Conan: When Shinjiu and Maolilan swap bodies

Aozawa's ability to provoke people was simply too strong. As soon as he uttered those slightly teasing words, Amuro Tooru immediately flew into a rage.

"Koniak!"

Amuro Tooru clenched his teeth, his fists clenched tightly under the table, his hatred and anger completely overshadowing his sorrow.

Qingze seemed completely oblivious to the other person's disgust. He took out a chocolate from his pocket, looked at the chocolate in his hand, and slowly tore off the foil.

"Do you feel embarrassed when I see you crying? There's really no need to be."

His voice was steady, with a casual, conversational quality.

"Tears do not inherently represent weakness. All those negative connotations about 'a man does not easily shed tears' or 'crying means being weak' are man-made shackles."

"It's just a physiological reaction, a natural outlet when emotions are overflowing. I actually think... it's a good thing to be able to release them."

He paused, a mocking and self-deprecating smile playing on his lips.

"Unlike me, when I want to cry, my body can't even produce a tear..."

He rarely talks about his own affairs, but his tone is like that of an outsider who is detached from them.

Amuro Tooru's anger and wariness were disrupted by the abrupt turn in these words, and most of it subsided, replaced by confusion and a sense of unease about the intended meaning.

It was clearly an attitude of watching him make a fool of himself, but there was also a hint of awkwardness, almost comforting.

He stared at Qingze's face, trying to discern something from it.

Qingze lowered his eyes slightly and finally peeled the chocolate ball completely out of the foil.

He looked up, his posture as casual as ever, "Why are you looking at me? Want some?"

As he spoke, he popped the chocolate ball into his mouth.

Then, he leaned back comfortably in his chair, his fingers tapping lightly on the table, relaxed, but his gaze remained fixed on Amuro Tooru's face.

"Let me guess, Shuichi Akai contacted you not long ago, right?"

Amuro Tooru sneered, not denying it, "You're quite the strategist."

Qingze raised an eyebrow slightly, neither confirming nor denying.

"Your emotional reaction is so strong, and you even cried, he must have said something terrible..."

Qingze tapped the table faster and faster, quickly connecting all the information he knew in his mind.

Although he hasn't been organizing any activities in recent years, he has been keeping up with the organization's news.

Back when the Whiskey Trio was together, Bourbon and Rye at most didn't like each other, but they weren't that bad at all.

But after the Scotch Whisky undercover agent's identity was exposed and he died, Bourbon's relationship with Shuichi Akai became extremely hostile.

You might not think about it that much normally, but once you have more related conditions, the truth seems to be about to be revealed.

Scotch whisky is an undercover agent, and so is bourbon; the two become acquainted.

And the reason for the hatred is that Scotch whisky died at the hands of Shuichi Akai.

"...Because of Scotland?"

Amuro Tooru's pupils contracted sharply, his breathing quickened, and his eyes were fixed on Aozawa.

How did he know?!

Amuro Tooru's reaction was not obvious, but Aozawa, who was watching him, still noticed.

He nodded knowingly. "It seems so. What, is there more to the story of Scotland's death?"

Amuro Tooru remained silent, his jaw clenched, and his fist under the table tightened even more, his nails almost digging into his palm.

Aozawa didn't need his answer. Amuro Tooru's silence and turbulent emotions were the answer in themselves.

He boldly continued his deduction along the chain of logic:

"Shuichi Akai wanted to ask you for help, so he wanted to resolve the conflict between us, but your reaction was so strong, as if your beliefs had collapsed and you were completely devastated, which means that the truth is unacceptable and you are in great pain..."

Aozawa carefully examined Amuro Tooru's suddenly pale face, which was filled with struggle and pain, and his tone carried an almost cruel certainty:

"So, he died protecting you?"

"Shut up!"

Amuro Tooru suddenly stood up and slammed his fist on the table with a dull thud.

His eyes were bloodshot and his chest heaved violently, like a wounded beast driven to the edge of a cliff, still roaring.

He braced himself on the table with both hands, leaning forward, staring intently at Qingze, his voice hoarse and broken:

"Are you here to show off your reasoning skills and then derive pleasure from my suffering?!"

"I have no interest in enjoying other people's suffering."

Qingze's answer was surprisingly calm, even somewhat indifferent.

Qingze took out a handful of candies from his pocket, picked out a watermelon-flavored one, and placed it on the table.

"Eating something sweet can help improve your mood, how about one?"

Chapter 442 I've been crazy for a long time

This overly ordinary, even somewhat abrupt, action caused Amuro Tooru's accumulated momentum to suddenly falter, like punching cotton.

He was panting heavily, staring at the colorful candy lying quietly on the table, then at Qingze's expressionless face, before finally sitting back down in his chair, exhausted.

The anger receded like the tide, leaving behind a deeper weariness and a cold emptiness.

He looked at the enigmatic man before him with an unusually complex expression, concealing all outward emotions.

In his mind, the scattered information about Koniak that he had painstakingly collected kept surging uncontrollably.

And those lines of disciplinary records soaked in blood and tears.

He picked up the candy on the table, tore open the wrapper, and threw it into his mouth.

The sweetness spread, and the sadness and pain seemed to dissipate somewhat.

