Chapter 76

Teacher Ishikawa led everyone to the welcome banner that had been hung in advance, and then began to formally welcome everyone.

The food and beer that we brought were taken over by special teachers. Tables were set up in advance at the edge of the venue, and tea at the right temperature was prepared.

Although the props and venue were very simple, the entire process was handled in an orderly manner, and it was obvious that sufficient preparations had been made in advance.

Because this was a private gathering, no one revealed their occupations. Before coming, at the request of Hoshikawa Kazuaki, Kogoro Mouri temporarily kept his identity as the "Sleeping Famous Detective Kogoro Mouri" a secret, waiting to reveal it suddenly after officially meeting the fans to give everyone a surprise.

So the final situation was that Hoshikawa and Akira and their group first introduced their names, while Maori Kogoro used a pseudonym. They obtained permission to visit the welfare home in the name of Hoshikawa and Akira's friends.

However, throughout the entire process, the people in charge of receiving the guests at the welfare home, whether it was Mr. Ishikawa, the deputy director, or the children who were welcoming them, all had very strange and subdued attitudes.

It's as if they are welcome here, just completing a boring task that they really don't want to do but have to do, and the person to whom the task is directed happens to be someone they really dislike.

Normally, Hoshikawa and Akira were just bringing friends back for a party and a visit, so as the vice-president, Mr. Ishikawa only needed to be hospitable. However, Mr. Ishikawa insisted on putting up banners in advance and arranging for the children to welcome the guests, making it look grand.

But to say that they valued Xingchuan Heming and the people he brought back was obviously impossible.

Just looking at the disgust and contempt in the children's eyes, how can this be an attitude of respect? It's more like hatred.

But this doesn't make sense either. Not to mention that Xingchuan and Ming grew up here, so they still have some ties to each other.

For example, Xingchuan Heming donates a large amount of his royalties to the welfare home every month, and the entire welfare home should appreciate his kindness. No matter how you think about it, it shouldn't be such a hostile attitude.

It can be said that everyone present, except Kogoro Mori, had more or less noticed that something was wrong.

Only Maori Kogoro himself was still laughing and saying:

"I can't believe that although this welfare home looks shabby, it is so considerate in its hospitality. They even arranged a special welcoming team. Madam Director, you are so warm and welcoming to us, hahaha!"

Mao Lilan saw this and quickly reminded angrily:

"Dad, please don't say such rude things!"

Teacher Ishikawa's face froze for a moment, and he didn't respond.

Among the crowd, only Hoshikawa and Ming were the most familiar with Mr. Ishikawa. However, in just a short while, Hagiwara Kenji won Mr. Ishikawa's first favor as expected, and magically made Mr. Ishikawa, who always had a stern face, smile at him rarely.

Hoshikawa, Akira, and Kagano Satoshi looked at each other, and then simultaneously revealed a look of astonishment. The group of children standing under the banner as a background almost dropped their jaws in shock.

After finally making the female teacher in front of him happy, Kenji Hagiwara sweated hard in his heart. It was also the first time he met such a difficult woman.

"Ms. Ishikawa, we came to the welfare home this time to disturb you and the children who participated. But I still have a question that I can't figure out. We are just here as friends of Xingchuan and Ming to attend the party. Why do you have to hold such a grand welcoming ceremony?"

Kenji Hagiwara asked the question that troubled everyone else.

They thought they would get an answer like "I admire Hoshikawa Kazuaki's comics", but they didn't expect the lady who also serves as the vice president to say directly:

"We have no choice. If it were up to me, I would not want to welcome him with such fanfare, but the dean insisted that the person coming today is a great person, and we must welcome him with the most solemn etiquette.

The dean is not in good health and she said she was very sorry that she couldn't come in person. In order to let her rest and recuperate, we organized this welcome party according to her idea.

As he said this, Mr. Ishikawa subconsciously looked in the direction of Hoshikawa Kazuaki, and a hint of disgust flashed in his eyes again.

Hoshikawa and Ming immediately understood that the person the dean really wanted to welcome was the famous detective Kogoro Mori.

However, because she wanted to announce the arrival of Kogoro Mori as a sudden surprise, she did not explain the reason at first and just asked the vice-president to prepare a welcoming party in advance.

