Chapter 12 Lard, engine oil, rapeseed oil...

Life is full of ups and downs, so cheap!

Meanwhile, Morofushi Hiromitsu maintained a smile as he answered his colleagues' questions, while the Junior Detective League found Conan deep in thought beside a vegetable delivery tricycle.

"Conan, have you found anything?" Ayumi Yoshida walked over to her friend and found him looking at the wheel rims under the delivery truck. The short-haired girl with a headband squatted down and also examined it carefully, but she couldn't see anything different.

"Go upstairs in 6 meters."

Zhuge Tongzhi twitched her lips as she looked at the prompt, grabbed the edge of the delivery cart that was not short for her now, and used the edge of the tricycle to flip herself into the back of the cart, which was full of empty vegetable baskets.

After stretching her slightly sore left arm, the girl looked down and followed the blue and white arrows, pushing aside the clutter piled up in a corner of the car to reveal a large iron can covered in grease.

An unpleasant, rotten smell permeated the narrow alley.

"Wayway: The Secret on the Tricycle (Completed)"

"Turn left and go downstairs, then proceed 1 meter northwest."

As she arrived at the designated waypoint, the prompts in front of her updated further, pointing to the wheel hub that Conan was facing. The boy wearing glasses was asking Ayumi for a tissue, seemingly intending to wipe it.

The tricycle swayed slightly. Zhuge Tongzhi turned his head and saw Tsuburaya Mitsuhiko being lifted onto the tricycle by Kojima Genta, while Haibara Ai politely declined Tsuburaya Mitsuhiko's offer to pull her up and nimbly climbed on herself.

After Kojima Genta was finally pulled up by his friends, Zhuge Tongzhi called them over to see the waste oil drum that had been deliberately covered up.

"Hey, isn't this the exact same oily smell as the note?" Genta Kojima excitedly clenched his fist and waved it in the air. "Then that deliveryman Nishimura must be the mastermind!"

The tricycle swayed slightly with his movement. Zhuge Tongzhi, who was standing next to him, turned his head slightly and saw out of the corner of his eye that the O-D navigation icon had moved away to avoid the little fat man's fist.

"Genta! Don't move!" Ayumi Yoshida's voice came from below and to her side, a clear warning to her partner. "It's dangerous!" Genta Kojima lowered his fist and scratched the back of his head.

"Well, I can't be sure." Ai Haibara crossed her arms, her gaze lingering on the waste oil drum for a moment, and explained, "Waste oil mixed with various oils may not necessarily show that pure pale yellow color."

"However, it's not a problem if you just wipe it on the inside of the bucket."

Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya stroked his chin, adding to the possibilities, but quickly refuted Nishimura's claim that the real culprit was from another angle: "But if he did it, he should have disposed of the oil barrel as soon as possible instead of just leaving it in the car."

“He probably doesn’t even know there’s a barrel of oil here.” Zhuge Tongzhi sat down by the car, put his hands on the edge of the car, and turned to his friends with a smile. “These vegetable baskets with rotten leaves still on them are easy to hide an oil barrel in.”

"Yes, and the smells will be masked quite a bit." Genta Kojima sniffed, indeed finding the smells in this place to be very mixed.

"Yes, but the person who placed the oil drums must have been involved."

The girl braced herself with her arms and landed steadily next to Conan.

Waypoint: Dark Mark (Completed)

The great detective was pondering over the greasy, black tissue he was wiping in his hand when he suddenly seemed to have an idea. He fiddled with his all-powerful watch, squatted down in the shadow of the tricycle, and pointed the watch at the tissue.

"Ah! It's glowing!" Ayumi Yoshida exclaimed.

A few bright blue fluorescent spots were mixed in with the black stains on the tissue, which stood out even more against the dark background by the shadow cast by the tricycle.

"Nani nani?" Three more heads peeked out from above the three people squatting next to the tricycle, curiously watching the developments below.

"Ah—engine oil will fluoresce blue-white when exposed to ultraviolet light." Ai Haibara propped her head up and looked at the wad of tissues in Conan's hand, her voice slow and deliberate. "It seems that Mr. Nishimura just had his car serviced."

“The income from delivering vegetables is not high, and the tricycle is simple in structure, so Mr. Nishimura must have done the care himself.”

Zhuge Tongzhi continued Haibara Ai's words. The girl with frizzy black hair squatted down next to Conan, looked at the considerable amount of engine oil stains on the tissue, and said, "Moreover, engine oil is sticky and difficult to wash off, and it's easy for it to leave residue on your fingers."

“Then, what if the note wasn’t left by Mr. Nishimura?” Ayumi Yoshida tried to reason further but looked troubled. “Even if Mr. Nishimura used engine oil… so what?”

"Motor oil has a strong smell, and because it is viscous, it is easy to form threads and often picks up metal shavings. However, if the dark-colored oil stains stick to the same dark-colored items, they may not be easy to notice."

Ai Haibara quickly connected everything in her mind and smiled, but she didn't rush to reveal the answer. Instead, she guided the three thinking children to find the answer little by little.

"It's a bomb!"

The three elementary school students answered in unison that they saw some sticky residue on the bomb casing before it was taken over, but they didn't think anything of it at the time.

"That's how it is." Seeing that the children had finished their deduction, Conan stood up, dusted off his trousers, and said, "It's time to go back and reveal the truth!"

Combining the clues gathered by Date Wataru with the secrets hidden in the tricycle, he has deduced the truth.

"Hi!" The excited children jumped off the car and walked into the store together.

"Go straight for 60 meters, then turn right."

