Chapter 103 Psychological Portrait
Mr. Cat received a call from his childhood friend while having lunch with his son: "Zero, why are you calling me now?"
Guess where I am?
"Uh...at home?"
"Wait a minute, I'm in England too!"
"Why?" Mr. Cat couldn't help but get nervous.
"Haha, don't worry, the organization sent me here on another mission. Oh, and I haven't told you yet, I won the competition."
"You found that girl so quickly?!" Mr. Cat exclaimed in surprise, and the kitten quietly crept closer to listen.
"To be precise, she found me. She's now a member of the organization, codenamed Alice. She said she did receive a pocket watch of unknown origin 20 years ago. It's just that it has a new owner now and can't be returned to me."
"So that's what a pocket watch means!" The kitten pounded its chest in frustration, sighed to the heavens, and left the two policemen completely bewildered.
“It’s Alice in Wonderland, the girl chasing the Rabbit with the pocket watch who fell down the rabbit hole!” the little detective explained. “We saw her in D-Lab! That’s a clue Osiris gave me.”
"I didn't expect you two had met so long ago?" Bourbon was quite surprised, marveling at the wonder of fate. "As for Alice, I've always felt there's something a little strange about her..."
Does that gentleman know about this?
"No, Alice came to me privately."
"Zero, how much does she know about you? How did she find you?"
“Well, that’s where I find it suspicious.” Bourbon struggled to find an accurate description. “She thinks she knows me very well, but I don’t know where that confidence comes from. Some of what she says is quite accurate, but some of it isn’t so right.”
Does she have a point of reference?
"What's the meaning?"
"For example, those popular personality tests that say Scorpios are aloof and Aries are passionate and frank, etc."
"Pfft, hahaha!" The big golden retriever couldn't help but laugh. "That's not how it is! Alice didn't tell my fortune. I mean, she doesn't know anything about my past life experiences, but she seems to have known me for a long time. And the strangest thing is, when I asked her how she knew it was me, she replied that it was obvious."
"Obvious?" Both the Cat father and son were stunned.
"It's strange, isn't it? I just don't understand what's so obvious about it? Is there anything about me that's so similar to my dad?"
"Daddy!" the kitten suddenly looked up and shouted.
"Joseph, what's wrong?" the cat father asked with concern.
“No, no, I wasn’t calling you… I just remembered something else: Osiris said the crocodile pocket watch was left to him by his father.”
The air seemed to freeze for a moment, then both of them reacted. Mr. Cat frowned, while Bourbon shouted, "You mean Osiris and I are half-brothers? How is that possible?!"
Mr. Cat soothed him gently, "Zero, can you calm down first?"
"Jing, do you think so too?" Bourbon asked uncontrollably.
The father cat gestured to his son, indicating that he should go outside for a moment, and the kitten wisely did not follow.
Mr. Cat walked into another room and said softly, "Zero, first of all, this is just a conjecture, and secondly, if this assumption is true, we have a great advantage."
"We've infiltrated the organization for so long, trying to uncover that man's background, and you're telling me he's my brother? What kind of ridiculous plot is this?!"
"Why does it have to be the older brother? It could also be the younger brother."
"But when Nagano Osiris first met you, he said he had a younger brother."
"So, Zero has actually started considering this possibility, right?"
The golden retriever was speechless, then stubbornly retorted, "Jing, I know what you're trying to say! If our fathers really are the same person, then the genetic similarity is obvious. But what else? Is there any other evidence?"
"Isn't that enough? Why does Alice think she knows you so well? Because she has an excellent role model: Osiris. I think Alice must be someone that gentleman trusts extremely. Not only does she work in such a secret D-Lab, but she is also the only one involved in the plan when Osiris personally took charge."
“That’s true. Alice has great respect for that gentleman and seems to know a lot about his private life. But what puzzles me is that Alice doesn’t seem to have any special talent or ability. She herself says she chose to become a doctor simply because she grew up in hospitals. Why would the organization take her in?” Bourbon then changed the subject and asked, “Speaking of which, how did my father get involved with the organization?”
