Chapter 115 (Previous Chapter 114) The Young Lady Returns to the Country!
First is an odd number, second is an even number, third is a prime number, then what is the fourth?
This is a humble abode.
The five virtues are: Shuichi Akai, Mary Akai, Masumi Sera, Hideyoshi Haneda, and Ai Haibara.
The morning after his birthday, taking advantage of the fact that most of the Red Team members had gathered in Beika Town to discuss the final matters, Zhuge Tongzhi politely invited the Akai family to Poirot Cafe.
The black-haired girl, as if greeting distant relatives during Chinese New Year, revealed the identities of this family member one by one, a relationship characterized by "you hide from me, I hide from you, I know you know I'm hiding from you, but I still won't tell you." Then, she took the two cups of milk tea that Enomoto Azusa had packed and prepared to leave the family meeting.
"Wait a minute." Shuichi Akai, having removed his cat skin, reached out and placed his hand on Tongzhi Zhuge's shoulder, handing her the pink paper bag he had been carrying. He then reached out and ruffled the girl's hair, calmly saying, "Happy nineteenth birthday."
Hmm? Did you prepare a birthday present for me specially? But she didn't feel that she had done anything to help this excellent FBI agent.
"Thank you, Cat Bro." Zhuge Tongzhi shook his head and thanked him without realizing it. After taking the pink paper bag from Akai Shuichi, he immediately put his hand into the bag.
"Ah." When her hand touched the very high-quality fabric inside, she realized why she had started unwrapping the gift in front of the giver, and immediately felt a little embarrassed and wanted to take her hand away.
“Just take it out.” But Akai Mary stopped her. The blue-eyed, blonde woman was the first to regain her adult body. At this moment, she sat down next to Akai Shuichi with her long legs crossed and a powerful aura, nodding her chin at Zhuge Tongzhi.
“I’m also curious what gift Shuichi will give the little girl.” Akai Mary curled the corners of her lips and looked at the slightly uneasy black-haired girl in front of her. She smiled and said, “If it’s too bad, I’ll make sure he picks another one.”
Shuichi Akai, who was being teased by his mother, had no objection at all. So, Zhuge Tongzhi pinched the thing in the pink bag that he didn't know what it was and prayed that the gift was not the same color as the bag.
She pulled a black knitted hat out of the bag—brand new, not the garish Barbie pink, and more importantly, the same one as Ray's!
Wow! Zhuge Tongzhi immediately fell in love with this obviously unique gift, happily turning the knitted hat over and over again, carefully examining its details.
She was pleasantly surprised, but... Zhuge Tongzhi looked up at Akai Shuichi, who still maintained a cold and aloof expression, and her thoughts suddenly drifted to another strange angle. She couldn't help but cheer inwardly:
Akai, Akai, are you really going to give away your true form as a birthday present like this?!
The thought that Shuichi Akai's original knitted hat was now in her hands made the black-haired girl chuckle. She coughed twice to suppress the gurgling laughter.
"It seems you really like it. Now I'm worried about whether my gift will be enough to impress you." Akai Mary said with a mix of regret and joking as she took out her handbag and pulled out a small, plain white gift box, handing it to you. "Happy birthday, girl."
Hey, is she really that popular?
Zhuge Tongzhi blinked and obediently accepted the gift that was impossible to refuse due to its overwhelming presence. Then, at Akai Mary's prompting, he opened the gift box, which looked quite valuable.
Inside was a set of exquisite cosmetics, and in the very center was a stylish black eyeliner. Theoretically, with the right technique, she could use this pen to draw the same anti-counterfeiting eyeliner as the Akai brand.
The Akai family, what's going on? You're just giving away anti-counterfeiting labels as gifts?! (Just kidding)
With a silent plea, Zhuge Tongzhi carefully closed the gift box and bowed to Akai Mary to express his gratitude: "Thank you so much. I wasn't really that helpful."
“You’ve done far more than you thought, girl.”
Whether it was breaking down the barriers to intelligence sharing among the Red Teams and rapidly advancing the process of destroying the organization, or frankly sharing those crucial classified intelligence to prevent more people from sacrificing themselves due to a lack of information, Zhuge Tongzhi deserves this blessing.
Not to mention her silent but unwavering trust in the Akai family.
Mary Akai didn't continue with this topic that wasn't suitable for a restaurant, but simply gestured to her that there were people waiting for her outside the cafe, "Go ahead, you can also consider joining M16's witness program."
