Conan: Begins to collaborate with Miss Bayonetta and become famous

Before he could finish speaking, Old Hei's calm and even voice interrupted him again:

"is that true?"

He still didn't look up, carefully tightening an extremely tiny screw with the screwdriver in his hand.

The question was brief but went straight to the point—was he asking whether Rum's situation was as Baijiu described, or was he asking something more fundamental?

Baijiu was a little confused by the question. He subconsciously began to move left and right along the iron gate, his hands groping on the rough door panel and the wall, his eyes eagerly searching for possible gaps, latches, or any way to open this damn door.

The chains were thick, and the locks were huge and ancient, clearly beyond the capabilities of conventional tools.

Just then, Lao Hei, while using tweezers to pick up a metal jumper wire thinner than a hair, casually posed his third question. His tone remained calm, yet it was like a precise scalpel, dissecting the composure that Baijiu was trying to maintain:

"Then, whose blood is on you?"

The movement of Baijiu fumbling through the crack in the door suddenly stopped.

He seemed to have been put on pause, his whole body frozen in place.

Two full seconds passed before he slowly and somewhat mechanically lowered his head to look at himself.

Large patches of dark red and brown bloodstains, dried and hardened, were visible on the front, cuffs, and even the trouser legs of the white suit. Under the pale green fluorescent light shining through the observation window, they presented an eerie and terrifying appearance.

Some of the bloodstains were still fresh, and the edges had not yet completely congealed.

This isn't just his health.

Old Hei finally stopped what he was doing, turned his head slightly, and looked at Baijiu through the observation window with his frighteningly calm eyes.

That look seemed to say: I can see it, and you can see it too, don't play dumb.

Bai Jiu's Adam's apple bobbed, his chaotic thoughts forcibly pulled back to reality by this question. He avoided Lao Hei's gaze, his voice dry as he explained, with a haste that even he couldn't convince himself: "They're people we don't know."

This explanation is riddled with flaws.

If it's the blood of pursuers, how could it have soaked such a large area and been so close to the body?

But at this moment, baijiu (Chinese liquor) doesn't have the energy to fabricate a more perfect lie.

Old Hei didn't ask any more questions. He just stared at him for two seconds, his gaze seemingly piercing through the door and the bloodstains, seeing something more.

Then, he lowered his head again and continued his disassembly work, as if he had just asked an insignificant question.

After a brief moment of awkward silence, Baijiu, as if to change the subject or perhaps because he had just noticed, finally looked past Lao Hei and onto the enormous, green-glowing, low-humming creature behind Lao Hei.

The green countdown numbers were particularly glaring in the darkness: 02:31.

Baijiu's pupils suddenly contracted. All the chaos, exhaustion, and pain were forcibly suppressed at this moment by an immense sense of crisis.

He pointed at the object, his voice trembling with shock:

"Old Black, is that a bomb?" The question was asked so bluntly.

It was even somewhat foolish.

But in this situation, it is filled with the most primal fear.

"Nothing special." Old Hei's voice came through the heavy iron gate, still calm and natural, even with the casualness of an engineer introducing product parameters.

He carefully cut a piece of enameled wire with the pliers in his hand, a spark flashed, and a reading on the tester went to zero.

Without even glancing at it, he continued, "It's just a plutonium core. The purity should be quite high; judging from the design of this neutron reflector... it's roughly equivalent to five or six million tons of TNT. That's a conservative estimate."

He paused, as if making a calculation, then added, his tone still flat, as if stating tomorrow's weather: "Well, enough to blow this city off the map... to smithereens. The shockwave can reach the suburbs, and the firestorm's radius... will be about fifteen to twenty kilometers. Subsequent radiation subsidence will depend on the wind direction."

These words, spoken in the calmest tone yet describing ultimate destruction, made Baijiu outside the door catch his breath.

A chilling coldness instantly crept up my spine and spread throughout my body, more terrifying than any previous wound or the exhaustion from running. Five or six million tons of yield... what does that even mean?

