Conan: I'm Really Not the Manipulator

Just having money doesn't mean that life will be smooth sailing. He has experienced three disasters.

The first time was when he was kidnapped as a child. He was only seven years old that year, and was unconscious the whole time. He was rescued intact in the end, so he doesn’t have a deep impression of it.

The second time was when he was studying in the United States.

At that time, there were several white men in the class who looked down on people of color. The father of one of them was a senior diplomat. There was a Japanese boy who was bullied badly by them. In the end, all of these people died in a school shooting.

Kawai Takashi was there alone, and saw them being shot in the head one by one in the crowd. He was fine, but was completely frightened by the gun violence in the United States. After graduation, he rejected all offers and returned to the relatively safe Japan.

As for the third time, it is just around the corner.

After returning to Japan, Kawai Koichi did not go to help his father's company. During his time in the United States, he developed a strong interest in detective novels, and rather than learning to take over the group's work, he wanted to make a detective game.

His favorite character is Moriarty, who is known as the "Napoleon of Crime", so he plans to challenge all players (detectives) from the perspective of the creator (criminal)!

He wants to plan a brilliant and perfect crime!

If you want to do something, you should try your best to do it the best. Koichi Kawai invited the best painters in the industry, the best music studio, the best game development and testing engineers... He even had a big fight with his father because his father felt that he was not doing his job properly by developing games.

Finally, he spent two years confidently creating a game, hoping that it would attract worldwide attention and that players would be so stumped by his carefully designed puzzles that they would have to admit defeat to him...

As a result, sales were a disappointment.

Not only that, those players who bought the game scolded him online, saying that his method of committing the crime was suspected of plagiarizing a certain detective novel, and that the decryption process was too complicated and that he was deliberately making things difficult for the players.

Due to his father's lack of support, he only received a small amount of funding. He originally wanted to make the money back all at once through the game's success, but in the end he lost everything.

Koichi Kawai sold his car, but the money was just a drop in the bucket and could only barely pay the employees' salaries and company venue fees. His daily expenses went from being luxurious to being tight.

The arrogant Koichi Kawai certainly refused to accept it.

He wanted to turn the tables, wanted to create a new game, wanted to slap the faces of those who had scolded him before, including his father, but...

"...But, with your current, um, current financial situation, even if you really find a suitable case for adaptation, you can't develop a new game, right?"

"In fact, I played the game you designed before. From the music to the graphics, it was great. It was the most sophisticated detective game I've ever seen. I even remember the background music... A game like this must have cost a lot to develop."

After hearing his story, Aoyagi Binguang looked at him in embarrassment.

Those light brown eyes were full of regret.

Kawai Koichi was stabbed by such a look, but it was not his self-esteem that was stabbed, but his dissatisfaction was pierced and picked out——

Dissatisfied with his father's failure to provide financial support this time.

"……fine."

Kawai Takashi drank the red wine in one gulp, put the glass next to the clean plate, and said dissatisfiedly and sharply: "I am his only son. Even if he doesn't give it to me now, all his money will be mine in the future."

As soon as he said this, he felt something was wrong. It seemed like he was ungrateful to say this. He was thinking about the inheritance before the person died.

Just as Kawai Koichi was beginning to feel some regret, the FBI agent opposite him let out a light sigh.

“The relationship between a father and his child is much more complicated than that between a mother and her child.”

"Women are mothers from the moment they become pregnant. They are connected to their children by blood... Fathers are different. They try to be fathers only from the moment their children are born. They don't love their children naturally, but always love themselves more."

Kawai Koichi heard contempt and hatred in his voice, but it seemed as if he had heard it wrongly.

Aoyagi Akimichi smiled and looked at him. Kawai Koichi was inexplicably a little cold. He listened to him continue: "Mr. Kawai, how was your relationship with your father in the past? Perhaps you can impress him with some of your good memories."

"past……"

Hearing this limitation, Kawai Koichi frowned.

"...He's very busy." He gave the answer after a short while of recalling, "Very busy. My mother died early. As far as I can remember, he has been busy with work and has never participated in any school activities. We don't even have any photos together. But financially, he has never lost money..."

The following words paused.

Aoyagi Binkou didn't seem to notice the pause. He glanced at his cell phone and smiled embarrassedly.

"Sorry, Mr. Kawai, I think I have to go."

Kawai Koichi came to his senses: "Leave now? Is it so urgent?"

"I have an appointment with someone to go to the hospital again before 1pm today."

Aoyagi Binkou looked helpless. Seeing Kawai Koichi's curiosity, he added, "The patient I visited yesterday was a wealthy American businessman. He was seriously ill and could not return to the United States for the time being, so he planned to change his will on the spot. I was one of his witnesses."

"Originally, he planned to donate his property to a charity foundation to legally avoid taxes and let his only daughter inherit his wealth smoothly. However, he recently changed his mind and planned to donate his collection of gemstones and famous paintings to the Mika Art Museum instead. He and the curator became good friends during this year..."

……

After Aoyagi Akimitsu left, Kawai Koichi sat there for a while and then paid the bill.

He felt a little sad when the waiter handed him the bill.

