Chapter 509

The day after that, Rum waited suspiciously until the end of the workday, but Potts didn't bring any other members of the organization.

Was he finally satisfied? So why did he go through all that trouble? He could have just accepted the tip readily in the first place... Oh no, Potnis will still bring other people to identify his voice.

Fortunately, he has readily available ways to contact anyone who can recognize his voice, and he can basically stop them... unless Potts brings gin and vodka.

However, Potts and Gin have been locked in a power struggle. If it really comes to this, Potts must have already recognized who he is and is just playing a trick on him!

The day passed peacefully, and Rum was still a little unsettled.

Then another day passed uneventfully. Rum finally realized that Potts had really given up, or at least he was tired of eating sushi and didn't plan to come back anytime soon. His previously haggard appearance immediately returned to normal, and he appeared cheerful and cheerful.

The waiter, who already disliked him, became even more annoyed and muttered to the boss in secret.

"Boss, I think we shouldn't hire such an old waiter. Look at him, he was so distracted the other day, even carrying a plate was a struggle. He'd be terrible as a head chef! Let's call Oyamada back!"

The boss sighed, "He said there was something going on back home. It's such a remote place, there's no signal at all. I don't know when we'll be able to get in touch."

Yes, the boss is getting a little annoyed with Rum now, after all, nobody likes an employee who isn't engaged in their work.

Even though Rum's first job application was as a head chef, there was no age limit, but the boss was very satisfied with the sushi made by Morofushi Kagemitsu, and Rum's skills were not as good as Morofushi Kagemitsu's, so the boss rejected him.

The next day, a letter arrived from Oyamada's home, asking him to take leave and go home. The following day, Rum said that he only needed one job, and the boss reluctantly agreed to let him fill the vacancy.

Now that they've discovered this guy can't even be a good waiter, the boss is even more dissatisfied.

The boss even wondered if the old man's appetite had grown because he'd been getting tips the past few days, and now that no one was giving him any, that's why he was in such a bad state! He even pretended to refuse at first; what a good actor!

He doesn't want to keep someone so easily emotionally unstable! Based on his friend's experience at the shop, this guy is an unstable individual who might suddenly commit murder!

Rum was unaware that in his boss's eyes he was just a stingy, pretentious old man who was always trying to get a good deal. Now that he no longer had to worry about Potts, he started to fret about when Kogoro Mouri would show up.

He was, after all, a waiter, and rarely left the store. He wouldn't even see Kogoro Mouri passing by, even though Kogoro was right downstairs from Mouri's office. He had never even run into Kogoro Mouri...

Sigh, how long is he going to stay in this sushi restaurant before he can find out what he wants to investigate?

He did see that kid with the peculiar name Conan Edogawa, but with no adults around, he felt it was strange to try and get close to an elementary school student!

In short, everything was going wrong. Rum could now barely understand why the investigation he had assigned to Bourbon was progressing so slowly. Bourbon was an unfortunate person who had been targeted by Potts long ago. Potts would only make things worse for Bourbon than for him, an "outsider" whose only redeeming quality was his voice.

Can't we just get Potts out of Japan...?

Compared to Rum's eagerness for Usuiba Saiki to disappear to the ends of the earth, Conan Edogawa wished Usuiba Saiki lived right next door to him.

This way, it will be much easier for him to find Brother Bo Ye, instead of him not answering calls or replying to emails and just disappearing like that.

Bo Ye said he was going to check out that one-eyed newbie at the sushi restaurant, but it's been several days and he still hasn't come to a conclusion?

If it weren't for Ms. Enomoto Azusa complaining that during his school lunch break, Mr. Amuro and Usui went to eat sushi next door, he would have thought that Usui had just agreed verbally but hadn't actually done anything, and he was planning to refuse to answer his calls until he forgot about it...

However, after several days, Conan Edogawa doesn't have the energy to think about the people at the sushi restaurant for the time being.

Because he suddenly learned about a very important case these past two days—Haneda Hideyoshi's sworn brother, Haneda Koji, died at the hands of the organization seventeen years ago, leaving behind a very strange crime scene.

And this Haneda Koji is also on the list of people in the organization who have taken "that drug," and his name is very close to that of Kudo Shinichi.

As a famous shogi player, Koji Haneda was also very interested in chess. Back then, out of personal interest, he went to the United States to participate in a chess competition, but unexpectedly, he died in the United States.

Meanwhile, Conan Edogawa is currently investigating how strange the scene of Koji Haneda's death is.

The tap was running the whole time, and there were shards of scissors and a mirror at the scene, as well as marks on the palms indicating that the scissors had been gripped tightly...

Having witnessed many ordinary people in Japan bursting with quick wit before their deaths and instantly coming up with codes to hint at the murderer, Conan Edogawa felt that Koji Haneda, who was even smarter than ordinary people, must have also left a code. So he decided to study how to decipher this code.

Someone online persistently posted details related to the Haneda Koji case, even after they were deleted, which greatly helped Conan Edogawa's research. He guessed that this person was someone involved in the case who wanted the truth.

Halfway through his research, Dr. Agasa suddenly said, "Speaking of scissors, I remembered something... This morning there was a case where the victim died with scissors in his hand... and they were even the scissors I invented, so I'll have to go check on them in a bit and cooperate with the police."

Conan Edogawa and Ai Haibara both paused for a moment.

"That boring, noisy pair of scissors actually sold..." Ai Haibara wanted to complain, "And what's there to explain to the police?"

