Survival Manual of the Science Fiction World

Her eyes were brimming with tears, and she looked at Kogoro Mouri with a look of unspoken longing and pitiful vulnerability.

Kogoro Mouri grabbed her shoulders and patted them reassuringly: "Don't be afraid, I believe in you!"

She nestled into Kogoro Mouri's arms like a fledgling returning to its nest, bursting into tears, a truly pitiful sight.

Chu Ming watched the tea ceremony unfolding before him and twitched his lips. This ability to cry on cue, and to make one's face look so pitiful and endearing, was truly an impressive skill.

Hahara Kasumi also saw through her act. She was disgusted by Amashi Ruri's tea ceremony and glared angrily at Amashi Ruri's back: "What are you pretending for! Do you think shedding a few tears will make a difference? You're a big star, you can cry however you want!"

Seeing that her words were becoming increasingly pointed, Nagumo Nobuharu tried to comfort her.

Unfortunately, he probably didn't have the skill to comfort people, and he couldn't calm them down even after the police from Shizuoka arrived.

After the police arrived, they immediately began investigating the alibis of everyone present. Inspector Yokomizo surrounded Chu Ming and Kogoro Mouri, laughing so hard his eyes were almost invisible: "Oh~~ Mr. Mouri, Mr. Chu Ming, what a coincidence to run into you two here, hahaha. Mr. Chu Ming, do you have any premonitions today? Who do you think is the murderer?"

Chu Ming paused for a moment at Officer Yokomizo's enthusiasm, then shook his head, indicating that he had no inspiration.

He could only regretfully proceed with the routine inquiry: "The deceased said he was going to sleep at 7:50, and Miss Yucheng discovered the body at 8:20. Please provide your alibis."

“It could have been even earlier.” Conan suddenly remembered something. “When Chu Ming and I went back to our room to change clothes, we passed by Mr. Kazami’s room. He was still snoring! It must have been around eight o’clock, right, Chu Ming?”

Chu Ming nodded: "I think so. I didn't pay attention to the time, but he was definitely still alive at that time."

Suddenly, the screenwriter hesitated and said from behind, "Today, Mr. Chu Ming got into a conflict with Feng Jian, and they even fought..."

Conan immediately defended Chu Ming, saying, "It wasn't Brother Chu Ming. Brother Chu Ming was with me the whole time, and he couldn't possibly have killed anyone."

"But didn't you just go back to your room? You both changed your clothes. And little brother, your room isn't next to Mr. Chu Ming's room. Maybe this guy killed someone, ran back to his room to change his clothes, and then came looking for you. Who knows!"

The screenwriter, as expected of someone who can write scripts, quickly conjured up a series of grudges and feuds, but unfortunately, Chu Ming refuted them with a single sentence.

"You think too much—"

Chapter 485 Copying Homework

The screenwriter, seeing that Chu Ming refuted him without providing any evidence, was somewhat unconvinced: "How am I overthinking things? I was just raising a reasonable suspicion. When you had a conflict with Kazami, didn't you also say that if his body were lying here, Mr. Mori would be able to find his killer? Now that Kazami is really dead, aren't you a prime suspect?"

"..." Chu Ming hadn't known why the screenwriter suspected him, but now, after hearing his reason, he was speechless. "That's it?"

"Isn't that enough?!"

Chu Ming took a deep breath, turned to look at the seemingly brainless screenwriter, and revealed a villainous smile that Conan had certified: "No wonder your script is so far-fetched, it turns out you're not very bright yourself."

Do you think that in the less than two minutes Conan spends changing clothes, I could go upstairs, kill someone, change clothes, take a shower, and dispose of the murder weapon?

Besides, it was just a threat; have you never argued with anyone before?

The screenwriter was stumped by Chu Ming's question. Although he was angry that Chu Ming had insulted his scriptwriting skills, he had no words to refute him and could only stand there in anger.

Chu Ming glanced at everyone and pointed at Nan Yunxiao: "It was you, wasn't it? I just saw you whispering with the screenwriter, saying you killed someone and then wanted me to take the blame? Isn't that a bit inappropriate?"

Nan Yunxiao's expression changed: "Mr. Chu Ming, you mustn't be talking nonsense!"

"What, you can say what I can't say?" Chu Ming curled his lip. "Can I just point at you and accuse you of murder without any evidence, based on the fact that Mr. Kazami said he knew about your secret date with someone. You were afraid the secret would be exposed, so you simply killed the person?"

Chu Ming was just making things up on the spot. He had only overheard Nan Yunxiao and the screenwriter whispering to each other, and Nan Yunxiao's eyes kept glancing at him. In order to vent his anger, he pointed at the old man and made up a story. But as soon as he finished speaking, he noticed a hint of panic flash in Nan Yunxiao's eyes.

Ok?

Did a blind cat stumble upon a dead mouse?

