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

Conan immediately pressed the call button, and Mitsuhiko's voice soon came from the phone, with Ayumi and Genta's noise in the background.

"Aren't you guys going back yet?" Conan lowered his voice deliberately, his eyes occasionally glancing at Wakita Kensuke who was still "deep in thought" not far away. He seemed to be thinking about something, but in fact, his eyes kept glancing towards him.

Mitsuhiko was the first to respond: "We want to go back together."

"We are waiting for you, Conan!" Ayumi's soft voice was filled with anticipation.

Yuan Tai immediately agreed: "That's right! We want to go back together, and we really care about the details of the case!"

Huibara Ai's calm voice interrupted: "Is the case solved? I just saw Officer Ogino escorting a handcuffed man into a police car. He looked like a criminal."

Conan quickly glanced at Kudo Yuki, who was looking at him with a half-smile, and replied helplessly to the phone: "It's solved, but I have been to the scene and will go to the police station to record my statement later. Excuse me, can you guys go back first?"

The three little ones immediately cried out from the other end of the phone: "Ah? But we still want to..."

"Don't say but," Conan interrupted hurriedly, his tone a little serious, "The media may hear about this and rush over soon, so go through the back door of the apartment and don't get entangled."

"Okay..." The three little ones agreed reluctantly.

Suddenly, the phone buzzed twice and was completely disconnected.

"Huh? No signal?" Conan frowned and poked the phone screen, but the signal bar was empty.

At this moment, hurried footsteps were heard at the stairs.

Cameron walked back quickly with a serious expression.

He had just walked up to the second floor when he realized he couldn't send text messages. He tried several times but failed. He had no choice but to walk down to the first floor, holding the phone in one hand, muttering to himself: "What's going on?"

Shushu poked his little head out and reminded, "Xiaoxue, the signal blocking here is caused by human intervention."

Kudo Yuki narrowed her eyes as she looked at Wakita Kanenori, thinking to herself, "Since the person behind this is likely still nearby within the core area of ​​signal shielding, then this was most likely done by Rum."

Cameron was walking down the steps in front of the apartment, his brows furrowed as he pondered the reason for the sudden signal interruption, and his pace unconsciously slowed down.

Just as he was about to reach the door of the apartment, a business car stopped on the side of the road, the door opened, and a man in casual clothes walked out. It was Wu Jingyou, a resident of this apartment.

Wu Jingyou stepped forward and put his arm around his shoulders, his tone somewhat tentative: "Excuse me, are you... a friend of Mr. Zhou Chuan?"

"Ah?" Cameron turned around and looked at the strange man in front of him with a confused look on his face.

Wu Jingyou frowned slightly. "Oh, there's no mistake! Aren't you the one who had a quarrel with Mr. Zhou Chuan downstairs of this apartment building a few days ago? At that time, you were talking about whether the hat looked good or not..."

Cameron was instantly embarrassed by this remark. He quickly waved his hands and explained, "What a misunderstanding! This is my regular running route. I just happened to chat with him that day. The hat I was wearing seemed to be awarded to the champion of a certain gaming competition. He suddenly asked me, 'Why are you wearing this?' I didn't think much of it..."

He secretly complained in his heart: "After all, that hat is a trophy that Miss Judy won after beating the champion in the game hall. It has nothing to do with me."

"No matter what, you two know each other." Wu Jingyou didn't hesitate to pull Cameron's sleeve and dragged him into the apartment. "Come with me, I have something to ask you."

Cameron froze in place, trying to pull back his sleeve. "It's not really an acquaintance, we just chatted for a few minutes!"

The two men were stuck at the door of the apartment, one pulling and the other struggling, unable to separate for a while.

Seeing the two of them deadlocked, Kudo Yuki didn't immediately step forward. Instead, she took advantage of the moment when no one was paying attention and silently said to herself, "Sign in."

"Ding, congratulations to Xiaoxue for signing in successfully today. You've received +500 mall points and a hidden voice detector.

Current mall points are 12,500. System space items: Healing Potion, Distillery Status Information, Distillery Base Location Map, and Stealth Detector. Please continue to sign in daily.

Shushu jumped to the corridor railing, pressed his small body against it, and inched closer to Wakita Kensuke. His voice was filled with a quick warning: "Xiaoxue, be careful! He has a communicator hidden around his neck, stuck in his shirt pocket!"

Upon hearing this, Kudo Yuki's eyes turned slightly cold. She still pretended to be observing the dispute at the apartment door, and only glanced at Wakita Kensuke's collar with the corner of her eyes.

Sure enough, the tiny black dot in her inner pocket was invisible unless she looked closely. She sneered inwardly: "Rum is being cautious. He showed up in person and even used a bug to monitor the surroundings. What is he guarding against? Or is he checking if his plan is going well?"

