Chapter 116 The Darkest Hour

"Jing!" Zero's voice came from the living room, "Come and eat some fresh blueberries!"

Jingguang responded, closed his laptop, got up and left. When he arrived in the living room, as expected, the rice crackers and snow cakes had already arrived first.

Zero pointed at the golden retriever and the orange tabby cat, scolding them playfully, "You gluttons! You two can only eat three at most!"

"Even though she's over 60, Zero is still so adorable!"

Jingguang sighed silently.

Kagemitsu and Rei have been retired for three years. Given the tight housing supply and high housing prices in Tokyo, they live together after retirement, becoming roommates next door again, just like they did during their police academy days.

With nothing to do in their spare time, the two started raising pets: a golden retriever named Senbei and an orange cat named Xuebing. Their names perfectly matched their appearances.

Zero quickly adapted to his new life after leaving the police department. He was passionate about pet charity, organized rescue work for stray cats and dogs, made friends with dogs and carried out various activities, and actively promoted the standardization of pet management regulations.

Jingguang admired Ling's adaptability and easygoing nature. However, he himself found it difficult to transition into a new role like his childhood friend: suddenly freeing himself from a high-risk profession left him constantly on edge. Although his past work was dangerous and stressful, often threatening his life, he couldn't help but miss it after retirement. His current life, peaceful and comfortable, was driving him crazy!

“Ling, I feel like I can’t muster the energy to do anything. I feel like I’ve lost that passion I used to have.” Jingguang confided his frustrations to Ling when he first retired.

Ling frowned as she pondered, the lines on her face deepening: "Since Jing is so nostalgic about the past, why don't you write it down?"

"Does Zero mean writing a memoir?"

“Yeah! Lots of celebrities write these days, Jing can write mine too—”

"But I'm not exactly a celebrity, am I?"

"How could that be? Back in the day, Jing was a very popular food blogger!"

And so, Jingguang began to write down the legendary story of the first half of his life, and he named the book "No Such Person: The Story of Cats and Dogs".

"Jing, have some blueberries!" Ling grabbed a small handful of berries and stuffed them into Jing Guang's hand.

"Buying so many must be expensive, right?" Jingguang asked politely after eating one.

"It wasn't bought, Yang Sheng gave it to me."

"Speaking of which, I haven't decided which tie to wear to the wedding next month yet," Jing Guang sighed softly. "Time really flies; in the blink of an eye, the class monitor's son is getting married."

"How about the blue plaid one? It's very Scottish-style—" Zero hinted, blinking her eyes.

Jingguang knew what the other person was implying, but he arrogantly pretended not to understand and continued to focus on eating blueberries. The cats and dogs next to him looked on with envy, and Jingguang gave them two more on a whim, which made Ling a little unhappy: "I said you can only eat three."

"Eating a little extra now and then won't hurt!"

Zero then stopped pursuing the matter: "Okay... Hey, where is Jing's memoir up to?"

Jing Guang stopped what he was doing and said apologetically, "Zero, I'm having writer's block, I don't know how to write this..."

"Huh? Even Jing has times when he can't handle things. Can I take a look?"

"sure."

Zero sat in front of the computer, carefully reading Jingguang's chapter, and waved his hand, saying, "Why don't we just skip this part? Turning into a good boy and all that, even Kudo himself didn't understand it, did he?"

"But...but I think it would be better to explain?"

"There's not much to explain, is there? Besides, if you write too much about human experimentation, be careful it might be banned and unable to be published!" Zero warned.

Jingguang nodded, agreeing with Ling's point. He then reorganized his thoughts, unfolding the plot, and with the sound of typing, memories revived, returning to late spring 33 years ago—

Conan has been staying at the Twilight Villa for some time now. However, there are neither clocks nor calendars here, making it quite difficult to determine the exact time.

He could only sense the passage of time from the changes in the lighting: he deduced that the light here simulated sunlight, working at sunrise and resting at sunset. He also noticed that the dark patterns on the door changed with the light, which was why he felt something was different after going downstairs.

During this time, Conan gained a deeper understanding of the villa and its owner.

The eerie mansion is permanently inhabited only by two children whose combined age is no more than 17; the rest are all mass-produced miniature robots. Alice also visits occasionally.

He guessed that this place was either carved into the mountain or deep underground. He hadn't seen a single window leading to the outside world yet; he roughly knew where the exit was, but had never had the chance to approach it: in his battle of wits with the artificial intelligence, he had both triumphed and suffered defeats. However, unless he was absolutely certain, he didn't want to shatter the carefully cultivated image of a well-behaved child he had painstakingly built.

To be fair, Conan lives quite comfortably here, with no worries about food or clothing. His daily "job" is simply playing with his "brother" Osiris when he's free. When Osiris is working, Conan is left to play detective adventures alone with the little robots in the mansion.

