Chapter 167 Twenty-three Vigilantes
A few minutes ago, after changing into the night patrol uniform, Akae Nazuki turned off all the surveillance equipment on the ship and prepared to have a "chat" with the guy who was about to commit the crime. However, before he took action, an accident happened to Furuya Rei who stayed in the room.
At that time, the vigilante was hiding in the shadows at the junction of the cabin and the deck, leaning against the wall with his arms around his chest, quietly listening to the whole process of his friend using a voice changer to pretend to be him and deceive the children in the communication channel.
When Furuya Rei tricked Conan away, he heard the voice of the vigilante in the earphone, saying bluntly: "He didn't believe it."
Fūya Rei said "oh" and asked with a smile: "Isn't this the effect you want?"
If he really wanted to play the role of a good friend, it is impossible for Furuya Zero to make a mistake in such an obvious place. After all, Conan has only known Akae Nazuki for less than half a day, while he has known the little devil for eight years.
Like the 'broken ribbon', it was ultimately just a clue that the two adults tacitly left for the young detective to capture.
The vigilante on the other side did not comment on this, even though he was the one who came up with the idea first.
Since they have decided to kidnap the child, they must of course set a trap tailor-made for the child, and then let the detective fall into it by himself. And Chijiang Nayue only needs to wait and see to harvest a beautiful diamond that has been polished halfway.
This business is simply too calculated.
"Speaking of which, I'm really curious, does your uniform have a muting effect?" Before the young detective showed up, the in-good-humored Rei Furuya joked with the vigilante in the communication channel, "Once you put on that uniform, you talk very little, aka."
"During night patrol, real names are prohibited." The vigilante pretended not to hear the previous teasing and spoke slowly.
Conan's footsteps naturally appeared one step ahead of his figure, so Wuming made preparations in advance and slightly changed his stance, so that he appeared in front of him, quietly blocking the detective's way.
After Wuming said the first sentence while holding the child, Conan seemed confused for several seconds before he really reacted to the current situation.
When Conan's brain started working again, he was shocked and said, "...Wuming?!"
To be honest, Conan already had the answer in his mind before he said this - it must be Wuming, who else would go out to fight crime in the middle of the night wearing this high-tech uniform that looks extremely expensive, Gin?
Not to mention that before this, Conan had secretly collected many photos of Wuming, and unknowingly made several clippings and hid them in his bedroom in Kudo's house. His pounding heart was his detective intuition reminding him that the person in front of him was Wuming himself!
Conan couldn't help but become curious about other things, such as why Wuming appeared here.
For the case they were investigating? That's unlikely. No matter how wide the scope of Wuming's business is, it's not so wide that they have to compete with the Metropolitan Police Department for a murder case like this.
As far as Conan knows, Wuming is mainly responsible for arresting criminals that the Metropolitan Police Department is unable to deal with and solving dangerous cases, including those "people above" that Tokyo residents know but dare not say out loud.
This is also one of the reasons why Conan admires Wuming. He knows very well that a force as complicated as the Black Organization is difficult to shake by the power of one individual. Even he can only do his best to solve the case as a detective and cannot achieve a higher goal. However, Wuming openly stood on the opposite side of that group of people.
……Yes!
Conan suddenly remembered that the cruise ship under their feet was the property of Mr. Katsuyoshi Asahi, a well-known Tokyo entrepreneur.
As everyone knows, apart from the young and energetic Chairman Akae, who cleaned up his own industry with a drastic move right after returning from abroad, and a small group of wealthy people headed by the Suzuki family, nine out of ten remaining entrepreneurs in Tokyo have connections with the underworld, and the remaining one is itself a major whitewashing industry.
Mr. Asahi himself is one of the "people above" that Conan knows! So, it is very likely that Wuming is looking for Mr. Asahi.
The detective couldn't help but secretly glance at Wuming's expression, trying to see something.
Unfortunately, Wuming had absolutely no reaction to Conan revealing his identity.
The vigilante wore a hood connected to his cloak. Conan could vaguely see the dark red lining of the cloak from his current perspective. It created an inexplicable contrast when wrapped around the vigilante's black armor.
After a close observation, Conan became more convinced that Wuming's true identity was rich enough, or that there was a wealthy person behind him supporting his night patrol operations.
Another thing is that Conan's view on Wuming's real age is different from others.
The current mainstream speculation is that Wuming is at least 25 years old, based on his body size and proficiency in crime prevention. Some people think that Wuming is only in his early twenties, and apart from the armor, he is still a young man.
But Conan's detective intuition told him that Wuming was most likely a boy of the same age as him.
The mask on the opponent's face seemed to have a disruptive effect. Even when observing closely, Conan could not clearly outline Wuming's facial features in his mind, nor could he judge any useful information through his exposed eyes. The only thing he could see was that Wuming seemed to be very interested in him.
"You shouldn't have come here." The vigilante lowered his eyebrows and eyes, then after a moment he looked at Conan again and spoke in a calm voice.
Conan, who still looked like a child, was about to say something unconvinced, but then he remembered that the person in front of him probably wouldn't listen, so he rolled his eyes and changed his approach.
"Then can I go with you? I promise not to cause any trouble!" Under the moonlight, the black-haired, blue-eyed little boy half-seriously and half-fakely expressed his admiration, "Wuming, I want to go with you to catch the criminal——"
"Can't."
