Chapter 1

The compartment door opened, and the dust cover rose without wind.

Reflected clearly in Xing Hechou's suddenly enlarged pupils was a scene—

Four bodies were neatly stacked like building blocks in the upper part of the compartment, from bottom to top: Fuku-no-kami Hirahara's wife, son, mother, and daughter.

All the corpses' eyes were open, their turbid, dull eyes with blood spots staring in unison toward the outside of the compartment, their faces cyanotic and swollen, their skin with seeping blood spots.

The unprovoked crying had stopped the moment the compartment door was opened.

However, Xing Hechou felt the chill intensifying all over his body.

He wanted to roar and shout to remind his teammates to abandon the mission, but his body was beyond any control, and his brain suddenly slowed down.

Before any thoughts could surface, they were overwhelmed by a desire for a muddled, drowsy sleep.

As his eyes slowly closed, Xing Hechou once again felt himself being wantonly dragged by a brute force, as if he were flying into the high sky.

The Japanese male voice called out in his ear again, "Fuku-no-kami! Can you hear me!"

The muddled, numb sensation quickly dissipated.

When he opened his eyes again, Xing Hechou was stunned to find himself sitting on a wooden chair, in a spacious environment. It was pitch black all around, and only in front of the wooden chair were two giant oval screens, partially overlapping.

"Yo~"

A slightly frivolous greeting came from behind him. Xing Hechou turned around and saw Li Ang also sitting on a wooden chair, lazily waving at him. Liu Wudai was sitting not far from him, with a vacant chair next to him.

Further back, he could see a massive mountain made of wooden chair fragments, its base faintly visible in the light shining from the screens.

Xing Hechou hesitated and asked, "Where is this? What about Feng Dao?"

"Look at the screen. This should be Fuku-no-kami Hirahara's mind."

Li Ang said calmly, "Xiao Dao-ge should be controlling Fuku-no-kami Hirahara's body now."

Xing Hechou turned to look at the screen. The scene on the screen was a green field at night, with lush, green hills in the distance. At the foot of the hills seemed to be residential houses, looking like a village.

Wan Li Feng Dao's voice echoed in the surrounding space, "Uh... what's going on?"

"Now it's your turn to be the Gundam."

Li Ang said to the screen, "Can you check your current state? See if you're still Fuku-no-kami Hirahara."

"Uh... okay."

Wan Li Feng Dao looked down and found that this body was much shorter, probably the body of a child eight or nine years old, wearing a shirt and shorts.

He was standing in the middle of the field, his shoes already stained with mud.

By the moonlight shining on the field's irrigation canals, Wan Li Feng Dao could see that his face at this moment seemed to resemble Fuku-no-kami Hirahara's.

"Is this what he looked like as a child?"

Wan Li Feng Dao hesitated, "Are we inside his memories?"

"It might be memories, or it might be that you're really controlling Fuku-no-kami Hirahara in the past."

Li Ang said, "Pick out a sharp stone from the irrigation canal and cut a small gash on the back of your wrist that will leave a lasting scar."

"Harm myself?"

Wan Li Feng Dao thought for a moment and immediately understood Li Ang's meaning.

Judging from the previous phenomena, the group seemed to be caught up in the abnormal death incident of the Fuku-no-kami family, and such transmissions might occur multiple times.

If they left a wound on the young Fuku-no-kami Hirahara now,

then next time they were transported to the future, they could check for the presence of the scar

to verify whether they were "watching memories,"

or "actually controlling Fuku-no-kami Hirahara in the past."

Wan Li Feng Dao didn't waste any words. He found a stone from the irrigation canal, washed it with clean water,

and used its sharp edge to cut a small gash about two centimeters long on the back of his wrist.

Then he tore a strip of cloth from his white shirt and wrapped it around the wound twice.

Wan Li Feng Dao checked the bandaged wound and asked, "Okay, what do we do next?"

"Hmm... judging from the growth of the rice in the fields, the time should be around mid-May to mid-June."

Li Ang slowly said, "If Fuku-no-kami Hirahara is nine years old now, then we're right in the blank period of the diary.

Does this abnormal incident want us to investigate and find the truth behind the Fuku-no-kami family's deaths..."

Liu Wudai said, "The four deceased—Fuku-no-kami Hirahara's son, daughter, wife, and mother—all had shallow ring-shaped indentations on their necks, as well as traces of fingernail scratches.

