Survival Manual of the Science Fiction World

"If you're all done, can you ask Professor Agasa to come and pick me up? It's not far anyway." Chu Ming wiped his face and sat cross-legged on the bed.

"There are too many of us! We mainly want to hitch another ride..."

"If you're not sincere, I'm not going." Chu Ming leaned back, ready to continue sleeping.

"Beep—beep—beep beep beep—"

A loudspeaker blared, interrupting Chu Ming's plan to continue sleeping.

Chu Ming opened the window and, sure enough, it was Professor Agasa's yellowish-brown Beetle.

As Chu Ming was going downstairs, he overheard the three reckless individuals whispering to each other, "Should we go back? Camping isn't actually that fun..."

"Yeah, yeah, let's go back. That man who wanted to turn us into specimens is here too... It's too dangerous!"

Conan chuckled twice: "Don't worry, Brother Chu Ming isn't that scary..."

"Shh—Conan! Don't say that name!" Ayumi cautiously tugged at his sleeve, looked around, and then met Chu Ming's gaze, who was standing outside the car.

"Ah!!!" Ayumi let out a short exclamation and shrank behind Conan.

The other two were trying to crawl under the seats.

Ai Haibara watched the group with great interest.

"Stop hiding. I remember... you three haven't submitted your self-criticisms to me yet?"

Chu Ming squinted at the three of them.

Having no other choice, Conan opened the door and pulled Chu Ming towards Chu Ming's car: "Brother Chu Ming, let me ride in your car! I happen to have something to show you."

"What is it?" Halfway there, Chu Ming suddenly remembered that Conan said he would show him a treasure.

He held the steering wheel with one hand and casually took the piece of paper Conan handed him.

This paper looks vaguely familiar...

Holy crap, isn't this the secret code he came up with on the spur of the moment to stall Conan?

"Brother Chu Ming, can you help me analyze this..." Conan told Chu Ming everything that happened yesterday.

"So dangerous? Why didn't you ask me for help yesterday?" Chu Ming began to offer hindsight advice.

"I didn't intend to clash with them like this. I just wanted to save the politician they were going to kill. I didn't expect them to find me and think I was Ai Haibara. Luckily, I got an extra tranquilizer watch from the professor. It's a pity, the professor said it could tranquilize an elephant, but it couldn't tranquilize either of them..."

……

Tricky people!

Chu Ming handed the napkin back to Conan: "I don't have any clue either. Do you want to ask your dad?"

"Brother Chu Ming, what are you saying? He's still my dad." Conan suddenly blushed a little. "Besides, that uncle isn't some kind of wise fool, he really is..."

Chu Ming, unable to bear it any longer, imitated Kogoro Mouri and punched Conan on the head: "What nonsense are you spouting! I mean, ask your own father! Yusaku Kudo!!!"

"Uh..." Conan's face turned red to his neck in an instant, "I thought..."

Chu Ming even considered kicking Conan off the train, just like Gin did.

When they arrived at the stream, Professor Agasa played outside with several children, while Chu Ming shooed Conan out as well, and curled up in the car to catch up on sleep.

A moment later, Conan crept into the car. Seeing that Chu Ming was asleep, he grinned slyly and shoved his hands, covered in charcoal ash, at Chu Ming's face. Meanwhile, the trio watched Conan with admiration, as if he were a suicide squad.

Chu Ming felt a chill in his sleep. Was there a treacherous subject trying to harm him?

He suddenly grabbed the approaching hand, twisted it behind his back, and slammed his elbow into the man's throat.

"Brother Chu Ming—!" Conan's pupils dilated as he watched the hand that was about to touch his throat suddenly stop, making him swallow hard in fright.

Meanwhile, Ai Haibara, who was in the distance, was so frightened by the murderous aura that Chu Ming had unintentionally released that she turned pale and trembled like the three people next to her.

"What are you doing?" Chu Ming was also a little scared. If he hadn't stopped his killing move, he would probably be like the farmer who killed the hen that laid the golden eggs, regretting it and crying over the remaining magnetic field.

"I just wanted to—play a joke on you..." Conan said, his voice lacking confidence.

"...I've been in special training recently, so don't joke like that. What if I mistake you for an enemy and kill you?" Chu Ming rolled his eyes.

"Special training? What kind of special training?" Conan only picked out what he wanted to hear.

"I went to Hawaii for special training a few days ago. With Mikado being so unsafe, Gotham can only be called Mikado anymore. I have to take precautions—"

"Gotham? Where is that? I've never heard of it." Conan frowned and thought for a moment, but he had no recollection of it at all.

"It was a city with simple and honest people, and there was a place in the city that produced many talented people, called Arkham," Chu Ming said with a look of reminiscence.

Conan perked up at the mention of new information and leaned closer, asking, "And then? And then?"

"Then they were all killed by Batman." Chu Ming pushed Conan's face away and made up a concise ending.

"??? Batman??"

