"What missing? Nagashima Ruko just ran away from home," Teacher Kitamura frowned, a look of annoyance crossing his face. "The police have already confirmed this, so stop worrying about nothing."
"Oh? Did the police find her?" Hayashi Shuichi asked curiously.
"No, but apparently, the police found a letter she wrote to her mother at home, stating she was running away," Teacher Kitamura waved his hand dismissively, urging them to leave. "Hurry up and go. This is not a place for outside students to linger."
Hayashi Shuichi gave a slight nod, leading Orisaka Midori and the Yellow-Haired Girl out of the classroom.
Meizuki curled her lips, a hint of smugness on her face: "Some people were just so sure that Nagashima Ruko was in trouble, yet they were proven wrong so quickly. I was right all along; she just ran away from home!"
Hayashi Shuichi pondered for a moment, seemingly deep in thought. After a while, he asked: "Does your school have an incinerator? How often do you usually burn trash?"
Orisaka Midori tilted her head slightly, a flicker of confusion in her eyes, but she still replied: "Yes, we do. It's near the back gate of the school. They burn trash about once a week. Oh, today should be the day for burning trash, actually."
"Take me over there to see," Hayashi Shuichi said.
"Hey, what are we going there for?" The Yellow-Haired Girl crossed her arms and stomped her foot impatiently. "You're not still trying to investigate, are you? The teacher already said the police confirmed Nagashima Ruko ran away."
Hayashi Shuichi glanced at her with an expressionless face: "If the police were really that competent, Japan wouldn't have so many people vanish every year."
"But, Senior," Orisaka Midori asked, confused. "Why are we going to the incinerator?"
Hayashi Shuichi explained: "After someone cleaned out Nagashima Ruko's belongings, to avoid drawing attention, the person might not have carried them out of the school. Instead, they likely destroyed them on the spot."
Orisaka Midori's eyes lit up: "Senior, are you suggesting they dumped the items near the incinerator?"
"It's just a possibility," Hayashi Shuichi nodded.
Led by Orisaka Midori, the three arrived at the back gate of Sakuragaoka Middle School.
The incinerator placed there was blazing fiercely, flames licking the furnace walls, and a pungent odor permeated the air.
Several students were holding their noses, frowning, and painstakingly shoving trash into the furnace.
Orisaka Midori quickly asked them to stop and inquired if they had seen any books or belongings of a third-year student.
"With this much trash, how are we supposed to know if there's anything you're talking about in there?" The duty student rolled his eyes irritably. "What exactly do you want? We're waiting to finish processing the trash so we can go home!"
"I'll help you burn all this trash," Orisaka Midori promised.
"Are you serious?" Hearing this, the three students immediately looked surprised and delighted. Without further argument, they happily turned and left.
The Yellow-Haired Girl looked at the mountain of trash, frowning with a look of agony: "Boss, do we really have to dig through trash?"
Seeing Hayashi Shuichi already rolling up his sleeves and starting to search through the garbage, Orisaka Midori hesitated, then nodded, and prepared to step forward to help.
Though the Yellow-Haired Girl was clearly unwilling, seeing Orisaka Midori limping, she stopped her with a grab. Muttering: "Fine, fine. You have an injured foot, so I'll do it."
Then, she wrinkled her nose and held it shut, reluctantly walking over to join Hayashi Shuichi in the work.
The two rummaged through the foul-smelling garbage, and soon they had searched every bit of trash outside the incinerator, but found nothing related to Nagashima Ruko.
Hayashi Shuichi's gaze couldn't help but fall on the burning incinerator.
"Hey, even if something was inside, it would have been burned to ashes already," the Yellow-Haired Girl said impatiently.
Hayashi Shuichi ignored her, picked up the iron hook nearby, and used force to pull out the unfinished garbage from the lower part of the incinerator.
Just then, a piece of broken bone suddenly dropped out of the furnace opening, immediately causing both girls' faces to turn deathly pale, and they simultaneously let out a gasp of surprise.
"Th-that big a bone, it's not human, is it?" The Yellow-Haired Girl asked, trembling, her body instinctively shrinking back slightly.
"Did someone kill Nagashima Ruko and throw her into the incinerator?" Orisaka Midori's imagination ran wild, her eyes filled with terror. "Was she cremated a long time ago?"
"What are you thinking?" Hayashi Shuichi unceremoniously tapped the bone with the iron hook. "This is clearly a pig bone. It even has knife marks from when the meat was cut off. It must be something your school cafeteria threw away after making soup."
