Chapter 16 Section 16

Kusanagi thought he had to say something after all, so he said, "Hi...that, I'm sorry to bother you." As soon as he finished speaking, he regretted his rash words just now, "Would you like to see the situation? ?” "No, I'm here to get a change of clothes... May I ask who is this?" Ayane asked. "My name is Yu Chuan, and I teach physics at Imperial University." Tang Chuan introduced himself. "University teacher?" "He is my friend, and sometimes I ask him to help with some scientific investigations. This time I also ask him to help."

"Ah...that's right." After hearing Kusanagi's explanation, Ayane showed a puzzled expression, but she didn't continue to ask about Yukawa, she just asked her if she could move things in the house. "Okay, please use it as you like. I'm really sorry for delaying you for so long." Ayane replied "Nothing", turned around and walked quickly to the corridor.After taking two steps, she stopped and turned to Kusanagi and the others again and asked, "Maybe I shouldn't ask about this kind of thing, but I want to know what you two are investigating now?"

"Ah. Well," Kusanagi licked his lips, "Because the route of poisoning has not yet been found out, so we are investigating this point. I am really sorry for bothering you so much." "It's okay. I'm not complaining to you. Don't take it to heart. I'm upstairs. If you need anything, just call me." "Ok, thank you." As soon as Kusanagi lowered his head to pay tribute to Ayane, he heard Yu Chuan beside him saying, "May I ask you a question?" "What's the matter?" Ayane said with a little surprise. "I see that the water pipes in your house are equipped with water purifiers. It is estimated that the filters need to be replaced regularly. When was the last time you replaced them?"

"Ah, this—" Ayane approached the two of them again, glanced at the pool, and said with an unhappy face, "It's never been changed yet." "Hey? Haven't you changed it once?" Tang Chuan looked surprised. "I'm also thinking that it's time to ask someone to change it. The filter installed now was replaced not long after I first came to the house. It's been almost a year. I remember that the people in the company told me that it took about a year. It has to be replaced." "It was changed a year ago...is it?" "Is there any problem?"

Tang Chuan repeatedly waved his hands and said: "No, no, just asking casually. In this case, I think you should take this opportunity to replace it. There are data showing that the old filter is harmful to health." "Okay, but before I change it, I want to clean the underside of the sink. It's dirty inside, right?" "It doesn't matter which family you live in. The bottom of the pool in our laboratory has become a nest of cockroaches. Ah, sorry, I confused your home with our laboratory. Having said that," Yukawa glanced at Kusanagi, and then said, "If you can tell us the contact information of the company, just ask Kusanagi to arrange it immediately. It's best to get these things done as soon as possible."

Kusanagi was taken aback, and turned to stare at Yukawa, but the physicist didn't seem to intend to pay attention to his friend's gaze, but looked at Ayane and asked, "What do you think?" "You mean now?" "Well, to be honest, maybe that thing will help in the search, so the sooner the better." "In that case, let's do this." Yu Chuan smiled slightly, looked at Kusanagi and said, "Did you hear that?" Kusanagi glared at Yukawa, but his previous experience told him that the scholar in front of him didn't just say this on a whim.He must have his agenda, and he was sure it would help in the search.

Kusanagi turned to Ayane and said, "Then please tell me the company's contact information." "Okay, please wait a moment." Ayane walked out of the room.After watching him go out, Kusanagi stared at Yu Chuan again and said, "Don't always say such strange things without saying hello, can you?" "No way, I don't have time to explain to you in advance. Don't complain, you still have things to do." "What's up?" "You go and call the forensic department. You don't want the water purification company to destroy the evidence, do you? It's better to let the forensic department remove the old filter."

"You mean to ask the forensics department to take the filter back?" "And the hose." Yu Chuan, who spoke in a low voice, flashed the calm and profound eyes that scientists should have.Just when Kusanagi was shocked by his gaze and didn't know what to say, Ayane came back. After about an hour, the forensic staff removed the filter and hose of the water purifier.Kusanagi and Yukawa stood by and watched him take it.The filters and hoses were covered with dust, and the forensic staff carefully packed them into acrylic boxes. "Then I'll take these things back." The forensics department said to Kusanagi.

Kusanagi responded, "I'm sorry." The people from the company had also arrived, and Kusanagi sat back on the sofa after seeing him start to install new filters and hoses.Ayane sat sullenly, and the bag beside her said it contained the change of clothes she took out from the bedroom.It seems that she is not planning to move back to this house for a while. "I'm really sorry for making things so exaggerated." Kusanagi apologized to her. "No, it's fine, it's good to change the filter." "About the cost, I will discuss it with the leader."