"Yeah, like a knight-errant like Kamen Rider."

"..."

Conan looked at Chu Ming with a resentful expression. So, you're just telling me a story? I was actually hoping to hear some new information.

"Conan, did you tell Chu Ming?" Professor Agasa walked over from a distance.

"What did you say?" Chu Ming looked at Conan in confusion.

Conan slapped his forehead: "I forgot! I was going to call you, but we have to go back. Dr. Agasa said he forgot to bring the tent."

————————————————————————————

On the way back, Chu Ming suddenly discovered a huge European-style castle in front of him.

The car drove on and stopped in front of the castle. Professor Agasa went to the back and knocked on Chu Ming's car window: "Chu Ming, it's getting late. Why don't we go to that castle up ahead and ask if we can stay the night?"

Chu Ming nodded, opened the door and got out of the car: "Either way, let's go ask."

Professor Agasa scratched his head, chuckled, and followed Chu Ming forward, knocking on the iron gate of the castle.

"Hello, is anyone home?" Professor Agasa called out through the iron bars, his manner more like a prison visit than a request for lodging.

A man dressed as a gardener emerged from the corner, frowning as he asked, "Who are you?"

Chu Ming straightened his expression: "This humble monk comes from the Great Tang Dynasty in the East, on his way to the Western Paradise to worship Buddha and seek scriptures. Passing through this blessed land, I request to stay the night. Is that alright?"

"Huh?? What kind of gibberish are you spouting? Are you a foreigner?" The gardener waved his hand impatiently. "Get out of here, this isn't—"

Dr. Agasa quickly pulled Chu Ming away, smiling as he said, "It's like this, we're not foreigners. My name is Dr. Agasa, and I'm a somewhat well-known scientist. We originally came out camping, but we forgot to bring a tent. We thought we'd have to sleep in the car tonight, but then we saw this castle, and it's absolutely magnificent! We were wondering if we could take a look around, preferably—"

"A scientist? You must be very intelligent." A man walked out of the corridor and came to the door. "You just said you wanted to take a look around here? It's getting late, why don't you rest here for the night?"

Dr. Agasa said excitedly, "That's wonderful, thank you so much."

"Huh, is this chess?" As Professor Agasa followed the man through the gate, he immediately noticed the chess pieces on the lawn and exclaimed in surprise.

“Yes, this is…” The gardener next to him seemed to have opened a floodgate of words, and began to pour out the plot to Conan, while pointing out a blackened stone tower not far away to everyone. In that tower, more than a dozen people had been burned to death.

Chu Ming was intrigued. A dozen or so people! He wondered if any of the magnetic fields remained.

(?﹃?)

Chapter 133 Where am I, the tool?

The gardener led everyone on a tour of the castle, where they unexpectedly encountered an old lady who was wandering around and saying a lot of things, but was actually delivering evidence to Conan.

Standing on the third-floor window, Conan took out his notebook and drew the chess pieces in the yard, dividing them into black and white.

Chu Ming leaned closer to him: "Isn't this an arrowhead?"

He traced the path formed by the black pieces, and the black pieces formed a counter-clockwise arrow.

"Yeah... what exactly does the white chess piece mean?" Conan looked at Chu Ming with anticipation.

Chu Ming waved his hand: "You keep studying, I'm so sleepy, I'm going to take a nap."

After saying that, he turned around and walked towards the guest room. If he didn't catch up on his sleep soon, Chu Ming felt like he was going to die from overwork. What kind of god was that kind of workaholic who only needed to sleep a few hours a week? Wasn't he tired at all?

He can't do that; he's still a child and needs to grow.

With earplugs in and blankets over my head, I shut myself off from the world outside and focused solely on going back to sleep.

(?3[▓▓]

When I woke up again, it was already dinnertime.

Chu Ming stretched and loosened his muscles, finally feeling alive again.

He followed the aroma to the restaurant: "Hey? Where's Conan?"

Where did that huge tool of his was, who was still here before he went to sleep?

Professor Agasa scratched his head: "I don't know. We were planning to go look for him after lunch, but he suddenly disappeared this afternoon. I wonder if he ran into the forest."

Ayumi suddenly took out a small bag and put her bread in it: "Then... I'll leave some food for Conan, he must be very hungry."

"Suddenly disappeared?" Chu Ming thought for a moment. He vaguely remembered this case; the murderer seemed to be an old woman...

Then it should be fine. With Conan's equipment, even Gin almost took him down, so how could he not handle an old lady?

Chu Ming calmly continued stuffing food into his mouth: "It's okay, Conan shouldn't run around. Even if he accidentally wanders into the forest, he'll have a chance to escape."

Professor Agasa nodded: "That's true—"

"Anyway, let's go look for that little brother after we finish eating," Mitsuru Mamiya suggested. "We hired a new servant before, who also wandered into the stone tower and disappeared. Seven or eight days later, we found his body in the forest, already starved to death..."