Conan: I'm really not the mastermind behind the scenes

Chapter 116 The accident at the funeral
Shinji Hojo, a second-year student in the General Department of Minato City Middle School, died in a car accident.

He was 14 years old.

The police found no signs of foul play and ruled it an accident.The Hojo couple received their son's body that day and contacted the funeral home to prepare for the funeral.

The farewell ceremony on the third day was scheduled to be held at home.

After school that day, Amuro Toru, one of the teachers, put on a black formal suit and headed to Hojo's house with several second-grade teachers.

As if they were equally sad about the young man's untimely death, dark clouds rolled in the sky, and it started pouring rain when they were halfway through.Fortunately, all of them had umbrellas with them, otherwise they would have arrived at the farewell ceremony in a very embarrassed state.

The Hojo family was immersed in sadness. Black and white constituted the main colors of the entire farewell ceremony. Amuro Toru signed a pseudonym at the door and entered the room with others.

"Thank you for your condolences."

Several teachers presented incense bags one by one, accepted the counter-gifts one by one from the haggard-looking Mrs. Hojo, and then stayed aside.Other relatives and friends came to express their condolences.

Toru Amuro's appearance and especially his hair color are quite conspicuous in the crowd. He stands as the most inconspicuous person and can see people coming and going at the door.

"It's so miserable..." The Chinese teacher, who has a son of about the same age, looked at Mrs. Hojo and sighed in a low voice, "I am obviously more sad than anyone else, yet I still have to entertain others."

The foreign language teacher is a young female teacher with the strongest ability to empathize. Feeling the atmosphere of the scene, her eyes were a little red and she picked up a tissue to wipe her tears.

The physical education teacher who had the best relationship with Hojo Shinji frowned. He looked at the black and white photo at the front and suddenly asked in a low voice.

"What exactly is going on?"

After he finished speaking, he couldn't help but add: "How did this accident happen? Shenji may be a little nervous sometimes, but he is definitely not someone who doesn't obey traffic rules!"

Hearing his voice rising, Amuro, who had seen the most deaths among the group of people, tried to persuade him in a low voice: "Keep your voice down, your family will hear it. Let's discuss it after we go out."

At this time, students who were a few steps behind them began to arrive, and among them was an unexpected person from Toru Amuro.

Kudo Shinichi, wearing a student uniform and carrying his schoolbag in his hands, expressed comfort to the family members.

When the person who had bullied him died, there was no joy in his misfortune or the joy of revenge on his face. Instead, there was a kind of sympathy and sadness for the loss of life.

After he finished returning the gift, he saw the teachers standing aside and briefly said hello. When he was about to leave, Toru Amuro stopped him.

"You came here by yourself? Where is Teacher Aoyagi?"

Kudo Shinichi replied gloomily: "Teacher Aoyagi said he didn't know the etiquette of Japanese funerals and was afraid of making mistakes on such an important occasion, so he didn't come, but he asked me to give the money to the funeral."

Toru Amuro noticed that he did hold two counter-gifts in his hand.

Different countries have different funeral procedures. Aoyagi Toshimitsu, an American with only about a quarter of Japanese ancestry, simply refused to come because he was worried about making mistakes. This is normal, and he himself was not familiar with Hojo Shinji...

Tohru Amuro, who likes to find fault with the FBI, didn't notice anything wrong.

"By the way, Teacher Amuro, do you know what happened in the accident? Who was the perpetrator?" Kudo Shinichi asked the same question as the previous teacher.

Seeing him asking the same question, Toru Amuro was a little helpless.

He knew that Kudo Shinichi was willing to sacrifice for others - allowing Shinji Hojo to escape first in the Ark was the best proof - but sometimes, he pursued the truth too much, which led him to ignore the feelings of others.

Of course, this is not malicious.It's just that he is still young. This 14-year-old boy needs more experience to become a truly outstanding detective.

This time Toru Amuro replied: "He is the only son of the chairman of a consortium. The cause of the accident was a vehicle failure."

Whether it was due to pressure from the consortium or other factors, the media did not report the traffic accident at all. They, the teachers, only knew about it because the family members informed them personally.

