People are in Conan, but Ace Attorney

Chapter 500: The Death God Elementary School Student Who Solved the Case First
Yasushi Yazaki said that he did not leave the classroom during lunch break, so we can conclude that Yasushi Yazaki ate his lunch box in the classroom. However, judging from the smell of the food and Haibara Ai's testimony, Yasushi Yazaki's statement just now can be disproven.

At this moment, Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya felt that his reasoning ability had never been so stimulated. He pondered and thought about the meaning behind the falsification of Yazaki Yasushi's statement.

There are two possibilities for refuting Yazaki Yasuji's statement. One is that Yazaki Yasuji left the classroom and went to other places to eat his lunch box, so no smell was left. The other is that Yazaki Yasuji did not bring a lunch box and went to the cafeteria to eat.

So the best way to verify these two possibilities is to see whether the contents of Yazaki Yasushi's schoolbag are lunch boxes as he said, or the books pointed out by Huiyuan Ai...

However, Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya felt a little distressed when he saw Yazaki Yasushi, who had no intention of showing his schoolbag to the public. Since Yazaki Yasushi didn't want to show it, there was no way to be sure whether there were books or lunch boxes inside.

"Ah, does that mean that Yazaki-san didn't actually eat the bento? Then, then Yazaki-san should have gone to the cafeteria for lunch..."

Ayumi said in confusion, which immediately made Genta nod his head.

"Yeah, yeah, it feels terrible to be hungry, so Yazaki-san must have gone to the cafeteria to eat at noon!"

Hearing this, Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya fell silent. He felt that his reasoning in his mind seemed to be meaningless, because the other members of the Junior Detective League did not realize that this conclusion could extend to two possibilities.

Because he would feel hungry if he didn't eat lunch, Yazaki Yashiji would definitely go to eat lunch → Yazaki Yashiji didn't eat lunch → Yazaki Yashiji must have gone to the cafeteria to eat.

This is the thought process of Ayumi and Genta, and this thought process is actually the correct answer to this problem. Mitsuhiko thinks too much, which is useless in the current situation.

The reason is simple. If it is a real trial, then of course all possibilities need to be verified. Even if the plaintiff refuses to produce evidence, the presiding judge has the right to ask the plaintiff to show the situation of the evidence to everyone.

In a class trial, if a student is unwilling to show his or her personal belongings, neither the class teacher as the presiding judge nor the Junior Detective Team as the lawyers can force other students to show their personal belongings.

Therefore, Mitsuhiko actually had no way to verify hypothesis one, but in Xiang Yuanguang's eyes, since the other party chose to conceal the evidence to prevent the lawyer from verifying a certain possibility, then that possibility was likely to be true in the reasoning.

The members of the Junior Detective Team left the classroom excitedly and planned to go to the cafeteria to further verify the information. Before leaving, Genta did not forget to invite Haibara Ai to join the Junior Detective Team—the reason was that he thought Haibara Ai's reasoning ability was very strong.

However, Huiyuan Ai refused without hesitation. Not to mention that she was still in the class trial, it would be outrageous if the defendant, the lawyer, and the prosecutor were all members of the Junior Detective League. Even without the class trial...

She was also reluctant to participate in such self-entertainment activities for elementary school students unless she also found it interesting.

"Uncle Maori, aren't you going to follow? Now is the time for you, the great detective, to show off your skills!"

Xiang Yuanguang watched the Junior Detective League go away and patted Uncle Maori on the shoulder. There was no other reason. Uncle Maori's staying here would affect the communication between Conan and Yazaki Yasuji. The atmosphere would be better without him here.

"Is that so?"

Kogoro Mouri's eyes widened. He didn't quite understand Xiang Yuanguang's line of thought, but he touched his chin and quickly came to a conclusion - if he thought about it carefully, it seemed to be true.

After all, the Junior Detective Team is just a group of elementary school students. When they need to conduct further investigation in the cafeteria, can the parents of the Junior Detective Team do this? Those parents are not professionals and cannot do it. He, the great detective, has to do it!
So, Uncle Maori followed him out in a hurry, vowing to expand his reputation from detectives to elementary school students to show that he deserved the title of Tokyo's greatest detective.

Then, after the Junior Detectives and Maori Kogoro left, Xiang Yuanguang looked around the classroom, then walked to the podium and invited Kobayashi Sumiko. "Teacher Kobayashi, let's go out and talk. I have something else that I need to know more about."

Teacher Kobayashi was a little surprised to see Xiang Yuanguang inviting her, but since the other party said so, he probably did have something to say, so she nodded and followed Xiang Yuanguang out of the classroom.

Suddenly, there were only three students left in the first-year Class B classroom: Haibara Ai, Conan and Yazaki Yasuji. In this situation, Conan finally had the opportunity to ask Yazaki Yasuji what he really wanted to do.

"Yazaki-san, you actually checked the envelope containing the living expenses several times, right?"

The Shinigami schoolboy pushed up his glasses.

"Before the living allowance was lost, there were at least three times. The first time was when you got the envelope at home, the second time was when you bought food in the cafeteria and paid the living allowance, and the third time was when you checked the amount of the living allowance after coming to the classroom for a while."

"The third time you came to the classroom, you must have checked the envelope after a while. Otherwise, you would not have suspected that Huibara Ai had stolen the living expenses in the envelope and would not have come forward to prove Huibara Ai's innocence at the first time."

"Moreover, after you came to the classroom, you most likely put the envelope somewhere, perhaps in a drawer or in your schoolbag, and then left the classroom for a short time. Before and after you left the classroom, Huihara Ai came to the classroom."

"But I don't think you would check the contents of the envelope for the third time. Although Huihara Ai acts lonely, she doesn't look like she's short of money. You should also think that she is unlikely to steal your living expenses..."

"However, you left the classroom, and when you came back, you saw the sudden appearance of Haibara Ai, and suspected that your living expenses were less, and checked the amount of living expenses in the envelope, which means that you already suspected that the amount of living expenses was wrong."

"The source of this suspicion should be something that happened between the second time you checked the amount of living expenses in the envelope and the third time you checked the amount in the envelope——"

Yazaki Seiji was a little nervous as he listened to Conan's reasoning.

"————I guess that when you were returning to the classroom after lunch, something unexpected happened that might have caused the loss of your living expenses, which planted the seeds of doubt in your mind."

"Yazaki-san, can you tell me what happened when you were on your way back to the classroom after lunch?"

Conan pushed his glasses again and ended his reasoning. Although the last sentence was a question, it carried a certain decisive meaning. Although he did not see the specific situation, he could be sure that the facts were just as he speculated.

Hearing this, Yazaki Seiji was silent for a while. He looked up at Conan and asked with surprise.

"H-How do you know? It's like you saw it with your own eyes... Who are you?"

"Edogawa Conan, just a detective."

Conan said confidently.

(End of this chapter)