Chapter 124 Soul-Searching Torture (Part 3)

“Scotland, I’m only giving you three minutes. Click the button in the bottom right corner of the screen, and you can talk to Bourbon,” O’Shillis commanded emphatically.

"Three minutes? To talk to Bourbon?"

Scotland realized that O'Shea was trying to understand this "twisted relationship" through their conversation.

So, what should he say to convey a sense of distortion?

Scotland composed himself and clicked the button. Bourbon's expression on the screen clearly changed: shock mixed with confusion; clearly, Bourbon hadn't expected to meet Scotland under these circumstances.

Before Bourbon could even open his mouth, Scotland said tenderly and affectionately, "I'm sorry, it's all my fault for not taking good care of you."

Bourbon frowned, but Scotland persisted, passionately and firmly declaring, "Although we weren't born on the same day, month, and year, it's still a great destiny to die on the same day, month, and year!"

Bourbon, unable to contain himself any longer, erupted like a volcano, yelling, "Are you out of your mind?! I'm going to live to be a hundred! If you want to die, die yourself! Don't drag me down with you!"

“You are the most important person in my life! How could you…” Scotland’s eyes welled up with tears, her voice trembled slightly, and she asked with heartache, “How could you bear to do this to me, Zero?”

Upon hearing the word "zero," Bourbon felt a chill run down his spine: Jing, are you crazy?!

"You still have the nerve to ask me how I could be so heartless?! Put your hand on your heart and ask yourself, how did you treat me?" Bourbon's voice suddenly rose eight octaves, hysterically demanding, "In the South American rainforest, didn't you instigate Maitai to kill me?! In your eyes, I was just a pawn! You used me, fine, but you even toyed with my feelings! Scotland, you're just a smooth-talking liar, I'll never fall for your tricks again!"

Bourbon launched into a passionate speech to his partner, thinking: Hmm, although I have absolutely no idea what Jing is doing, this kind of acting should be fine, right?

"Strange, shouldn't three minutes have passed? Why isn't Osiris reacting at all?"

Unbeknownst to Scotland, O'Shea was at that moment slowly eating half a watermelon, spoonful by spoonful.

Osiris felt that three minutes might not be enough. So he decided to extend the time until after he finished eating the watermelon before making a decision.

Seeing that Scotland wasn't responding, Bourbon started to improvise: "Scotland, how did you get through to my room? Who gave you permission to connect?"

Upon hearing this, Scotland's heart skipped a beat. He carefully observed Bourbon's room: although faces almost filled the entire screen, it was still clear that the room was much more spacious than a prison cell. On the table were not only celery juice but also sandwiches, a balanced meal with meat and vegetables.

"Is it possible that Bourbon wasn't imprisoned like me?"

Scotland then realized he had been tricked by Osiris. But there was no turning back now, and he could only continue playing this "twisted relationship."

"Zero, I miss you every moment, even the celery smells of you."

Bourbon got goosebumps and gave a look of disgust and contempt: "Bastard, stop bothering me! We have nothing to do with each other anymore."

"No! I know you love me!" the Scottish man proclaimed passionately, "Have you forgotten our vows?"

"Don't flatter yourself! When did I ever make any vows to you?"

Scotland looked like she was about to cry, and lamented, "Zero, don't you want to come home with me?"

With a click, the video call was cut off by Osiris. The watermelon wasn't finished.

Scotland looked completely bewildered: Huh? I haven't finished my performance yet! How could you cut it off here?

Bourbon, on the other end, was even more bewildered. He had come here at Alice's invitation, the specific reason for which was unknown. But Bourbon could sense from various details that this matter was extraordinary: he had arrived in a car with the windows tightly shut. And since arriving at the lab, Alice had simply told him to wait. Apart from Scotland earlier, he hadn't seen a single person.

“Bourbon, we finally have a chance to have a proper chat.” A voice that sounded exactly like Bourbon’s reached his ears.

"Who are you?" For some reason, Bourbon felt as if he were talking to himself.

“I have many identities and many names. But to you, my identity is: older brother.”

"Osiris?!"

Unlike Scotland and Conan, Bourbon had no direct contact with Osiris. At least, that's how he remembered it.

Therefore, when Osiris communicated with him in this way, Bourbon couldn't help but feel that the image he had built up based on descriptions of Scotland or Conan was inaccurate.

"Are we brothers?"

"Yes, we share the same father and the same mother. In this world, I am your closest blood relative."

Although he was somewhat prepared, Bourbon was still greatly surprised by Osiris's candid and proactive admission of the matter: "Why have I never heard my mother mention you before?"

"This is because the biological mother in your mind is not actually your mother in the biological sense."

"This...this is impossible!"

"Calm down, 'mother' can have multiple meanings! You've already figured some things out, haven't you?"

"You mean Abison, Yoko Shiotsuki? What's her relationship with me?"

“Abisun has nothing to do with you.”

"Huh? But I found out that she used my dad's sperm to have twins."

"Ha! You're quite good at gathering intelligence. Yes, one of the twins is me, but the other isn't you. And Abison isn't my biological mother either."

“So my mother is…” Bourbon vaguely guessed the answer.

