Chapter 19, Chapter 18: The Long-Awaited Star Card
A smooth and successful daily life might be saying:
There's a cliff ahead; it's time to brake.
Matsuda Jinpei brushed the sweat-dampened ends of his hair from the back of his neck and walked into the Bomb Disposal Unit's office, carrying a blast helmet in his arms. The team members following behind him complained about the hot weather with relaxed expressions.
They just returned from a mission.
"Well, it's really okay, Kawa-chan."
As soon as he stepped inside, Kenji Hagiwara's voice, along with the cool air from the air conditioner, touched Jin Matsuda's sweaty cheeks.
The air conditioning wasn't cold, because Hagi always set the temperature to the standard 26 degrees Celsius, then stopped the other male officers in the office from setting it to the teens, grinning and saying that this temperature was the most energy-efficient.
But Matsuda Jinpei actually knew that this was to take care of his female colleagues in the same office area. Ever since Hagi heard the policewomen's helpless complaints at a social gathering that the office was always as cold as an icebox, he naturally took over the power to control the air conditioning in the Virginity Unit.
A 26-degree breeze blew through his sweat-soaked shirt, causing the curly-haired officer, whose sleeves were rolled up, to feel a momentary tingling sensation on his skin. The feeling of emptiness, along with the cold wind, filled the inside of his damp uniform.
Perhaps it was because it was too hot outside, he clenched his fist, shook off this unusual feeling, and strode over to Kenji Hagiwara, who was chatting and laughing with the policewomen.
A policewoman, whose name I don't know, stood in front of Kenji Hagiwara, her hand clenched tightly around a pair of paper cards. She kept bowing and apologizing, while the medium-length-haired man being apologized to was also holding a card, indicating that it was really nothing.
Several other colleagues were gathered around, their smiles slightly awkward. It was almost lunchtime, so no one was concentrating on their work anymore.
"Hagi, what are you up to now?" Matsuda Jinpei casually shoved his helmet into the equipment cabinet, pressed down on Hagiwara Kenji's shoulder, and leaned over to look at the card in his hand. "Playing poker with a group?"
"Jinpei, you're back! Stop trying to slander me!" Hagiwara Kenji didn't slap away his childhood friend's hand that was deliberately pressing heavily on him. He just tilted his head slightly and smiled as he teased his friend, showing him the card in his hand.
"Xiaochuan brought tarot cards today, and I was curious so I drew two."
Kenji Hagiwara was half a head taller than him, so this angle wasn't ideal for seeing the cards. Jinpei Matsuda withdrew his mischievous hand, stood beside Kenji Hagiwara, and took the two cards from his hand.
A picture of a goat monster with an inverted pentagram on its head, labeled 'THE DEVIL' in English below.
The other image shows a tall, slender tower, but the crown at the top has been struck down by lightning, and two people are falling from the tower in terror. Below it is the label 'THE TOWER'.
Demons and towers? Matsuda Jinpei raised an eyebrow. He didn't play these mysterious divination games; he simply translated the meaning of the two cards from the English labels.
But none of this looks good.
Looking at the cards in his hand, Matsuda Jinpei probably understood why Officer Ogawa was apologizing; he must have felt that he had unintentionally given someone a bad reading.
Hagi and he have never cared about these things, but this troublesome guy will definitely want to take care of other people's feelings.
Sure enough, Kenji Hagiwara blinked his deep purple dog-like eyes at him, then reached out and took the two playing cards from his hand. He deliberately cleared his throat and coughed a few times, attracting the attention of Officer Ogawa and the other officers watching.
Matsuda Jinpei knew that this guy had come up with another weird idea.
"I've never been very lucky, but I know a kid who's always been very lucky."
Kenji Hagiwara smiled playfully and gestured downstairs to the office of the First Investigation Division. The officers of the First Investigation Division, who often worked overtime, would receive people who came to give statements even during their lunch break.
For example, some primary school students who take a nap after school at noon.
Perhaps it's some strange law, but ever since that mall robbery and his encounter with that elementary school detective, Kenji Hagiwara has felt himself running into him more and more often in cases, and he's also directly experienced the incredible luck of those kids in triggering and resolving dangers.
That kind of accident-prone constitution, I don't know whether to call it luck or misfortune.
The officer with medium-length hair clasped his hands together, holding the two cards in his palms. A pleading expression appeared on his handsome face as he asked Officer Ogawa, "And Ogawa-chan said that you have to draw three tarot cards, right? Could you take up your lunch break and let a kid draw the last one for me?"
