Chapter 357 Vermouth's Killing Switch (Combined Chapter)

In the car, Jiang Xia was cheating Wuqi into eating and drinking with real wine.

In the classroom of Teitan Elementary School, the children were holding cleaning tools and cleaning listlessly.

After wiping the windows, Ayumi accidentally glanced at the fish tank on the spacious windowsill. She thought of something and looked melancholy.

When Conan first saw her staring out the window in a daze, he thought she was thinking about Jiang Xia who was waiting outside and was worried about how to get home tonight.

But soon, he found that Ayumi's focus was not on the outside of the school where Jiang Xia was, but on the windowsill, so he asked in confusion: "What's wrong?"

As he said that, he took a closer look at the fish tank.

At the same time, some plots from mystery novels flashed through his mind subconsciously - a finger floating in the corner of the fish tank, the fish in the tank died of an inexplicable poison, and so on...

But it didn’t.

The glass of the fish tank was clean, the water was clear, and the fish were very energetic, swimming leisurely. When they saw him approaching, they came over and touched the glass to beg for food. There were no strange things like human fingers in the tank.

Ayumi looked at Conan who was asking about the situation, hesitated for a moment, and whispered:

"It was my turn to feed the fish on Monday. I forgot to do that that day and was afraid that the fish would starve to death, so I sneaked out of the classroom at night and wanted to see through the window to see if they were still alive. Then I... I saw a person in the dark classroom.

"That person was wearing a big white mask and standing on the podium stealthily. I don't know what he was doing, but he looked very angry..."

Conan was stunned when he heard this. There was a suspicious person in the classroom at night?

He thought for a long time, but couldn't think of any good plot in the elementary school classroom. Could it be that the criminals were planning to kidnap a child, so they came to the classroom in advance to collect information?

Conan's expression became slightly serious: "You didn't tell the teacher about this?"

"I told you! I went to find the Dean of Academic Affairs who lives nearby." At this point, Ayumi didn't know what she was thinking of. She curled her lips and tears began to gather. "And since then - yesterday and today, he didn't come to school. I asked other teachers about the Dean's situation, but they all said they didn't know. I went to the Dean's house and rang the doorbell, but no one opened the door. Wow... It must be because I asked him to help with the investigation that he was killed by that sneaky bad guy."

"That's not the case..." Conan thought that maybe the director was on a business trip these two days. But at the same time, he also remembered that the Dean of Academic Affairs lived alone. If he was really killed, it is possible that no one would find out for a while, resulting in the current state of absenteeism...

A teacher happened to pass by here after get off work.

Conan grabbed one of them and said, "Teacher Ohata, I want to ask you something - do you know why the director hasn't come to school?"

When Ohata heard the word "Director", his face changed, and his expression was a little distorted for a moment, as if he was trying hard not to say it out loud.

He laughed dryly, "I don't know. Maybe he just happened to be busy. He should be back to work soon. Ahem, you guys should finish cleaning and go home quickly. It's getting late."

Having said that, he ran away as if he was afraid of getting involved in something.

Conan stared at his back suspiciously, feeling that there was something wrong, and a big problem - if the director really needed to go on a business trip, the teacher should have heard some news, but Ohata teacher's reaction was very strange... Did something really happen?

The three children next to them seemed to have come to the same conclusion from the teacher's attitude.

Ayumi rubbed her eyes in self-blame.

Yuanta and Mitsuhiko comforted her: "In this case, why don't we find the evil spirit that roams around the school late at night, find out the truth, and avenge the dean!"

Conan: “…”

He crossed his arms and looked at the flustered and excited child with a look of disgust as if he was looking at a naughty child, but in his heart he was curious like a cat scratching.

...This matter is indeed strange.

Besides, it's rare that Jiang Xia is guarding the school gate, so we might as well check it out tonight to see what's going on.

In this way, if there really is a dangerous person, help can be found quickly and Jiang Xia can help send the person to the police station... Of course, the criminal may not be able to escape a beating, but Jiang Xia always knows what to do, so it shouldn't be a big problem.

The school will not let students stay too late. When it gets dark, the security guards who are responsible for locking the doors will urge them to go home.

The four children then put away their tools, left the classroom, and hid in the campus, hoping to find a chance to sneak back to the teaching building.

…

Opposite the school.

All the burritos in the car had been eaten.

At the same time, the gate of Teidan Primary School was quiet, the iron gate was locked, and no one came out.

Jiang Xia held a box of warm miso soup in his hand, and while drinking it, he looked at the campus through the car window, occasionally glancing at his side out of the corner of his eye.

In the driver's seat, "Toru Amuro" was staring at his hand holding the soup with a very complicated look.

...What a strange person. If she doesn't eat the food she brings, she'll be unhappy. If she eats it, she'll still be unhappy...Hmm, the soup is also quite fragrant. I haven't noticed this store before. Next time I can bring my brothers who have worked hard to catch cats to try it. In addition to wraps and soup, the store should also sell other things. I wonder how they taste...Jiang Xia added a place to his daily itinerary.

"Toru Amuro" kept staring at Jiang Xia until he finished the last mouthful of soup, then he quietly looked away.

At the same time, he snorted in his heart: I should have added some sleeping pills to the soup, so that Wu Zuo could experience the dangers of society and the organization... Forget it, she can disguise herself anyway, so there will be plenty of opportunities in the future. How about trying Gin next time? ... No, that would make it easier for Akai Shuichi to target her.

While Jiang Xia was packing up the paper bags and lunch boxes, Vermouth crossed her arms and looked around outside. Only then did she realize that something was wrong.

