The Daily Life of a Salted Fish Assassin in Anime Crossovers

There's no need to investigate the mahjong area anymore; Hakuba Saguru is now investigating the pool table and the nearby chess table.

Jiang Hang found a deck of cards in a corner of the lounge.

This deck of cards is clearly over several decades old, and it's quite remarkable that the current owner of this house has kept these things.

This deck of cards seems to have been stained with a lot of blood back then; at least, Jiang Hang saw several cards that had congealed together because of the blood.

After so much time has passed, these playing cards obviously cannot be fully restored to their original state.

Jiang Hang casually flipped through the blood-stained playing cards. Among them, the two Jokers were in the worst condition, almost completely soaked in blood. Heaven knows what the people who collected these cards had in mind.

Just looking at these playing cards now, Jiang Hang seems to be able to feel the howls of the wronged souls who died here.

Kaito Kid, who had been secretly watching Jiang Hang, suddenly appeared beside him: "Playing cards from half a century ago? They really have a historical feel to them. If they are left aside for a few more decades, they might even be able to enter a museum for a visit."

“Speaking of which, when I was a kid, I was always wondering when playing cards were invented. We play cards now, but people played cards half a century ago. Even a century ago, playing cards was a popular form of gambling,” Jiang Hang said with a smile, then put the deck of cards aside again.

Conan also came over, looking at the deck of cards. He couldn't help but reach out and take it in his hand to examine it, and his expression gradually became serious.

"Playing cards started to become popular in the 15th century, and by the 19th century, they had developed to the point where they are no different from what they are today," Kaito Kid added from the side. As a phantom thief who plays magic, Kaito Kid usually uses a magic gun that shoots out playing cards as a tool for counterattacks. Playing card magic is a classic magic trick that has a history of more than a hundred years since its birth, so he is naturally quite knowledgeable about the history of playing cards.

As a seasoned gambler who frequents racetracks and mahjong parlors, it's not surprising that Kogoro Mouri has some knowledge of poker.

However, when he looked at the bloodstained deck of cards, especially the two Jokers that Conan was holding, Kaito Kid suddenly blinked, as if he had suddenly realized something.

His mind started working rapidly.

At this moment, Conan, who was also deep in thought, suddenly suggested, "We've been out for so long, it must be quite late now. Should we go and meet with Ran and the others to see if they've encountered any danger? They should be heading back to the restaurant by now."

The suggestion was quickly supported by Kaito Kid: "It's almost nine o'clock at night now, so we really should go check on Ran and the others. This way we can also find out about Detective Senma and Detective Ogami. Maybe Miss Gunta has some new discoveries we can share?"

This is a perfectly normal thing to do, but when Conan said it, and in a tone that was clearly that of a child, it seemed as if he was deliberately putting on this act to persuade Hakuba Saguru and Mouri Kogoro.

Conan isn't usually like this, and Jiang Hang was almost certain that Conan had sensed something.

Moreover, it wasn't just Conan; after Conan spoke, Kaito Kid hesitated only slightly, as if he had realized something, before quickly responding to Conan.

In Jiang Hang's eyes, these two must have discovered something, which is why they suddenly started talking in unison.

He just glanced at a deck of cards; what exactly did these two guys notice?

Chapter 288: Chapter 286: Guessing the Riddle

Jiang Hang looked at the deck of cards he had set aside. It was only when Conan and Kaito Kid saw that bloodstained deck of cards that they seemed to suddenly enter a state of enlightenment.

If he's not mistaken, the answer to that riddle is probably closely related to playing cards.

With an IQ only at the level of an ordinary person, he pondered the riddle carefully. He could only conclude that the "king, queen, and knight" mentioned in the riddle should refer to the Jack, Queen, and King in playing cards. However, he couldn't figure out what the subsequent elements in the riddle symbolized, or how the Jack, Queen, and King pointed to the treasure.

However, in order to maintain his composure, Jiang Hang could only remain calm. After all, Conan and his friends had already solved the mystery, so all that was left was to watch what they did.

After hearing Conan and Kogoro Mouri's conversation, Hakuba's expression seemed a little strange, but he eventually nodded.

The group walked quickly toward the restaurant, but Conan's behavior became a little strange. He seemed to make a point of checking each room before passing by, and Kaito Kid didn't say anything about Conan's actions.

It took them a little longer to walk back to the restaurant. They had only been gone for a little over an hour, and nothing had changed since they left.

Qianjian Jiangdai remained at the restaurant. The effects of the sleeping potion personally concocted by Jiang Hang were naturally beyond question. Da Shang Zhushan, whose background was still unknown, showed no signs of waking up.

"Detective Qianjian, is everything alright here?" Jiang Hang asked the other party after returning to the restaurant.

"I haven't noticed anything unusual here. It seems that even if I'm the only old woman left in this restaurant, the person who invited me won't dare to show up in front of me."

