Chapter 25: Finding the Ground

Chapter 25

After watching the video recording of himself changing from a high school student to an elementary school student amid Hattori Heiji's laughter, Edogawa Conan finally understood why Kurokawa Kaoru was so resentful when he talked about this matter.

It's not that he can blame the other party. It's just that the technical staff of the Black Organization are too outrageous, so outrageous that even he, a non-technical staff, can't stand it - his own pantomime alone can be ranked in the top 10 horror events in Beika Town.

Based on his understanding of certain research institutes in Japan, if the outside world knew that he had successfully turned back into an elementary school student and his appearance and body functions were no different from other elementary school students, they would probably try every means to capture him and send him to the research institute.

By that time, it would be useless even if I fled abroad.

Thinking of this, Edogawa Conan let out a long sigh and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

"This time, it's all thanks to you."

"It's just a small favor."

Kurokawa Kaoru waved his hand, clearly not realizing he had done anything. "I was originally planning to remove the images of myself and Gong You as well. Even if we add a few more people, it won't increase the workload too much."

That being said, Edogawa Conan knew that even Dr. Agasa couldn't easily hack into a video recording system without being discovered. Furthermore, judging by the second video recording that Kurokawa Kaoru gave him, Kurokawa Kaoru's skills were clearly superior to those of the Black Organization.

"If you're just an ordinary high school student, how did you learn all this?"

Hattori Heiji suddenly spoke.

“…”

He wondered why the other person had been silent since just now. Was he waiting for him here? Glancing at him with a half-smile, Kurokawa Kaoru leaned back, lying on the tatami in a spread-eagle position.

After stretching his limbs and making himself stretch, Kurokawa Kaoru turned over and met Hattori Heiji's gaze.

"Didn't Gong You tell you about me when we first met?"

First meeting? Hattori Heiji was stunned for a moment, recalling the scene at that time in his mind.

At that time, he came from Kansai to Kanto for Kudo Shinichi. Although he didn't see him, he met Miya Yu at the Beika Hotel when he was about to leave.

At that time...Ayou said to me...

"Are you really a mafia member?"

"To be precise, only some members of the family are engaged in mafia-related work."

Family businesses like the Kurokawa family, aside from the Mafia, also engage in some legitimate business with the outside world; otherwise, they wouldn't have established a relationship with the Suzuki Group. Although he grew up learning from his father how to become a qualified family leader, Mr. Kurokawa tends to adopt a hands-off approach when it comes to cultivating his children's interests.

After all, Kurokawa Kaoru is Mr. Kurokawa's only son. As his parents, he should support whatever he likes and wants to do.

So when it was discovered that Kurokawa Kaoru had a talent for electronic information at the age of five, Mr. Kurokawa, who doted on his child even more than Mrs. Kurokawa, decided to build a single studio for him, and the equipment inside was all the latest.

Even the family's technicians would gossip about letting a five-year-old possess such cutting-edge equipment, thinking their leader was crazy. But when Kurokawa Kaoru defeated everyone in the family's electronic information competition six months later and upgraded the surveillance system they had been worried about, no one complained anymore.

Compared to others, these technicians were more stubborn and difficult to get along with. To truly earn their loyalty, they needed a genius like Kurokawa Kaoru, who could completely outsmart them in terms of technology.

Because of this, during the time that Kurokawa Kaoru was away from home, the strike rate of the Kurokawa family's technicians successfully increased to a level never achieved by previous leaders. It's a good thing it didn't cause any major impact, otherwise Mr. Kurokawa would have definitely brought him back.

"When you detectives are investigating others, don't you find someone who understands technology to investigate?"

Perhaps feeling a little uncomfortable lying down, Kurokawa Kaoru sat up again, half leaning against the door behind him, squinting his eyes and saying, "Anyone who has any connection to the Mafia, their information is not something that you can find with your sloppy research."

When saying this, Kurokawa Kaoru had already forgotten that in the whole of Japan, there were not many people who were better than him in this aspect, so no matter how Hattori Heiji and Edogawa Conan investigated, they could not get his real information.

As if he thought of something, he turned around and his eyes fell on Edogawa Conan.

"But your neighbor...is his name Dr. Agasa? He should have found out something about me."

"PhD?"

Hearing Kurokawa Kaoru's voice, Edogawa Conan was stunned for a moment, then reacted with some confusion: "Since the doctor has found out about you, why didn't you tell me?"

"Who knows?"

Kurokawa Kaoru shrugged. "Maybe they were stopped by others, or maybe they felt the danger level was too high. You can just ask about this kind of thing when you get back."

