Conan, I'm an actor

Sakata Yusuke, who was thought to be dead, has now come back to life and reappeared beside Shinjo. It seems he was closely involved in the previous serial murders, and it's quite possible he is the killer. But who committed those two cases in Tokyo? And whose was that burned body?

While he was pondering, Vermouth and Shinjo had already reached an agreement on certain conditions. Shinjo directly handed two hard drives to Vermouth, which contained research data on the new drug.

"This is the access card. Only by swiping the access card can you enter this research institute. If you try to force your way in..." Shinjo shrugged, "Remember to bring someone to collect your body."

“Okay.” Amuro Tooru took the access card and followed Vermouth out of the office.

Chapter 155 Hattori Heiji Pays a Visit

Shinjo followed Vermouth and Amuro Tooru's route and, with Karen's help, found four listening devices. After studying them for a long time without figuring out who left them, he simply crushed them all.

"Is it really okay to reveal the secrets of this place to them?" Karen asked into her earpiece.

“It’s alright. The most important thing here is you, not these fixed assets.” Xincheng shrugged. “You can move at any time. Anyway, the backup data center is almost finished. Once it’s connected to the network, you can move there. This place will just be an empty shell.”

"Empty shell?"

“Those guys in the organization have already noticed this place. Besides them, there are some other troublemakers.” Shinjo stretched. “For example, the Japanese Public Security Bureau.”

"You mean Amuro Tooru's subordinate?"

“Yes and no.” Shinjo found a chair and sat down. “I’m quite curious what Amuro Tooru will do. Will he tell the higher-ups everything, or will he go into hiding?”

"Of course, it's about telling the higher-ups. They can extract huge profits and political capital from it, and achieve upward social mobility," Karen said matter-of-factly. "Aren't you all the same?"

"We'll just have to wait and see."

Meanwhile, at the entrance of the Mori Detective Agency

"Heiji Hattori?" Conan called out instinctively when he saw Hattori.

"Who are you?" Hattori Heiji looked down at the kid in front of him, trying hard to remember if he had seen the kid somewhere before, but unfortunately, he couldn't find any information about the kid in his memory.

"Conan, when did you meet Hattori?" Ran asked, somewhat puzzled.

Conan's expression instantly changed. Only then did he realize he had let something slip, and he could only try to salvage the situation. Please, future me, you have to take the blame for this!

"Oh, Shinichi-nii told me. Shinichi-nii also said that it was a real shame that Heiji-nii couldn't win the contest at the Twilight Villa last time. I was curious to see if I could be better at deduction than Shinichi-nii, so I looked up some news about Heiji-nii." Conan chuckled and scratched the back of his head.

"If you want to learn deduction, why don't you tell me? Aren't I, Sleeping Kogoro, better than those two brats?" Kogoro Mori said with a lisp from behind.

He had drunk some alcohol and was somewhat incoherent.

Conan could only offer an awkward, rather than impolite, smile. With your level of deduction, who knows how many wrongful convictions you would have fabricated? It's a good thing you retired early; you would have been finished if you had been in charge of the First Investigative Division.

Heiji involuntarily took a step back. He didn't have any prejudice against drinking, but he hated guys who drank until they blacked out.

"Dad, that's very impolite of you!" Xiaolan said, somewhat angrily.

However, she immediately realized that she had nothing to say to a drunk person, so she apologized to Heiji and then pushed her father up to the third floor of the agency.

Heiji didn't care; he wouldn't stoop to the level of a drunkard. He was more interested in Conan in front of him. Apparently, back in Osaka, Shinjo had mentioned a kid named Conan Edogawa at the Mouri Detective Agency.

"What are you looking at, Heiji-nii?" Conan couldn't help but take two steps back.

Hattori Heiji's gaze was too sharp, making him feel uneasy. Just then, Hattori Heiji actually took off his glasses.

"Plain glasses, kid. You're not nearsighted, so why are you wearing these glasses?" Hattori Heiji asked with a smile.

"Give it back to me! Give it back to me!" Conan grabbed Heiji's trouser leg and jumped up and down like a child whose toy had been snatched away.

"Hattori-kun, Conan is just a child, please don't make things difficult for him." Ran Mouri had just come downstairs and saw Heiji bullying Conan, so she said angrily.

"So your name is Conan. Let me guess what your last name is?" Hattori said with a smile. "You look so much like Kudo, you must also have the last name Kudo, right?"

Seeing Conan's pale face, Hattori confirmed his guess: this kid was definitely connected to Kudo. Edogawa Conan—that name was very likely fake. So why would this kid use a false name to infiltrate the Mouri Detective Agency?

"What a pity, you guessed wrong." Ran's face showed a hint of smugness. "Conan's full name is Edogawa Conan."

"Edogawa, Conan?" Hattori leaned closer to Conan. "Hey kid, are your parents also detective fans? They couldn't come up with a name, so they just combined Edogawa Ranpo and Conan Doyle's names and made up a random one, while also changing your surname?"

