Chapter 168
Usaku Saiki spoke up naturally: "Kudo Yusaku. There's a character in his novel that I really like."
System: [You mean the one based on Han Chuan, right...? You're so narcissistic...]
Usui Saiki: [Stop rambling! I simply admire Yusaku Kudo's skill!]
Shinichi Kudo, still a middle school student, held his breath and said, "Even my dad... no one can compare to Sherlock Holmes..."
Usoppei said with a smile, "It doesn't really matter what author or character you like. The essence of a detective novel is the design of the cases, right? From that point of view, I actually prefer Agatha Christie, and Conan Doyle has some common-sense errors that are too jarring..."
Shinichi Kudo was even more annoyed: "Agatha's case is indeed quite good... Let's not talk about this."
At Shinichi Kudo's current age, most of his peers are more engrossed in ordinary fun and games. Few like reading, and even fewer like mystery novels. He usually only talks about them with his parents. Now, he's finally met someone who shares his interests, someone who used to like Conan Doyle...
As a result, the other party unfollowed and turned against them.
The reasons they gave were all quite reasonable, which annoyed Shinichi Kudo, a Sherlock Holmes fan.
Usakabe Saiki coughed: "But when it comes to character development, Conan Doyle really did a great job. I especially like his characters—"
Shinichi Kudo finally cheered up a bit and blurted out, "Sherlock Holmes!"
Usoppei: "—Moriarty."
Shinichi Kudo: "…………"
He stared blankly at Usuha Saiki, vaguely suspecting that the other was deliberately teasing him.
After all, I'm only a middle school student, and I haven't even grown tall enough yet, while the other person is probably already a college student. They probably really look at me like I'm a child...
So Shinichi Kudo emphasized, not very pleased, "I'm not a child anymore..."
As he spoke, he carefully examined Bo Yezaki, trying to deduce some clues from him to prove his point.
The other person smiled and let him look them over.
Hmm, she's dressed very fashionably, her hands don't have many calluses, and she's not carrying any bag. There's too little information to make a judgment.
But these Buddhist prayer beads, crosses, four-leaf clover amulets, and stuff like that...
Shinichi Kudo hesitated: "Are you worried about encountering any danger?"
"Why don't you guess that I just like dressing like this?" Usakabe asked curiously.
"Well, how should I put it, the other parts of the outfit are actually quite harmonious, it's just that these parts are a bit off..."
Bo Yezaki didn't answer whether he guessed correctly or not, but just sighed: "Alas, I am indeed very worried about being killed."
Shinichi Kudo's eyes sharpened instantly: "What's wrong? What trouble are you in?"
Bo Yezaki looked worried: "Haven't you seen the news? People kill each other for such strange reasons these days. I usually speak very frankly, so I'm worried that one day my friends might suddenly take a dislike to me and kill me."
Shinichi Kudo: "…………"
He took another look at the various ornaments on Usakata Saiki's body.
Uh... Carrying so many things that seem to be mainly for his own protection... How rude must this guy be to be so aware that he's offending people?
So Shinichi Kudo comforted him, saying, "Dog bites man is not news, man bites dog is. The cases you see in newspapers and on TV have definitely been screened to make people feel strange before they are published. In other words, most cases are not actually about bizarre motives for murder. You should trust your friends more. Besides, you yourself feel that you are being too blunt, so just change it. Don't worry too much."
"You're right. Although my friend doesn't seem like a good person, it's definitely better to trust friends more." Bo Yezaki avoided mentioning her own change of heart and directly changed the subject. "Speaking of which, were you doing your homework upstairs just now?"
"No, I was just thinking about something."
Although Shinichi Kudo noticed that Saiki Usaba didn't seem to have any intention of correcting his faults, he immediately put aside his unpleasantness and struggle when the topic came up: "On my way home from school today, I overheard some people talking at the bookstore about something that I found very interesting."
"What's up?"
"Perhaps because they were giving change, the person complained that they remembered meeting a strange person in the morning who said on the phone, 'Ten-yen coins are not enough, I need five more'... Why would someone need so many ten-yen coins?"
