Survival Manual of the Science Fiction World

Perhaps sensing Chu Ming's resentment, or perhaps Rum only remembered he hadn't sent the list in the middle of his sleep, got up to send it, and then went back to sleep... In any case, Rum didn't reply again.

Chu Ming, who had been woken up, was unable to fall back asleep for a long time and could only get up and look through the list for a while.

Rum, you wait, in the next novel, Ryo Wakita won't even be a butler!

Chapter 53 Gin is the biggest mole, isn't he?

Beneath the shimmering water, many small fish darted about. Chu Ming never expected that the famous detective's invitation for him to catch fish would turn into a group of children wading barefoot into the river and reaching out to touch the fish.

Remembering how teachers in China used to vehemently emphasize drowning prevention before every holiday, and looking at the four children in front of him without parental supervision, he felt quite troubled if he hadn't stopped everyone from going into the water together.

If someone slips and falls, apart from Conan, who's a fake kid, knowing how to save himself, are the others just supposed to wait for an accident and rely on Conan to rescue them?

Each child was given a net and taken to shallow water, only up to their calves, to catch fish. Due to Chu Ming's previous cruelty and Conan's lack of objection, the children had no choice but to obey.

However, the children seemed to enjoy everything they played with. A little while later, Chu Ming stood by the river, watching Conan perfectly integrated into the children's lives. He secretly took out his phone and filmed the scene, planning to package it together with the previous videos and sell it later. As for who to sell it to…

For example, it wouldn't be bad if Ran found out Conan's true identity later, or Conan's mother, or even secretly and anonymously sold to Vermouth.

The children, tired from playing, gathered around to eat. Suddenly, Ayumi pointed to an electric boat towing a balloon in the water and asked in surprise, "Look, what's that?"

Chu Ming glanced at the small boat speeding across the water, then suddenly looked sharply at the abandoned building opposite. Thanks to the magnetic field from before, he could clearly see four men on the building, one of whom was aiming a rifle at the balloon.

With a 'bang', the balloon burst, and Conan pulled out a pair of binoculars from his side to look inside.

"You come out to fish and you even carry binoculars with you?" Chu Ming was quite incredulous.

As Conan watched, he said, "I'm afraid that yesterday's situation will happen again. If it hadn't been so dark last night, I wouldn't have lost track of that man in black. With binoculars, it will be much easier for me to find people."

"..."

The reflection from the telescope shone on the man's face from afar. He turned back thoughtfully, his fingers twitching slightly as he tossed something to the ground.

"Brother Chu Ming, it's a rifle. The person who fired it seems to have been coerced!"

"Let's go take a look then—" Chu Ming said listlessly, as if his magnetic field had vanished, and he had instantly lost all motivation.

Upon arriving at the unfinished building, Conan squatted down and searched around, trying to find anything that could be used as evidence.

"Found it!" Conan picked up the calculator he had just found, looked at the string of numbers on it, and fell into deep thought: "Could this be the signal he left behind...? It seemed like he sensed that I was watching him back then."

"Signal? Let me see it! Let me see it!" Genta snatched the calculator from Conan's hand, his fingers accidentally touching something.

"Reset to zero".

"..."

"Genta, what are you doing?!" Conan jumped up from the stairs in a panic.

Chu Ming stared at the scene in astonishment. Back when he watched the anime, he thought it would be fun if things accidentally went to zero. Turns out, it really could happen.

Conan stomped his feet in anger, while Chu Ming secretly laughed until he was done before handing Conan a piece of paper: "Stop jumping, I just wrote it down."

Conan breathed a sigh of relief, took the note, looked at Genta warily, and began to examine it himself with his back to him.

Chu Ming used a phone summoning technique to summon Inspector Megure.

"Hey, Brother Chu Ming, these past few days have been a long holiday, and most of the search team members are on vacation..."

"Inspector Megure works year-round? That's terrible?" Chu Ming's face was full of surprise.

