“It’s you… Sarukichi!” Wang Tanzhi pointed at the witness and shouted with certainty.

“Huh?” Sarukichi was stunned.

“Wh…what?” Kumakichi was also stunned. “It’s actually you… Sarukichi-kun!”

“Geez… your reaction, as if you’ve forgotten you’re the culprit, is pretty sharp…” Feng Bujue thought. Only at times like these did he feel that Kumakichi’s nonsensical behavior pattern had some use.

“What did I do, ji?” Sarukichi, who was clearly innocent, became nervous because of the inexplicable accusation. His expression really made him look like he had done something wrong.

“Hmph…” Xiao Tan snorted and played coy. “Actually… the truth is already before our eyes…”

“Oh, I’d really like to hear it,” Tumi said, looking at Xiao Tan with anticipation.

Inuzuke said expressionlessly, “Please explain in detail, student Hayabusa Taro.”

Two seconds later, Wang Tanzhi pointed with his wing. “Look…”

Everyone followed his wing and saw a skylight above the warehouse wall.

“Penguin-suke’s head and the blood-stained knife… appearing directly below that skylight at the same time is the best evidence,” Xiao Tan continued.

“Oh… I see!” At that moment, Feng Bujue suddenly said as if he had realized something.

Jue-ge was also amazing… When he heard this, he had already guessed what nonsense Xiao Tan was about to spout.

“The course of events… is like this…” Then, Xiao Tan began his narration. “This afternoon, Sarukichi made up some reason… to call Penguin-suke to the alley between the sports equipment warehouse and the school’s outer wall. When Penguin-suke was completely unprepared, Sarukichi suddenly pulled out a knife. Although Penguin-suke screamed before his death, he couldn’t escape… and was ultimately beheaded by Sarukichi.”

“Hey… wait a minute… it was Kumakichi who had blood on his hands!” Sarukichi interrupted excitedly. “My hands are…”

“Don’t interrupt!” Xiao Tan authoritatively stopped him. “I was just about to get to that…” He paused and continued, “After killing someone, you know that someone will definitely hear the scream and come over, so you had to immediately discard the murder weapon.

So… you turned and ran towards the back of the sports equipment warehouse. However… you didn’t expect that Kumakichi-kun was nearby at the time. He heard Penguin-suke’s scream and immediately came from the front of the warehouse, appearing at the other end of the alley.”

“Oh~ oh~” Feng Bujue listened, praising in his heart, “This is such an immersive fabrication that even I’m about to be convinced!”

“There were obvious flaws in your previous testimony…” Xiao Tan’s narration continued. “You said you ‘saw a dark shadow, holding a knife in his left hand and a dark object in his right, running out of this end of the alley,’ and then you ‘immediately chased after him’… Hmph…” He snorted. “Don’t you think it’s strange? A normal person who sees such a bloody murder scene would basically be so frightened that they’d be at a loss, but you… without any weapons in hand, you hesitated to chase after the knife-wielding murderer? Is that reasonable?”

“Hmm… now that you mention it,” Tumi said, stroking her chin, “That makes sense!”

“I… I I… jijiiji…” Sarukichi scratched his ears and cheeks, sweating profusely, but he didn’t know how to explain.

“The real situation should be…” Xiao Tan took advantage of the situation and said, “Kumakichi, who arrived at the scene, saw Penguin-suke lying in a pool of blood. Surprised, he instinctively went forward to check, and then accidentally got blood on his hands and the soles of his shoes. Seconds later, he glanced and suddenly realized… at the other end of the alley, there was a shadow holding a sharp knife and a head…” He stared at Sarukichi. “…that’s you, Sarukichi.”

“Is… is that how it was…” Even Kumakichi himself seemed to believe it, replying woodenly from the side.

