Not a detective

Page 37

If he pushes open even a crack, or feels an unnatural chill, he will immediately rush out and catch the culprit.

That... is enough.

He kept his eyes fixed on the door, never letting his guard down for a moment.

Summer of the Snow Woman: Author's Note

This is not a mystery novel.

Before putting it on the shelves, I felt it was necessary to emphasize this point.

As stated in the title, this book is not a detective story, nor is it a mystery.

As can be seen from the first case, this book is full of superpowers, real monsters and paranormal phenomena, all of which are illogical. The criminals use special abilities to commit crimes, and the protagonist group's ways of solving problems are also bizarre. If you treat it as a detective novel, you will definitely exclaim, "What kind of bullshit is this?"

Therefore, I must reiterate this before listing it, otherwise it would be a waste of your money.

None of the characters in this work, including the protagonist, are serious detectives. It would be impossible for them to solve cases with rigorous logical reasoning. Please forgive any loopholes and inaccuracies. It will be easier to understand this book if you think of it as a light mystery, superpower battle, supernatural suspense, and romance novel.

However, much of the inspiration for this book comes from the many excellent mystery novels I've read. I won't list them all here; I'll share the book list with you another time.

Three series in particular deserve mention, as they had the most profound influence on the style of this book:

The first is Kyogoku Natsuhiko's "Hyakki Yagyō" series;

The second is Professor Honobu Yonezawa's "Ordinary Citizen Series";

Third is Kyo Shirohira's "Fictional Mystery Series".

I am deeply fascinated by the concept of "Yokai mystery" (and perhaps Shinzo Mitsuda's "Toujo Genya series" should also be included) and the "second-best choice" for ordinary people. If you are a fan of these works, you will understand that many characters and plots in this book can be found in the book through stitching together, originating from and closely related to them.

In short, I express my deepest respect to all the great mystery novelists throughout history.

As for the male protagonist "Asakawa Riku's" character design, it comes from the novel "Exorcist Expert" by the author Chishuyao. I hope to see it resume someday.

Asakawa Riku is an illogical character who appears in this illogical world, an anchor of reassurance, and the core of solving the incident. His fighting power is entirely my own speculation, and there may be some ridiculous settings like Baki. You can treat him as a Hanma alien or a cursed being. Just take my nonsense about martial arts and physiology as mere rambling and don't take it too seriously.

I've written many classic online novel protagonists who are "selfish, calm, and absolutely rational," so I wanted to try a character like Asakawa Riku, who is almost the opposite. He has a simple sense of justice and kindness, an eccentric way of thinking, and the naive thoughts of a teenager. He is an incredible yet innocent and romantic character.

So don't ask, "Why is the protagonist so powerful yet short of money? Why does he have to live the life of an ordinary person?" Indeed, an ordinary protagonist would have already landed in the US and become Yujiro Hanma or Homelander by now, but this book isn't about those things. He's a strange guy too.

I think what makes the book interesting is not only the charm of the many female characters, but ultimately it comes down to the character design of the main character. Asakawa Riku might seem "immature" to some, but his perspective on the story is key to its "youthful" feel.

Okay, this book has about a million words and is divided into volumes for grades 10, 11, and 12.

Each volume unfolds in four chapters representing spring, summer, autumn, and winter, which together constitute twelve events.

I have roughly three or four outlines of the events in my mind. I'll think about the rest as I write. If you have any good ideas, feel free to post them in the comments section. I'll read them.

After its release, I've been updating 4000 words daily. It's not that I don't want to update faster, but this book is genuinely difficult to write. If I were to accelerate the pace too quickly, the writing might become rough, leaving insufficient time for foreshadowing, resulting in inconsistent plot development and a decline in the overall quality of the story. Two other online mystery novels I've read ("I'm Not a Detective" by Undersea Walker and "Duanmu, the Woman with the Face of Difficulty" by Midsummer Night's Dream) have unfortunately stopped updating. Both authors wrote excellent works, but I understand that online mystery novels are indeed difficult to write. Inspiration can easily run dry with a daily update schedule, leaving only dullness, and a lack of case reserves can lead to a collapse. Rather than blindly chasing speed, I'd rather present everyone with better works.

