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

For a moment, everyone in the room looked at them.

Mao Lilan covered her mouth in disbelief: "No way, how could it be... Miss Mizuno?"

The person involved, Rena Mizunashi, was bathed in all kinds of gazes, but she quickly regained her composure and spoke calmly, "What ring? Where exactly was it found?"

The leading police officer held up the evidence bag, and a ring on a necklace caught everyone's eye. Edogawa Conan quickly recognized it as the ring of Princess Maria that Ryu Kamikawa showed to the three people at the same table last night.

There was a small red mark on a certain spot on the outside of the ring, with faint fine lines on it.

"It was found in the last drawer of your bedside table, hidden under the bottom board."

The policeman spoke in a cold and hard tone, as if he had already regarded the famous female host in front of him as a vicious criminal who shot and killed others.

"In addition, we found the deceased's diary in his mobile phone, which recorded that you and he had made an appointment to meet privately."

Conan Edogawa glanced at another evidence bag in the policeman's hand, which contained the mobile phone he found in the corner under the sofa.

He couldn't see clearly when he was lying down just now, but now after putting the things in the bag, he found that the case of this phone was a little dirty, especially the screen, as if there was some stain that was not wiped off and dried on it.

"He still writes a diary?!" a male voice suddenly interrupted.

The person who spoke was the art dealer Qian Jiangyi. He had a very low presence before, and these words came out of his mouth.

Seeing that everyone was looking at him, the older art dealer froze, "I'm just asking, maybe he has written about other suspicious people in his diary?"

Edogawa Conan looked at him suspiciously.

“We are investigating this.”

The rash interruption was only a short interlude, and most people's attention returned to Mizunashi Rena. The police continued:

"The marks on the ring are fingerprints. We have compared them and confirmed that they are not from the deceased."

Mizuno Rena remained silent since she heard the location of the ring. She raised her hand and pressed her temple. She looked dazed again. After a few seconds, she spoke again, her tone still calm: "...I understand. I'll go with you to do a fingerprint comparison."

She followed the police.

Until her back disappeared at the door of the conference room, a suffocating silence remained in the room.

At this time, the door of the small room next to it opened and several people walked out.

They seemed to know what happened outside the room and were not surprised that Mizunashi Rena was taken away. Maori Kogoro turned to the others and said, "Well, now that the suspects have been arrested, can we go? I want to go back and catch up on some sleep."

His words were like a stone thrown into a pond, and the silent atmosphere was quickly broken.

Pu Siqinglan, who had been standing quietly by the side throughout the whole process, also looked at the other police officers present, her gray eyes full of embarrassment.

"Excuse me, can we leave now? I haven't eaten anything since I was suddenly called up this morning..."

Seeing the second person speak, Qian Jiangyi also joined in: "Yeah, I wanted to watch the opening ceremony, but now it's almost over."

The few policemen who were left behind looked at each other. One of the most experienced policemen subconsciously looked at Furuya Rei, but when he saw that he had no intention of coming forward, he had to speak up himself:
"Sorry, you can move around in the hotel and go out for dinner... but please don't leave here for now. Please leave your contact information."

……

The people in the conference room quickly dispersed.

Some people went back to their rooms to get their luggage and wanted to discuss with the front desk to move to other rooms in the hotel. It was always scary to be too close to a murder scene; some planned to go out for dinner first, or call relatives and friends.

Pu Siqinglan is the latter.

Seeing that the people around her had dispersed and there were no police following her, she turned around and entered the safe passage.

She carefully paid attention to the movements around her and slowly walked down the stairs. She didn't know which floor she was on until a familiar figure appeared and she stopped.

It was eerily quiet all around, with only the two of them standing face to face in the dim corridor.

Pu Siqinglan stood in a higher position, looking down at the other person. The man in front of her had an ordinary appearance. At first glance, he was the type that you would miss if you threw him on the street in the blink of an eye. But she seemed to see the animal tattoos on his eyes through his face.

"……spider."

Scoobing gritted his teeth and whispered the other party's code name.

"——You'd better explain to me what's going on."

……

Pu Siqinglan does not have deep feelings for the organization that gave her the code name "Shi Kaobing".

It can even be said that she joined the organization purely for convenience - someone directly provided information about cultural relics, saving her the trouble of collecting them herself.

She was not sad at all about her organization being taken down by the FBI. It happened that she was abroad at the time. The FBI knew of her existence but could not even send out a wanted warrant photo. She did not take it to heart and simply returned to her previous solo status.

Unexpectedly, a week ago, when she was planning to find an opportunity to attack the Eastern European exhibition hall of the Suzuki Museum of Art, a "former colleague" suddenly came to her.

The "former colleague" seemed to be completely unaware of the disgust in her tone, and even had the time to correct her address.

"You can call me Namikawa," he said. "That's my current identity. And we'd better hurry up. I just managed to get away from those annoying guys."

Pu Siqinglan looked at the cameraman of the Japanese TV station in front of her, ignored his words, and repeated the question just now: "Why do you want to hand over Princess Maria's ring?"

Thinking of the ring that fell into the hands of the police and was seized as evidence, the heart of this avid collector of dynasty artifacts felt like it was on fire, burning her whole body.

Realizing that she was really angry, Spider's tone finally became serious: "The more precious the item, the greater the motive and suspicion - if I hadn't pushed that woman to take the blame in time, I'm afraid you would still be being questioned by the police now."

Pu Siqinglan gritted her teeth and threw out another question: "What about the corpse?"

