Conan: When Shinjiu and Maolilan swap bodies

Perhaps both.

Unbeknownst to them, their soft hearts were worn down to have hard edges, and their pure passion was mixed with calm consideration.

She will still shed tears over sad stories, and she will still try her best to protect everything she cherishes, but her threshold for enduring the enemy and the direct confrontation with death has been cruelly broadened.

She once said Shinichi had changed, and now, she has too…

They are all changing, being changed by experience, by time, and by the environment.

The sea breeze tousled her hair, and her thin coat offered little protection against the chill of the night.

She hugged her arms, but felt the coldness seeping from her heart.

She is no longer the Ran Mouri who absolutely refused to see anyone die in front of her.

The sea breeze blew gently as she stood there, not knowing how long she had been standing there.

Footsteps sounded behind her, and a warm coat was draped over her shoulders.

"Why are you standing here in the wind? It's cold, you'll catch a cold if you stay here too long."

Ran Mouri looked at Shiratama, who had taken off her coat, and draped the coat back over her shoulders.

"Let's go back. It's getting late, and if it gets any later, my parents will call and ask what's wrong."

She took a deep breath of the cold air, suppressing her chaotic thoughts and weak sense of loss into the deepest part of her heart.

There's nothing wrong with change.

She had to move forward.

Even if there are deeper shadows ahead, and the person behind has unknowingly changed.

Inside the car, the heater gradually dispelled the bone-chilling cold.

Bai Yu skillfully drove the vehicle away from the coast, but her eyes kept glancing at the girl in the passenger seat.

Ran Mouri quietly watched the blurry night scene rushing past the window. Her profile appeared exceptionally calm and... unfathomable in the dim light of the dashboard.

The silence lasted for a moment, and Bai Yu's fingers tightened slightly around the steering wheel.

She hadn't realized it before, but now that she thinks about it, this was probably the first time Xiaolan had directly faced the death of someone else, or perhaps it was indirectly caused by them, a death she chose after being driven to the brink of despair.

"Xiaolan, when I was cleaning up the traces just now, I carefully examined that villa..."

Ran Mouri turned her gaze from the window to Shiratama, indicating that she was listening.

"That villa... doesn't seem to belong to Freward. The signs of life inside don't quite match hers. It's more like... she disposed of the original residents and forcibly occupied it..."

Bai Yu spoke clearly and logically, presenting the bloody facts in a calm tone.

“Freward used to work in the United States, where there are laws against ‘adverse appropriation’ in some areas. She probably followed the American practice, only her methods were different…”

Bai Yu paused, not describing the specific details, but that brief pause and slightly cold tone were enough to illustrate the cruelty and directness of the method.

Ran Mouri's fingers tightened slightly.

Bai Yu's gaze swept quickly across Ran Mouri's face, trying to capture her emotions. Her tone became more serious, carrying an almost clumsy attempt at comfort.

"So you don't need to feel guilty or upset because you couldn't save her tonight or because of her death."

"Not everyone deserves to be saved."

Ran Mouri listened quietly, her gaze meeting Shiratama's worried yet earnest eyes, and she responded very softly, yet very clearly:

"Ah."

......

Qingze opened his eyes while lying in the consciousness retracing pod.

My consciousness was still immersed in the memories, and I hadn't quite recovered.

After a while, he sat up and looked at Dr. Payton who was approaching.

Compared to the Dr. Payton we saw before, the current Dr. Payton has dark circles under his eyes, but his eyes are surprisingly bright, as if he has been staying up late for a long time.

Seeing that Qingze was relatively calm, Dr. Peyton breathed a sigh of relief.

"How long has it been?" Qingze asked.

"Nearly 20 hours."

"It's much shorter than before."

"Because this time we used a more precise harmonic localization and reverse compensation algorithm, which significantly reduced unnecessary neural generalization inhibition, efficiency was naturally improved. And your neural adaptability also seems to have improved..."

Dr. Payton leaned forward slightly, his voice carrying a seductive satisfaction:

"Look, this time, your core emotional fluctuations remained within the preset safety threshold for most of the time. I wasn't lying to you, was I? This targeted harmonic intervention is very effective in stabilizing your emotional baseline."

"As long as you persist with the treatment regimen, it is entirely possible for your bipolar disorder symptoms to be fundamentally relieved..."

"And what about the frequency of consciousness? How much has it been modified?"

"This long-term and meticulous project is connected to more fundamental neural architectures and cognitive patterns, requiring gradual adaptation and consolidation. This time, only a small modification was made..."

"How much is 'a little bit'?"

Dr. Payton considered the adjectives, "It's like changing the direction of a small line on a fingerprint."

Qingze looked at him, his face expressionless.

Dr. Payton met his gaze without flinching.

A few seconds later, Qingze nodded.

"That's enough for now. I'm hungry."

As soon as he finished speaking, he stepped straight out of the metal cabin and headed towards the exit.

The automatic door slid open silently, swallowing his back.