He raised his eyes, his probing gaze falling on Qingze, and asked a question that had been lingering in his mind for a long time:

"I'm curious, why haven't you gone crazy yet?"

From a helpless experimental subject to the fearsome Koniak he is today, every step has been paved with blood and tears.

This man, whom others see as crazy or mentally ill, is sometimes so normal that it seems he shouldn't be normal.

Whether it was the comfort hidden in thorns or the words that were deliberately provocative and tried to distract him from his emotions, it showed that he had normal empathy.

This person is completely different from the one the organization has been talking about.

Qingze looked up at him, leaning forward slightly. In an instant, a palpable killing intent emanated from him, and the warm yellow lights in the coffee shop seemed to dim slightly.

A mocking smile curled at the corner of his lips, and a chilling madness flashed in his eyes.

"You think I'm not crazy?"

Seeing Amuro Tooru instantly adopt a defensive posture, his muscles tense as if facing a formidable enemy, Aozawa suddenly sneered, and that terrifying killing intent vanished as if it were an illusion.

He leaned back in his chair, his expression returning to indifference, even a hint of weariness.

"I've been crazy for a long time."

He tore open a piece of candy, threw it into his mouth, and chewed it with a crunching sound.

Amuro Tooru's expression was unusually complex, a mixture of disgust, wariness, fear, and even admiration that he himself was unaware of.

Don't you hate it?

Qingze paused for a moment while chewing, and then a deeper sarcasm appeared on his face—a smile steeped in darkness and coldness.

"Why do you think I would cooperate with you? I hate it, I hate it to death."

He looked into Amuro Tooru's eyes, at the complex emotions swirling on his face, and felt as if dark waves were surging within his own.

"Thirteen years, do you know how I've survived these thirteen years?"

His voice remained unchanged, yet it carried a suppressed, calm madness.

"Do you know who sent me back after I finally escaped from hell?"

He stood up and placed his fingers on the area above Amuro Tooru's chest, where the police badges on their uniforms were located.

"It's you guys."

His voice was as soft as a sigh, yet as heavy as a thousand pounds.

"It's you... police officers who represent justice and order."

Amuro Tooru's body stiffened.

“You drove me to madness, to insanity, and then you can stand in your moral court and point your clean finger at me and say—look, this monster deserves what he got.”

Qingze spoke sarcastically, offering no accusation, only mockery.

"You think I have blood on my hands and am unforgivably guilty. What about you?"

He countered with a question, his voice low but each word clear, like the chisel of an icicle.

"You think my hands are stained with blood and I am unforgivable? But are the hands of you who come into the darkness under the banner of justice really clean?"

"Those choices made and sacrifices made for a 'greater goal'... what is the essential difference between you and me?"

He drew a smile that wasn't particularly funny, but the biting mockery was almost overflowing.

"The difference is that you carry that flag called justice, and you have so-called beliefs in your heart. I don't, do I?"

His gaze seemed to pierce through Amuro Tooru, looking towards a more distant and ethereal place.

"I am innocent, but how can your Prime Minister be innocent? Your Unification Church has drained the blood of so many ordinary people and destroyed so many families."

"Whom can we turn to for the justice you always talk about, those silent tears and collapsed lives?"

At this point, Qingze refocused his gaze on Amuro Tooru's face, looking down at him with indifferent eyes.

"You despise me and think I'm scum. Coincidentally, I also think you're nothing special."

"If your beliefs crumble after learning just a little bit of the truth, then your beliefs are nothing special."

"As an undercover agent, one must live up to the sacrifices and contributions of those who came before."

This condescending, detached judgment instantly ignited the embers that had not yet been extinguished in Amuro Tooru's heart.

"What do you know?!" He suddenly looked up, roaring fiercely, his eyes filled with almost ferocious pain. "He was killed by me! He was killed by me—"

The voice abruptly broke off, as if choked by an invisible force, leaving only a hoarse whisper and a trembling on the verge of collapse.

"...It's me."

He covered his face tightly with both hands, suppressing sobs leaking through his fingers, and scalding tears flowed uncontrollably again.

Qingze remained silent, watching him shed tears.

I've been seeing people cry quite a lot lately.

After a long while, Amuro Tooru's trembling gradually subsided.

He removed his hands from his face, staring blankly at the wet stains on his palms smeared with tears, his eyes vacant, as if his soul had been ripped away, leaving only an empty shell hollowed out by sorrow.

"Why do you say you killed him?" Qingze's voice broke the silence, his tone calm and emotionless, more like a simple question.

What is your connection to Scotland?

Amuro Tooru's eyes moved slowly, his gaze focusing on the person opposite him.

Unexpectedly, the other person's face no longer held the usual infuriating mockery or ridicule; instead, their expression was calm, like that of a listener who could accept everything.

He was somewhat confused.

A listener?

Koniak?

To confide your deepest pain to an enemy? That's the most absurd mockery of fate.

Perhaps his emotions had truly hit rock bottom, or perhaps the comfort from his enemy was too harsh, or perhaps the other person's emotional outburst had stirred his urge to confide in them...

He desperately needed to grasp at something, even a dangerous straw from the enemy, to prevent himself from sinking completely.

He opened his mouth, and his dry throat bobbed.