They acted together last night. In the past, she always killed people, took things and ran away, rarely staying to clean up. So after Hanchuan Long died, she left first, leaving only Spider to clean up the scene. As a result, this morning, when she arrived at the door, she saw that the body that was originally lying on the ground was sitting by the window. She was shocked at the time, thinking that someone else broke in after them.

Spider smiled and spread his hands as if showing off his work: "This is a surprise. Only when you see it for the first time can it have the greatest visual impact on the audience."

"This is also my 'gift' to the undercover agent - his nightmare is just beginning!"

When he spoke the second half, the smile on his face turned ferocious, and his words contained a hint of hatred, as if he wanted to eat the man's flesh and blood alive.

……

Stephen Belloberg, codename Wolf.

His real name is Aoyagi Akimitsu.

Spider had met Aoyagi Binkou once before at the side of the second-in-command (the leader's only son) and didn't like him very much.

The reason is the other party's soft attitude towards killing.

——"There are many ways to solve the problem. Killing is just the simplest and crudest one. I don't like that kind of indiscriminate killing... Of course, I will do it when necessary."

Spider still remembers the look on his face when he said this.

As a magician, he was very observant of people's facial expressions and micro-movements. He was sure that Aoyagi Akiko had said this sincerely at the time.

Because of his strong affinity, the second-in-command often asked Aoyagi Binguang to apply for bodyguard positions for wealthy people in order to understand the security of those luxury homes or jewelry exhibitions and facilitate organizational operations. Most of the time, he was not in the organization at all.

However, it was this weak-hearted guy who was away from home all year round who destroyed the organization.

Spider had seen undercover agents sent by the police in the past. In his opinion, they were a group of people who forced themselves to blend into the darkness and sometimes acted more extreme than them.

But it turned out that this was not the case at all for Aoyagi Akimitsu.

Spider was also impressed by another incident (although he only found out that it was the other party who did it after he escaped). In the kidnapping case of the rich man two years ago, it was Aoyagi Binkou who let the three people escape.

He totally didn't understand the reason for doing that. Even if he really wanted to save the two rich old men, he could just let them go, kill the guards, and create the illusion that the gun was taken away by the hostage and then killed - this way he could sell the rich man's favor, reduce his own suspicion, and eliminate an enemy of the organization.

But Qingliu Binguang didn't do that. He just let the guard go.

This behavior caused the organization to immediately suspect that there was an undercover agent, and they began to investigate closely. But he was lucky that time and was not found.

The spider gritted its teeth secretly.

If a huge amount of money had not disappeared from the organization at that time, the conflict between the two sides had not been completely detonated, and a large amount of resources had not been consumed by each other...the FBI would not have destroyed the organization so easily.

Thinking of this, he looked at Shi Kaobing in front of him again, feeling a little annoyed.

He knew that she was not loyal to the organization, and he approached her because of her ability and channels for selling stolen goods. He did not expect that she was so ruthless. Not only did she kill the traitor, but she also killed several other people in the ward, which attracted a lot of police attention.

There was also Hanchuan Long. He originally planned to wait and see for a few more days, but when she saw that Hanchuan Long had a princess ring and that the DV might have taken photos of her desk, she impatiently rushed over that night.

...If he wasn't really in a hurry and couldn't contact other people, he really didn't want to continue cooperating with this kind of person.

Seeing that Pu Siqinglan was still angry about the ring, Spider thought about borrowing her power to deal with the damn undercover agent. In an effort to calm her down, he brought up another matter.

"Have you seen the undercover's hair accessories?"

Pu Siqinglan didn't expect him to mention this. After a few seconds of recalling, she said, "It seems to be a green stone. What's wrong?"

With such limited observation skills, he still calls himself an expert on the dynasty? Spider was even more disdainful in his heart, without showing any smile on his face. He said very cunningly: "That is not an ordinary stone."

"I think it's a precious emerald - maybe even one that once belonged to Catherine the Great."

Pu Siqinglan's eyes suddenly widened.

Catherine II, the twelfth Tsar of the Romanov dynasty, is one of the few rulers who can be called "the Great".

It is said that she loves collecting all kinds of jewelry, especially emeralds, which symbolize good luck and happiness.

The jewelry of the last royal princess and the collection of the queen in her prime, the latter is obviously more valuable, but what shocked Pu Siqinglan was not that Qingliu Binguang had such precious jewelry, but——

He actually tied such a valuable gem in his hair as a jewelry?!

If it is placed in a display cabinet or worn on the hand, many people will recognize its value at first glance. However, if it is tied with a low-quality rubber band and used to fix hair every day, most people will probably think it is just an ordinary stone or glass bead like Pu Siqinglan.

"Are you... sure?" she confirmed again.

"It's very likely," said Spider. "When he came yesterday, he sat on the sofa. I stood beside him and observed him. Even if it's not the Tsar's treasure, it's an emerald of excellent quality."

Pu Siqinglan's breathing became rapid, and her hands at her sides clenched into fists, as if she would rush out in the next second to snatch the mistreated treasure.

"Don't be impatient yet."

Spider looked into her eyes, slowed down his voice and said patiently: "That guy is not someone who can be easily dealt with. We have to think of a more reliable method."

"What do you want to do?" Pu Siqinglan forced herself to calm down.

"Natsumi Kosaka, who was the last person to visit Chairman Suzuki yesterday, has a clue to another Egg of Memory."

Spider tells the news he eavesdropped on at the art gallery.

"The egg is said to be in a castle in Yokosuka. She plans to invite others to explore there. You can join them. If the operation goes well, you can get not only the emerald, but also the complete egg of memories."

"And I will work with the others outside to cooperate with you..." (End of this chapter)