Ke Xue: Xiaolan delivers goods to your door at the beginning

"Right, Kudo?"

"Ah, that's right."

Conan, with his hands in his pockets, strolled down the steps from the shadows.

“We noticed it from the moment we entered. There was always an unopened bottle of red wine next to the head seat at this banquet table. In other words, it was waiting for someone. And there could only be one person who could make Colonel Meng Lang willingly take a secondary seat and wait patiently.”

"Professor Moriarty."

Lin Xiaofeng gave the final answer.

"What's being held here tonight is actually a gathering of London's underworld, and Professor Moriarty himself, who controls all of this, will be there. So all we have to do is wait here."

"...Then what did you mean by taking a picture of that wine bottle earlier?"

Moroboshi Hideki suddenly recalled the bottle that Lin Xiaofeng had thrown at Colonel Meng Lang's forehead half a minute earlier.

To be honest, you knew Professor Moriarty would definitely come here tonight, so why are you still interrogating him?

Lin Xiaofeng shrugged: "Oh, that's just a habit, I just did it on a whim, otherwise I always felt like something was missing."

"..."

Hideki Moroboshi was speechless, finding the adult world terrifying.

squeak--

Just when everyone thought they were about to begin a long wait, the sound of a door hinge turning suddenly came from the back door they had entered through.

Following the sound, the wooden door was pushed open from the outside, revealing an elderly silver-haired coachman in a trench coat. His bowed posture caused the brim of his hat to cover most of his face, making it impossible to see his expression clearly.

"Lord Moriarty is outside. Please follow me."

"Excuse me..."

Lin Xiaofeng lifted the red wine in his hand, picked up the cane leaning against the table, and was about to follow him toward the door.

At this moment, Colonel Meng Lang, whose head was still bleeding, actually struggled to get up from the ground, ignoring the sticks in front of him.

"Please wait a moment!"

"Ok?"

The old coachman, who had been about to turn and leave when he saw Lin Xiaofeng following, stopped in his tracks, turned his head with a hunched back, and looked over his right shoulder, a cold glint flashing in his eyes.

"Do you intend to defy Lord Moriarty's will?"

"No, I...I dare not..."

It seemed that Moriarty's name had a deterrent effect. Colonel Monlang's body trembled, and he unconsciously took half a step back. The weapon he had raised in mid-air also fell down, and he stopped trying to stop him.

And so, the group of six left the poker club, a scene of utter chaos and hellish devastation, through the back door.

Upon arriving at the back gate, the pale moonlight shone on the stone-paved road. Beside the deserted street, a high-class carriage was quietly parked, and inside sat an elderly man dressed in a black trench coat, whose appearance was difficult to discern.

"Lord Moriarty, I have brought the person here."

The driver came to the side of the carriage, bowed, and whispered.

"Hmm... So it was you who wanted to see me."

Professor Moriarty sat motionless in the car, like a statue.

"In that case, give me my red wine first."

This is the moment to hand over quest items to the NPC. Normally, most players won't think much about it and will just stop when they see the golden question mark above their heads.

But Lin Xiaofeng refused.

"Well, don't be so impatient. Speaking of which, I suddenly thought of something just now. Professor, your coachman hasn't gotten in yet, and you're sitting in the carriage all by yourself. If I were to suddenly whip the horse's rump with a stick right now, wouldn't the panicked horse drag you across half of London and end up taking you, London's number one dangerous person, away in some accidental car accident tonight?"

"..."

At this moment, not only Conan and Heiji Hattori, but even the other three members of 1 and 4 were stunned. To be honest, this is probably the first time in history that someone has dared to speak to London's most dangerous person like that.

But thinking back on everything that just happened at the club, I have to admit... this guy was a bit more dangerous.

"But I don't think so."

Lin Xiaofeng slightly curved the corners of his mouth.

"After all, the one sitting in the carriage is the driver, while the one standing next to us is the real professor, isn't he?"

……Eh?

"What do you mean?"

The driver seemed to smile slightly, though his face was partially hidden by the brim of his hat.

“At a time like this, there’s no point in pretending anymore.” Lin Xiaofeng tapped the ground lightly with his cane twice. “Colonel Meng Lang used ‘please’ when he spoke. Normally, would London’s second most dangerous person use such polite language with a coachman?”

"Heh, I actually saw through it..."

The coachman shrugged slightly twice, then straightened up and took off his coachman's hat, revealing an old face full of sinister malice.

It was Professor Moriarty himself.

The driver, who was sitting in the car, stopped pretending. He took off his top hat and placed it next to his seat. He got out of the car, bowed to everyone, and then took the wine bottle from Lin Xiaofeng and put it in the back of the car.

The driver returned to the carriage and sat in the driver's seat, leaving only Professor Moriarty, Lin Xiaofeng, and the others on the roadside.

Professor Moriarty put his hands behind his back and straightened his back: "Alright, then as a reward for recognizing my true identity, I'll listen to your requests."

"What we need to do is very simple: find Jack the Ripper," Lin Xiaofeng said.

"Oh?"

A meaningful smile curved across Professor Moriarty's aged and sinister face.