Dr. Agasa scratched his head: "Uh, they probably think the deceased was holding scissors before he died, which might have some kind of meaning, but the police couldn't figure it out, so they asked me, the inventor, to take a look?"

Conan Edogawa made a quick decision and decided to go with Professor Agasa to take a look.

At that very moment, Shuichi Akai was listening in on a discussion about the Koji Haneda case through a bugging device in the next room.

He listened very attentively, after all, this case was essentially the opportunity for him to join the FBI—to be precise, the person directly involved was his father, Tsutomu Akai.

Because his family had a very close relationship with the Haneda family, after Haneda Koji died, Akai Tsutomu, an MI6 agent, began investigating the case, and has since disappeared without a trace.

He had a talent for shogi, admired Hideyoshi, the younger brother of Haneda Koji, and was even adopted into the Haneda family. It can be said that he was very concerned about things related to the Haneda family.

Upon hearing Conan Edogawa tell Professor Agasa that he wanted to go along, Shuichi Akai really wanted to pick up the half-cooked curry next to him, find an excuse to visit, and then go together...

But he hesitated.

The situation is somewhat delicate now.

According to Conan Edogawa, two more suspicious individuals, seemingly members of an organization, have appeared downstairs at the Mouri Detective Agency. It's unclear whether the organization has noticed something, but they've both gathered near the Mouri residence.

In this situation, he was very worried about leaving Ai Haibara alone at home. After all, if he found out anything from Mori, it would be easy to trace it back to Professor Agasa's house and discover that Ai Haibara was involved in something...

Shuichi Akai felt he should stay to prevent any accidents from happening in this delicate situation.

At this moment, Shuichi Akai began to miss his FBI colleagues.

Actually, a while ago, after he felt that the organization should be able to believe that Shuichi Akai was completely dead and would no longer continue the investigation just because the body was burned beyond recognition, he wanted to reunite with his FBI colleagues.

As soon as he had this idea, Conan Edogawa came over to him with a serious expression and said that a new employee had joined the sushi restaurant, and Ai Haibara had personally tested him and found him to be problematic.

Out of caution, Shuichi Akai had no choice but to back down and continue to delay confessing to his girlfriend and Cameron. Now that another one has come along, he has absolutely no intention of acknowledging them.

After all, Judy was alright, but Cameron had been making mistakes for a long time. When he heard that the new guy with the problem was One-Eyed, Shuichi Akai immediately remembered the time a few years ago when he set a trap for Gin, and Cameron fell for it when Rum came to test him.

Forget about recognizing Cameron, he even wants Cameron to return to the United States right now, so that he won't be recognized by someone who might be Rum and then track Cameron's whereabouts... Fortunately, Cameron doesn't know he's still alive, so the organization members won't be able to track him down here, otherwise he wouldn't be able to sleep well now.

But not recognizing each other also has its troubles, such as the fact that he can only protect Ai Haibara by himself and can't ask his colleagues to take over... Oh well, let's trust Conan-kun. He'll ask him more carefully when Conan-kun comes back.

Conan Edogawa, on whom Shuichi Akai had placed high hopes, set off with Professor Agasa to the scene of the crime.

The deceased was the president of a real estate company. Because he was too good at forcibly acquiring properties, he was very aware that he had offended many people, so he was very careful. He hired bodyguards and lived in a detached house instead of the main house... but he still died.

In addition to the scissors in hand, there were also many shards of glass at the scene.

When Conan Edogawa saw the scene, his eyes sharpened. He had initially thought that only the element of scissors was present, but now even the element of glass shards was present. Could there be some inherent connection between this combination of scissors and glass, which could help him understand the case from seventeen years ago?

According to the bodyguard, only one guest arrived today before the deceased was found to have passed away, and it was this guest who discovered that the president was dead.

It sounds like a very simple case. There's only one suspect, bodyguards at the door, and no signs of climbing over walls or windows to get in. It seems like this one guest is the murderer.

But the suspect didn't like hearing that.

"Huh? Those two bodyguards searched me before I went in! I didn't bring any weapons in, and I don't have any blood on me, do I? The scene was like that, the murderer must have blood on them, right?"

The suspect stood in the courtyard, defiantly declaring, "Maybe someone else came in through some secret passage or something to kill me! Anyway, it has nothing to do with me! I'm going home!"

Just then, a car suddenly stopped at the entrance.

Inspector Megure turned his head, his face lighting up with surprise: "Oh, isn't this Hagiwara-kun's car? Could it be...?"

Conan Edogawa was taken aback. He looked over and found that, sure enough, after the car window was rolled down, there was another person sitting in the car besides Kenji Hagiwara, lazily turning his head to look at them.

Kenji Hagiwara waved to them: "Inspector, Fukami and I were passing by after dinner and saw our car over here... Do you need any help?"

Inspector Megure was moved: "You came at just the right time!!!"

"Han...Hanchuan...deep current..."

This voice, trembling with inexplicable fear, caught the attention of Conan Edogawa.

Just moments ago, he was the biggest suspect, the one who seemed to think the world was at stake. But for some reason, he suddenly seemed unsteady on his feet and started leaning against the wall.

Conan Edogawa: "...?"

No, he knew Mr. Hanchuan could be a bit scary at times, but this was way too exaggerated, with the police right there... It was practically an open secret that he was the one with the problem!

The key point is that it sounds like he knows Mr. Hanchuan...

In some ways, it's suspicious that someone who isn't a police officer knows Mr. Hanchuan. Could it be that besides committing crimes, he's involved in something else?

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Because of Usui's actions, Akai hasn't had a chance to contact the FBI yet and is still playing dead.