Survival Manual of the Science Fiction World

Chapter 300 Let's Play Cards

The following day at noon, Lafitte came downstairs, ready to continue the task Gin had assigned him.

Damn it, if he had known things were so busy and there were so many tasks in China, he wouldn't have come back. Wouldn't it have been better for him to slack off in the US?

Chu Ming got up early and sat in the hall, but no one returned to the base all day. Now, only Lafitte was about to leave.

Chu Ming stood up abruptly, picked up the water from the table, and handed it to Lafitte, appearing extremely attentive.

Lafitte looked at the water Chu Ming brought over, took a step back warily, and even looked closely at Chu Ming's face. When he found that Chu Ming was not in disguise, he was even more surprised.

"Unsolicited kindness is always suspicious. What are you up to? Let's make this clear first: gifts are only for birthdays. Don't try to find excuses to ask me for gifts every day, no way!"

???

"Am I that kind of person? How could you think of me like that???" Chu Ming felt insulted.

"Heh, so what kind of demon are you trying to create now?"

Chu Ming held up the jade thumb ring on his thumb to Lafitte's eyes: "Look, isn't it pretty?"

Lafitte held Chu Ming's hand, looking it over from left to right: "A thumb ring? Is that something you're showing off? I have one, and I don't have one either..."

Chu Ming pushed Lafitte's hand away with disdain and carefully blew on the surface of the ring: "You know nothing. This was given to me by the BOSS. It symbolizes the BOSS's personal presence, like the Emperor himself, don't you understand? Maybe the BOSS values ​​me and took the opportunity of my birthday to give me this jade ring that symbolizes the successor. Show me some respect. I am the BOSS's chosen—uh, maybe the BOSS's chosen successor."

"..." Lafitte rolled his eyes disdainfully at Chu Ming's smug look. "Come on, if the BOSS chooses you as his successor, will the organization still have a future? Are you sure you won't lead us astray?"

Chu Ming was indeed putting on a show, but after being humiliated by Lafitte, he turned and left in a huff: "Who do you think you are? Go do your mission, go away, you have no taste. If I become the BOSS, I'll make things difficult for you first!"

Lafitte scoffed, turned to leave, then thought for a moment and pulled out a disk from his side, handing it to Chu Ming.

"Put on your old fake face and take this to Gin. Vermouth seems to have given him a clue before, and he wants to use this to track Sherry's whereabouts. It just so happens that you're free today."

Then they just dropped the disk and left.

Chu Ming silently took the disk. This must be the disk that Gin used to track Ai Haibara's phone signals...

Instead of calling to ask where Gin was, he went directly to Vermouth and asked for the address of the apartment that Miyano Akemi had rented, and went downstairs to wait for Gin to appear.

Two people gave him gifts last night. One of them, Chu Ming, knew was from the BOSS because he found a Karasuma family crest on the inside of the ring that was exactly the same as the one he had seen at the Twilight Villa.

The other gift box contained a gold-painted lacquer ink box, which looked like an antique from the Edo period. Judging from its era-specific features, it was very much like something Rum would give you.

Alas, so in the end, I never received Gin's gift.

After standing outside in the cool breeze for half an hour, Chu Ming finally saw Gin's car appear outside the residential area.

"Big brother, you're finally here! I've been waiting for almost two hours! I'm practically going crazy from the wind!" Chu Ming waved to Gin as he got out of the car from the flower bed, his tone exaggerated.

Gin glanced at him: "Did you bring the disk?"

Chu Ming took out a disk from his side and handed it over, while also intentionally or unintentionally bending his thumb to reveal the ring on his hand: "I brought it. It's said to be able to track phone signals in 20 seconds."

Gin glanced at it, not taking the ring seriously, assuming that Chu Ming had found it at the Twilight Villa.

He sneered, "Go to the car, get your laptop, and go see which rat hole that woman is hiding in."

When Chu Ming brought the computer over, he still gave a thumbs up.

Gin frowned as he watched Chu Ming's actions. Seeing that Gin was finally paying attention to him, Chu Ming pointed to the ring on his hand and began to introduce the gift given by the BOSS.