The noise of electricity penetrated into Shushu's ears.

It immediately raised its little head, its nose twitched slightly, and in a few seconds it accurately locked onto the sound coming from Wakita Kensuke's collar. The chubby little paws fiddled with the props, transmitting the sound of the communicator to Kudo Yuki's ears synchronously.

"What should we do? Lord Rum, should we use the stun gun to knock him out?" The voice from the communicator sounded a little anxious.

Wakita Kensuke clutched his collar with one hand, his gaze sweeping over the noisy crowd at the door of the apartment building downstairs. He lowered his voice deliberately, "Wait a moment, and see what's going on. Leave here first, block your cell phone signals, and stay nearby."

"Received." After a brief reply, the communicator returned to silence.

Wakita Kanenori let go of his hand, calmly smoothed the wrinkles on his collar, rested his elbows on the railing, and looked downstairs pretending to be nonchalant.

Conan heard Cameron's quarrel and immediately walked over quickly, standing next to Wakita Kensuke, and deliberately raised his voice and shouted: "What's wrong with Mr. Anton?"

"Who knows? It seems like they've encountered some trouble." Wakita Kensuke glanced downstairs, his tone as casual as if he was chatting about the weather.

On the first-floor corridor, Wu Jingyou dragged Cameron to a door, suddenly released his hand, pointed at the door of Room 102 and said, "This is Mr. Zhou Chuan's room. Did you hear the loud noise just now?"

"Of course, I asked him to turn down the volume." Cameron frowned, still worried about the argument just now.

Wu Jingyou pointed to the room next to him and said, "The room on the left is my room..."

Before he could finish his words, a resident of the apartment rushed over and urged the landlord: "Mr. Landlord, please think of a solution quickly! This noise is too loud!"

Wu Jingyou turned around and looked at him: "Who are you?"

"I'm Michiya Atobe from Room 101, and I live in the room on the right." Michiya Atobe pointed to his door with a complaining tone.

Seeing this, Cameron murmured softly, "So you are his neighbor too."

Conan approached Atobe Michiya curiously, stared at his clothes and asked, "Big Brother, is this punk rock style?"

"Haha, no," Michiya Atobe explained with a smile, "This is the outfit the protagonist wears for a date in the game 'Moe Moe Memories.' Today I was livestreaming 'Challenge to clear 'Moe Moe Memories' in two hours,' and the audience was super enthusiastic, but then the neighbor's loud noise interrupted my livestream!"

"What a coincidence, I was also broadcasting live just now." Wu Jingyou continued, with a hint of helplessness in his tone.

Atobe Michiya immediately became interested: "You also play bishoujo games?"

"I play Monster Hunter."

"Ah? That's an action game, completely different from a bishoujo game!" Atobe Michiya waved his hand, and the two of them started chatting with each other.

Seeing this, Kudo Yuki also smiled and went over to watch the fun.

Wakita Kanenori then asked, "Action game? What does 動游 mean?"

"These are games that require you to rely on operations to complete battles and pass levels. Games like "Monster Hunter" that rely on killing monsters to level up are included." Kudo Yuki explained patiently.

Cameron looked at Wu Jingyou's clothes and asked curiously, "Do you wear sportswear when you broadcast live?"

"Yeah, I only show my voice during live broadcasts, not my face, so it doesn't matter what I wear." Wu Jingyou nodded and looked towards Zhou Chuan's door. "I just don't know how Mr. Zhou Chuan is doing..."

Atobe Michiya turned to the landlord again and urged, "Mr. Landlord, don't waste time, open the door and take a look!"

"Okay, okay." The landlord Yoshihara responded while taking out the key and inserting it into the lock. "Mr. Zhou Chuan, I'm really sorry, but since you haven't responded yet, I opened the door first!"

The key turned and the door was gently pushed open.

Conan stood on tiptoe on the door frame and looked over everyone's shoulders into the room. The first thing that caught his eye was the safety chain hanging firmly on the inside of the door, the chain was stretched straight.

Moving the sight further to the back, the open-air balcony was mostly blocked by a row of clothes drying, and only a dangling ankle could be seen, with the sole of the foot facing downwards, obviously away from the ground.

Conan's heart sank, and he immediately raised his voice and shouted, "Oh no! Someone in the room has hanged themselves!"

Upon hearing this, Cameron immediately stepped forward, grabbed the door handle and pushed it forward with force, but the door panel was held tightly by the safety chain and did not move at all.

He tried twice but still couldn't open it. He frowned and said, "The safety chain is too tight. I have to break it by force!"

Cameron took a half step back, bent his knees to gather strength, and slammed his shoulder into the door panel.