The vigilante raised his eyebrows and ruthlessly refuted without hesitation: "I will send you back now, and don't come out again."
"But you are going to catch the murderer, right? If you send me back, you will have to take a longer detour and might even get into trouble." Seeing that this trick didn't work, Conan quickly changed his expression and countermeasures, and gave a sales pitch. At this time, he couldn't care less about pretending to be a child anymore, "I'm good at reasoning, I'm a detective!"
The vigilante was speechless and waved his arm to remind the other party of the current situation. The detective who was being carried immediately swayed softly from side to side in the air.
The detective shut up, but his hand was still tightly grasping the corner of the vigilante's cape.
When the detective saw the vigilante's gaze move to his face, his expression changed and he revealed an innocent expression, looking at the vigilante pitifully.
Vigilante Akae Nazuki always felt that Conan looked familiar like this.
In the communication channel, Furuya Rei, who was watching the situation through the camera, was silent for a second, and then burst into laughter for the first time since coming to this world: "Conan-kun's learning ability is really amazing, hahahaha!"
Isn't that right? This expression was a one-to-one replica of the smile the chairman had on his face when he was being naughty to the housekeeper during the day, and the person involved, Chi Jiang Na Yue, was unable to react for a while.
Conan didn't know if it was his illusion, but he seemed to hear the vigilante in front of him sigh behind his mask, and then put him back to the ground as if compromising.
Conan didn't think that Wuming would be so easily persuaded by him to really take a child to the "night patrol". At this time, he suddenly thought of another problem.
Since they are on a cruise ship now, how did Wuming get here? Didn't the staff on the cruise ship notice him? Or... Wuming was on the ship from the beginning.
This thought gave Conan a sense of unreality: he treated Wuming's identity as a difficult reasoning problem, and originally thought that he would need to observe him for a while before he could get the answer through more clues, but now he accidentally made the progress bar move forward a lot?
The young detective opened his mouth and was about to say something, but after the vigilante put him down, new footsteps were heard at the entrance on the other side of the deck.
The two stopped talking and looked in that direction at the same time.
Besides them, there would be someone else on the deck at this time. Could he be the murderer?
Anyway, regardless of whether it was true or not, Conan understood that Wuming probably didn't intend to let irrelevant people know that he was here.
Because the next second the vigilante picked him up again, turned over nimbly and climbed up the railing on the second floor, then exerted force with his arms and waist, and quietly brought Conan to the second deck.
It only took Conan a blink of an eye for the vigilante to put him back on the ground, and the man below just walked out of the corridor at this time.
Come to think of it, it seems that Wuming's skills are really amazing, otherwise he wouldn't be able to handle the high-intensity night patrol workload every night... So it's just this level, should it be okay?
What a ghost!
Conan's mouth twitched and he was speechless for a moment.
His expression was probably too obvious, the vigilante briefly withdrew his gaze from below and gave Conan a look of disapproval.
On the deck below, the moonlight clearly illuminated the face of the person who came. Conan only caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of his eye and could not look away. His expression instantly turned into surprise.
The little detective reached the edge of the railing, carefully hiding himself under Wuming's cloak, and frowned as he watched the situation below.
How could it be her?
On the deck, a red-haired woman in casual clothes and cotton slippers was looking around nervously. That face was the seventh victim who was supposed to be the next target of protection, the model Nana Oyamauchi!
The other person's face was no longer covered with the delicate make-up that made her look so domineering during the day. She stood there with a panicked look on her face, while at the same time trying hard to look less guilty. However, her pale face was hardly convincing.
The model swallowed her saliva, as if she was waiting for something on the deck, and she lowered her head and looked at her watch nervously four or five times.
Finally, when she lowered her head for the fifth time, footsteps were heard in the corridor again. Someone came in again, and this time the person locked the door after coming out.
Damn it. Conan gritted his teeth.
They could only see Miss Nana on the second floor where they were now. If they wanted to see the people coming from behind, they would have to move a little further out, but then Miss Nana would definitely see them.
"I, I came at the time you said, and I didn't tell anyone else a word!" The red-haired model shuddered, unable to bear the cold air, so she said anxiously, "Isn't it time for you to fulfill your promise? Give me the evidence in your hand!"
Evidence? Could it be some kind of evidence of a crime? Conan's mind was moved, and he could not help but move forward a little, wanting to listen to the voice of the person coming from the other side.
But I don’t know what the model below saw. Her face turned pale and she opened her mouth immediately to scream.
Conan suddenly realized something was wrong: Oh no, is the other person trying to silence me?
He reflexively reached for the small prop at his waist, but someone was faster than him. Conan just heard a faint gunshot, and his eyes flashed. He saw a dagger standing upright on the deck, and the model over there seemed to be frightened by the scene, her legs went weak, and she sat on the ground.
Fortunately, she was unharmed, the bullet just grazed her cheek and hit the railing behind her.
Conan looked at the dagger, then looked at the railing that was hit by the bullet.
Finally, he looked up at Wuming's chin covered by the mask, and his shock was beyond words.
Hey, is Wuming even more outrageous than Sonoko's boyfriend? Did he deflect the bullet with a dagger just now? ?