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墨書 Inktalez
Sagawa Akihide led Ito and his colleagues up to the second floor, followed cautiously by Kaiko. The sound of the four people climbing the stairs creaked like a piano playing a low tune. The second floor had three rooms, a study, and a guest room, with Sagawa Shinsuke's bedroom opposite the guest room.
After hesitating for a moment, Sagawa Akihide opened the door. Ito and his colleagues filed into the room, and as they entered, a strange smell hit them, and the room was pitch black, making it impossible to see anything. Ito turned back and gestured to turn on the light. "Click!" The light came on, flooding the room with white light, as if time had frozen for those few seconds. The entire room seemed to have turned silver-white all at once. Wasn't this the color of lightning? In an instant, the whole room was filled with a dark and desolate silver-white, and Ito was startled, feeling as if he had fallen into an abyss, devoid of any sensation. After a while, the glaring white light slowly faded, and his eyes adjusted to the surrounding light. Ito looked around again and realized that the strange smell was from the uncleared garbage on the floor.
"What's going on? Haven't any of you cleaned up?" Ito asked anxiously. Standing at the door, Akemi and Kaiko hesitated and did not respond.
There are various books and stationery items scattered on the messy desk, and facing the desk is a bed with a smelly and dirty blanket on top, along with a worn-out pillow and a couple of books with missing pages. It looks extremely untidy.
Ito approached the desk and casually flipped through the books on it. One of them was a book by the famous French philosopher and physician Georges Canguilhem, titled "The Normal and the Pathological" [1].
Holding the book, Ito sarcastically asked the couple at the door, "Is your son still reading these kinds of books?"
Sagawa Akihide kept silent with his head bowed, while Kaiko couldn't hold back and lifted her head to say, "My son used to study in France, he was a graduate student at Sorbonne University[2]. Is it strange to read books by some well-known alumni?"
"Oh? I only knew he was a so-called gourmet, I didn't expect the young master to be an elite returnee," Ito continued to tease, then put down the book and ignored Kaiko. He looked around. "When was the last time he came home? Can you still contact him?"
"The last... the last time seems to have been about a month ago," Sagawa Akihide pondered for a moment and said, looking at Kaiko, who also nodded. So he added with more certainty, "Yes! He came back about a month ago, and hasn't been back since. We usually don't enter his bedroom, from a young age... he, he doesn't like others entering his bedroom. Officer Ito, if there are no more questions, I think we should go downstairs."
Ito ignored Sagawa Akihide's request and continued to inquire about Shinsuke's whereabouts. Akihide helplessly replied, "He won't let us know where he is, and we really want to know where he is now." Nearby, Kaiko appeared even more worried and nervous, her frail body trembling, and Ito was even concerned that she might collapse and fall from the second floor.
"Alright, if you can contact him or have any clues, please let me know as soon as possible. Also, as an important person in the case, the police chief should immediately issue a nationwide notice." After going downstairs, Ito decided to stop here for today, so he walked out of the living room and said to Sagawa Akihide and Kaiko.
Akihide stood with a cane, silent and head down. Kaiko then shakily followed, opened the estate's gate, and intended to see Ito off.
Ito walked out of the gate, turned around, and handed a piece of paper to Kaiko with his phone number written on it. Kaiko reached out with his wrinkled hands and took it. With a strange and sinister expression, she looked at Ito and closed the door before Ito could react...
Over the next two days, Sagawa Akihide's estate actually became the focus of 24-hour police surveillance. Ito was convinced that Sagawa Shinsuke, along with Ueno To, had disappeared, and as an important suspect, he had no reason not to return home or contact his parents. However, the police's background check on Sagawa Shinsuke was still very limited. It was said that during his years of studying in France, he was involved in a murder case, but due to lack of evidence, he returned directly to his home country.
As a high-achieving graduate of Seikei University graduate school in his home country, he obtained a master's degree in English. He also conducted research in France on "A Comparative Study of Kawabata Yasunari and the Avant-Garde Art Movement in 20th Century Europe." With all these accolades, he transformed into a renowned scholar and a gourmet with experience studying in France. Ito looked at Sagawa Shinsuke's photo, a 1.5-meter small figure with a face full of disdain and extreme dissonance. It was hard for Ito to understand how such a person could be so popular and well-received in his own country, leaving him puzzled.
"Hey! Ito, look!" The colleague next to him interrupted Ito's thoughts, patted his shoulder, and pointed to the computer monitoring screen. These days, they arranged a monitoring point at the elementary school across the estate, intending to monitor the Sagawa family for any abnormalities. Sure enough, tonight at ten o'clock, there was an abnormal situation.
They saw the side of the estate, near the back mountain gate, slowly open, and a dark figure swayed before quietly slipping out. The figure was very small in stature, with physical features similar to Sagawa Shinsuke, which startled Ito. He said to his colleague, "You keep an eye on this, I'll go find him!"
At this moment, the entire city has slowly fallen asleep. Other than the gentle breeze and occasional barking of a dog, the deserted streets were silent. The ground absorbed the moonlight, and the dark night seemed to have endless thick ink smeared across the sky, without even a glimmer of starlight. The night fog rolled in, bringing a bit of coolness to the midsummer night. Under the hazy moonlight, only a few stars were visible. The sky was not purely black, but rather a deep blue seeping through the black, extending into the distance.
The figure walked towards the back of the mountain, with a somewhat hurried pace. After walking a short distance, he would stop and bend over to catch his breath. Before long, Ito caught up, keeping his distance in a dark corner so as not to alert the figure.
At this point, the figure seemed to sense that someone was following and quickened his pace, transitioning from a brisk walk to a slow run. As the night grew deeper, Ito's vision became less sharp, and his overweight body seemed unable to continue the pursuit. He decided to confront the figure directly, stepping out from the darkness and charging towards the figure. The figure clearly heard the commotion, turned around, and upon seeing Ito, was immediately frightened and collapsed to the ground.
"And Ito rushed up with a step, twisted his wrist and turned him over. Ito took a few deep breaths and quickly pulled down his hood.
"Is it you?!!" Ito exclaimed softly.
"Help. I, I need to report a case..." The remaining moonlight shone on Kaiko's face, making it even paler."
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