He wasn't a weapons expert, but he knew that it meant a destructive force far exceeding that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

London, this ancient city with millions of lives...

including yourself.

"This..." Baijiu's voice was dry as he tried to continue, but found his throat tightening. "This... is not good."

This response was utterly weak and powerless, even bordering on absurd and comical.

Faced with a nuclear bomb capable of destroying a megacity, the word "not good" sounds like a terrible joke.

But Baijiu's confused mind at this moment could no longer organize more complex words.

An extreme sense of crisis, heartache for Old Black's situation, and the newly learned scale of the destruction combined to create an almost numb shock.

He shook his head violently, as if trying to banish the horrifying images and numbers from his mind.

We can't waste any more time! We have to get in! We have to do something!

Ending this pointless conversation, Baijiu took a half step back, took a deep breath, and a ruthless glint flashed in his eyes.

Instead of trying to find the mechanism or weakness, he poured all his strength into his shoulders and arms, let out a low roar, and used all his remaining strength to smash into the thick metal chain on the heavy iron door, which was as thick as a child's arm, and the huge ancient padlock!

Use your body as a hammer!

"boom--!!!"

A dull thud echoed in the cramped space, the chains rattled, and dust fell in clumps. But the door and locks remained perfectly still, not even twitching.

The recoil caused Baijiu's shoulder to ache sharply, and his already injured body swayed.

Inside the door, Lao Hei was carefully handling a miniature detonator that appeared to be an anti-dismantling device with a miniature welding torch, the bright white sparks illuminating his focused profile.

Hearing the banging on the door, he didn't even lift his eyelids, but simply stated calmly, as if stating a physical law:

"Don't bother."

That's a ship-grade emergency watertight door, with hinges made of 20-centimeter-thick forged steel.

The chain is made of manganese steel, and the lock is a specially made combination mechanical lock.

It may also be connected to a self-destruct circuit.

Even if you brought a tank, you wouldn't be able to break through it in a short time.

Bai Jiu was panting heavily, his chest heaving violently. The impact had aggravated his rib injuries, causing him pain that made his vision blur.

He stared at the massive, unmoving lock and heavy chains, his eyes filled with resentment and anger, which finally coalesced into a low growl squeezed out from between his teeth: "I... I saw it coming a long time ago!"

Of course he could tell. From the first glance at the heavy chains and the ancient, massive lock, he knew it would be virtually impossible to break by human power.

But knowing this was one thing, but watching helplessly as his companion was locked up with a nuclear bomb capable of destroying a city, the countdown relentlessly ticking away, the feeling of powerlessness was almost driving him mad.

The impact was merely an instinctive outburst born of despair.

Inside the door, Old Black seemed to fully understand his futile attempt.

He offered no comment or words of comfort; his hand movements remained steady and precise.

He had just successfully deactivated the miniature detonator, gently removed it with tweezers, and placed it on an insulating sheet laid out to the side.

Then, while examining the next suspected double-detonation circuit node with a magnifying glass, he explained everything that had just happened to Baijiu in his unchanging, calm tone, as if he were reviewing a laboratory operation:

"Rum came. He took the virus flash drive."

He paused, as if recalling details, "It was the one I hid in the necklace before. He was very fast, and given my condition at the time... I couldn't stop him."

Virus flash memory.

Rum took it, clearly for his ambition to control the intelligent entity or the "vault".

“He also left this.” Old Black gestured with his chin toward the enormous thing in front of him, a green countdown flashing on his face: 01:22.

"And these tools. Very professional, and also very wicked. He wants to see me, or you, struggling between hope and despair."

"Finally, he locked the door and said something." Old Black recalled Rum's words before he left, repeating them word for word, even mimicking the underlying madness in his calm tone: "'Tell Baijiu that I will always wait for him.'"

"He took the virus flash drive. You...maybe you want to go find him."

His voice came through the iron gate, hoarse but exceptionally clear and firm, carrying an undeniable promise: "We will go."