How could he guess right?

Chu Ming immediately straightened up, his gaze intense.

Nan Yunxiao was initially furious, but after being exposed by Chu Ming, he felt guilty and ultimately held back, admitting defeat first. Seeing that Inspector Yokomizo was familiar with Chu Ming and had even skipped over Kogoro Mouri to ask Chu Ming if he had any ideas, he felt that he couldn't let Chu Ming continue.

He finally remembered why Chu Ming looked familiar. Wasn't he the detective who had recently become quite famous, featured in the newspaper? He just hadn't seen him in the newspapers much lately, and he had completely forgotten about him!

“I didn’t say anything else, I just told the screenwriter that you are the only one among us who doesn’t have an alibi.”

"Oh, really? But I have a lot to say. Mr. Nagumo, don't be so guilty. I'm only just beginning to express my doubts."

Nan Yunxiao clenched his fingers, forcing himself to calm down. He was not a serial killer; it was just a spur-of-the-moment decision. It was only thanks to his years of acting experience that he was able to barely keep his emotions in check. Now that Chu Ming had exposed him, only he knew how fast his heart was beating.

Chu Ming casually took a pair of gloves from the policeman next to him and put them on. He then looked over the items that the police had found that might be the murder weapon, and then picked up a utility knife with some yellow glue residue on it.

"This must be the murder weapon you used, right?"

The forensic expert standing nearby looked somewhat troubled and quietly leaned closer to Chu Ming: "Mr. Chu Ming, we didn't detect any bloodstains on this knife."

Before Nan Yunxiao could even catch his breath, Chu Ming touched the surface of the utility knife with his hand, tested it with his thumb and forefinger, and found it to be slightly sticky.

"It should be residual adhesive from the tape. Mr. Nan Yun probably wrapped the tape around the utility knife, and after killing the person, he removed the tape, replaced the used blade with a new one. Did you think it was foolproof?" Chu Ming shook the utility knife in his hand, watching Nan Yunxiao's expression gradually become panicked, and a smile appeared on his face.

It's a pity, no matter how much emotion an NPC has, it's useless. I won't give him any points. Tsk.

Yu Cheng Liuli gripped her skirt tightly: "Mr. Chu Ming, anyone could do something like this, right? Why don't you say it was me? What proof do you have?"

Chu Ming was somewhat taken aback, staring at Yu Cheng Liuli for a long while before speaking with a hint of understanding, his meaning ambiguous: "Miss Liuli, you—I've never seen a suspect use himself as an example before… But finding evidence is quite simple. We don't even need to find the murder weapon; we just need to find the tattered tape. You can't tear tape off hastily while wearing gloves, so if we find the tape, we can find Mr. Nan Yun's fingerprints, and there will also be traces of the victim's blood on it."

Officer Yokomizo approached, his gaze fixed intently on Chu Ming, somewhat excited: "So how do we find this tape?"

"..." Chu Ming turned to look at Officer Yokomizo, who seemed to have suddenly lost his mind, and said with a sigh, "Search! You brought so many police officers, search like a carpet. Look at all the tape on the ground, lift it up one by one, you'll find it eventually."

"Oh—" Officer Yokomizo suddenly realized, and immediately turned to the police behind him and said, "Did you hear that? Hurry up and search!"

Nan Yunxiao gave a bitter smile: "No need to search anymore, I confess, I killed the person."

He stopped resisting, knowing that with so many police officers around, it was only a matter of time before they found him. He glanced discreetly at Yu Cheng Liuli and sighed, "Mr. Chu Ming is right. I killed him because I was afraid he would reveal my secret. The razor blade was hidden inside the lighter."

Chu Ming leaned against the wall and didn't say anything more. He had just used DNA tracing and found that Nan Yunxiao and Yu Cheng Liuli had a 99.9% DNA similarity. Therefore, Nan Yunxiao should be Yu Cheng Liuli's biological father, and the little lover that Feng Jianlianghui mentioned meeting in secret should be Yu Cheng Liuli.

Nan Yunxiao probably kept quiet to protect Yu Cheng Liuli, taking all the blame upon himself and not mentioning anything about his relationship with Yu Cheng Liuli.

However, when he was taken away, Yu Cheng Liuli, despite her best efforts to suppress it, still couldn't help but secretly shed two lines of tears.

She concealed it well. After the others were taken away, she quickly regained her composure. Facing Kogoro Mouri, she no longer chatted and laughed with him, but simply said that she was tired and wanted to go back to rest.

Kogoro Mouri watched her departing figure and sighed softly. He had guessed that there must be a connection between Ruri Amashiro and Akira Nagumo. His earlier joking around was just to cheer her up, but it seemed to have no effect.

Conan looked at Chu Ming and quietly tugged at him: "Brother Chu Ming, how do you know that Mr. Nan Yun is the murderer? There's no evidence pointing to him at all."

