The Phantom Thief of Heart! But Conan.

"This must be it, the Mihua Tower Apartments. If you want to observe it, you should be able to see it clearly from this angle."

Tang Ze got out of the car, looked at the bustling park in front of him, and pointed to the tall buildings behind the park.

A new batch of paper airplanes had just appeared, and now the media, who were broadcasting live, and the curious citizens crowded into the park, watching the commotion.

The fact that dropping a paper airplane can draw so many people on a weekday shows just how large Tokyo is. No wonder there are so many murders...

"Uh-huh!"

Ran Mouri and the others who got off the car with her were still in a daze.

After listening to their brief explanation that they were solving a paper airplane puzzle and highly suspected that it was the kidnapped president, Shirota, who had been missing for several days, the young man, who was unfamiliar with most of them, patted his chest and said that he could take them there.

Then, to everyone's astonishment, a Cullinan drove out from next door.

Conan's lips twitched for quite a while without stopping.

Well, I knew the Phantom Thieves were rich, but I never expected them to be this rich.

The Rolls-Royce Cullinan SUV is named after the Cullinan Diamond, the largest diamond ever discovered in the world. After being cut, it was set in the British Imperial Crown and the scepter used by the monarch.

Just by hearing the name, which is derived from a legendary diamond, you know this car won't be cheap. No matter how the interior is done, the starting price will be over a million US dollars.

...Did the Phantom Thieves really not have any side businesses besides reforming their hearts?

As for the others, although not everyone could recognize the car's origin at a glance like Conan, the classic Spirit of Ecstasy emblem spoke volumes. Apart from Sonoko Suzuki, everyone else seemed hesitant to speak.

"Anyway, we're looking for windows where paper airplanes might be stuck, right?" Sonoko Suzuki held up her telephoto camera. "Using this should do the same thing, right?"

“If there’s no paper airplane, then he would probably make some eye-catching marks on the window.” Conan tried to look away from the car behind him. “If he can reach the window, he’s definitely trying to be found. If he can’t reach it, the paper airplane might get stuck in an inappropriate position.”

Throwing a paper airplane is a skill; not everyone can accurately throw it to the desired location. Moreover, with the wind these past few days, open windows have significantly affected the paper airplane's flight path, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find it.

The task didn't take them too long. With the help of telephoto cameras, high-powered binoculars, high-tech glasses, and the lenses of several people's mobile phones, they located the most likely balcony in just a few minutes.

“From this position, it should be…” Sonoko Suzuki squinted and began to count as she moved away from the camera’s viewfinder.

"It's the 36th floor!" Conan answered decisively after counting, and ran straight towards the apartment building.

If someone came alone, there might be safety concerns, as no one knows if the kidnappers have accomplices. But with such a large group of people coming, including Ran Mouri, Shuichi Akai, and the Joker, the ones who should be worried are the other side.

"Now that the location is confirmed, how do we get up there to rescue them? Shouldn't we call the police as soon as possible?" Sonoko Suzuki, a few beats behind, was dragged along by Ran Mouri, asking intermittently.

"I've already called the police!" Ran Mouri waved her phone.

"Huh?! When?!"

"I sent a message to Inspector Megure and the others from the car!"

"They didn't call this time?"

"I can't make a phone call while sitting in a car with leather seats and hardwood floors!"

Hearing their voices, Hondo Eisuke, who was running forward, almost slipped and fell again.

He was just sitting in a luxury car, why wouldn't he dare... Well, he wasn't really that scared. But his main fear was that if he called the police, the white-haired boy who called himself Amamiya Ren would punch him to pieces.

Calling the police while sitting in the Phantom Thief of Hearts' car? That's way ahead of its time!

After the group squeezed into the apartment building's elevator, they saw Conan press the button for the 37th floor without hesitation.

“We don’t know President Shirota’s condition right now. If he’s in a bad state, he’ll need emergency medical care. We shouldn’t wait for the police to arrive,” he explained. “According to current Tokyo law, high-rise buildings must be equipped with emergency staircases, so you can directly access the next floor from the balcony or window on the 37th floor via the emergency staircase!”