Conan discovered that O'Shea's working hours were quite flexible: sometimes he would bury himself in work, forgetting to eat and sleep, and other times he would be relaxed and carefree. O'Shea could concentrate for hours on reading books that Conan couldn't even understand the titles of, or spend long periods in the music room playing melodies that Conan either recognized or didn't. However, when he was serious about working, it was also terrifying. The longest time he worked was when the lights flickered on and off three times before O'Shea finally came out of his office, to the point that Conan worried he might suddenly die.

Overall, however, Osiris had more free time, which made Conan convinced that the man must have other helpers behind him.

Later, Conan gradually figured out O'Shea's background: as long as his brother wasn't mentioned, everything else was fine. But this was precisely the question the young detective was most interested in, and he was determined to secretly investigate. One of O'Shea's offices was absolutely forbidden; all other rooms were open to Conan. He tried to find the truth in O'Shea's toy museum and archived library, but to no avail: even though he was so close, his biggest enemy remained elusive. He couldn't even find any conclusive evidence to prove that O'Shea was the man who managed the distillery.

"Osiris, what kind of person are you really?"

The office door opened, indicating it was time for playtime. These past two days, Osiris seemed engrossed in something important.

Conan leaned closer and pleaded softly, "Brother, I want some cake!"

"Conan, isn't it time to eat yet? Are you hungry?"

"It's my birthday today, would you like some birthday cake?"

"Huh? Birthday?" Osiris chewed on the unfamiliar word; he hadn't celebrated his birthday in a long time.

"My sister Alice came this morning, and I saw the time on her phone. It's already May 4th!"

Osiris smiled faintly. "Alright then, how about we bake a cake together?"

"Huh? Brother can make cakes?" Conan was surprised because all the meals here have been made by robots, and the variety is relatively limited, but fortunately the nutritional balance is still quite reasonable.

"Didn't you already eat the desserts I made?"

"You made all those 'weights' yourself?!"

Conan was taken aback, his heart filled with mixed emotions.

The kitchen stove was too high for the two children; they could only reach it by standing on small stools.

Osiris methodically directed Conan to wash the fruit and prepare the seasonings, while he himself set about baking the cake base.

"Brother, you're amazing! When did you learn to cook?"

“When I was very young, I can’t remember exactly,” Osiris replied nostalgically.

"Did someone teach you?"

"No, I learned it on my own."

"But this is difficult, isn't it? The recipe only says a pinch of salt and a pinch of sugar... How does my brother know how to control the amount?"

“A recipe is just a pretty useless reference. You’ll learn how to make a delicious dish by trying a few times,” O’Sirius replied casually.

"In that case, it would take many attempts to produce a good finished product."

"Yes, but I prefer to trust myself rather than have others teach me how to do things. I will accumulate more experience and lessons through trial and error, which is an irrefutable truth."

Even if someone tells you there's a shortcut, will your brother still not take it?

"I will try, but I will also try other options."

"What a patient person!"

"However, all of this is predicated on the fact that you have the cost of trial and error: time."

However, Conan couldn't understand where the path that Osiris was trying to find at all costs led.

The two children spent the entire afternoon working on this birthday cake.

Finally, Osiris wrote in large letters on the fruitcake with chocolate sauce: "Happy Birthday, Conan!"

"Wow! It looks so delicious!" Conan clapped his hands excitedly. Strawberries, mangoes, kiwis, blueberries... they all looked incredibly tempting.

"Conan, wait a minute, let me see if I have any candles..." However, Osiris searched for a long time but couldn't find any.

"Brother, candles are fine too! Cake is all I need." Conan looked on with a greedy expression.

But Osiris was incredibly serious and unwilling to give up that damned sense of ritual: "It just doesn't feel right without candles, how about we make some now?"

"Huh? No, no need for that! Brother, we can use an electronic light instead."

"Great idea!"

Osiris gathered all the robots in the mansion together, and this was the first time Conan had seen a group photo of them. Because they looked so alike, he couldn't tell them apart at all, and it wasn't until today that he counted that there were a total of 10.

Osiris turned off the room lights and led "everyone" in singing "Happy Birthday." A little robot solemnly presented a cake to the little detective, a cylindrical light on its head representing a candle. The scene was heartwarming and touching; it was hard to imagine that this was the headquarters of the Karasuma Sake Brewery. If the police were to burst in at this moment, they would surely be astonished.

Conan silently made a wish: I hope I can find out the whole truth this time.

Then he took a deep breath and blew out the "candle".

However, the light did not come on.

The little robots in the darkness all stayed obediently in place, motionless. The little detective looked around blankly, a sense of fear rising in his heart for no reason, and timidly called out, "Brother?"

"Hmm?" Osiris responded as if waking from a dream. "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to turn on the light."

The room was bright again, and Conan's heart, which had been hanging in suspense, was immediately gripped again: there was an urgent message from Vermouth!

All that could be heard was Osiris saying, "Conan, it seems someone is eager to celebrate your birthday!"