Stay away from Conan.

Earlier, after returning to the organization, he confirmed with the person who looked remarkably like Kyosuke Mitarai what he had said, confirming that Kyosuke Mitarai had been killed by drugs and that Koji Haneda's name was on the list of drug victims.

With these clues confirmed, and finally, relying on his memory, he indeed found traces of this person's existence among the pile of manuscripts left by his father, based on the name "Cointreau," and thus...

Kyosuke Mitarai's father was once the organization's "Kundo," and Kyosuke Mitarai died from that drug...

Overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information converging and intersecting, Shiho Miyano was somewhat bewildered and unsure of what to do. Alone in the lab, with mixed feelings, she ultimately decided to return to her dormitory to rest first.

After all, there's no point in staying in the lab any longer; I'm not really in the mood for research anyway, and it's getting late...

After leaving her private laboratory, Shiho Miyano walked down the corridor. Near a laboratory room, she keenly sensed a scent and, following its direction, quickly located its source.

The window of the laboratory next door looked like it had been burned, and the window frame along the edge of the window had been burned!

Because of the room's design, ventilation was ensured throughout to guarantee proper airflow. Therefore, the odor emitted when the place was burned should have been mostly eliminated by the ventilation system. However, perhaps Shiho Miyano was sensitive to the smell in the room, so she immediately noticed the anomaly.

Realizing the problem, she subconsciously wondered if some kind of experimental accident had just occurred here. So she went closer to the window to look, and what she saw was a figure in front of a computer inside the room, operating something.

This scene immediately puzzled Shiho Miyano.

After all, there shouldn't be any personnel in this lab. The computers here have been running independently to calculate data for a certain experiment recently, and according to the budgeted timeline, it's not time to draw conclusions yet. Therefore, no one should be here right now...

At the very least, no one should be allowed to go in and operate that computer!
Therefore, although she realized there might be a problem here, perhaps out of trust in the safety of the place and her own prestige here, Shiho Miyano directly called out to the person inside the laboratory and asked:
"Who are you? What are you doing here? What are you doing?"

Thus, after Shiho Miyano asked these questions, she saw the person inside the room immediately turn to look at her. Upon seeing the person, Shiho Miyano was stunned, and immediately realized something shocking—

I don't even recognize that guy!
This place, which is only accessible to specific researchers and some internal staff of the organization, is now unexpectedly filled with people I don't recognize!
Moreover, this happened inside an experimental room within such an organization!

So, what was he doing in front of the computer just now? And what about the burn marks on the window...?

Is it possible?
Realizing there might be a serious problem, Shiho Miyano had an urge to turn and run the moment she saw the other person's face. However, immediately afterward, as soon as the other person spoke, Shiho Miyano, as if possessed, didn't choose to leave. Instead, she went to the laboratory door, unlocked the access card, and went inside.

"Shirley? Perfect timing, you can come in now, right?"

At that moment, when Gao Yuan, who was working at his computer, heard Shiho Miyano's voice, he quickly recovered from the tension of being "discovered" and felt a sense of relief.

Perhaps this is related to the fact that my relationship with Shiho Miyano has already reached that point in reality, so I trust her especially.

However, Gao Yuan's confidence in responding in this way was based on a certain amount of reasoning.

After all, one's own voice cannot be changed through technological means.

And so, having heeded her words, Shiho Miyano actually went to the door, opened the access control, and entered the laboratory. Once inside, she stared at the other person with a shocked expression, asking in disbelief, "You...your voice! You are!"

Because the voice was similar to Kyosuke Mitarai's, only the tone and manner of speaking were completely different, upon hearing that familiar voice and the tone she had just heard today, Shiho Miyano subconsciously guessed who the person in front of her was.

He's the guy who appeared in front of me today with Kyosuke Mitarai's face and said those things to me!
But his face...

This person's appearance was completely different from the one she had seen before, who resembled Kyosuke Mitarai. Therefore, after Miyano Shiho, based on the voice and the tone of the person's voice, was basically certain of who she was, she immediately considered another possibility. Then, with a serious expression, she looked at the person and questioned them:

"You can disguise yourself? You...you deliberately used his appearance to get close to me before?"

Thus, knowing that disguise techniques like Vermouth's existed, Shiho Miyano immediately suspected something amiss when someone changed their appearance so quickly, and angrily questioned the person before her.

He can easily disguise himself as someone else, so it's entirely possible that the face he has that looks like Kyosuke Mitarai is also a disguise, in order to deliberately get close to me and gain my favor, or rather, because with that face, I can't completely feel disgust for him from the bottom of my heart.

Thus, anticipating this possibility, Shiho Miyano was extremely angry that the person in front of her would use her relationship with Kyosuke Mitarai to do such a thing.

However, it was clear that Gao Yuan had anticipated this possibility when facing Shiho Miyano, so he simply stopped trying to hide it and directly removed the disguise from his face, revealing his normal appearance.

That was a face that originally belonged to Kyosuke Mitarai.

Therefore, Gao Yuan began to explain:

"Though I can disguise myself, this is my true appearance. It's not my intention to meet you with this face; I know that in your heart, the person this face represents is already familiar to you, but..."

"I am not him after all. If possible, I would not want to meet you in this appearance, but unfortunately, this is an unchangeable fact."

Upon hearing these words, Shiho Miyano was momentarily stunned, as she sensed the sincerity in the man's words and was thus moved by them. She was somewhat at a loss for how to respond.

For Gao Yuan, however, these words could be considered his true feelings.

After all, this was not originally my appearance, but I was born into this world to take the place of the original body, so I also took on this appearance and could not change it.

Therefore, his acquaintance with Shiho Miyano must have been due to the goodwill Shiho Miyano felt from the original owner's face. It was then that this became the catalyst for their eventual acquaintance, gradually transforming Shiho Miyano's feelings for the original owner into an understanding of the identity of "Takato"...

It must be said that Gao Yuan also understood that this was quite "cunning".

Unfortunately, back then, whether by choice or by force, he couldn't change his appearance. So now, when everything returned to the past, even in a dream, Takato couldn't help but say those words to Shiho Miyano...

After all, saying such things in real life would already seem a bit pretentious... (End of Chapter)