Fire safety is a hazard that all high-rise buildings inevitably face, and Japan's solution is this kind of escape ladder installed on the balcony.

Of course, outdoor escape ladders of this height also have their safety concerns, but they are ultimately practical for escape and are a relatively cost-effective option among many solutions.

Installing a safety door on each floor and in each unit is cheaper than actually trimming redundant fire escape staircases.

Although their group was a bit oddly assembled, it included both children and high school girls, so they didn't seem to have any malicious intent. They easily knocked on the upstairs neighbor's door and, after exaggerating the situation downstairs, successfully obtained the woman's permission to open the emergency escalator.

"There are really paper airplanes all over the place..."

As she walked down the escalator, before she could even check if anyone was in the room, Sonoko Suzuki couldn't help but complain.

Dozens of paper airplanes stretched out from inside the house, climbing along the open glass doors of the balcony and covering almost the entire terrace. For a moment, it was hard to say whether the kidnapped person's thinking was truly bizarre or that their will to survive was incredibly strong.

The paper airplanes have been thrown around like this; even if the criminal is an idiot, he should realize something's wrong by now. Can you really fool a kidnapper with a coded message...?

"Hey, Sonoko..." Ran Mouri pulled her aside, gesturing for her to look into the room and say less.

One hand was handcuffed to the steel handrail of the room. The man with a stubble-covered face hung his head and looked like he was on the verge of death. He looked like he was in a very bad state.

"Is that Mr. Shirota?" Conan rushed into the room and began checking on the man, reassuring him, "We saw your paper airplane and came to rescue you. Please don't panic..."

Having gone without water or food for several days, and then having to face an open window high up in this temperature, they would either starve or die of thirst, or freeze to death.

“…Randomization, ransom,” Shirota Ikuo, his eyes already squinting from hearing the voice, could only manage to lift his head weakly in the direction of the sound, and said feebly, “My wife… hasn’t paid yet… We can’t give it to her…”

His kidnapper was a desperate gambler. Money in the hands of such a person would be squandered in the shortest time, followed by further demands.

Giving money to these kidnappers doesn't guarantee survival, so we shouldn't give it to them...

If there's no way to save yourself, then it's better not to withdraw the company's working capital, save that money, and run the company properly.

This serious logical problem kept swirling in Ikuo Shirota's mind, and he clearly no longer had the strength to continue.

He was so frozen that he was almost stiff, and his thinking ability was almost gone. Only this great obsession was still lingering in his mind.

"It's alright, President Shirota, it's all over, it's all resolved, don't worry..." Ran Mouri noticed his state and quickly reassured him, then leaned over to check the handcuffs on his wrists.

The handcuffs were fastened so tightly that they had worn down and scabbed over Shirota Ikuo's wrists, making them look bloody and quite gruesome.

"The key isn't nearby. It might be on the kidnappers." Hondo Eisuke quickly searched the room but found nothing.

"No need for that." Tang Ze stepped forward and gripped the other handcuff handle tightly.

With a single effort, he pulled the entire steel pipe nailed to the wall off.

"Don't look at me like that." Under the slightly horrified gazes of the others, Tang Ze shrugged. "This looks like it's going to be used to install some large equipment. But, you know, high-rise buildings are like this, the interior walls are actually made of wood."

Pulling a metal object off a wooden structure requires only a little force; even the strongest adhesive won't work.

After thinking it over, Conan realized he was right. He figured Shirota Ikuo might be able to break free on his own with a little more effort. "..."

Indeed, in such a critical moment, conserving energy for brute force is far better than racking one's brains to design a paper airplane that no one can understand...

After getting the person down from the wall, the subsequent first aid steps were naturally quite simple with so many experts present.

"Have him lie on his side."

"Find something to cushion his head, so he doesn't fall down."

"Close the window!"

Watching the men quickly subdue Shirota Ikuo, Conan looked around and said, "Get some water, see if we can borrow some warm water from the lady upstairs..."