Seeing Jiang Hang and his group return, Chizuru adjusted his glasses and asked, "Did you find any clues in this mansion, or rather, did any of you find the answer to that riddle?"

“We have found quite a few things, but not many of them are valuable clues. Most of them are traces left by someone on purpose.” Jiang Hang shook his head and simply recounted the “clues” left by the owner of the mansion, but he did not go into too much detail.

“It’s unbelievable that such a thing could happen.” Senma Kazuyo analyzed calmly, “It’s just that that person probably underestimated your observation and judgment. He probably didn’t expect that his carefully designed conspiracy was doomed to fail from the very beginning.”

"Grandma Senma, have Ran and the others come back?" Conan asked Senma Kazuyo.

Chima Kazuyo shook her head: "No, I've been alone in the restaurant for over an hour. They haven't come back yet; they're probably still investigating."

"Then let's wait here for Ran and the others to come back before we talk about it." Kaito Kid said this and sat down on a chair. It seemed that he didn't plan to leave the restaurant to investigate clues outside anytime soon.

Hakuba Saguru's gaze fell on Kaito Kid, who was disguised as Kogoro Mouri, and Conan: "In that case, you can stay here with this child and wait for them to come back."

He then asked Jiang Hang, "So, what about you? Are you staying here or coming with me to investigate other places?"

Now that Conan and Kaito Kid have clearly found the answer to the riddle, Jiang Hang will stay here to see what Conan and the others have discovered.

Jiang Hang shook his head at Bai Ma Tan: "I'll stay too, after all, my assistant hasn't come back yet."

As he said this, he also used his Eagle Eye technique to observe the restaurant from all angles.

Bai Ma Tan was not surprised to receive Jiang Hang's reply: "In that case, I'll go investigate by myself. I also have some new ideas that I need to verify."

Without lingering in the restaurant, Hakuba Saguru turned and left to continue gathering clues.

After Hakuba Saguru left, Conan didn't stay idle. Instead, he inspected the restaurant, seemingly trying to verify his guess.

"Are you really so comfortable with him leaving alone?" Senma Kazuyo asked Jiang Hang and Kaito Kid in the restaurant. "I've heard of Hakuba Saguru. Although his father is the Metropolitan Police Department Commissioner, he himself is very capable. When he was studying in England, he helped Scotland Yard solve many troublesome cases. Some people even call him the modern Sherlock Holmes."

"But he's not the real Sherlock Holmes after all. We're trapped here now. According to the person who invited us, only the person who solves the riddle and finds the treasure will be told how to leave. In order to save his life, he might leave alone after solving the riddle."

The people present didn't seem to care much about the doubts surrounding Senma Shiro.

Conan and Kaito Kid are now basically certain that the treasure in the mansion is probably hidden in this location.

Since Conan and Kaito Kid both seemed so relaxed, Jiang Hang, as a bystander, was even more composed.

"Wouldn't that be even better? If someone actually solves the riddle, the person who invited us here shouldn't be able to sit still anymore," Jiang Hang said, his gaze fixed on the seemingly ordinary clock above the restaurant.

The old clock had obviously stopped working a long time ago; after all, it's quite common for a clock that looks over a hundred years old to malfunction.

But thanks to his extraordinary eagle-eye observation skills, Jiang Hang immediately noticed that Conan and Kaito Kid subconsciously looked at the clock hanging to the side that wasn't moving after they arrived at the restaurant.

Their subsequent movements seemed to indicate that there might be some secret hidden within this clock.

Only after his gaze fell upon the clock did he realize why Conan had suddenly returned to the restaurant.

Among the rooms they investigated, there were quite a few clocks, but all of them were new clocks installed in recent years. Apart from those clocks installed later, the clock in the restaurant is probably the only one that was installed when the Twilight Villa was built.

Using his ability to reveal Eagle Eye, Jiang Hang discovered more clues on the clock after focusing his attention on it.

Chapter 289: Chapter 287: Jiang Hang, you still say you weren't the one who invited this gathering?

However, neither Conan nor Kaito Kid seem to have any intention of solving the riddle right now.

Jiang Hang could probably guess what they were thinking. They probably wanted to find the person who invited them here and then solve the riddle in front of the "murderer".

Solving riddles in front of criminals is a classic trope in Detective Conan.

Since Conan wasn't in a hurry, Jiang Hang was even less anxious. He sat down next to Senma Kazuyo and poured himself a cup of tea.

Perhaps wanting to chat casually when bored, or perhaps the detective Chima Kōdai wanted to extract information from Jiang Hang through conversation, the armchair detective started chatting with Jiang Hang about nothing in particular.

Their conversation was rather disorganized. One moment they were discussing whether Jiang Hang's recently solved case had any similarities to the cases she had encountered before, and the next they immediately shifted the topic to some recent hot topics around the world.

Jiang Hang casually answered the armchair detective's questions. After chatting for about ten minutes, when the conversation turned to finance, she suddenly asked Jiang Hang a question.

