Ke Xue: Shinichi and I are childhood friends.

Chapter 1294 Brothers: Choose One of Three

Yuya asked in a deep voice, "What's going on?"

The man in the suit with a typical office worker's hairstyle among the three said in a panic, "I...I don't know either! My older brother told me to come here, and when I got here I found him collapsed here..."

Another man with a pompadour hairstyle also looked terrified: "Me too! My brother texted me to come here..."

"Me too." The last one was a chubby man with a mushroom haircut who looked like a typical nerdy guy.

Conan tilted his head back and asked, "So, the brothers are the ones who received the cipher from that nanny, right?"

The three nodded blankly.

Based on their conversation, we can infer that the one lying dead on the ground was the older brother who had previously gone missing.

I just don't know what happened to him that led to his death here after sending a message to his brothers.

Upon seeing so many people, the man in the suit couldn't help but ask, "By the way, who are you people?"

Iori Muga spoke first, explaining the reason for the request: to help decipher the code and confirm his brother's safety, but unfortunately, he was too late.

After explaining, he asked, "Why did your eldest brother get into trouble? Do you have any clues?"

The man in the suit paused for a moment, then tentatively pointed to the platform at the top of the stairs: "Probably, he fell from there?"

The man with the pompadour said in a somber tone, "I just don't know if it was suicide or an accident."

During this time, the three detectives continued to examine the body.

Yuya asked, "Did any of you three touch the corpse?"

The three men were taken aback and all said they had not touched the body.

“I see,” Yu narrowed his eyes. “Then it seems this is neither suicide nor an accident, but a murder, and the murderer is very likely one of the three of you.”

Everyone else looked surprised.

Ran Mouri, who had returned after skillfully calling the police, hesitated upon hearing this and said, "Now, we can't continue the game, can we?"

Kazuha Toyama nodded in agreement: "Yes."

“No,” Ooka Koyo denied their opinion, “whoever solves the truth of this case first will be the winner.”

Soon, Inspector Megure arrived with his men.

When he saw Yuya and Conan, he had an "I knew it" look on his face. When he saw Hattori Heiji, he became even more at ease—it was no surprise that Tokyo had been peaceful for a few days without any cases. How could something have suddenly happened?

Oh, it's the three of you.

After learning what had happened, Inspector Megure asked, "So, Kamiya, why are you so certain that this is a murder case?"

Just as Yuya was about to speak, Hattori Heiji interrupted, "You can tell at a glance. The right lens of that uncle's metal-framed glasses is broken, but there's no injury on his right cheek. Don't you find that strange?"

Inspector Megure and Wataru Takagi quickly looked down and confirmed it was true.

“In other words,” Yuya interjected, “the glasses fell to the side when the victim fell, but the murderer deliberately put them back on the victim’s head for some reason.”

Inspector Megure: "Hmm..."

Yuya continued, "When we got here, the three of them were already here. According to the administrator's testimony, only four people and a few of us came to the fourth warehouse today. Usually, the person who kills the victim is the first one to arrive here."

Inspector Megure nodded thoughtfully and looked at the three brothers: "Who was the first person to arrive here?"

The man with the pompadour and the fat man looked hesitantly at the man in the suit.

The man in the suit is the second son, named Kashiwagi Yu.

Noticing the suspicious looks from everyone, he cried out in a panic, "I was indeed the first one to arrive at the warehouse, but when I got here, my brother was already lying on the ground!"

“Yes, that’s how it is!” He looked at his third son, Koshin Kanta, whose hair was styled in an airplane shape.

Guan Tiankexin showed no intention of testifying, saying somewhat coldly, "I don't know. I can only say that when I arrived here, this person was already here, and by then my elder brother had already died."

The fourth son, Fatty Jinya Saifu, looked frightened: "I... I arrived here after them. Can I be ruled out as the culprit?"

“Not necessarily,” Yuya said slowly. “The murderer could have killed your older brother and then hidden somewhere in the warehouse, waiting for someone to discover the body before pretending to have just arrived at the warehouse.”

The expressions on the three people's faces visibly turned grim.

Takagi Wataru coughed lightly and tentatively said, "By the way, you two aren't brothers, are you? Isn't this a bit too formal? You're actually referring to each other as 'this person'."

“What’s so strange about that?” Yu Kashiwagi explained. “The three of us were fostered by different families 30 years ago.”

The three hadn't seen each other since then, so today's meeting was practically the same as their first.

Ran Mouri hesitated for a moment and said, "In fact, none of the three of you look alike at all."

Not only these three, but also the eldest brother who was lying dead on the ground, the four of them didn't look like brothers at all.

Although the three were estranged, they immediately expressed their indignation when others questioned their brotherhood, and each of them took out a photo—a family portrait of the four brothers with their parents when they were young.

It appears to have been filmed on a beach.

The group examined the photos carefully. All three photos were the same, and they were yellowed, indicating that they were many years old.

However, the four brothers in the photo looked like children, and it's impossible to compare them to their current appearance.

Ooka Momiji, hiding behind Iori Muga, peeked out and asked Takagi Wataru, "Did the victim have burn scars on his hands?"

Takagi Wataru was somewhat puzzled, but he still went to the body to check and found that there was indeed a strange burn scar on the victim's right palm.

Ooka Momiji nodded slightly, then looked at the three brothers: "If you are really brothers, you should have the same scars on your hands. Could you please show me your hands?"

Without hesitation, the three of them spread out their hands, revealing the same scars on their palms.

Upon seeing the scar, Ran Mouri exclaimed, "That scar..." She rummaged in her bag and pulled out a flyer for a barbecue restaurant, "Could it be from being burned by the lamb grill?"

Speaking of roasted mutton, a paper bag containing a roasting pan for mutton was found on the platform where the victim fell.

The three brothers also showed expressions of reminiscence.

“That’s right,” Futako Kashiwagi Yu explained the origin of the scar.

Before the four brothers were sent to foster care, the nanny invited her four sons to the home of their new employer, where they would be staying for an extended period, and they had a meal of roasted lamb together.

However, when they finished eating and were cleaning up, someone knocked over the grill pan. Seeing that their mother was about to get burned by the grill pan, the four brothers reached out to help her at the same time.

Looking at the scar on her palm, Yu Kashiwagi still vividly remembered the pain: "It's already good that the injury is this bad, considering how severe it was, and how long we persevered..."

Guan Tianke nodded: "Yes, and we roasted a lot of mutton that day."

Jinya Saifu said with a look of relief, "Yes, yes, the pot was extremely hot. It's amazing that we were able to catch it with our bare hands."

Kashiwagi Yu and Kaneda Koshin paused for a moment, vaguely sensing that something was wrong, but they couldn't quite put their finger on it, so they simply stopped thinking about it.