Conan: Death is Watching Me

Chapter 341 High School Detective and the Deserted Island

Kido Detective Agency.

Hattori Heiji returned looking utterly defeated.

"Damn it, those guys are going too far! Is it okay without me, the representative from the West? Didn't they even notice I wasn't on the ship?"

"What if they switched to someone else halfway through?" Kazuha wondered.

"Who else could represent the West besides me?"

Hattori Heiji's face contorted with rage.

"It can't be some bored guy impersonating me, can it?"

“Maybe,” Sonoko, who came with Ran, said, adopting a deductive stance. “Isn’t there a guy over here who really likes to impersonate other people? He’s that thief. I heard that this time he even impersonated the Superintendent General’s son, Hakuba Saguru.”

"You mean Phantom Thief Kid?"

Hattori Heiji belatedly widened his eyes in surprise.

"That Hakuba Saguru is Kid?!"

"Don't you know?" Sonoko looked at Hattori Heiji suspiciously. "Because Hakuba Saguru went to England a few days ago and was even on TV. He just came back yesterday."

Hattori Heiji opened his mouth but couldn't say a word.

He was investigating the case with two imposters, yet he was completely unaware that something was amiss.

In other words, only he and that bespectacled kid were real at the time.

The little devil is unlikely to be a fake.

Hattori Heiji felt much better.

At least there's another kid who's been kept in the dark just like me.

"That's strange," Sonoko asked Ai after not finding Gao Mo. "Isn't Kido-nii home? He said he was going to teach me how to cook today, but none of the cooking classes will accept me and Ran anymore."

……

Uninhabited island.

As the ship left the dock, several high school detectives, led by a fake director, found a wooden villa not far from the coast.

A square-faced butler wearing glasses was waiting at the door, along with Hakuba Saguru, who had arrived earlier.

Gao Mo took a closer look; this time it was a real person, not Kuroba Kaito in disguise.

"What?" Tokitsu Junya slowed his pace in disappointment. "Isn't it Shinichi Kudo? Are you sure you haven't made a mistake?"

“You can’t say that,” the fake director said awkwardly. “Hakuba is just not as famous as Shinichi Kudo in the country, and besides, Shinichi Kudo has disappeared, hasn’t he? We can’t contact him at all.”

“Of course I know this Hakuba-kun. I heard he’s very popular overseas,” Tokitsu Junya asked curiously. “But by the way, how many cases have you solved in total?”

"In Japan, it should be around 500. I didn't count carefully because I've been studying in the UK and mainly investigating those assassin organizations."

Hakuba Saguru maintained an elegant, faint smile throughout.

"I also feel that I am not a suitable candidate to represent the East. You can think of me as an overseas guest."

"Alright everyone," the fake director said, ushering everyone into the room. "Let me reintroduce myself. I'm Hiroo Tsuchio, the director for this program. This is Renzo Kotani, the butler who will be taking care of everyone. The other staff members are expected to arrive tomorrow morning. Today is mainly to familiarize ourselves with the procedures..."

Gao Mo touched the door frame and then looked around the house.

It looked like a dilapidated hotel, with signs of repair everywhere, and a large amount of supplies had just been delivered there recently.

In addition...

Gao Mo paused in his movements.

Even though the will of death has disappeared, he still habitually gathers information immediately.

That seems a bit too cautious.

"Are you really Hattori Heiji?" Koshimizu Nanatsuki slightly removed her sunglasses to examine Gao Mo. "I heard from Tokitsu that the representative from the West is an impulsive, easily angered, and naive fool. But since boarding the ship, you seem more like an experienced elder..."

"That guy is just talking nonsense."

Gao Mo turned around and met Koshimizu Nanatsuki's gaze.

Hattori is indeed not very shrewd. It would be strange for someone his age to be shrewd.

“But you’re quite interesting,” Gao Mo said with a smile, looking at the tomboy in front of him. “You don’t seem like a high school student; you seem to be wearing a mask to hide something.”