"Ah... this is no problem, Officer Hagiwara, of course I'd be happy to." Officer Ogawa, with his bangs, waved his hand, his face slightly flushed. "I asked you to come for a fortune telling, who knew..."
"Then let's go." Matsuda Jinpei interrupted Ogawa, blocking Hagiwara Kenji's hand that was about to press a tissue to his forehead, and took it himself to wipe his sweat as he walked towards the door. "When I came back, those kids had almost finished giving their statements."
"Let's go, everyone, thank you so much, Ogawa-chan!" Kenji Hagiwara waved to his many colleagues who were watching and followed Jinpei Matsuda as he strode away.
The twins of the Explosives Unit, accompanied by a string of eager followers, entered the lobby of the First Investigation Division, which was beginning its lunch break.
"Good afternoon, squad leader." Matsuda Jinpei greeted Date Wataru casually as he filled his glass with water, his gaze sweeping across the room before settling on the tightly closed conference room. "Are those brats still here?"
"Even though it's a break, you should watch your words, Matsuda." Date Wataru greeted his two colleagues, then looked at the string of other colleagues from different departments behind them with some surprise, and asked, "Is there any hidden story behind this murder case?"
"No, I just wanted to ask the kids who always seem to escape bad luck to help me draw a card." Kenji Hagiwara showed the class monitor the cards in his hand.
"Are tarot cards popular now? Natalie did a reading for me the other day." As expected of someone with a girlfriend, Ida Kou immediately recognized what kind of activity they were doing, and a bright smile appeared on his face as he pointed towards the conference room: "They're over there, they should be done soon."
"Squad leader, you don't have to say the first half of the sentence." Matsuda Jinpei muttered a couple of words after being unwittingly fed a mouthful of dog food. Date Wataru laughed and patted his back twice. The solid sound made the officers look at the unchanging Matsuda Jinpei with a little more respect.
Unlike the burly Officer Date, Officer Matsuda is a hidden gorilla.
The group walked toward the conference room. Kenji Hagiwara said, "Sorry to bother you," and was about to open the door when the wooden door was suddenly opened from the inside.
Kenji Hagiwara nimbly dodged, but was then firmly grabbed by the arm and pulled by Jinpei Matsuda behind him. The wooden door, which was pushed open with great force, flashed past him and slammed against the wall with a loud thud.
The two officers only felt a blur before they realized that three children had rushed out of the conference room, and the one in the lead was probably the one named Genta Kojima.
The chubby little boy ran with his legs flying, but his head was still turned to make funny faces at his friends. He didn't look at the road ahead at all, and thus crashed solidly into Officer Ogawa, who was chatting with his colleague.
"Oh dear!" / "Hey!"
"Genta! You bumped into someone!"
Genta Kojima fell backward onto his butt, while Ogawa was caught on the shoulder by her colleague as she stumbled backward, but the cards in her hand were scattered as she instinctively tried to grab something.
"Genta, really! I told you not to run around like that!" The Junior Detectives helped their sturdy friend up, and then naturally squatted down to gather up the tarot cards that had been scattered all over the floor. Soon, each of them took a deck of cards and put them in Ayumi Yoshida's hand.
"I'm sorry, big sister." Ayumi Yoshida tried her best to organize the cards and hand them to Officer Ogawa. However, the cards, which had been scattered and then put back together, now had some faces up and some faces down, so they could no longer be used to draw cards.
"It's alright, kid." Officer Ogawa secretly breathed a sigh of relief and started counting the number of cards in her hand—although she was a beginner, she still felt that the cards Officer Hagiwara drew were really hard to explain in a positive way.
Unexpectedly, the third tarot card couldn't be drawn. Perhaps the undetermined card is better... Hmm?
Ogawa counted the cards in his hand again and found that even with the two cards from Hagiwara Ken's second hand, he was still one card short.
Where is it? Xiaochuan sighed. This was her custom-made tarot deck, and there was no replacement set.
"Good afternoon, Officer Hagiwara and Officer Matsuda!" A clear child's voice came from the conference room door. Zhuge Tongzhi and Conan came out of the conference room a step later. The girl was holding a card in her hand and greeting them.
"A card just flew in." The girl with a small bun in her hair was full of energy and cheerfully handed a blue card to Kenji Hagiwara.
It was a tarot card with a picture of stars, a witch's hat, a black cat, and a magic broom, and it was labeled 'THE STAR'.
It was a Star card. Kenji Hagiwara placed it at the end of the Tower card, thus completing a set of three Tarot cards with different meanings in his hand.
"Hey, is it the Star brand?"
