Traveling back thirty years to Conan, intercepting Princess Eri

On the shore, Ikenami Tsuyoshi, Hayashi Hideichi, Hattori Heizo, and other relevant personnel stood in a row, watching the ship sail away.

The Terracotta Warriors departed safely, a moment that should have been a time of relief, but the atmosphere at the scene was unusually solemn.

The mysterious figure impersonating Officer Furukawa remains at large.

"Damn it!" Takeshi Ikenami cursed under his breath again, slamming his fist on the railing beside him. "Letting an imposter infiltrate the core of operations and slip away right under my nose... This is a disgrace to the police!"

At this moment, his officers came over to report the results of the search.

As expected, no one found the imposter.

The surveillance cameras at all entrances and exits of the dock have been carefully checked, and no suspicious persons have been found to have left.

He simply vanished into thin air, as if he had never existed.

"Expand the search area!" Ikenami Takeshi shouted. "Notify all surrounding police stations to set up roadblocks and check all suspicious vehicles and personnel! I refuse to believe he can fly!"

The officers obeyed and left, but each of them looked tired and confused.

After a busy night, everyone was exhausted, but the task still seemed far from being completed.

Hattori Heizo looked at Hayashi Hideichi again, this time with clear dissatisfaction and doubt in his eyes.

He pulled Lin Xiuyi to a corner away from the crowd, lowered his voice, and questioned her sternly.

"In such a short time with the smoke grenade, the person disguised as Officer Furukawa couldn't have gone far. He must have taken advantage of the chaos to change his clothes and blend in with the police or Chinese staff at the scene."

“There are at least fifty people here. He can easily hide by simply changing his clothes, hairstyle, and posture.”

Hattori Heizo stared into Hayashi Shuichi's eyes.
"You must have thought of that too, so why didn't you let me remind Officer Chi Bo? If we had immediately cordoned off the scene and checked everyone's identities, we might have found him!"

"And then?" Lin Xiu asked rhetorically, his tone unusually calm. "Capture him?"

"Otherwise what?" Hattori Heizo questioned. "Imprisoning someone who impersonates a police officer is already a serious violation of the law."

"Whatever his motives, this is unforgivable!"

The night breeze blew across the dock, carrying the salty smell of the sea.

Police lights were still flashing in the distance, and the police were still conducting a futile search.

The cargo ship had disappeared from sight, leaving only a gradually fading wake on the sea.

The lights on the dock cast long shadows of the two people, which twisted and distorted on the concrete ground.

Lin Xiuyi shook his head, his gaze fixed on the undulating sea in the darkness: "The real Officer Furukawa is fine. He was just tied up for a few days, but he has been rescued now."

"Judging from the actions of the past two days, the imposter's goal is the same as ours: to protect the Terracotta Warriors from the organization that attacked us tonight."

He turned around and looked directly into Hattori Heizo's eyes.

"We know nothing about that organization. Who are they? Why did they steal the Terracotta Warriors? How many of them are there? What forces are behind them? Do the police have answers to these questions?"

Hattori Heizo opened his mouth, but found himself speechless.

“Isn’t it good to keep someone who could be an ally?” Lin Xiuyi continued. “His ability to infiltrate police operations without alerting the other side shows that he has capabilities that we don’t.”

"His choice to help us rather than hinder us shows that, at least on the issue of the Terracotta Army, he shares our position."

"Why rush to push such a potential ally to the opposite side?"

“If we capture him, we can get the information we want!” Hattori Heizo’s tone was no longer so firm. “Besides, we also captured members of that organization tonight…” “Nine times out of ten, those people are peripheral members, or even temporary hires,” Lin Xiuyi shook his head with a smile. “They were just cannon fodder thrown out by the other side to attract our attention. We definitely won’t get anything of value out of them.”

Hattori Heizo remained silent, which was taken as tacit agreement with Hayashi Hideichi's statement.

“Besides,” Lin Xiuyi countered with a smile, “do you think that with the police’s capabilities, even if they manage to surround him, they’re guaranteed to catch him?”

"Don't forget, he impersonated Officer Furukawa right under our noses for two whole days, and nobody noticed."

These words silenced Hattori Heizo, who had to admit that Hayashi Hideichi was right.

The imposter's abilities were indeed beyond the scope of what the regular police could handle.

“That guy…” Hattori Heizo frowned, then suddenly realized something, “You know who he is?”

This is not a question, but an affirmative statement.

Lin Xiuyi's words and reaction just now clearly revealed that he knew something about the imposter.

Lin Xiuyi stretched noncommittally, a movement that aggravated his wounds, causing him to frown slightly.

"Alright, I've been busy all night and I'm covered in injuries, I'm going back to sleep. What about you? Are you going to stay here?"

This obvious avoidance only confirmed Hattori Heizo's suspicions.

But he didn't press further, because he knew that since Lin Xiuyi had chosen not to talk, he wouldn't get anything out of her by asking.

Hattori Heizo did not answer, still frowning and pondering the identity of the mysterious man impersonating Officer Furukawa.

Lin Xiuyi shook his head, knowing that Hattori Heizo had become suspicious.

But he wasn't worried; with Hattori Heizo's reasoning abilities, he would figure it out sooner or later.

Lin Xiuyi walked straight to Ikenami Tsuyoshi, who was still directing the search, and asked him to send a car to take him back to rest.

Although Ikenami Takeshi was somewhat dissatisfied with Hayashi Hideichi for not catching the imposter when the smoke was thick, he nodded in consideration of Hayashi Hideichi's contribution tonight and his obvious injuries, and assigned a police officer to drive him there.

Watching Hayashi Hideichi get into the police car and leave, Hattori Heizo felt a pang of emotion, recalling the magician who had imitated Hayashi Hideichi during the theater performance at the Osaka Festival.

Could the mysterious person be Kuroba Toichi?

The moment the name appeared in Hattori Heizo's mind, many clues immediately connected.

Hattori Heizo was startled and immediately confirmed his guess.

But then he sighed.

The key to catching a thief is to catch him red-handed. If he doesn't catch the thief at the scene and doesn't have enough evidence, it's useless for him to reveal Kuroba Touichi's identity.

Moreover, as Lin Xiuyi said, Kuroba Toichi played the role of an ally rather than an enemy in this incident.

Revealing his identity prematurely could destroy a potentially valuable source of intelligence.

Hattori Heizo took a deep breath; he had made his decision.

He also went to Takeshi Ikenami and borrowed a car to return to the city.

Too much happened tonight; he needs time to sort out his thoughts… (End of Chapter)