Detective Conan: The System Takes Me to Zero's World

Ogino Ayami's voice suddenly rang out: "Serve the country and the people with a sense of honor and mission, and do not be swayed by fear or resentment."

Takagi Shigeru replied subconsciously, his tone filled with awe for his convictions: "Respect human rights in all circumstances. Perform your duties impartially, is that right?"

Miwako Sato also nodded, her eyes full of sincerity towards this profession.

"Yes." Yamato Gansuke's eyes swept across Lin Duxin's pale face. "Maki's father hated and could not forgive the man who killed his daughter, but didn't he still desperately want to forgive in the end?"

He paused, his voice becoming more complex. "He's not a police officer, but he understands the word 'protection' better than you do."

Zhu Fu Gaoming, who had been silent the whole time, stepped forward and said, "What you have lost is the courage to choose to forgive like him, and the confidence to stick to your original intention."

These words were like a key, unlocking Lin Duxin's tense nerves. He suddenly lowered his head, his shoulders trembling violently, and the sobs he had suppressed for so long finally broke through his throat. Tears splashed on the handcuffs, leaving a small stain.

"Hey, hey, everyone says this isn't something a child should get involved in!" Maori Kogoro put Conan on the ground with a gruff voice, his hands on his hips in his signature lecturing pose, "How dangerous was it just now? What if he was crushed underneath? Leave this kind of crime scene to us adults!"

Conan shrank his neck, showing an innocent expression, and grabbed the back of his head with his little hands: "I'm sorry, Uncle Maori."

He looked up at the man in front of him, who was standing with his hands on his hips and glaring. His eyes rolled behind his glasses, and he tiptoed into the snow for a few steps. When he turned back, the corners of his mouth curved into a cunning arc: "By the way, the one who stopped the avalanche at that time must have been you, uncle, right?"

"Are you stupid? How could it be me?" Mouri Kogoro turned his back proudly, put his hands in the pockets of his mink coat, and deliberately made a squeaking sound with the heels of his leather shoes on the snow.

But the slightly raised chin and the smugness that could not be hidden in the corners of his eyes had already betrayed him.

Maori Kogoro looked up at the dark blue night sky. The three stars in Orion's belt were shining brightly. His Adam's apple rolled slightly, as if whispering to someone invisible: "You saw it all, crocodile."

Inside the silver sedan, the dim light from the dashboard illuminated the calm profile of Morobushi Jingguang. His fingertips tapped lightly on the steering wheel, his gaze passing over the receding Maori Kogoro in the rearview mirror. He then glanced sideways at the thoughtful Kudo Yuki in the passenger seat. "Are you thinking about Maori-san's marksmanship?"

Kudo Yuki looked up at that, a lingering look of amazement still lingering in her eyes. "After all, he's the one Instructor Onizuka specifically mentioned. The consistency of his ten-round burst, the accuracy of the three shots just now, the bullet holes almost overlapping on the ice, even the cracks on the edges are so neat, as if drawn with a compass."

She chuckled. "Come to think of it, back at the police academy shooting range, Sato and the others always said there was a 'human turret' hidden among the seniors. At the time, I didn't believe it, thinking it was made up to scare the freshmen. Now it seems there's nothing wrong with the rumor."

Morofushi Kagemitsu nodded and used his fingertips to pull up an old news item on his mobile phone - a report on the Metropolitan Police Department shooting competition ten years ago. In the photo, the young Kogoro Mouri was aiming with a standard pistol.

"There are many different opinions about why Mr. Maori left the Metropolitan Police Department, but his judgment in stopping the avalanche just now, as well as his marksmanship, are enough to prove that he has never lost his instincts as a police officer."

He looked at the ticket in Kudo Yuki's hand. "Are you planning to use this opportunity to watch the Orionid meteor shower replay to find clues to the four combination locks at Nagano Trading Corporation?"

"Yeah, I also wanted Tohru to see the meteor shower and get some advice. But there are so many people here..."

Before she finished speaking, Ogino Ayami knocked on the car window: "Xiaoxue, Miwako and I have something to do, so we'll leave first." Lin Duxin had already been escorted by Officer Takagi into Kazami Yu's car.

Zhu Fushiki Jingguang shook his head helplessly, watching their backs as they walked away. His fingertips tapped out a message on his phone to Furuya Ling: "Mr. Maori's marksmanship is even more amazing than the rumors say."

Not long after, Kudo Yuki opened the car door and heard her phone vibrate. The words "Amuro Toru" flashed on the screen, making her eyes light up. She picked up the phone with a warm breath, "Hello, Toru?"