“Everyone knows Kumakichi’s personality. Although he’s a pervert, he’s not very brave, and he’s a weakling,” Xiao Tan continued. “When he saw the murderer was still nearby, he naturally turned and ran.” He paused for half a second, his eyes flickering slightly. “And you… Sarukichi, you knew that in that situation, the success rate of catching up with Kumakichi and silencing him wouldn’t be high. Therefore, you simply ignored him and went back out of the alley from the other end…” Speaking of which, he raised his wing again, pointing to the window in the distance. “Outside that window is the back of the warehouse. You threw Penguin-suke’s head and the murder weapon in through that window… Then, you washed your hands in the sink near the back of the warehouse, washing off the bloodstains.”

Hearing this, even Officer Inuzuke nodded. “Oh… so that’s what you meant by ‘evidence’…”

Xiao Tan nodded to the officer, then looked at Sarukichi again and continued, “After doing all this, you crossed the alley, appeared at the other end of the sports warehouse, and joined the crowd who came after hearing the noise, pretending to be the first witness to arrive at the scene.” He snorted. “Hmph… you were indeed very cautious, deliberately avoiding the bloodstains around the corpse when crossing the alley. But don’t you think… ‘crossing such a narrow alley without stepping on a single drop of blood’ itself… is an anomaly? I ask… faced with such a bloody murder scene, who other than the murderer would be so calm and meticulous?”

“That’s right!” At this time, Feng Bujue suddenly took over Xiao Tan’s words in a loud voice, looking at Sarukichi and saying, “And the real ‘first witness,’ Kumakichi, after being scared away by you… was already running away in a panic. As soon as he ran out of the alley, he turned into the sports equipment warehouse.” He raised his cat paw, pointing to Kumakichi. “He came in through the front door, running straight in, but… just as he ran to the wall, he saw a bloody Penguin head and a knife falling from the window in the distance. Seeing this scene, he must have been startled again, and then he turned around and ran out again, meeting us outside.”

Jue-ge was indeed a good teammate. His timely assist explained away the bloody footprints on the warehouse floor and made up for the last flaw in Xiao Tan’s theory.

“Well…” Officer Inuzuke released Kumakichi and walked up to Sarukichi. “Do you have anything else to say?”

“Jiji… I… this…” Sarukichi was sweating profusely and sat down on the ground, unable to say a complete sentence because he was being wronged.

“Amazing, Hayabusa Taro,” Tumi said, looking at Xiao Tan. “I lost this reasoning duel… I didn’t expect you to find the real culprit so neatly.”

“Heh… hehe…” Xiao Tan wiped the sweat from his temples. “You… you flatter me.”

Five minutes later, Officer Inuzuke escorted Sarukichi into the police car…

Kumakichi, Tumi, Jue-ge, and Xiao Tan watched the police car slowly drive away, each with a meaningful expression.

“Jue-ge… I was wrong…” Wang Tanzhi turned his head and whispered to Feng Bujue. “This is definitely [beep—] harder than normal reasoning…”

The well-mannered him inadvertently blurted out a swear word.

“You’re half dead, right…” Feng Bujue replied.

“More than half dead… I’m about to burst a blood vessel,” Xiao Tan replied. “The next case… no, all the cases after that will be handled by you…” He said with a solemn expression, “If this happens a few more times, even if my IQ can withstand it, my moral bottom line will collapse…”

“Isn’t it just screwing over a monkey,” Feng Bujue said nonchalantly. “He’ll just be sent to the clinic at most, what else can happen…”

“Yeah… it’s exactly this kind of attitude,” Xiao Tan continued, “This spirit of ‘it’s not that the bottom line is very low, but that one doesn’t know what the bottom line is, nonchalantly making jokes about the tragedies they create, and not hesitating to use other people’s urns to pickle salted vegetables when necessary’… is something I can only aspire to but never achieve.”

Hearing this, Feng Bujue was silent for two seconds, then said, “Have you seen cartoons about cats and birds?”

“Uh…” Xiao Tan thought for a moment. “‘Tweety and Sylvester’?”

“If I were the screenwriter, it would be ‘Maosaburo’s Falcon Cooking Class’,” Feng Bujue said.

“I understand…” Xiao Tan swallowed and said nothing more.

At the same time, the scene also changed…