Daily Spy Life in the Detective Conan World

Chapter 672 What's with all the fuss?
Kogoro Mouri's voice abruptly stopped.

Before she could even utter the words "senile," Shinmei Kaori shook her head firmly: "My father wouldn't have that problem. Except for the use of Arabic numerals for dates in his novels, he always uses Chinese characters to express numbers. I can confirm that!"

"However, this time it is indeed a bit strange; the case handler shouldn't be like this."

"Could it be that Father really left some kind of secret code in the manuscript?"

A flush appeared on Shinmei Kaori's face.

For two months, there have been no clues. The police and detectives have found nothing. Can this finally break the curse?

"That's right, there must be something wrong with the manuscript, and the novel's title might be the key to unlocking the code. What could it be?"

Conan paced back and forth, chin in hand, pondering the meaning behind it.

According to his memory, Shinmei Nittarou's time seems to be running out, and he must solve the mystery quickly.

Xia Chuan rubbed his forehead, enduring the cramps in his stomach, and reminded him again:

"Does Professor Shinmei really like France? I noticed that he actually appeared in the first chapter, which seems different from many novelists' works. Even when the author appears, it usually happens at the very end or at a crucial moment."

"Yes, my father loves France. He spends several months there every year. He says it inspires him and helps him relax so he can write works that express his feelings."

"However, I don't know why he appeared in the first chapter."

"You mean his appearance at the beginning is telling us that we can find clues about him at the beginning?"

"Uncle Xia Chuan, have you found anything?"

Conan, not wanting to get involved with Kogoro Mouri's side, went to Natsukawa's side instead.

Ignoring Conan, Natsukawa continued, "If he likes France so much, it's rather careless of him to misspell this word."

"Look."

Xia Chuan showed everyone a line of English in the first chapter: "The word 'umour' should be 'humour' in context; it's missing an 'H'."

"Also, I remember that the pronunciation of 'sommet' in French is similar to the Japanese word for 'mountain peak.' Is Professor Shinmei trying to get us to pay attention to the top row of text on the manuscript?"

"Going back to humor, the missing 'H' in this word in Japanese means reading from right to left and from top to bottom."

"Could he mean that the novel actually contains acrostic poems, where each character is extracted from the beginning and rearranged in order, from right to left?"

"Uh?"

Kogoro Mouri raised an eyebrow slightly and tried to analyze the situation using Natsukawa's explanation.

After a moment, he shook his head again: "This is not right. After extracting the text, these words are a mess and cannot be put together into a coherent sentence."

He read through the second chapter and then the latest seventh chapter, and it was still the same.

"Xia Chuan, aren't you overthinking this? Maybe it was just a slip of the tongue by Shinmei-sensei. Besides, there's nothing wrong with the title 'The Pinnacle of Half.' Don't novelists all like to come up with ambiguous titles?"

wrong!

Conan seemed to have discovered something and snatched the first faxed copy of the other chapters from Kogoro Mouri's hand.

"Conan, you can't do this!"

"Kid, you're playing with fire!"

Ran had no time to stop him. Conan was hit on the head again by Kogoro Mouri, and the bump that had already subsided sprouted again, even turning into two.

After beating him up, Kogoro Mouri was still not satisfied, so he grabbed Conan and slapped his buttocks twice more.

"very painful!"

Conan was thrown to the ground, and manuscripts were scattered all over the place.

Even so, it couldn't stop the professional ethics of a famous detective.

"Oh dear!" Conan wiped away the tears that were uncontrollably welling up from the corners of his eyes, his childish voice attracting the attention of others.

"What are you whining about? Doesn't your butt hurt?"

Anya somehow appeared behind Conan, and as Conan spoke in his cute childish voice, she gave him a smack on the bottom.

"Ania!"

Conan gritted his teeth and covered his butt, realizing that his movements had still attracted other people's attention, and immediately began to explain:
"If we translate the first word of each row into French, pick out the words that start with 'H,' and then remove the 'H,' it seems we can form new words!"

"is it?"

Kogoro Mouri glanced at Conan suspiciously, then his lips twitched after reading the first chapter.

According to Conan, the first character of each line on the first page of the first chapter was extracted, translated, the "H" was removed, and then translated back into Japanese.

"Don't even mention forming a sentence; some of them, if you remove the 'H,' simply don't form any text at all!"

"What time is it for him to cause trouble? Xiao Lan, drag him out of here!"

Kogoro Mouri is furious. Not only did he steal the spotlight, but the clues he provided were also wrong. Conan is having a really bad day!
"No, perhaps Conan is right. It's just that the first chapter is only there to tell us the rules of solving the mystery. We should start from the second chapter."

Xia Chuan picked up the first page of the other chapters from the ground and laid it flat on the table.

Everyone else gathered around.

"It seems like it really works!"

Kaori Shinmei had some knowledge of French, and using the method Conan had just suggested, she quickly deciphered the text from the first page of the second chapter.

My current location is...

"what!"

Kogoro Mouri stared wide-eyed and stuck out his tongue, then realized that his appearance was not quite in line with his character, so he immediately coughed and composed himself.

"Just as I suspected! I'd figured it out a long time ago, I just wanted to test you guys, hahaha!"

Finding that no one was paying attention to him, Kogoro Mouri pouted. "By the way, Ran, now that we can confirm it's related to the kidnapping, let's notify the police as soon as possible."

"I see."

"Please, this is the only time Uncle Kogoro can be of any use."

Conan's desire to show off kicked in again, and he jumped around under Ran's strange gaze.

He jumped onto the table and squatted down to read the following chapters.

Chapter 34 Code: "Tokyo Beika Municipal Hotel!"

Chapter 56 Code: "Room 2407!"

Chapter Seven Code: "Hurry up, detectives!"

"What do you mean by 'hurry up'? Has Mr. Shinmei really been kidnapped, and are the kidnappers about to attack him?"

"But what's the reason? If you wanted money, you should have contacted Miss Shinmei long ago."

Kogoro Mouri was puzzled by the kidnappers' purpose and scratched his forehead in frustration, looking at the two tufts of hair.

Shinmei Kaori's face was extremely pale, her legs went weak, and she slid to her knees, sobbing with tears in her eyes.

"Zizzi"

The sound of the fax machine broke the silence. Editor Fujisai froze for a moment, then immediately reacted and ran to the fax machine.

"It should be the latest fax from Teacher Xinming!"

(End of this chapter)