"It's hard to say. Perhaps your father had other relationships or marriages... Zero, are you alright?"
“No,” the golden retriever replied, looking aggrieved. “Do you think Osiris knows about this?”
"Since Alice knows, Osiris must know as well."
"But that gentleman never showed me anything special."
"Zero, don't you think the organization is giving you too many tasks? You've only been on vacation for a few days, and you've already been assigned an overseas mission."
"Oh, what's the big deal? The capable should do more!"
"But what if you interpret it as that gentleman dislikes you? Osiris said he dislikes people who are too similar to him, so maybe you are the mirror he doesn't like?"
"This is outrageous! How could they do this?!" Bourbon roared.
"Calm down! Maybe our reasoning is wrong, but... in any case, it's best to prepare ourselves mentally."
The golden retriever nodded very reluctantly.
Mr. Cat comforted him, "Alright! You must be very tired after such a long flight, right? Take a good rest first, and we can talk again later, okay?"
"Okay, good afternoon."
Back with his son, the cat father found the little detective looking worried.
"Joseph, what's wrong?"
"How strange. Alice is clearly an atheist; she has no religious beliefs. Why would Osiris use a religious storyline?"
“Osiris certainly doesn’t have any faith; if you have to say, he only has faith in himself. He uses stories from the Bible just to conveniently express himself.”
"Dad, do you already have a mental profile of Osiris?"
"It's not complete yet, but it's roughly there! Perhaps you could help me refine it?"
"good!"
The cat father cleared his throat and said, "Let's start from the beginning. I think Osiris must have had a miserable childhood."
"Cough cough cough..." The kitten, who was drinking soup, suddenly started coughing violently, which startled the cat's father, who quickly patted his back.
"Joseph, are you alright?"
"You...you're not Dad! Where did you get that conclusion?!"
"Then let me ask you a question first: Why does Osiris keep Alice by his side?"
"Aren't orphans without parents exactly the kind of children the organization aims to train?"
“But the organization is not an orphanage, and Alice doesn’t have the same talent as Sherry; she’s just an ordinary person.”
"Hmm, so it's because of the pocket watch? Osiris wants to express his gratitude to her?"
"Is this favor really worth repaying for 20 years? I think there must be other reasons. I suspect that Osiris took in Alice out of pity. I think young Osiris was a very lonely child with no friends, and Alice, with her tragic background, was a rare and precious friend to him."
"ha?"
“I’ve been thinking back to the first time I met him in Nagano. I was sitting in a chair looking out the window at the snow, and he was sitting on the bed quietly eating lemon pie. But he was actually observing me. I think he was observing the world like this when he was very young. He was a precocious and lonely child, taciturn. The adults thought he was well-behaved, but he had already seen through them and just didn’t want to say anything.”
“I agree with that. Osiris is very good at imitation. The premise of his skillful switching between different roles is that he has mastered the essentials of playing these roles, which must have come from observation.”
"Yes, and there's also his reading taste, which is incongruous with his age and even out of touch with the times: medieval poetry, Baroque music, Renaissance drama, and even his own name is derived from ancient Egyptian mythology..."
"I thought he was just trying to be mysterious."
"No, I think these things also reflect his preferences from another angle."
"Does he like vintage things?"
"Perhaps it's because he's dissatisfied with the era he lives in, though I don't have a particularly good explanation for that yet... Also, he has excellent hands-on skills and is quite knowledgeable about mechanical manufacturing. I think he designed the torture device that killed Mr. Karasuma and the mechanism for moving the piano himself. Hagiwara and Matsuda would probably have a lot in common with him in this regard." The cat father chuckled and continued, "While other children were still playing in the sand and building blocks, Osiris had already learned to make more intricate and complex toys. Part of the reason is because he's smart, and another part stems from loneliness."
“I agree with most of it. But Dad, why are you so sure about Osiris’s age? What if Miss Wakasa has also been deceived by him?”