However, is this really the only reason why Mr. Ishikawa and all the children present hate him? His intuition tells him that there must be a more important reason.

At this point, Mr. Ishikawa looked at his watch, his face suddenly turned serious, and he said:

"Okay. I'll end my welcome here for now. I have to take care of the director next. If you want to visit the welfare home, let Lihua take you there."

As she spoke, she quickly dismissed the children who had been serving as background figures, leaving only the oldest-looking girl behind to introduce herself to everyone:

"This is Lihua. She will graduate from junior high school this year and wants to stay in the welfare home to help out after graduation. So I will assign some unimportant tasks to her in advance so that she can get familiar with and adapt to the future work earlier. If you have any needs in the welfare home, you can ask her for help."

After Mr. Ishikawa finished speaking, he took the other younger children and hurried away, leaving the embarrassed Reika to explain incoherently for Mr. Ishikawa:

"Please don't misunderstand, Ms. Ishikawa has no ill intentions. She is just too worried about the dean's health. She is worried that if you ask the dean to come in person, it will cause the dean's body to be too tired."

Hagiwara Kenji almost couldn't contain himself when he heard this, and exclaimed in disbelief:

"What? We are just here for a party. How could we possibly ask for such an impolite request as 'having the sick dean come to greet us in person'? Why would you think that?"

Unexpectedly, when Reika saw Hagiwara Kenji's reaction, she was also surprised and asked back:

"But isn't it because the cartoonist Xingchuan wanted to use the name of our welfare home to hype himself up, so he specially invited his cartoon collaborators to come here to shoot together? He even asked the director to prepare a welcome party for you just now!"

Xingchuan and Ming were also shocked by this statement and quickly retorted:

"Wait! How can there be any hype shooting? There is no such thing! I really just want to invite friends to a party and take everyone on a tour. In fact, I didn't expect the welfare home to mention making such preparations, and it is even more impossible for me to ask the director for some hype."

Maori Kogoro asked:

"Did you not explain clearly when you contacted the dean, Xingchuan, and caused the other party to misunderstand?"

Hoshikawa and Ming really wanted to tell him that it was more likely that the dean made this request specifically for Kogoro Mori.

Then he had to dig out from his memory the contents of the agreement he had made with the dean aunt, and explain to everyone that he had said it absolutely clearly.

Hagiwara Kenji immediately sorted out the whole story and analyzed it to Reika:

"Then this matter is very obvious. During the process of passing the message, someone must have misunderstood Xiaoxing's meaning for some reason and told you the wrong guess, which caused this misunderstanding."

Lihua seemed a little overwhelmed by the complex situation, but she still took note of everyone's comments and said:

"Okay, I will definitely tell Mr. Ishikawa about this. Now that we have delayed everyone for so long, how about we start to visit the welfare home now?"

Seeing that things were finally back on track, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. They had come to this party for different purposes, and they certainly couldn't waste their time resolving this misunderstanding.

Kogoro Mouri brought Ran Mouri here to respond to the invitation of his admirer, and to strengthen the relationship with his new apprentice and collaborator Hoshikawa and Ming Gong, so that their future cooperation can be smoother.

Ida Ko originally accepted Hoshikawa Kazuaki's invitation in order to find out the role played by the hacker "Xiaozhi" in the poisoning case. Now that he knows Xiaozhi's identity, he plans to find other clues about the poisoner from Xiaozhi.

Conan Edogawa came here to try to get some fingerprints left by Hoshikawa and Akira when they were young, so as to determine whether the current Hoshikawa and Akira were impersonated. In addition, he also shouldered the expectations of Amuro Toru and wanted to find out the real purpose of Hoshikawa and Akira organizing this party.

Kenji Hagiwara came to the party just to find an opportunity to promote reconciliation between Hoshikawa Kazuaki and Kagamino Tomoyuki so that they could face each other bravely.

As another alias that Hoshikawa Kazuaki has activated, Satoshi Kagano naturally has to cooperate with Hoshikawa Kazuaki to complete the performance required by the comic book, and work with him to find out clues about Nagata Ryo and find out whether he has anything to do with the poisoning case.

However, after the misunderstanding just now and discovering that the entire orphanage had a strange hostility towards them, Xingchuan and Ming felt that they might have to investigate further to find out what had happened here during the time after they left the orphanage.