"Ha ha?"

Koshimizu Nanatsuki's smile froze.

"No, I'm just a bit introverted. By the way, are you guys hungry? I can hardly stand up anymore."

"I'll take you to your room now."

The fake director checks the time.

"Mr. Kotani still needs to prepare your dinner. If you need anything, you can tell me. Before dinner, please change into the clothes you will wear for tomorrow's filming. As we agreed on the phone, you should wear clothes that match the identity of Detective Koshien."

"But this representative from the West doesn't seem to have brought any luggage."

Shijin Junzai chuckled softly.

"He can't conjure clothes, can he? Or do you not know that what you're supposed to wear is actually a school uniform?"

"I'm sorry, I just thought this outfit was quite appropriate for my status, and I happened to have torn my school uniform earlier."

Gao Mo imitated Hattori's angry glare at Tokitsu Junya, his brows furrowing inwardly as well.

He didn't have Hattori Heiji's school uniform, and besides, there was no TV show recording at all.

He understood everything when the fake director introduced himself.

This is a trap set for a high school detective.

Gao Mo gave Shijin Junya a deep look.

It is far more hateful to commit wrongful convictions in the process of solving cases than to fail to catch the criminals.

Unfortunately, some police officers in this world have an excessive reliance on detectives, resulting in many half-baked detectives who take pride in solving cases.

After discovering the last wish, he focused his investigation on this Tokizu Junya.

A year ago, he made a mistake in Hokkaido due to a misjudgment. Afterwards, he went to Shikoku in the south for a trip. Six months ago, in his eagerness to prove his ability to the police, he made another misjudgment, which indirectly led to a maid who could not bear the injustice and committed suicide by jumping into the sea.

News reports later indicated that the perpetrator committed suicide before being arrested.

After realizing his mistake, the high school detective dared not let his name appear in the newspaper, which led to this detective Koshien incident.

"What? You want to challenge me?" Tokitsu Junya felt uneasy under her gaze, lightly flicking his long, center-parted hair. "I don't mind. Of all the detectives present, you're probably the worst one..."

No, I specifically read your reports before I came here. You could say they're completely unprofessional. You always make a mess of the scene, acting like a brute. Your only redeeming quality is your strong intuition; you just guess and bluff. Calling you a detective would be an understatement.

Gao Mo was having trouble controlling his expression.

Oh no, what should I do if I inexplicably feel a sense of agreement?
From an outsider's perspective, that's certainly true; Heiji Hattori, like Conan, is the type of person who easily makes forensic investigators curse.

Conan is alright, as he has Mustache and Ran watching over him most of the time.

Most people wouldn't dare to mess with Hattori.

"I'm leaving," Tokitsu Junya said, frowning as he didn't get to see Gao Mo's humiliating reaction. "Call me again for dinner."

"I'll go change my clothes too."

Koshimizu Nanatsuki suddenly felt a little afraid of Gao Mo, and hurriedly went to the room with her name on it.

Soon only Gao Mo and Bai Ma Tan remained on the spot, and even the fake director left for the guest room.

"So you're Hattori Heiji," Hakuba Saguru finally took a good look at Gao Mo. "I've often heard my father talk about you. I heard you're a detective with an incredibly keen sense of everything. Oh, I forgot to introduce myself, my father is..."

“I know that Superintendent General Whitehorse is your father.”

Gao Mo felt that Hakuba Saguru was very similar to Kudo Shinichi. He always had a confident smile on his face that seemed to see through everything, as if he didn't care about anyone. Moreover, he would show an excited look when it came to reasoning.

In comparison, the mustachioed one seems much more pleasing to the eye, and his reasoning and crime-solving are more down-to-earth—although the mustachioed one himself didn't solve many cases.

Solving puzzles is indeed very exciting, but now he is more focused on the meaning behind the puzzles and is more willing to help the living or the dead fulfill their wishes.

(End of this chapter)