Conan: When Shinjiu and Maolilan swap bodies

If they really come, hiding won't help!

The living room is at the end of the stairs.

Professor Agasa was curled up on the sofa, wearing his reading glasses, nodding off as he looked at the latest science magazine spread out on his lap.

On the coffee table next to it, half a cup of black tea had long since gone cold, and the plate that had once held cookies was cleaner than a face.

The TV was on, the volume was turned down low, and it was broadcasting the evening weather forecast. The presenter explained the upcoming rain clouds in a calm tone.

Warm yellow light filled the room, immersing everything in a lazy, peaceful, and harmless everyday atmosphere.

There was no unusual smell, no suspicious sound, only the doctor's soft snoring and the muffled background noise from the television.

Ai Haibara stood frozen at the top of the stairs, her gaze quickly sweeping over every corner—the window locks were intact, the curtains hung quietly, the shoes in the entryway were placed as usual, and the chilly feeling from before had disappeared.

Everything... is normal?

That's perfectly normal.

It was so normal that she almost felt her violent reaction in the basement was just a ridiculous hallucination caused by long-term stress.

His tense shoulders relaxed slightly, and a self-deprecating sense of weariness welled up in his heart.

Are you too tired?

Or was it that her subconscious fears were finally starting to interfere with her senses in a more concrete way?

She let out a soft breath and was about to turn around—

Boom—

A thunderclap, seemingly without warning and so close it felt like it was exploding right on the roof, suddenly tore through the night sky.

The loud noise caused the lights to flicker. Startled, Professor Agasa jumped off the sofa, his glasses sliding down to the tip of his nose.

Immediately afterwards, the torrential rain poured down like a celestial river, lashing against the rooftops, windows, and courtyards with a deafening roar.

The rainfall, which had just been vaguely mentioned, instantly transformed into a violent outpouring of nature.

Ai Haibara stood at the top of the stairs, looking out the window.

Outside the window was a dense darkness that swallowed all light, with only occasional flashes of lightning tearing through the sky, briefly illuminating the wildly swaying shadows of the trees and the waterfall-like rain.

Ai Haibara returned to her room on the second floor and gently closed the door.

Only a small bedside lamp was on in the room, casting a warm yellow glow.

Outside the window, lightning still occasionally tore through the night sky, instantly illuminating the room in a stark white light.

She walked to the bedside and pulled out an inconspicuous, locked small fireproof safe from under the bed.

The combination lock turned, making a soft clicking sound. The box contained little: a worn-out photograph, an old-fashioned cassette player, and a few labeled cassette tapes.

Her fingertips brushed over the labels, which bore the familiar handwriting of her parents.

This is a box of cassette tapes that her parents left her, trying to accompany her through each year's birthday in this way.

She pulled out the last cassette tape labeled "18," put it into the player, and pressed play.

The rustling sound of machinery starting up first, exceptionally clear in the intervals between the rain.

Immediately afterwards, a familiar voice came.

Happy 18th birthday, Shiho!

"She's 18 now, and our Shiho has come of age."

"If it's your birthday, you have to eat cake. And you have to put 18 candles on it and blow them out in one go."

"Remember to make a wish! Birthday wishes are the most likely to come true!"

"Haha, Shiho isn't dating anyone? Does she have someone she likes?"

Listening to her parents' smiling voices on the cassette tape, Ai Haibara curled up on the bed and buried her head in her knees.

"...Shiho, our experiment has entered a critical and unsettling phase. That man has given clear instructions to insert a gene lock into the core reverse transcriptase mechanism of APTX..."

“They hope that the drug will eventually only recognize and act on specific genetic lineages. This goes against our original research objectives…”

"Once such a recognition lock based on specific single nucleotide polymorphism clusters and epigenetic markers is added, the drug will lose its greatest potential medical value. It will be reduced from a scientific achievement that could benefit all people to a tool for consolidating the status of a privileged few..."

“We fought back, but… circumstances are beyond our control. For your sake, for our most basic safety… we have no choice but to compromise.”

“…Starting from batch number 1182, all APTX prototype drugs and subsequent derivatives will be limited to three lineages: the Karasuma family, our Miyano family, and the Sera lineage from which your mother originated. This is an irreversible recognition instruction written into the cell receptor of the drug's target…”

Upon hearing this, Ai Haibara, who was curled up, suddenly raised her head.

There was no pause; the tape continued playing, accompanied by sighs and sorrow.

"Watching living samples struggle painfully under the uncontrollable effects of drugs, recording those data... I question myself every day. Are we advancing science, or are we forging the very weapons the devil craves?"

“The project has slipped out of our control. It has gathered top resources from the organization and carried too many dark expectations. It has become a self-accelerating machine, and we... can no longer press the stop button.”

"...We cannot allow a 'perfect youth potion' that is completely controlled by ambition and could utterly distort human society to be created. We are prepared to tamper with it a little..."

"Shiho, listen carefully. The special cloverleaf helix domain formed by protein folding is the core of maintaining stable drug reversal function. We secretly modified the sequence of a seemingly unrelated hydrophobic side chain and introduced an unstable disulfide bridge..."