Then Chu Ming stared intently at Gin with a suggestive look in his eyes.

"..."

Gin silently bent down, took a box from the car, and tossed it to Chu Ming. Chu Ming caught it, put it in his pocket, and said with shining eyes, "Thank you, big brother!"

Without having time to open it to see what it was, Chu Ming hurriedly followed Gin to the house that Miyano Akemi had rented. Sherry had obviously been there before, because the bookshelves were piled high with books on medicine or cell biology.

Vodka had been searching inside for a long time, but hadn't found any trace of the research materials the Miyano couple had previously collected: "Brother, we haven't found anything. But I asked the building manager, and they said we prepaid a year's rent here, and the phone occasionally comes in. If no one answers, it goes directly to voicemail, but I just checked the voicemail box, and there's nothing there..."

"That woman is cautious by nature and won't leave a phone message, but it doesn't matter. She won't be able to hide for long. The organization's reverse tracking program will find her soon."

Chu Ming watched as Gin casually leaned back on the sofa, while Vodka sat at the table, staring at the phone.

"...Just wait like this?" Chu Ming couldn't help but ask. He knew the script, so he knew Sherry would call tonight, but Gin didn't. Did he just want to sit here doing nothing?

“Shirley calls every night recently, around one or two in the morning, and I can answer her soon,” Vodka explained.

“…But it’s only a little past ten.” Chu Ming looked around, then brushed aside Gin’s long hair that was scattered on the sofa and squeezed next to him. “We can’t just sit here for the next few hours, can we? Let’s find something to do.”

Gin, with a cigarette dangling from his lips, looked up at him without lighting it and asked, "Fighting is too noisy and inconvenient."

Chu Ming was completely confused. What did he say that indicated he wanted to fight?

He appeared to reach into his pocket, but secretly pulled out a deck of cards from the system's inventory: "How about we play cards?"

After hesitating for a while between sitting idly and playing cards to kill time, Gin finally condescended to accept the cards from Chu Ming.

Chapter 301 Could there be a warehouse full of gifts?

"Royal flush! I've played all my cards! You lost again, hahaha!"

Chu Ming discarded his last two cards, picked up the slip of paper next to him, and slapped it onto Vodka's face.

Vodka silently put down the cards he had barely played, peered through the gaps in his face covered in slips of paper, and deftly began shuffling, placing, and drawing cards.

Soon, another round began. Gin silently took his cards, looked at the single cards in his hand that didn't form any straights, and coldly said, "Pass."

Chu Ming, clutching a handful of bombs and straights, also shouted, "No!"

Then the two of them stared intently at the vodka.

The pressure is now on vodka.

Vodka felt the heavy strip of paper on his face and the icy gaze he could feel even through it. He hesitated for a moment, then honestly stammered, "Then, then I, I'll call myself the landlord?"

Vodka clutched the three cards that had been shoved into his hand, tears welling in his eyes. He knew it! He was bound to be the one who got bullied in the end...

But what could he do? He couldn't afford to offend either of them. In ancient China, there was the custom of entertaining one's parents with colorful clothes; in modern Japan, there's the custom of using vodka and stickers to appease one's elder brother.

Just as Vodka was completely lying down, the phone suddenly rang.

The group simultaneously put down their cards and stared intently at the running program.

After the answering machine started working, Shirley's cool voice rang out: "Sister, it's me. I'm attending the opening ceremony of the Twin Towers skyscraper the day after tomorrow..."

Chu Ming watched the numbers on the computer screen jump around. Gradually, the first number, the second, the third... As more and more numbers were deciphered, Gin slowly sat up straight. But just when there were only three numbers left, the signal suddenly dropped.

Vodka angrily ripped the note off his face: "Damn it, we were just a few seconds away from succeeding!"

Seeing Vodka's unusually angry expression, Chu Ming figured he was probably just trying to take the opportunity to rip off the face mask and was pretending to be so angry.

Chu Ming copied down the first few numbers: "It's okay, there are still three numbers left. The approximate area pointed to by the previous numbers has been determined. We'll have the outer team go and investigate this area later. If there are any single women who don't leave their homes for a long time in this area, that might be their hiding place."

