The Different Color Tracks in the Detective Conan World

In September, Tokyo was filled with the deepening autumn colors. Teitan High School's school festival arrived as scheduled, and the entire campus was decorated with ribbons, posters, and balloons, creating a lively atmosphere. Lin Mo, as an exchange student representative, was pulled by Ran Mouri to help decorate the café for Class 2-B—or rather, a "princess-themed tea party" meticulously planned by Ran and Sonoko. The two, dressed in gorgeous maid outfits, were busy decorating cakes.

"Lin Mojun, is it alright to put this strawberry tart here?" Ran Mouri held up an exquisite dessert, her face smeared with cream, like a little kitten stealing a bite.

"It's beautiful." Lin Mo lit the candle next to her, and the warm yellow light shone on her face, making her look as soft as a painting.

Sonoko leaned over and nudged Lin Mo's arm with a mischievous grin: "Hey, Lin Mo-kun, isn't Ran adorable? Let me tell you, there are tons of guys chasing after Ran. If you're interested, you'd better hurry up!"

"Sonoko!" Ran Mouri's face instantly turned red, and she reached out to cover Sonoko's mouth.

Lin Mo smiled but didn't reply, her gaze involuntarily falling on a short distance away—Conan was surrounded by a group of elementary school students, forced to perform the "Junior Detective League's Deduction Game," his little face scrunched up, looking both helpless and amusing. Further down the corridor, at the far end, Ai Haibara, dressed in a simple school uniform, held a physics book in her hand, quietly leaning against the window, completely out of place with the surrounding noise.

"Why aren't you coming over to play, Haibara-san?" Lin Mo asked.

"She said the school festival was too noisy," Ran explained. "But I just saw her secretly glancing this way; she's probably just shy."

Just then, Sera Masumi walked over dressed in a dashing men's outfit, her hair neatly styled in a ponytail: "Hey, Lin Mo-jun, busy? Our class's haunted house needs someone, want to help out and play a ghost?"

"Let's forget it, I'm afraid it will scare the guests," Lin Mo declined.

"How boring." Sera shrugged, her gaze sweeping over Ran and Sonoko's maid outfits, and suddenly laughed, "But your outfits are quite interesting. I'll go change into one for a photoshoot later."

After the school festival officially began, the campus was bustling with activity. Lin Mo was in charge of greeting customers at the cafe entrance, and was occasionally flustered by the love letters and small gifts that the girls would blush as they handed him.

"I didn't expect Lin Mojun to be so popular." Lan walked over with a tray and couldn't help but laugh when she saw the pile of envelopes in his hand.

"Maybe it's because he's handsome," Sonoko added, "but compared to Shinichi, he's still a bit lacking—Ah! Ran, don't pinch me!"

Lin Mo's gaze swept across the crowd and landed on Ishikawa Yuki, who was carrying a stack of art books as she emerged from the art classroom, seemingly preparing for a solo exhibition. He went over to offer his help: "Need any assistance?"

"Lin Mojun!" Ishikawa Yuki's eyes lit up. "Great! These paintings are a bit heavy." She pointed to the display board next to her. "These are all my recent paintings. Some of them are about the follow-up to my father's painting. I want to see if I can find more clues."

Lin Mo looked at the starry sky on the canvas. It had similar brushstrokes to "Star Trails at Dusk," but with a warmer tone. "It's very well painted."

"Thank you." Ishikawa Yuki blushed slightly. "By the way, there's a bonfire party tonight, will you come?"

"Probably."

Just then, a scream came from the direction of the school building, breaking the joyful atmosphere of the school festival.

"Something's happened!" Conan's voice came from not far away, and the little guy had already rushed over like an arrow.

Lin Mo and Ishikawa Yuki exchanged a glance and immediately followed.

The incident occurred in the drama club's activity room on the third floor. The door was locked, and there was a frantic knocking from inside. Conan and Lin Mo forced the door open and found the drama club president, Sato Koichi, lying in the center of the stage, a prop sword stuck in his chest, with several broken masks scattered around him.

The activity room was a mess. Makeup was scattered all over the dressing table, and costumes hanging on the wall were torn and messy. Several drama club members were pale with fright. One of the girls, a short-haired girl, squatted on the floor and cried, saying that she had just been rehearsing with the club president, and when she came back from getting props, this was what happened.

"Call an ambulance and the police!" Lin Mo shouted immediately, while signaling everyone not to disturb the scene.

