(Double Chap)
Pisco moved quickly, afraid that if he took too long, the drunken kid would wander off.
As soon as the silver-haired old man disappeared, a figure silently approached the tightly locked wine cellar and reached for the door handle.
With a soft click, the spring inside the lock shifted, and the door creaked open from the outside.
Jiangxia, through his puppet, quietly entered the cellar and used a strange, white key to relock the door from the inside.
Ever since acquiring a hoard of shikigami, the puppet clay's hardness and precision had greatly improved—lock-picking was no longer the slow, clumsy affair it used to be.
After locking up, he casually dispersed the temporary tool he had kneaded, then walked over to a cardboard box draped with cleaner's clothes and dropped something inside with a soft plop.
He glanced at a nearby cabinet, found a discreet hiding spot, and tucked the puppet there to idle.
Then, his consciousness returned to his main body.
…
In the banquet hall, Jiangxia stood quietly by the window and opened his eyes.
His body had been positioned there, seemingly deep in thought as he stared out into the night—idling without suspicion, thanks to the chaos in the corridor.
Now that he was back, Jiangxia was about to go check the situation outside.
But in the window's black glass reflection—like a dark mirror—he saw a familiar figure approaching from behind.
Their eyes met through the reflection.
Pisco gave a kindly, grandfatherly smile.
Jiangxia turned, blinking with polite confusion.
Pisco had already slouched his shoulders and bent his back, presenting the perfect image of a harmless elderly man.
Seeing that no one was watching them, he smiled with just the right touch of weathered anxiety and said, "Young man, do you know where the changing room is in this hotel? My granddaughter spilled wine on her skirt and went to change, but she hasn't returned."
Jiangxia studied him up and down.
Even with that façade, this vintage bottle of wine was still leaking a faint killing intent.
Combined with the weird excuse to start a conversation...
Jiangxia got the idea.
He nodded immediately, smiling with a gentle expression that could rival Ran Mouri's: "Don't worry. The hotel's security is good—nothing should've happened. I know where the changing room is. Come with me."
He led the old man toward a side exit, discreetly guiding him toward the deserted rooms deeper down the corridor.
The two passed through the side door, one after the other.
At that same moment, at the front entrance of the banquet hall, Miwako Sato saw their retreating backs—and blinked.
...
The farther they went, the stronger Pisco's killing intent became.
Jiangxia noticed and confirmed his guess—most likely, Gin's earlier message had caused a misunderstanding. Pisco probably now saw Jiangxia as a threat.
…Even better.
As fellow members of the Organization, Jiangxia couldn't just randomly attack Pisco without cause.
But if Pisco attacked first, then self-defense was only natural. A few counterstrikes? Reasonable. Very Reasonable.
And any half-alert cadre would think: Why would a teammate attack me like this, with cops all around? Could it be they're a traitor working with the police to take me down?
Which meant dragging Pisco to a quiet place and "asking questions" through vigorous encouragement would be completely justified.
Jiangxia picked up the pace, led Pisco around a turn, and stopped at an empty changing room.
To maintain the illusion, he even knocked politely, pretending to wait for the "granddaughter" to open the door.
Pisco, hearing distant footsteps in the hallway, played the part of a flustered grandpa. "Please—go check inside."
Of course, asking a complete stranger to open his granddaughter's dressing room door was, on paper, a little suspicious.
But Jiangxia, sensing the murderous aura, kindly overlooked this inconsistency.
He turned the doorknob and stepped inside.
Pisco, watching this innocent tool person who didn't even guard his back around the elderly, smiled coldly with the smugness of a seasoned cadre.
He straightened up, shedding his harmless-grandpa posture and returning to his full Organization stance.
Then he followed Jiangxia into the room and swung a sharp chop toward the back of the boy's neck, intending to knock him out and toss him in the wine cellar next to Sherry.
But the script glitched.
Just as he was about to land the blow, Jiangxia's body shifted unnaturally to the side. At the same time, his other hand reached back and expertly grabbed Pisco by the collar.
Pisco froze.
And before his brain could reboot, he found himself soaring through the air like a sack of potatoes, following a trajectory all-too-familiar to countless arrested criminals.
He hit the ground with a heavy thud, accompanied by the universal scream of "I did not sign up for this!"
The only silver lining was that Pisco, unlike your average untrained villain, had actual combat training. He curled instinctively, shielding his vitals, and avoided immediate KO.
Unfortunately, this did not improve the situation.
If anything, it made things worse.
Because a few seconds later, Pisco began to suspect—maybe staying conscious was the wrong move here.
As he hit the ground, Jiangxia let go of his collar. But before Pisco could get up, something slammed onto his lower back and pinned him down.
Then he heard a soft click by his ear.
He glanced through the crook of his arm and saw Jiangxia calmly locking the door—while pulling a completely black extendable baton from somewhere.
...
Pisco stared blankly at the fluid motion. "…"
Wait.
Back in the banquet hall, he had checked—Jiangxia had zero martial arts credentials. No karate, no judo, no taekwondo. His resume screamed 'brainy high school detective,' not 'combat god.'
Shouldn't someone like this go down with one hit?!
Why—
Bang!
Pisco howled in pain, his train of thought violently derailed.
He twisted on the ground, trying to roll away, but the baton came down again and again—faster than rain, heavier than thunder.
This detective… was actually beating up a seventy-year-old man!
As the hits kept landing, Pisco's outrage began to curdle into something else.
Fear.
He… he wasn't going to die like this, right?
Was he really going to go out in such an absurd fashion?
Pisco vaguely recalled that people lost rationality when drunk—fights escalated easily, and accidental deaths weren't uncommon. The headlines were full of it: "Drunken man kills friend in bar fight," "Argument turns deadly after three bottles of sake"…
Now, remembering Gin's earlier email, Pisco suddenly thought he understood what that warning had meant.
