Conan’s Corpse Picker

Among this large number of puppets, probably only the pregnant woman and Xiaobai are normal and would not be regarded as strange creatures.

But if they are used to board the ship, the staff will definitely not be at ease.

Even if the crew finally lets the pregnant woman on board due to regulations, they may sneak over to check on her from time to time to prevent accidents. As for Xiaobai...if he were driven onto the boat and his guardian could not be found, he would most likely be regarded as a lost child and sent directly to the police station.

...When can I pick up a normal adult male ghost? It's best to hide the tattoo and pin it on the face... Jiang Xia sighed and adjusted his sunglasses. A second later, he pulled down the sunglasses he had just lifted up, letting them cover the marks under his eyes again.

He drove Miyano Akemi's puppet to the boarding channel, took out the old banknotes and showed them to the staff, and boarded the ship as an independent guest.

After entering the room and locking the door, Jiang Xia dismissed the puppets and planned to reappear when needed.

His consciousness returned to his true body, where he opened his eyes, then casually took out a novel and opened it, passing the time while waiting for the ship to sail.

…

Ten minutes later, Hattori Heiji brought Conan to the port.

It's almost time for the boat to sail, and the passers-by who came for the advertisement have already left one after another. Hattori Heiji walked to the boarding channel without any hindrance, showed the old banknotes in the letter to the staff stationed there, and boarded the ship.

He followed the corridor to the lobby. When checking in at the front desk, Hattori Heiji shook the old banknotes in his hand and asked, "Why can I get on the ship just by showing you this?"

The receptionist was startled, and his expression was strange for a moment. This made her suspect that Hattori Heiji had not succeeded in solving the puzzle on his own, but had heard the news about "old banknotes can provide free travel opportunities".

This is cheating...

However, the receptionist then thought about it and realized that she was just a wage earner and she didn’t need to pay for the guests’ expenses. She quickly adjusted her expression and responded with a smile: "Because that's what the gentleman who paid the shipping fee in advance asked."

Hattori Heiji was stunned when he heard this. The anonymous sender hired an entire ship to ask him to solve the case? ...This is too sincere. What case does the client want to investigate?

A series of shocking cases involving wealthy families began to appear in the Osaka detective's mind.

After a while, he hid the excitement when facing a huge challenge and asked calmly: "Where is that gentleman now? I want to say hello to him."

Conan also looked at the front desk curiously.

The receptionist shook his head in embarrassment: "I have never met him. He contacted us by phone, and the prepaid fee was transferred directly. There was no personal contact."

Hattori Heiji nodded thoughtfully and didn't ask any more questions.

In this way, the identity of the client is also a mystery. Well... maybe this is actually a test. The client may be hiding on the ship, waiting to see when the detective can find him.

Hattori Heiji felt fighting spirit surge in his heart.

After leaving the front desk, he originally wanted to tap his colleague on the shoulder to express competition and friendship.

But due to height issues, he finally lowered his hand and touched Conan's head: "Haha, finally there is no Jiang Xia to answer this time. Let's compete, Kudo!"

"..." Conan silently pulled his hand away.

Maybe it was because he had been with Jiang Xia for a long time, and when he suddenly heard this declaration, he always felt like Hattori Heiji was still a little kid. However, Conan still subconsciously looked at the people around him, thinking that his employer might be hiding on the ship.

The two put away their luggage and walked around in a circle, discovering that there were several other guests on the boat.

This made Hattori Heiji realize that there were some errors in his previous ideas - the client did not hire an entire ship for him, but probably just spent money to buy him a place.

...This made Hattori Heiji a little disappointed. It's not that he was disappointed that the other party didn't spend money for him, but that if this happened, all the reasoning dramas he had just imagined would be impossible to realize.

…

Maybe it was not time for dinner yet, so there were very few people on the boat. Apart from the service staff, there were only two customers in the restaurant.

One is Ebina Minoru, a middle-aged man with glasses and a prim look. The other is Kameda Teruyoshi, a very silent, squinty-eyed uncle who looks like a taro.

The two of them didn't know whether they were introverted or in a bad mood. They just exchanged a few polite words in a very tight manner and left quickly.

Hattori Heiji found nothing and could only temporarily return to the room.

In the evening, he and Conan came to the restaurant for lunch.

This time, there were more people than before, but compared to the entire ship, the population density was still too sparse.

Conan also felt a little strange.

After sitting down at the table, he grabbed the passing waiter and asked in a childlike voice: "Uncle, why is there only so few passengers on such a big ship? It's too deserted."

The waiter originally wanted to say that there were only so many people who could answer the questions correctly, but he felt that this might be misinterpreted as him mocking the passengers who did not get on the boat. So in the end, he just repeated Conan's words in another way with a desire to survive: "Including the three passengers currently resting in the room, there are only 11 people participating in this trip to Ogasawara."

Conan and Hattori Heiji were startled at the same time.

Only three people were resting in the cabin? There are fewer passengers on this ship than they thought.

At this time, the handsome and well-groomed Whalei Sadao next to him twirled the mustache on his lips and joined the conversation with interest:

"By the way, I remember there was an old scholar among the passengers. We met in the corridor in the afternoon and chatted for a while - he seems to be an expert in marine life research?"

The waiter recalled the guest registration form: "Are you talking about Mr. Ye Caisan? He did say that he has a lot of research on the ocean."

As soon as Hattori Heiji felt that the name "Ye Saizo" sounded familiar, he saw that the expressions of all the passengers in the restaurant had changed, some were panic, some were complicated, and some were filled with hatred.

The detective radar alerted Heiji Hattori and Conan: "...Is it Yazaizo?"

The short-haired woman sitting nearby looked at them, smiled lightly, and said with a hint of memory: "He is a criminal genius known as the 'Shadow Planner'. It was also twenty years ago that a 400 million bank robbery happened." The leader...after that case, he disappeared."

Not far away, the foggy dog ​​hovered over the dining table, watching the scene carefully.

Jiang Xia didn't show up at dinner either. He didn't want his appearance to interfere with what was going to happen next, but he was a little curious about how far it had progressed, so he temporarily transferred his vision and hearing to the ghost and let the ghost float out to check the situation.

To Jiang Xia, except for Hattori Heiji and Conan, everyone else in the restaurant was unfamiliar. However, he still used each person's characteristics to match the real person with the characters in the spoilers.