There was a dull "bang" sound and the door panel shook violently, but the safety chain only made a slight "creaking" sound and was still firmly locked to the door frame.

"Not strong enough!" Wakita Kanenori suddenly stepped forward and said in a deep voice, "Let me do it."

He rolled up his sleeves, revealing his strong forearms, clasped both sides of the door handle with his hands, leaned back and kicked at the bottom of the door panel at the same time.

This time, accompanied by the "click" sound of twisting metal, the hook of the safety chain finally fell off the door frame, and the door panel opened.

Everyone immediately rushed into the room, all eyes looking towards the balcony.

The shirts and jeans hanging out to dry swayed gently in the wind.

As soon as Cameron's fingertips touched Zhou Chuan's drooping wrist, he frowned and pulled his hand back.

The hemp rope had left a deep purple groove around his neck, with a few unnatural silver glitters on the edges. On Zhou Chuan's barefoot ankles, there were still two parallel light red marks, which were completely different from the rope marks on his neck.

"Hey, hey! This is not a prank, right?" Atobe Michiya suddenly took a half step back, his heels hitting the floor with a crisp sound, his tone full of disbelief.

Wu Jingyou put his hand over his mouth, his fingertips turning white, but his eyes were fixed on Zhou Chuan's face: "His face is blue, his lips are purple... Could he be dead?"

"I'm afraid so." Cameron took a half step forward, squatted down, and carefully observed Zhou Chuan's ankle. "The rigor mortis has spread to the calf, and there are slight livor mortis spots on the skin. Although I haven't done a professional appraisal, judging by the condition, the time of death should be around two hours."

Conan stood behind Cameron, looking up at the clothes rack on the balcony, his brows tightly furrowed.

The clothes drying rack was fixed to the ceiling. Besides the hemp rope, two half-dried shirts hung from the metal pole. The hem of one of the shirts just happened to rest on Zhou Chuan's wrist. He stood on tiptoe, trying to see how the rope was tied, but Cameron gently held his shoulder.

"Kids, stay away! You might mess up the place," Cameron whispered. He then turned to look at Atobe Michiya and Wu Jingyou standing at the doorway to the living room. "Are you sure this is Mr. Zhou Chuan, the man who lives in this room?"

The two nodded at the same time, and Atobe Michiya swallowed his saliva: "No doubt, he complained to us yesterday that the clothes drying rack on the balcony was unstable and it shook violently when he hung two pieces of clothes on it."

"The clothes rack is unstable?" Conan's eyes lit up, and just as he was about to ask, he heard Kudo Yuki's voice.

"Mr. Landlord!" Kudo Yuki stood at the entrance and quickly scanned the room.

There was a half-finished cup of coffee on the coffee table, with the wall of the cup still warm; in the trash can next to the sofa, there was a crumpled express delivery note, and the recipient on it was Zhou Chuan; and the floor-to-ceiling window on the balcony was ajar at the moment, and the wind came in through the gap, blowing the curtains.

The landlord was stunned for a moment, then quickly nodded after realizing what was happening, turned around and ran towards the stairwell. The sound of the door closing was as light as a sigh, but it made the atmosphere in the room even more solemn.

Conan put his hands in his trouser pockets and walked briskly around the corner of the room, his eyes scanning every detail like a searchlight.

A piece of black cable was exposed under the sofa. He bent down and hooked it out. It was a pair of half-worn headphones with a few spots of barely noticeable dust on the headphone shell.

He looked up at the black speaker standing in the corner. The speaker body was bright and clean, and the connected cables were neatly tied with cable ties, and even the excess wires were meticulously collected.

"Tsk," Conan muttered to himself: "That loud noise just now must have come from this speaker. The owner must be a very meticulous person to be able to tie the wires so neatly. But why is this room so messy, as if it had been turned over?"

On the other side, Kudo Yuki walked to the desk, and just as her fingertips were about to touch the open notebook, she was attracted by a note pressed under the pen holder on the table.

The note was written in black pen, the handwriting so sloppy it seemed like it was trembling. Only the last exclamation point pierced the paper, revealing despair:

It’s no use anymore, it’s all over.

"Conan, come and take a look at this." Kudo Yuki turned around and waved, lowering her voice to avoid damaging any remaining traces.

Conan immediately ran over, stood on tiptoe and stared at the note, his little brows furrowed again.

Wu Jingyou and Atobe Michiya also came over curiously, and their faces changed slightly when they saw the contents of the note.

"This...is this a suicide note?"

"If that's the case, did he really commit suicide?"

Conan didn't respond, his eyes quickly scanning the desk, and he was convinced in his heart: [No, this is definitely murder, and it's a carefully planned murder in a locked room.]

To be continued...