Survival Manual of the Science Fiction World

"No, it's not." The girl walked over and pointed to the short-haired boy next to him. "It's this one."

"Ah—so it was him." Kaito Kuroba silently memorized the person, then scratched his head sheepishly. "Looks like this isn't the Ito I know."

Chu Ming looked at Kuroba Kaito's textbook-style clichés; this must be the most commonly used cliché method by Sherlock Holmes.

People may not readily share information with you, but they will certainly be happy to correct your mistakes.

It seems Douzi enjoys reading Sherlock Holmes quite often; another Sherlock Holmes fan added to the list.

After saying goodbye to the two members of the research club, the group went outside and stood in an alley. They then began to look for their respective "tools," each displaying their unique abilities.

Hattori calls Osaka Takagi—that is, Officer Otaki—to inquire about information regarding Ito Suehiko. Kid also starts making direct phone calls, scribbling and drawing in his notebook as he answers the phone.

Conan was left staring at Chu Ming, who was also doing nothing, with dead fish eyes, and said sarcastically, "Shinichi, Hattori, and Hakuba are all on the phone asking for news. What are you doing here spacing out?"

Chu Ming, with one hand in his pocket, looked down at him condescendingly: "Because Gege is rather useless, all he's done these past few years is wander around aimlessly instead of solving cases properly, so he doesn't have many acquaintances in the Metropolitan Police Department, unlike Hattori and Hakuba who are so capable. Sigh, he's hopeless~ The so-called Sherlock Holmes of the Heisei era is just empty praise~"

"..." Conan gritted his teeth, never expecting he could get himself into this mess. These kinds of thieves who use other people's identities and maliciously belittle others are truly despicable!

After finishing writing, Kaito Kuroba closed his notebook, his face clearly saying, "I want to eat dessert." He said, "Should we go to the cafeteria near the school for a meal? Once your blood sugar drops, your brain won't work properly."

"Idiot, who's in the mood for food now?" Hattori scratched his head in frustration. The bomb on his bracelet was supposed to explode at 10 PM, and it was already past 2 PM, and he'd only just managed to get a clue. "We know absolutely nothing about Ito Suehiko, and—"

Kidd waved the notebook in his hand, raising an eyebrow smugly: "But I've already got all this information~ And I already know what's going on~ Let's go eat!"

Watching the smug-looking Hakuba Saguru walk past him, Hattori felt as if he had been outshone.

Conan also secretly glanced at Hattori. The blow he had just received from Chu Ming didn't seem so bad anymore. He casually put his hands behind his head and said, "It's not hard to understand. After all, the Metropolitan Police Department is closer to Yokohama than Osaka. It's not surprising that he got the information first."

Watching Conan and Kid leave one after the other, Hattori glanced at Chu Ming, who was still standing there, and complained to him in a low voice, "Those two guys are really annoying—"

"Sure, how about we put them in sacks and beat them up later? What kind of sacks do you think they'd like? The kind with Sherlock Holmes's face on them?"

"...I think Conan might like something with Ran's picture on it." Hattori chuckled and joined in the joke.

*

When they arrived at the university cafeteria, Chu Ming, with his sharp eyesight, spotted the students' pained expressions while they ate from afar. So, when ordering, he casually ordered a drink, while Conan and Kid each ordered a coffee.

Hattori had just said he wasn't in the mood to eat, but he ended up sitting down with a big plate of curry rice by himself. But after taking the first bite, he frowned and said, "Wow, this curry rice is awful! Why is there so much flour in it?"

Chu Ming took a leisurely sip of his drink and replied dismissively, "That's how the food is in some university cafeterias, you know what I mean."

Kidd pulled out his notebook, sipped his coffee, and recounted the news he had just received about Ito Suehiko to the others.

Suehiko Ito is a prime suspect in an armored truck robbery that occurred on April 4th of this year in a horse-drawn carriage lane. He is currently wanted by the police. After graduating from university, he ran an investment consulting firm, where a murder occurred in the firm's office.

While Kid was speaking, Hattori was stuffing rice into his mouth. Just as Kid finished speaking, Hattori finished his rice, threw down his spoon, and said energetically, "Alright, let's go check out that company then!!"

"..." Conan's lips twitched. "Didn't you say it wasn't good? How come you ate it all?"

