Chapter 107, Chapter 106: Rag's Strange Movements
The mother sparrow asked her little sparrow, "What hairstyle do you want today?"
The little sparrow said, "Tick-tock."
Kiel raised his hand and flicked the little tuft of hair on Zhuge Tongzhi's head.
"Stop messing around, Kiel." Zhuge Tongzhi, who had tied up his action hairstyle, slapped away the woman's mischievous hand and sat down at a small outdoor table in a street-side coffee shop, digging into the pudding in front of him. "We're on a mission right now."
Wearing a black tracksuit, Kiel chuckled upon hearing this, propping his chin up as he looked at the girl happily eating pudding in front of him and asked, "So, is eating pudding also part of the mission?"
"Why not?" Zhuge Tongzhi devoured the tiny but expensive pudding in front of him in a few bites, then took a cup of crepe ice cream from the waiter, pondering where to start eating, and casually said, "Didn't Vermouth teach you the true meaning of going on a mission?"
Kiel raised an eyebrow. She often went on missions with Vermouth. Although she knew Vermouth was extravagant, she didn't think that was the style of a typical codename member.
At least when I work for Gin, I always buy second-class seats on the Shinkansen.
"What is it?" asked the CIA undercover agent who had been diligently studying Gin's hardworking style during his undercover work.
"Then you'd better listen carefully." Zhuge Tongzhi shook the slender silver spoon in his hand as if waving a magic wand, reflecting a bright arc of light in the sunlight. His high-class demeanor was indeed somewhat similar to Vermouth's.
The dark-haired girl scooped up a full spoonful of ice cream and stuffed it into her mouth, a sweet smile naturally spreading across her face.
"That's wasteful."
Kiel, who had already guessed the answer, was also momentarily speechless with amusement. She had never seen such a carefree and cheerful ale, especially since it was an extremely rare limited edition for children. She took a moment to regain her composure before she could speak.
"Looks like you're doing pretty well since you defected from the organization."
Looking at Zhuge Tongzhi, who was beginning to resemble a child, Gil's tone was one of surprise, yet also filled with感慨 (gǎnkǎi, a feeling of deep emotion or reflection) about the journey he had taken.
During her time with the organization, Elle adhered to Rum's mysticism and rarely established personal connections with other codename members. She was the second-in-command of the intelligence group, who was unequivocally loyal to Rum, and few dared to provoke her directly.
If it weren't for that warehouse rescue, she would have definitely been more cautious in categorizing El as one of the high-risk members represented by Gin, and would have avoided contact with this seemingly aloof child as much as possible.
But through four years of sporadic contact, Kiel realized that beneath El's cold mask lay a child filled with wariness and suspicion towards everyone in the organization.
Aloes's "most ingenious" self-protection tactic is to maintain a cold exterior, but beyond this icy barrier, a naturally lively child is tentatively peeking at you through the crack in the door, and you must habitually put on a cold face and pretend you don't care at all.
Kiel, whose virtues had been recognized by the authority of the Rag, was encased within the thick barrier of El, allowing him to glimpse the free-spirited soul within. He saw countless unspoken complaints reflected in the other's eyes, and ultimately received a few brief responses—
"Um."
"good."
"OK."
"receive."
"Alas---"
Finally, here's a bonus image of El's commonly used cool-face skin: 0-0
Kiel was always curious about what the child would be like now if he had grown up like his peers.
Unfortunately, the organization is not a place suitable for normal people to grow up in. Elg has become accustomed to dealing with people with a blank expression in this environment. She also lazily wears the same expression when facing people she trusts. Only when Rag deliberately teases her will she show some emotion.
Now that it has left the organization and come into contact with the sunlight of the outside world, Al is like a small sycamore tree stretching its branches to embrace the light, proudly displaying its upright posture that has never been crooked.
Every bird that perches on the sycamore tree and sings openly expresses its innermost feelings, and every sycamore flower that blooms on the branch laughs joyfully in the sunlight.
