Conan Rick's Investigator

This is not a condition for Qin Zhibo.

After all, I don’t know what will happen after I hand over the “Pale Mask” to Mr. Clock, so it’s good to have a magician as a backup.

"make a deal……"

……

It makes sense that the day after Wednesday is Sunday.

At 9:00 in the morning, the butler of the Witch House drove a stretched Maybach to take Koizumi Hongzi to the downstairs of the Tomohiro Detective Agency.

Qin Zhibo then connected Koizumi Hongzi to his Mazda 929.

During this time, the housekeeper's expression was quite gloomy, as if the daughter he had raised for more than ten years was pried away in front of him by a wild boy of unknown origin.

Since it was said that she was attending a banquet, Koizumi Akako was dressed quite gorgeously, wearing a crimson dress with a black corset, a suspender around her swan neck, and black stockings on her pencil legs.

"But it's winter outside, Miss..."

Koizumi Hongzi confidently raised her long, drifting hair. "I'm the only heir to the Red Magic. How could I possibly be afraid of winter?"

“Oh ho ho ho ho—”

Koizumi Akako's signature smile echoed in the car.

But the actual situation is that Koizumi Akako put a few hot packs under her black stockings.

……

Driving on the winding and snow-covered mountain road, Qin Zhibo still drove the car smoothly and steadily.

"Your driving skills are pretty good. You can drive so steadily in this kind of road condition?"

Qin Zhibo smiled slightly without explaining.

After all, he is an experienced driver with level 4 car driving proficiency, and he has driven back and forth before, so he is already familiar with the road conditions here.

Just after Qin Zhibo made a steady sharp turn, he suddenly saw a car parked in the middle of the road less than ten meters ahead.

"careful!"

Koizumi Hongzi gasped and screamed.

Qin Zhibo remained calm in the face of danger, slammed the steering wheel with both hands, and made an emergency drift, turning the car sideways just before it was about to hit the car in front.

Although the situation was critical, fortunately there was no danger.

But Koizumi Akako, who was sitting in the passenger seat, was extremely unlucky. She didn't wear a seat belt because she didn't want the seat belt to wrinkle her skirt.

During the emergency drift, Koizumi Akako's head hit the car window due to centrifugal force, making a dull bang.

Koizumi Hongzi fiddled with her hairstyle, pushed open the car door angrily, and was about to issue a "friendly" question to the car in front.

The owner of the car in front was also very embarrassed and walked over from the front of the car to apologize.

"I'm so sorry, we...eh?"

"Eh?"

Koizumi Akako was very surprised when she saw the person who came to apologize, because it was her classmate.

"Nakamori-san?"

It was Qin Zhibo who got out of the car and corrected Koizumi Hongzi's wrong judgment.

"Mao Lilan?"

"Mr. Qin?" Mao Lilan's face was also full of surprise.

"Ran Mori?" Koizumi Akako was also very surprised.

Qin Zhibo leaned close to Koizumi Hongzi's ear and whispered, "This is Mao Li Ran, the one with horns on her head. The Nakamori Aoko you mentioned doesn't have horns on her head..."

After Qin Zhibo's explanation, Koizumi Hongzi observed Mao Lilan's hairstyle again and nodded in sudden realization. "Now that you mention it... it's true..."

Qin Zhibo glanced at the front of the car. After all, where Mao Lilan was, he couldn't leave...

Sure enough, Kogoro Mouri and Conan poked their heads out from the left and right sides of the car respectively.

……

After learning a little about the situation, I found out that Kogoro Mori was also one of the important guests invited to attend Soyoko Akako's banquet.

As for the car stopping halfway, it was not because it broke down.

After all, this time, in order to attend the banquet decently and on time, Kogoro Mouri spent a lot of money to rent a Toyota Crown.

This is a high-end luxury car that the Maori family would never rent under normal circumstances, regardless of whether they are short of money or not.

Having said that, Kogoro Mouri patted the front of the car somewhat boastfully, and then looked at Qin Zhibo's car.

Mazda 929...

Conan, with his crescent eyes showing, complained quietly in his heart: The white Toyota Crown, the black Mazda 929... They are both uncle detectives, and even the cars they rent are competitors.

Under the guidance of Mao Lilan, Qin Zhibo and Koizumi Hongzi learned the reason why the Mao Li family stopped the car.

It turned out that there was a tree stump across the middle of the road blocking their way, and the Maori family was trying to find a way to move the stump.

There was also a threatening letter nailed to the tree stump.

Mao Lilan snatched the threatening letter from Mao Li Kogoro, who wanted to have the information alone, and gave it to Qin Zhibo to read.

Don't help Sufang Hongzi's charity gala, or you'll regret it. — Cursed Masked Messenger (Part 1)

Mask = mask.

This immediately perked up Qin Zhibo and Koizumi Hongzi, who had come to look for the "Pale Mask".

"The blocks of text on the paper were all cut out from newspapers and pieced together. The word 'curse' isn't often seen in newspapers, especially this red 'curse'. I remember it only appearing in the headline 'Spider Curse Reappears' ten days ago."

"This means this person has been eyeing this charity gala for at least ten days."

"And this person might be a guest at tonight's party..."

The first inference was that Qin Zhibo was recently preparing to make a collection of clippings of the cases he had handled, and this was an accidental discovery.

The bright red word "诅咒" (Curse) was a word in the headline of the news report on the Spider House case in Tottori Prefecture. Qin Zhibo had a deep memory of it because it was written in red font.

As for the second inference, Qin Zhibo made it based on Conan's existence.

Conan: What an amazing memory...

"Tsk... I already knew this."

