Watching the anime from Madoka Magica and writing the rules

"What is that card for? If you don't explain, I won't accept it."

"It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether you accept it or not. The important thing is that I gave it to you, number 1."

Kudo watched as the paper was putting away the number plate, and then confirmed that there was no card with number 2 on the car. After feeling that Xiaolan would not be implicated, he asked:

"Number 1? What order is this?"

"That's..." Zhi Xing put the number plate away, then took out the notebook that Takagi had returned, shook it in his hand to indicate its presence, and explained, "It's number 1, the very first person on the death list here."

Then he glanced at Xiaolan, who was looking at the number plate, and added:

"It's also the only number 1 whose order I can confirm."

"Every word I said is true."

"Will you believe in this destined future?"

Chapter 130: Establishing a New Personality

"Hahahaha! Coming from the future? I'm dying of laughter." Kudo laughed wildly.

Seeing Kudo diverting Xiaolan's attention, Zhixing could only put away the notebook helplessly.

"You don't believe me? That's too bad. I was counting on you to give me some advice, but it seems like the timing is wrong."

"No, no, no. I know you're probably using this lie to refer to something, but the future? That's too outrageous. Even an elementary school student wouldn't make up such an excuse."

Kudo waved his hands, pretending to be at a loss whether to laugh or cry, but his heart was trembling.

Hey, hey, hey, are you kidding me? Is the list in this guy's hand the people who will be affected by this incident? This is more pressure than the police can bear. Why would an ordinary witness have such a thing?

"Officer Takagi, what does Kamijou-san do for a living? Is he an announcer who arranges performances?"

"Well, Kamijou-san wasn't a criminal after all, and we haven't confirmed his occupation. But according to the officer on night duty, he insisted on being from the future when he arrived at the station. Maybe he was frightened by the gun, so..."

Because Zhixing was present, Takagi didn't finish his words, but everyone understood his meaning.

"I see. I haven't introduced myself yet, have I? Well, at this point, allow me to give a half-truthful self-introduction."

Zhixing held his head up, recalling the tone of this era in his head, while taking out his other notebook.

"Half true, half false?"

Xiaolan repeated this sentence in confusion.

"Because there were other people in the car, I could only tell half the truth."

"I'm an outsider?" Takagi pointed at himself consciously, looking at the three people who were chatting in the police car with a look of surprise.

Zhixing turned sideways, met Kudo's eyes, then raised his notebook and recited:

"As you can see, I'm a foreigner, but I'm currently on a mission in Beika Town, so I should have a nickname."

"After much thought, I've decided on this name: Kamijou Touma."

"Stop, are you lying about your name? What's your real name?"

Zhi Xing glanced at Kudo, then continued reading without being affected:

"My mission this time is to verify whether the course of history can be rewritten, and if so, whether there will be any unforeseen costs. To this end, Kamijou Touma will record every moment, from the moment of consciousness."

As he spoke, Zhixing took out the mobile phone he had been holding for a long time from his bag and casually opened the interface.

"Oh~ What is that, high-tech?"

Xiaolan watched the phone closing in Zhixing's hand, then clicked on the clock with her finger and pressed the countdown button to record the time, with an expression as if it was 1994 and she had never seen a mobile phone.

A PDA? Sure enough, this guy wasn't just any ordinary citizen. If I quit now, would it be too late?

Although Kudo had never seen this kind of touch-screen mobile phone, he knew that the designs were all designed by humans for the convenience of human use.

So just by looking at the layout, the scale of the icons, the graphics and the functions, Kudo was able to link it to a computer.

In this age of mobile phones, landlines, telephone lines, and desktop computers with mainframes, Kudo had seen similar gadgets in Hawaii.

"Because the consequences are unpredictable and even carry the risk of death, the Future Agency has decided to select a few lucky individuals to participate in the experiment."

"So, despite knowing very little about the future organization, I was chosen as one of the lucky ones. With the freedom to choose my own time, I chose this era."