No longer is it "Ale's coldness and arrogance that repels all things"
Instead, it was described as "the windmill turning slowly with a creaking sound".
“This is so nice.” Kiel looked at the dark-haired girl who was already used to laughing and repeated, “This is so nice.”
Although Zhuge Tongzhi was not quite sure what Gil was thinking that made him so emotional when he looked at him again, he could easily deduce some of the content of his memories from his expression.
It's probably because it's been a long time since I've seen the young master smile like that.
Or perhaps, the young master hasn't smiled in ten years.
Kiel, when did you get the butler's script?
But the time she spent adventuring and getting into trouble with the Junior Detective Club after her defection was indeed the happiest time of her life, when she laughed the purest.
At that time, the memory of 'Ale' was still deeply buried in his heart. Zhuge Tongzhi, disguised as 'Lager', was able to enjoy the fun of adventure without any shadows. If it had been him with the complete set of memories from the beginning, he probably would not have had the mind to join this naive team at all.
...Not necessarily. After all, Ayumi is such an adorable, sincere, brave, kind, and radiant little girl, and Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya and Genta Kojima are equally remarkable.
But she definitely wouldn't do so many embarrassing and childish things! Nor would she try to act cute or anything like that! It was all because of Lager's foolish memories and Conan's wrong teachings that misled her, and Zhuge Tongzhi is determined to draw a line between herself and that version of herself.
For over a decade, the black-haired girl has maintained a cool and aloof persona, stubbornly trying to preserve her image.
"Well, it's actually been pretty good." Zhuge Tongzhi took a bite of his crepe and propped his bulging cheeks up with his hand. "Although every day is either eight eggs or a murder case, when there aren't any of those, we go catch Kidd, or go on a picnic and then have a battle royale. But overall it's been quite fulfilling and fun."
Kiel: ...Wait, it sounds like we're constantly in a state of utter misery.
Zhuge Tongzhi: No, the one who is truly suffering is someone else.
For example, the residents of Beika Town, the police officers of the First Investigative Division, and the regulatory authorities whose bomb-prevention efforts failed miserably...
The way it is in the Detective Conan world is this: our Junior Detective League only needs to solve cases, while the others have to consider many other things.
The two quickly changed the subject. They weren't there simply for dessert. A few steps away was an office building where the old laboratory was located, but Zhuge Tongzhi didn't intend to use his old tricks to sneak in.
New era, new technologies, new methods, new shortcuts.
Hiroki Sawada called her as soon as her plane landed in the United States, happily planning to invite his long-lost sister Kiri to visit his company.
Yes, the boy who once jumped off a tall building now owns that building.
After Sindora was investigated for attempted murder, Noah's Ark anonymously submitted various pieces of evidence of business crimes and child abuse to the police and Sindora's rivals. The chairman was soon arrested and imprisoned on multiple charges.
His legal heir, Hiroki Sawada, became the new chairman of the Syndora Group.
The arrest and imprisonment of Sindora did not affect the instant success of "Cocoon". Hiroki Sawada's unparalleled computer talent still allowed the Sindora Group to stand firmly at the forefront of the technology industry after the turmoil, and continue to improve the application of holographic capsules in various fields.
Oh right, the Sindora Group isn't called "Sindora" anymore. Its current name is "Noah's Ark," signifying a technological behemoth carrying human civilization into the intelligent age.
The day Hiroki Sawada changed the group's name, the real Noah's Ark set off a day-long barrage of fireworks on Zhuge Tongzhi's phone screen and enthusiastically invited her to visit its company with pixelated gestures.
Last time, Zhuge Tongzhi couldn't make it due to the invitation, but this time he readily accepted, though he would visit after finishing his business.
After clarifying what the "serious matter" was, Hiroki Sawada unhesitatingly provided technological assistance that was ahead of its time. As a result, the originally tense and exciting game of hide-and-seek with the surveillance cameras was transformed into eating desserts while waiting for the surveillance cameras to betray them.