"Next step: The truth behind the fake bomb (incomplete)"

…

In store

It took Date Wataru and Takagi Wataru quite a bit of effort to separate the two old men who were almost fighting.

He tried to break up the fight but got hit a few times himself. Kogoro Mouri grinned and straightened his suit, thinking to himself that this cook was really strong.

After making sure all four suspects had calmed down, Ida Wataru picked up his notebook and continued the interrogation that had been interrupted.

"Now, please tell me the time you entered the restaurant this morning." Date Wataru underlined each person's name, leaving space to write the time period.

"I arrived at the store at 6:00 this morning." After calming down, Daisuke Nakagawa was somewhat silent. He answered Date Wataru's question in a muffled voice, "Because I have the key, I need to open the door, but when I arrived..."

The shop owner turned his gaze to Hirata Mimi, the waitress who had been looking nervous and uneasy. "Hirata is already waiting at the door."

"Ah, yes, yes." Hirata Minami seemed to be quite startled by the sudden intimidation. She nervously twirled her fingers and answered Date Wataru in a low voice, "I came in with the store manager and then I was in charge of cleaning the store."

"I come to the store to deliver vegetables at 6:30 every day." Deliveryman Nishimura wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, and his fingers were covered with black stains.

“I think I arrived around 6:50,” Yuichi Ikeda recalled the morning, adding, “At that time, Nishimura was already carrying vegetables into the store.”

"Okay, thank you everyone." Date Wataru quickly jotted down all the time periods and drew a simple timeline to mark when each person entered the store. "So, when did Mr. Nakagawa receive the threatening note?"

"I was looking at my phone when I received the note. I remember it clearly; it was just after seven o'clock," the man with the goatee replied.

This was around the same time that Yuichi Ikeda entered, so it's no wonder he immediately suspected the head chef with whom he had a conflict.

“Now everyone here has a chance to put down that note.” The investigation had reached a certain stalemate. Date Wataru tapped his notebook and picked up the note again to examine the oil stains on it carefully.

It's rapeseed oil.

He hesitated for a moment, then decided to go to the kitchen to take a look.

At this moment, Kogoro Mouri, who had been silent since earlier, suddenly spoke up: "Mr. Ikeda, your family's dishes do not use rapeseed oil, right?"

Everyone present was taken aback by the abrupt question and turned to look at Kogoro Mouri sitting on the dining chair next to them. The middle-aged man had his head down, with most of his face hidden in shadow and his eyes lightly closed.

His calm and collected words were a stark contrast to his previous frivolous style, making him appear mysterious and composed.

"It's the sleeping Kogoro!" a customer in the store exclaimed, filling in the missing piece of common sense for the clueless Date Wataru.

"My God! Is that the detective who can solve cases in his sleep?" the guest exclaimed excitedly, whispering to his companion, "Looks like we'll be able to leave here soon."

Can a case be solved while someone is asleep?

Ida was greatly shocked.

However, Conan's anesthesia technique is already considered superb. From a certain angle, no one would doubt that a primary school student was secretly squatting behind Kogoro Mouri, whose movements appeared natural.

Even Zhuge Tongzhi, who was well-prepared, didn't notice when Conan shot out the tranquilizer dart. He only felt that when he turned his head, Kogoro Mouri was sitting smoothly in the chair. Now he could only work with the Junior Detective League as a deduction assistant, responsible for getting items and making demonstrations.

Her eyes swept over the silent Ai Haibara beside her, knowing that the other was actually assisting Conan's actions, such as preventing a certain elementary school student from jumping behind a chair.

“Yes, that would make the dishes healthier and tastier.” Yuichi Ikeda seemed somewhat surprised and his opinion of this seemingly unreliable detective had changed. “I didn’t expect Mr. Mori to be so knowledgeable about food.”

Having received Yuichi Ikeda's affirmation, Kogoro Mouri lightly let the matter drop and instead approached Jinpei Matsuda, who was pressing closely against Hikaru Midorikawa at the other end of the restaurant.

"Officer from the bomb disposal unit over there, could you please explain the situation regarding the bomb?"

…

At the other end of the restaurant, the two people who were talking turned around.

During a mission, work naturally takes precedence.

Matsuda Jinpei stopped his one-sided 'communication' that was full of pitfalls, stood up and walked towards Kogoro Mouri.

Just as Morofushi Kagemitsu was secretly relieved, he saw Matsuda Jinpei take a few steps and then turn around, looking at him sharply with a pointed tone.

"Zhuge is right there. Aren't you going to come along, Midorikawa-kun?"

This is questioning why he isn't worried about a child's safety.

"I was just about to go over there, Matsuda-kun. But my legs are a little numb from sitting for so long."

Zhu Fujingguang took a deep breath, forced a sullen smile like an honest man, and weakly defended himself like a naive college student.

Matsuda Jinpei turned his head away noncommittally, and Morofushi Kagemitsu stood up and followed him.

The man, wearing a disguise, looked at Zhuge Tongzhi, who was assisting Kogoro Mouri with his deductions with his classmates, and controlled his emotions very well.

Moreover, he was genuinely not worried about her.

A note from the author:

----------------------

Ida Wataru fell behind in reasoning due to dealing with a civil dispute.

One step behind, and you'll be behind at every step. (sigh)

…

Matsuda Jinpei: Sharp gaze, relentless pursuit.

Morofushi Kagemitsu: Quickly flipping through the script, adding details on the fly (exhausted)

Zhuge Tongzhi: Damn it, I didn't get to see the live version!

Next time for sure!