I completely understand that everyone wants to read the whole book together. I anticipated that the book would be read in installments because I adopted the case-by-case format. However, if the initial subscription and subsequent subscriptions are too low, it will be difficult to get recommendations later. If the performance is too poor, it will be difficult to continue reading. So if you are willing, please try to read it. Or you would be very grateful if you clicked the auto-subscribe button.

The bonus chapter rule is one chapter for a Silver Treasure Chest and two chapters for a Gold Treasure Chest. Other monthly tickets, knife blades, and rewards will not be set up for the time being.

It's expensive, so I don't need to give it away (and nobody will). I set the price so high because I want to write slowly. Subscribing is the best support you can give me.

There will be five chapters tomorrow. I'll release all the drafts I've saved. See you tomorrow.

Summer of the Snow Woman: Chapter Sixteen - The First Death

The night's wait yielded no results.

Asakawa Riku stood guard at the door all night, but failed to catch the culprit who broke in, and did not feel any discomfort from the cold.

Did the killer choose not to attack? Or did the other person notice his ambush?

In the latter half of the night, he stopped sitting and lay on the bed pretending to sleep, even closing his eyes and entering a meditative state, so no one would notice that he was still awake.

Even so, nothing unexpected happened.

After a whole night, Asakawa Riku got up normally the next day. Although staying up all night made him a little tired, it was far from enough to weaken him.

He washed up as usual, just like yesterday. The cold water splashed on his face, and as he looked in the bathroom mirror, the vague atmosphere made him feel uneasy.

...What did I miss?

Not right.

About half an hour later, Asakawa Riku finally realized what his intuition was telling him.

That ominous premonition was by no means unfounded.

He saw Hirata Hirokichi's body.

...

The body was not discovered immediately. After everyone woke up one after another, they all came to the lobby on the first floor.

Perhaps because of the cold, everyone's sleep quality was not good. The dark circles under their eyes seemed to tell of their inner anxiety, and their steps were also unsteady.

They all came to the stove to warm themselves. Asakawa Riku arrived the earliest, so he added firewood in advance.

"Good morning."

"Good morning." The greetings were all weak and listless.

Yukie was still wearing her shrine maiden outfit. She went to get a pot of water to heat up for everyone.

More than ten minutes later, Asakawa Riku realized something was wrong. He counted the people gathered and found that Haoji had not come to the hall.

Could he have overslept? With that thought in mind, he didn't call anyone else and went upstairs to knock on the door himself.

Bang bang bang.

After knocking a few times without a response, Asakawa Riku, fearing he had fainted from the cold, simply pushed the door open.

Looking back, the door wasn't locked, which is in line with Haoji's usual carefree personality. I just never expected it to become the source of disaster.

Then I saw the boy's body.

It has become an "ice sculpture".

...

"God..."

"What's this--"

"...Unimaginable."

After confirming this fact, Asakawa Riku immediately went downstairs and called the others up.

After all, he is still a student, while the others are all adults.

Principal Xiao Gong was the first to let out a scream. Her face turned pale, she staggered, and almost fainted.

But she seemed to realize something and quickly grabbed Yukie's hand, covering the girl's eyes.

"Don't look...don't look."

"I...I'm fine." Yukie's tone was relatively calm.

To be honest, she didn't show much fear when she was handling the deer carcass, skinning and cutting the meat, which is not the behavior one would expect from a teenage girl.

Even when faced with a bloody and mangled scene, they can remain calm. It seems that this shrine is indeed no ordinary place.

Compared to the dismembered deer, Hirata Hirokichi's body was actually much more intact.

His body was undamaged and showed no signs of external injury. Although it was impossible to confirm completely because he was wearing clothes, we could roughly judge from what we could see.

Because he was frozen.

This is not a metaphor, but a true description: Hirata Kokichi was trapped inside a block of ice, his body was completely frozen, and he had lost all vital signs.

If you gently touch the ice, you can feel its icy chill as it melts, soaking the bed and creating a small puddle of water underneath.

The ice block was larger than a person, measuring two meters long and half a meter wide. Although its surface was smooth, its volume was irregular, making it seem like a strange object that could not have been formed naturally.

Haoji was locked inside like this, his eyes tightly closed, without any expression of fear or struggling. He was very peaceful, as if time had been fixed in his sleep.