467. In the game, Yukiko also falls in love with Lin Xiaofeng.

"Alright, stop playing games." Lin Xiaofeng deliberately showed off the revolver he had smuggled from Sherlock Holmes' house. Disobeying meant death, no matter who you were. "Anyway, let's talk about Jack the Ripper first, or Professor, what information do you have to offer?"

Ok……

Ignoring the disrespectful attitude of the young man before him, Professor Moriarty looked into the distance, a look of reminiscence on his aged face.

“Jack the Ripper was a homeless kid I found in the slums. He was just a teenager at the time, but even though he was a homeless kid abandoned by his mother and wandering the streets, I could see his talent at a glance. It was the talent of a criminal.”

"Hoo ho ho..."

A smile appeared on Lin Xiaofeng's face.

Professor Moriarty continued, "So I trained him to be a top-notch assassin and made him work for me."

"But why would he kill innocent women?" Hattori Heiji asked, puzzled.

It's reasonable for him to ask that question. After all, even if someone is trained by Professor Moriarty to be a cold-blooded and ruthless killer, they should only target those the professor has instructed them to kill.

In other words, it would be reasonable for Jack the Ripper to kill Sherlock Holmes, but the fact is that all the women he killed were women who seemed to have no connection with him at all.

Surely this wasn't at Professor Moriarty's behest, or does the professor really have such a morbid taste?

"That's because Jack the Ripper turned into a serial killer beyond my imagination, and this whole series of cases was a result of that kid going out of control."

Professor Moriarty maintained his smile.

"But since you want to take care of Jack the Ripper, then I'll help you out."

assist?

Heiji Hattori and Conan were taken aback.

They never expected that such words would come from Professor Moriarty, who is the ultimate supervillain in the novel.

Moreover, is it reasonable to help these detectives, who should be considered enemies, deal with the assassins they trained?

"Well, you don't need to be so suspicious."

So that's how it is. Both sides wanted to get rid of Jack the Ripper, meaning it was a deal.

A win-win deal.

Would someone really be willing to eliminate a killer they've trained for years for their own sake and their criminal empire?

While Conan and Heiji Hattori were still secretly amazed by Professor Moriarty's ruthless nature, Lin Xiaofeng had already moved on to the next topic.

"So, since Jack the Ripper has already started to lose control, given his intelligence and his understanding of you, Professor, he should know that being eliminated is only a matter of time. It's just a matter of when that time will come."

"exactly."

Professor Moriarty gave him an approving look.

“Even so, he should still obey my orders to kill. You just need to go to the designated location and wait for him to come to you.”

"How to do?"

Conan asked impatiently.

Professor Moriarty simply smiled and said, "I will put a message for him in the advertisement section of tomorrow's Sunday Times. You will understand everything when you read the newspaper."

"Deal," Lin Xiaofeng said.

The two sides concluded their negotiations, and Professor Moriarty straightened his trench coat collar: "Well then, I wish you good luck."

After saying this, he turned and boarded the carriage. After putting on his top hat, the coachman drove away, leaving only the sound of horses' hooves and the rolling of the carriage axle along the way.

Only after they had completely disappeared around the corner of the street and could no longer be seen did Hideki Moroboshi tentatively ask.

"Should we really believe that old man?"

"Hmm~"

Lin Xiaofeng turned his head and looked in the direction the carriage had gone.

……

Time passed quickly and it was the next day.

In the Whitechapel district of London, six people stared wide-eyed at a newspaper on the steps of the square in the morning sunlight.

"So, what did they say?"

"Let me take a look..."

Lin Xiaofeng pointed to the top line of the newspaper and read aloud.

"M's message to J: go clean the theater stage tonight... M is Moriarty, and J is naturally Jack the Ripper, but it's related to the theater stage..."

He turned two pages.

"Oh, I've got it! The Triumphal Performance, the idol of the Waltershah Royal Opera, Irene Adler!"

London Opera House at night.

“This should be the right place, right?”

Holding a bouquet of flowers, Conan carefully pushed open a wooden door, and the noise from outside immediately greeted him.

Looking out from inside the door, you can see the backstage area of ​​the entire opera house. In the brick and stone passageway illuminated by old electric lights, you can see opera singers dressed in gorgeous costumes and looking dignified, as well as support staff dressed simply and carrying boxes of performance props.

Everyone was busy and no one noticed what was happening inside the door.

"This is the right place."

Lin Xiaofeng glanced out through the crack in the door and said confidently, while making a rightward gesture.

"Turn right after you go out, and you'll find the dressing room."

"...You know that too?"

"came."

Row.

Having no other choice but to push open the door and walk out, Conan was at his wit's end with this quintessential old Londoner.

That's right, they sneaked in through the back door again this time. Normally, audience members should enter through the front door of the theater, buy tickets through the VIP entrance, and go directly to the audience seats.

But their purpose in coming here was to meet Irene Adler before the performance, so this was the only way they could do it.

For this purpose, Conan even took some of the pounds he received last night to buy a bouquet of flowers, so he could disguise himself as a loyal fan of Irene Adler.

Now, the flowers will come in handy.

"Please stop, gentlemen."

Just as Lin Xiaofeng and the others were about to pass through the passage and arrive at the dressing room, a British man wearing a tuxedo and holding an account book, who looked like the person in charge, walked over and blocked the way in front of the group of six.