Conan: No, why aren't you following the script?

A glint of light flashed in Kogoro Mouri's chaotic eyes, but he didn't make any big moves. He just silently glanced at the so-called 'challenge letter' a few more times before placing it on his desk.

As a relatively weaker version of detective, Kogoro Mouri and Shinichi Kudo have fundamentally different reasoning methods.

If Shinichi Kudo and Heiji Hattori relied on evidence, meticulously unraveling the case layer by layer, they would ultimately uncover the truth.

Kogoro Mouri represents another school of thought.

What he believed in was a fusion of experience and intuition.

Simply put, he often doesn't base his judgment on the importance of the evidence itself, but rather on his twenty years of professional experience, as well as his life experience and intuition, to make a logical judgment.

If this had happened decades ago, Kogoro Mouri's experience-based reasoning method should have achieved considerable success.

After all, the logic of 'A is similar to B, so if A kills for this reason, then B must have committed the murder out of the same mentality' is a crucial method for countless famous detectives and secret agents to maintain stability in their communities, especially in the relatively simpler old days.

However, Kogoro Mouri happened to live in an era of great change.

I grew up in the life of an Edo man, experienced the Showa era, and now I'm in the Heisei era...

It can be said that Kogoro Mouri's reasoning methods have long since deviated from the original version. In addition, he lives in Beika Town, a place known for its "simple and honest people," where almost every criminal has their own unique ideas and ways of thinking.

This kind of representation, which is close to the abstract daily life of Florida, makes it difficult for Kogoro Mouri to keep up with the pace of these new generation of detectives in his daily reasoning, except for occasional highlights.

However, even so...

However, Kogoro Mouri also has his own advantages.

That was his social experience, and the keen intuition he had developed from eating more than twenty years of food...

Call it wildly imaginative or whimsical.

In any case, when Kogoro Mouri received the challenge letter, he immediately felt a sense of familiarity.

This feeling was the same one he had experienced with Kitagawa Isao, the young detective who seemed very respectful to him but actually had a distance between him and his inner self.

Recalling that time at the National Stadium, her affection for him was effortlessly deflected by Kitagawa Isao...

Gradually, Kogoro Mouri's eyes turned piercing.

But soon, his eyes became even clearer.

Kogoro Mori realized that his encounter with Isao Kitagawa today was just a coincidence, and they hadn't mentioned attending the wedding at the Morizono family's house during their conversation. Kitagawa had no idea that his group would stay here for so long.

Moreover, the protagonist of this challenge letter is Hattori Heiji, that brat from Osaka. If Kitagawa Isao did it, he should be targeting him. There's no reason for him to make things difficult for a stranger he's only met once.

Such speculation is completely unfounded.

With this in mind, Kogoro Mouri gradually calmed down and began to carefully search the Morizono family's study with Conan and Heiji Hattori for the mystery that they still hadn't solved.

This was rather strange. The Mori family's study wasn't very big, and they had practically turned it upside down, but apart from the challenge letter, nothing else seemed out of the ordinary.

This made Kogoro Mouri and the others wonder if the thug had accidentally left behind a note with a riddle in his nervousness.

This view was shared by the vast majority of people present, but Conan and Heiji Hattori still felt something was amiss.

Finally, when they turned their attention back to the challenge letter.

The segmentation rules that made them feel out of place caught their attention.

Hattori Heiji picked up the challenge letter, pointed at the text with a puzzled look, and said:

"This is strange. Logically speaking, there's no need for a criminal to divide a letter into three paragraphs with only a few hundred words. Moreover, it doesn't even refer to the most basic letter format. I suspect that this might be hinting at something?"

"You mean..." Kogoro Mouri stroked his chin and asked tentatively.

"I doubt……"

Hattori Heiji paused for a moment, then looked up with a determined expression. "This challenge letter itself is the riddle left by the villain, and there is no other explanation!"

Upon hearing this, the expressions of everyone present changed immediately, but upon closer reflection, they felt that there was some truth to it.

The entire room was searched for and nothing unusual was found. In the end, only this letter remained. The problem was clearly with this letter, but what exactly was the mystery?

As everyone's attention returned to Hattori Heiji, the sunny and cheerful young man chuckled and slowly began to explain:

"Three paragraphs, but not in the style of a letter. The first paragraph is a challenge, the third paragraph is the ending, and this second paragraph... is the most important part of the whole piece."

"What did you say?!"

"It's not over yet,"

Hattori Heiji shook his head and continued to explain, "Based on my guess, the reason why the villain praised me so exaggeratedly was that his real purpose was to hide the mystery in these boastful words. The so-called 'A gentleman as beautiful as jade, unparalleled in the world'... that sentence is the real mystery he left for me!"

Upon hearing this, seemingly worried that Hattori Heiji's explanation was not clear enough, Edogawa Conan stepped forward again and described their speculation to everyone in a more accessible way.

"The culprit kept praising Heiji's deductive reasoning skills in the letter, and said that he had always admired Heiji. This means that the culprit should know Heiji very well. But if that's the case, why would he use such words to praise Heiji?"

As he spoke, Conan pointed to the letter, "Praising others as if they were beautiful jade, but Heiji-nii, whether in personality or appearance..."

"Ahem, what nonsense are you spouting, kid?"

Heiji Hattori was so angry that his face turned green after being betrayed by Conan for no apparent reason.

He snatched the letter and slammed it on the table. "In short! The mystery is this quote that the villain deliberately used. There's no doubt about that. The most important thing right now is to solve the mystery as soon as possible and rescue Mr. Kikuto. Otherwise, if we wait until tomorrow morning, it will be too late!"

……

First update. My fever has subsided a bit today.