He's in Detective Conan, and he's the mastermind behind everything.

At 3 a.m. on Saturday, Ying Sheng returned to Ian Apartment.

I went upstairs, opened the door, and there was Kiyoko sitting on the living room floor, tapping on the plaster bust on the coffee table.

"Why aren't you asleep yet? Be careful not to catch a cold."

Ying Sheng went to the balcony, took the felt blanket that had been removed from the rattan chair, and placed it behind Qingzi.

"Lift your butt up."

Kiyoko shifted slightly: "Waiting for you. How's it going over there?"

"What else could it be? Unexpected things just happened. I've discovered that while the distillery's organization is problematic, those codenamed members are quite remarkable." Ying Sheng yawned and sat down cross-legged next to Qing Zi. "May I use this plaster statue?"

Kiyoko stopped, gently pushing the plaster cast towards him before turning her head to look at him, her delicate nose catching a whiff:

Why does it smell like blood?

"How could that be? I washed myself clean." Ying Sheng waved her hand over her hair, then brought it to her nose, sniffed her sleeve, and tilted her head in confusion. "No, you don't actually have a cold, do you?"

Kiyoko pouted: "Oh, sorry, I mistook the scent of pomegranate for the smell of blood."

"Heh, you rascal."

Ying Sheng took the carving knife from in front of her and kept tracing the facial features on the plaster head with his left hand: "If you hadn't been away from the bottom of society for too long, you would have realized that this is actually a type of soap commonly used in public bathhouses, mainly because it's cheap."

"Huh? I've never escaped the lower class; I'm still from the lower class. I'm just shy since I was little and rarely go to public baths." Kiyoko looked at the plaster bust. "What does Hotaru-kun want sculpted?"

"I can't carve, but I should be able to get a general feel for it."

Ying Sheng closed his eyes, constantly recalling the facial features of Itakura Taku, the undulating lines of his facial muscles.

After a long while, he opened his eyes and took out the half of the human skin mask that had been washed clean.

Even at that critical moment, Ying Sheng remembered to take this with her. She originally planned to send it to the testing center to test the material and compare it with the mask she had obtained last time, so that she could determine the material ratio of the human skin mask more quickly.

But now that another doubt has arisen in his mind, it has found another use.

"Go get me a bottle of ink," Ying Sheng said.

Kiyoko did as she was told. A moment later, Hotaru picked up a small sculpting brush, dipped it in ink, and evenly brushed it onto the inside of the half-skin mask. Holding the top and bottom ends, he gently pressed it onto the smooth back of the plaster head.

After examining it carefully for a few moments, he removed the human skin mask, looked at the marks left on it, and shook his head with a wry smile:

"Truly worthy of being called the Thousand-Faced Witch, I admire you greatly."

He got up and went to the bathroom to wash his mask. When he came out, he saw Kiyoko looking thoughtfully at the ink stains on the plaster statue. He smiled and asked, "Did you find anything?"

Kiyoko nodded: "The inside of the human skin mask that Vermouth makes fits the original face very closely, which is why it is so lifelike and can even reproduce expressions without revealing any flaws. So, if it is molded in reverse like a casting, could we recreate the face under the mask?"

"clever."

Ying Sheng walked over, collapsed onto the sofa, and tossed half of the mask to Qingzi.

"With the powerful tearing force of a bullet impact, and the fact that this thing is made of elastic material, if the target's face shape is not much different from the suspect's, I can't really be sure. But it's quite a coincidence that the codenamed member and Itakura Taku both have big noses."

But Vermouth is definitely not.

Kiyoko took the human skin mask, pinched the area around her nose, and suddenly realized, "Vermouth disguised Itakura Taku as someone else, and then someone thought that person was her and killed him. Vermouth faked her death?"

"I don't know."

Ying Sheng shook his head and said, "Whether Vermouth knows that this person was shot by Xiao Lan is unknown; even if she knows, it is also unknown whether she can be sure that the distillery's sniper will not leave any survivors and will take her out with one shot."

Three possibilities.

Either she happened to be there and suddenly had the idea to disguise Itakura Taku to divert attention; or it was premeditated to use Itakura Taku to keep me and the brewery in check and observe each other's attitudes; or it was premeditated to fake her death.

The first one is the most powerful, which means that her disguise skills are so strong that she can change people's clothes with a single click.

The latter two possibilities at least indicate that she has truly broken away from the organization and is deeply wary of it, wanting to know the organization's attitude towards her, hence this test.

Kiyoko laughed and said, "Since the distillery sniper fired, she obviously knows the answer."

"I'm not sure. The distillery is in such a mess, what if it's just a personal grudge?" Ying Sheng sighed. "Didn't they say she was very close to the BOSS? It can't be that just because I'm about to catch her, they're just abandoning her so heartlessly."

"Oh, this is truly disheartening."

"Um……"

Kiyoko asked curiously, "What will she do from now on? Will she still go to school on Mondays?"