Most of the trash in the incinerator had been burned, and the rest were scorched black, making it impossible to distinguish anything.
Though no useful clues were found, according to the agreement with the duty students, Hayashi Shuichi and the Yellow-Haired Girl had no choice but to frown, suppress their nausea, and proceed to throw the remaining trash into the incinerator, watching them slowly be consumed by the flames.
The Yellow-Haired Girl couldn't help but complain: "What kind of detective has to dig through trash? It made me waste so much time for nothing..."
Saying this, she was about to bend down to pick up the pig bone that had fallen out earlier. However, just then, a small yellowish-brown dog suddenly darted out from the nearby bushes, barking "Woof woof," quickly snatched the pig bone on the ground, and ran towards the back gate.
The Yellow-Haired Girl was either startled or perhaps took the opportunity to run away from burning trash. Cursing loudly, she chased after the little dog: "Where did that stupid dog come from? You scared me to death!"
"That looks like a stray dog, Meizuki! Don't chase it!" Worried that the Yellow-Haired Girl would be bitten, Orisaka Midori quickly limped after her.
Hayashi Shuichi originally intended to ignore it, but seeing Orisaka Midori struggling and looking anxious, he could only shake his head helplessly, picked her up in his arms, and chased after the Yellow-Haired Girl.
The two chased out the school's back gate. After only a few steps, they saw the Yellow-Haired Girl standing ahead, holding a wooden stick, yelling obscenities at an iron gate.
Hayashi Shuichi walked over while carrying Orisaka Midori, and saw that the gate in front of the Yellow-Haired Girl led to a construction site.
It was already closing time. The gate was tightly shut, secured with a large iron lock. Next to the gate were piled some heavy construction materials, and the faint sound of dog barking could be heard from inside the site.
"You damned smelly dog, don't think you're safe just because you ran in there!" The Yellow-Haired Girl finished speaking, then stepped onto the piled construction materials nearby, using her hands and feet to climb directly over the fence and into the construction site.
"Meizuki!" Orisaka Midori failed to stop her and could only look up at Hayashi Shuichi, her eyes full of pleading. "Senior..."
"Alright, I'll go get her." Hayashi Shuichi set the girl down by the gate, then carefully followed the Yellow-Haired Girl's route, stepping on the construction materials near the entrance and climbing in.
This construction site seemed to be building a small apartment. The environment inside was a bit messy, the ground covered in mud and gravel.
The foundation of the apartment had been excavated, and concrete pouring was underway.
When Hayashi Shuichi walked in, he saw the Yellow-Haired Girl waving the wooden stick, loudly scolding the little dog that had taken the bone earlier.
The dog ignored her, however, and kept fiercely barking at a concrete pillar in front of it, its tail wagging incessantly, and its ears perked high.
"Damn it, I chased you all the way here, and you dare to ignore me!" The Yellow-Haired Girl exclaimed, raising the wooden stick in her hand, ready to strike the small dog.
The Manic Pixie Dream Girl sure loves throwing fits at the drop of a hat...
A wave of speechlessness washed over Hayashi Shuichi. He quickly rushed forward and snatched the wooden stick away: "This dog may be small, but if you truly provoke it and it bites you a couple of times, you'll see how nasty it is!"
"Tch, I've learned Kendo from Boss Orisaka," the Yellow-Haired Girl crossed her arms and snorted disdainfully. "Never mind one stray dog, even ten, and I could beat them."
"Midori taught you Kendo, not the Dog-Beating Staff Technique." Hayashi Shuichi tossed the stick aside and was about to pull the Yellow-Haired Girl away when he suddenly felt something was off.
The yellowish-brown dog paid no attention to the two of them, still barking at the concrete pillar, its ears still held high.
Hayashi Shuichi felt a sense of perplexity and walked over to the concrete pillar to inspect it. His sight suddenly froze when he saw a certain spot near the base of the pillar.
There was a small protrusion there, which looked very much like the heel of a shoe.
"What are you looking at?" The Yellow-Haired Girl curiously leaned closer.
"Lend me your skirt for a moment." Hayashi Shuichi said, then squatted down, pinching the girl's extraordinarily long skirt hem, and forcefully wiped the protruding area at the base of the concrete pillar.
"You bastard, this is my skirt, not a rag..." Fearing he would use too much force and rip her skirt off, the Yellow-Haired Girl could only hold onto her skirt tightly while angrily cursing him.
Hayashi Shuichi ignored her. After wiping hard for a while, a flash of red was revealed on the formerly protruding spot. He touched it with his hand—it felt like leather. A look of solemnity immediately appeared on his face.
