He's in Detective Conan, and he's the mastermind behind everything.

She'd experienced several vibrations before, but she hadn't had time to check... Well, she did manage to catch a few moments, but tonight she seemed a bit too excited and kept forgetting about it.

Three missed calls.

One mother, two gardens.

Xiaolan called her mother back first, and the phone rang for about thirty seconds before it was answered.

"Xiaolan, what's the matter?"

"It was my mother's phone call at nine o'clock, and I was..."

"Oh, I was just asking you to give Shinichi Kudo a piece of your mind. He came with a bunch of baseless arguments, trying to stop me from moving forward with the lawsuit. But it's all over now. Apparently, there's some new case going on, and he's gone."

Okay, that's all for now. I have to go. Goodnight, Xiaolan. Your dad will be alright.

"Mom, I..."

"Dudududu——"

The urgent busy tone was slightly painful to the eardrums. Xiaolan sighed softly, looked at the night outside the window, waited a few seconds, and then dialed Yuanzi's number back.

Unable to connect, phone is switched off.

Yes, it's almost eleven o'clock, and Sonoko usually goes to sleep by then.

Huh?

There was another text message from the garden, which Xiaolan opened.

Stay away from scumbags!

"........."

Xiaolan, feeling slightly guilty, closed the text message, silently apologizing to Yuanzi several times before going to wash up before bed. Just as she finished showering and came out wrapped in a towel, the phone rang again. She went over and picked it up.

Inspector Megure?

A sense of foreboding washed over her. Xiaolan answered the phone, but before she could even speak, Kogoro Mouri's urgent voice came from the other end.

"Ran, hurry to Beika Central Hospital, Eri has fainted!"

"!!!"

Xiaolan suddenly felt dizzy and lightheaded. She could only stand up by supporting herself on the sofa, and her mouth became a little dry.

"In the end what happened?"

"Don't ask so many questions, just hurry up and go!"

"Did Mom hear some bad news?"

"Aren't you annoying? Go take care of her!"

Tell me the truth!

"What good will it do you know! Hurry up..."

"Has someone died again?!"

Boom! ! !

The tranquility of the night sky was suddenly shattered, and the girl's long-suppressed frustration finally turned into a thunderclap.

Never before had Ran roared at Kogoro Mouri like that.

When her undisguised true emotions could no longer be suppressed and surged forth from her chest, she inexplicably felt an unprecedented sense of release.

Although she was stunned after she shouted it out.

What utterly outrageous thing she just did.

But those who were even more stunned were, of course, Kogoro Mouri and Juzo Inspector Megure on the other end of the phone.

Xiao Lan, who is usually obedient and sensible, suddenly became so rude, yelling at her father and elders like that...

Is this the start of a rebellious phase?

Did you encounter some shady characters at school and get led astray?

or……

Are they really wrong?

But they kept this a secret for her own good!

Knowing wouldn't help; she could only stand by anxiously, and might even bother them...

"Sorry, I'll be right there."

Although Xiaolan's voice had not fully returned to its usual gentleness, it had calmed down considerably. Her previous loss of composure seemed like a hallucination that had never happened.

“Is there anything else you need to tell me?” she asked.

Kogoro Mouri paused slightly, "No, that's all."

"Okay, Dad, don't worry. Mom has always been in good health, she'll be fine."

"Okay, then hurry up and go there."

"Okay, goodbye Dad, goodbye Inspector Megure."

beep beep-

The phone hangs up.

In the detention room of the Metropolitan Police Department, Kogoro Mouri and Juzo Inspector Megure exchanged a glance, both looking bewildered. Had they just... been hallucinating at the same time?

Meanwhile, a calm voice came from the earpiece that Ran had taken off earlier, which sat on the coffee table in the Mori family's living room.

"Now, smash your phone."

Bang! ! !

The wooden tatami floorboards exploded with a loud crash, and Xiaolan's white flip phone smashed through the wooden board, bouncing and falling repeatedly on the second-floor detective agency floor before finally coming to rest in four pieces.

Countless other small, scattered parts were also found.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop. I've had my earpiece on the dining table the whole time. You were just too loud, that's why I heard you," Ying Sheng said calmly through the earpiece.

Xiaolan didn't respond; she was taking deep breaths, and then deeper breaths, and then deeper breaths again...

"That bastard Dad!!!"

Finally, I couldn't bear it any longer.

After waiting for more than ten seconds, and hearing Xiaolan sitting angrily on the sofa, Ying Sheng finally spoke again.

"Although I'm really looking forward to you moving out and living alone, I still have to say something unnecessary."

"Yes, yes, Dad is just worried and confused."

Xiaolan snorted: "If he cares about Mom so much, why didn't he do this earlier? Did he think about Mom when he was drinking and carousing? Where was Mom when he was fighting with other women over Miss Shihezi and getting into fights with them?"

Silence fell over the headset.

After an unknown amount of time, amidst the rustling of clothes, Ying Sheng finally heard Xiao Lan sigh softly again.

"Mizuki-kun, do you know what really happened?"

Thank you for your support. Several readers inquired about the QQ group, so I'm replying here.

No group.

The author rarely logs into QQ and doesn't plan to create one at the moment. Well... just consider it as me putting all my energy into writing. Sorry, sorry.

You can post what you want to say in the book club circle, and everyone will read it.

Thank you so much--

that's all.

Chapter 35 The goal is no longer money.

"That's probably what you think, but Mr. Mori has been detained, so even if there are any bad developments in the incident, it won't have much to do with him."

Ying Sheng's words made sense, but Xiao Lan was quite dissatisfied with her unreliable father, so she just snorted.

"In the end, it was all his own fault for causing trouble."

"Judging from what he said, it seems there's more to the story. Let's check if your SIM card still works. I'll have the phone shop deliver a new phone to you at the hospital entrance. By the way, the headset switch is on the left back."

"Thank you, but I don't want to hang up right now."

Xiaolan changed into her usual blue coat, put on her headset, picked up a large pair of scissors, and cut her previous outfit into thin strips of cloth.

Ying Sheng heard the sound of scissors snip and reminded him, "It's best to burn it, or at least find some other clothes to mix in as a distraction."

"understood."

Xiaolan continued cutting clothes in silence. Ten minutes later, she went out carrying four black, opaque garbage bags and walked two blocks before throwing them into different garbage cans.

Continuous discarding also limits the effectiveness of hiding.

Ying Sheng thought.

But it's not a big deal, so let it be. He himself hadn't even thought about dealing with that motorcycle suit.

But he himself is indifferent, while Xiaolan now... well, apart from lack of experience, it seems that she is also indifferent due to the ups and downs of her emotions.

To be honest, this was not something Ying Sheng had expected.

That guy Kogoro Mouri—no, that group of guys—if they're going to keep something from her, they should at least keep it a secret! This whole thing—not telling Ran the truth, and making her so worried…

Tsk, that's really puzzling.

This is all for your own good, that's probably the excuse they're using. It's hard to say.

"The taxi is here," Xiaolan said.

"Okay." Ying Sheng turned off the headset.

The night wind on the rooftop was quite chilly. Ying Sheng, dressed in a black tracksuit, held his hands and breathed on them to warm them. Each of his ten fingertips was wrapped in a band-aid, but there was no faint fragrance of blood in the air, only the smell of burning paper.

When the sound of sirens finally drifted in from afar, accompanied by flashing red and blue lights, Ying Sheng used his toes to lift the embers on the ground, turned around, and left the Ginza Hospital.