"I was just talking nonsense," Chu Ming said matter-of-factly. "He's the one who started making things up about me."

"Huh?" Conan was stunned.

"After I finished speaking, I noticed he looked guilty, so it must be him. Once we found the murderer, finding evidence became much easier, since it's just a proof problem." Chu Ming straightened his sleeves and put his hands in his pockets. "Besides, his gaze kept glancing at the floor, so I knew there must be some evidence on the floor."

Conan pondered for a moment, "This is a good idea; I should write it down."

Unfortunately, he was just a child, and his words didn't have the same impact as Chu Ming's.

Therefore, it is highly unlikely that it will scare the murderer.

Seeing Conan's somewhat sour look, Chu Ming patted his head: "You should just focus on finding evidence and the culprit. You can't copy my homework. After all, we top students don't write out the process; we work backward from the result."

“…Have some decency.” Conan felt even more bitter.

Chapter 486 Bringing Ai Haibara to the Organization

After returning from the villa, Ran went shopping with her mother, while Conan prepared to take Chu Ming to see Ai Haibara.

Although he didn't say it, Conan was actually very worried about Ai Haibara. So, during this time, Ai Haibara seemed to have been traumatized and stayed in her room. He didn't know how to comfort her, so he could only pull Chu Ming over.

On the way, Chu Ming passed on the news that the FBI might be making some moves recently to Gin. He could just send a text message if he had any news. He didn't plan to go back to the organization in the next few days. After all, he hadn't done any of the tasks Vermouth had assigned him. He had been having a lot of fun following Conan around these past few days.

Gin replied shortly after.

Chu Ming clicked on it and saw that it was a new task sent to him by Gin.

He immediately replied with a vodka question mark face, wondering what was going on. Why was Gin sending him another message when his task wasn't finished yet?

And isn't this a rebellion? Isn't Gin supposed to be under his command? When did it become Gin giving him tasks again? Is this some kind of rebellion?

He glanced at the mission and was immediately stunned. Gin told him to find an opportunity to bring Ai Haibara to the organization. If he was worried about exposing his identity, he could drug her and take her back. If there were no problems, he could send her back while she was unconscious...

Oh no—what should I do?

Chu Ming scratched his head. If he really brought Ai Haibara over, Gin would probably immediately realize that she looked exactly like Sherry when she was a child.

How can they continue to deceive the organization then?

However, before Chu Ming could come up with a solution, he and Conan had already arrived at Dr. Agasa's house.

The professor opened the door and told them that Ai Haibara hadn't left her room for the past few days. He knocked on the door, but Ai Haibara wouldn't open it, hiding in her room like a little quail.

Chu Ming knocked on the door and called out twice. Although she knew it was Chu Ming, Ai Haibara did not open the door. She just spoke through the door in a hoarse voice: "Brother Chu Ming, you should go back. Don't come over for a while. It would be best to take the Doctor out with you this time. I think I might be being watched."

After obtaining Professor Agasa's consent and confirming through the focus that Ai Haibara was not behind the door, Chu Ming kicked the door open.

Inside the room, Ai Haibara huddled on the bed, her gaze vacant, staring at Chu Ming and the other two standing in the doorway, exchanging bewildered glances: "You—"

Chu Ming casually withdrew his leg, pushed Conan and Professor Agasa forward, and shrank back himself: "They were so worried about you that they asked me to physically open the door."

Professor Agasa met Ai Haibara's haggard but still cool eyes. Even though he had kicked down his own door, he still felt a little guilty: "Um, Ai, hahaha, we just saw you hadn't left the house for so long—um..."

Ai Haibara knew that Dr. Agasa and Conan cared about her, but she was genuinely afraid that if she were exposed this time, it would only implicate everyone.

Although he still didn't know how to complete the mission of bringing Ai Haibara back and then back, Chu Ming remained calm and reassured Ai Haibara: "Ai, don't worry too much. If you were really discovered, the organization would have sent people to take action long ago. How could they let you stay in the room peacefully for so long?"

Besides, even if we are discovered, with so many of us, none of us can escape. Hiding won't help; we might as well live in the present.

Ai Haibara looked at Chu Ming, her eyes gradually shining. Yes, if she were really discovered, Chu Ming would probably be the first one dealt with by the organization. And he was right, her fate was now firmly tied to Conan and the others. Even if she wanted to push them away, where could she push them?

Although she still felt guilty for dragging so many people down with her, Chu Ming was right. She should live in the present moment. She was already being hunted by the organization, and every extra day she lived was a blessing from heaven. Whether she hid or enjoyed life, she would still live one day. So she might as well do as Chu Ming said and live in the present.

After thinking it through, she finally lowered her eyes, put away her prickly, aloof demeanor, sighed softly, and softened her expression.