Stay away from Conan.

From Conan's perspective, this is what he sees at this moment—

Before the case analysis meeting, which brought together police officers from various locations, began, I heard the sound of keystrokes from what appeared to be a BOSS email sent to us by members of the organization, right outside the restroom.

Then, at the start of the meeting, Ai's senses revealed that Gin and the others were outside the Metropolitan Police Department.

Finally, now that the meeting was basically over, Gin and his group drove away.

Therefore, considering the entire sequence of events, Gin and his group's appearance is highly relevant to this meeting. Naturally, Conan concludes that their purpose lies with this meeting; clearly, the organization is here for this incident. However, at present, he doesn't know exactly why they are interested in this matter, and...

More importantly, the organization must have sent people to infiltrate the police force. Such a risky move shows how seriously they take this matter. So what could it be?
Although Conan had overheard the meeting through the listening device left on Uncle Mori, he felt there wasn't much valuable information. Not to mention that Uncle Mori's conjecture couldn't explain all the doubts, if things were really that simple, the investigation wouldn't have reached the point where it required a joint operation by police officers from various regions.

Moreover, the six deceased are from all over the country. If they had gathered together to play mahjong, it shouldn't be too difficult to investigate, right?

However, the case report clearly did not mention this, indicating that the police have not found any connection between the parties involved and mahjong, so this line of reasoning is obviously wrong.

As for Mr. Mingzhi's analysis...

The judgment that the murderer would commit the crime twice more is basically correct, but this is only an obvious point that can be seen from the evidence at the scene and the mahjong tiles that were deliberately colored. In fact, it does not provide a clear direction for the investigation. After all, before finding the connection between these people, it is impossible to determine who the next victim will be.

The vertical line behind the mahjong tile refers to the "door" (or "gate")...

Admittedly, this line of thinking is quite interesting, and perhaps that was the killer's purpose. However, it is still too general an analysis and has no clear direction. In comparison, the words "Qixi Jing" left by the sixth victim before his death are perhaps more worthy of investigation.

Clearly, the sixth victim must have known why the killer murdered him. So, before he died, he wanted to leave behind clues pointing to the killer or related to the truth of the case. If we can understand the meaning of these words, we should be able to identify the killer, or at least have a clear direction.

This clue should be the most worthy of investigation, but why...?

Why didn't Mr. Mingzhi mention this at the meeting?
Is it simply because he doesn't have any ideas either?
"Qixi Beijing"...

Is it related to the Qixi Festival? Then what about "京"? Is it a name? Or does "Qixi Jing" refer to the name of a certain place?

……

"Qixi Jing"—of all the clues, these are actually the easiest to investigate.

"Qixi" refers to the Qixi Festival, and "Kyoto" was left unsaid. Therefore, if we know the clues of Qixi Festival and Kyoto, and conduct a targeted investigation, we can easily find the connection between all the deceased: a fire that occurred two years ago on Qixi Festival in a hotel in Kyoto, and those who died were survivors of that fire.

However, this clue is too obvious. Once it is revealed, the organization is likely to be able to narrow down the suspects to a very small range much faster than the police can act. By then, before the police can even react, all the suspects may have already been killed by the organization. After all, according to the original story, the memory card containing the names of many of the organization's members that was lost in this incident is of great importance. In order to find it, and to find it before any outsiders, the organization is unlikely to hesitate to kill some people by mistake.

Therefore, at the end of the meeting, Gao Yuan was naturally pondering the key aspects of this incident and clearly knew—

We need to find the remaining people involved in the case first; otherwise, we absolutely cannot reveal such clear clues at this time.

Therefore, with this in mind, Gao Yuan's current consideration is to find the people involved in the case as soon as possible and protect them. This matter must be done without going through the Metropolitan Police Department. Otherwise, once the police are involved, the organization members disguised as Matsumoto will send the information to the organization.

In this regard, since the real Matsumoto supervisor hasn't been found yet, we can't directly take action against the imposter. Therefore, upon careful consideration, we need to ensure the incident unfolds as it did in the original story, protect the remaining personnel involved in the case, and also ensure the safety of the Matsumoto supervisor...

This is a bit troublesome. It's impossible to accomplish these things on my own, so I need to seek help from others.

So, should we notify the FBI? Or should we simply involve the Japanese Public Security Bureau?

Just as Gao Yuan was thinking this, the meeting ended, and everyone began to leave with the flow of people. It seemed the officers were preparing to take action when Matsumoto, the supervising officer walking at the front of the crowd, suddenly seemed to remember something and asked Inspector Megure beside him:
"By the way, where's Shiratori?"

After all, this incident was of great importance, but only Inspector Megure was in charge of the situation at the Metropolitan Police Department. The other officers were not familiar faces, so Matsumoto Kiyonaga couldn't help but ask Inspector Megure where they were.

In response, Inspector Megure said:
"Well, Shiratori reported to me that he was going to investigate some clues about the shooting and hoped to get to the bottom of that matter as soon as possible so that he could better focus his energy on this incident."

"Oh? You still need to verify? Haven't you interrogated the suspect we arrested last night yet?"

Upon hearing Inspector Megure's report, Kiyonaga Matsumoto asked with some surprise.

Inspector Megure nodded, his expression grave and serious.

"After all, the other party refuses to say anything..."

"Hmm... then let's hurry..."

After a brief pause, Matsumoto Kiyoshi replied with this statement before heading towards the elevator.

Just then, Xiaolan and the others seemed to hear the commotion and knew the meeting was over. They came out of the lounge and saw Matsumoto Kiyonaga and his group walking at the front. Upon seeing Matsumoto Kiyonaga, Xiaolan couldn't help but go up and greet him... (End of Chapter)