Shinichi Kudo gave him a somewhat reserved yet scrutinizing look: "This is just a personal habit of mine. I like to look for interesting puzzles in my daily life. There may not be an answer, but the process of deducing them is very interesting. What do you think?"
After all, he was a junior high school student. Even if he had a famous father, it was unlikely that he would always have cases coming his way like Sherlock Holmes. But he loved reasoning, so he had to find things for himself, such as making associations based on the numbers of license plates of passing cars, in order to practice his reasoning skills.
He usually entertains himself by himself, but now that he's finally managed to find someone, he wonders if the other person is willing to play this deduction game with him. It'll be a good opportunity to test the other person's skills.
If the other person finds it boring, it's just something kids like to play... I know people who don't like Sherlock Holmes must have no taste!
Maybe he just enjoys reading novels, but his reasoning skills are average, and he doesn't like to use his brain when reading mystery novels!
Moreover, even though they clearly know where the problem lies, they still pin their hopes on the protection of these illusory gods... It doesn't seem very smart of them.
Shinichi Kudo had some doubts.
He lacks someone to discuss mystery with, but he's not so lacking that just anyone will do... otherwise, he'd actually be quite happy talking to himself in front of Ran.
Fortunately, Usoppei readily agreed: "I also think it's quite interesting, but it's a bit annoying that I can't be sure of the answer."
"We'll mainly talk about the reasoning process."
The fact that the other person agreed to play this kind of reasoning game meant that they were at least willing to use their brains, and Shinichi Kudo's attitude towards Saiki Usaba warmed up again: "There's no point in arguing about winning or losing in this kind of thing, as long as it makes sense logically."
Usakabe Saiki laughed: "That's good, but speaking of logic, the king of logic, Quinn—"
Shinichi Kudo is now certain that this guy is deliberately toying with him. What a terrible personality! No wonder he's worried about his friend killing him... No, he's even starting to suspect that this guy's talk of friends is just a joke too!
His expression darkened slightly: "Bo Ye Sang..."
"Just call me Brother Bo Ye," Bo Ye said shamelessly. "I met a kid who likes Quinn before, maybe you two can get along well."
Shinichi Kudo: "...No need."
Don't you know anyone else who likes Sherlock Holmes?!
Moreover, I always felt that the people this guy knew were also very difficult to deal with, so I decided to stay away.
Although Shinichi Kudo had a lot of opinions about Saiki Usuba, he was actually quite interested in him, feeling that there was a "secret" about him.
Up to this point, apart from the other person's name, he couldn't even be sure if the other person was a college student. It seemed that the conversation provided him with almost no information to deduce.
But he didn't want to ask. He just wanted to figure it out little by little on his own, so that sooner or later this older brother would look at him with new eyes, and by the way, persuade him to continue liking Conan Doyle.
So Shinichi Kudo coughed and said, "Alright, what comes to mind from a ten-yen coin?"
"There must be a very necessary reason for emphasizing the ten-yen coin... it shouldn't be for buying things."
Shinichi Kudo nodded: "Indeed, otherwise I could have just asked for fifty yen in coins, there was no need to go through all that trouble... Maybe they were just trying to get change, that they didn't have enough change at their stall, or maybe it was something else..."
Usaku Saiki thought for a moment: "At this point, let's estimate how many ten-yen coins he has."
"That's easy," Shinichi Kudo immediately said. "Using 'too few' to describe it means that the number on hand is only about half of the target number. Otherwise, they would say 'almost' or 'not enough.' Based on that, if we take the five more coins he mentioned as one-third, then he should have about ten to fifteen coins on hand."
"Well, he probably needs about twenty ten-yen coins, which seems like too little if it's just for change."
Shinichi Kudo urged, "Don't always be the one making the deductions; you should also consider the possibilities!"