Officer Ogawa took the three tarot cards with some surprise. Looking at the cards that showed a sudden and dramatic change in the situation, he bit his lip and finally smiled. "The card above the Tower is the Devil, and the card below the Tower is the Star. This means that when the storm passes, you will see the most beautiful scenery."
"In other words, Hagiwara-kun, you may encounter some major difficulties recently, but you will definitely be able to overcome them successfully!"
"Wow—thank you for the fortune telling, Ogawa-chan!" Kenji Hagiwara gave Officer Ogawa, who finally showed a relaxed smile, a thumbs up and said energetically, "Kenji-chan feels so motivated to work hard again!"
"Alright, hurry up and go to the cafeteria for a bite to eat." Matsuda Jinpei yawned, not understanding why this person, who didn't go to bed until after midnight last night, was more energetic than him, who had a healthier sleep schedule.
"Okay, okay, okay—" Hagiwara Kenji was dragged toward the cafeteria by his childhood friend, so he only had time to greet Zhuge Tongzhi: "Thank you, cute Tong-chan!"
"You're welcome, Hagiwara-kun!" Zhuge Tongzhi waved energetically, then turned to meet Conan's slightly speechless gaze.
The bespectacled detective, holding the back of his head, walked out of the police station with his partner, complaining, "Your Japanese is like Schrödinger's cat. You should be calling them 'sir' or 'san' instead of 'kun' (君). That's a term for people your age or subordinates."
"Please, Conan-chan!" Zhuge Tongzhi flicked his little tuft of hair, which was in a state of readiness for battle, and said matter-of-factly, "When I'm abroad, I just call these adults by their first names."
"Do you think my English is bad? I still have to say 'sir' and 'lady,' okay?" Conan rolled his eyes and said, "Luckily, Inspector Hagiwara and Inspector Matsuda are both easygoing." Otherwise, Japanese people actually pay a lot of attention to these etiquette details.
"Conan, there's actually another translation for the Tarot cards, isn't there?" Zhuge Tongzhi skipped over a topic she wasn't interested in and, following behind the noisy trio of the Junior Detective League, suddenly offered a perspective from a translational standpoint.
"I don't know much about Tarot." In order to decipher the various codes and metaphors, Conan memorized the information of all the cards, but he wasn't very interested.
"Well, okay." Zhuge Tongzhi tightened her backpack on her shoulder. It contained her newly bought camera and various tools. She was going to the apartment building today to scout it out and quickly set up everything that might be needed.
“Those three cards reminded me of a line of poetry…” The two were surrounded by the noisy trio, and Zhuge Tongzhi’s second half of her sentence was drowned out by the heated discussion. She shook her head at Conan to indicate that she was fine, and then joined the discussion.
…
A few kilometers behind, a new promotional banner appeared outside the building advertising the jewelry exhibition:
Don't miss the spectacular performance of Phantom Thief Kid tomorrow night at 7 PM!
Three days ago, the O-Navigation system in the void refreshed a gray route. Below the blue-gray route plan, a slowly jumping countdown was marked, and the unexecuted status told pedestrians that the route had not yet started.
The path to be opened is marked with the name of this trip plan:
"The countdown to the restart and a dazzling magic show (0%)"
…
The aroma of food filled the police canteen.
Matsuda Jinpei ate in silence, listening as Hagiwara Kenji naturally picked up on everyone's topics. They were talking about how a prisoner who had escaped from prison hadn't been caught yet.
"That case has been incredibly troublesome. During the arrest, one of the criminals, in an attempt to escape, ran into the road and crashed into a speeding vehicle," a police officer sighed.
"He was the one who wanted to escape, but now the pressure is on us," another officer chimed in, angrily poking at his rice a couple of times. "If you ask me, these kinds of troublemakers who cause chaos everywhere are just adding to my problems even if they die!"
The voice he couldn't help raising drew the attention of those around him.
"It is indeed frustrating, but I believe everyone who works hard will make progress soon." Kenji Hagiwara promptly cut off this somewhat sensitive topic in Japan, where there is no death penalty, and changed the subject: "By the way, Ogawa-chan's tarot cards are quite unique!"
"Mine is custom-made..."
…
Demons, towers, stars
Bound by darkness, facing sudden crisis, defying constraints for freedom...
The towering building rises a hundred feet high, seemingly able to pluck the stars from the sky.
A note from the author:
----------------------
The magic of time—fast forward!
Go for it, O De (crossed out) Zhuge Tongzhi!
…
Hagi's "Kicking Bento Box" operation includes: eight eggs, Kid, Conan, and more.
Conclusion: This is a theatrical version!
(A burst of powerful music begins)
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