——
An hour later, the police finally arrived.
They'd originally thought there were two separate shootings and braced themselves for another all-nighter. But the moment they showed up, they found both murderers already caught and gift-wrapped.
——One had barely started his brilliant crime plan before being heroically tackled by a certain detective. The other didn't even get the chance to lie—he was caught on video mid-murder.
The officers were all smiles as they cleaned up the scene. They took statements, got signatures, then marched the murderers away like it was a field trip.
Thus ended Jiangxia Tongzhi's latest business trip—efficiently, bizarrely, and somewhat cheerfully.
——
Amuro Toru, however, wasn't so lucky. His work continued.
After wrapping up the hotel incident, he broke into Imatake's house for a bit of post-murder investigation.
Sure enough, he found a photo on the home computer—blurry, but clearly showing an Organization member mid-explosion. Thankfully, the picture quality was terrible, and no one's face could be ID'd.
Amuro copied the image, cleaned up his tracks, and wrote a brief mission report. Then he headed to one of the Organization's usual bars and handed the report to Gin.
——Dealing with internal cleanup was Gin's job. Amuro didn't need to stick around for that part.
Gin, always busy with the grim business of murder and mayhem, flipped through the report, aiming straight for the conclusion.
But as he skimmed, his finger stopped on a familiar name. His eyes narrowed. He flipped back and read more carefully.
A few seconds later, Gin let out a low sneer. "Good luck," he muttered.
Amuro assumed Gin was referring to the fact that someone else had already killed Imatake, sparing the Organization the trouble.
He nodded politely. "Indeed. Saved me a lot of hassle."
The moment he said that, he saw Gin smile.
It wasn't a normal smile. It was that subtle, unreadable Gin-style smirk—equal parts contempt, mystery, and possible homicide.
Then Gin shot him a look. Not quite pity, not quite amusement, and somehow both ancient and smug. He left with the report, silent.
Vodka hesitated, clearly wanting to say something. But he didn't dare. He just trailed after Gin like a silent henchman should.
The two of them vanished out the bar door.
Amuro Toru stood there. "…?"
He didn't know what had just happened. But for some reason, Gin had been radiating a very specific kind of smugness. The kind that said, "You're still on the first floor, I'm already in the stratosphere."
…What happened?
Amuro frowned, wary. Had he slipped up? Had he said something that triggered Gin's paranoia again?
He sighed. No matter how hard he tried to blend in, there was always a slight mismatch between him and the Organization's "solve-everything-with-bullets" crowd. His attempts at not killing people instantly stood out.
…He'd have to be even more careful going forward.
With a mind full of incorrect conclusions, Amuro left the bar and got ready for his next mission.
Gin had given him a new assignment—a different member of the Organization might've been exposed. Amuro was to investigate.
While mentally prepping for the task, he also organized his part-time jobs into a neat table and sent it to Jiangxia.
With Jiangxia covering for him so often now, the odds of Amuro getting fired by his various civilian employers were way down. No more job interviews every week.
When Jiangxia had first wandered into his life, Amuro hadn't kicked him out. That was clearly the right move…
——
Jiangxia looked over the spreadsheet Amuro had sent.
He didn't actually need the part-time job money. But going by past experience, wherever Amuro worked, a case (or a ghost) wasn't far behind. It beat sitting at a desk.
So Jiangxia cross-checked the schedule and picked the shifts that fit.
——
A few days later, after rotating through several classic gigs—convenience store, coffee shop, delivery guy—Jiangxia arrived at a less typical one: security.
The job was at Beika Department Store.
Apparently, they were running a Masked Superstar event this month, and staff numbers were tight.
The old security guards had been moved to crowd control. Jiangxia's job was to patrol their usual quieter rounds.
As he wandered, Jiangxia spotted three familiar figures:
Ran Mouri, Sonoko Suzuki, and Conan Edogawa.
His mood jumped 30 percent immediately—ghost potential detected.
The three students were gathered at a lottery booth, clearly in high spirits.
Jiangxia got closer and saw that Ran had just bought a promotional mug—and hit the jackpot. First prize: a two-person travel package to the Mermaid Festival, four days, three nights.
Jiangxia stared at the name of the prize. That absolutely reeked of serial murder arc.
He casually glanced at the ticket in Ran's hand and silently memorized the dates. All other appointments on those days were now on hold. Mermaid Festival came first. Ghosts took priority.
Ran and Sonoko suddenly noticed someone behind them.
They turned—and immediately brightened even more. "Jiangxia! You came too—"
They started to say "You came to the store too,"
But then they saw the security uniform.
"…?"
Already a detective, and now doing security? Did Jiangxia suffer from extreme inner insecurity or something?!
Jiangxia noticed their eyes going from happy to concerned-for-your-lifestyle, and followed their gaze to his outfit. He got the hint.
Immediately, he dumped the pot of awkwardness onto Amuro's head.
"My boss has a hobby of picking up part-time jobs everywhere. Sometimes he gets too busy to cover them, so he sends me instead."
Ran and Sonoko nodded in sudden understanding.
The "part-time job hobby" was… odd. But thinking about Amuro Toru's handsome foreign face, it kind of made sense. Foreigners have weird hobbies. Probably normal for them.
The girls quickly moved on from the topic and went back to what really mattered: planning the trip.
By now, they'd developed a kind of reflex—whenever the words "go out and relax" came up, Jiangxia was auto-added to the invite list.
Sonoko had just been thinking it'd been too long since their last outing. Now, not only had Ran won a travel prize, but they'd randomly bumped into Jiangxia again. Clearly, fate was screaming at them.
Sonoko snapped into action, brainstorming plans.
There was one small issue though: the prize was a two-person package.
Conan didn't count. His height and obvious child status made him a walking freebie.
So excluding him, that left… three people.
Sonoko thought for a moment, then proposed, "Why don't we skip the host's cruise and take my family's yacht instead?"
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 31 - 90 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 28/60(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS
Goal #2: One BONUS CHAPTER per review for the first 10 REVIEWS.
Progress:2/10*