The young man from the consortium was taken back by his parents on the day of the accident and was not detained.He was greatly frightened and repeatedly said that something cold and soft was wrapped around his foot and forced him to step on the accelerator. He did not mean to hit anyone.

Toru Amuro has met a lot of second-generation people from wealthy families. Some have good upbringing, and some do evil things. This time, he intuitively felt that what the other party said was true.

Kudo Shinichi frowned tightly, still muttering something.

Toru Amuro didn't answer any more, and his eyes fell on another man who appeared at the door.

The man was dressed in black, and his appearance could only be described as terrifying. He had more than one stab wound and iron burns on his face. His jaw was deformed and twisted, and the jaw could not be closed at all.

Coupled with the gloomy expression, the intimidation was even more astonishing. Visitors on the scene let out low exclamations, and the foreign language teacher even took a breath and hid behind.

"He is Hojo's father." The Chinese teacher who had visited the family told the other party's identity and reminded them not to be rude.

Several other teachers looked at each other and said nothing.But whispers came from the crowd not far from them, and everyone thought they were hidden, but in fact they were extremely conspicuous, their eyes darting around.

"..."

Toru Amuro suddenly felt greater sadness than when he heard about the death of Hojo Shinji.

This is a kind of sympathy that hurts its own kind.

……

Before entering the Minato District Middle School as a teacher, Toru Amuro used the public security resources to conduct a preliminary investigation to see if there were anyone worth noting and listed several targets.

Hojo Shinji is one of them.

——His father was a public security policeman of the Metropolitan Police Department and worked as an undercover agent for several years. During the investigation into a mafia organization, he was unfortunately exposed and tortured.

Although the police received the news and rescued him immediately, he was already dying by then.He finally managed to save his life, but his face was left with such frightening scars forever.

Amuro Toru heard this undercover case during training.

His boss commented that he had a righteous heart, gave up his small family for the country, kept his wife a secret, and never visited his children. I remember that when this senior went undercover, his son had just been born, and his daughter only...

Toru Amuro suddenly got stuck.

He was stunned, and then quickly calculated her age - if she had not dropped out of school, she would now be in her third year of high school, five years older than Hojo Shinji, who was only five years old at that time.

Toru Amuro looked behind Mr. Hojo, and the girl was standing there.

... He should have heard of such a simple thing at that time, why didn't he react just now?
Toru Amuro felt baffled, and an indescribable awkward and weird feeling enveloped his heart.

Hojo Shinji's sister, Hojo Tooka, was wearing a black kimono that is common at funerals today. The makeup on her face was a bit... a bit too much. It doesn't matter at ordinary times, but it shouldn't be like this at a funeral. Is it to cover the traces of crying?

Toru Amuro was confused. At this moment, she also turned her head, and their eyes met in the air.

He saw her expression change, as if she had seen something extremely scary or unexpected, her eyes widened to their maximum size, and she even subconsciously took a step back.

Then--

She turned around and ran up to the second floor!

"...?"

Toru Amuro was stunned again.

There was another commotion at the scene over this scene.The people around him changed the topic from talking about Mr. Hojo's terrifying appearance to discussing her weird behavior.

Toru Amuro lowered his head to check his clothes to make sure there was nothing rude about him. He then looked around to make sure there was nothing scary around him.

...Then why did she run away?

Just when Amuro was confused, he saw a figure appear at the door again.

He wore glasses, a black umbrella, black trousers and a hoodie of the same color, and carried a guitar bag behind his back.It seems that he blends in with the surrounding visitors, but in fact he is out of place - not even a student would wear such casual clothes to a funeral.

When the two looked at each other this time, Toru Amuro saw him nod slightly to her, then turned around and left.

Toru Amuro felt a shiver in his heart. He recognized the other party's identity and at the same time understood the subtext.He immediately found a reason to say goodbye to the teacher and Kudo Shinichi beside him, grabbed an umbrella and ran out.

……

Two men in black stopped in an alley some distance away from Hojo's house.

The man in the black hoodie looked up at the sky: "Sure enough... it will rain..."

Heavy raindrops pattered on the umbrella, making his words to himself unclear.Toru Amuro didn't hear clearly what he said, and there was a sneer on his face that was completely different from the one in the room.

He looked at the glasses on the other man's face and said, "When did you need to wear these, Glenn?"

(End of this chapter)