"Mr. Jiang Hang, I've heard about the Pioneer Foundation. As the heir to a foundation worth hundreds of billions, I wonder why you chose to come to Japan?"

"It's just out of interest, there's no particular reason."

After receiving Jiang Hang's reply, Senma Kazuyo paused for a moment before continuing to ask, "I've heard that the Pioneer Foundation made a fortune from the Karasuma Group, which was still in existence at the time, decades ago. In fact, the Karasuma Group even had a direct conflict with the Pioneer Foundation back then?"

"I even heard a rumor back then that the Karasuma Group was brought down by your Pioneer Fund. I wonder if that's true?" Senma Kōdai asked Jiang Hang.

Upon hearing this, even Conan and Kaito Kid, who was standing next to him, couldn't help but prick up their ears, as if they were also very interested in the ins and outs of this matter.

After all, no matter how intelligent they are, they cannot witness the events of half a century ago firsthand; they can only rely on collecting various kinds of information to conduct their investigations.

Upon hearing this question, Jiang Hang's lips twitched involuntarily. Senma Kazuyo is now over sixty years old and naturally experienced the period when the Karasuma Group had not yet withdrawn from the historical stage. It's not too surprising that she would know about this past.

But what do you mean by saying the Pioneer Foundation bankrupted the Karasuma Group? That's completely turning the facts upside down.

It was clearly Karasuma Renya who, seeing that he was nearing his end or for some other reason, wanted to move the Karasuma Group into the shadows and conduct those shady experiments. That's why he deliberately staged this whole thing back then. In fact, Karasuma Renya was prepared to sacrifice some of the profits from the very beginning.

How did it come to be that the Pioneer Foundation was in charge of all of this in Chima Shigeyo's mouth?

Although the system intervened during this process and siphoned off all the benefits that should have been distributed to various organizations, the end result made it seem as if the Pioneer Foundation had brought down the Karasuma Group.

Moreover, it seems that no matter how he explains it now, it is not an easy thing to make others believe him. At least when he told Shiho Miyano about this, she still maintained a certain degree of skepticism.

Knowing that explaining would be useless, Jiang Hang could only give a vague explanation: "I don't really know much about the foundation's past operations and decisions. I don't know anything about this kind of thing. My status as the heir is just a title. I never thought about inheriting the foundation."

Chima Kazuyo nodded noncommittally: "So, you mean no comment?"

She didn't ask any further questions about that issue, but instead returned to the matter of the Twilight Villa.

"Leaving aside how the Karasuma Group went bankrupt, after the Karasuma Group was dissolved, the Karasuma family sold off a lot of Karasuma Renya's assets due to the financial crisis."

"The recording also mentions that after Karasuma Renya's death, an auction was held in this mansion, and that all the auction items were eventually stolen by two strangers who suddenly arrived."

"We don't know if the story is true or not, but the sale of property is probably true. This Twilight Villa was probably sold at that time."

Chima Kazuyo's gaze sharpened as she spoke, making her look nothing like a sixty-year-old woman.

She continued speaking to Jiang Hang: "If the Pioneer Foundation had heard about the rumors of Twilight Villa at that time, wouldn't it be possible that they would have acquired it and made it a property under the foundation's name back then, hoping to find a bargain?"

Senma Kōdai's tone suggested that he suspected Jiang Hang was the true owner of the mansion.

"But even now, you probably still don't know what the hidden wealth of this mansion is, so you came up with this idea and deliberately invited us detectives here to help you solve this mystery."

"You came to Japan three months ago. Perhaps you have been preparing for this detective gathering for the past three months. You have spent three months becoming a famous detective and coming here to attend the gathering legitimately. With the wealth and power of the Pioneer Foundation, it should not be too difficult to do this."

"What you didn't expect was that before the bomb you set was detonated, Da Shang had already discovered its presence, which ultimately led to the current situation."

After listening to Senma Kazuyo finish speaking, Jiang Hang's expression remained calm.

Chima Kazuyo is known as the armchair detective, which suggests that she might be even better than Jiang Hang at using the "hypothetical principle" to solve cases.

She started by asking about the Pioneer Foundation, then talked about the Pioneer Foundation's connection with the Karasuma Group, and finally about the invitation, making it sound very real.

Even Jiang Hang couldn't help but wonder why he was being suspected so much.

He looked at Senma Kazuyo: "If your hypothesis is to hold true, the most crucial point is to prove that this mansion is indeed an asset under the Pioneer Foundation. If this is not true, then your hypothesis will naturally not hold true either."

However, at that moment, Hakuba Saguru's voice suddenly came from outside the door: "But in fact, this Twilight Villa has been an asset of the Pioneer Foundation for thirty-nine years. Detective Jiang Hang, don't you know about this yourself?"

Chapter 290: Chapter 288: Suspect Jiang Hang?