But he will never wake up.

Does he feel pain while being frozen like this?

No one knew that Mr. Takagi, who had been silent all along, also widened his eyes and looked terrified, while Mr. Matsuyama gritted his teeth, looked away, and couldn't bear to look directly at him.

Haoji was also his student.

Asakawa Riku's expression was calm, but his eyes held a chill colder than ice. This was his responsibility; he had made a mistake that led to the accident.

—The killer targeted more than just him.

Although the killer had his eye on him on the first day, it didn't mean he wouldn't change his target. He was only thinking about taking care of the killer himself, forgetting that others might also be in danger.

Asakawa Riku didn't want to alert the culprit, but unexpectedly, he made Haoji his shield.

Haoji was his friend, had helped him before, and they usually got along well at school... This was definitely not what he wanted.

—We must find out who the murderer is.

Not only to escape and solve the case, but also to avenge Haoji, Asakawa Riku made up his mind.

...

While the others were still stunned and terrified, Asakawa Riku had already carried the ice sculpture downstairs.

He placed the frozen Haoji next to the stove, carefully controlling the temperature to slowly melt the surrounding ice.

Until it turned into a puddle of water, from which that limp and powerless body was dragged out.

...Haoji is indeed dead.

Having confirmed the breathing and pulse, Asakawa Riku could only admit this. He still held onto a sliver of hope for saving him, but not everyone had reached the level of being "impervious to water and fire."

Haoji was just an ordinary middle school student. He was frozen in ice all night. Even if he didn't freeze to death, he would have suffocated from lack of oxygen long ago.

Asakawa Riku couldn't help but wonder if he would have turned into an ice sculpture like this if he hadn't woken up in time the night before last.

Who was that dark figure... that dark figure I didn't have time to see clearly?

Is this terrifying "freezing" ability the work of a monster or a human's "superpower"?

Asakawa Riku carried his friend's body outside and dug a snow pit not far away to put it in. This was not a formal burial. If he were to escape and be able to go down the mountain one day, he would definitely take Hirata Hirokichi's body back with him. He was just glad that the cold weather had preserved it well and prevented it from decomposing quickly.

Should he be grateful? Or should he hate it? He smiled bitterly, thinking that this strange winter that had unexpectedly arrived in the height of summer was probably not the culprit behind everything.

"...May you find peace in the afterlife."

A gentle voice came from beside her, and Yukie clasped her hands together, offering a sincere prayer.

Although she felt cold and her petite body trembled in the wind and snow, she still persevered and insisted on coming out with Asakawa Riku.

Fine snow fell on her slender nape and thin shoulders. Even though her hair was stained pure white, Asakawa Riku suddenly felt that she was not very similar to the girl who had danced before.

Take one last look, turn around and say:

"Let's go back."

Summer of the Snow Woman: Chapter Seventeen: The Snow Woman

"How did Hirata-kun die? Did he freeze to death from the low temperature?"

"You could say that from the perspective of the cause of death, but it wasn't an accident; it was murder."

When Asakawa Riku returned to the room, he found that everyone had already started discussing, so he didn't beat around the bush and immediately got to the point.

"...What, murder!"

“Yes.” He nodded. “In general, hypothermia-induced death would not show these symptoms. I don’t know if you have ever seen fish or meat in a freezer, or the freezer in your home refrigerator? Even at tens of degrees below zero, only a layer of frost will condense on the surface of the object. It will never be frozen by ice.”

There is only one reason for it to be frozen, and that is "water".

Just like the process of making popsicles, you put a wooden stick in sugar water and then freeze it into an ice cube—this is common knowledge that most people know.

If you want to turn Hirata Kokichi into an ice sculpture, you first have to immerse him in water and then apply extremely low temperatures.

This is almost impossible to do.

"The house has a fireplace for heating, and although it's still cold, it's not cold enough to freeze the water. At least the faucets in the bathroom and kitchen are working properly, which means the pipes aren't frozen and the temperature is at least above zero. There are no bathtubs in the bathrooms here, so it's unimaginable how so much water could be produced silently. Plus, it's impossible to have Haoji submerged in water without anyone noticing, and he remained asleep until the very end... In short, the conditions for making ice are not met."

Asakawa Riku said, and the others basically agreed.