Maori Kogoro was a little dissatisfied as he couldn't deduce any useful information from the threatening letter. He snatched the threatening letter from Qin Zhibo's hand and put it back in his arms.

"Everyone..." Koizumi Hongzi, who was standing next to the tree stump, reminded with a serious face: "Let's first find a way to move this tree stump that is blocking the road."

……

As for how to move the tree stump, people proposed three methods.

One option was to use a car to push the tree stump away, but neither Kogoro Mouri nor Tomohiro Qin wanted to scratch the front bumper of the rented luxury car, so Conan's proposal was rejected on the spot.

The second method is to burn the tree stump with fire, which was proposed by Koizumi Hongzi. If you want to use this method, Koizumi Hongzi has a set of quick fire methods (magic).

However, the idea of waiting for the stump to burn out would have taken a long time, and the fire would have to be extinguished before leaving, so it was also rejected.

So Qin Zhibo proposed the last solution, which was for everyone to carry the tree stump away together.

Qin Zhibo counted and found that there were five people on his side. Excluding Conan, there were still four people left. Moving a tree stump should be no problem.

However, Koizumi Akako immediately said that the clothes she was wearing were inconvenient, and if she had to lift them, she would be unable to help.

"It's okay. I'll help out Koizumi-san."

Mao Lilan and Koizumi Akako met when the TV station's location crew was filming at the Beika Shrine.

At this moment, Mao Lilan looked at Koizumi Hongzi with a smile, which made Koizumi Hongzi's face a little red and her eyes avoided to the side.

In this way, Kogoro Mori, Tomohiro Qin, and Ran Mori were ready and located at one end of the tree stump.

Although it was said that the tree stump was lifted, in actual operation it should have been pushed away.

At Conan's command, the three of them exerted force at the same time, but the tree stump hardly moved at all.

Conan quickly squatted down to check the situation and found that it was a tree stump frozen on the icy road.

Even though Qin Zhibo secretly wore the [Gift of the Golden Tree] on his wrist, the power of 65+70+90 still failed to shake the tree stump at all.

Seeing this situation, Conan was a little anxious. He squatted on the ground and was about to start his foot strength training, preparing to quietly kick the tree stump.

But at this moment, Koizumi Hongzi came over and patted Conan on the shoulder.

"Little boy, are your legs frozen?"

Conan: "?"

It turned out that even though it was below zero today, Conan was still wearing his summer shorts, with his legs exposed to the cold air.

After being reminded by Koizumi Akako, Conan actually felt his lower body trembling.

Koizumi Hongzi pulled out a few heat packs from the slit at the chest of her dress and said, "Go over there and put them on your legs."

"Thanks……"

Conan, with his small eyes, blushed a little. He quickly grabbed the heat pack and ran to the side of the road to squat and apply the heat pack.

After sending Conan away, Koizumi Akako began to quietly cast red magic between her fingers.

A fiery red light flew from the fingertips to the junction of the stump and the ground, quickly melting the frozen part.

Suddenly, the tree stump was pushed by three people, and as if it was lubricated, it was pushed to the side of the road in one breath.

"awesome!"

Looking at the enthusiastic cheers from Mao Li Ran, Koizumi Akako smiled knowingly.

……

After going through many hardships and dangers, the Toyota Crown and Mazda 929 finally drove into the yard of the destination villa.

Since he had inspected the house before, Qin Zhibo was not surprised by the house itself. However, Maori and his daughter were more surprised.

"This is really unavoidable..."

“This mansion is magnificent.”

Don’t worry, it will soon become a haunted house… Qin Zhibo complained in his heart.

At this time, the sharp-eyed Conan first saw a man on the east side of the villa. He was taking pictures of the villa with a camera.

"Isn't that person... the photographer Masaki Katagiri?" Conan murmured.

Mao Lilan followed his gaze and recognized the man's identity. "Yes, that's the photographer who has traveled all over the world and photographed the beautiful scenery of countries around the world for many years."

At this moment, two more cars came speeding from the road outside the mansion.

The man who got out of the black private car in front had dark skin. Qin Zhibo looked at the information above his head. His name was Mamoru Matsudaira, a professional baseball player, with a social credit score of 5000.

Mamoru Matsudaira got out of the car and immediately looked back and forth between Qin Zhibo and Maori Kogoro, and soon he figured out their identities.

"Eh? Aren't you the two famous detective uncles?"

"Hello……"

Although Qin Zhibo didn't know this person, judging from the information above his head, it would be better to say hello.

Maori Kogoro was even more enthusiastic, "It's actually the home run king, Matsudaira Mamoru!"

Katagiri Masanori, who had just been taking pictures, came over and said hello, "Are you also invited to be guests at next week's charity gala?"

Maori Kogoro and Matsudaira Mamoru: "That's right."

At this time, the taxi behind also dropped off one person and drove away.

The person who got out of the car was a tall and slender ascetic beauty with a very cold expression on her pretty face and a perfectly shaped teardrop mole at the corner of her eye.

Qin Zhibo had seen this person before. He had seen her doing a tarot card program with a metaphysical color on TV.

"What a beautiful lady!"

Seeing the beautiful woman of marriageable age, Kogoro Mouri was even more excited than when he saw the ace baseball player just now. He clenched his fists in front of his chest like an LSP.

Mao Lilan was also a little surprised, "That's Miss Nagara Haruka..."

"She's the tarot card reader who's so popular in magazines and on TV!" Matsudaira Mamoru's face was filled with joy upon seeing his idol. "Actually, every time I'm about to go on stage, I choose different gloves based on her divination and my lucky color for the day..."