Hattori pretended not to hear at all: "Alright, you guys hurry up and drink. We'll leave as soon as you're done. I've already finished my meal, and you guys are still drinking coffee and soft drinks. Why aren't you done yet!"

Chu Ming slowly picked up his drink, demurely raised his pinky finger and took a small sip: "Be elegant, don't panic."

"..."

Hattori's eyes held a complex mix of emotions as he looked at Conan with undisguised sympathy. Poor Conan, not only was his identity stolen, but his image was also ruined. It was like killing him out of his soul.

Chapter 504 This is Granbury!

Following the map's directions, the group arrived at the entrance of the Far East Company owned by Suehiko Ito.

Because of a past incident, there is a "No Entry" sign on the door.

Conan looked up at the seal on the door and remarked, "Seeing the 'No Entry' sign on the door—"

Hattori chimed in, perfectly in sync: "That makes me even more eager to go inside and take a look—"

Kidd followed closely: "That's just a detective's nature—"

The three of them had said everything they could, and the pressure was now on Chu Ming.

He thought for a moment, then said, "It's like a dog can't stop eating shit—"

"..." The three of them turned their heads stiffly and slowly to look at Chu Ming, their necks looking rusty, their eyes filled with despair.

What a strange metaphor!

If you don’t know how to speak, you don’t have to!

Don't think you can talk nonsense just because you're not a detective!

Chu Ming shrugged: "Why are you looking at me? I'm just making fun of myself~ Aren't I a detective too~"

"..."

After being teased by Chu Ming, the group lost interest in lingering at the door and headed straight up the stairs to the crime scene to see if they could find any clues.

Kidd led the way, explaining the deceased's circumstances as he walked: "The deceased was named Shoji Nishio, the sales manager of Far East Corporation. He was shot and killed in his office. The president, Ito, was his classmate in university."

“Since they’re classmates, then this Nishio is very likely a member of the research club as well,” Conan said, following closely behind.

“Not bad, come and see.” Kidd took out a cell phone, half-squatted at the corner of the stairs, and showed Conan the photos Hattori had taken earlier.

"Hey, wait a minute—" Hattori stared in shock at the familiar phone, frantically searching all his pockets before finally confirming that it was indeed his. "Isn't this my phone?! When did you take it?"

“That’s not important.” Kidd said casually. “Look at this photo. The one in the middle is the president at the time, Suehiko Ito, and the one to his right is the victim, Shoji Nishio.”

Chu Ming watched as Kid, who was only looking after Conan, squatted down and placed his phone low so Conan could easily see it, and then looked at Hattori, who, although pouting, was also bending down to look at his phone screen. Chu Ming silently took out his own phone.

He took photos at the time, but he kept them to himself and never bowed to them.

Conan pointed to the girl to Ito Suehiko's left and asked, "Who is this?"

"Her name was Shimizu Reiko, and she was also an employee of this company. However, she committed suicide on May 15th."

"Suicide?" Conan and Hattori looked up at Kid with alarm.

Kidd deftly slipped his phone back into Hattori's pocket: "She committed suicide during the time the police were questioning her."

Hattori looked at his phone, which had been slipped into his pocket without a trace, and finally realized how he had lost it. However, he looked thoughtfully at the 'Hakuba Saguru' in front of him, and then at Chu Ming, a hint of suspicion flashing in his eyes. Why did this Hakuba Saguru seem more like Kid?

"Did he commit suicide because of Nishio's case?"

Kidd shrugged: "Who knows? I heard the police weren't very polite when they interrogated her, so she might be a suspect too."

As they chatted, they walked into the office. Seeing that the office had hardly been altered, Kidd stepped forward and pulled down the blinds.

"On the day of the incident, the blinds and window were open. The murderer fired the shot in the restroom of the building across the street. The gun used was a Charter Arms AR7 with a scope and a silencer. Eight empty shell casings were found in that restroom."

The prisoner fired all eight bullets in the magazine, one of which hit Nishio in the back of the head, killing him instantly.

Afterwards, police found a robbery plan handwritten by Ito in Nishio's desk, which is why he was wanted by the police.

Hattori pressed further, "Then why was Shimizu Reiko summoned?"

