Chapter 176 Thirty-two Vigilantes

Chaoyue said that after get off work that night, he originally just wanted to take a shortcut to a farther market to buy new flower seeds. However, as he just walked into the alley next to the flower shop, a bullet flew towards him and lodged in the ground a few centimeters in front of his feet.

The person in the alley seemed to say something, but Chaoyue didn't hear it clearly. He was brave enough, and after asking many times without success, he actually threw the bullet behind him and walked directly to where the sound came from.

He saw a boy huddled in the corner.

It was raining in Tokyo that night, and Chaoyue was holding an umbrella. The rain was pouring down from the sky, but the boy, with no shelter around him, was still lying there motionless.

The rainy day disturbed the smell in the alley. It was not until Chaoyue dropped her umbrella and rushed over to check on the boy that she discovered that he had been injured in the abdomen and was bleeding. There was even a pool of blood diluted by the rain on the ground. It was unknown how long he had been lying there. Finally, after firing a warning shot at Chaoyue, he could no longer hold on and fell into a coma.

It was also at that time that Chaoyue planned to take the boy back to the store for examination, and she found that the boy's age seemed different from what she had imagined.

The boy - or rather, he should be old enough to be called a teenager, but he was curled up into a ball at the time, and he was so thin that one would suspect he would be blown away by the wind. He looked like a young boy.

"He wanted to leave after he woke up, but considering how many injuries he still had, I didn't dare to let him go. Who knows if the child will die outside." At this point, Chaoyue pursed her face with worry, "I tried to persuade him for a long time, and finally convinced him to stay in my store until his injuries healed. I used his help to pay for his food and lodging."

He recalled: "The kid later said that he was hiding from pursuit at the time, so he simply agreed to stay with me to confuse the pursuers."

Conan's eyes widened and he almost choked to death from his saliva.

Huh? No, there was a child picked up earlier, so why are there still elements of pursuit and shooting? When encountering such a thing, the first thing to do is to call the police...

He wiped the cold sweat off his forehead and gradually realized that the so-called story told by the man in front of him who called himself Zhao Yue might not be that simple.

From that day on, there was a skinny young employee in Chaoyue's flower shop. He unexpectedly discovered that the boy had a wide range of skills. He knew everything and was proficient in everything. It made people wonder if there was such a terrible difference in the human brain. During the day, if there were customers, the boy would walk between the flower stands in the shop and help the customers wrap and arrange the bouquets like Chaoyue did. If there were no customers, the boy would obediently hold any book that Chaoyue gave him and sit on the window to read it all day long.

Chaoyue also tried to give the boy a cookbook. When he woke up early on the first day, he found the table full of delicious food that the boy had made. He suddenly realized that the boy had read every book carefully.

He was a very strange boy, but also a very cute boy, Chao Yue said.

The two of them were wary of each other at first. Although Chaoyue took the boy back out of sympathy, he would never forget the murderous look of the boy when he first met him. And although the boy stayed in his store and lived a slow-paced life for unknown reasons, it did not mean that he would really stay forever.

After they had been living together for about a month, the boy disappeared one night.

"Disappeared?" Conan pondered, and after putting into consideration the various scenarios he knew, he found the most likely answer, "Did the pursuer come looking for us?"

Regardless of whether what this person said was true or not, he had to at least stabilize the other party first, so it was best to just go along with what the other party said.

"No, he must have recovered from his injury, so he went back." Chao Yue said, "I did think so at the time. He came back on the first day, and still worked as an assistant in my shop, and still lived a slow and gentle life. However, he disappeared every night after that."

The red-haired young man looked at the ground in a daze, or rather, he was looking at the boy in his memory.

"I guess, at that time, he was probably asked to go out on a mission, to kill someone or something."

Chao Yue's tone of voice was calm, and she did not show any fear or resistance because of the boy's occupation: "The boy confessed to me at the beginning that he was a killer."

Is that true?

Conan thought, he felt something was wrong from what he heard before, it was impossible for an ordinary person to carry a gun and be seriously injured and hunted.

"I don't think it's a big deal. I didn't want to save a murderer, but a wounded boy who was unconscious in front of me... He had such skills before he even reached adulthood. I can't imagine what kind of training he had gone through before we met." Chaoyue sighed with her face pursed.

He did not regard the boy as a killer, but just a child who needed his help.

Chaoyue could actually see that the boy in his shop would even speak softly to the potted flowers, and was always so silent and gentle. He didn't even say he would kill him to silence him when faced with an ordinary person as courageous as him. How could such a child become a killer of his own will?

On that day ten years ago, the little animal he had raised for a long time finally tried to let down its guard towards him and silently showed him its scars. Chaoyue also learned that the boy had been controlled by someone to kill people since he was a child. This was the truth he was looking for.

[I will only bring misfortune to others, no one will love me like this.] The boy said, [I will bring misfortune to you.]

The boy didn't like to laugh and always had a blank expression on his face, but Chaoyue had learned early on how to judge the boy's emotions from that expressionless face.

Therefore, when the boy said that, Chaoyue also "heard" the suppressed sobs in his heart.

