Chapter 130 Twenty-Four Cats

"Are you angry?"

"No."

Furuya smiled flawlessly and said, "Why would I be angry?"

The store manager was still sitting against the wall, his left hand tightly grasping Fūya's sleeve, and when he looked up, the latter could see a look of innocence on his face.

After holding the store manager's gaze for three seconds, Furuya was defeated. He sighed and explained seriously: "I'm really not angry. It's better to say that I know that the store manager is not really injured. I'm lucky that it's too late."

At this moment, he would not care how the store manager found out that he was the Siamese cat Zero. If there was something that would make him angry, Furuya thought, it was probably the fact that the store manager put himself in danger even though he was not really trapped.

Hearing this, the store manager carefully observed Shigetani's expression, and after a long "oh", he did not ask any more questions. He smiled, let go of Shigetani's unconscious support, and after standing up, he jumped up and down to show that he was indeed unharmed.

With mixed feelings, Fūtani discovered that the store manager seemed completely different from usual after he accurately lifted up his vest. Any bit of stability he had previously shown was now completely gone. He looked at the store manager's awe-inspiringly handsome face, and the only thing left in his mind was this guy on the ground competing with Matsuda to see who could roll harder.

Is this a mistake? I feel like the store manager is a little more childish than before?

"Listen to me carefully, Manager." In the few seconds that Jyouya's mind was distracted, the manager almost walked in front of the bomb. He grabbed the other person's arm with his backhand in a headache and said in a serious tone, "This is really dangerous. Don't do it next time. Who knows if the criminal will attack you directly."

The black-haired, red-eyed young man pondered for a moment, then looked at Fūya with a thirst for knowledge: "But he can't beat me?"

Maybe it was because the manager had been sleeping for many years before waking up, but Furuya was unable to treat the manager as a peer. He finally understood why Hagiwara and the others used such an oddly loving tone when referring to the manager.

For some reason, Fūya had the illusion that he had raised a child at such a young age.

He quickly shook his head to get rid of the feeling, his expression gradually becoming helpless, and he confirmed the store manager's confusion: "Even if he can't beat you, it won't work."

The store manager looked tall and thin, with slender limbs and no visible muscles. It was obvious that this was related to the many years the store manager had spent lying in bed. Therefore, Jōtani could never tell that the store manager had a talent for fighting.

If he didn't know that the store manager was in good health and not sick, he would even suspect that the store manager was malnourished.

We must not let the store manager develop the mentality of "They can't beat me so I can do whatever I want". Fūya knows that they can't always rush to save the store manager.

Furuya has already started considering the possibility of having the store manager get up early every day and go jogging with Hiro to exercise after he returns.

And when he was distracted again, the manager nimbly slipped away from in front of him and trotted all the way to the wall encrusted with the bomb, his eyes focused as if he was trying to see a flower on it.

Fūya gave up on getting entangled with the store manager in this place, and he walked up to the store manager, reached out to try to take out the bomb while chatting with the store manager, hoping to soothe the other person's emotions in this way.

That's right. Even the store manager would be a little nervous in such a dangerous situation, right? After all, he can turn into a cat and escape from this room, but the store manager can't do that.

"By the way, I remember the store manager said that he learned bomb disposal in Hawaii? When was that? It sounds very interesting." Fūya casually brought up a topic with a relaxed tone.

Unexpectedly, the store manager smiled and said without hesitation: "Eh - that kind of thing is of course fake. I found Hagi and the others not long after I woke up, so I didn't have time to go to Hawaii."

Fūya's hands almost trembled. He raised his head silently, looking at the store manager with trembling pupils: "Wait, but you have already dismantled two bombs?"

The store manager sat cross-legged next to Fūya, his chin resting on his hand, and gave a casual explanation: "Well, that was something that my grandfather's subordinates taught me a few times before I moved out, and Jinpei-chan also likes to read this kind of books and watch videos. It's not convenient for him to turn pages on the computer, so I always help him."

Yes, how could he forget at that time that the store manager had no chance of going to Hawaii to learn bomb disposal, and just complained about this lame excuse!!

Fūya was sweating profusely as he realized that the store manager was actually a novice bomb disposal expert who only had theoretical knowledge and had never actually done anything…

This means that if the drawings sent by Matsuda and his team were not very detailed and the store manager was not a very smart person, he would never have been able to wait here to rescue the store manager who was imprisoned by the criminals, and he would have only found a handful of ashes.

Thinking of this, Jōtani couldn't help but hold the tools tighter. He turned his head away and looked away. He really didn't want to argue with the manager at this time. To be honest, he was much angrier now than when the manager grabbed his sleeve just now.

Fūya closed his eyes, took a deep breath, calmed himself, and made his voice sound calmer: "Manager, I will tell Hagiwara and the others about what happened today when I get back."

He had only known the store manager for a short time, so maybe the store manager didn't really listen to him, but Hagiwara and the others should be able to deal with situations like this.

After saying this, Fūya lowered his head and continued to concentrate on defusing the bomb, while listening attentively for the store manager's answer. However, he waited for a long time and did not hear the man next to him speak. The only sound in the room was the constant beeping sound of the bomb timer.

The blond police officer frowned, cut the last thread and successfully dismantled the bomb, then turned around and said, "Manager? Did you hear me talking..."

He stood up suddenly.

"Manager?!"

There was nothing around Jōtani, not even the store manager's figure was visible, as if such a living person had evaporated right next to him.

He subconsciously took a step forward, and suddenly he heard the sound of a cat's cry, a soft cry with a long tail, as if it were an auditory hallucination.