Kidd shook his head: "Then I don't know."

Chu Ming, however, wasn't focused on the case at all. He remarked with some emotion, "An AR7, a weapon used by professional assassins. But the person who fired that shot is a bit of a novice. He's practically a master of human outline shooting. He even had a scope, and only one out of eight bullets hit the target? How lousy is he..."

Hattori's gaze towards Chu Ming became even stranger. He opened his mouth to ask something, but Conan stopped him, pointing to the police's perimeter markings on the ground and then to the back of Chu Ming's head: "Hattori, look here. If it was a shot to the back of the head, then the amount of bleeding seems ridiculously low."

Chu Ming also squatted down to take a look, carefully distinguishing the size of the blood, and then looked at the large pool of blood at the foot of the stool. He stroked his chin and said, "This amount of bleeding must have occurred at least half an hour after death."

Conan and the others, who were squatting to the side, looked up at him in confusion: "You can tell the difference? What's the difference?"

Chu Ming tilted his head innocently: "Intuition, you'll naturally know once you've seen more."

"You've seen too much?" Conan and Hattori's eyes showed obvious suspicion.

"Believe it or not, this is just for reference." Chu Ming didn't explain much. It's true that you'll understand once you've seen enough. After killing a lot of people, you can tell the difference at a glance. "But look at the bloodstains on this chair. According to Bai Ma's description, only one out of eight shots hit the target. If the person fell to the ground immediately after being hit, then there's a lot of blood on this chair."

Chu Ming sat up, nudged the broken wheels of the fallen office chair with his foot, and scoffed, "I think he probably didn't hit the target at all. Instead, he just outlined the body and hit the chair leg. The chair fell over and the person fell over. He thought he had killed the person, but in fact, this person was very likely already dead, and killed by a rather skilled assassin with a single shot."

As Chu Ming spoke, he walked to the window and stood facing inward, making a shooting gesture with one hand, his manner both unrestrained and sinister.

"So that's how it is!" Conan and Hattori also noticed the bullet holes in the chair legs and immediately understood.

Chu Ming leaned against the window and replied to a message, just as Hattori's phone rang.

The client's voice came through after processing: "It seems you've moved on to the next step. Now you should know what case I asked you to investigate, right?"

"Is it the case of Shoji Nishio's murder?"

"good."

"Hey, you wouldn't happen to be—"

"It's Ito Suehiko." Before the client could hang up, Chu Ming interjected, "It's you, isn't it?"

Ito Suehiko, who was about to hang up the phone, paused for a moment, then chuckled softly upon hearing the voice, "As expected of the Sherlock Holmes of the Heisei era—Mr. Kudo Shinichi, it seems I couldn't hide anything from you."

Does Suehiko Ito believe that it was Shinichi Kudo who spoke?

Conan suddenly looked up at the bracelet on his wrist, as if he had thought of something.

"I can tell you the answer you want right now," Chu Ming said with a slight smile, his tone gentle and leisurely.

"Who is it! Who is it!" Ito Suehiko exclaimed excitedly. "Who is the murderer?"

"It was the person who handed you the gun." Chu Ming said lazily, directly interrupting Ito Suehiko's unspoken question. "Don't rush to refute me. You know, your shooting skills are really a bit lacking, and your mental fortitude doesn't seem very good either. I just checked some information through my channels. Apparently, after you fired the shot, you ran away in a panic. You probably realized that you had hit Nishio, and he had fallen down, so you ran away, right?"

"But the bloodstains at the scene clearly show that Nishio was already dead before he fell, and you only shot his chair. And I just learned that the police found some mascara on the scope, a brand that Shimizu Reiko often uses."

"Do you know what this means? It means she used the gun before she even gave it to you. Do I need to remind you how she used it?"

It was rare for Chu Ming to speak so much at once. After he finished, he let out a soft breath, chuckled, and added fuel to the fire: "Idiot, how does it feel to be framed and take the blame for someone else? You got into a car accident while you were running away, and you probably don't have much time left, right? Do you know how I found out that you are Ito Suehiko? Because I found out that the founder of Fantasy Park received a sudden flow of funds from your account a few months ago. Although you went through several roundabout ways to transfer the money, you couldn't hide it from the group—cough, you couldn't hide it from my eyes."