Conan Rick's Investigator

Putting down the juice in his hand, Conan looked at the delicious food on the table and swallowed his saliva uncontrollably.

In fact, just after five o'clock in the afternoon, Conan secretly ran to the kitchen to peek several times, to check on the progress of dinner preparation.

Children's bodies are indeed not able to resist hunger.

But now when the food was actually served, Conan was reluctant to eat it.

Because these dishes are made so much like a beautiful work of art!

Whether it is the exquisiteness of the plating or the color, aroma and taste of the dishes themselves, they are no less than any top restaurant he has ever visited as Kudo Shinichi.

If we follow a more futuristic view, such dishes must be photographed before they can be eaten.

At this time, Kogoro Mouri, who was sitting opposite him, was already eating with relish.

"Really delicious!"

“This dish is so delicious!”

Not only Kogoro Mori, but everyone else present also expressed their approval after taking the first bite.

So Conan couldn't wait to use a fork to pick up the meat that had been cut into small pieces and put it into his mouth.

The delicious gravy with a hint of tomato flavor burst in his mouth, and the delicious feeling of happiness came from his taste buds, instantly enveloping Conan's whole body.

Wow!

It's really delicious!

Conan's face was filled with a happy smile.

However, at this moment when everyone is enjoying the happiness of being carnivores, there seems to be a "herbivore".

Qin Zhibo's fork did not touch the main course on the plate, but instead kept moving back and forth between the vegetable salad and dessert.

Looking at Qin Zhibo who was "eating grass" diagonally opposite, a smile appeared on Matsumoto Ryohei's face.

Ryohei Matsumoto pointed his fork at a piece of meat on his plate and raised it in front of himself.

There was a little bit of gray-green spice powder on it.

This is when the raw meat is dipped in cornstarch, a little bit of spice powder is added to the cornstarch, and then it is stuck to the meat and fried.

Of the 11 main courses on the table, only one was prepared this way.

But when the dish was about to be served, in order to achieve harmony in the presentation, Matsumoto Ryohei randomly placed a piece of meat from that portion on top of another main dish.

As luck would have it, there was a piece of meat covered with spice powder on Qin Zhibo's main course.

……

After eating and drinking, everyone sat on the sofa and tasted the rosemary tea brought by Matsumoto Ryohei.

“This tea smells so good!”

"And that dinner just now was delicious too."

In response to Mao Lilan's praise, Matsumoto Ryohei smiled back and said bluntly: "Today's dinner is not perfect..."

Mao Lilan didn't understand what Matsumoto Ryohei meant by "perfect" and continued to praise, "It's already very good! Your cooking skills are no less than those of professional chefs in big restaurants!"

In fact, Matsumoto Ryohei is aware of his recent great progress in cooking skills.

Since leaving his job as a butler, Matsumoto Ryohei has had more time and private space to study what makes a touching dish.

Especially under the lethal threat of prions, how to produce satisfying delicacies within extremely limited meat consumption has become one of the important research topics of Matsumoto Ryohei during this period.

At this time, Kogoro Mouri on the other side of the sofa spoke.

"Mr. Matsumoto's cooking is truly delicious, but there is one flaw..."

"That's because the amount is too small, haha!"

Kogoro Mouri teased with interest, and Conan next to him rolled his eyes at Kogoro Mouri.

Really...didn't you eat Qin Zhibo's share?

On the sofa beside the round table, Daisuke Torakura took a last sip of the rosemary tea in the cup, winked in the direction of Kogoro Mori, and stood up.

"I still have some manuscripts to finish for this month, so I'll go back to my study."

"Everyone, please stop accompanying me."

After Daisuke Torakura left, everyone started looking for their own after-dinner entertainment activities.

Etsuko Torakura sat at the bar, smoking silently.

Toshiya Tadokoro was pushing a cart and busying himself doing housework in the villa.

Kogoro Mouri set his sights on the first person he needed to eliminate as an extramarital affair - the editor Fumio Doi, and tried to get close to him by sitting on the sofa at the round table.

For the rest, classic playing cards have become their first choice for entertainment.

Ryohei Matsumoto and Minoru Asano both joined the game, and they sat at the same table with the Colan duo and folklore researcher Shuichi Hamura.

Knowing Mao Lilan's luck value, Qin Zhibo, who didn't want to be bored, chose to watch the game.

During the card game, Mao Lilan suddenly asked curiously: "Mr. Hamura, Deshura is actually a fictional character, right?"

Hamura Hideichi raised his pince-nez and answered with the seriousness of a scholar, "That's right, Count de Sura is actually a fictional monster in the novel published by British author Bram Stoker in 1897."

"However, according to legend, there really were brutal acts like this vampire count in medieval Europe."

"So there are quite a few people who firmly believe in the existence of vampires."

As soon as Shuichi Hamura finished speaking, Conan, who wanted to cure Ran Mouri's fear of gods and ghosts, began to teach her about science.

"Sister Xiaolan, in fact, the so-called vampire is the rabies of humans, because the symptoms of the two are very similar."

"Fear of light, fear of pungent smells, pale complexion, desire to bite, and infection after being bitten, etc."

"It's just that in that era of underdeveloped technology, it was impossible to diagnose the source of these symptoms, so they just became vampires."

"Right? Uncle Qin?"