Conan had already crouched down to examine the body, his brow furrowed. "The sword was inserted from the front, but there are signs of struggle around the wound. The edges of the mask fragments on the ground are very sharp, as if they were crushed by someone." He noticed that Sato Koichi's fingers were tightly gripping a small piece of purple fabric. "This is... some fabric from the costume?"

Lin Mo looked around. The windows of the activity room were locked, and the ventilation openings were too small for a person to squeeze through. "Another locked room?"

"Not necessarily." Sera Masumi also rushed over. She had been watching the kendo performance in the next class and ran over when she heard the commotion. "Look at the doorknob. There are fresh scratches on it, like it was pried open by something, but not completely."

"But when we rammed the door just now, it was definitely locked from the inside," said a boy from the drama club.

When Inspector Megure arrived with the police, the joyous atmosphere of the school festival had completely vanished. A preliminary investigation determined that Koichi Sato's time of death was between 2:00 PM and 2:30 PM, and the murder weapon was the prop sword, bearing only the victim's fingerprints.

"Has President Sato had any conflicts with anyone recently?" Inspector Megure asked.

"He...he had a fight with the vice president, Suzuki, yesterday," the short-haired girl who had been crying earlier said, choking back tears. "It was about who should play the female lead. Suzuki said he was going to quit the club and that he wouldn't let the president off the hook."

Where is Suzuki now?

"I don't know, I haven't seen her this afternoon."

Conan paced back and forth in the activity room, noticing a small storage box behind the stage backdrop. The box showed signs of having been moved. He crawled behind the backdrop and found a purple costume inside, missing a piece of fabric from one of the sleeves, which matched the fragment found in the deceased's hand perfectly.

"Lin Mo, look at this." Conan handed him the fabric.

Lin Mo touched the fabric and said, "It's silk, very high-quality. Are all the costumes in the drama club made of this material?"

"No, only the main character's costume is made of silk," a staff member replied. "This is the costume for this year's female lead; it was originally intended for Suzuki."

Sera Masumi walked to the dressing table and picked up a lipstick: "Look, the color of this lipstick is the same as the color of the deceased's lips, but this lipstick is Suzuki's, and it has her fingerprints on it."

"So, Suzuki is the murderer?" Kogoro Mouri stroked his chin, looking certain. "She must have been holding a grudge because she didn't get the lead role, so she killed the company president and escaped through the window!"

"The windows were locked, and there were no signs of climbing outside." Lin Mo shook his head. "If Suzuki was the murderer, how did she leave?"

He walked to the door and carefully examined the lock: "This is an old-fashioned bolt lock, which is indeed difficult to pry open from the outside, but what if we use fishing line?" He picked up a fishing line that had fallen to the ground, "Put the fishing line through the bolt hole, pull it out through the door gap, close the door and pull hard, and the bolt will lock. Then pull out the fishing line, and you can create the illusion of locking from the inside."

"What about the fishing line?" Inspector Megure asked.

"They might have been taken away by the murderer, or..." Lin Mo's gaze fell on an incense burner in the corner of the stage, with several incense sticks sticking out and still smoking. "They've burned."

Conan suddenly ran behind the backdrop and found a small piece of charred fishing line in the gap of a storage box: "Here it is!"

Just then, a girl rushed in, panicking, and said, "Officer! I saw Suzuki on the rooftop. She's standing by the railing, and it looks like she's about to do something stupid!"

Everyone rushed to the rooftop. Suzuki was standing with his back to them by the railing, his shoulders trembling uncontrollably.

"Suzuki! Don't do anything foolish!" Inspector Megure shouted.

Suzuki turned around, her face streaked with tears: "I didn't kill him! It really wasn't me! I've been in the infirmary all afternoon. I fainted because I was in such a bad mood after arguing with the club president yesterday. The school doctor can testify!"

The school doctor was quickly brought in and confirmed Suzuki's words—she had been resting in the infirmary from 1:30 pm to 3 pm and had no time to commit the crime.

The trail suddenly went cold, and everyone fell into deep thought.

Lin Mo returned to the activity room and re-examined the purple costume. In the pocket of the costume was a crumpled sheet of music, with several notes circled. He looked at the piano on the stage; the lid was open, and on it lay a sheet of music—the very piece with the circled notes.

"Conan, can you play the piano?" Lin Mo suddenly asked.

"I know a little." Conan walked to the piano with a puzzled look in his eyes.

"Play these notes." Lin Mo pointed to the circled areas on the sheet music.

Conan pressed a key on the piano, and a clear, crisp note rang out. Just then, the stage backdrop slowly rose, revealing a small door behind it!

"This is... a door leading backstage?" Everyone was stunned.

