The next day, Jangxia Tongzhi had originally planned to continue last night's mission—visit Maru Denjiro's house, aka the shady creditor who sold off collateral on the down low, and scope things out.
However, he had a few client appointments at the office that morning. So, once again, duty called. Work came first.
By afternoon, he finally closed up shop and returned the two cats he'd found to their owners.
Then he picked up where he left off. Using the address on the business card, he followed the route and arrived at a detached house with a large yard.
This was Maru Denjiro's house.
The yard was surprisingly spacious.
Despite being rich, Maru Denjiro—like most people in the Detective Conan universe—had zero surveillance, no guard dogs, not even a "Beware of Owner" sign. Breaking in was about as hard as stepping off a curb.
Jangxia circled the nearby hill for a better view and memorized the layout of the yard from above.
Then he pulled on a hat and mask, lightly vaulted the wall, and went straight for the warehouse.
He didn't bother using any puppets.
Maru Denjiro's place didn't exactly warrant the deployment of supernatural weaponry—it'd be like using a bazooka to kill a chicken.
Besides, even though puppets were convenient, using them drained both Jangxia and the ghost child pretty fast.
Sure, he had a bunch of Ghost Mint stocked up. But now that he had two ghosts to feed, and Miyano Akemi's new skill also depended on murderous aura to recharge, it made sense to conserve resources.
Inside the warehouse, Jangxia compared the client-provided photo of the ceramic piece, and successfully located the item on a shelf.
It was just a simple three-layered hollow pottery vessel. Jangxia opened the middle and dropped in a black-tech tracking transmitter.
Fully charged, the device could run for nearly forty hours.
Once the pottery was sold or moved, Jangxia would be able to locate it immediately.
Now, all he had to do was return every couple of days to swap in a new transmitter and keep tabs on its whereabouts. While he was at it, he could also see if anyone in the house had died—always a good opportunity to pick up a new ghost.
…
A few days later, the signal started cutting out again. Jangxia headed back to Maru Denjiro's house to swap the transmitter and take the old one back for charging.
He slipped around to the fence, pulled his hood low, put on gloves and mask, and climbed up to peek over the wall.
Just as he stuck his head up, he spotted a man and a woman exiting the side room.
The short-haired woman glanced up—and locked eyes with him.
Well, he saw her. Thanks to the hood shadow, she didn't really get a good look.
Jangxia recognized the piercing gaze of none other than Officer Miwako Sato.
As for Sato…
All she saw was a vague shadowy figure peering over the wall.
She froze for half a second, then shouted, "Who's there?!"
And she charged over.
With her voice as the starter pistol, several other officers poured out of the room. Jangxia saw a whole swarm of police.
Jangxia: "…"
It was like sneaking into school late, climbing over the wall, only to find the principal holding an all-teachers meeting right underneath.
Awkward.
Jangxia decided to commit to the bit—he let go and dropped down to the ground.
From behind the wall, he could hear Officer Sato yelling, "Stop!"
Jangxia thought for a moment.
Yeah, technically, breaking and entering was illegal. But in this world, no one really made a big deal of it, especially if you were a detective.
And anyway, he hadn't entered anything yet. He'd only… uh, lightly dismantled someone's wall.
There was really no need to go full fugitive mode like a crazed murderer.
But Sato clearly wasn't expecting the "suspicious person" to actually listen when told to stop.
Jangxia stood patiently at the base of the wall for two seconds. Then he noticed a shadow looming overhead.
He looked up—Sato had already vaulted the wall with the elegance of an Olympic hurdler. She sailed clean over him and landed four or five meters ahead without breaking stride.
And just like that, she was off down the street.
Jangxia raised a hand as if to call out, but she was already gone.
Jangxia: "…"
He lowered his hand silently.
Just then, a few chunks of dirt crumbled down next to him.
Startled, he looked up again—this time to see Officer Takagi, trying to scramble over the wall after Sato.
Takagi froze when he looked down and saw the "suspicious person" still standing quietly below.
They stared at each other for a full thirty seconds.
Finally, Takagi hesitantly asked, "…Why are you just standing there?"
The "suspicious person" hesitated back: "Didn't you say 'stop'?"
Takagi: "…"
To be fair… he had.
He had also been planning to ask why this guy was scaling someone else's wall, but the suspect wasn't running, and his attitude seemed decent. They could talk later.
For now, the more pressing issue was calling Officer Sato back before she sprinted to another prefecture.
Takagi sat down on the wall, pulled out his phone, and dialed his beloved senpai.
…
Five minutes later, in the courtyard of Maru Denjiro's home.
In addition to the police, Jangxia also spotted some familiar faces—Ran Mouri, Kogoro Mouri, and, of course, Conan.
Apparently, Maru Denjiro had been a client of Kogoro Mouri.
Once Sato confirmed Jangxia's identity, he pulled down his mask—only to put it right back up.
Sato's earlier aggressive reaction now made sense. There had been a murder at the house that afternoon.
—Maru Denjiro had been killed.
She hadn't told Jangxia yet, planning to use that detail later as part of the classic police Q&A routine.
Emotionally, Sato didn't think Jangxia was the killer.
But emotionally didn't mean much—Jangxia always acted suspicious.
Sato raised an eyebrow as she jotted something down. "Why were you covering your face?"
Jangxia pulled his mask higher and lowered the brim of his hat like a vampire ducking sunlight. "Sun allergy," he muttered weakly.
Sato: "…?"
At first, she thought he was just trying to bluff.
But then she paused and realized—every time she'd seen Jangxia, it had either been at night, indoors, or at night indoors. Come to think of it… she'd never seen him in daylight.
Nearby, Conan was squinting with dead-fish eyes, trying very hard not to speak.
He vividly remembered that whenever he visited Dr. Agasa's house, he'd sometimes see Jangxia lounging in a deck chair next door, sunbathing.
But he kept his mouth shut.
His deduction: Jangxia probably wasn't the murderer.
After all, Shinichi Kudo was still alive and kicking—he couldn't possess Jangxia and solve the case for him.
Which meant Jangxia had solved all his cases on his own. That made him a solid high school detective.
If he had killed someone, he wouldn't have made such a rookie mistake as "returning to the crime scene just to take a peek."
Also, Conan had seen someone's legs under a bush earlier in the yard.
They were wearing formal trousers and leather shoes—not at all like Jangxia's usual ghost-hunting streetwear.
Conan guessed that Jangxia must've been commissioned for something unrelated—he had heard the guy was moonlighting as a detective these days.
The fact that Jangxia used "sun allergy" as an excuse probably meant he had no idea someone had died here.
Which also meant he hadn't realized how serious things had gotten.
As a child, Conan decided to step in, stretching out his voice in a painfully obvious way:
"I heard from Uncle Mouri that murderers always try to hide their faces when they kill people… So you really didn't kill that bald uncle, right?"
Jangxia gave a perfectly timed start and turned to Officer Sato. "Wait—what happened?"
Sato sighed. "…It's nothing. Just a murder case."
At that moment, Inspector Megure finally had enough of Kogoro Mouri's dramatic nonsense.
He shoved open the sliding door with his usual gruff presence, looked toward Jangxia, and waved his stubby hand, signaling him over with great expectation.
Megure had also heard about Jangxia's wall-scaling escapade. Suspicious? Sure.
But being suspicious didn't conflict with providing top-tier detective work.
After all, solving crimes is about evidence—and no one ever required detectives to prove their innocence before giving their deductions.
In fact, a lot of major suspects ended up proving their innocence by giving deductions.
Compared to those guys, at least Jangxia solved cases fast and efficiently…
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 30 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 6/50(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS*