and said, "Some tourists dug up the mermaid's tomb and wanted to steal the bones inside..."
Everyone showed expressions of pity and anger. Digging up human graves, how unscrupulous must one be to do such a thing?
Naoko Kuroe sneered, "They believe that mermaid bones, like mermaid meat, are also an elixir of immortality."
Shimabukuro Kimie sighed, the sadness on her face not seeming fake: "That's why my great-grandmother had the grave moved to this mountain last year."
Hattori Heiji frowned: "Who is the person who moved the grave?"
Shimabukuro Kimie shook her head: "I don't know, my great-grandmother only said that it was a trustworthy person, but I don't even know who it was or where the grave is."
After Shimabukuro Kimie finished speaking, she kept silent. Everyone was thinking about their own things and the scene suddenly became quiet.
Yuya glanced at the time and said, "Anyway, whether Miss Sumi fell into the water accidentally or someone deliberately murdered her, everything will be clear when she wakes up. It's getting late, I think we should go back and rest first?"