After the popular science lecture, in order to avoid suspicion, Conan suddenly decided to turn the conversation to Qin Zhibo who was standing next to him.

But Qin Zhibo replied with two words in a daze.

"wrong……"

Chapter 167 Another mysterious myth book?

When the topic shifted to vampires, the first thing Qin Zhibo thought of was the dog-headed man he had met before.

Although vampires in legends feed on blood and kobolds eat human corpses and even attack living people, the similarity between the two is not 100%.

But in the long course of history, some legends will change after being fabricated by later generations.

Just like how Mi-Go transformed into the monk-like Mist Tengu, the victims attacked by the Great Being during the blizzard transformed into the peerlessly beautiful Snow Woman...

In this world, folk legends may not be completely non-existent, but they have changed their meaning due to the evolution of time and speculations that ordinary people cannot understand.

So Qin Zhibo subconsciously rejected Conan's statement that completely denied the existence of "vampires".

"Won't……"

When Conan heard Qin Zhibo's answer, he realized that he had found the wrong foreign aid.

In previous contacts, Qin Zhibo seemed to believe in those supernatural things.

That's not detective at all!

Sitting across from him, Hamura Shuichi looked at Qin Zhibo with great interest and agreed in a literary manner, "Actually, I also tend to believe that vampires do exist."

"However, based on the historical documents and materials that have been left, it is difficult to prove this view."

"Teacher Torakura is an authority on vampire research and has collected a lot of ancient documents. It is for these documents that I often come here to disturb you."

Ancient documents!

When Qin Zhibo heard this keyword, he immediately became interested.

“Can I go and look at those documents?”

Seeing that Qin Zhibo was actually interested in the ancient documents here, Shuichi Hamura's face showed a happy expression of meeting a "fellow traveler".

"Of course, I don't think Torakura-sensei would mind, right?"

As he spoke, Hideichi Hamura glanced at Toshiya Tadokoro next to him, as if he could enter the library as long as he got the consent of his student Toshiya Tadokoro.

Standing nearby, Tadokoro Toshiya nodded with a blank expression and said, "It should be fine. In fact, the teacher himself doesn't often read those ancient documents."

"Because most of the literature is in foreign languages, the teacher can't quite understand it..."

"Moreover, compared to words, the teacher believes that strong images and real objects can better inspire inspiration and creativity."

……

Under the leadership of Toshiya Tadokoro, all the people who had just been playing cards around the card table came to the library in the basement of the villa.

"This library contains vampire literature from all over the world, as well as various related ancient documents."

"The teacher calls this place the 'Vampire Library'."

In this space of about ten square meters, two rows of antique bookshelves are filled with books.

The books on one of the bookshelves were relatively modern judging by the spines, and were obviously vampire literature collected by Daisuke Torakura.

Looking at the many books in front of her, Mao Lilan couldn't help but sigh.

“It’s really amazing that there are so many.”

Ma Chengshi picked up a book at random in front of the bookshelf and was about to take a look when he was shocked by the cover.

The cover of the book is filled with a lot of bright yellow, and the scarlet text lines are located in a small area at the top of the cover.

Just these large areas of pure yellow scared Ma Chengshi so much that he let go of his hands and the book fell to the ground.

Fortunately, Shu Hamura next to him was quick to catch the book and smiled as he explained the value of the book to Masashi.

"This copy of 'Descura' is from the 1897 first edition, a treasure of vampire literature. There's probably only one copy left in Japan. It would be bad if it fell to the ground..."

After listening to Shuichi Hamura's introduction, Conan felt a sigh of relief.

Fortunately, this precious first edition book did not fall to the ground, otherwise Dr. Chengshi would have to pay a lot of money.

However, Masami Miura, who almost caused a disaster, did not react at all to Hamura Shuichi's words, and stared blankly at the void in front of him.

Qin Zhibo, who was standing by, noticed that something was wrong with Ma Chengshi's eyes, and quickly patted Ma Chengshi on the shoulder to bring him back to his senses.

"What's wrong?" Qin Zhibo whispered in Ma Chengshi's ear.

Masami crossed his arms, trembling as if he had just returned from a very cold place, and said, "I just saw a book slowly opening in front of me..."

"A pornographic book..."

Qin Zhibo knew what Masashi might be afraid of: a pornographic book?

Conan, who was standing nearby and eavesdropping: A pornographic book?

Mao Lilan, who happened to only hear the second half of the sentence: Yellow...H book?

……

Toshiya Tadokoro took Asano Minoru, who was feeling unwell, to the bedroom of the villa to rest, and Shuichi Hamura then introduced him to everyone.

"Besides the precious first edition of 'Descura' I just mentioned, we also have 'Interview with the Vampire,' 'Lestat the Vampire,' 'Queen of the Vampires,' and 'The Body Thief'..."

"Any vampire literature you can imagine can be found here."

Shuichi Hamura mainly introduced him to Qin Zhibo, because Qin Zhibo had just expressed the view that vampires might exist, and he was a like-minded person to him.

However, Qin Zhibo is not interested in these fabrications of later generations.

After walking around the first bookshelf, Qin Zhibo came to the second bookshelf.

The books on this bookshelf have obviously old spines.

Qin Zhibo only took a quick glance and saw the investigation point on one of the ridges of the book.

I knew it!

Qin Zhibo quickly stepped forward and pulled the book from the bookshelf.