Conan: I'm a zaibatsu in Tokyo

Inside the exhibition hall of the Suzuki Grand Library.

"Let's split up and search. The book where Mr. Tomoyori hid the piece of paper must be among these tens of thousands of books!"

Sonoko waved excitedly.

When Professor Agasa and his friends returned from the restroom, they aimlessly searched through the pile of books for the possible note.

"Okay!" Xiaolan replied, her eyes searching among the densely packed bookshelves.

Soon, her gaze settled on a blue-covered book on the top shelf of the bookshelf.

Xiaolan moved a chair over, walked to the bookshelf, stood on the chair, tiptoed, and reached out to reach the book.

Today she was wearing a knee-length skirt, and as she tiptoed, the hem of the skirt rose slightly.

"Let me help you." Sonoko helped Ran hold onto the chair.

"Thank you."

Conan stood there, wondering if Kaito Kid had already infiltrated the area.

He looked around and felt that, apart from Shoichi and Ai, anyone could be Kaito Kid in disguise.

When Kaito Kid impersonates someone else, the biggest difference is his height.

He looked at Sonoko and Ran, both of whom had been impersonated by Kaito Kid before, and it was possible that he would impersonate them again now.

Xiaolan wore a short skirt today, and her legs...

No, that could also be Kaito Kid's leg.

Conan's gaze followed Ran's fair legs upwards, landing on the absolute territory between the edge of her short skirt and the top of her thighs...

"Xiao Lan".

Ai suddenly appeared out of nowhere and stood beside Ran.

She crossed her arms and whispered in a voice that only Ran and Sonoko could hear, "Ran, you'd better look down. That brat's gaze has been lingering on your inner thigh for three seconds."

Xiao Lan's movements suddenly froze.

She slowly lowered her head, just in time to meet Conan's eyes, which hadn't yet looked away.

The air freezes.

"Conan..."

Xiao Lan's voice was squeezed out through clenched teeth, and a cross-shaped vein bulged on her forehead.

Conan shuddered, cold sweat instantly soaking his back.

He abruptly raised his head, meeting Xiaolan's face, which was now extremely dark. He forced a laugh and tried to struggle, "Ah, haha, Sister Xiaolan, I was just..."

"Go to hell!!!"

Ran raised her right leg high and kicked Conan in the stomach with perfect accuracy.

"boom--!"

Conan was like a baseball that had been hit, tracing a perfect parabola in the air.

With a shrill "Ah!", it slammed heavily onto the bookshelf three meters away, then slid to the ground, turning into a mosaic.

Ai was also startled by Ran's reaction.

Suddenly I felt a tiny bit guilty. I wondered if Ran had killed Conan.
On the ground, Conan struggled to recover from the mosaic-like state, clutching his stomach and not daring to utter a sound.

When Kogoro Mouri and the others heard that Conan had been kicked away, they simply looked up, then calmly buried their heads back down to continue searching for the note.

Conan is a tough kid; a beating won't have much of an effect.

"Xiao Lan, let me help you get that book."

"Okay, thank you, Professor Agasa."

Over there, Professor Agasa helped Ran take the book down, and Shoichi walked over to Conan, sighed, and said, "Why are you so lecherous?"

"I didn't." Conan shook his head, stubbornly denying it.

Zheng Yi nodded: "It's right not to admit it; admitting it will only result in a worse beating."

Conan blushed and offered no explanation.

Actually, at first he just wanted to confirm whether Ran was Kaito Kid in disguise.

Masakazu patted Conan's head.

This kid is under a lot of pressure right now.

Ai walked over to Masakazu and said, "You and this guy seem to really like each other. Could it be that you're also trying to spy on other women?"

"Nonsense," Zheng Yi said disapprovingly. "I've been looking at things openly and honestly."

To prove his innocence, he even went so far as to roll up Ai's trouser leg, wanting to openly look at her legs.

"You bastard!"

"Get out of my way!"

Ai kept dodging and occasionally tried to step on Ichiro's foot.

Conan shook his head as he watched the two interact.

Masakazu and Ai Haibara have a really good relationship.

"Oh, right."