"That's not necessary, after all, it's something my family needs to use." Ayane smiled, but immediately regained her seriousness, and asked, "Excuse me, is there any problem with that filter?" "I don't know, because it's also possible, so I'll take it back and investigate." "If there is really a problem with this, how did the murderer poison it?" "Well..." Kusanagi stammered, looking at Yu Chuan for help, and Yu Chuan was standing at the door of the kitchen, watching the company's people change the filter. Kusanagi called him.

The figure in the black short-sleeved shirt moved, and Tang Chuan turned to Ayane and asked, "Did your husband really only drink bottled water when he was alive?" Kusanagi looked at Ayane and complained in his heart that Yukawa shouldn't ask this question suddenly. Ayane nodded: "It's true, so the bottled water in the refrigerator has never run out." "I heard that he told you to use bottled water to make coffee?" "yes." "But it's said that you didn't actually do it, ma'am, did you? That's what I heard." Yukawa's words surprised Kusanagi.These search secrets must have been told by Kaoru Utsumi to Yu Chuan, and her slightly arrogant face appeared in his mind. "It's not cost-effective, isn't it?" She smiled slightly. "I don't think tap water is as harmful to health as he said, and it will boil faster with warm water. I think he may not have noticed it at all." .” "On this point, I also feel the same. Whether I use tap water or mineral water, I don't think there is much difference in the taste of the brewed coffee." Kusanagi glanced teasingly at Yukawa, who was speaking seriously. He was mocking Yukawa who only drank instant coffee not long ago.But I don't know whether Tang Chuan didn't notice his gaze at all, or ignored it on purpose, but he continued without changing his face: "What's the name of the lady who made coffee on Sunday? I remember it seems to be you assistant..." "It's Miss Hiromi Wakayama." Kusanagi added. "Yes, it's Miss Ruoshan. She also imitated you and made coffee with tap water, but nothing happened at that time. So the police suspected that the murderer might have poisoned the bottled water, but in fact there is another kind of water, so It is the water from the water purifier, maybe your husband used the water from the water purifier when making coffee for some reason, such as saving bottled water, etc. If this is the case, we need to be suspicious. " "I can understand this, but can someone really poison the water purifier?" "I don't think it's completely impossible. Well, but this question has to be answered by the forensics department." "If that's the case, when did the murderer poison it?" Ayane looked at Kusanagi with sincere eyes and said, "As I said many times before, we had a family meeting on the Friday night before that." Party, the water purifier was not abnormal at that time." "It seems so." Tang Chuan said, "That is to say, poisoning can only be done after that. In addition, if the murderer's purpose is only to kill your husband, then it should be considered that your husband is alone I did it while I was at home." "That is, after I leave the house? If the murderer wasn't me?" "Exactly." Tang Chuan replied bluntly. "It's still not sure that the poison must have been put in the water purifier, so I don't think there is any need to consider these issues now." Kusanagi intervened, then said "excuse me", stood up and winked at Yuchuan, out of the living room. He waited in the entrance hall, and Tang Chuan followed. "What exactly do you want?" Kusanagi asked with a sharp tone. "How about what?" "Stop pretending, if you say that, doesn't it mean that you are suspicious of his wife? Even if it was Nei Hai who asked you for help at that time, you shouldn't be able to stand up for that guy, right?" Tang Chuan frowned in amazement and said, "You are called a fool. When did I stand up for Mr. Neihai? I was just helping her analyze it theoretically. You should calm down first, his wife is much calmer than you gone." Kusanagi bit his lip, and just as he was about to refute, the door creaked open, and the man who changed the filter came out from the living room, and Ayane followed behind him. "It says the filter has been changed," she said. "Ah, thank you for your hard work." Kusanagi said to the company employee, "As for the cost..." "I've paid for it, so you don't have to worry about it." After listening to Ayane's words, Kusanagi whispered "Is that so". Seeing the company employees leave, Tang Chuan also started to put on his shoes. "I'm leaving too, what do you do?" "I still have something to ask Mrs. Zhenchai for advice. I'll leave later." "Is that so? - I'm sorry to bother you." Yu Chuan turned his head to pay tribute to Ayane. After Yu Chuan went out, Ayane said "hard work" to his back.After watching Tang Chuan go back, Kusanagi sighed heavily: "I'm sorry to make you feel unhappy. He is actually not pregnant, but he doesn't know much about profit and numbers. He is always embarrassing, and he is also a weird person." Ayane said with a look of surprise: "Oh, why are you apologizing? I don't feel any unpleasantness." "That's good." "He said he was a teacher at Imperial University, right? The scholar I imagined should be a quieter and calmer person, but it doesn't feel like that at all, right?" "There are all kinds of