Conan: Begins to collaborate with Miss Bayonetta and become famous

Inside the door, a green death countdown silently ticked in the darkness.

Outside the door, the brief silence was broken by the sound of baijiu. His voice came through the heavy iron door, less frantic and desperate than before.

There is an additional, more deliberate form of inquiry based on understanding one's companions:

"Can you defuse this bomb, Old Black?"

There was no urging, no questioning, just a fact that needed to be confirmed.

It was as if they were asking, "Can this machine be fixed tonight?"

Inside the door, Lao Hei was using a specially made miniature Allen wrench with an insulated handle to tighten a tiny screw, no bigger than a grain of rice, that was deeply embedded in the complex wiring.

His movements were as steady as a pendulum, his breathing even, as if he hadn't seen the ever-decreasing green numbers above his head at all.

Upon hearing the question about baijiu (Chinese liquor), he didn't even look up. Instead, he explained in his usual, almost mechanical, calm tone, as if he were explaining a schematic diagram to a student:

"In principle, it's not difficult. The core of this device is nine conventional explosive detonators arranged in a ring."

With the tweezers in his hand, he gently parted a clump of cables, revealing a precise, matchbox-sized metal cube underneath, its surface bearing minute traces of explosives.

"They were designed to detonate simultaneously within a millionth of a second, generating a centripetal shaped shock wave that compresses the plutonium-239 sphere at the center, bringing it to a supercritical state and triggering a chain reaction."

He carefully used insulating tape to secure several unrelated cables to the side, and continued speaking in a completely flat tone:

"Therefore, all I need to do is prevent these nine detonators from imploding simultaneously. As long as one of them is removed, or their synchronizing detonation circuit is destroyed, the shock wave will not be able to uniformly compress the plutonium sphere and will not reach supercritical mass."

He said it so casually, as if to say, "If you just unplug one of the wires, the light bulb won't light up."

The liquor bottle outside the door, leaning against the cold iron gate, listened quietly.

He didn't interrupt, nor did he show any surprise.

They had been through countless unbelievable dangers together and knew each other's abilities and ways of thinking inside and out.

He grasped the logic in the old slang almost immediately and continued the conversation naturally, as if completing a familiar relay of thought:

“There is no uniform centripetal shock wave generated by an implosion…” Baijiu pondered, his voice echoing in the empty passage, “In other words, it does not reach the critical mass.”

He uttered that crucial nuclear physics term.

He fully understood Old Black's strategy—not to dismantle the deadly plutonium core, but to disrupt its detonation conditions.

This is the most pragmatic and most likely method to complete before the countdown ends.

Having understood this, the taut string in Baijiu's heart seemed to relax slightly.

He had absolute confidence in Lao Hei's abilities in precision mechanics and explosives handling.

If Lao Hei says the principle is feasible, then he can definitely do it.

What he's worried about now isn't whether the bomb will explode, but... how Old Black will get out after he defuses the bomb.

He began to re-examine the seemingly indestructible iron gate before him, his sharp gaze sweeping across every corner—

The heavy door panels, the giant hinges deeply embedded in the concrete wall, the manganese steel chains as thick as an arm, and the ancient giant lock with a complex structure.

The green countdown light shone through the observation window, casting shifting shadows on his face.

He believed that Old Black could defuse the bomb.

Now, all he can do is try to find a way to survive after the demolition.

Once his mind was slightly relieved from the "certain death" predicament, his thinking ability, which had been squeezed out by the pressure, began to function again.

"If the critical mass is not reached, the conditions for explosion will not be met..." He repeated in a low voice, as if to reinforce this judgment, or as if to encourage himself.

Then, he raised his voice and asked into the doorway, his tone regaining its usual calmness:

"Old Black, how much time do we have left?" He needed to know how many operation windows they had left.

Inside the door, Lao Hei had just successfully dismantled the core circuit of the first detonator and completely wrapped and isolated it with insulating tape.

He didn't even look up at the constantly changing green numbers so close to him, as if they had nothing to do with him.

When asked about the liquor, he simply responded indifferently, his tone even carrying a hint of indifference as if to say, "This question isn't important."

"That's more than enough for you to get out of here."

His answer was clear: you have enough time to leave, but he didn't mention himself.

This almost implicitly acknowledges that Baijiu could not have opened the door before the bomb was defused, and also suggests that he might have other plans, or... had already accepted a certain outcome.

The liquor seemed to automatically filter out the part about "leaving" in the old slang; his attention was completely drawn to something else.

He crouched down, his gaze falling on the floor by the door—scattered there were tools that might have been there before, or perhaps left behind by Rum out of "kindness":

A large pair of wire cutters, though they didn't seem capable of handling the thick chain, several crowbars, and even a small, battery-powered angle grinder, with a few brand-new cutting discs scattered around.

His eyes lit up.

“Maybe…” He picked up the heavy angle grinder, weighed it in his hand, and looked at the massive steel hinge, twenty centimeters thick, deeply embedded in the wall. A glimmer of hope rekindled in his voice. “With these tools, I can get this hinge off. Once the hinge breaks, the door might be able to open.”

This idea is straightforward, but also risky.

The hinge is exceptionally strong, the angle grinder's power is unknown, cutting will produce sparks and loud noise, and it is extremely time-consuming.

But this is currently the only possible way for him to physically break through the defense.

However, his newly ignited hope was immediately extinguished by Old Hei inside the door with a bucket of ice water.

Old Black was focused on the second detonator, which seemed more complex, with deceptively redundant circuitry.

Upon hearing Baijiu's plan, he didn't even stop what he was doing. Instead, he spoke in a calm, almost indifferent, statement-of-fact tone, directly pointing out the most fatal flaw in Baijiu's plan:

"Even if you can open the door—even if it's just a hypothetical scenario—I still need to safely remove all nine detonators first."

He paused, then precisely picked up a metal wire thinner than a hair with the tweezers and gently cut it.