Daily Spy Life in the Detective Conan World

Chapter 158 Two Objectives
Smoke curls from the mountain villa amidst the wind and snow.

The red flames illuminated half the sky, but everyone was hiding inside the villa and no one noticed what was happening.

Xia Chuan and his group of five followed the villa's owner, Huang Yize, into the living room.

The garden was sullen the whole way, staring at the Tsuchi-Tak tree in front of it with dead fish eyes.

This guy's size is twice what she imagined!
From an elegant, handsome man to a chubby, freckled otaku, Sonoko's mental state plummeted from Mount Everest to the bottom of the ocean.

"I never expected that the magician's apprentice and the money-giving boy would know each other. You couldn't tell that the two of you knew each other at all in the group chat."

Doi Takaki glanced at Natsukawa every now and then while speaking.

He had thoroughly investigated the information of everyone in the chat room, except for the person who had entered the chat room at the same time as him, whose identity he could not identify.

This meeting truly surprised him. To sum it up, Xia Chuan had been secretly investigating him all along, hadn't he? He'd even hacked into his computer; otherwise, it would have been too much of a coincidence for the two of them to run into each other in the same chat room.

“No, not really,” Sonoko shrugged. “Ran and I were just about to leave when we asked Natsukawa to help us get here, only to find out he was also coming to this party. Uncle Mori is really something; he promised to pick us up, but then he suddenly couldn’t make it. Luckily, Natsukawa was here, otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to attend the party.”

"Hehe, my dad only accepted the commission temporarily. After all, no one can turn down money, so there's nothing we can do about it."

Xiaolan felt a little embarrassed, but there was nothing she could do; her father's schedule had been affected by work.

Sonoko remained silent; no one turns down money.
Speaking of which, his uncle seems to have a problem with money. He spends money like water and buys useless things every day. I heard that he recently took a fancy to some gemstone and is going to buy it for his dog to wear.

Off the charts!
"Those two are really destined to meet~" Kikue Tanaka teased, raising an eyebrow.

"Brother Keshu, can you take a picture with me?" Anya grabbed the camera and ran to Doi Takshu, tugging at his clothes.

"Huh?" Doi Takaki shuddered, glanced at Natsukawa, and found that the other was chatting with Ara Yize and not looking in his direction.

"Why does the little girl want to take a picture with me?" Doi Takaki couldn't help but feel suspicious. The other party's daughter suddenly came to his door asking for a photo. Could it be that Natsukawa was trying to set a trap for him?
Or perhaps Natsukawa has already told his daughter about his identity as Phantom Thief Kid, and his daughter is a fan of his?

"Because I think Brother Keshu has an elegant temperament, is it okay to take a photo with him?"

Under Doi Takaki's disguise, Kaito nodded to himself, surprised that even a disguise couldn't hide his true nature. This kid really has good taste.

On the other side, Huang Yize, who was chatting with Xia Chuan, glanced at his watch with worry and said with a sigh, "It's already this late, why haven't Shadow Mage and Escape King arrived yet?"

"Indeed, it's already 6:30. If it's any later, the car will probably have trouble going up the mountain."

"Let's call and confirm. The room leader, Escape King, isn't here. We don't know how to arrange the program."

After discussing it for a while, the homeowner, Huang Yize, made the call.

He was the only person in the villa who knew the real address and name of the Escape King. As for the Shadow Mage, although he accepted the invitation, no one knew his real identity, so even if they wanted to contact him, they couldn't.

The phone rang for a while before being transferred to voicemail.

"This is Xishan. No one is home right now. Please leave a message after the beep."

No one answered.

Huang Yize frowned and pondered. Without the room leader, the show couldn't be done, since the room leader, the "Escape King," was in charge of the show.

Just then, Xia Chuan's phone vibrated. "It's Uncle Mori calling."

Xia Chuan glanced at the contacts on his phone and handed it directly to Xiao Lan: "Uncle Mori is probably looking for you."

Xiaolan nodded, took the phone, and walked to the side to answer it.

On the other side, Conan took more than a dozen photos of Anya and Doi Takaki.

"Is that enough?" Conan put down the camera and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. This Anya really loves to boss people around. Doesn't she know she's still a patient?
"Alright, that's it!" Anya happily took the camera, ignoring Doi Takaki, who was grinning and ready to admire the photos with her.

Doi Tucker Tree:
They said they thought I had an elegant air about me, but after the photos were taken, they ignored me.

At least let me see a photo, right?

Oh well, it's not its original appearance anyway, so I guess I won't look at it.

Doi Takaki walked over to Natsukawa, who had just sat down, and asked, "Mr. Natsukawa, why did you choose to join this chat room for magic enthusiasts?"

Although he was already certain that the other person was targeting him, he still wanted to hear their explanation. Even if the chance of it being intentional was as high as 99%, there was still a 1% chance that it was just a coincidence that the other person and he had joined the same chat room.

"Of course I want to know what Kaito Kid's purpose is~" Natsukawa crossed his legs, giving him a look that said, "I already know what you're thinking."

"Hehe, Mr. Natsukawa, don't joke around. There's no Phantom Thief Kid here. I don't know anything about him." Kaito stubbornly denied it as usual.

Xia Chuan glanced at Kaito with a knowing look, then didn't reply.

He couldn't be bothered arguing with Kaito; no one could stop that guy when it came to being stubborn. Besides, if the other guy really wanted to run around naked, he could just argue it out.

"By the way, why did you come to this magic enthusiast gathering? Are you doing market research? Are you planning to follow in your father's footsteps and enter the world of magic performance?"

Kaito shook his head, not denying his identity as Kaito.

Turning his head to look at the chat room members who were discussing something, his gaze finally settled on Kikue Tanaka.

"Ikasama Doji, the previous user of this username should be the famous magician Harui Fuden. The reason I joined this chat room was because Mr. Harui Fuden invited me in."

One month ago, Mr. Harui Fuden died in a magic accident after his escape magic trick failed.

However, a few days later, I discovered that the account had been reactivated and someone was using it to continue chatting.

Not only that, their chatting style is the same as Mr. Harui Kazeden's before, which makes me very suspicious.

And then there's the Shadow Mage who joined the group chat after you and me; that guy's talking was a bit off. I checked his IP address and verification information, and found that the information was stolen.

My purpose today is to find out who is using the online name "Ikasama Child" and who is the Shadow Mage who stole someone else's identity.

It has now been confirmed that Ikasama Doji is Tanaka Kikue, the granddaughter of Harui Fuden. Next, we need to confirm the identity of that strange Shadow Mage.

Come to think of it, you've probably noticed by now, that guy's got some mental issues.

(End of this chapter)