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

After returning from the Mori Detective Agency, Kitagawa Isao spent a few more days at home with nothing to do.

During this trip to Osaka, he gained two reward points. Aside from the necessary voice-changing technique, he essentially got the lip-reading skill for free.

Kitagawa Isao was very satisfied with this.

After all, he has changed the issue of Conan Edogawa's identity being exposed. Compared to a reward point, he is now more concerned about the relationship between Conan and Ran.

Before leaving that day, he read the last conversation between Ran and Conan.

The gist of it is that Ran promised to keep Conan's secret. Apart from herself, she would keep quiet about Kogoro Mouri and Sonoko as well. She told Conan not to worry, and that their lives would eventually return to normal.

These words were somewhat unexpected by Kitagawa Isao. He had thought that Ran would seek help from the Metropolitan Police Department or discuss some countermeasures with Kogoro Mouri after learning about this.

Unexpectedly, Ran chose to endure it, and even turned around and comforted Conan...

This was nothing like the image he had previously held of Xiaolan, who was described as a nagging, callous, and saintly woman. This behavior clearly showed her to be a girl who considered the bigger picture and had her own ideas.

As expected... most of what marketing accounts say is unreliable.

However, Ran didn't even tell Kogoro Mouri. What was her reasoning behind that?

Did he learn that his childhood friend was actually behind the sleeping Kogoro? Or was he worried that Kogoro would kick Conan out of the house?

The answer to this question is truly elusive.

Kitagawa Isao did not intend to delve into such meaningless questions. In the past few days, apart from occasionally asking Ai Haibara about Conan Edogawa, he spent most of his time thinking about how to earn the next few reward points.

As someone who is always vigilant, Kitagawa Isao knows that changing the plot is often easy at the beginning but becomes increasingly difficult as time goes on.

The reason is nothing more than the butterfly effect.

It's like planting a tree. If you change the angle a little, you might not see anything at first, but as time goes by, the sapling grows bigger and bigger, and eventually it will look completely different.

What's more, this time he directly changed the course of Conan Edogawa's story, allowing Ran to learn his identity ahead of time.

With such a significant change occurring, Kitagawa Isao couldn't guarantee whether the subsequent plot development would proceed as he had predicted.

To avoid any unforeseen accidents in the future, Kitagawa Isao has been constantly observing the movements of this group, striving to obtain the latest information as soon as possible.

This kind of life lasted for less than a week, until finally, on Friday noon, his long-awaited peace came to an end with the ringing of a telephone.

"Hello? Is this Kitagawa Isao, Mr. Kitagawa?"

A sharp, somewhat noisy voice came from the other end of the phone. Kitagawa Isao guessed after hearing just one sentence that it must be a faked voice after being altered by helium.

But who made that anonymous call to him?

To find out, Kitagawa Isao frowned, but pretended not to care and asked.

"Yes, it's me. Is there anything I can help you with?"

"Hehe, I've long admired Mr. Kitagawa's reputation, but I never expected that Skabing would fall for you. This is truly beyond my expectations..."

"Are you an accomplice of Scrooge?"

“Strictly speaking, no, she’s just an unknown henchman of ours. But even so, she’s still one of our comrades. And yet she was arrested by Mr. Kitagawa like this… This really puts me in a difficult position.”

us?

Is this a criminal gang that started with at least three people, including Shi Kaobing?

Upon hearing this, Kitagawa Isao narrowed his eyes and continued calmly, "So... what are you going to do? Take revenge on me?"

“Originally, we planned to kidnap the brown-haired girl from your house, but Mr. Kitagawa, you have never given us the opportunity... So, now I am ready to formally challenge you.”

"A challenge? A one-on-one fight? I'm a master boxer."

"No, no, no, behaving like a wild beast is hardly elegant in my opinion. As humans, we should be competing with our intellect..."

At this point, the voice on the other end of the phone paused abruptly, then chuckled coldly, "There's a team-building dance party hosted by an internet company at a ski resort in Hokkaido the day after tomorrow. One of the attendees is my subordinate, and he'll be assassinating someone at the party..."

Before the man could finish speaking, Kitagawa Isao said calmly:

"Sorry, I'm not interested in that kind of thing, and I don't want to go through all that trouble to go to Hokkaido. It would just be a waste of my precious rest time."

"You...you still don't understand what I mean?"

Somewhat bewildered by Kitagawa Isao's words, the person on the other end of the phone was clearly anxious. "A murder is about to happen in Hokkaido. Our bet is that you go to Hokkaido to stop the murder or find the killer. Doesn't something like that appeal to you, a detective?"

"There really isn't one..."

Kitagawa Isao said helplessly, "First of all, I don't have that strong reasoning ability. Secondly, I'm not a real detective. The few cases I usually take on are just helping the local residents find their cats and dogs. Finally... why should I go to Hokkaido to play this kind of detective game with you? Do you think I'm some kind of playmate? Besides, you didn't even pay me."

After he finished speaking, seemingly shocked by Kitagawa Isao's 'frank' personality, there was no sound from the other end of the phone for a long time.

Just as Kitagawa Isao was getting annoyed and was about to hang up the 'harassing call,' the mysterious man finally sighed and said:

"Kitagawa Isao, you really are a strange guy. This is the first time I've met a detective like you. But... perhaps it's precisely because of your uniqueness that Scorpion fell into your hands."

"You flatter me, you flatter me..."

"You... never mind. Since you don't want to come to Hokkaido, I'll just design a stage for you in Tokyo. Hehe, I hope that by then you'll still be able to speak so calmly."

Having said that, seemingly worried that Kitagawa Isao might say something shocking, the mysterious man hurriedly hung up the phone without waiting for a response.