While the two were bickering and the others were focused on finding notes in the book, Mrs. Kito said, "There's something I don't know if it will be of any use to me if I say it."

"What is it?" Kogoro Mouri asked.

“When my husband and I were in school, we used to exchange diaries. That exchange diary was quite incredible.”

"Unbelievable?"

“That’s right,” Mrs. Jiyou said. “Back then, we agreed that he would write on the left page and I would write on the right page.”

However, to include everything that happened on the same day, as well as my love for my husband, one page is usually not enough.

To allow my husband to write on the left, I filled three pages with dense writing, but he always only wrote a few lines.

"Could it be that your husband isn't good at writing?" Ai asked curiously.

“Yes,” Mrs. Jiyou said, “That’s what I thought at first, but after we got married, one day I saw that diary on my husband’s desk.”

When I saw the naive words I wrote when I was young, I couldn't help but feel very embarrassed and a little nostalgic. While I was flipping through my diary, I saw words that I had never seen before during my student days.

My husband wrote two pages filled with dense writing, but he quickly took them away, saying they were his secret. Strangely, I never saw those two pages again.

Dr. Agasa speculated, "Could it be that the rice grains are stuck together?"

“It’s also possible that it was torn up,” Kogoro Mouri said.

They were wondering why Mrs. Tomoyu couldn't find those two pages of notes, and Conan was also quietly pondering.

It seems only Ai is eating the dog food of two elderly people.

Zheng Yi nudged Ai's arm and whispered, "How about we get one of these notebooks too?"

Ai blushed immediately.

She gave a disdainful snort, turned her head away, and said, "Why should I write in a notebook with you?"

"This sounds really interesting."

Zheng Yi said to himself, "You write on the left, and I'll write on the right..."

Ai's face flushed red as she listened, blinked, and continued to listen to Masakazu.

“No.” Zheng Yi suddenly shook his head: “That won’t work. It should be that you write two pages, I write two pages, then Hongye writes two pages, Mingmei writes two pages, and then…”

"go to hell!"

Ai's face turned bright red, and she threw the book in her hand directly at Zheng Yi's head.

And there's more! I'm telling you, there's more!

Ai hugged Masashi and punched him hard, making her little fists turn red.

"You get angry so easily, you're completely unreasonable!" he said while dodging.

Ai had no intention of reasoning with him today; she grabbed a book and chased after Masakazu, smashing it against him.

Kogoro and his friends then bombarded Mrs. Yoshiyu with a barrage of questions.

"Did your husband really not tell you where the note was?"

Mrs. Jiyou shook her head: "He said it's a place I would never find."

After rubbing his stomach and finally recovering from Ran's exertion, Conan began to deduce the truth.

"Mr. Tomoyori is a very shy person..."

"He said I would never find it..."

"He said even if he looked for the recipe, he wouldn't be able to find that page..."

Conan's eyes suddenly lit up, and his previously puzzled look instantly became clear.

"I see..." Conan smiled confidently. "Now I know why everyone has been searching for so long without finding the note with the instructions on how to open and close it!"

"Oh? Conan, do you know which book it's in?" Professor Agasa turned around in surprise.

"Not only do I know which book it's in, I also know why the lady searched for so long without finding it!" Conan held up a finger and began his methodical reasoning.

"First of all, Mr. Tomoyori is an extremely shy person. He deliberately hid the note because he didn't want his wife to find it easily. Secondly, he swore that his wife 'absolutely wouldn't find it,' which means that the place where he hid the note must be a book that his wife would never normally look through!"

Conan paused, his gaze sweeping over everyone: "Sonoko-neechan just said that Madam dislikes mystery and supernatural novels, but Madam has already carefully examined those books."

Since it's not one of those, there's only one possibility—it's a book that the lady 'doesn't need to read'!

"Books you don't need to read?" Sonoko scratched her head, looking bewildered.

“That’s right!” Conan snapped his fingers and continued, “I smelled beef stew with potatoes near the restroom just now.”

Moreover, the lady also said that her specialty is beef stew with potatoes, which she learned directly from her mother-in-law.

In other words, the lady already knew the recipe for beef stew with potatoes by heart!

