Conan: When Shinjiu and Maolilan swap bodies

Gin scoffed.

"Your skin is thick enough to catch a bullet."

Qingze reached up and touched his face. "No way. If I damage my handsome face, my girlfriend will be heartbroken."

Gin: "...I'm going to throw up."

"Oh? Are you carsick? Looks like you're getting old, you get carsick even when you're driving yourself."

Gin: "..."

He shouldn't have talked to that lunatic!

Qingze yawned.

He hadn't had enough sleep yet.

"Play some music, it's too boring to just sit here like this."

Gin ignored him.

Gin wouldn't let it go, so Aozawa did it himself.

He reached into the front seat, turned on the car radio's FM, tuned the channel, and music began to play softly.

"This old relic really needs replacing; the only way to listen to music is through this method."

Gin didn't indulge him at all. "If you don't want to sit, you can get off and walk."

Qingze, unable to hear, found a comfortable position and closed his eyes to sleep.

In the evening, the car arrived in Gunma Prefecture.

"The first and second targets are both in the mountains of Gunma Prefecture, three kilometers apart. We expect to reach our destination at 8:30. After they fall asleep, we'll sneak in and administer the drugs. Then we'll go to find the third target 30 kilometers away, and then enter Nagano Prefecture..."

Qingze rested his laptop on his knees as he described the itinerary.

There were four targets that night, all of whom were elderly people over 70 years old.

The death of an elderly person is usually considered a natural death, and unless all the elderly people in the family die in one night, it will not attract much attention.

To maintain secrecy, he only chose one elderly person as his target at each location, and the majority of his time was spent on the road.

After explaining the plans for the two days, he looked at Gin and asked, "Do you have any different ideas?"

"Go with your plan."

"Okay." Qingze closed his laptop and looked out the window at the darkening sky. "Let's find a place to rest. I'm hungry."

Even if he wanted to cause trouble at the very beginning of the mission, he couldn't do so now; he had to show a serious attitude on the surface.

We didn't enter the city; instead, we parked the car at a roadside restaurant that served food and lodging.

The sight of such a luxury car stopping immediately attracted a lot of attention.

Qingze got out of the car and stretched.

He took off his hood, revealing a head of silver-white hair. He wore sunglasses and a mask, covering his entire face completely.

Gin still dressed the same as always, with a cold and aloof demeanor.

As soon as the two entered the hotel, people began to whisper among themselves.

"Is that a celebrity? Is that man in the hat a bodyguard?"

"I don't know. He looks pretty fierce, probably a bodyguard."

Qingze listened, a slight smile playing on his lips.

Look, that's the difference.

He toned down his aura, and even if he kept a low profile, he would only be seen as a celebrity.

Unlike some people.

Despite his sleek black outfit, to outsiders he was just a bodyguard.

Gin gave the two people talking a cold glance, and they immediately fell silent, not daring to speak again.

Aozawa placed his hand on Gin's shoulder, patted it gently, and said in an employer-like tone:

"Don't be so fierce, you're scaring people."

Gin: "..."

Dead cargo.

Qingze glanced at the menu, ordered all the most expensive items, and asked them to be delivered to a private room. Then he looked at Gin and adjusted his sunglasses.

"Pay up, bodyguard."

Chapter 515 To Maintain Eternal Youth

Gin gave him a cold glance. "Bodyguards have no obligation to pay."

After saying that, he walked straight to the private room.

"Tsk, stingy."

Qingze took out his wallet, paid the money, and then reminded him, "Remember to get an invoice, I need it reimbursed."

It's impossible to spend your own money. If you work for an organization and still have to spend your own money, that's called losing money.

"Okay, okay."

Qingze sat down in the private room and chattered incessantly while waiting for the food to be served.

"Coming out on missions with you is such a hardship, and you don't even pay for meals..."

Gin closed his eyes to rest, ignoring everything.

Some people get more excited the more you pay attention to them.

Seeing Gin's pathetic state, Qingze curled his lip and took out his phone to send a message to Xiaolan.

【Have you got a meal yet?】

After waiting a while, a message came through.

[Ran Mouri: I'm on my way to the restaurant, what about you?]

[Qingze: Waiting for the food to be served.]

[Qingze: Gin, that stingy bastard, I have to pay for the meal!]

[Qingze: He's such a fake, he ignores me when I talk to him...]

[Qingze: Only vodka would be willing to be his lackey, eating instant noodles with him every day...]

Qingze's fingers flew across the keyboard as he typed rapidly.