"Just finished the mission," Amuro Toru's voice came through with the slight sound of the wind. "I heard you solved the case?"

"Yes, the murderer has been taken away." Kudo Yuki walked towards where Ochi Yutaka was. "We were about to watch the meteor shower replay. By the way, do you remember the four-digit combination lock on Nagano Trading? I'd like you to help analyze it."

"I promised you I'd watch it together."

Kudo Yuki looked up at the sound and saw a familiar figure standing at the foot of the observatory. His coat was stained with fine snowflakes, and his scarf covered half of his face. The exposed eyes shone like falling stars under the light.

On the other side, Ran Mouri, Professor Agasa and the Junior Detective League were watching the replay of the Orionid meteor shower in the main control room of the Laser Building.

Kogoro Mori quietly left with the Nagano Prefecture trio.

Ochi Yutaka came over in work clothes: "Ms. Kudo, Mr. Kagekawa, who is this?"

Kudo Yuki leaned over and introduced, "Mr. Ochi, this is Amuro Toru, my boyfriend. We came here specially to watch the meteor shower replay together."

Amuro Toru took off his scarf, revealed his usual gentle smile, and nodded slightly towards Koshi Chifeng: "Thank you for your help."

The corner of his eye swept across the ticket with star tracks printed on it between Kudo Yuki's fingers, and he took a step closer to her.

Zhu Fushigami agreed, "We're very interested in the data from last night's meteor shower. I heard that the high-definition cameras at the Nagano Observatory can even clearly capture the ionospheric disturbances caused by meteor trails."

Ochitoyo smiled innocently and led the three people to the Laser Building. "Yes, after all, this is a once-in-a-century outbreak. Luckily, we recorded the whole process in advance."

As he walked, he pointed to the planetarium watch on his wrist. The dial had a miniature star map printed on it. "Look, those three stars in Orion's belt were as bright as diamonds hanging in the sky last night."

Arriving in the control room, a giant screen was looping the moment of the meteor shower. Next to the silhouette of Orion, simulated by green lasers, countless silver points of light, trailing long tails, streaked across the inky blue sky, drawing gasps of surprise from the young detectives in front of the screen.

"Wow! Mitsuhiko, look at that one! It has a pink tail!"

Ayumi pointed at the corner of the screen and said, "It looks like a meteor fell in the direction of the Nagano Trading building!"

Kudo Yuki's eyes fell on the observation data scrolling at the bottom of the screen, and suddenly her fingertips paused. "Mr. Ochi, are the right ascension and declination in this data marked in real time?"

She pointed to one of the lines of numbers: 05h55m / -07°20′.

"Yes, the coordinates of every meteor brighter than magnitude 3 are automatically recorded." Yue Zhifeng pulled up a detailed data table. "Look at this group. The radiant point of the Orionid meteor shower is near the star Orionis, which is just below and to the left of Rigel. The corresponding right ascension is around 5:50, and the declination is around -8 degrees."

Amuro Toru pointed to the embossed pattern on the edge of the ticket and said, "The star trails on it seem to have four small dots at the end."

He took the ticket from Kudo Yuki and held it up to the light. "If you look through the light, there's a tiny symbol next to each dot—like a Greek letter?"

Zhu Fujingguang took a closer look and whispered, "The first one is a, the second is β, the third is γ, and the fourth is δ. This is the Bayer naming system for the bright stars in the constellations. If the four letters correspond to the four constellations..."

"The star A in Orion is Betelgeuse!" Conan had sneaked up to them at some point, holding the star chart manual given by Professor Agasa. "Its apparent magnitude is 0.5, ranking first among the constellations!"

He pointed to the annotation in the manual: "Betelgeuse's Western name is Betelgeuse, which means 'Giant's Shoulder' in Arabic. If it corresponds to the number..."

Kudo Yuki tapped her fingertips on the calculator on her phone. "In Bayer's nomenclature, a corresponds to 1, β corresponds to 2, γ corresponds to 3, and δ corresponds to 4. But these four numbers are too simple. They don't seem like the style of the winery."

安室透的指尖在屏幕上快速滑动，调出乌鸦座的星图：“乌鸦座的a星是轸宿一，赤经12时25分；β星赤经12时30分；γ星12时15分；δ星12时10分。取分钟数的话，25、30、15、10——但四位数字的话……”

"That's not right." Kudo Yuki suddenly held his hand. "The winery likes to use absolute magnitude values. Betelgeuse's absolute magnitude is -5.8, rounded to 5; Rigel, the beta star in Orionis, has an absolute magnitude of -7.0, rounded to 7; Sirius, the alpha star in Canis Majoris, has an absolute magnitude of -1.4, rounded to 1; and Gamma Corvus has an absolute magnitude of -0.6, rounded to 0."