Conan's eyes gleamed with wisdom: "So, that note was tucked into the cookbook on the page that says 'Beef Stew with Potatoes'! And Mr. Tomoyori did something extremely clever!"

To prove his reasoning, Conan borrowed a notebook and a pen from a staff member nearby.

In front of everyone, he tore a page from his notebook, drew a circle on it, and then carefully slipped it into the notebook.

Then, Conan made a crucial move.

He quietly tore off a small portion of the bottom edge of the two pages containing the paper.

"Everyone, watch carefully." Conan handed the notebook to Shoichi. "Shoichi-nii, try turning the pages quickly from bottom to top with your palm."

Zheng Yi took the notebook and quickly turned the pages as Conan had instructed.

His fingers slid along the pages of the book, even skipping over the page with the piece of paper stuck between the pages.

"How is this possible? The piece of paper is still stuck inside!" Sonoko exclaimed in surprise.

"The secret lies in the torn edge," Conan explained. "Because the bottom edge was torn off, your finger can't touch that page when you're flipping through it quickly, so it just slides over it."

It could only be discovered by carefully flipping through each page, just as the lady had done before.

But the lady wouldn't even look at that cookbook, so of course she couldn't find it!

Conan immediately shouted to everyone, "Everyone, hurry over to the cookbook shelf! Just look for the page with the beef stew with potatoes, and you'll find the note soon!"

Upon hearing this, everyone's morale immediately soared, and they all rushed towards the recipe area.

However, just as everyone was immersed in the joy of about to solve the mystery, the lights suddenly went out, followed by a song.

Mrs. Jiyou said, "There's a music box inside the mechanism box. Once the mechanism box is opened, the music inside will play!"

"What!?"

"Clap."

With a crisp click of the switch, the lights in the Suzuki Grand Library exhibition hall instantly came back on.

However, when everyone's attention was refocused on the center of the booth, they were stunned.

The mechanism box that was originally there has now vanished without a trace.

"What... what's going on?!" Suzuki Kichijiro was the first to react, his eyes widening.

"Where's the box?! My security system was clearly activated, how did he steal it?!"

"And..." Kogoro asked, puzzled, "He left the jewel behind? He stole the puzzle box?"

Is this still Kaito Kid?
Why are you stealing puzzle boxes instead of gems?
Mrs. Jiyou walked quickly to the booth and carefully picked up the exchange diary.

Kidd stole the box, but left the jewels and the diary behind.

Hard to understand.

“It’s just a box. If he wants it, I’ll give it to him. Consider it payment for opening the box,” Mrs. Jiyou said, holding the diary.

This is what she wants most.

……

The next day, when Conan woke up, he saw an extremely outrageous news story.

"It is reported that the puzzle box stolen by Phantom Thief Kid yesterday was donated to the Justice Museum free of charge."

"Art museum staff said: The box appeared suddenly, with a note on it saying that the puzzle box was given to us. We don't know why, it's all very strange."

"The museum staff said that the puzzle box could not be returned to its owner because it belonged to Kaito Kid, and they were afraid that the museum would be robbed if it was returned."

"The museum has reached an agreement with Mrs. Jiyou that the puzzle box will be exhibited at the museum."

Conan blinked.

How is this going?

Kidd painstakingly stole the puzzle box, only to give it away to Brother Zheng Yi for free?
What is he after?
Conan got dressed and went straight to Masakazu's house. When he arrived, he found Masakazu fiddling with the puzzle box.

"Conan's here," Masakazu greeted him, then continued fiddling with his things.

Conan asked directly, "Brother Zhengyi, why would Kid give you this?"

There are rumors in Tokyo that Kaito Kid is actually Shoichi's dog.

Conan initially didn't believe it, thinking it was slander against both Seiichi and Kid.

But now we have to re-examine this rumor.

Kidd not only helped Brother Zheng Yi steal things, but also blatantly delivered them to him.

Zheng Yi shook his head: "Kaito Kid is too despicable."

"what?"

Zheng Yi said, "He gave me the mechanism box simply to confirm the accusation that I was having an affair with him, to tarnish my reputation, and to divert attention."

Conan blinked.

However, Brother Zheng, your reputation is already bad enough; there's no need to tarnish it further. (End of Chapter)