"As long as someone tries to optimize this region in the direction of 'perfect stability,' forcibly reinforcing or replacing this module that we have tampered with, the conformation of the entire molecule will undergo a catastrophic shift, turning it into a highly toxic substance that triggers rapid apoptosis of all organelles..."

"If the worst-case scenario occurs, and someone bypasses the obstacles and produces a stable, successful product, we also have contingency plans in place..."

"Note down this synthesis path... Its function is to quickly reduce the 'youthfulness' effect and return the device to its original state..."

"This is the last tape. Mom and Dad won't be able to be with you anymore."

"Shiho, we love you."

The tape stopped spinning, and in the cramped space, the last sound was completely swallowed up by the torrential rain outside the window, leaving only a cold and empty silence.

Tears streamed down her cheeks, hot and uncontrollable.

Just then—

A sudden and persistent ringing came from deep inside her coat pocket.

Ai Haibara's crying was abruptly stopped as if by an invisible hand.

With her fingertips still wet with tears, she stiffly pulled out her phone.

The screen lit up, displaying a string of unfamiliar numbers that I had never seen before.

Her gaze froze on the number, her heart felt as if it had been gripped tightly by an icy hand, suddenly contracting, and even her breath caught in her throat for a moment.

The ringing of the bell was like a death knell, stubbornly trembling.

She took a deep breath, her fingertips trembling uncontrollably, and almost instinctively, mechanically held the cold phone to her ear.

The next second, a voice pierced the radio waves, like a venomous snake wrapped in velvet, carrying a lazy yet cruel mockery, clearly drilling into her eardrums:

Hello, Shirley.

Chapter 556 I never imagined I'd be mistaken for someone else one day.

Upon hearing this sound, a bone-chilling cold suddenly surged from the coccyx, like a cold, venomous snake rapidly climbing up the spine, instantly freezing the limbs and bones.

The blood seemed to freeze into ice crystals in the veins, and every pore screamed and trembled.

Koniak! Koniak!

The phone felt like a red-hot branding iron, so hot she almost dropped it, but fear kept her fingers firmly pinned to the cold body of the device.

His throat was gripped tightly by an invisible hand of fear, and he couldn't utter a sound.

Koniak! Koniak!

"The cassette tape was really touching."

The voice on the other end of the line continued, tinged with a cruel irony.

Ai Haibara's face was ashen, and her hand holding the phone trembled violently.

He's eavesdropping?!

The thought exploded in her mind like a thunderclap.

Despair and fear almost instantly engulfed her, but quickly, under this fear, her brain started working at lightning speed.

It was that day! It absolutely was that day!

That Koniak appeared at the door on a rainy day!

He recognized me a long time ago, but pretended not to notice anything until today...

No, not only that.

It's probably not just Koniak.

The strange sensations in the hospital room, the somewhat similar voices, and that eerie attitude...

She abruptly closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, the overwhelming fear was forcibly suppressed, replaced by a sharp, knife-like calmness.

Her trembling fingers steadied, and she spoke in a deep voice, with a resolute air of desperation.

"Should I call you Koniak, or Qingze?"

Although she had little contact with Koniak, she had heard a lot about his personality.

Cynical, cunning, moody, and dangerous...

This is a more dangerous person than Gin.

Gin's behavior and logic are at least traceable, but you simply can't understand what Koniak is trying to do.

It's especially terrifying when they go crazy...

She remembered once accidentally seeing the base's surveillance video, and the horrific scenes of killing gave her nightmares for a long time.

As for Qingze, although we haven't had much contact, judging from our experiences at the Heavenly Gate and the Hot Spring Resort, Qingze is quite different from Koniak.

Although he was almost killed in the explosion, Qingze's anger was restrained. Although the method of pulling people directly out of the ventilation duct was a bit rough, no one would say anything in his anger.

Furthermore, he helped the man afterwards.

This is something Koniak would never do.

If it were Koniak, he would never have tried to help the man who almost killed him. Not only would he not help, but he would also destroy the man's spirit to satisfy his desire for revenge.

As for the men at the hot spring inn who had their eyes on Qingze, although they were already in prison, they were still alive.

If it were Koniak, they wouldn't even have had the chance to be taken to the police station.

The difference between the two was too great. Whether rationally or emotionally, she could not equate Koniak with Qingze.

But she didn't dare to gamble.

She dared not gamble on that possibility, so she could only test the waters in this way.

Qingze sat alone in the dimly lit room, the light from the computer screen faintly illuminating half of his face.

He held his phone in one hand, his fingertips tapping lightly on the table.

On the screen, audio waveforms fluctuate and are recorded and encrypted in real time.

A mocking smile appeared on his lips.

"Qingze? Interesting. I never thought I'd be mistaken for someone else one day."

His voice was deep, still carrying a hint of languor and mockery, like a viper flicking its tongue.

Ai Haibara narrowed her eyes.

No?

If not, how did he discover it? Why did he hold back? What did he want to do by making this call?

"You're not him?" she asked again to confirm.

"Hehe~" A low chuckle came from the other end of the phone, followed by a playful and teasing reply, "Hmm, it's him."

Ai Haibara's expression relaxed a little.

Not good.

"What do you want to do?"

The voice on the other end of the phone was still playful, with a lazy air about it, and the sound of cigarette smoke slowly being exhaled from his lips.