Chapter 47 Seven Presidents

When Akae Nayue came down from the building, Fūya Reito had disappeared, Morobushi Kagemitsu was still in the kitchen, and a boy and girl were arguing with each other sitting on the sofa in the living room. When he looked to the side, he saw a young woman holding a tea-haired little girl just coming in from the front door.

As soon as he appeared at the staircase, Kudo Shinichi, who was sitting on the sofa, quickly spotted his figure and immediately stopped his childish quarrel. He waved and greeted Akae Nayue in front of everyone else: "Brother Nayue!"

Suzuki Sonoko was not to be outdone. She glared at her childhood friend and then shouted, "Brother Yue, this guy has left us alone to solve the case again today!"

Ran Mao Li, who was sitting between the two people, seemed to be accustomed to this kind of scene. She raised her head and greeted him seriously, and then continued to persuade calmly: "Okay, Sonoko, Shinichi has done this more than once or twice. If he likes it, just let him go."

The girl then looked at her boyfriend with a smile and put the ceramic cup she had been holding back on the coffee table. The bottom of the cup made a slight sound when it touched the table.

"Anyway, as long as he doesn't run away again during the next date, it'll be fine." Mao Lilan asked gently, "You won't, right, Shinichi?"

Kudo Shinichi stared at the cracked teacup on the tea table, and subconsciously slowed down his swallowing. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and laughed dryly: "Ha, ha, yes, yes, why would I do that!"

The boy looked to his brother for help.

Akajinazuki smiled at his disciples, pretending that he had not received any information, and changed the subject naturally: "Good evening, Sonoko, Xiaolan, and Shinichi-kun - are you going to let the sky go this time as well?"

It is now the end of May, and Teitan High School is conducting midterm exams by grade. Since Kudo Shinichi has already entered the first semester of high school, they have been taking unified exams with other high schools in Tokyo since the beginning of the semester. This also means that after each exam, the school will give them a day off to recover their energy.

"Well, the school arranged a voluntary survey the day before yesterday, so we could fill out the forms during the holidays." It was Mao Lilan who answered. She smiled shyly, "But I handed in the form yesterday."

Before Akae Nayue said anything, Suzuki Sonoko spoke in surprise: "What, Lan, you have already submitted it... What did you write?"

The girl being questioned hesitated for a moment, but still confessed shyly: "Dongdu University, didn't we agree to apply to Na Yue's alma mater together?"

Kudo Shinichi secretly breathed a sigh of relief behind her, and received a look of contempt from Haibara Ai who was being hugged by her sister.

Only Akae Nayue noticed something. He raised his eyebrows slightly and looked at Mao Lilan, and saw her slightly pleading expression.

"I hope you can really become my junior students." The black-haired young man winked in response, and then readily explained the purpose of asking for a holiday, "Then, can you lend me Shinichi-kun for the day?"

Kudo Shinichi immediately put the matter of volunteering behind him and stood up excitedly: "So, there is a new case in the detective agency!"

"Yes, it can just be used to accumulate your number of solved cases." Chijiang Nayue said with a smile, "How about it, do you want to come this time?"

"Come!" Kudo Shinichi responded without hesitation.

It would be fine if he didn't mention the number of cases solved. Once he mentioned the number of cases solved, his fighting spirit became even higher.

Since the organization was destroyed and he turned back into a high school student, Kudo Shinichi has returned to his ordinary campus life. In April of this year, he officially left the ranks of sophomores and became a slightly busy high school student together with his childhood friends.

Although Kudo Shinichi is indeed very smart and has always had good grades, the half year he wasted as Conan almost made him repeat a grade, and now he has to spend more time studying textbook subjects.

After all, they wanted to apply for the nation's top academic institution*, and in addition to the national unified exam in January next year, they also had to pass the interview at the University of Tokyo. Even Kudo Shinichi couldn't guarantee that he would be admitted without studying.

Of course, studying is a piece of cake for him. Kudo Shinichi's purpose is to use this opportunity to squeeze out his spare time to work part-time in the Tokyo Armed Detective Agency.

Last year, after learning that his brother and teacher had also opened an Armed Detective Agency in Tokyo, Kudo Shinichi, as the other party's number one fan (self-proclaimed), was actually the first among everyone to apply to become a member.

However, Chijiang Nayue rejected his application and only gave him one chance.

The master and the apprentice agreed that once Kudo Shinichi participated in solving 100 cases in the detective agency and successfully completed the unified examination next year, he could be promoted from a part-time detective to a full-time detective.

Kudo Shinichi accepted this condition very confidently, but what he didn't expect was that most of the time when the detective agency received cases, he had to make up the hours he missed in his second year of high school in school. Otherwise, let alone the unified examination, Teitan would not even issue him a high school diploma.

Detective Kudo, who had never expected this, had never regretted so much. He wondered why he hadn't eliminated the organization earlier last year and returned to class. Since the number of solved cases only counts cases in the detective agency, cases encountered outside are not included. But even so, Kudo Shinichi is very satisfied.

