Chapters 3587 and 3599: [Bourbon and Fireworks]
[You are cordially invited to visit the Kurenai Apartment at 7-18 Kitara-cho to witness a spectacular fireworks display stained with blood.]
"fireworks?"
Looking at the mysterious and malicious words on the invitation, Amuro Tooru's mind was instantly flashed back to a less-than-pleasant memory.
—A while ago, Uzo seemed to have sent him an invitation to watch fireworks at the Twin Towers in Nishitama City.
He went there, and then the entire building exploded into an inferno. If he hadn't risked everything by driving his sports car, he'd be a dead man in a coffin by now.
"...The same old trick again?"
Amuro Tooru slowly clenched his fingers, crumpling the letter into a ball with a snapping sound.
but……
After a moment of emanating murderous intent, the organization member who had reacted so strongly to Uzo suddenly remembered something, unfolded the invitation again, and took another look at it.
Then he noticed that the two invitations seemed different—the last one was sent to him, but the recipient of this invitation was clearly listed as "Detective Jiang Xia".
"You're after Jiangxia?" Amuro Tooru asked suspiciously. "Or do you think it's too obvious to come directly at me, so you're using Jiangxia as a cover to trick me again indirectly?"
Thinking this, he took out his phone and opened his contacts.
Just as Amuro Tooru was about to press the name "Jiang Xia," his fingertips instinctively stopped.
But in the end, reason prevailed—at a time like this, there was no time to concern ourselves with the mystical phenomena of Jiangxia's events and constitutions. The most important thing now was to figure out what exactly this "fireworks" or rather, this explosion mentioned in the invitation was all about.
Amuro Tooru pressed the dial button hard, turned around, got into the car, and drove towards the address on the invitation.
...
"boss?"
The phone rang only once before Jiang Xia answered it.
As usual, the high school student's voice was enthusiastic, cheerful, and energetic. He exclaimed, "It's really rare for you to call me first—do you have a request for me?"
When Amuro heard his tone, he seemed to see the miserable scene of this guy refusing to leave his car and causing tires to blow out wherever he went.
He struggled to resist the urge to hang up, taking a deep breath: "Where are you now?"
Jiang Xia seemed to ask someone next to him, and then said, "There's a case in Kita-ra-cho 7-chome."
His voice didn't sound tense or urgent, which reassured Amuro Tooru slightly, making him feel that the situation wasn't too urgent.
He then asked in more detail, "Why did you go to a place like that so early in the morning? Didn't you come to the detective agency today?"
—The invitation was still unopened at the detective agency's entrance, yet Jiang Xia had already arrived at the designated location…
"Did Uzo send out invitations to every place Jiangxia might appear, or is the one I have not been sent to Jiangxia at all, but to me?"
As Amuro Tooru pondered this, Jiang Xia's voice came from the other end of the phone: "Yesterday, Ran, Sonoko, and I went to visit Ms. Jodie. After we finished, we had a lot of time left, so we strolled around near the hospital. Then we bumped into a hairdresser—that hairdresser invited Ran to her house for a haircut this morning."
"Judy?"
After a brief moment of thought, Amuro Tooru remembered—it was that useless FBI agent who was captured and replaced by Vermouth.
He had already figured out most of the FBI agents' backgrounds, so he didn't bother asking any more questions. Instead, he asked with a puzzled look, "What does the hairdresser inviting Mori to get a haircut have to do with you? And why were you there too?"
“We’re just idling around anyway,” Jiang Xia said, hesitatingly. “Besides…”
After listening to him ramble on for a while without getting anything out of it, Amuro Tooru asked suspiciously, "And what?"
Jiang Xia hesitated for a moment, then lowered her voice: "When we met yesterday, the hairdresser said that she had seen Ms. Judy disguised herself and throw away some strange comics—Ran and Sonoko are a little concerned about this, so they wanted me to come along and ask for more details."
Amuro Tooru: "A strange manga?" He hadn't heard of this information before. "How strange?"
"That... isn't that strange." Jiang Xia skipped over this part of the conversation:
"In short, when we came to visit the hairdresser, we rang the doorbell but no one answered. When we went inside, we found that she was already dead."
"Officer Sato has brought in three suspects, including two FBI agents. We're currently looking for the murder weapon, and we should be able to close the case soon... I'll have to go now, Officer Sato is calling me."
As he spoke, Jiang Xia seemed eager to respond and hung up the phone.
That's all for now.
Otherwise, what if we say everything and the boss doesn't come?
Jiang Xia tossed his phone back into his pocket and walked down the stairs.
As soon as I got to the first floor, I saw Officer Sato looking at his phone with a puzzled expression, as if he was a little conflicted.
Seeing him come down, the female police officer temporarily acting as Inspector Megure's eyes lit up, and she jogged over: "Jiang Xia! Conan just called and asked me to stop the nearby garbage truck, saying that the evidence is hidden in the garbage and that I should send people to search carefully—was this your idea?"
Jiang Xia: "It was Conan's idea."
Officer Sato, recalling how Suzuki Sonoko and Mori Ran had insisted on calling the FBI but Jiang Xia hadn't stopped them, silently stopped walking out of the building and asked suspiciously, "Is this giving Conan a chance to solve the case?"
It's alright that they brought in two suspects; it's just a matter of making two phone calls. Besides, that group of FBI agents has been causing chaos in Tokyo lately, so a couple of extra trips to the police station will serve as a warning.
But rummaging through the trash is a different story... They absolutely do this kind of work unless absolutely necessary.
Jiang Xia smiled and said, "Judging from the murderer's condition, she did put the murder weapon into a nearby garbage bag after killing the person last night—but since a night has passed, it's impossible to guarantee whether the murder weapon is still in the garbage bag now."
Officer Sato: "..."
There's no guarantee it's inside... which means there's also no guarantee it's not inside.
She sighed painfully, praying for better luck, and led a few people out of the apartment, running in the direction Conan had just indicated.
...
On the street outside the apartment.
Conan huffed and puffed as he crossed the sidewalk and rushed to the garbage truck that was in operation.
Two workers had finished loading the trash and were about to return to their vehicle when they suddenly saw a child rushing straight towards them.
"What's wrong, little one?" The two looked at the unfamiliar boy with suspicion. "Did you accidentally put your toy in the trash bag?"
Thank you so much for the generous donation, Huanyang!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
