Mao Lilan and Suzuki Sonoko were stunned, and turned their heads at the same time following Shiraishi's direction. A few meters away, a woman wearing sunglasses had just stepped off another bus and was walking towards them with a clear purpose.
The man's clothing was simple, and his hair was trimmed very short. At first glance, he looked a bit like a boy. However, the square silk chain watch on his wrist and the necklace around his neck were just enough to brighten up the look, so that no one could tell his gender.
Chikako Ikeda dragged her suitcase closer and nodded towards Sonoko Suzuki: "Long time no see."
"Long time no see!" Suzuki Sonoko jumped over and hugged Chikako Ikeda's arm:
"I read your new book! It's good, but can it be a little sweeter like before? Also, we agreed to write a grand and romantic love epic with me as the protagonist!"
"It's probably impossible to write a romantic epic. Only young people like you have the motivation to yearn for love." Chikako Ikeda raised her hand and rubbed her head, "I'm already past that age."
"Obviously you are also a young man yourself." Suzuki Sonoko refused to give up, "Also, you agreed to tailor-make my Prince Charming QAQ in the novel..."
With the other three people watching with sweat on their brows, she and Chikako Ikeda walked away.
After walking seven or eight meters, Suzuki Sonoko remembered something, turned around and waved to the three of them: "Xiaolan, Ritsu, hurry up!"
"..." The nature of a nymphomaniac who loves one and forgets the other is well-deserved.
Sure enough, only the customized virtual Prince Charming is true love...
…
Although there were at least two rich people mixed into the ranks of civilians, Suzuki Sonoko and Ikeda Chikako did not choose to take a taxi, but continued to take trams and buses.
Unlike Sonoko Suzuki who almost threw her bus pass into the coin box, Chikako Ikeda seems to be quite skilled. She may have been running around a lot in the past.
Shiraishi always felt that the name Chikako Ikeda was familiar, and thought about what Suzuki Sonoko said just now. After sitting down, he took out "The Blue Kingdom" from his bag and took another look at the cover.
The pen name is "Chikako Ikeda". This person actually wrote the book using his real name.
Shiraishi opened the title page again and looked at the author's introduction.
"The Blue Kingdom" is Chikako Ikeda's debut novel. This book is very popular and caused a small sensation when it was published two years ago.
A year later, the movie based on it became a hit, and Chikako Ikeda became famous in one book.
In the past two years, she has written many more works, but most of them have tragic endings. She did not attract as many fans as the earliest "Blue Kingdom", but her evaluation in the literary world has gradually increased.
The fonts in the book are too small and you will easily get motion sickness if you continue to read them.
Shiraishi was about to put the book away when Conan asked him abruptly: "Can I take a look?"
Shiraishi turned his head and saw that the child had recovered a little from his autistic state and began to become curious about everything again.
He handed the book over and began to close his eyes and meditate.
After two transfers, the bus finally wandered to the foot of the mountain.
After getting off the car, a few people walked up the mountain road until the clouds on the horizon turned into sunset, but they still didn't see the shadow of the villa.
Although Chikako Ikeda was rated as a "new otaku" by Suzuki Sonoko, her physical strength was pretty good and she never felt tired.
Not to mention Mao Lilan.
Only Conan and Suzuki Sonoko were lagging behind - Suzuki Sonoko was not exercising enough, and Conan was suffering from severe motion sickness. His feet were weak, his stomach was sour, and his physical strength had not yet recovered.
That book was indeed poisonous, but luckily I finished reading it last night... Shiraishi looked at Conan's pale face and secretly felt lucky.
…
"Ah!! I can't do it anymore!"
When she turned another corner along the mountain road and found that there was still no villa in front of her, only layers of woods, Suzuki Sonoko looked desperate.
With a sad face, she lowered her head and shook her ankle. There was already a lot of dust on her delicate and beautiful little leather shoes.
Suzuki Sonoko was about to cry without tears: "I shouldn't have chosen these shoes with heels just for the sake of the golden ratio... I can't walk, I really can't walk even one step. He is gentle, considerate, handsome, and carries me with a smile."
Prince Charming who came up the mountain hasn’t appeared yet!”