Was he stopped by someone else? Was it his father? He remembered that some time ago, Professor Agasa always made phone calls with a mysterious look on his face behind his back. He hadn't felt anything then, but now he felt that everything was suspicious.

"Would you kill anyone?"

"Why kill people?"

Kurokawa Kaoru's expression was confused. Seeing the man looking at him with hesitation, his eyebrows raised and he immediately realized: "You don't think that anyone in the mafia is a murderous pervert, do you?"

Edogawa Conan and Hattori Heiji: "We didn't say anything."

"You didn't say anything, but your expressions told you so."

It was easy to guess what these two were thinking. Remembering how he had initially explained this to someone, Kurokawa Kaoru took a deep breath, turned around, snatched the fork from Gong You's hand, and stuffed the last piece of watermelon into his mouth.

Gong You:?

"I didn't say anything, how could you steal my watermelon!"

"Of course it's because I'm unhappy."

"Bastard Kurokawa!"

"I'm not a good person anyway, so you're actually praising me by saying that."

Maybe it was because he stole Gong You's watermelon, but seeing the irritation on his face, Kurokawa Kaoru's mood strangely improved. He turned around and explained to the other two people, "Even if they were mafia members, they wouldn't kill people casually. Besides, I'm not a mafia member. I just happened to have a father who was one."

Hattori Heiji and Edogawa Conan looked at each other. After a while, Hattori Heiji coughed twice and said, "Even if you say so, we can't guarantee that you are not lying to us."

"If I were the kind of mafia you think I was, I would have found a way to capture Edogawa Conan and Kudo Shinichi as soon as I found out they were the same person, and used that to threaten the winery to hand over the poison."

After all, being able to shrink also represents, to a certain extent, the possibility of eternal life, a tempting prospect for anyone. Anyone with even a hint of evil in mind would be interested in the distillery's poison. The investigation revealed that APTX-4869 was used by the distillery to kill people, and there had never been a case of it being able to shrink someone.

As for medicine, it will always produce different reactions due to the various antibodies in people's bodies. As long as we find a few more mice to conduct experiments, we can always find out the reason why people become smaller.

Smiling, he said everything he could think of. Not surprisingly, he could see the paleness on Edogawa Conan's face. Kurokawa Kaoru sighed, picked up the water cup in front of him and handed it to him: "You are too nervous. Drink some water and calm down."

"……Thanks."

After drinking half a glass of water, he finally felt that his mind was not so confused. Edogawa Conan sighed and asked another question that concerned him: "Kaito Kidd... How did you two know each other?"

"Haven't you ever heard that curiosity kills the cat, dear detective?"

Feeling that Edogawa Conan's eyes were glued to him, Kurokawa Kaoru felt a little helpless, but still answered his question: "He and I are both magic enthusiasts. We have chatted several times on the forum before. I only recently found out that he is the legendary Kaito Kid."

To be precise, it is Kaito Kidd 2.0. After all, Kaito Kidd is a thief that has been known to the world for more than ten years. In addition, there were also news reports on Kaito Kidd at that time. Just compare the photos and you can see the difference in their body shapes at a glance.

But this is Kuroba Kaito's secret after all. As his friend, Kurokawa Kaoru decided to keep the secret for him.

"Anyway, that guy always takes the gems and returns them. Why don't you just treat him as a fool who likes to play pranks?"

Predicting the expressions on the two detectives' faces, Kurokawa Kaoru paused for a moment before continuing, "Detectives are supposed to be able to guess what's inside Pandora's Box before they even open it. That's why the police and their clients are hoping you can help them solve the case and decipher the code. From the police's perspective, Kaito Kid is indeed a headache for them, but for you, he shouldn't be that important, right?"

Seeing that his words had been taken to heart, Kurokawa Kaoru chuckled and looked down at his palms: "Besides, I don't think it's a good idea to tell you the identity of Kaito Kidd just like that."

"Why?"

"Guessing what's inside a box before you even open it, or being told what's inside before you even open it—it's an extreme choice. You all know which one to choose, right?"

"Is that even necessary?"

Gong You came over and interjected, "It's just like an exam. If you could tell me the scope of the exam in advance, I wouldn't have to memorize a whole book."

“…”

After a long time without receiving any response from others, Gong You frowned and looked at the people in front of him in confusion: "Did I say something wrong?"

Facing Miya You's confused gaze, Kurokawa Kaoru's mouth twitched, and he couldn't help laughing out loud.

TBC.