The Yellow-Haired Girl saw him stop, and while she tenderly patted her skirt hem, she angrily said: "What on earth is wrong with you?"
"We might have found Nagashima Ruko." Hayashi Shuichi said in a low voice.
"What did you say? Found Nagashima Ruko?" The Yellow-Haired Girl looked around. At this time of day at the construction site, aside from the two of them, where was anyone else? "Where is she?"
"She's inside here." Hayashi Shuichi patted the concrete pillar in front of him.
"You—what did you say?" The Yellow-Haired Girl's mouth twitched, and she unconsciously took two steps back. "You're not mistaken, are you? How could Nagashima Ruko be inside a concrete pillar?"
"I saw her once before," Hayashi Shuichi recalled. "She went to the female psychic in the underground passage for a reading, and she was wearing a pair of red leather shoes on her feet."
"Wouldn't that be too arbitrary based on just that?" The Yellow-Haired Girl swallowed nervously. "Maybe someone lost a shoe, and a construction worker accidentally sealed it in the concrete..."
"That dog has been barking at the concrete pillar all this time," Hayashi Shuichi said, looking at the small dog. "Dogs have a more sensitive sense of smell than humans. It clearly smells something, which is why it's behaving this way."
"Could it be the stench of a rotting corpse..." The Yellow-Haired Girl shivered, quickly taking a few more steps back.
"Regardless of whether my guess is correct or not, we should call the police first," Hayashi Shuichi sighed. "I hope I'm wrong."
Half an hour later, the police, alerted by the call, arrived.
The sky was gradually darkening. The last rays of the sunset spilled across the ground, casting an eerie hue over the entire construction site.
Detective Satō once again confirmed with Hayashi Shuichi whether there was truly a body inside the concrete pillar.
"I'm only guessing," Hayashi Shuichi's eyebrows were tightly furrowed. "However, a girl from Sakuragaoka Middle School next door went missing last week. The last time I saw her, she was wearing red leather shoes..."
"In that case, it's safer to check it out." Detective Satō nodded and instructed Detective Megure to find a jackhammer and begin demolishing the concrete pillar.
Just as they started the work, the construction site supervisor, having received the news, rushed over in a hurry.
Seeing the police actually dismantling the concrete pillar, he quickly stepped forward to stop them: "What are you doing! Our construction site is legal and compliant!"
"Sorry, we currently suspect that a corpse has been sealed inside this section of the concrete pillar..."
Detective Satō hadn't even finished his sentence when the supervisor's face flushed red, and he angrily yelled:
"This is a construction site, not a funeral home! Where would a corpse come from? Even if you police officers are looking for trouble, at least choose a reliable reason..."
Before he could finish his words, as a large chunk of concrete fell off the pillar, a sickening stench immediately spread and permeated the area.
"Senior Satō, there is indeed something inside the pillar," Detective Megure covered his nose and mouth, leaning in to carefully discern the exposed object inside the pillar. "It appears to be a decomposed corpse."
"Th-this... how is this possible..." The construction supervisor's face turned deathly pale, his legs gave way, and he slumped onto the ground. "How could there really be a body!"
Although it had been confirmed that the object inside the concrete pillar was indeed a corpse, stripping the concrete and identifying the body would not be completed in a short time.
Hayashi Shuichi said goodbye to Detective Satō and headed back to prepare the izakaya for the evening's business.
He rode his bicycle, carrying Orisaka Midori. The Yellow-Haired Girl also rode her bike, following behind, with the yellowish-brown dog chasing alongside.
As the hero who discovered the corpse, seeing it sadly gnawing on the pig bone, Orisaka Midori went to a nearby store and bought a few hot dogs to reward it.
After that, the dog stayed close to Orisaka Midori, wagging its tail nonstop, completely unwilling to leave.
The Yellow-Haired Girl was still displeased about the dog scaring her earlier, but no matter how much she tried to chase it away, the little dog refused to go.
"Stop trying to drive it away," Orisaka Midori looked affectionately at the small dog chasing their bicycles. "This little guy is so smart. I'll take it back to the flower shop to keep as a pet. Mom should agree, too."
"What's so great about a dog that finds corpses?" The Yellow-Haired Girl scoffed dismissively. "It's too unlucky."
"This isn't unlucky," Orisaka Midori shook her head earnestly. "Whether the person inside that concrete pillar is Nagashima Ruko or not, without this little guy, the body would not have been discovered this quickly. For the deceased, it has done a great service..."
(End of Chapter)
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