“That’s right, Dad provides the sperm, and Mom provides the egg. As for Abison and your wet nurse, they are the womb that nurtures the baby.”

"But my mom and dad got married! Why did my mom have a child with another woman?"

“Because your mother was infertile. But she died young, so you probably didn’t know that, did you?” Osiris’s voice held a hint of sympathy.

"Then who is my mother in a biological sense?"

Can't you guess?

“Vermouth?” Bourbon asked tentatively, and Osiris tacitly agreed.

Bourbon struggled to process this devastating news: all he had ever wanted was to find his father, but who would have thought that even his mother was "fake"?

"I still don't understand why there's been no news for so many years? Why are you only telling me now?"

“I knew about this a long time ago,” O’Shea explained. “There were quite a few candidates at the hospital who underwent IVF because the mothers wanted to choose the best-developing embryos. But there were also many other people’s embryos. Unfortunately, the hospital made a mistake with the embryo your mother received; the nurses wrote it as someone else’s. It wasn’t until several years later that the hospital discovered the error.”

"How was it discovered?"

"The embryo number and the egg number did not match, so the mother realized that she had another son living in someone else's house."

Bourbon didn't delve into it, but he could guess that since Vermouth only wanted the best embryos, the bad embryos must not have survived to the moment of birth.

"This means that either I or Osiris will die in the womb."

However, due to a twist of fate, they all lived 30 years longer.

“Why don’t you come to me?” Bourbon asked.

“I gave you a chance, but you refused,” Osiris replied coldly.

Bourbon was stunned, unable to recall at all: "When did this happen?"

"It was the time you fell into the ice hole. We met at Miyano Hospital."

"I can't believe Conan actually guessed right!"

Bourbon recalled the incident vividly when he fell into an ice hole at the age of seven, and he also clearly remembered going to Dr. Elena's hospital with Jingguang afterward. However, being almost frozen solid, he had little energy to pay attention to the other patients in the hospital.

"Sorry, I don't seem to remember..."

“Of course, your attention is all focused on that guy, how could you have time to pay attention to me?” Osiris’s tone was sour.

"That guy...you mean Scotland?" Bourbon clearly remembered that Jingguang had miraculously spoken that day and even called his name. Xiao Ling was so excited that she almost did a somersault in the hospital.

Osiris sighed in a sorrowful tone, "I knew from that time on that you would be entangled with that mysterious guy for the rest of your life, and that we would become strangers because of him."

Why, why?

"Am I wrong? Ask yourself honestly, isn't your life, your job, your ideals, your joys and sorrows all under that guy's control and domination? I could tell from the first meeting that he would be your cage. I gave you a chance to be free, but you still went with him without hesitation."

This last sentence triggered Bourbon's memory switch, and he recalled a small fragment: "Zero, let's go home!" Xiao Jingguang said seriously, word by word.

"Yay!"

"That's why Osiris reacted so strongly to the question, 'Don't you want to come home with me?' To put it bluntly, it's because he didn't win the competition back then, and he still harbors resentment!"

"But then again, was Osiris really that mature when he was 7 years old?"

Why doesn't Mom come to find me herself?

“Because I’m smarter and found you first! Since you don’t want to come home with me, there’s no need to bother Mom.” O’Shea revealed a shocking secret to Bourbon: “I rewrote your file so that no one can find you.”

"Vermouth doesn't know who I am?"

In fact, Bourbon didn't discover until he went to university that he was an unregistered person whose identity couldn't be found. At the time, he assumed it was a mistake made by staff after his mother's death. He never imagined that Osiris was behind it all!

However, partly because of this, he was chosen by his superiors to go undercover. This was probably something Osiris hadn't anticipated.

"Why did you choose this time to acknowledge me? Why didn't you show yourself?"

"Because I want to give you another chance: to break free of the cage that binds you!"

"He wants me to kill Jing with my own hands?!"

Bourbon broke out in a cold sweat and asked in as calm a tone as possible, "Are you really doing this for me?"

"Bourbon, what are you worried about?"

"I'm wondering if it's because you failed and had nowhere to vent your frustrations, so you wanted to take it out on me."

"Scotland wants to kill you, but even so, would killing Scotland cause you pain?"

“Yes. Just like your brother wanted to kill you, but revenge still caused you pain. That’s why you’re called Osiris, isn’t it? The god of the underworld in Egyptian mythology, killed by his brother and resurrected. He is your shackle, your cage, the foundation of your life and the underlying tone of your personality!” Only then did Bourbon finally recall his first encounter with Osiris when he was 7 years old: indeed, two children his age had said a lot to him.

Osiris remained silent for a long time before finally saying, "Ha! I didn't expect you to be a lackey of the Public Security Bureau too."

Now it was Bourbon's turn to be surprised. He came here with the intention of exposing his identity, but did the organization not suspect him at all? Or was it that in Osiris's eyes, the best way to understand Bourbon was through Scotland, and the police were just an insignificant side effect?

“Bourbon, you’ve lost all the rebellious traditions that are ingrained in your bones! What can I say to you?” O’Shilles said with great distress. “You’re too tightly bound to Scotland; you’ve lost yourself, haven’t you?”

