Chapter 3597 3609 [Ai Haibara and the Truth]
Before Ai Haibara could react, Jiang Xia seemed to notice her gaze and turned around to ask, "What's wrong?"
"..." Ai Haibara really wanted to ask who was outside just now, but she was afraid that Jiang Xia would suddenly say something like "Gin," so she shivered and changed the subject:
“I saw in the fan group that the case at the barbershop a few days ago seemed to involve a bomb? You weren’t blown up, were you?”
Jiang Xia shook his head: "There were no bombs, just some paper decorations—Mr. Amuro picked up an invitation from somewhere and misread its contents."
Ai Haibara responded without question: the question itself was just making conversation, as for the explosion injury... Jiang Tian comes to her place for dinner every day, how could she not know if he was injured or not?
Meanwhile, Matsuda Jinpei seemed to remember something from those words. He tugged at Jiang Xia's sleeve, reminding him: "Of the pile of bombs we found in the garbage bag a few days ago, only one was used. The rest are hidden in a nearby dilapidated house and haven't been dealt with yet."
"No rush, just leave it there for now." Jiang Xia casually stirred his coffee, following the pattern, and said, "We might need it sometime."
After saying that, he continued to look out the window, anticipating the murderous aura and cases that were about to pass by. However, at this moment, it seemed that Ai Haibara's words had reminded Jiang Xia of his presence. The two high school girls who were chattering about Jodie's innocence suddenly remembered something and turned their heads in unison to look at him.
"Jiang Xia," Sonoko Suzuki said, reaching out her mischievous little hand to flip through the answers, "What do you think?"
"Hmm?" Jiang Xia snapped out of her reverie, thought for a moment, and said, "Why don't we go to the bookstore?"
The two high school girls were taken aback: "A bookstore?"
Jiang Xia nodded: "If what Ms. Judy said is true, and a foreigner asked the shop assistant to pick out a lot of teacher-student themed comics for her, then the shop assistant may still remember this incident—finding him and asking him should tell us the truth of the matter."
"That's right!" Sonoko Suzuki slapped her palm, her eyes lighting up. "Then let's go right now!"
Ran Mouri, who goes to bookstores more often than Jodie, hesitated and asked, "But there are so many bookstores in Tokyo, which one did Ms. Jodie go to?"
Sonoko Suzuki took out her phone, about to call Judy, but Jiang Xia raised his hand and said, "Wait."
The two of them immediately stopped what they were doing.
Jiang Xia: "If Ms. Judy knows we're going to investigate that bookstore and finds someone to give false testimony beforehand, then the results of the inquiry won't be true—anyway, she only likes to go to one or two streets, so let's look for them one by one first, and if we can't find them, we'll call her and ask."
"Oh right!" Sonoko Suzuki exclaimed again, "We've got nothing better to do, let's go! Let's go to the bookstore."
Across from her, Ai Haibara silently swallowed the last sip of her juice and wiped her mouth with a tissue. She glanced furtively at Jiang Xia beside her: "..." For some reason, she felt that Jiang Xia didn't seem to care about Jodie-sensei or her manga; he just seemed to want an excuse to go to the bookstore with his classmates...
As she thought about it, she slung her small backpack over her shoulder, jumped off the stool, and then, together with the other three people, walked out of the coffee shop and embarked on her journey to find the witness.
...
The four of them were browsing through bookstores one by one.
On the other side.
Elementary school students get out of school early. To cheer on Ayumi Yoshida, who was about to have a tooth extracted, several children went home, put down their schoolbags, and played with her in a nearby park for a while before going home.
Conan didn't leave. Around 6 o'clock, the fake elementary school student took Ayumi Yoshida to the dental clinic where she had made an appointment.
"This is the place."
Conan stopped in front of the clinic and looked up at the closed door.
The sign next to the main entrance reads "Zemu Dental Clinic," with the opening hours listed in smaller print below: an appointment-only clinic, closed on Sundays and public holidays, and open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Conan glanced at his watch: "It's already 6:26, and there's still a 'Closed' sign on the door... How do we get in? Should we just knock?"
Yoshida Ayumi shook her head: "Sawaki-neechan told me to go in through the back door of the underground parking lot."
Her parents used to drive her here for dental checkups, so Ayumi Yoshida was quite familiar with the area. She walked into the underground parking lot next door, led Conan around for a while, and soon arrived at the back door with the nameplate "Sawaki" on it.
She stood on tiptoe and rang the doorbell.
Ding-dong—
Hearing the familiar Universal doorbell ring, Conan looked at the quiet underground parking lot, his expression subtly tense.
A few days ago, when they went to see the hairdresser, they rang the doorbell in the same way. However, the doorbell never rang, and when they pushed the door open, they found Ms. Mika's body in front of them.
This time, again, the kind-hearted older sister gave a regular customer preferential treatment, again scheduling the customer who cut in line for after-get off work hours, and again, no one answered the doorbell. Could it be…?
Click.
The door in front of them opened, and a young, living person dressed as a nurse walked out.
Conan was startled and jumped back, almost slipping and tumbling down the steps.
The young woman who opened the door quickly helped him up, asking in bewilderment, "Little boy, what's wrong?"
As she spoke, she followed Conan's surprised gaze and glanced behind her. However, the corridor behind her was empty, and there was nothing to frighten her.
Conan looked embarrassed: "No, it's nothing."
...He's still alive?
No, that sounds weird. You should say, thankfully nothing happened.
But how could nothing have happened...? Could it be that this time, the kind of malicious "coincidence" that I imagined didn't happen, but instead, as Ai Haibara said, I just encountered an ordinary, enthusiastic person working overtime?
After hesitating for a moment, Conan looked at the woman who opened the door and asked Yoshida Ayumi with disbelief, "Is this the Dr. Sawaki you were talking about?" — Maybe she's just a nurse, one of the future suspects?
However, Ayumi Yoshida nodded and said confidently, "That's right! — Isn't she just as I described, gentle and beautiful?"
Conan asked in a low voice, "Does she... have a twin sister or younger sister?"
"No." The one who answered him was Dr. Zeki himself. The young dentist looked at the strange little boy in front of him and asked疑惑地问道, "Little boy, why do you ask that?"
"Nothing! It's just..." Conan quickly made up an excuse, "I just think it would be great if there were two dentists as beautiful and capable as Sawaki-neechan!"
"Haha." Dr. Zemu was amused by the clever child. "You have such a sweet tongue. You must be that smart kid who often appears in the newspaper with Jiang Xia, right? I've seen you on the news."
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