"The school gates are already closed, why aren't your kids coming out?" She said in the voice and tone of Toru Amuro, with a slightly gloating tone, "Maybe tomorrow's headline will be 'Innocent children stranded on campus were murdered'."

"..." Jiang Xia glanced at "Amuro Toru" and felt that her sarcasm was a bit too much, "Are you free today?"

"Amuro Toru" paused slightly, with a hint of surprise in his eyes.

...If I remember correctly, Gin said that Bourbon didn't know that Uzo already had a code name. How dare a peripheral member speak to his superior like this? How rude...Will Bourbon not retaliate against him?

Or had Uzo actually recognized her?

Thinking of this, Vermouth paused for a moment, stroking her chin, and looked at the person next to her inquiringly.

But after Jiang Xia said that, he quickly started to look outside again, and his attention was not on her at all.

Vermouth: "..."

Before I could come up with any result, the passenger door suddenly opened with a click.

Vermouth was startled, and when she came back to her senses, she saw Jiang Xia actually opened the door and got out of the car.

She leaned her elbows on the window sill and asked with a hint of doubt, "Where are you going?"

Jiang Xia originally wanted to leave Vermouth behind and work on his own.

But after seeing her high-end murderous aura, he still said, "Go to the school and check the situation. Maybe they were delayed by something."

As he said this, he closed the car door and did not go to the main entrance of the school. Instead, he turned to the side and planned to climb over the wall to take a look at the situation.

If you have nothing to do, take the kids out who are hiding in school and go out for dinner and a movie together.

If something happens, first deal with the person causing the trouble, and then take the naughty child away as planned.

…

Jiang Xia quickly walked to an empty area on the side, jumped up, grabbed the edge of the wall, and climbed over.

As soon as I landed, another hand came up from the wall behind me.

——"Amuro Toru" jumped over the wall lightly and landed next to him.

Then she stood up, looked at the simple entertainment equipment nearby and the teaching building more than ten meters away, and asked Jiang Xia curiously: "Which way?"

Jiang Xia walked towards the building closest to the school gate and went out the side door.

Jiang Xia and Tong Zhi also graduated from Teidan Primary School. A year ago, when Jiang Xia was in the hospital, he had nothing to do and analyzed the remaining memories of Jiang Xia and Tong Zhi, so he had a clear understanding of the layout of this school - "clear" rather than "very clear", not because Jiang Xia had a bad memory, but because Tong Zhi had been skipping school since he was a child, and his memory of primary school was quite vague.

Vermouth followed behind him, her face calm but her steps slightly brisk, like the parent of an elementary school student who came to visit on a picnic.

"..." Jiang Xia glanced at her through the reflective window on the ground floor of the building. The boss's prestige was almost destroyed by Vermouth.

By the way, if Toru Amuro knew that Vermouth was walking around pretending to be him, would he be likely to feel murderous intent?

After all, Vermouth's behavior actually poses a considerable risk to Toru Amuro - considering the frequency with which the undercover comrade contacts his subordinates, as well as the average IQ of his subordinates, if one day "Toru Amuro" walks on the street and a police subordinate runs over to say hello, or asks "Toru Amuro" for a mission... the organization may lose another bottle of fake wine.

I have to find a chance to remind the boss... Well, there's no need to be too anxious. Let's first get rid of as much murderous aura as possible from Vermouth.

…

In the teaching building.

The pale moonlight poured in from the spacious window, outlining a narrow, dark corridor that was more than two meters wide.

In the dead silence that should have been there, there were occasional sounds of footsteps. The young detectives rubbed the goose bumps on their arms and were all silent.

It’s not entirely affected by the quiet environment.

But thinking and making difficult choices.

——Except for Conan, Jiang Xia's figure appeared in the minds of the other three people at the same time.

The children fell into deep thought: Should they run out to find Jiang Xia to help with the investigation, or face the bad guy who might have killed the dean alone?

If it is the former, it can effectively prevent the bad guys in the shadows from attacking them - Brother Jiang Xia will definitely catch the bad guys as soon as they show up, throw them to the ground and beat them into a torn sack, just like he did before.

But the problem is, what if Brother Jiang Xia didn't feel satisfied after beating that guy, and suddenly remembered that there were three other naughty kids who stayed in school late at night and deliberately left him alone...

The three children shivered slightly.

Then, he thought with a sense of luck that he should wait and see what happens first - maybe the bad guys didn't come tonight, and they only need to follow the traces left by the bad guys to solve the mystery of the director's disappearance...

Conan didn't think as much as his classmates. He quickly immersed himself in solving the mystery.

I heard from Ayumi that there have been some strange rumors in the school recently.

One of them was that last week, a little girl came into the art classroom and she just felt like something wasn’t right.

Just when she was about to leave, she suddenly felt her scalp tingling and realized where the eerie feeling came from - all the plaster statues of the people in the classroom were staring at her coldly with their lifeless white eyes.

…The plaster statue seemed to come alive. It moved and had thoughts!

The child felt the eight gazes staring at him and ran away with a pale face.

But she happened to be a very experimental young student. After escaping the gloomy and terrifying environment, the little girl thought carefully and always felt that the plaster statue should not be able to move by itself, and the intersection of their eyes might just be a coincidence.

So after she ran away, she returned to the art classroom before school was over that day and made marks on the plaster statue and the table in despair.

When I ran over the next morning, I found that the position of each of the eight plaster statues had been moved.

The little girl stared blankly at the mark, her young scientific worldview shattered. She was so frightened that she had a fever that day, and has not come to school until today. She herself has become a victim and part of the horror legend.

"Then let's go to the art classroom first." Conan suggested.

(End of this chapter)