"A name you just made up?" Ran looked at Conan with some suspicion.

She had only thought Conan's name was a bit strange before, without thinking too much about it. But after Heiji Hattori pointed it out, she realized something was wrong. Both the surname Edogawa and the name Conan were extremely rare.

Furthermore, Conan's parents have never appeared. Even when he was fostered, it was Professor Agasa who took care of him, and he also paid for the foster care expenses.

Then, thinking of Conan's face, which is about 80% similar to Shinichi Kudo's, Ran's eyes sharpened in that instant.

Looking at Ran's eyes, Conan knew he was in trouble today. Heiji Hattori was such a jinx!

At this point, he could only secretly dial Mr. Shinjo's number. At this time, he had no choice but to ask Mr. Shinjo for help. With his unpredictable disguise skills, he should be able to impersonate him.

Before he could even dial the number, Xiaolan had already "gently" removed the pendant from his hand.

"Conan, this is Professor Agasa's important invention. How can you just carry it around like that?" Ran said with a smile. "I'll keep it for you for now."

"Ran-neechan, give it back to me!" Conan immediately pretended to cry.

However, the tricks that used to work every time failed today.

Ran didn't even glance at him, turning to Hattori beside her and saying, "If you're here to visit Dad, as you can see, he's completely drunk. You'll have to come back tomorrow."

"I don't really mind, I already brought my sleeping bag anyway," Hattori said with a grin. "If it's convenient, could I borrow a place to sleep for the night?"

"Well, that's fine, but you can only sleep in the office on the second floor." Xiaolan wasn't good at dealing with these shameless customers, so she had no choice but to compromise.

"I want to sleep with Heiji-nii!" Conan said immediately.

"You? No way!" Xiaolan said coldly. She still had many questions to ask this brat, how could she let her escape like this!

"What does it have to do with anything? I get along really well with this kid, and I'm also interested in learning more about Shinichi Kudo." Heiji Hattori said, putting his arm around Conan's shoulder. "Don't you think so, little Conan?"

When Conan heard "Little Brother Conan," he got goosebumps all over, but considering he needed Heiji Hattori's help, he could only nod with a forced smile. "I'm also very curious about the cases Heiji-nii-san handled before!"

Chapter 156 The Detective's All-Night Talk

Faced with the customer's request, Ran couldn't refuse outright. She could only use her eyes to tell Conan that he should give her a proper explanation later.

Somewhat helplessly, Conan went upstairs to get a blanket. When he arrived at the agency, he found that Heiji Hattori had already laid out his sleeping bag.

"What are you doing in Tokyo?" Conan asked, somewhat exasperated.

"Before answering your question, can you answer mine first?" Hearing Conan's tone, Heiji Hattori became even more certain of his guess, and stared at the little brat in front of him with a smile. "Should I call you Shinichi Kudo, or should I call you Conan Edogawa?"

"Call me whatever you want," Conan said somewhat helplessly. "By the way, how did you figure that out?"

The idea of ​​an adult turning into a child defies common sense, which is why he could easily fool others. He just couldn't understand why Hattori Heiji could guess his identity, and why this guy gave him such a strange feeling when they first met, as if he was there specifically for him.

“You mean this? Uncle Shinjo came to Osaka a few days ago and told me that Kogoro Mouri has a kid named Conan Edogawa by his side. I might be quite interested,” Heiji Hattori said, stroking his chin. “So when I came to visit, I paid special attention to you. I wasn’t sure at first, so I decided to try and trick you by asking if your surname was Kudo. After seeing the expression on your face, I was certain of my guess. So, Kudo, how did you turn into a child?”

Conan was devastated. He had always thought that Mr. Shinjo was a reliable comrade-in-arms, but he never expected that the first person to betray him would be this comrade-in-arms.

"When I was investigating that black organization, I was ambushed from behind and knocked unconscious." Conan spread out the blankets and crawled into bed. "Then they gave me some kind of drug, and that's how I ended up like this."

"Medicine?" Hattori was taken aback. "Why would we force-feed you medicine? What good would it do to turn you into a child? Shouldn't we be silencing you in this situation?"

"The drug they gave me was a poison they developed themselves. It's said that after someone dies from it, no trace will be found," Conan said with some helplessness. "However, according to Mr. Shinjo, it's not a poison, but a drug that can make people young again. I'm the first successful case of this drug; everyone else died from its side effects."

Heiji Hattori stared at Conan. "It's alright, it's alright. He's only ten years younger. There's still a chance."

"What? There's still a chance?"

"Of course it's your Ran-neechan who's pursuing you," Hattori said with a chuckle. "If you turn into a brat when you're of marriageable age, then you'll have absolutely no chance."

"Is that the important point?" Conan's face darkened. "Get serious!"

"So, what did you find out?" Hattori Heiji asked seriously.

"We didn't find anything. Those guys are very well hidden." Conan was also a little frustrated. "We finally found a clue, but when we got there, everyone had already been silenced, and the bodies were all cold."