She wrote "5710" on her phone. "How about these four numbers?"

Conan pointed at the meteor trail on the screen and said, "The biggest meteor last night exploded at 21:19! 2119:? But it has nothing to do with the constellations.

猎户座在88星座里排第26位，乌鸦座第76位，大犬座第43位，天鹰座第22位——取首位数字2、7、4、2？也不对。”

安室透的目光落在门票背面那行模糊的小字上，用袖口擦着，露出“RA 5h DEC -5°的字样。他忽然笑了：“赤经5小时，换算成角度是75度（1小时=15度）；赤纬-5度。75和5，取7和5？”

Combining his previous ideas, he wrote on the table with his fingertips, "Orion a corresponds to 5, Canis Major a corresponds to 1, Corvus a corresponds to 7, and Aquila a corresponds to 0, still 5710."

Zhu Fushigure brought up the Karasuma Group logo. "Look, on their emblem, the crow's wings perfectly cover four bright stars. The positions of these four stars on the star map correspond to magnitudes 5, 7, 1, and 0. Also, the Latin name for Corvus is 'Corvus,' and the first letter C is third in the alphabet, but there's no 3 here."

Amuro Toru looked at the radiant point of the Orionid meteor shower on the screen and whispered, "The winery's codes are never straightforward. They use 'falling' as a metaphor for 'control.' The parent comet of the Orionid meteor shower is Halley's Comet, and its perihelion period is 76 years—7 and 6? But we previously calculated it to be 5710."

He suddenly looked at Kudo Yuki, a sharp glint in his eyes, "5, 7, 1, 0, reversed it is 0175. 175 is the degree of the quadrilateral formed by the four brightest stars in Corvus, and 0 represents the 'beginning', which is also the 'origin' of Karasuma Renya."

Kudo Yuki traced the star trail on the ticket with her fingertips, starting from Orion, connecting Canis Major, Corvus, Aquila, and finally returning to Orion to form a closed loop. These four numbers, 5710, sound like "We are zero" in Japanese—"We are the masters who start from zero."

Morobushi Kagemitsu added: "To be more precise, the magnitude of the delta star in Corvus is 3.0, so we chose 0; the gamma star is 2.6, so we chose 6, but they chose 0 because 'zero' represents the 'maru' in 'Karasuma' in Japanese. 'Circle' means round in Japanese."

The meteor shower on the screen continued, and an exceptionally bright fireball with a long green tail crossed the shoulder of Orion.

Amuro Toru looked at the illuminated night sky and said in a voice that only humans could hear: "Those who look up at the starry sky will eventually fall into the star tracks I have laid."

He repeated this sentence, and his fingertips gently tapped 5710 on Kudo Yuki's palm.

"These four numbers are the coordinates of the star track, and the person who created the code is using the Corvus constellation to declare that Karasuma Renya will make all those who pursue the truth become prisoners of his star map."

Kudo Yuki squeezed his hand, the warmth of his palm filtering through the thin glove. She looked up at the dazzling starry sky on the screen and suddenly smiled. "But no matter how beautiful a shooting star is, it's just cosmic dust. Real starlight can't be trapped by orbits."

Conan's glasses reflected the light from the screen, and the corners of his mouth curled up in a knowing arc.

Not far away, Ochi Yutaka was busy explaining the causes of meteors to the Junior Detective Team. No one noticed that these four seemingly ordinary spectators had already caught the shadow of the crow hidden behind the night sky in the maze of star tracks and numbers.

Mao Lilan was a little worried, so she followed over and said, "Sister Xue, the meteor shower replay tonight is really beautiful! But seeing the starry sky reminds me that the person called you Aurora, which is quite appropriate."

Kudo Yuki tapped the edge of the screen with her fingertips. Hearing this, she looked up at Mao Lilan, a faint smile flashing across her eyes: "Aurora... maybe she always likes to use strange code names."

Amuro Toru happened to be holding a glass of hot cocoa brewed by Ochi Yutaka. He handed her a cup, his fingertips carelessly brushing the back of her hand. He whispered in a low voice only the two of them could hear, "She probably thinks you're always rekindling dying clues in the dark."

The sweet aroma of hot cocoa mixed with the warm smell of the electronic equipment in the control room filled the air. Kudo Yuki pinched the rim of the cup with her fingertips, and the warmth of the cup wall came through the thin porcelain, which reminded her of the scene when Vermouth called her "Aurora" for the first time.

It was on the beach in the United States, and in that rare, gentle, and relieved tone, he said, "You are the Aurora of my life."

To be continued...