"No, my stomach doesn't want fish and chips and beef patties." Zhuge Tongzhi politely declined the offer and rejected a future where he would rely on hunger-suppressing drugs to sustain his life.
“I recommend joining the FBI Witness Protection Program,” Shuichi Akai calmly declared, vying with his mother for the man's attention. Meanwhile, Tongzhi Zhuge, carrying two cups of milk tea, made a hasty escape, leaving the Akai family, who had finally managed to sit at the same table with him, to have some time to themselves.
The people outside the coffee shop kindly opened the door for the girl whose hands were full of things. Zhuge Tongzhi handed her a large cup of milk tea before he could free his hands to put the two gifts into a bag.
"Oh, our beloved Tongtong has received a gift!" Rag chuckled and peeked over. After seeing the black knit hat and eyeliner, his expression changed, and he said in a serious tone, "Tong, you should actually go to Poirot's party too."
"Huh?" Zhuge Tongzhi revealed his crescent-shaped eyes, waiting to see what kind of trouble this guy was going to cause this time.
But Rag shook his finger very seriously and said logically, "Right now, the only ones who survived and shrunk after taking APTX4869 are Conan, Ai Haibara, Mary Akai, and you."
"Let's leave Conan aside. The other two are related by blood. So I can reasonably deduce that you, who have also become a child, are very likely related to them as well." The black-haired youth sipped his full-sugar bubble tea, speaking his reasoning haltingly.
It's not so much logically sound as it is entirely based on Arthur Conan's theories.
Unfortunately, Zhuge Tongzhi was very certain that he was not a member of the Akai family.
Rag asked a question mark.
"Because I take my medication differently from them."
The black-haired girl held a warm cup of pudding milk tea with five-point sugar in both hands and spoke calmly about her escape when she was almost driven to the brink of death during her defection. At that time, the only possible way to the outside world was a waste liquid treatment outlet that was too cramped for an adult.
"Fortunately, the organization really did use that drug as an assassination tool. I even found it on the henchmen." Zhuge Tongzhi shrugged and said, "And that place was originally a small, enclosed factory that processed liquor. I also vaguely remembered that liquor could be used as an antidote."
So she smashed as many spirits as possible except for baijiu (Chinese liquor), and after shooting a hole in the container holding unprocessed alcohol in the factory, amidst the overwhelming smell of alcohol, she threw the various colored liquids mixed with dust on the ground into a lit lighter.
Amidst the sudden burst of flames, the black-haired girl swallowed APTX4869 with the liquor in her hand. Fueled by the abnormal, excruciating pain in her heart, she leaned against the wall next to the ventilation duct, awaiting the answer from fate.
Unable to distinguish whether it was the scorching heat from the fire or the high fever from the medicine, she tripped over her oversized shoes in her dazed state before she could react. Before the pursuers arrived, she crawled into the waste liquid treatment port and rolled directly into the nearby river.
"Fortunately, it was the dry season. I was washed ashore and soaked for a while before waking up. I managed to get around those people and return to the nearest safe house."
And the goddess of fortune was really kind to her. There seemed to be a diesel generator in that distillery, and the flames from the burning alcohol ignited the diesel fuel stored inside, causing the entire warehouse to burn down before the organization's people could get in.
Meanwhile, in the nearby safe house, where he had been unconscious, Morofushi Kagemitsu burst out of the bedroom as she pushed open the door, his gun trembling with weakness in his arm, and greeted Zhuge Tongzhi.
I can't remember what happened after that, because she was exhausted and had a high fever, so she just collapsed at the door.
The chaotic memories sporadically pierced her mind, so when she was organizing her memory palace, she simply buried them haphazardly on the spot. In any case, when she finally woke up, she found herself being kidnapped in a shopping mall.
Looking back now, it wasn't Morofushi Kagemitsu's fault that I ended up attending Teitan Elementary School. When her memories were reset and she was quite naive, she seemed to, possibly, and somewhat might have made a fuss about not wanting to drop out of school.
Zhuge Tongzhi smoothly chose to forget this part of the memory, and then thought with self-righteousness: But doesn't Zhu Fujingguang bear absolutely no responsibility? How could he let an organization member go to an elementary school!
The dark-haired girl took a big sip of the smooth pudding, feeling that the combination of sweet pudding and 50% sugar was just right, which made her feel relaxed as she complained to Rag, "That medicine makes people have a high fever, it's like it's targeting me."
Rag frowned more and more as he listened, and finally simply picked up the now tiny person and tucked her into his arms, taking a deep breath of his sister who was now perfect for sucking, and muttered, "Because you are too outstanding, it's jealous of you."
