Jiangxia froze, staring at the envelope in his hand. The sender's name read: "Ryoko Naito."
"…," he blinked. Judging by the timing, he could more or less guess what this was about.
He tore it open and pulled out a folded card. The heading read:
Invitation to the Akira Sakamaki Memorial Service
…She actually sent it.
As far as funeral invitations went, this one was fashionably late.
But Jiangxia figured his invite had probably been snuck in unofficially by Ms. Naito herself, so the delay was understandable.
After all, even if he was a somewhat famous detective now, his "qualifications" were still shallow. And the upper ranks of society? Not exactly detective fans.
Given Director Sakamaki's status, there was no reason Jiangxia should've made the list.
Still, he silently thanked the kind Ms. Naito. He'd make sure to help her catch even more stray cats in the future.
…
He checked the time and location.
Then shot Gin a message: "Got the invite. Ready to infiltrate the organization's assassination squad to kill people and collect ghosts together."
When night fell, Jiangxia wrapped up his day's work, grabbed his weather-beaten motorcycle, and headed over to Dr. Agasa's house to scrounge up a dinner with actual nutritional value.
…
Mid-ride, his phone buzzed. It was Gin.
"You don't need to prep too much for the memorial service," Gin said flatly. "Other cadres will handle the operation. Your job's just to support without blowing your cover—observe, learn how we do things."
Jiangxia thought of the famously unreliable Pisco and gave a cautious "…Okay."
Gin didn't hang up right away.
"What's going on with Vermouth?" he asked.
From Gin's tone, Jiangxia guessed he'd already checked in with Vermouth and gotten a general update.
So Jiangxia stuck to the facts—well, mostly. He skipped the Shinichi Kudo parts and focused on how Vermouth had basically shown up to yank Gin's pigtails.
Gin didn't seem surprised. Their accounts must've lined up.
"Not bad," he said, then hung up.
Jiangxia stared at his phone. "…"
Was that "not bad" because he'd handled Vermouth well? Did this count as successfully stirring the pot? Or did Gin just not give a damn about Vermouth in the first place?
Whatever.
With both Gin and Amuro Tooru now up to speed—and with Vermouth thoroughly humiliated—she probably wouldn't ambush him again anytime soon.
And later? Once she realized Kudo Shinichi was still alive and bouncing around, maybe she'd back off completely.
So Jiangxia shelved the whole issue.
He tucked the phone away and continued chugging along on his patched-up ride toward Dr. Agasa's house.
…
Inside the house, Haibara Ai heard the telltale wheeze of his motorcycle engine.
She froze mid-stir-fry, glanced out the kitchen window—
—and relaxed when she saw Jiangxia alone, with no suspicious men in black behind him.
As if nothing had happened, she picked up her spoon and kept sautéing.
…
By nightfall, Conan, who'd been combing the city in full alert mode, returned.
The door creaked open.
He stepped in, spotted Jiangxia sitting at the table with porridge in hand, and blurted:
"You're okay?!"
Jiangxia gave a slow nod, taking another relaxed sip.
"Ran into a bit of trouble," he said casually. "But it's over now."
Conan, unlike Haibara, didn't believe in the whole "If it's fine, don't ask too many questions" thing.
He immediately dashed over. "What kind of trouble? What happened?"
"…"
Jiangxia gave him a look, thought it over, and trimmed the story down to a manageable lie.
"I ran into 'Ms. Ogata' in Beika. She insisted on dragging me to a bar. Only later did I realize… that wasn't really Ms. Ogata."
He sighed, carefully keeping it vague and highlighting only the essentials.
As for the messy bits, he figured he'd leave those to Conan's imagination. The kid was nosy, but reliable—give him a few crumbs and he'd piece together the rest on his own. Very efficient.
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 31 - 90 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 20/60(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS
Goal #2: One BONUS CHAPTER per review for the first 10 REVIEWS.
Progress:3/10*