Zhuge Tongzhi and Kiel were only responsible for bringing the signal source within a suitable range. Once Sawada Hiroki remotely hacked into those surveillance cameras, they could easily sneak into the laboratory.
Then close the door, find the connection, and launch Noah's Ark!
knock off!
Now all he had to do was wait another ten minutes. Zhuge Tongzhi looked at the progress bar, which was already at 81%, and decided to hurry up and finish another egg tart—the egg tarts from this shop were baked to a super crispy perfection.
As a local, Kiel was a regular at this restaurant, and she preferred sweet and sour flavors, so unlike Zhuge Tongzhi, she didn't rush through her meal. She looked around and asked, "Were there other people involved in this operation?"
"Hmm?" Zhuge Tongzhi shook his head.
"Who are all these people?" Kiel peered sharply from under his baseball cap, pointing out the strangers whose behavior betrayed their purpose one by one: "The balloon seller on the street corner, the hot dog griller across the street, the person in the mascot costume..."
"And there's someone pretending to work at the next table with a laptop." The woman with her eyes widened sharply as she looked at the woman in the suit. Although the woman had been there before they arrived, she had only managed to produce three lines of text in all this time. She was definitely not a real urbanite.
The woman sitting with her back to Gil and Zhuge Tongzhi stiffened, and her fingers, which were typing on the keyboard, stopped involuntarily.
After that near-disaster oversight, Kiel's undercover skills improved rapidly. He quickly saw through these "passersby" circling around him and asked the black-haired girl who had just put down the egg tart, "Are they all your people?"
"Yeah, I warned them not to follow." Zhuge Tongzhi crumpled a small piece of paper and tossed it onto the urbanite's head, saying, "Anke, weren't you going to Yoko Okino's concert?"
The woman in the business suit turned around, and there was An Ke, looking dejected. She was blinking her light brown eyes and looking pitifully at Zhuge Tongzhi. "How could we let you come back here alone?"
Anke simply pulled up a chair and moved over, rambling on and on: "You and Lord Rag suddenly went online and interacted, and the forum exploded. Everyone was worried about you, so they thought of coming over to help."
"With such terrible acting skills, now you know why I didn't want you to come along?" Zhuge Tongzhi mercilessly rubbed salt into the wound, urging them to "Those of you who have jobs, go back to work. Today is a workday!"
Anko must have a communicator on her. Kiel noticed that many of the suspects she had previously discovered left reluctantly, while the rest were eager to get closer.
"Those who don't have jobs, go home quietly." But Zhuge Tongzhi coldly gave the order, "Why are you coming to join the fun during your break? If you want to work so much, I'll send you to Noah's Ark for a lesson."
Kiel watched the remaining people leave dejectedly.
"And what about me?" A mature and gentle female voice rang out from beside the table. The waiter who had just served the dishes bent down and placed a row of seven-colored macarons in front of Zhuge Tongzhi. Her long hair fell down from her shoulders, and she asked with a smile, "Did I pass? Lord El."
Kiel then realized with a start that the smiling, long-haired waitress was one of those people. The way she served the food was no different from how she treated other customers, which made her overlook the suspicious detail in the closest room.
"Ayako." Zhuge Tongzhi called out helplessly to the long-haired woman, who then deftly removed her wig, revealing short hair underneath that was slightly damp with sweat. "Weren't you working in the design studio? What are you doing here?"
"I quit because I had nothing to do." Ayako Kujo, who works at Oshima Studio, smoothed her short hair and replied, "The ring that the young couple in the design studio wore after their relationship ended became a hit and I couldn't understand it, so I quit."
Ayako Kujo had originally planned to resign after her promotion failed, but she and Rag had just finished discussing the 'Ale' element in the ring design on the forum and decided to use the exhibition that would showcase the ring as a meeting point. Shortly after, the two beer-loving friends defected one after another.
Confused, Ayako Kujo continued working in the design studio, keeping an eye on this meeting point whose time and location were uncertain, and whose use was unclear, while also monitoring the forum's activity.