"It should be a place that requires coins, otherwise if you want to buy something, there's a cashier who can give you change directly without you having to prepare in advance... Hmm, ten yen... Is the minimum amount for a phone booth ten yen? Because if it's a vending machine, they can give change, and it's okay to give a large amount of paper and pen, but phone booths don't give change, so it's better to have some small change on hand."
“I had also considered phone booths before.”
Shinichi Kudo was both disappointed and pleased, because Saiki Usaba was able to keep up with his train of thought, but unfortunately this seemed to be a dead end.
"But is it really necessary to use so many coins just to make a phone call? If the call is going to be long, you could just use 100 yen coins or buy a phone card, right? And according to the person I met, the other person was already talking on their phone, so why bother going to a phone booth? Even if their phone is about to run out of battery, they could just find a convenience store to charge it, which is much better than collecting 10 yen coins, right?"
Usakabe blinked: "If it were me, I would probably do it to remain anonymous."
Shinichi Kudo: "...Huh?"
Usoya Saiki said quite naturally, "If you're going to do something bad, you can't use your own phone number, right? Buying a disposable phone card is too much trouble. It's better to use a public phone booth. Just find one where there are no cameras nearby."
Shinichi Kudo's lips twitched: "No, almost no one would check the records on the carrier's end, only the police..."
"Yes, if I want to get away with it from the police, I'll choose to use a public phone booth. In other words, if I have a cell phone, the fact that I would still choose to use a public phone booth to make a call means that the bad thing I'm going to do is really bad."
"It's most likely related to crime," said Usakabe Saiki with a smile.
Shinichi Kudo wanted to say that this line of thinking was a bit too sloppy, but after thinking about it, his expression gradually became serious: "It is indeed very possible. If it is just a phone scam, there is no need to make it so complicated, because even if you make 100 calls, not everyone will fall for it, and among the 100 people who are scammed, there may not be a single case that will be investigated by the operator. So if it is a crime, it must be a more terrible case."
"If it's a ten-yen coin, he'll probably be prepared to hang up after a few words, which means he has a lot of phone numbers prepared and plans to call them one by one to confirm something..."
Shinichi Kudo pondered: "The short timeframe means the matter is simple and can be confirmed quickly. There are at least ten places to confirm, which means the scope is quite large... Are they looking for someone?"
"It's a weekday, so the person making the call was probably planning to call during the day, right? That means they're mostly housewives or elderly people at home... It's possible the housewife went out to buy groceries and accidentally saw something she shouldn't have, then panicked and dropped her loyalty card or something, and they found out her surname. If she screamed, they might have heard her. Public phone booths have Yellow Pages, right? They list the phone numbers of people in the neighborhood. If you find the corresponding surname and call, you should be able to confirm it's that person just by hearing one sentence, and then they'll come knocking on your door to kill you..."
After fluently explaining his conjecture, Bo Yezaki sighed, "Alas, it seems that it's too late to stop it now."
Shinichi Kudo paused, then said, "You're really good at reasoning, but to deduce all this from a random stranger's words, while logically plausible, just feels a bit exaggerated..."
The tone suggests regret for not being able to stop it, as if they've already taken their own reasoning seriously.
Just because the logic makes sense doesn't mean there aren't other possibilities! This is actually similar to writing a novel; he could immediately come up with other developments—
Just then, the television, which they had been using as background noise, began reporting on a case.
"...A woman's body was discovered. My son found it when he came home from school and called the police. He is suspected of witnessing the murder yesterday and being silenced. This morning, we received a suspicious phone call from a public phone booth..."
Usakabe Saiki: "Ah, it seems like I can confirm the answer now."
Shinichi Kudo: "…………???"
—However, the only clue here is a single sentence! How can that possibly lead to the truth?! It's just a coincidence, isn't it?!
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This chapter is almost 4,000 words... I'll add an extra chapter tonight.
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Shinichi is a middle school student, cherish this time, he'll be Director Conan in a few years, he's still quite young now.
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Shinichi's impression of Usoha: He seems to have offended a lot of friends, but whether he is really afraid of being killed is questionable. This guy doesn't want to reflect on his actions at all!
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Adapted from "Knock on the Door".
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