"Tokyo in 1994 was the last era of Japanese detectives' glory, and also the era with the most deaths. After all, with the popularization of technology, the detective genre will soon decline, and the status of lawyers will be further elevated."

"So I used a collection of cases solved by a famous detective as my source material and copied down the list of the dead that this detective had encountered on his way to the top."

"And this is the first time when this famous detective appeared."

"It all started when you, Kudo Shinichi, a high school detective, suddenly disappeared."

At the end of his words, Zhixing looked at Kudo and spoke the truth with a sincere face.

"Stop talking nonsense. The premise of your original story was a lie."

Faced with the truth from the paper company, Kudo pointed out the paper company's explosive point without hesitation.

"It's true that technology is developing rapidly nowadays. Maybe one day we'll actually be able to invent a machine that can go back to the future."

"But that kind of machine is definitely not something that an organization of this level can realize. It would take a lot of time. How could it be completed without the efforts of the entire country?"

Zhixing wanted to explain, but Kudo also didn't like being interrupted, so he raised his hand to stop Zhixing from making excuses.

"Secondly, even if we had such a thing, no matter how hard we tried to find experimental subjects, we would only look for them in the military. They have both talent and obey orders, and they won't do anything out of line."

"Finally, you've proven that more than one person has traveled back from the future to the past, which means they're still in the comparative experiment stage."

"Even if comparison is necessary, the variables must be strictly controlled. You can't just let yourself act arbitrarily. There should be a think tank behind this that has arranged everyone's actions and possible contingency plans."

"And none of these plans involve asking high school detectives for help."

"After all, it's been a long time. How can they determine whether someone in the past can help, and what they might do? They're not experimenters, and they can't access the past."

After Kudo finished speaking, he withdrew his forbidden hand and looked at Zhi Xing.

"Are you finished?"

Zhixing put on a poker face and confirmed with Kudo expressionlessly.

"Uh, well, so all your conclusions are based on faulty premises. I'm done."

Kudo looked at Zhixing strangely. It was obvious that he had a backup plan.

Sure enough, after Zhixing saw that Kudo had pointed out the unreasonable parts of his words, he started to use even more unreasonable moves.

"It's exactly as you said. With current technology, let alone traveling through time, we're still far from being able to master even the energy on earth."

"In 10, 20, 50, or even 100 years, technology will not be able to reverse time."

"But that's only if science is developed."

Zhixing said this, glancing at Xiaolan who was listening attentively to the story, and then said something shocking:

"But the Future Agency is one of the few pilot agencies in our Academy City that works with magic."

"Simple technology is only the product of a hundred years of accumulation, and this accumulation has also had an impact on magic that has been passed down for thousands of years."

"Yes, I came to this time from an era where magic and technology coexisted. I am a person without special abilities - Kamijou Touma."

"It's just a few decades of technological development combined with the power of magic to achieve the ability to travel through time."

"I was simply chosen and came here because I have witnessed the magic of time travel firsthand."

"Magic? That kind of thing doesn't exist, right? Haha, if magic really does exist, then doesn't that mean ghosts really exist in this world?"

Xiaolan covered her mouth, squinted her eyes and chuckled. If it weren't for the slight tremor in her tone, Zhixing almost thought that no one believed what she said again.

"I see. As someone related to magic, you're eligible to go back in time. Those who can use magic must be rare, so there aren't many candidates, and you were chosen."

"Besides, since you've emphasized that you're incapable, that means the others should be more or less capable of self-preservation, which is why they're used as experimental subjects."

"After all, even if you know more about the future, it's still just a little information. If you want to cash in on it, you'll have to deal with all the troubles that come with time travel, just like the trouble you're facing now."

Seeing Kudo's nonchalant attitude, Zhi Xing couldn't help but smile bitterly:

"Sure enough, my lies are too crude. Even if you don't believe me, you can easily find something I'm covering up."

"Does that count as lying? Doesn't it clearly emphasize the fact that you're lying? You're not a good liar."

"Oh~ You can tell where I'm telling the truth, right?"

