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

The morning light slipped in through the window, flowing into a shallow river of light on the floor, even filling the corners with a bit of brightness.

Shushu was the first to wake up. He rubbed his round eyes with his chubby little paws, crawled out from the gap between the two of them, slid along the edge of the bed to the ground, and stood on tiptoe to rummage through the small velvet bag on the edge of the table.

The pine nut shells that were not finished last night were still inside, so it had to hide the "evidence" quickly to avoid being laughed at by Kudo Yuki.

When Amuro Toru opened his eyes, Kudo Yuki was still sleeping soundly on his shoulder, her long hair falling on the pillow, carrying a faint scent of shampoo. He moved very gently, tucked in the corners of Kudo Yuki's quilt, stood up and walked to the door, picking up Shushu who was trying to push the velvet bag with his chubby little paws.

"Don't make a fuss, let her sleep a little longer." Amuro Toru lowered her voice and poked Shushu's round belly with her fingertips. "Conan called yesterday and made an appointment. We have to meet at Yoshida Apartment at 4-chome in Beika-cho today to discuss something. We have to go there later."

Shushu immediately perked up, grabbing his finger with his chubby paw and shaking it, "Yes! But you have to eat some cheese crackers for breakfast first! Otherwise, I won't have the energy to keep my ears open when they talk!"

Toru Amuro carried Shu Shu to the small kitchen outside, took out a sealed jar from the storage cabinet, and poured a small plate of cheese crackers on the table.

Shushu immediately jumped over, grabbed the biscuit and ate it happily, his cheeks bulging like a little ball.

The freshly baked toast exuded the aroma of wheat. Amuro Toru was preparing to fry an egg. When he looked up, he met Kudo Yuki's gaze.

Kudo Yuki leaned against the door frame, her eyes still sleepy.

"Awake?" Amuro Toru turned off the gas stove and walked over to tidy up her hair. "Conan called yesterday and made an appointment to meet us at Yoshida Apartment at 4-chome, Beika-cho. He said he had something to discuss with us."

Kudo Yuki rubbed her eyes, walked to the table and sat down, picked up a piece of toast and took a bite: "Conan made a special appointment at Yoshida's apartment. Does he have important clues to share, or has he encountered a difficult problem?"

"It's hard to say." Amuro Toru placed the fried egg on her plate. "But given his personality, he wouldn't specifically call ahead to arrange a meeting unless there was something important. It's most likely related to the recent case he's been following."

After finishing the last piece of biscuit, Shushu jumped onto the table and patted Amuro Toru's wrist with his little paw: "I'll go too! Maybe I can help!"

Kudo Yuki smiled and flicked its little head. "You can go, but you're not allowed to run around, and you're not allowed to steal snacks that other people leave on the table. Last time at the Poirot Café, you almost gnawed a hole in a customer's cake base."

Shushu immediately covered his round belly and shook his tail guiltily: "That was an accident! I will definitely behave myself this time!"

Amuro Toru put the rat into Kudo Yuki's windbreaker pocket and picked up the coat draped over the back of the chair. "Let's go, let's go to Yoshida Apartment. According to Conan's habit, he might have arrived early, so don't make him wait too long. I'll be listening to your conversation in the cafe using the microphone."

Following his usual routine, Rum had gotten into a black car with a silver crow logo thirty minutes earlier, using the drive time to complete his transformation. By the time the car pulled up in front of Iroha Sushi, everything was ready.

Kensuke Wakita pushed open the car door, and as soon as his feet touched the ground, he habitually tugged at the hem of his slightly wrinkled chef's uniform, with a slightly deliberate attentive smile on his face.

The black car was as silent as when it came, without leaving any extra sound from its engine. In a blink of an eye, it merged into the traffic flow on the street, leaving only the exhaust fumes to dissipate in the air.

He quickly walked up the steps in front of the sushi restaurant, lifted the curtain, and the familiar aroma of vinegar rice mixed with soy sauce hit him in the face.

"Boss, I'm here!" Wakita Kensuke raised his voice with a familiar tone, as if he had been an employee of this store for a long time.

Behind the counter, the owner was busy making nigiri sushi and pointed to a takeout box on the counter next to him. "You're just in time! Table three ordered the tuna set meal. The address is at the apartment on the next street. Please deliver it quickly so they don't have to wait anxiously."

"Okay! I guarantee it will be delivered on time!" Wakita Kensuke picked up the takeaway bag, his fingers seemingly sweeping across the opening of the bag casually, but in fact he was quickly confirming that the packaging was intact.