"I see!" Sera Masumi exclaimed in realization. "The murderer didn't leave through the window or the main entrance, but through this small door! The backdrop rises automatically when a specific note is pressed; this must be a mechanism set up by the drama club for their performance!"

Lin Mo nodded: "The murderer knew about this mechanism, so after killing the club president, he left through the small door, locked the door with fishing line, and lowered the backdrop to make it seem like a locked room." He looked at the short-haired girl, "You just said that only you and the club president were rehearsing in the activity room, right?"

The short-haired girl's face paled: "So what if I am?"

"Because only you know he'll be rehearsing here this afternoon, and only you know the secret of this facility." Lin Mo's tone was calm, yet carried an undeniable power. "You like the president, don't you? But you saw the president and Suzuki arguing about the female lead, and you assumed they liked each other, so jealousy got the better of you, and you killed the president and tried to frame Suzuki."

He paused, then pointed to the girl's cuff: "There's a bit of ash from the incense burner on your sleeve, the same as the ash from burnt fishing line. And you just said you'd never seen Suzuki, but how do you know she didn't get the lead role? Only people within the club know this, and you're the one who put Suzuki's lipstick on the dressing table, aren't you?"

The short-haired girl's mental defenses completely collapsed. She slumped to the ground, sobbing as she confessed her crime. It turned out that she had indeed harbored a crush on Sato Koichi for a long time, and seeing him and Suzuki interacting frequently because of the costumes, she acted impulsively and committed a terrible mistake.

With the case solved, the atmosphere of the school festival was somewhat affected, but everyone decided to continue the activities. The drama club members rallied their spirits and announced that the evening's bonfire party would proceed as scheduled.

As night fell, a bonfire was lit in the center of the playground, and the students sang and danced around it. Ran Mouri and Sonoko pulled Lin Mo into the dance, while Sera Masumi played the guitar on the side, and Yuki Ishikawa sat by the fire, quietly watching the flames.

Lin Mo jumped around for a while, then went to a corner for some fresh air. Just then, he saw Ai Haibara standing under a cherry blossom tree, looking up at the falling petals.

"Aren't you going to play?" Lin Mo walked up to her.

"It's too noisy." Ai Haibara's tone remained calm, but she no longer kept people at arm's length like before.

"Thanks for reminding me about today's case with the fishing line." Lin Mo recalled that Conan had secretly told him that afternoon that when he was checking the door lock, Ai Haibara had deliberately said, "Fishing line can do a lot of things too."

Ai Haibara glanced at him. "I was just saying." She paused. "You seem to be very good at reading people's minds."

"I'm just more observant." Lin Mo looked at her. "You seem to have something on your mind?"

Ai Haibara was silent for a few seconds before whispering, "The organization has been checking the list of participants for the school festival recently, and they may have noticed me."

Lin Mo's heart tightened: "Do you need any help?"

"No need," she shook her head. "I have a way of handling this. It's you who'd better stay away from me, lest you get dragged into this."

"I've already gotten involved, haven't I?" Lin Mo smiled. "Ever since I met you at the art museum."

Ai Haibara's cheeks flushed slightly, and she turned her head away: "Whatever you want."

The highlight of the bonfire party was everyone setting off fireworks. Brilliant fireworks exploded in the night sky, illuminating everyone's smiling faces. Ran Mouri excitedly pulled Lin Mo to watch the fireworks, Sonoko winked at Sera and Yuki Ishikawa, and Conan, standing beside Dr. Agasa, watched all this with a rare relaxed smile on his lips.

Looking at the people around him, Lin Mo suddenly felt that even in this perilous world, there was a warmth that made him want to protect it. Whether it was Ran's kindness, Sonoko's straightforwardness, Sera's keenness, Ishikawa Yuki's gentleness, or Haibara Ai's vulnerability hidden beneath her indifference, they all left bright marks in his heart, just like fireworks.

As the fireworks ended and the crowd gradually dispersed, Lin Mo walked back to her apartment. Her phone received a text message from Akemi Miyano: "Was the school festival fun? I saw your fireworks, they were beautiful."

Lin Mo looked up at the night sky, as if he could still see the traces of fireworks. He replied, "Yes, it was beautiful. Get some rest."

The moment he pressed the send button, he could almost picture the faint smile on Miyano Akemi's lips when she saw the message.

The trajectory of this world is extending in an unknown direction because of his intrusion. And those intertwined lines of fate are quietly drawing closer together on this night of dazzling fireworks. Lin Mo knows that many challenges await him in the future, but as long as these people are by his side, he has the courage to keep going.