Their eyeballs were protruding, their faces were cyanotic and swollen, their skin had bleeding spots, and there were patchy bleeding spots in their pupils.

They should have died from strangulation, and it was homicide."

"Ring-shaped indentations?"

Wan Li Feng Dao carefully recalled the scene and indeed remembered it. He asked in confusion, "Why didn't they collectively hang themselves?"

"Because the marks are very specific."

Li Ang explained, "Both strangulation and hanging will leave a furrow on the neck.

Some mindless criminals will strangle the victim first and then disguise the scene to make it look like the victim hanged themselves,

but the marks left by the two methods of death are completely different.

The characteristic of a hanging furrow is that the mark is deeper in the middle of the neck and shallower on both sides, and the mark is oblique and will have a 'lifting' phenomenon.

The characteristic of a strangulation furrow, on the other hand, is that it is horizontal, uniform, encircling, and closed, and there is usually no lifting phenomenon.

Moreover, in strangulation, the tissues deep in the neck will show strangulation damage, and muscle bleeding and fractures will occur in the furrow area during struggling. These are difficult to occur during hanging.

In other words, it is extremely difficult for criminals to confuse the two methods of death."

Li Ang paused, thought about the scene, and continued, "In strangulation,

if the rope is soft, the furrow will be shallow and not obvious;

if the rope is thin and hard, the furrow will be deeper, forming a narrower, dark brown, leathery appearance;

The horizontal strangulation furrows of the Fuku-no-kami family of four encircled the neck, the marks were shallow and not obvious, without interruption, and were irregular strip-shaped pale marks.

They should have been strangled to death by a wide strip of cloth—a wide strip of cloth will wrinkle during the tightening process, thus producing irregular pale marks.

The strangulation here is likely a homicide, not a collective self-strangulation.

In self-strangulation cases, the deceased usually lies face up, ties the strangulation rope in front of or to the side of the neck, and finally pulls the rope with both hands, or uses metal rods, screwdrivers, or similar objects to extend into the strangulation.

But in that case, there would be traces of knots in front of the neck.

However, none of the four members of the Fuku-no-kami family had knot marks on their necks; instead, they had fingernail scratches. In other words, they didn't die from self-strangulation."

"..."

Wan Li Feng Dao was speechless. After several experiences, he was no longer surprised by Li Ang's skillful mastery of criminal investigation techniques—it wouldn't be surprising if this guy learned anything.

He thought carefully and asked again, "Then is it possible that they used heavy objects, such as bricks, to hang on the strangulation rope,

lying face up on a supporting object such as a bed or table, putting their heads outside the table and strangling themselves in the air?

That way, there would also be no knot marks, and there would be fingernail scratches."

Li Ang smiled, "In aerial self-strangulation, the marks on the back of the neck would be relatively shallow, because the weight of the falling object would mainly be concentrated on the front of the neck.

The marks on the necks of the four members of the Fuku-no-kami family are very even, with occasional interruptions.

In summary, these four deceased could only have been strangled to death, and they were strangled to death by others."

Xing Hechou frowned and asked, "Could the killer be Fuku-no-kami Hirahara?"

"Hard to say, but it's likely."

Li Ang spread his hands and said indifferently, "Did you notice the order in which the bodies were placed? The one at the bottom is Fuku-no-kami Hirahara's wife, Fuku-no-kami Rie, on top of her is their son, Fuku-no-kami Hiroki, then the mother, Fuku-no-kami Miyoko, and finally the daughter, Emon Kyoko.

Assuming a villain broke into the house while Fuku-no-kami Hirahara was away and quietly carried out the assassination, then the primary target should be Fuku-no-kami Hiroki, who as an adult male, would have a certain ability to resist,

and not the fifty-year-old Fuku-no-kami Rie.

But if Fuku-no-kami Hirahara did it himself, then the logic is very simple.

He first killed his wife in the bedroom, hid the body, went to his son's room and strangled him,

then went to his mother's bedroom and strangled the senile Fuku-no-kami Miyoko.

After stacking the bodies, he called his daughter and asked her to visit with her granddaughter, and finally strangled his daughter.

The specially made soundproof windows and closed doors were all to prevent the family members from screaming when struggling and attracting the attention of neighbors—in that case, then it would be a long-planned, self-destructive family tragedy.

Of course, these are just guesses.

There are still many doubts that have not been explained..."

Li Ang frowned, and suddenly his tone changed drastically. He shouted at Wan Li Feng Dao, "Run! There's something coming behind you!"