""

"Aren't you going to deny it?" Zhixing closed the notebook he had raised and put it away. Then, looking at Kudo, he asked word by word, "About magic."

"Yeah, Shinichi, that magic thing is probably the most outrageous lie. Shinichi has said before that these are just tricks to deceive people. Right, Shinichi?"

Xiaolan touched Kudo's shoulder and asked carefully for confirmation.

Kudo leaned back in his seat, ruefully touching his head, and replied:

"I know about that sort of thing. Magic and the like are just things that science hasn't been able to explain yet. Even if there's so-called magic involved in this case, it's just a carefully designed mechanism."

"I know it...but I can't see it."

Kudo's exposed eyes blocked Zhixing's sight, and his gaze fell on Zhixing's mouth, or rather, on his lips.

"Even before Kamijou Touma even mentioned he was a foreigner, I noticed that his grammar was terrible."

"But this is Tokyo after all, and it's normal to see foreigners here, so I didn't pay too much attention to it."

"But it's different now. I'm in the car now, so I can see it clearly."

Zhi Xing unconsciously smiled and agreed excitedly:

"I knew that as a detective, you probably know how to lip-read, so you can tell right away that something's wrong."

"Yes, although you tried to cover it with the notebook, I noticed it."

"Although every sentence you said was in Japanese, none of it was actually spoken in Japanese, and... I can't hear any ventriloquism."

Kudo believed that he had absolute pitch and could hear the error of a syllable from a distance of dozens of meters.

But in the small space of the car, whether it was listening to the sound to determine the location or the change in tone, everything was conveying the same answer to Kudo: Kamijou Touma was speaking Japanese with a proper Tokyo accent.

"You guessed right. Although I am a user without special abilities, I am actually just a user who has no knowledge of magic and cannot actively use it. However, I still have passive abilities."

"Although I'd like to call it translation, strictly speaking, it's just communication."

"You can verify this ability of mine at any time. This ability is derived from magic, and it's within the time you can still see me."

The police car took the paper company away from the school.

The only ones left were Kudo Shinichi, Mori Ran, and the number 1 plate held in Kudo's hand.

"Hey, Shinichi, why don't we just stay home and cancel tomorrow's amusement park trip."

"Cancel? No, that was a celebration for Ran's hard-earned victory in the karate tournament. How could it be canceled just because of what some guy said out of nowhere?"

"But, if magic is real, then the future Kamijou spoke of is also..."

"It's okay, Lan. Even if there really is some magic in this world, it doesn't mean that going back to the past is really possible. Besides, didn't he also say that I still have time to verify whether his magic is true? In other words, even if something happens, it won't happen tomorrow."

"After all, he was taken back to the police station by Officer Takagi today. Something must have happened in yesterday's case, so I'm afraid there won't be a chance to meet him tomorrow. Therefore, the time available for verification will definitely be after tomorrow."

"Really?" Xiaolan looked at Kudo with tears in her eyes.

"What? He's a stranger I just met today. Is he more trustworthy than my deduction? Is there anything wrong with my deduction?"

"Yeah, I get it. I believe you, Shinichi."

Xiaolan wiped the tears from her face, looked at Kudo's confident expression, and suppressed the uneasiness in her heart.

"That's it. Okay, it's time to go home. Tomorrow is the amusement park you've been looking forward to, so go to bed early."

"Really? Stop talking to me like a child."

Xiaolan swung her schoolbag and started playing with Kudo at an ordinary person's speed, then walked away towards home.

At this time, Zhixing looked as if he had made his plan and was leaning comfortably in his seat.

"Hey, are the things you just said true?"

Takagi Shigeru, who was listening to the entire process, was driving while glancing at the paper company and questioned.

"Of course it's true. Even the detective believed it, so why wouldn't you believe it?"

"Haha, magic, haha."

Takagi said with a silly smile on his face, and then chose to skip this topic. After all, Takagi didn't have the skill of lip reading, and couldn't tell the language used by Zhixing at all.

"So where are you going next? Do you need me to take you home?"