Looking at the contents of her phone, Ran Mouri chuckled softly, as if she could hear Aozawa chattering in her ear.

"What are you laughing at?" Sera Masumi leaned closer.

Ran Mouri closed her phone. "It's nothing, Aze is just complaining to me about work."

"That kid left in such a hurry, without even saying goodbye," Kogoro Mori muttered. "What happened to his company? Do he need any help?"

Ran shook her head. "Aze didn't go into details, so he probably doesn't need any help."

"Just say if you need help. I, Kogoro Mouri, am a famous detective, so I have some connections..." Kogoro Mouri was quite concerned about his future son-in-law's career.

"Uh-huh."

Time slips away silently.

The black Porsche drove through the dark forest at night, like a vengeful ghost, slowly approaching its destination.

The first target was an elderly man in his seventies, a grandson of Karasuma Renya, who lived in a Japanese-style house in the mountains of Gunma Prefecture.

Besides the elderly man, there were also some of his children and the household servants.

Qingze sat in the back seat, looking at the information on his laptop while twirling a lighter in his hand.

If efficiency is required, the fastest way would be to give all the people in the room their medicine at once. However, the higher-ups require that this not be done in a way that attracts attention, so we have to proceed slowly.

He looked up, feigning ignorance, and asked, "Gin, what exactly are the effects of APTX4869?"

"Of course, it's about staying young forever."

The moment he uttered those four words, a blazing flame burned deep within Gin's dark green pupils, a mixture of undisguised ambition and naked desire.

Who can resist eternal youth?

Even though he was at the peak of his physical abilities at that moment, this bait called "immortality," hanging in the future, still exuded an irresistible allure.

That was the ultimate carrot dangling in front of the donkey, a pancake that no one could refuse.

It is precisely because this secret is so astonishing that the BOSS dispatched his two sharpest and most loyal swords to carry it out together.

Qingze let out a short, mocking laugh. "Huh? You really believe you can stay young forever?"

“Why not believe me?” Gin’s voice was calm, yet it conveyed a certainty based on facts. “Isn’t there a ready-made example in the organization?”

You mean Vermouth?

Vermouth is a mystery within the organization; most members only know her by her nickname "The Thousand-Faced Witch," and that she is extremely skilled in transformation, disguise, and infiltration.

A small group of core members knew her true identity as the big star Chris Vineyard.

However, this identity is just an illusion.

Only a very few people knew that she was not Chris Vineyard, but Chris Vineyard's mother—the deceased Sharon Vineyard.

This is an absolute secret, unknown to outsiders.

Qingze was able to find out because he had followed Vermouth before and accidentally discovered that Chris and Sharon were both imposters.

Otherwise, he wouldn't know either.

But Gin is different; he knows that.

He knew Vermouth's true identity and that Vermouth had retained her youth.

His loyalty to the organization stemmed from both its power and the authority he held, as well as the bait before him.

Qingze's laughter grew colder, filled with undisguised sarcasm. "The pain Vermouth endures to maintain this youthful appearance is more agonizing than death."

"What does pain matter if it can bring back youth?" Gin said dismissively.

Qingze shook his head, the feigned confusion on his face vanished, leaving only coldness.

Maintaining youth never comes without a price.

The lifespan and number of cell divisions are already written deep within the genes, and with each update and iteration, the cell is approaching that irreversible limit.

The so-called "maintaining youth" is actually forcibly delaying the aging process of all the body's cells.

But this body contains about 40 trillion cells, of many different types, each with a different metabolic cycle.

Forced intervention results in chaos in cell renewal—

Some cells that should have undergone apoptosis failed to replace the previous ones, while some newly formed cells prematurely died.

During each active cell renewal cycle, Vermouth suffers from pain that seems to spread from the depths of her bone marrow.

It wasn't a sudden, intense stimulation, but a continuous, spreading torment, like thousands of tiny needles slowly moving under the skin.

In cases of large-scale cell turnover, this pain can even last for weeks.

It's as if the whole person is being repeatedly dismantled and reassembled by an invisible force, without any wounds, yet the pain is felt in every moment of life.

Therefore, Vermouth hated the Miyano family to death.

Gin didn't care, simply because he hadn't experienced that pain.

"Just like you, what you have is what others can only dream of."

Gin glanced at the person in the back seat through the rearview mirror, his green eyes dark and his tone enigmatic.

You disdain it simply because you possess it.

Only those who possess it have the right to disdain it.

A powerful physique, superhuman combat strength, terrifying healing abilities... which of these isn't something that those who aspire to power dream of?