Is there still a cat in this room? Fūya looked around alertly, trying to find the cat's location by following the sound, but no matter how he looked, the place where the cat's sound came from was just an empty frame shrouded in the shadow of the curtains.

……etc.

Fūya's gaze rested on the shadow on the shelf.

He heard the gentle call of a cat again. It was just meowing without any meaning to convey, or perhaps the cat just wanted Fūya to look past it.

The next moment, the shadow on the shelf slowly opened a pair of round, water-red eyes, looked at Fūya's face, and meowed sweetly with a long voice.

It turned out to be a black cat hiding in the shadows.

Fūya took a breath of cool air.

—

Conan and his two companions accidentally encountered the fleeing criminal in the escape passage. It was unfortunate that they ran into him at the time when the criminal had just put a bomb in a hidden place in the corner of the wall.

"So I'm really lucky today, and he's really unlucky." Kuaidou's voice was full of schadenfreude. He had long since returned to his Kidd form and was now restraining the prisoner, preventing him from escaping. "Well, now if you have anything to ask, just ask it now, Detective and Miss."

Conan rolled his eyes at Kuaidou and took a step forward to speak, but the criminal recognized him first and said in an even more vicious tone, "Hey, aren't you the kid who followed that guy here? And you're trying to catch me here, you don't know what happened to that guy now, do you? Oh, sorry, I almost forgot, you just don't know."

Shirley immediately thought that the guy the prisoner was talking about was the store manager. She grabbed the prisoner by the clothes and blurted out, "What did you do to the store manager?!"

The prisoner didn't take the little girl seriously at all. He even laughed with satisfaction when he saw Shirley's reaction.

"What else could it be? Of course he was killed." The prisoner said in disgust, "Who let him ruin my plan and dismantle the bomb I worked so hard to install... If you go there now, you might even be able to collect his ashes!"

Kuaidou looked at the brown-haired girl who was clenching her fists as if she wanted to punch the prisoner in the face, and quickly blocked the prisoner's mouth with props to prevent him from saying anything exciting.

Conan on the other side also looked unhappy. After calming himself down, the child stopped Shirley and raised his head to stare into the criminal's eyes.

"Did you really kill him?"

Guilt flashed across the prisoner's face, but was quickly replaced by righteousness, as if mocking him for his useless efforts.

"It seems not." Conan was not affected by his emotions and judged calmly, "You haven't had time to kill him yet, but he is indeed in danger now and is about to die, right?"

The criminal's pupils showed an unnatural contraction reaction, and Conan immediately confirmed that his guess was correct.

The floor plans of these floors unfolded in his mind. Since the criminal said that the store manager dismantled his bomb, it was very likely that the other party found the store manager at the scene of the bomb he had set up... Think about it carefully, what places here are suitable for setting up a bomb?

He didn't move his eyes away, looking at the criminal while telling his own guesses. Although the criminal quickly closed his eyes to prevent his emotions from leaking out after realizing what he was doing, Conan still caught him.

"It's in the lounge on the far left of the second floor of the banquet hall." The detective repeated, taking a deep breath, "There is a load-bearing wall there."

Kaito had seen the floor plan of the building when he scouted the location beforehand, and he also shared the information he knew with the two children on the way just now, so Conan made the judgment so quickly now.

"You take him away to find the police, and Shirley and I will go to rescue the manager, is that okay?" Conan looked up at Kid and said in a deep voice.

They couldn't leave the prisoner here and had to take him with them. However, according to Kidd himself, his hang glider could only carry one more person. At this moment, it was not known whether the guests below had been evacuated. In order to resolve this crisis as quickly as possible, it would be best to bring the prisoner to the police as soon as possible.

Kuaidou sighed and responded without hesitation. He reached out and knocked the restless criminal unconscious. Before he carried the family away, Kuaidou turned back and reminded the two restless kids: "After you find the store manager, move to a safer place. I will tell the police where you are."

The thief Kidd is extremely tired.

However, the two fake kids didn't listen to him seriously. They nodded perfunctorily and ran away. Kuaidou was almost laughing out of anger. He pouted and took advantage of the fact that there was no other sober person here to mutter: "Tsk, you are not the only ones who are worried about the store manager..."

On the other side, Conan and Shirley's journey away was not smooth either. As they ran, Conan noticed that Shirley's pace slowed down.

"Why?"

He heard Shirley's voice trembling a little as she asked.

"What?" Conan turned around in confusion.

"Why? If you are willing to save a criminal like that and if your reasoning ability is so strong, why did you give up saving my sister at that time?" Shirley raised her head, revealing red eyes. It was the first time that Conan saw such a big emotional fluctuation on that face.

However, he didn't understand what Shirley was saying at all, and just subconsciously asked back: "Your sister?"

"Haven't you figured it out yet, great detective?" Shirley's voice trembled, and it was obvious that she had been stimulated to the point of losing her ability to manage her emotions. "Hirota Masami, her real name is Miyano Akemi... The woman who died in that warehouse was my only sister!"

Shirley probably knew that this matter could not be pushed onto Conan, and she was not really questioning him at this moment. It was just that all her repressed emotions had found an outlet. The death of her only relative had suppressed her to the point of collapse, so those sharp words could not be stopped from pouring out of her mouth at this moment.

Conan was silent.

When he spoke again, his tone was very complicated, so complicated that Shirley couldn't understand any of his thoughts.

"But, uh, if I say that's because Miss Yamei, Miss Mingmei is not dead yet...?"

Shirley's sobbing stopped.