"No, it's just that there have been quite a few cases in Tokyo lately—" Inspector Megure glanced meaningfully at Conan and whispered to Chu Ming. "Look, Mori didn't go out today, so there were no murders."

Chu Ming glanced at Conan, but didn't correct Inspector Megure's opinion. He simply nodded in agreement.

“Indeed, Inspector Megure. If that person has a particularly good rifle, you could check if there have been any missing persons who fit the criteria recently.”

"Okay, I'll go back and check. I'll call you back if I find out."

After saying goodbye to Inspector Megure, Chu Ming escorted Conan, who had been deep in thought the whole way, back to the agency and then left. He didn't want to use his brain at all for things that had no magnetic field; he figured Conan would solve everything in the end anyway.

Let's hurry up and interview the new members~ Who was the first one again? — Koumoto Kota, I don't remember, I've never heard of him.

Chu Ming changed his character's avatar to the winery character and quickly glanced at his profile: returned from studying abroad, Master of Medicine, several SCI-indexed publications—how was he supposed to conduct an interview with that? He knew absolutely nothing about it…

He promptly dialed Gin's number.

"Big Brother~~~"

"explain."

"Rum sent me a lot more names late at night, but they were all for scientific research or intelligence. How am I supposed to interview people like that? I could have him assassinate a high-ranking official in the action team to test his abilities, but I can't exactly have him make me poison on the spot in the medical field..."

Why don't you ask Rum?

"No way, that old geezer is wicked. He's definitely trying to make things difficult for me so I'll have to go to him. I'm part of the eldest brother's group, how can I bow down to him!"

Gin was very pleased with his subordinate's loyalty, but the interview for clerical staff also touched on areas where he had no knowledge.

"Big brother, you didn't know either, did you?"

"Hmph, how could that be? Such a trivial matter." Gin snorted through his nose. "Take the person to the interrogation room and beat them to death. Anyone who can withstand torture and doesn't change their story is definitely a rat."

Chu Ming's big eyes were filled with doubt.

"Uh, brother, are you saying it backwards?"

"How could an office worker possibly hold up? The fact that he hasn't changed his tune means he must have received professional training," Gin casually advised Chu Ming, sharing his experience.

"What about those who changed their story during interrogation..."

The voice, filled with murderous intent, came through the receiver: "They've already admitted it was a rat, so of course they're going to kill it."

"...Then there's no one here."

Chu Ming finally understood why the organization was running out of manpower. Judging from Gin's increasingly elaborate methods of killing, his older brother was probably the biggest mole...

Chapter 54: Using You as a Weapon

Completely overwhelmed by Gin's murderous remarks, Chu Ming hung up the phone in a daze.

I almost got completely fooled by Gin's nonsense, wasting half an hour of my life listening to him spout his theories on how to determine an undercover agent. Ugh, so I guess I still have to go find Rum?

No, calling my brother first and then Rum would be distrustful of him. If my brother finds out, I'll be stuck with the training ground floor cleaning experience card again.

I guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and do it myself.

Send a message to Kota Furumoto, inviting him to the cocktail bar on the top floor of the Daikoku Building, the organization's base for external transactions.

Chu Ming ordered a glass of gin and placed it on the table as a formality, while playing on his phone and waiting for someone to arrive.

A moment later, a refined-looking man wearing gold-rimmed glasses arrived at the door, looked around, and walked towards Chu Ming's position.

"Hello, my name is Koumoto Kota. Are you Mr. Granburg, my examiner today?"

Chu Ming looked up and suddenly unleashed his killing intent, staring intently at him. Gu Yuankangtai's expression changed for a moment, and he froze in his seat, afraid to move.

"With your qualifications, you would achieve great things at any research institute. Why did you choose our organization? What are your goals?"

“I’ve done a lot of research, but the most advanced medical equipment in Japan can all be found in your organization. Moreover, my current research direction requires a lot of human experiments. I’ve hit a bottleneck with rabbits and mice, and I need more experimental data.” When talking about his experiments, Kota Furumoto’s eyes lit up, looking like a science fiction fanatic, and he even forgot his fear.