——According to the four rules set by Brother Yue, the cases that the detective agency can finally take on are not trivial. The quality of one case is enough to match the ten cases he solved with the uncle when he was Conan. As a detective, of course, the higher the quality of the case, the more excited he is!

"Do you need my help?" After Miyano Akemi went to the kitchen to help, Haibara Ai, who was sitting alone on the lazy sofa in front of the floor-to-ceiling window holding a laptop, suddenly asked.

This time, Akae Nazuki learned the lesson from the organization's incident and was not prepared to hide the battle between himself and the demon from the people around him. Therefore, he was not surprised at all that Haibara Ai noticed the unusualness of this case.

"You don't need it now." Chijiang Nayue stroked his chin and thought for a while, and said skillfully, "I will definitely ask you for help if I need it in the future."

He smiled and smoothed over the child: "After all, if I had revealed Ai's trump card from the beginning, I would have been very distressed."

Kudo Shinichi, who was closer, instantly noticed that the mood of a certain opposite-sex friend behind him had improved a lot, and he couldn't help feeling a little indignant.

Damn it, Brother Yue hasn’t even said he’s the ace yet.

However, when he thought about the fact that his participation in the cases could help him accumulate the number of cases solved, the imbalance in his heart disappeared.

He also understood why Brother Yue didn't intend to let Huibara help right from the start. After all, unlike him, a high school student who was about to become an adult, Huibara looked like an eight-year-old elementary school student. If they hired her, the detective agency wouldn't even be able to issue a contract.

Although they both shrank together last year due to the same disease, they couldn't wait to take the antidote developed by Kudo Shinichi and returned to their original size as soon as it passed clinical trials. However, Haibara Ai, the main developer of the antidote, refused to take it.

Rather than returning to her adult appearance, she would rather grow up slowly as a child, making up for the childhood she missed in the organization, and spending more time with her sister and the children of the Junior Detective Team.

Because she was still a child on the surface, Akae Nazuki also rejected her application to join the company, which came right after Kudo Shinichi did. However, unlike Kudo Shinichi, Akae Nazuki finally gave the researcher the status of an "honorary member".

In other words, if we round it off, Haibara Ai is now a full member of the detective agency, and together with the mature (and self-proclaimed) artificial intelligence Noah's Ark, she has become the logistics god of Tobu Detective*2. Kudo Shinichi turned around and his eyes met Haibara Ai's for a moment, and sparks and lightning rose in the air that no one else could see.

This time, I must help Na Yue brother more than the Kudo/Haihara guys did!

The person at the center of the conflict between the two did not participate in the subsequent conversation, but leisurely went into the kitchen and became the second person to cook at the party tonight.

Although over the past year, they are the only ones who are in charge of cooking at every gathering, occasionally others will come in to help.

The exceptions are Jinpei Matsuda, Osamu Dazai and Sakunosuke Oda.

If Akae Nazuki ever planned to try to commit suicide with food with his teacher, perhaps he would allow them into his kitchen.

Matsuda Jinpei is not a big deal, he was excluded because his cooking skills are not good and his food is not tasty.

Dazai Osamu is different. Akae witnessed the "tragic crime scene" when she was a child: the victim, Nakahara Chuuya, became full of energy immediately after eating some kind of energetic consommé chicken made by his teacher. He used only a day to finish the work documents that the two of them had been working on for a whole week. When Nakahara Chuuya woke up a day later, he strangely had no memory of what he had done.

...As expected of a teacher, he can make a dark dish that is comparable to [non-alcoholic coffee].

The last one, Oda Sakunosuke, is different from the other two. After all, he is a god who raised more than ten children by himself. It is impossible for his cooking to be bad. In fact, it can be said that his cooking is very delicious.

So at first, neither Akae Nazuki nor Dazai Osamu stopped Oda Sakunosuke from entering the kitchen during parties.

Until that night when everyone ate spicy curry sauce in a strange place and all the ice milk in the refrigerator of Akae's house was cleared out, Oda Sakunosuke was promoted to the number one kitchen ban person.

The only two extreme spicy curry lovers in the family, Akae Nazuki and Oda Sakunosuke, looked at each other with innocent looks.

The former is fake, the latter is real.

When Akae Nayue entered the kitchen, the first person he saw was Morobushi Jingguang who was chopping vegetables. He glanced at the chopping board and put together an idea in his mind: spicy curry!

The young savior simply ignored the possibility of other flavors of curry and his mood suddenly became cheerful.

Hiro-kun has always known his own tastes very well. When I think about it carefully, I haven't done anything naughty to him recently. Instead, he has been very well behaved for several days.

"By the way, Hiro-kun should come with us tomorrow." Akajina mentioned casually while tying her apron, "I'll feel more at ease with you."

Zhu Fujingguang, who was cutting vegetables over there, paused for a moment, then smiled faintly and agreed. He seemed to be in a much better mood: "Okay."

For some reason, Chijiang's intuition told him that he had escaped a disaster...?