Gin nodded and grinned maliciously: "Then you'll be in charge of this. Heh, although we didn't catch that rat, it seems like fate is on our side. She probably never expected we'd be eavesdropping on the phone, right?"

Really? Do you really think God is on your side?

...After all these years, apart from that one blow back then, how have you ever succeeded in dealing with Shinichi Kudo?

Sure enough, Gin had a huge misconception: luck was on his side.

"Vodka, take your men to the Twin Towers and plant the bombs at the locations I set up this morning; Granburg, you're coming with me this time to deal with that traitor, we need to delete the messages on his computer," Gin coldly ordered.

“Okay, Vodka, you go first. Brother, why don't you go down and get the car? I'll clean up this mess and then come meet you.” Chu Ming silently picked up a strand of Gin's long hair from the sofa and showed it to him. “Brother seems to be losing hair—uh, no, maybe he's been too tired lately? Hahaha—”

Gin glanced at Chu Ming's long hair at his fingertips, then lowered his eyes and walked straight to the door: "Stop talking nonsense, hurry up."

"Good~"

A moment later, Chu Ming rushed out of the door and jumped into the car. The force of the impact even made the car shake: "Okay, brother, I'm done cleaning up."

Gin frowned slightly and drove straight to the address Vodka had given him.

Looking at the detached villa in front of him, Chu Ming stopped Gin, who was about to violently open the door and break the lock. He took out his treasured master key and easily opened the door. Then he stood behind the door, and Gin took the opportunity to press a gun to Yuan Jiaming's head, who had crawled out after hearing the noise, and pushed him back into the room.

Hara Yoshiaki stared in shock at Gin and Chu Ming, both dressed in black. His face paled instantly. "You...you guys..."

Gin pressed the safety button and gestured to Chu Ming to take all the data from his computer: "Yuan Jiaming, you should have thought this day would come when you betrayed the organization and tried to steal its data. After all, only the dead want to leave the organization."

Chu Ming opened Yuan Jiaming's computer and found that in addition to the data stolen from the organization, there was also a prototype of an upgraded chat room software. Wasn't this the QQ he had imagined?

Chu Ming neatly copied all the data from Yuan Jiaming's computer and then completely wiped it clean.

When he returned to the living room, he saw Hara Yoshiaki grab a silver knife from the dining table as if he wanted to resist, but Gin killed him with a single shot.

Gin turned to leave, but Chu Ming bent down and used a little force to take the silver knife from Yuan Jiaming's hand and put it back on the table.

Meeting Gin's questioning gaze, Chu Ming gestured with his chin to the corpse lying on the ground: "This guy wasn't being honest; he wanted to use this to leave his death information. A silver knife—silver in Roman numerals is 'GIN.' Although the police can't possibly know that it was Big Brother who did it from this kind of offhand information, just in case, it's better for him to just die cleanly."

For convenience, Chu Ming followed Gin directly to a safe house that was relatively close by. It was already past four in the morning, and Chu Ming felt that he wouldn't be able to sleep tonight if he rushed back to the base.

Before going to sleep, Chu Ming opened the gift box that Gin had given him. The box was not big and not very heavy. Chu Ming had secretly passed by it before and had not heard any strange noises.

Chu Ming hadn't had time before, but now that he finally had some free time, he unpacked the package and opened the box. Inside the box was a key fixed to the bottom, which should be the key to the organization's unused warehouse.

What, did Gin prepare a warehouse full of gifts for him?

I'm free tomorrow, so I can go and see what Gin has prepared. Could it be that he's finally figured it out and is going to give him that Osprey?

How could Chapter 302 be Shuichi Akai?

There were many rooms in the safe house, so Chu Ming randomly picked one and slept until after nine o'clock.

With no missions to complete and having returned too late the previous day, Gin didn't wake Chu Ming up for training this morning. Instead, he finished his own training and sat in the weapons room of the safe house maintaining his Beretta.

Chu Ming, clutching the key he'd received yesterday, pushed open the door and went inside: "Brother, what kind of warehouse key is this? What's inside? Is it the Osprey I used to fly?!"