“Wait a minute, you and Mr. Shinjo seem to have a good relationship, right?” Heiji asked, somewhat puzzled. “Didn’t he infiltrate that organization for a while? Why don’t you just ask him to provide you with information? If I remember correctly, he and Uncle Mori were classmates at the police academy. He shouldn’t refuse something like this, right?”

"Him? If he could provide information, would I be in such a passive position?" Conan got angry when he talked about this, and immediately crawled out of bed, took out a notebook, and placed it in front of Hattori Heiji.

"This is... a newspaper clipping?" Heiji Hattori looked at the contents. "The Beika Hotel fire resulted in the deaths of two people, Shuichi Akai and Akemi Miyano? Is this related to that organization?"

“There’s a connection. That Miyano Akemi is a member of the organization. She used the alias Hirota Masami to infiltrate Yoshitsubishi Bank and work as a bank teller for six months. Then she planned a robbery that involved more than a billion yen,” Conan said. “The money is still missing. Mr. Shinjo should know where the money is, but he keeps quiet about it.”

"What's the reason?" Heiji Hattori stared at Conan and said, "That old man isn't one to be stingy with information. There must be a reason why he didn't tell you."

“He said those guys are too dangerous, and I’ll bring others into danger too.” Conan seemed to have thought of something and then said, “By the way, Ran and Uncle don’t know I’m Shinichi Kudo yet. After what you did today, she’s definitely suspicious. I might need you to cover for me tomorrow.”

"Alright, but aren't you going to tell her about this?"

"Just like Mr. Shinjo said, that organization is too dangerous. If she finds out, she might be in danger too." Conan took out his phone and started texting Professor Agasa as he spoke.

To clear himself of suspicion, the only solution is to have Shinichi Kudo and Conan Edogawa appear together, and have Professor Agasa call him when Ran interrogates him. That should clear him of suspicion.

Only after doing all this did he crawl into bed and go to sleep, preparing to face the storm the next morning.

"Hey, Kudo," Hattori asked, flipping through the newspaper clippings in front of him, "If you're going to investigate this organization, where are you going to start? An organization like this must be very difficult to investigate."

"I don't know. Right now, we can only try to find that money or dig deeper into Miyano Akemi's identity," Conan said, looking at the ceiling. "I've already asked Inspector Megure to investigate through Shinichi Kudo's identity. Inspector Megure is an officer in the Metropolitan Police Department's First Investigation Division. But there are still no results. In Inspector Megure's words, Miyano Akemi's identity is too clean; it seems that all traces have been wiped clean."

"Make people disappear?" Hattori fell silent.

After returning to Osaka, he used his resources to investigate the organization, but the traces left by the organization were too few. The information he managed to find only proved that such an organization was active in Japan, and it was impossible to find them through these clues.

"By the way, what brings you to Tokyo this time? And why did you specifically seek out the Mouri Detective Agency?" Conan asked, somewhat puzzled.

"Can't I come here for tourism?" Hattori said, somewhat angrily.

“Doesn’t seem like it. Who would travel all the way to a detective agency?” Conan said directly. “It must be related to that case from a few days ago. I heard that Kiichiro Numabuchi came to Tokyo. You must have come here for that matter.”

“You really can’t hide anything from you. I’m here because of him.” Hattori clenched his fist and said, “That guy killed one of my friends! He even burned Sakata-senpai’s body in front of the police cameras. All the police officers in Osaka Prefecture have sworn to avenge Sakata-senpai. I’m here to coordinate a joint investigation.”

Upon hearing about the case, Conan immediately perked up and sat up.

Seeing Conan's sparkling eyes, Hattori knew that the guy was interested in the case. Since he was getting restless keeping it to himself, he decided to recount the whole story in detail to see what this high school detective, who was on par with him, would think, including Shinjo's reminder.

Chapter 157 Penetration Angle and Dominant Hand

"Putting aside emotional factors, how likely do you think it is that the murderer is Yusuke Sakata?" Conan asked, resting his chin on his hand.

"I already said, Sakata-senpai couldn't possibly be the murderer!" Hattori Heiji said, suppressing his anger. "Sakata-senpai is the only police officer in Osaka authorized to carry a gun. His ability and character are exemplary within the Osaka police force. Besides, if Sakata-senpai was responsible for this, then who was burned to death? And who murdered those two victims in Tokyo?"

“That’s why I said we need to put aside emotional factors,” Conan said, staring at Hattori. “The body that was burned to death could be someone else’s. As for Sakata Yusuke’s body, was an autopsy performed? If the burning wasn’t complete, there should be some DNA that could be used to identify him. Also, so far, there is no evidence to prove that the serial murders in Tokyo and Osaka were committed by the same person. All of this is without substantial evidence.”

"An autopsy? Oh right, Dad did order an autopsy, even though many officers objected to it." Hattori snorted. "Sakata-senpai is definitely not the murderer, and I'll prove it to you!"

After saying that, he made a phone call, but a moment later, his voice suddenly rose.