Before he could finish speaking, a bottle of warm mineral water was shoved into his hand.

Conan looked up in bewilderment and met a pair of smiling red eyes.

“Cullinan surely has some kind of insulated equipment,” Tang Ze said with a smile. “Are you planning to moisten his respiratory tract with warm water? Then let’s get started.”

Feeling the warmth of the water in his hand, which was even hotter than his body temperature, Conan looked at his smiling face, calmed himself down, and then reluctantly looked away.

"Find a handkerchief, wet it a little, and cover his mouth... fold it into a smaller size, he's not fully conscious right now, he can't drink water directly, it might go into his trachea..."

As he continued performing first aid, Conan kept seeing those red eyes flashing before his eyes.

This scene was all too familiar. Conan's attention was briefly diverted from the emergency scene, and he once again thought of the question that had been bothering him for so long.

Tang Ze's ability, if the other party wasn't lying to him, is essentially a wish-granting machine that can make anything happen. So, what about the Joker...?

----

"So this house is the kidnapper's own home?"

"That's how it seems at the moment."

"Ha, in the end, we found out the perpetrator's identity by finding the victim..."

"There was no way to reconstruct his face directly after the kidnapper committed suicide. His condition was too bad."

"Didn't the surveillance cameras along the route capture it?"

"Uh, as for the surveillance footage, the clarity is a bit..."

Seeing Takagi Wataru's awkward smile in front of her, Sato Miwako slapped her forehead.

You can't blame Takagi for this. It wasn't their team that handled the case. It was the group that cooperated with President Shirota's family that messed things up. They neither captured the criminals alive nor rescued the hostages in time.

She suddenly missed the Pacific Ocean buoys that had sunk to the bottom of the sea. With their current level of facial recognition technology, she wondered when the surveillance footage and photos would actually be used to reduce crime.

Meeting the gazes of the people standing to the side, Sato Miwako took a deep breath, suppressing the urge to continue criticizing her colleagues' abilities, and gave them an approving smile.

"Thank you all. If you hadn't found the hostage in time, he might have been in danger..."

Conan and Shuichi Akai exchanged a glance, neither commenting on her obviously convincing attempt to save face.

Judging from her conversation with Takagi Wataru, if the police are this inefficient, by the time they figure out the kidnapper's identity and find this place, Ikuo Shirota will definitely be dead, and they won't even be able to collect his body.

In this weather, standing on the 36th floor with the window open and the wind blowing fiercely, it wouldn't be surprising how frozen one would be.

...On another note, Ikuo Shirota, who insisted on throwing paper airplanes even on a windy day, is truly a stubborn person.

"We were just intrigued by the paper airplane incident and the coded message on it, which we managed to crack by chance." Pushing up his glasses, Shuichi Akai calmly and gently stated in a voice that didn't quite match his usual tone, "However, once Mr. Shirota wakes up, Miss Officer, could you please pass on a few words to him?"

They proactively and diligently helped the police solve the core problem of the kidnapping case, saving the hostage's life and preventing the police from dying because they couldn't find information about the kidnapper. They were quite dedicated.

These concerned citizens were just passing on a few words to them, which was no problem at all. Even if they wanted to ask the victims for some compensation, that would be a perfectly reasonable response.

So Sato Miwako replied in a similarly gentle and polite manner: "Please speak, and we will do our best to convey your message."

“Yeah, just tell him that next time he’s about to die, he shouldn’t be so particular about drawing standards. If he really wants to hide it, he can just use his fingernail to carve the message for help onto the paper instead of using a pen, right?” Shuichi Akai said sincerely. “The paper airplane fell so far and was reported by the media, and he still almost lost his life. If it were me, I would die with my eyes open.”

Not to mention that the kidnappers never returned after leaving to collect the ransom, and later even died unexpectedly while being pursued by the police.

Compared to being discovered and threatened or beaten by the kidnappers, dying like this is just too humiliating.

Sato Miwako: "..."

Does it have to happen again? Couldn't we have reminded him to be careful about his personal safety and not get kidnapped?