“I know you’re using personification,” Zhuge Tongzhi said understandingly, patting his silly sister’s head. “By personifying APTX4869 and giving it human emotions, you’ve vividly and figuratively described…”
"Damn it, don't suddenly start answering with Chinese reading comprehension!"
"You said it first."
"Bounce back! Boost!"
"The rebound was ineffective."
…
The two bickered and casually finished off eight eggs that had "randomly fallen" by the roadside, and that's how they ended up meeting Conan in the First Investigative Division.
Lag was still in the novelty phase of experiencing this kind of daily life for the first time, but Zhuge Tongzhi had already calmly started sending the evidence photos to the police officer, and then describing the bomb structure to Hagiwara Kenji, who had come to investigate after the failed police operation.
Zhuge Tongzhi, upon seeing Conan: ...Never mind, she wasn't surprised at all.
Conan, who was casually ignored: You're giving me a surprise!
The routine case handling tasks were quickly completed, and Zhuge Tongzhi began to complete the main task of the day—dividing the cake and receiving gifts.
Yes, she received birthday wishes from several members of the police academy group last night, so she had planned to come here today anyway.
Although it was ultimately achieved in a very Beika-machi-esque way. Zhuge Tongzhi gave Conan a wise look, and received a smirk from the other.
Matsuda Jinpei and Date Wataru were both out on fieldwork, so the gifts were delivered by Hagiwara Kenji, who happened to be in the office.
Zhuge Tongzhi held the simple little gift box from Matsuda Jinpei in his hand, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the gift, whose size and weight were quite subtle. He then looked at Hagiwara Kenji and asked with a hint of certainty, "Sunglasses?"
“You guessed right.” Kenji Hagiwara blinked his deep purple eyes, looking at the girl who had already pressed the sunglasses up to her nose, and carefully pointed out the preparation plan that Jinpei Matsuda wouldn’t say much about, “He specially bought the same style, and then adjusted the size, so it will fit you perfectly after you change back to normal.”
Zhuge Tongzhi, who needed to hold her sunglasses up with her hand to prevent them from slipping down, nodded coolly. For her, adjusting the size wasn't really necessary.
“After all, this is Xiao Jinping’s true form.” The man with medium-length hair winked at the girl knowingly, and the two of them burst out laughing at the same time.
They often joked about this with Matsuda Jinpei, but the usually speechless curly-haired officer took it to heart and turned it into a birthday gift for the child today.
Moreover, this style is extremely outdated and old-fashioned. I don't know how Brother Zhenping found the same style. Zhuge Tongzhi carefully fumbled for the sunglasses in his hand, then pushed them up to the top of his head and locked them in place.
She then picked up the small paper bag labeled "Ida," weighed its lightness in her hand, and confidently announced, "These are toothpicks!"
Kenji Hagiwara couldn't help but burst into laughter, explaining between laughs, "While I understand your line of thinking, the class president wouldn't give toothpicks as a birthday present."
Well, thinking about it, that makes sense. Zhuge Tongzhi, who had guessed wrong, touched the tip of his nose, reached inside and pulled out a card covered with dense writing, but he couldn't find the gift.
Hmm? She peered into the paper bag and saw a metallic sheen through the folds. She reached in and pulled out the bronze-colored metal piece from the folds.
Zhuge Tongzhi stared in surprise at the small key in his hand. This was…
"The class president and Natalie have moved into their new home," Kenji Hagiwara announced in real time, conveniently ignoring the black-haired girl's sudden gesture of wiping her eyes. He cleared his throat and, as the final act, presented the birthday gift he had prepared.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!"
A Q-shaped cotton doll dressed in a bomb suit dangled from the man's palm and hung in front of Zhuge Tongzhi's eyes—its signature dark purple drooping eyes and unique hairstyle, even the doll's winking expression while holding a small pair of sunglasses, all made the doll's identity obvious.
"Here, catch it."
She sniffed and then subconsciously cupped her hands in her hands.
"This is the only one of its kind in all of Japan. I'm giving myself to Kiri-chan, you know," Kenji Hagiwara said exaggeratedly, placing the doll into the palm of Kiri-chan's hand and patting the girl's head.
The man with medium-length hair squatted down, looking at Zhuge Tongzhi's extremely complicated expression, and said gently, "Neither Xiaozhenping nor I will change our phone numbers, and the class monitor and Natalie will not be moving anytime soon."
"Even if you move, don't worry. We will send you the new address and key at the same time. You won't need to stay at the inn once you return to Tokyo."