Chu Ming kept his eyes on him as he spoke, but he didn't find any flaws. Everything he said just now came from the bottom of his heart.

Chu Ming thought of Bai Cangyang, whom he had just brought to the organization yesterday, and suggested, "I can give you a chance to prove yourself. There's a newly arrived test subject at a nearby experimental base. I can arrange for the delivery of any experimental equipment you need. However, your entire experiment will be recorded. If you betray the organization, this footage will be enough to ruin you. Of course, I can also guarantee that if you remain loyal and faithful to the organization, the organization can help you obtain any equipment you need for your experiment."

Koumoto Yasuta stood up impatiently: "Okay, let's go over there now!"

Chu Ming took a black eye mask out of the desk drawer and handed it to him: "Put this on."

In fact, the base was located in this building. Chu Ming led Gu Yuankangtai through a maze of tunnels to the laboratory secretly built in the basement of the building, and then called someone to send Bai Cangyang there.

During the experiment with Gu Yuankang, Chu Ming paid close attention to his expression. During the experiment, he was full of excitement and acted quickly and accurately. Well, he was undoubtedly a research fanatic. If nothing unexpected happened, he should be a code name member of the experimental group when they met again next time.

After finishing the experiment and sending him out, Chu Ming was about to check on the second one when he received a call from Inspector Megure: "Brother Chu Ming, come to the Metropolitan Police Department right away. It would be best to bring Conan along too. I have a lead."

"Has Conan still not solved the mystery? Has the recent allure of women corrupted his detective mind?" With a sigh, Chu Ming put down his work and drove to pick up Conan.

When Chu Ming arrived at the detective agency, he glanced at the rearview mirror in the car and realized that he hadn't changed his character's appearance yet and was still wearing the black trench coat he had specially changed for the interview to match the organization's image.

Looking upstairs, Chu Ming saw no sign of Conan peeking out. The second floor was quiet. Chu Ming then made a phone call to Conan.

"Hey, Brother Chu Ming?"

Chu Ming heard the wind blowing from his direction and secretly breathed a sigh of relief, thankfully Conan wasn't home: "Where are you?"

"I asked Uncle to take me out to find a road that looks like that river," Conan said in his childish voice, glancing at the somewhat impatient Kogoro Mouri beside him. "Besides, Uncle is a famous detective with a glorious record~ He can definitely help us find clues~"

A signature laugh from Kogoro Mouri came through the receiver. Chu Ming's lips twitched. "That's perfect. Inspector Megure wants us to go to the Metropolitan Police Department. They might have found a clue. You and Uncle Mouri can go straight there. I won't pick you up. Just head straight to the Metropolitan Police Department."

"Good~"

------

After hanging up the phone, Chu Ming relaxed and leaned back in his chair. It was all Rum's fault; if he hadn't disturbed his sleep in the middle of the night, he wouldn't have made such a basic mistake so early in the morning.

After parking his car in a nearby parking lot and changing his face in a blind spot of the surveillance cameras, Chu Ming took a taxi directly to the Metropolitan Police Department.

Conan stared wide-eyed at the photo Inspector Megure handed him: "It's him! The person I saw last time was him!"

Inspector Megure nodded: "As expected, I had fingerprints collected from the computer and searched the database. His name is Yamabe Koichi, an Olympic rifle athlete. He disappeared three days ago while traveling with his girlfriend. It seems he was taken hostage by criminals who used his girlfriend as a hostage to force him to shoot someone. It's a pity, I just don't know where they'll choose to shoot him."

Kogoro Mouri puffed out his chest and took a step forward: "Ahem—I, the great detective Kogoro Mouri, already know the answer to this question! It's on National Route 162!"

Chu Ming nodded thoughtfully, then pulled Conan aside and whispered, "Hurry up and learn, Uncle Mori is eliminating the wrong answers for us again!"

"..." Conan was speechless. This time it should be correct, after all, I'm the one who found it.

"You only cracked the last 162, so what does the preceding 3135134 mean?" Chu Ming poked Conan on the back.