Traveling back thirty years to Conan, intercepting Princess Eri

After the bedroom door closed, Eri Kisaki asked softly, "Shuichi, what were you thinking about just now? You kept frowning."

Lin Xiuyi turned to look at her and voiced her guess.

"You mean... Lily might also have been murdered?"

Eri Kisaki's eyes widened, her face filled with disbelief.
"How is this possible? Brian's family is just an ordinary family. How could someone kill their children one after another?"

“I’m not sure either, it just seems too coincidental,” Lin Xiuyi explained. “We still don’t know why Noah was murdered, but there are two possibilities:”

First, Lily was targeted and retaliated against by Noah's enemies.

Secondly, Lily may have discovered the truth about Noah's murder, or something related to Noah's secret, which is why she was silenced by the killer.

Eri Kisaki frowned, carefully considering Lin Xiuyi's words, and the more she thought about it, the more reasonable they seemed: "So what should we do now? We can't just wait for the FBI to investigate, can we?"

Suddenly her eyes lit up, and she grabbed Lin Xiuyi's arm, saying, "That's right! Aren't we staying in Noah and Lily's room right now? Why don't we go back to the room and look around? Maybe we can find some clues!"

Lin Xiu nodded; this was indeed the most direct solution at present.

The two got up and went up to the second floor. The lights in the hallway were dim, making the photos of Noah and Lily hanging on the wall stand out.

The boy in the photo has a bright smile, and the girl has a gentle smile; who could have imagined that they would suffer such misfortune?

Lin Xiuyi was staying in Noah's room. He pushed open the door, turned on the light, and began to search carefully.

The room was simply furnished with a single bed, a desk, and a wardrobe—all very ordinary items.

He searched through all the drawers of his desk, finding only some old textbooks and notebooks filled with school course notes, nothing unusual; a few unused coats hung in the wardrobe, and neatly folded old clothes in the drawers, but he found nothing suspicious there either.

This was actually within Lin Xiuyi's expectations.

Noah has been gone for two years. To ease their grief, the Brians have been involved in the University of California's homestay program for the past two years, hosting students who come to participate in summer camps.

He had lost count of how many people had moved into this room. If there were anything truly important, the elderly couple would have discovered it long ago, or it would have been accidentally tampered with by previous students. It was impossible for it to remain intact until now.

"So? Did you find anything?"

Eri Kisaki's voice came from next door.

Lin Xiuyi walked out of Noah's room, went to Lily's door, pushed it open, and said, "No, it's just some ordinary old things. I think you might have some too..."

Before she could finish speaking, Eri Kisaki excitedly interrupted her.

"Shuichi! Come quick! I think I've found a hidden compartment!"

Eri took his hand and led him to the wardrobe in the corner of the room.

This wardrobe has a double-door design with a row of drawers at the top and bottom, and looks no different from an ordinary wardrobe.

Eri Kisaki pointed to the middle drawer at the bottom and said, "I was looking for something to prop up the table, and when I opened this drawer, I found that something seemed to be stuck inside, and I couldn't pull it all the way down."

“I shone a flashlight on it and saw a box behind the drawer, but I couldn’t get it without pulling the drawer out completely.”

"Do we have to move the entire wardrobe?"

Eri Kisaki frowned and tried to push the wardrobe, but it didn't budge.

“Impossible.” Lin Xiuyi shook his head. “Lily was just a high school student at the time. She would definitely choose a way to hide things that would be easy for her to access.” “If she had to move the wardrobe to get it, it would not only be too noisy, but a girl like her couldn’t move it. There must be a trap inside.”

He took the flashlight from Eri Kisaki and carefully examined the sides and bottom of the drawer.

The drawer slides looked ordinary, but near the end of the slide, he noticed a tiny metallic protrusion.

It was a movable piece of metal that was normally stuck in the drawer slide, limiting the distance the drawer could be pulled out. As long as the metal was pushed back, the drawer could be pulled out completely.

"found it!"

Lin Xiuyi's eyes lit up. He pushed the piece of sheet metal to the side with his finger and heard a soft "click" sound.

He tried to pull the drawer out, and this time he pulled it out completely without any problems.

Deep inside the cabinet where the drawers were originally placed, there was a flat wooden box with simple patterns carved on its surface.

Lin Xiuyi took out the box, opened the lid, and inside was a pink-covered diary with cute cartoon illustrations on the cover, clearly belonging to a girl.

He opened the diary; the handwriting was neat and beautiful, and it mostly recorded Lily's daily life.

I went to a coffee shop with my friends today, and the boy I have a crush on smiled at me. I was also feeling troubled because of my body developing...

These are all little secrets of teenage girls. No wonder she went to great lengths to hide her diary, afraid that her parents would see it.

Lin Xiuyi quickly flipped through the diary, while Fei Yingli leaned close to him to read it together.

The preceding content was all quite ordinary, until we turned to Lily's diary from a few days before her murder, where the contents suddenly changed.

"Today is my 18th birthday. My parents and friends celebrated my birthday with me, and I was really happy. But when I was blowing out the candles, I suddenly remembered the time capsule that Noah and I buried when we were little."

“We made a promise that we would dig it up together when I turned 18, but now I’m all alone. Tomorrow, I’m going to the back hill of the school to dig out that capsule.”

The next diary entry is dated the following day.

"I found the time capsule! But the contents are different from what I remember. Besides the toys and letters we put in when we were kids, there are also several thick documents."

"I remember very clearly that when the time capsule was buried, there were no such documents inside!"

"I curiously flipped through it, and it was full of experimental data and formulas that I couldn't understand. But on the back of one document, I saw Noah's handwriting:"

'I was hesitant and in pain. They said that if these experiments succeeded, they would completely change human history and benefit all mankind.'

But what about those who were used as experimental subjects? They clearly don't fall into the category of 'all humanity'.

Upon seeing this, Lin Xiuyi and Fei Yingli exchanged a glance, both seeing shock in each other's eyes.

As you continue flipping through the diary, the handwriting becomes somewhat messy, revealing Lily's panic at the time.
"Is Noah conducting experiments on live humans? The more I think about it, the scarier I get. I don't know if I should tell my parents."

“When Noah left last year, they were almost devastated, and they have only recently recovered a little.”

"If I bring these things up again, it will only make them more upset."

"The last page of the document had a phone number on it. I tried calling it, but after the call connected, there was only silence on the other end; there was no sound at all." (End of Chapter)