Zhuge Tongzhi felt like he was about to sniff again.
Kenji Hagiwara looked at the girl who had been clearly wrapping things up for him recently, and knew that the girl probably wouldn't and was capable of refusing either side's witness protection plan, and would probably leave here soon. Her words also revealed a kind of sadness that her older sister was about to leave.
He wasn't sure if the other party would completely erase his traces, or if he was among those traces being erased, nor did he know why Rag had left.
But no matter what, he and Xiaozhenping's feelings, and the class monitor and Natalie's feelings, must be fully conveyed to each other.
"Jinpei and I are slow to get promoted, so it's easy for you to find us, but it might not be so easy for Furuya." Kenji Hagiwara cleverly used the fact that non-professionals are slow to get promoted to joke about himself and his peers, which made Zhuge Tongzhi, who couldn't help but start wiping his eyes, laugh through his tears.
The black-haired girl took a deep breath and said, "If Furuya is promoted to the head of the Metropolitan Police Department as soon as possible, Jinpei-san's wish will come true!"
Kenji Hagiwara paused for a moment before realizing that this was the "reason" for Jinpei Matsuda's childhood title of "police officer."
The two, one big and one small, immediately started bursting into laughter.
It took Kenji Hagiwara a while to stop laughing. He steered the conversation back on track with a slight smile and said gently, "Take care of yourself. Be happy, but also be careful, okay?"
"Mmm!" Zhuge Tongzhi nodded vigorously and stuffed the cute second-year graduate student doll in his hand into the side of his sunglasses.
"I definitely will, second-year graduate student."
…
When Zhuge Tongzhi came out, Lage, who was waiting outside, was talking to Conan with his head down. After seeing her come out, he conveniently said goodbye.
"What are you saying?" Zhuge Tongzhi asked curiously.
Rag opened the paper bag and let her put the gift inside, saying, "I'm praying for the blessing of the Son of the World."
Ah... Zhuge Tongzhi thought of that gray condition, nodded, and didn't ask any more questions.
The last two pieces of cake were delivered to Rei Furuya, who was openly working in the Public Security Bureau. Although he had gone undercover all the way back to his hometown, he was still using the organization's Bourbon name to fish out any remaining members of the organization.
Therefore, in the eyes of the remaining members of the Black Organization, Rei Furuya is a code name member whose real name is Tooru Amuro but who uses the alias Rei Furuya. He is a bright signpost standing in the sunlight amidst the chaos.
A fast-track sign pointing to the prison.
“Although we’ve decided on the direction, Hiro and I hesitated for a long time.” Rei Furuya sat on a park bench, opened the lid of the guitar case on his lap, and said, “In the end, we decided to give the guitar away.”
A beautiful light brown folk guitar appeared before Zhuge Tongzhi's eyes, its surface gleaming smoothly in the sunlight. Then, the blond man reached out and placed it into her arms.
Zhuge Tongzhi hurriedly hugged the rather large wooden guitar.
“I was originally going to give you a copy of the police witness protection program.” The blond man instructed the girl on the correct way to hold a guitar, and before she could refuse, he interrupted, “I know you wouldn’t agree, so I changed it to a song.”
Furuya Rei, who was also holding a guitar, lowered his purplish-gray eyes and skillfully and tenderly played a series of smooth melodies on the strings.
This was the first guitar piece that Morofushi Kagemitsu taught him during his student days, and he played it over and over again by himself in the safe house.
"This is 'Hometown,' the first piece I learned." The blond man, emerging from the shadows under the dazzling sunlight, said to Zhuge Tongzhi, "How about I give it to you as a gift?"
"Hmm... barely passable."
…
The day after Zhuge Tongzhi learned his first guitar piece while wearing sunglasses, the whole world was welcoming the new year.
Overnight, all the data and files related to Zhuge Tongzhi and Rag were wiped out from the Red Team's mobile phone, and the photo albums of Hagiwara Kenji, Matsuda Jinpei, Date Wataru, and Natalie also quietly lost some photos.
The single apartment near Teitan Elementary School is deserted. Detective Detective receives news that his friend has unexpectedly transferred schools, while all the mission data of the organization has been compiled, packaged, and sent to Conan.
Zhuge Tongzhi left.
She set foot on the soil of her motherland on the first day of the new year.
As the New Year's bells rang, Ragnar's last two criteria for judgment were met simultaneously.
-----------------------
Author's note: Little Tong, Little Tong, be happy!
…
I've been quite busy lately, and I really wish I could take a day off!
…
Mwah!
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