The boy who was unable to control his body and was forced to kill did not even dare to cry out loud in his heart. He knew that once he showed cowardly emotions, the person who controlled him would destroy everything that made him cowardly.

Because love will rust the knife.

Any adult with a little conscience would not remain indifferent after seeing such a scene or hearing such words, right?

【You didn’t do anything wrong.】

[Is it the knife's fault that it's too sharp? The one who made the mistake is obviously the one who doesn't know how to use the knife.] Chaoyue told the boy in a sympathetic tone, [Other people's misfortunes cannot be attributed to you. You are worthy of being loved, and always will be.]

Conan frowned subconsciously. For some reason, he always felt that Chaoyue's words sounded strange. However, Chaoyue was still telling the story from her memory and did not give him time to stop and think, so Conan could only put this doubt aside for the time being.

Chao Yue's ideal is to be a flower shop owner who can see the happy smiles of his customers every day. His life and his youth are basically two parallel lines that will never intersect.

One day the boy will walk out of his shop and leave Avalon, which is to him, and Chaoyue will continue to be the owner of his flower shop and live an ordinary life.

But Chaoyue thought, why not? He could help the kid.

If no one loves the boy, then let him love. If no one has taught the boy how to love the world, then let him teach it.

Compared to the various names he had heard, Chao Yue believed that the boy was the good boy he recognized in his heart, the good boy who could kill him with one shot even when he was seriously injured, and who subconsciously controlled the bullets to force him back in the alley. Therefore, he also wanted to respond to the boy's tenderness to this world and give him hope.

So, Chaoyue said to the boy -

"Leave that black organization."

Conan hesitated for a moment, and suddenly realized the meaning of what Chaoyue said.

That boy is actually the killer of the organization? !

What is an accidental hit or run-in? How could such a coincidence happen? A random passerby you meet on the street knows the killer of the organization. Is the probability of this higher than winning the lottery?

He shook his head vigorously to shake off his wild guess.

Wait a minute, if it's just a black organization, we can't just focus on the organization so hastily. It's not like the organization is the only one wearing black in Tokyo.

"Speaking of that organization, the kid told me that their core members all had a code name, which was the name of a wine. It was so strange that I still remember it now." Chaoyue touched the tip of his nose.

——It really is an organization!

Conan's inner vigilance instantly reached its highest point, and at the same time, his curiosity also increased.

What happened next?

He knew that Chaoyue's appearance was too coincidental and was probably coming for him, but with the organization's secrets right in front of him, it was really hard for him not to pay attention.

【We can go to Arashiyama to see the maple leaves, go to Hokkaido to see the snow, and go to Fairbanks to see the aurora. 】

When Chaoyue talked to the boy, her tone was always cheerful.

[What do you think? Or we can go whale watching in Oahu, that would be fun!]

These are the places where the boy could not help but stay for a long time on the inside pages of the travel magazine when he first read it.

So the boy looked up and looked at the red-haired young man who had taken him in for a while and was the first one to tell him "You deserve to be loved."

[What do you think?] Chao Yue repeated, patiently waiting for his answer, [Are you willing to come with me? It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to, we can just stay in Tokyo and watch the moon.]

It's like a light novel development.

Conan muttered to himself: But it does sound happy. If a killer without self can be cured and straightened out so easily and have a chance to escape, then he will also be happy for him, even though he feels very complicated about the boy's identity.

Chao Yue beside him said, "If I leave here with him, I think it's okay not to be a flower shop owner, but..."

"but?"

Chaoyue suddenly laughed: "But if we don't become flower shop owners, we won't be able to afford the travel expenses!"

Asazuki did not say that the man who had controlled the boy for more than ten years regarded the boy as his own property and had a terrifying desire to control him. Asazuki, who was just an ordinary person, and the brainwashed boy did not know that the man had known their conversation from the beginning, knew of Asazuki's existence, and naturally heard this conversation.

The reason that person did not stop the two of them from contacting each other at the beginning was that he wanted to use Chaoyue's existence to break the boy's last desire to struggle. That person wanted to make Chaoyue a scar on the boy's heart, so that he would never have the idea of ​​resisting again.

Chaoyue didn't say anything. In the end, he lay in the arms of the young man who was controlled and stabbed the knife into his body with his own hands. Drops of water fell from above and fell into his dilated pupils.

The boy held Chaoyue's head, and he looked up at the night sky for the last time.

[Great, it didn’t rain today.] Chao Yue smiled and whispered in the boy’s ear, [I saw it, the moon is so beautiful.]

Chaoyue is dead.

…

When the Metropolitan Police Department's vehicle rushed downstairs, Conan breathed a sigh of relief. He was about to stabilize Asazuki, but when he looked up, he found that he was the only one left on the rooftop, as if Asazuki had never existed and had appeared inexplicably just to tell Conan a fairy-tale-like, dreamy, healing story.

At this time, the red-haired young man who had already left there was skipping on the deserted street, with an ordinary-looking disguise mask stuffed in his pocket, and whistling a strange melody.

He gradually disappeared at the end of the road.

Asa didn't say that the boy actually didn't agree at that time, and now he wouldn't watch the moon with him either.

Asa didn't say...

The boy's soul was so beautiful when he was in complete despair because of his death.