scholars, and his number is special among them." "What that person said..." "Ah, I forgot to tell you that he and I are college classmates, but our majors are completely different." Kusanagi and Ayane walked to the living room together, and told Ayane that she and Yukawa were in the badminton club during school, and that he helped solve many cases later, and that the two have kept in touch to this day. "That's the way it is. It's great that you can still get together with friends from your youth through work." "A bad relationship." "Why do you say that? Isn't that enviable?" "When you go back to your mother's house, don't you also have old friends who you can meet to go to the hot spring?" Ayane said "Yes", and nodded in agreement: "I heard from my mother, Mr. Kusanagi, you went to my mother's house before, didn't you?" "Ah, well, it's just the police's routine. Everything needs to be verified. It doesn't have any deep meaning." Seeing Kusanagi hastily uttered a cover-up, Ayane smiled at him and said, "I know, after all, it is very important whether I have really returned to my mother's house at that time, and it is also necessary to confirm. Please don't mind what I said just now." "With your words, I feel relieved." "My mother told me that it was a very kind criminal policeman who went there, and I answered her, that's right, so I'm also very relieved." "Where." Kusanagi said while touching the base of his ear, he felt his neck was a little hot. "Did you go to see Mrs. Motoka at that time?" Ayane asked.Motoka Sakako is the friend who went to the hot spring with her. "It was Mrs. Motoka that Utsumi went to find. I heard from her that Mrs. Motoka was a little worried about you before she learned about the incident, and said that she felt that you were not as energetic as before you got married." Ayane seemed to have thought of something, a lonely smile appeared on her face, and she exhaled: "She really said that? I think I have acted very well at that time, but I didn't expect that I still couldn't hide it from my old friend's eyes." "Didn't it occur to you to speak to Mrs. Motooka about your husband's divorce?" She shook her head and said, "I never thought about it. At that time, I was only thinking about changing my mood... and I also felt that this matter was nothing to discuss with others, because the two had already made an appointment before getting married. Divorce as soon as the child is born. Of course, I never told my parents about this." "We also heard from Mr. Inokai that your husband wanted a child very much before he was alive, and marriage was just a means for him to have a child, but I think it's incredible. There will be such a man." "Because I want to have a baby myself, and I think it won't be long before I get pregnant, so I don't pay much attention to this promise. But I didn't think about it for almost a year and I still haven't conceived... God is really enough Cruel." Ayane looked at the ground, then immediately raised her head and said, "Mr. Kusanagi, do you have any children?" Kusanagi smiled faintly, looked back at Ayane and said, "I'm still single." "Ah." She opened her mouth halfway, "I'm really sorry." "It's okay. Although people around me are also urging me, I can't find the right one. That Yu Chuan just now is also single." "He does feel like that, he doesn't look like a family man at all." "That guy is just the opposite of your husband. He hates children very much. If his actions go against the theory, he will increase his psychological burden, and he will say inexplicable things all day long." "What an interesting man." "I will tell him what you have said. Apart from that, I want to ask you something about your husband." "What's up?" "Among the people your husband knew during his lifetime, was there anyone who was a painter by trade?" "Painting... do you mean a painter?" "Yes. It doesn't matter if it's not recent. Has your husband mentioned to you before that he knew such a person?" Ayane tilted her head in thought for a while, then looked at Kusanagi as if she remembered something and said, "Is this person related to the case?" "No, that's not clear at the moment. I told you the other day, too, that I've been investigating the circumstances of your husband's previous relationship. It has now been found out that he seems to have had a previous relationship with a female painter. .” "Is that so? Sorry, I don't have that impression. When did it happen?" "I'm not sure about the preparation time yet, it probably happened two or three years ago." Ayane nodded, turned her head slightly and said, "Sorry, I don't think I've heard my husband mention this." "Really? Then there's nothing I can do." Kusanagi looked at his watch, stood up and said, "I'm really sorry to bother you for so long. I'm taking my leave." "I'm also going back to the hotel." Ayane stood up holding her bag as she said. The two walked out of Mashiba's house, and Ayane locked the door. "Let me help you with your luggage. Let's go to the place where we can stop the car." Kusanagi stretched out his right hand and said. Ayane thanked her and handed the bag to Kusanagi, then she looked back at her home and muttered to herself, "I don't know if I can move back to this house again in my life." Kusanagi didn't know what to say to her, so he left silently side by side with her.