*Bonus Chapter in thanks for the review by YesName*
Jiangxia Tongzhi recalled the location of Hattori Heiji's room.
Then he quietly released his shikigami, letting it form a puppet in the woods outside the hotel.
This time, Jiangxia chose to model it after Xiaobai.
The puppet's hair and clothes could be adjusted within certain limits depending on the number of shikigami he had.
The Xiaobai puppet was a little boy, but since the gender of kids wasn't as obvious as adults, Jiangxia stretched the puppet's hair to its limit, pretending it was a long-haired black-haired little girl. He also widened the puppet's pants, making them look like a black skirt.
After making these adjustments, he drove the puppet toward the edge of the woods—just far enough for it to be seen from Hattori Heiji's room.
Everyone else was still gathered in the lobby. Only Hattori Heiji, self-isolating and drowning in homework, was upstairs. He alone would witness the following operation.
…
Hattori Heiji was doing his math problems when he suddenly heard the faint rustling of leaves outside. It wasn't loud, but compared to the earlier silence, it stood out sharply.
Heiji looked up and spotted a sneaky little girl in the woods.
The girl had her back to him, gazing up at a high branch where something of hers seemed to be stuck.
Although Hattori Heiji had recently declared he would "wash his hands of the golden pot" of detective work, his sharp thinking and observation skills hadn't dulled yet. He immediately noticed something suspicious—how could such a small child suddenly appear in the woods? The nearest villa was at least an hour's walk away...
The little girl, too short to reach the branch, was jumping up and down, clearly struggling. The sight made Heiji anxious just watching.
Suppressing his doubts, he decided to go down and help her—and maybe figure out what was going on.
He pulled out his chair, ready to stand up—then froze, staring outside, eyes widening in shock.
In the woods, the "little girl" suddenly let out a sigh after several failed attempts. Then, in an instant, her figure stretched and grew—turning into a tall woman dressed all in black.
The woman stood on tiptoe and easily plucked the item off the branch.
Then, just as quickly, she shrank back into the little girl form and darted into the woods.
Hattori Heiji slammed into his desk and froze like a stone statue: "?!!!"
...What the hell did I just witness?!!!
For a moment, Heiji could practically hear a "crack"—the sound of his worldview shattering.
…
Jiangxia, safely out of Heiji's line of sight, deactivated the puppet, returned his consciousness to his body, and opened his eyes in the living room.
This time, this simple and brutal "forced worldview reorganization" had some flaws—like the suspicious change of clothes—but Hattori Heiji definitely wouldn't be thinking about that right now.
Even if he noticed, who cared? If people could expand and shrink at will, why couldn't clothes? Honestly, clothes that expand and shrink are way easier to make than self-expanding and shrinking humans.
As Jiangxia was thinking this, there was a sudden loud bang from upstairs.
Hattori Heiji had flung open his door, dashed down in two steps, and bolted out the hotel entrance.
…
Just a minute earlier, after an extended moment of being petrified, Hattori Heiji's brain had finally started working again.
The first thing he did was run straight to the scene.
The tree was easy to recognize—it had a distinct shape.
When he got closer, he found, to his complicated horror, that it hadn't been an illusion. A few small twigs were freshly broken, as if something had just been snagged there. The dead leaves on the ground were trampled in a chaotic mess.
Faced with this real physical evidence, Hattori Heiji fell silent.
...Does this mean there's really someone who can change their body size drastically?
Hattori Heiji was utterly lost.
He hesitated. He originally wanted to follow the trail where the "woman" or "girl" had disappeared.
But just as he was about to move, a thought he had long suppressed suddenly popped into his mind again—and this time, it refused to be buried.
If such a technology really existed, he didn't need to go digging in the mountains to find it. Someone suspicious was right in this hotel.
Someone smart, calm, and way too composed for a normal kid.
Someone named Conan Edogawa.
Once the idea took hold, he couldn't suppress it anymore.
Yes, sure, sometimes Conan acted like a bear child. Hattori even remembered Conan stepping on him in the middle of the night. But compared to that occasional childishness, almost everything else pointed to a terrifying conclusion—Kudo Shinichi didn't just "disappear" because he was good at hiding.
He disappeared because he had become a child.
…
Back in the lobby, a few dozen meters away, Conan suddenly felt a chill down his spine.
He whipped his head around and saw Jiangxia sitting with his chin in his hand, his gaze glued to the murderer lurking in the corner.
Conan: "..."
Was Jiangxia getting bored and thinking about throwing hands again?
Conan could understand Jiangxia's boredom... but judging by Kento Togano's current traumatized state, if they fought again, the murderer might really be scared to death before he even made it to jail.
Thinking quickly, Conan grabbed Ran Mouri and dashed over to Jiangxia, casually inserting himself between Jiangxia and the potential victim.
Focused on blocking Jiangxia's death stare, Conan didn't notice that behind him, Hattori Heiji had just walked back in—and was now looking at Conan's back with a gaze full of complicated, unreadable emotions.
…
Later, when they were getting into the car for the trip back, Hattori Heiji ended up squeezing into the back row with them.
Originally, Jiangxia and Ran sat on one side, with Conan between them.
But now, when Heiji got in, Conan was shocked to find that he deliberately sat down on Jiangxia's side—right next to him.
Conan's observation skills were sharp. Yesterday, he had seen Hattori Heiji trying to sneak away, only to be immediately caught by Jiangxia.
This morning, after Jiangxia cracked the case, Conan even noticed Heiji looking strangely flustered whenever he saw Jiangxia.
But now... what was going on?
This abnormal behavior made Conan deeply suspicious.
He quietly leaned closer to Jiangxia and Heiji, trying to eavesdrop.
Ran Mouri also sensed something was off. She had always felt Hattori Heiji wasn't particularly friendly toward Jiangxia. Now, seeing Heiji voluntarily sitting next to Jiangxia, her guard shot up.
Even though Ran thought Heiji wasn't a bad person, he sometimes spoke way too bluntly. Now that he was sitting so close to Jiangxia... who knew what hurtful things he might blurt out?
Ran was on high alert, ready to jump in if needed.
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 31 - 90 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 39/60(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS
Goal #2: One BONUS CHAPTER per review for the first 10 REVIEWS.
Progress:2/10*