For a year, she didn't see any updates on the forum, but she did see a mini version of Elju suddenly appear at the scene of the young couple's tragic ending, and the other party still acted as if he didn't recognize her at all.
Kujo Ayako hesitated at the crime scene for a moment, but finally decided to see if Zhuge Tongzhi would go to the ring exhibition as promised, and prepared a set of seven-color cards for use in the training camp.
Late that night, on the same day she staged a scene at the exhibition and stuffed the seven-color card into her mouth, she received a private message from Elle asking her not to approach her again and not to tell anyone about her current situation.
“No wonder Lord Rag urged me to take your picture.” Just like Gil, Kujo Ayako saw right through Rag’s little scheme and shook her head as she looked at the black-haired girl eating macarons. “You didn’t even tell her?”
Zhuge Tongzhi remained silent, simply continuing to eat macarons.
“I didn’t take any photos!” Anke showed off a blank photo album to prove herself, and then betrayed Rag as well, “Although Lord Rag also asked me to take photos for you.”
Well done, so they were all undercover agents sent by the Lag.
Fortunately, Noah's Ark had already been helping to safeguard the process, so Zhuge Tongzhi wasn't worried about the photos being leaked.
However, she began to care about another issue. The dark-haired girl asked the "undercover agents" on the table, who had been secretly assigned the task of taking photos by Lag, "When did she contact you?"
Kiel recalled for a moment and said, "It was around five in the morning, when I was jogging and I saw the news."
Anke scrolled through the chat history and said, "It was around midnight, but I had Do Not Disturb on at the time. When I replied, it was already 3 a.m., but Lord Rag was still online."
"I arrived around 4:30," Ayako Kujo replied. "I took a red-eye flight here last night, and my back still hurts."
As expected... Zhuge Tongzhi nodded, then picked up his phone, which was now fully loaded with progress bars, and amidst the reports from Noah's Ark, he coldly dismissed the two people except for Gil.
Only after entering the laboratory without disturbing anyone, stepping over the patrol guards that Kiel had knocked down, climbing onto the main control panel, inserting the USB drive that would allow Noah's Ark to connect to the laboratory system, and completing his mission, did Zhuge Tongzhi finally speak: "I seem to have been a little too optimistic."
"What?"
The data transfer progress bar that automatically popped up on the screen was moving forward rapidly, but Kiel noticed that the girl's expression, which had turned cold earlier, had not improved at all; instead, she was frowning.
“Lag talked to me until 11:30 last night, and then we both went to sleep,” Zhuge Tongzhi said. “But she obviously didn’t actually go to sleep.”
It's nothing unusual. In this age of advanced internet, it's common for people to scroll through their phones before bed and end up staying up very late.
But the problem is that if you just look at Rag's timeline from last night, you'll find that:
"She didn't sleep at all."
“And I feel like it wasn’t just for this one day. I’ve been able to contact her anytime during these three days, and so have the others.” The progress bar on the screen was full. The black-haired girl pulled out the USB drive, jumped back to the ground, and walked out of the lab with Kiel. “But why did she stay up all night?”
Kiel didn't understand the reason either.
“And, it’s three days…” What a damn time. No sooner had Zhuge Tongzhi finished speaking than a piercing alarm sounded through the miniature earpiece.
Amid the alarm, Noah's Ark's calm electronic voice hesitated slightly, but still objectively stated, "Lager has lost all electronic devices and disappeared after leaving the Boss's residence, avoiding surveillance."
"Based on her last direction of travel, we can determine that she is heading towards Beika Town."
Zhuge Tongzhi stopped in his tracks in the bright sunshine outside.
She felt a terrifying chill throughout her body.
-----------------------
Author's Note: Morning Star has been quite busy lately.
Sorry everyone!
Updates will be more consistent from now on.
It's in the final stages!
Thank you for your company QAQ
…
Congratulations to Hiroki Sawada on acquiring the Syndora Group!
Kujo Ayako's directions to the 521 special case
…
Mwah!
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