In the past, he didn't care about this little money at all, but now, two sets of meals at a high-end restaurant plus a bottle of high-end foreign wine are enough to pay for all his remaining living expenses...

Kawai Takashi gritted his teeth and decided to pay.

With the waiter's polite bow, he walked out of the restaurant. The rain had stopped, and he was a little dazed facing the gray sky, with all kinds of emotions surging in his heart.

He subconsciously wanted to walk towards the hospital, but just as he raised his foot, he stopped halfway.

...I almost forgot that his father doesn't like alcohol and sometimes even has a stress reaction to it...I reek of alcohol now and it's not appropriate for me to go to the hospital.

Kawai Koichi had no choice but to turn around and return to his residence.

……

He lived in an ordinary apartment at 10-chome, not far from the Kawai family's mansion, just two streets away.

Koichi Kawai walked through a small park suitable for walking children. As he saw the apartment in front of him, he suddenly noticed a familiar person standing under a tree not far away.

He was his neighbor, and they had an average relationship. They would just say hello to each other and never invite each other to visit. At this moment, the neighbor was sighing.

"What's wrong?" Kawai Koichi couldn't help but ask.

"Don't mention it." The neighbor frowned, "You left early today, so you might not know that the landlord came to my house early in the morning to ask for rent and woke me up."

Kawai Koichi disagreed: "Isn't he always like this?"

"It's different." The neighbor waved his hands repeatedly. "He went to the steel pin shop yesterday. I don't know how he played, but he lost all the money he had saved for several months! Now he is in a hurry to get the money back. He is urging people to pay up one by one, and he also said that if the debtors don't pay up, he will kick them out. I don't have any money, so I have to hide here for a while..."

Kawai Koichi was stunned on the spot.

Chapter 261 What is a Perfect Crime?

Sunday morning, in a corner of Beika-cho.

"gentlemen……"

"...Wake up, sir, it's daybreak..."

"We're closing... sir?"

The urging voice came again and again. Kawai Koichi was sleeping soundly. In a daze, his shoulder was pushed by someone with increasing force.

"gentlemen!!"

With a shout that was almost in his ear, Kawai Koichi finally opened his eyes. He struggled to raise his head, feeling dizzy and his brain throbbing with pain.

"Where... where is this?" he asked blankly.

The bartender who called him heaved a sigh of relief, put away his phone that had habitually pressed 110 and was about to dial out, and put on a friendly smile of a waiter.

"Sir, this is a bar. You got drunk last night and slept until morning."

Koichi Kawai was just drunk, he didn't lose his memory. After calming down a little, he remembered that he had entered the bar last night and quickly left his chair at the bar.

The bar was empty, with neatly arranged tables and chairs. There was only him and the waiter in front of him. The door a few steps away was open, and the sunlight poured in from outside, stinging his eyes slightly.

It’s already morning...

Kawai Koichi pressed his temple, feeling very hungover: "How much is it?"

"The bill has been paid." said the waiter politely.

...got married?

Kawai Takashi was in a trance.

He had no memory of taking out money at all. In fact, his consciousness started to blur after his second drink last night. He had no recollection of what he drank or who sat next to him.

However, Kawai Koichi did not think about it, and just thought that he had paid for it when he was halfway through drinking. He often did this when he went to dinner with his subordinates in the company. He waved to the waiter and walked out of the store.

His footsteps gradually faded away, and his back disappeared in the sunlight. The boss who had gone to the warehouse to check the inventory came back and found that there was one person missing in the store.

"Is the guest awake?"

"Yes, I almost thought he was dead or poisoned, and I almost called the police." The waiter breathed a sigh of relief.

The boss also breathed a sigh of relief. He sat down at the seat to the right of Kawai Koichi, raised his hand and stroked the bar counter, stopping at a place where he had placed the wine glass last night.

"Hey, his friend is a bit irresponsible. He just paid the bill and left the person behind..."

The boss complained casually but didn't take it too seriously.

As long as he got the money and nothing happened to the customer in his store, it was good enough. As a rice flower businessman, there was no need to worry about other things.

……

Koichi Kawai was walking on the street.

As the sun shone and the wind blew, his brain, which had been paralyzed by alcohol all night, began to work slowly, allowing him to gradually recall what happened yesterday.

Because the landlord was in a hurry to get the money, he didn't dare to go back to the apartment and went to the hospital to see his father again.

His father hated alcohol, and he went there drunk, and the result was predictable.

——"How could I give birth to something like you?!"

——"Impossible! Absolutely impossible! I'm not even dead yet, and you want to give orders to the company? You have no ability at all, and you still want to transform the company? Huh? Didn't you fall badly enough last time?! What kind of crappy thing did you make?! Everyone else is laughing at you!"

——"I'm telling you, if you keep harboring those messy thoughts, I'll kick you out completely! I'd rather throw the money to the dogs than give you a penny!"

——"I don't need you to pick me up when I'm discharged from the hospital tomorrow! Get out of here!!"

Even if I closed my eyes, those curses still echoed in my ears, every word was so clear.

At that time, Kawai Koichi was facing everyone's gazes of watching the fun. He was so angry that his face turned from white to blue, and then from blue to red. His teeth were grinding, but he didn't say a word in rebuttal.

Because he didn't dare.