“Osiris, the one who truly needs to break free of these shackles is you! You've lingered in the shadow of death for too long, you're stuck in the mire and unwilling to escape! Is there nothing in this world worth cherishing? Wouldn't it be better to live on with your brother's last wish? Why do these heinous things? You weren't like this before, were you?”

“I understand you, because I am your mirror, because I also have a companion with whom I can share the world. I guess you and your brother are the same, right? But what's holding you back? Why did you become enemies? Could it be... because of Mom?”

Osiris sneered, reverting to his childlike voice: "Bourbon, stop pretending! If Scotland were dead, would you still be able to lecture me so confidently?"

"What...what do you want to do?" Bourbon sensed the threat in the other person's words.

“Since you’re unwilling to do it yourself, then I’ll do it for you! I think we can only truly understand each other after Scotland is dead.”

When Scotland, who had been offline for a long time, came back online, he was still sitting in the same chair, but his limbs and head were fixed in place.

"What a pity, Scotland. It seems you can't die on the same day, month, and year as Bourbon. The one who was born on the same day, month, and year as him is me, not you."

"Wait a minute, you said you share the same birthday as me?" Bourbon suddenly became excited.

"Is there a problem?" Osiris asked, puzzled.

"Mom said I was born right after midnight, so I'm the older brother!" the golden retriever said proudly, leaving the Scottish man completely bewildered: Is this the time to be fussing over such trivial details?

The dog, with its peculiar thought process, continued, "I'm the older brother, and you're the younger brother, so the younger brother should listen to the older brother! Stop it, Osiris, you're only adding to your sins."

"That won't work, Zero! Osiris isn't an ordinary child; he won't fall for this!"

Scotland thought to itself, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

As expected, this attempt to persuade him to surrender had the opposite effect: a gun appeared in front of Scotland: "Bourbon, shall I pull the trigger, or shall you?"

Bourbon was terrified and screamed, "Don't shoot!"

Despite facing the gun barrel, Scotland remained unusually calm, speaking rapidly: "Osiris, is this how you deal with me? After you've thoroughly understood me, is the only method you can think of just a mundane, unoriginal gun? Is this how you conquer your opponents? When you can't destroy their spirit, you resort to the most brutal means to destroy their bodies? Hahaha, you pose no threat to me at all. Only Bourbon is afraid, and I'm not afraid of you at all!"

Bourbon was terrified, his face turning ashen: "Jing, what are you doing? You're asking for it!"

However, Scotland continued its barrage: "Lord Osiris, how come the exquisite torture device you created for Mr. Karasuma 20 years ago has become a mediocre and boring pistol for me? What has happened all these years? Has your imagination been eaten by dogs?! As my opponent, don't I deserve a better way to die, a death that bears the mark of Osiris, a death that is unique in the whole world? You know perfectly well that what I crave is to gamble with death!"

O'Shea smiled slightly: "Scotland, who was it just now saying 'I'm not a desperate gambler seeking death'? Oh, I know your logic: you wanted to mislead me into thinking you were lying, but facing a gun, you revealed your survival instinct; everything you've done is a winning gamble, so you're choosing to gamble again this time! This confirms my suspicions were correct, doesn't it? Do you think I'd be happy about that?"

Scotland raised an eyebrow but remained silent.

"Of course not. The gambler persona was something I forced on you, and you accepted it. The twisted relationship was also something I forcibly imposed on you, and you accepted it. You take whatever bait I give you. You are like that, and so is Bourbon. Ha! You two put on a good show. But do you know what this means? It means you are a complete fraud! Because someone who has no opinions of their own and only accepts everything can't be an undercover agent. Especially someone like you who has lived for so long, it's even more impossible."

"Thank you for the compliment," Scotland replied politely, thinking to himself: Osiris really saw through it. They were facing a very clear-headed opponent, capable of peeling back the layers of lies to reveal the truth.

From the very beginning, Scotland sensed its precarious situation. Language and writing, seemingly effective tools that can bridge the gap between people, can also become insurmountable obstacles. Understanding a person requires far more than just what they say.

Therefore, from the moment Osiris chose to dominate the interrogation solely with his voice, they had no chance of winning this round.

This game is completely unfair.

"Scotland, you are a respectable opponent, so there's no need to brand you with my mark. I think the best way for you to die is to die with Bourbon's despair. Look at that face! Soon, you'll never see it again, but this scene will be etched into his heart forever, unforgettable!"

Scotland couldn't break free, but when his mouth was pried open, he realized that there were no bullets in the gun: he was right, Osiris had indeed arranged a bet for him.

He swallowed the celery juice mixed with the capsule, which triggered a violent biochemical reaction in his body.

Osiris slowly explained, "Shirley doesn't know that her parents' research results weren't preserved. The APTX series was completed by her based on my research. This one is the latest version of APTX5010, which hasn't been tested on mice yet. Let me bet on whether you can create another miracle!"

Everything happened so suddenly that Bourbon had no time to stop it.

Just when he was on the verge of collapse from panic, the scene before him made his mood take a 180-degree turn: "Wow - isn't the shrunken Jing cute too!"