“There was some guesswork involved before, but now I’m very confident,” the cat father explained. “Let’s go over the major events in Osiris’s growth!”
"Two things happened 20 years ago: Alice's family suffered a tragic death in July, and Neuschwanstein Castle caught fire in November."
“Eighteen years ago, Apu was groomed to become Maitai, the organization’s agent in South America.”
"Seventeen years ago, the Miyano couple were murdered, Koji Haneda was murdered, and a cabinet member was murdered."
"Sixteen years ago, Yuki was abducted and trafficked."
"What happened next involved you: from Yuuki's kidnapping to the various cases that followed. Joseph, did you see anything amiss?"
"Saving Alice is the only good thing Osiris has ever done. Everything he has done since he started killing bosses has been a crime."
"That's right! Why do you think that is?"
"Because he became that gentleman."
“No, that’s the result, not the cause. You said that Osiris’s legitimacy stemmed from his claim of being able to resurrect Mr. Karasuma, but that’s the means, not the cause. The key question is: what prompted Osiris to choose a different path?”
"Wait, you think Osiris was like this before killing the boss?"
"Yes, that's my point of view: from July to November, those were four months that changed his life. He went from being a savior to an executioner."
"But how could that be possible in just four months?!"
“Why not? Think about it, last July you were Shinichi Kudo, the high school detective investigating the Horii-san case. And by November you had become Conan Edogawa, the elementary school detective searching for the escaped bomber. That’s exactly four months!” Cat Dad paused and then continued, “Just like how you were given the A drug, I think Osiris also experienced something or met someone that completely changed the trajectory of his life. And it was at that time that his body stopped growing.”
"What does Dad think Osiris encountered?"
“I don’t know, it might be related to the shackles he mentioned. I think Osiris longs to set new rules for the game, not a virtual copy, but to become the master of the entire world and establish a new order.”
"Like God?"
“Yes. In Miss Swann’s darkroom, the curtain rose, and he sat in the front row of the grand theater, enjoying the performance he had orchestrated, and imagining the blueprint for the future world.” The cat father said, looking at his son. “Do you think he traveled all this way to carry it out? I think it’s because this is Conan Doyle’s hometown, and perhaps he also secretly hoped that one day a Sherlock Holmes-like figure would solve the mystery he presented.”
"Dad, it's one thing to call that canvas a screen, but the front row seats are ridiculous! It's only been 20 years and it's already falling apart. What a shoddy construction project!" The little detective curled his lip in disdain.
The cat father broke out in a cold sweat, only then realizing a terrifying problem: why were the bricks scattered? Where did the rats come from? He had been so focused on examining the remains that he had forgotten about that!
"Let's go back quickly!"
Two hours later, when they returned to the secret room, the cat father carefully examined the gaps between the bricks and, as expected, found a transmitter.
“When someone triggers the mechanism, the signal will be transmitted to Osiris, so he will know when you witnessed this scene,” the cat father calmly analyzed. “There are no suspicious footprints in the castle, so you must have come in through the underground passage. And the missing skull was probably taken at that time as well. Because we didn’t find any suspicious bloodstains. The rats are alive even without food, so this is a recent trap, or perhaps they discovered your whereabouts and guessed that this is our destination.”
"Dad, do you mean I traveled all the way from Nagano to here, around half the globe, but I still couldn't escape his grasp?" the little detective asked in despair.
"Don't be discouraged! Maintaining close contact with the enemy is a good thing; the real trouble is not being able to find them."
"Is it possible that all of this is a deception orchestrated by Osiris?"
"Impossible!" Dad Cat vehemently denied. "Everything except the bricks remained exactly as it was. The reason is simple: Osiris was playing with you. And the most important rule in a child's game is fairness. No cheating, no cheating!"
The man stared at the transmitter in his hand, his expression grave.
"Dad, what's wrong?"
"I think Gin will be here soon."
"Then let's hurry!"
“No need, there’s no rush,” Mr. Cat said calmly. “We still have time for our last supper.”
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