Shiraishi was startled, then turned his head slightly, and sure enough he saw Suzuki Sonoko looking at him with tears in her eyes.
This can hardly be called a hint, it is clearly an explicit statement.
Shiraishi now has a bag on his back, another bag in front of him, two more hanging on his arms, and a heavy suitcase in his hand.
Although Suzuki Sonoko praised him very much, after silently feeling the weight of the pile of bags, Shiraishi refused:
"All your luggage is on my back, and if you are included, it might be your turn to carry me after walking a thousand or two kilometers..."
Suzuki Sonoko thought about it and let out a long sigh of disappointment.
"The road here is very uneven. If you carry someone on your back, both of you may fall easily." Chikako Ikeda looked up and looked around, "I'm familiar with the area. Let's take a shortcut. We can get there in about five minutes."
A few people were originally walking on a compacted mountain road, but now they had to take a shortcut and went into the woods instead.
Although the suitcase has become less easy to drag and there are more bugs around, it has indeed begun to take a straight line, which is definitely much closer than the winding road.
Suzuki Sonoko was slow at first, but after walking for a minute or two, a white and green mollusk fell on her shoulder, and with a scream that penetrated the forest, she became the fastest runner.
That one, I wish I could carry a few people and fly out of the woods in one second.
...Although this was not Chikako Ikeda's original intention, the forward speed did speed up a lot.
After walking through the woods and climbing up a small slope, their eyes finally opened up a little - they came to a mountain stream.
The mountain stream in front of us is more than ten meters wide and dozens of meters deep. The cliffs on both sides go straight up and down, and are extremely deep and steep. At the bottom of the mountain stream, a river rushes through, and the sound of the water flows back and forth against the rocks on both sides.
A rather simple wooden suspension bridge spans the mountain stream, connecting the two sides. Opposite the suspension bridge, you can see a three or four-story, beautifully designed villa.
This dangerous combination of man-made and nature made several young people exclaim, and Shiraishi was no exception.
But what amazed him was this place - it looked like it was going to be a scene where the suspension bridge broke, everyone was trapped in the villa, and then the murderer did whatever he wanted, but they couldn't call the police.
Next time you go out, you must bring more compressed biscuits and other things... Shiraishi silently added an item to his mental travel must-have list.
At the same time, he saw a man wearing a black robe and a black hood standing on the suspension bridge near the villa, walking toward the villa with his back to them.
Suzuki Sonoko thought it was a club member who came to pick them up, and happily raised her hand to say hello.
Her shouts were carried far away by the mountain wind and the sound of water. The man in black robe was startled and turned his head suddenly, revealing a face covered with bandages.
The bandaged man glanced at the five frozen people behind him, and suddenly ran ashore quickly, but did not enter the villa, but went into the woods next to him.
"What, what's going on!" Suzuki Sonoko suddenly felt goosebumps all over her body, "This isn't Halloween. Why are you dressing up like this? Are you perverted!?"
The two girls hugged each other shivering.
Shiraishi looked past them towards the suspension bridge. The dress of the man in black gave him a strong sense of familiarity.
After thinking about it for a moment, he remembered.
——In "The Blue Kingdom", a novel with a bit of fantasy style, there appears a perverted murderer who is keen on dismembering corpses and carrying out his own twisted "justice".
The clothes described in the article are like this: a tattered black robe, a wide hood hanging down to the brow bone, bandages all over the body, and an ax soaked in blood.
Now everything matches up except for the axe.
"The 'surprise' prepared by Ayako is as unique as ever." Chikako Ikeda frowned, a little helpless, "But no matter how you look at it, it's just a 'surprise'..."
"Surprise?" Mao Lilan and Suzuki Sonoko didn't know why.
Conan had just finished reading the novel, and he explained to his two former classmates: "It's a fictional character in Sister Chikako's "The Blue Kingdom", haven't you seen it before?"
"I have seen it before." Suzuki Sonoko frowned and tried to remember, "But I saw it two years ago, and I have long forgotten the details."
Mao Lilan was a little ashamed. Among this group of people, she seemed to be the only one who had never seen Chikako Ikeda's works. When she has time, she would have to watch one to make up for it...