He did not forget his image as "clumsy but always kind-hearted". When he turned around, he deliberately tripped on the doormat, which made the customers in the store laugh.

Wakita Kensuke didn't care at all, scratching his head and chuckling: "Look at my memory, I almost forgot to take the chopsticks!"

He turned back to get two pairs of disposable chopsticks, then walked out of Iroha Sushi Restaurant with the takeaway bag in his pocket and headed towards the address the owner gave him.

Back to the present, Kudo Yuki received a text message from Conan:

Sister, see you at Yoshiwara-so Apartment at 4-chome, Beika-cho.

As she reached the foot of the apartment building, the alternating red and blue lights of the police made her clutch her phone tightly. She thought to herself: “My brother’s text message didn’t mention the police. Could something have happened in the apartment?”

Just as he was hesitating whether to reply to Conan first, a familiar, slightly childish voice suddenly came from behind him: "Sister Xue! Over here!"

Looking back, Conan was clinging to the door of a police car, standing on tiptoe and waving at her. Officer Megure, who was standing next to him, had a frown on his face and was explaining something to the police officer from the Forensic Department with his head down.

Kudo Yuki walked over quickly and asked Conan in a low voice: "What's going on? You called me here, why are there police?"

Conan blinked, leaned close to her ear, and explained quickly in a voice that only the two of them could hear: "The case of Room 302 in Yoshiwara House has just been solved. The resident was disguised as an accidental murder victim. I just discovered a key loophole at the scene, so I specially asked Mr. Anton Liye to come over for help.

He's more convenient than me in liaising with the police and handling surveillance footage and testimonies that require adult status to access." He raised his hand and pointed to the entrance of the apartment building.

Agent Cameron's neat short hair made him look more capable than usual. He was talking in a low voice with Miwako Sato at the door of Room 302, holding a clipboard in his hand and nodding in response from time to time.

Kudo Yuki followed Ke's gaze and was about to ask for details of the case when she saw Agent Cameron put away his clipboard and turned to walk towards the stairwell - he was going to retrieve the corridor surveillance from the second to third floors of the apartment to confirm whether there were any suspicious persons entering or leaving during the time of the incident.

But just as he reached the stairs, he bumped into the delivery man, and half of the soup in the thermos spilled out and splashed on Cameron's trouser legs.

"I'm really sorry!" Kensuke Wakida apologized quickly. He was wearing a baseball cap and a pair of black-framed glasses. It was Kensuke Wakida who had just delivered food to the neighboring resident of Room 302.

He took a tissue out of his pocket and handed it to Cameron, while bending down to clean up the soup stain on the floor. "I was in a hurry to get back to the shop and didn't pay attention to where I was going. Are you okay?"

Cameron waved his hand, took the tissue, and casually wiped his trouser legs. "It's okay, just be more careful next time." He glanced at the thermos in Wakita Kensuke's hand and asked casually, "Are you a resident of this apartment?"

"No, I'm a waiter at the nearby 'Iroha Sushi Restaurant'. I came here to bring some freshly made soup to a regular customer." Wakita Kanenori answered with a smile, showing no sign of abnormality.

But when he lowered his head to pack, his eyes hidden in the shadow of his baseball cap quickly glanced at the open door of Room 302 and the cordon at the door.

The subtle confrontation at the stairs happened to fall into the eyes of the brother and sister not far away. They subconsciously stopped and their eyes wandered back and forth between Cameron and Kensuke Wakita.

Cameron's eyes were fixed on Wakita Kensuke in front of him, but the figure of the mysterious old man two years ago suddenly flashed back to his mind.

The other person's hunched posture and eyes hidden under the brim of his hat vaguely overlapped with the aura surrounding Wakita Kensuke at the moment.

His heart sank, and he thought to himself, "Could this man... be the Rum that Miss Kudo mentioned? The old man who was planning to contact Mr. Akai back then? I can't let my guard down. I need to get out of here as soon as possible and contact Mr. Akai!"

At the same moment, Wakita Kanenori glanced at Cameron from the corner of his eye. He had already made up his mind, but with a hint of regret, he thought to himself: "Andre Cameron from the FBI? If my left eye was still as sharp as it used to be, I wouldn't have hesitated at all and would have recognized him at a glance."

He then put his hands on his hips and looked down at Conan, a hint of inquiry and calculation in his eyes: "This kid's movements have always been a cause for concern. He specifically took the takeout orders in this area just to pretend to meet him by chance on the roadside and test him out."

God has given me a chance. Even if Cameron noticed, it's no big deal. My bodyguards are always on standby, so secretly kidnapping a kid the FBI is watching is a piece of cake. Perhaps I should capture him and ask how he survived that bullet? Is Akai Shuichi really dead?