Dr. Peyton stood there, his fingertips unconsciously tracing the edge of the electronic recording tablet.

He stared at the direction the door was closing, then looked down at the screen—on it, several curves representing the basic frequency of consciousness had a few barely perceptible bends, slowly shifting towards the preset template.

Chapter 546 Meeting Sees a Hundred Sorrows

The streets were silent at one o'clock in the morning, and Gin's Porsche was still parked in the same spot.

Qingze got into the driver's seat, took out his phone, and really wanted to call Lan.

I took out my phone and looked at it for a while, but eventually put it back in my pocket.

It's too late; she should already be asleep.

Back at his place, he took a shower, tidied himself up, ate something, and sat on the sofa in a daze.

I can't sleep anymore. I've slept for dozens of hours, but I'm not sleepy at all.

There was no desire to do anything else.

Looking at the lock screen photo on my phone, I couldn't suppress my longing.

They say a day apart feels like three autumns, and if you think about it carefully, it's been many years since we last met.

After sitting there for a while, he changed his coat and went out the door.

Ran Mouri is having trouble sleeping.

She tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, the image of Friedwood's suicide flashed before her eyes.

Fryward was not a good person; in fact, he was a complete villain.

Even so, the heavy feeling of watching her commit suicide in front of him, and the sense of oppression he felt as a bystander, still weighed heavily on his heart.

It wasn't guilt, self-blame, or sadness; it was just a dull, very low mood.

Suddenly, she heard a noise coming from her bedroom door.

Startled, she immediately sat up in bed and fastened the multi-functional bracelet on her wrist.

The door was gently pushed open.

Moonlight shone through the gap in the curtains, perfectly outlining the tall, familiar figure at the doorway.

It is Qingze.

Seeing Ran Mouri sitting on the bed, he paused, then closed the door behind him, the sound of the lock almost inaudible.

"Still not asleep?"

He asked in a low voice, which sounded particularly gentle in the quiet night.

The moment Ran saw him, her nose tingled, a strong sense of grievance and belated dependence welled up in her heart, and her eyes uncontrollably burned.

She threw back the covers, stepped barefoot onto the cool floor, and rushed into his arms.

She wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, burying her face deep in his chest, as if trying to confirm his presence.

“...Aze.”

Qingze caught her steadily, wrapped his arms around her shoulders and back, and gently rested his chin on the top of her soft hair.

The familiar fragrance and body temperature gently soothed his longing of the past few days, and his empty heart finally settled down.

They embraced quietly for a moment, then he bent down, slipped one hand under her knees, and easily lifted her up in his arms, carrying her back to the window and placing her back on the still-warm bed.

"Don't catch a cold," he said softly, holding her bare feet in his palm, which had become icy cold in just a moment.

He gently rubbed her, pulled the blanket over her carefully, and then sat down on the edge of the bed.

Just as he was about to ask her what was wrong, a pair of soft arms wrapped around his neck and pulled him down with a slightly forceful pull.

The next second, soft, warm lips pressed against mine.

Their lips and teeth gently intertwined, their breaths mingling, and the moonlight quietly filled the room.

All the dull and complicated emotions were slowly soothed in this kiss, turning into a sweetness that deepened between the lips.

After a long while, Qingze released the kiss and stepped back slightly.

His breathing was a little erratic, and he reached out to gently brush a strand of hair behind her ear.

"what happened?"

Ran Mouri looked into his eyes, which were so close to hers. In the dim light, she couldn't see them clearly, but she could feel that her small reflection was in them.

The heavy stone in my heart suddenly loosened.

She didn't say anything, but tightened her arms around his waist slightly, pulling him down into the soft bed.

Qingze half-supported himself and fell to the side of the bed, blinking his eyes, momentarily at a loss.

He really just wanted to visit her; he didn't intend to squeeze into this not-so-wide single bed...

However... well... it's not impossible.

"Aze," Ran buried her face in his shoulder, her voice muffled and slightly nasal, "stay with me for a while."

"……it is good."

He responded softly, kicked off his shoes, took off his coat, lifted the corner of the blanket, and carefully squeezed into the spot next to her.

The bed was indeed small, and the two of them sat shoulder to shoulder, their body heat subtly passing through their thin pajamas.

Ran Mouri pulled the blanket over them and wrapped them up tightly.

They lay side by side, staring at the blurry light and shadow on the ceiling in the dim light, neither of them speaking for a moment.

In the silence, the two seemed to be of one mind, and simultaneously turned their heads slightly.

Their eyes met right next to each other.

Qingze simply propped up his elbow, turned halfway to the side, and rested his face in his palm, quietly watching her.

The moonlight outlined his features, and a gentle light shone in his eyes.

Ran Mouri stared at his face so close to hers, and the ambiguous figure in that fake photo flashed uncontrollably through her mind.

A feeling that was hard to define—whether it was resentment, possessiveness, or lingering fear—suddenly welled up inside me.

She reached out and hugged him like a koala, draping one leg around his waist and holding him tightly.

Qingze was caught off guard by her actions and froze.