"There are still two days left, who knows what will happen, but now that she knows Miyano Akemi is not dead, and probably also knows that Sherry is not dead, then for the foreseeable future, her guiding principle should be to find and eliminate these two people."

then……

I don't know how much she cares about Kudo, or whether she'll ever appear by his side again. I also don't know how much she knows about the scheming within the research institute, or to what extent she suspects me.

"I'm sorry, Kiyoko, you'll probably be stuck in a hotel for two days this weekend. I need to see how things develop before I can assess the situation."

Ying Sheng's voice grew weaker and weaker; he was almost asleep on the sofa.

"Am I not going to find Aoyagi-san?"

Kiyoko asked softly, then got up, took a thin blanket from the corner of the sofa, and gently covered Hotaru with it.

“If this person, ‘Sakura Kiyoko,’ simply disappears, wouldn’t your spending time with her over the weekend become a clue when others start looking for her? Even if you tell her not to tell anyone else, there will always be traces left.”

"I understand. Shall we change our target?"

"We'll talk about that later, let's see first."

Ying Sheng's consciousness became increasingly scattered, feeling the gentle and soothing pressure on his temples as if it were a cloud, and two other sensations suddenly surfaced from his memory.

In the afternoon, in the taxi, Xiaolan gave me a knee pillow and a massage with just the right amount of pressure.

Twenty minutes ago, Hua Ying hoped that even if she tried to press with her fingertips, her long manicured nails would still make him feel a little itchy.

The three sensations inexplicably overlapped, and a faint sense of fear rose in Ying Sheng's heart, for reasons unknown.

Is Tian Shu's consciousness truly being eroded?

He would never have thought about these things before.

But just a moment later, a gentle breeze swept across his heart, smoothing out all the ripples.

The true nature is originally without attachment; one can become an immortal, a Buddhist, or a Confucian.

Will Tian Shu die?

maybe.

however…

Chapter 242 Shuiyue Yingsheng is truly and completely dead.

If we consider things from the perspective of change, then even heaven and earth cannot last for a moment; if we consider them from the perspective of permanence, then both things and I are endless.

What does it matter if we are born in the morning and die at night?

Love and murderous intent combined, and the second time, before reaching the [boundary], it transformed into life.

Ying Sheng smiled slightly, and his consciousness completely dissipated.

"Qingzi, don't call me for anything."

Kiyoko paused slightly, then continued to press gently, her lips curving into a slight smile, her eyes displaying an unprecedented tenderness.

Goodnight, Hotaru.

[Love +4]

This was the biggest single gain in nearly a month, but Ying Sheng didn't see it at all.

His consciousness had already drifted into a deep sleep.

His true self is now completely empty.

Xuan Tian...

Xuan Tian...

At 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, a sliver of consciousness awoke from the darkness. From complete ignorance to full wakefulness, it only took the time it took for a single thought to arise and vanish.

Ying Sheng took off the light-blocking blindfold. The room was still quite dark. The edge of the balcony curtains let in dazzling sunlight, but there was no light in the middle.

Are the blackout curtains in his house really that effective?

Upon closer inspection, Ying Sheng realized that what he saw was not a curtain at all, but the blanket on his bed, which was placed over the curtain to block out the sunlight.

He squeezed the blindfold that had been placed on his hand without him even realizing it. Who did this and why was it done? It was obvious.

Ying Sheng suddenly wondered if he should sleep a little longer.

And today's weather is really inconsiderate; couldn't it just be dark enough that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face?

Ying Sheng gently lifted the thin blanket covering him and slowly got up. Qingzi would also be getting up later, so he would go and prepare the meal first.

I just don't know if it's breakfast or lunch now.

As a result, he stopped halfway through his movement and looked at the other side of the coffee table.

There, Kiyoko lay on the wicker chair that had originally been placed under the wisteria trellis, her head turned to the side, a faint smile on her delicate face, her watery purple eyes reflecting the gentle breeze stirring the lake mist of late spring.

The mist, conveying a message from heart to heart, also eased Ying Sheng's brows, causing her to smile gently:

"Sorry, did I wake you up?"

"Um...actually, I just wanted to scare you."

"You're so beautiful, even a killer face-jump wouldn't scare anyone. What do you want to eat?"

"Eh? Hotaru, are you going to cook yourself?" Kiyoko's eyes sparkled. She paused slightly, then asked cautiously, "May I call you that?"

"of course can."

Ying Sheng smiled and got up, stretching his bones that had been limp from sleeping. "I'm a terrible cook, let's order takeout." He glanced at the clock above the dining table. "10:32, it'll be lunch when it's delivered. You can sleep a little longer."

Kiyoko had already thrown off the thin blanket and gotten up: "I'll cook, but I'll keep it simple. Hotaru-kun will go to see Ran-san for lunch later, right?"

"Hey, don't be so sensitive."

Ying Sheng hugged Qingzi from behind and buried his head on her shoulder: "Let me tell you beforehand, I'm really bad at cooking, so don't blame me if you can't swallow it."

Kiyoko tilted her head: "As long as you put your heart into it, even if it doesn't look good, it's still edible, right?"