Seeing the atmosphere between the two becoming increasingly tense, Conan immediately sensed the danger - Cameron's identity must not be exposed at this moment.

Conan immediately raised his little face and interrupted in a hoarse voice: "Hey! Don't just stand there, tell me, is there any super interesting method used in the case just now?"

Cameron and Wakita Kanenori both looked down at Conan, their attention temporarily diverted.

Conan struck while the iron was hot, puffing out his cheeks and asking, "Who is the criminal? Wasn't the case solved long ago? Why is it still hidden?"

Cameron instantly understood Conan's intention, bent down cooperatively, and pretended to be serious and coaxed him: "No, no, the details of this case are not suitable for children to hear. You don't look like a neighborhood kid, go home quickly!"

"You stingy guy!" Conan pouted deliberately, looking upset, and acted very childishly.

Kudo Yuki saw all of this and instantly guessed that Conan was deliberately "playing hard" to protect Cameron. She quickly stepped forward and gently rubbed Conan's head. Her tone was a bit resentful, but she secretly gave Cameron a look: "Conan, you can't say that about Mr. Anton. Be polite."

As soon as she finished speaking, her hand under her sleeve quietly pressed the communicator in her pocket, and her fingertips quickly sent a text message:

There is danger, prepare quickly.

The recipient was Shuichi Akai, who was disguised as Subaru Okiya.

No one noticed that in the shadows at Kudo Yuki's feet, a squirrel pricked up its ears, listening to every word of Wakita Kanenori's plan. It then looked up at Kudo Yuki and whispered, "Rum is plotting something bad to catch Conan!"

The moment Kudo Yuki lowered her eyes, her gaze grew a little colder. She lightly tapped Shushu's back with her fingertips, signaling it to continue paying attention, but her face still maintained a gentle expression, as if she was just trying to comfort the grumpy Conan.

With a "click", Ogino Ayami fastened the handcuffs firmly on the prisoner's wrists and walked over quickly with him. She glanced at the three people standing still and asked in confusion, "What's going on here? Isn't the case closed?"

Cameron immediately put away his tense expression, scratched his head, and smiled innocently: "No big deal, just chatted with this kid for a while."

He took the opportunity to wink at Inspector Megure, and the two of them walked aside and reviewed the details of the case in a low voice, avoiding Wakita Kane's sight.

Kudo Yuki stood a little further away, but her eyes never left Conan and Wakita Kensuke.

Seeing that Ogino Ayami's attention was drawn to the case, Wakita Kanenori immediately leaned over to Conan and asked in a very low voice, "Conan, do you seem to know this 'Mr. Anton'?"

Conan looked up, his face adorned with the innocence of a child, and nodded readily: "I know him! But today is only the second time I've seen him. It was my first time here, and I got lost. I happened to run into Mr. Anton jogging, so I asked him how to get to the station and a lot of other questions about the area. Then I suddenly heard a scream, and I was so scared that I almost fell down, but Mr. Anton helped me up!"

He talked about the "experience" in a childish tone, and every sentence seemed ordinary, but he quietly distanced himself from the deep connection with Cameron.

Cameron, who was not far away, was talking to Inspector Megure while keeping an eye on this side. Suddenly, the words Conan whispered in his ear flashed through his mind: "When things are settled, just in case, can you pretend not to know me?"

It was not until this moment, seeing Wakita Kanenori staring at Conan, that he suddenly realized - what Conan said about "just in case" was that he expected that unidentified people would spy on him, and he had built a "protection wall" for his FBI identity in advance.

Wakita Kensuke rubbed his chin with his fingertips, his eyes sweeping over the overturned plates and scattered porcelain pieces at the crime scene, his brows slightly furrowed.

Cameron clenched his hands, hidden behind his back. His fingertips still felt cool from the doorframe. He avoided the forensic officer's gaze and spoke deliberately casually, "Well, I'll go home and change my clothes and come back later. See you later."

There's a suspicious brown stain on my cuff that needs to be dealt with now.

"Yeah." Inspector Megure was bending down to check the half-used lipstick in the deceased's hand. He nodded casually in agreement, not noticing Cameron's slightly quickened pace when he turned around.

Conan stroked the phone case with his fingertips, his mind still replaying the look in Wakita Kensuke's eyes when he asked the question just now - that look didn't seem like pure curiosity, but rather like he was testing something.

Suddenly, my phone vibrated and the name "Mitsuhiko" popped up on the screen. I thought: [Mitsuhiko is calling!]

To be continued...