But he still felt deeply aggrieved.
If Gin had just clearly said "he's very good at fighting, so don't provoke him" instead of vaguely mumbling "don't provoke him," he would've taken this seriously. He had a hot weapon on him, after all! As a powerful financial figure, he had a legal permit to carry one—and he'd brought it!
Clinging to that thread of hope, Pisco's trembling hand reached slowly for the pocket that held the gun.
Yes, the police would question him for drawing a weapon… but better that than dying in some ridiculous drunken brawl at the hands of an unlicensed karate gremlin.
But just as his fingertips brushed the gun's grip—
Knock knock knock!
There was a hurried knock at the locked door.
A hesitant voice called out, "…Jiang Xia?"
The extendable baton froze mid-air.
Pisco heard Jiangxia click his tongue lightly, sounding faintly regretful.
That moment of reprieve was all Pisco needed to suck in a shaky breath and abandon his dignity. He rasped, "Help—!"
Before he could finish, Jiangxia casually squatted down and clamped a hand over his mouth.
Pisco: "!!!"
This movement felt oddly familiar.
Scenes from countless cases flashed through his mind—panicked perpetrators clamping down on victims' mouths the moment they tried to scream. Every documentary said the same thing: once they cover your mouth, you're done for.
Gin! Vodka! Bourbon! Vermouth! Somebody!
Why is no one here to save me?
My teammates are useless! They're going to let me die like this!
As the oxygen slipped away, Pisco's face turned pale green. Panic clawed at his insides. Even the oldest bear child clung to life—he was only seventy! He still had at least seven hundred years of glory ahead of him!
But then, something unexpected happened.
Jiangxia… let go.
He didn't cover Pisco's mouth till he passed out. Instead, he pulled him up, dusted off the faint shoeprints on the man's back like he was cleaning up after dropping a mop, and began folding up the baton like nothing had happened.
Pisco watched, dazed, as the detective tucked the compact baton back into his pocket. Jiangxia then calmly walked to the door and opened it.
He blinked in mild surprise. "Officer Sato?"
Outside, Miwako Sato didn't answer right away. She tilted her head slightly and looked past Jiangxia into the room.
There, crouched slightly and trembling ever so faintly, was a silver-haired old man. His expression was hard to describe. Pained? Murderous? A touch traumatized?
The hotel's soundproofing was decent—Sato had trailed them and listened at the door for a while, but she hadn't heard a thing.
Now that she saw the scene inside, she seemed to grasp the situation instantly.
Jiangxia… was beating someone again.
Behind police backs. Again.
Legally speaking, not great.
But Sato's experience told her: Jiangxia never beat people for no reason. Every time he did this, it turned out the person was extremely dangerous.
…Could this be the real culprit behind the councilman's murder?
Could this suspicious grandpa be the killer?
Her gaze sharpened. She was about to question him.
But at that moment, the old man slowly straightened up, his expression severe but composed. He didn't limp or whimper. He didn't even cry for help.
That gave Sato pause.
This was not the reaction of a beaten criminal. Those guys either had to be dragged away by force or immediately burst into tears at the sight of police.
So had she… misunderstood?
She turned to Jiangxia. "What happened?"
Jiangxia calmly smoothed a wrinkle on his sleeve. "This old gentleman just asked me where the changing room was, so I brought him over to check."
Sato looked at Pisco's face. Grim. Silent. Unconvincing.
She lowered her voice and leaned in toward Jiangxia. "You didn't hit him?"
Jiangxia tilted his head slightly, blinking in confusion. "Hm?"
His eyes were wide, guileless, like an innocent boy who'd never struck a fly.
Sato began to doubt herself. Was he really pretending? Or was she just being paranoid?
Just then, Pisco stood up.
She tensed, turning to him. "Are you alright?"
Pisco was full of righteous fury on the inside. I'll kill him! I'll break his legs! I'll—
But his expression remained gentlemanly, though a bit stiff. "I'm fine. I just asked him for directions."
From the conversation, he had pieced together that the woman at the door was a police officer.
Jiangxia must've sobered up after the beating and chickened out of calling it an "incident." Probably trying to bluff his way out.
Normally, Pisco would've dragged someone like this to court on principle. But now, at his age, if he said he'd been assaulted, he'd be hospitalized on the spot for "precautionary checks," maybe even babysat by some overzealous young cop.
He didn't have time for that.
He had to get back to Sherry in the wine cellar—immediately—before anything else went wrong.
Sato was surprised that their stories matched. Did that mean… Jiangxia hadn't hit anyone?
Still, just to be sure, she turned back. "Are you really okay?"
Pisco nodded, ever the refined elder.
As he moved, his back twitched violently in protest.
His eye twitched too. But he forced it down and tried to walk past her.
Unfortunately, Officer Sato stepped in again. "You don't need to go to the hospital?"
"No." Pisco's tone was calm, but every fiber of his body screamed let me go.
Sato nodded. "Alright."
Then, with her trademark professional smile, she stepped forward again.
"In that case, sir, please come with me. We'd like your cooperation in an investigation."
"…" Pisco, who had been this close to escaping, "???"
…
Meanwhile, two other paranoid minds—Conan and Haibara Ai—had already imagined the worst-case scenario: Haibara had been captured by the Black Organization.
Conan immediately used Shinichi Kudo's voice to call Inspector Megure, asking him to detain everyone on the purple handkerchief list from the front desk records.
According to his deduction, the killer sent by the Organization—and the person most likely to have taken Haibara—was among these seven…
…well, now six.
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 31 - 90 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 35/60(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS
Goal #2: One BONUS CHAPTER per review for the first 10 REVIEWS.
Progress:3/10*