Conan: I am really a good person

Chapter 359 Please Speak
The club is located in a remote area.

Because it is nominally a club for shooting practice involving guns and shooting ranges, although the location is a bit remote, it is quite professional.

At least the staff is professional.

One hour before the party was about to start, a club staff member drove over to pick up Yi Tiao Wei.

The staff member was wearing a long suit with a long hem, like the servant of a villain in some film or television works. The car was freshly washed and so clean that it reflected a bright light in the sun.

He obviously knew the true face of the club, and also knew what kind of newcomers who could join the club were. Therefore, as a member of the club, his attitude was very respectful. He immediately opened the door and got out of the car, "Hello, sir, the master asked me to pick you up for the banquet."

He added: "If you want to go there on your own..."

Not only Ichijo Mirai but also Judy heard the message from the clerk.

As a theoretical female companion, she fell behind in a manner consistent with her status, trying to maintain her position but not completely. She did not do anything like linking arms. She just looked thoughtfully from behind at the staff member's respectful but fearless expression like a subordinate, and quickly judged that he was an unlucky guy who was unaware of his own death.

Otherwise there wouldn't be only respect and a little bit of fear when facing a criminal, but not any sense of being on high alert when facing a lunatic and not feeling suffocated to the point of wanting to pass out on the spot.

She showed a little bit of sympathy: his back is still straight now, but in another hour or two, he will probably go crazy.

Just like the FBI used to be.

Now that the FBI has reached shore and is temporarily free, the criminals are still struggling in the water.

The unlucky guy didn't notice the stingy mercy given by his opponent. After receiving a reply from the future that he would take the club's car, he helped open the back door, "Please, both of you."

While driving, he politely explained the club's rules to the 'newcomer', "The detailed map of the club is in the pocket behind the front seat. The detailed locations of each lobby are marked on it. You two can check it out. Because of your identities..."

"At each party, the club will prepare a certain number of clothes and masks in advance for guests to disguise their true appearance and identity. If guests want to have a more in-depth private communication with guests, they can negotiate on their own. However, any conflicts that arise during in-depth communication will be resolved."

Not only was the car body clean, the interior was also clean, with no smell of perfume. Judy had already taken out the map and spread it out in a large size, but Yitiao Weilai did not go to get the map. He just rolled down the window and sniffed the air outside, and when he heard the staff deliberately emphasize the word "in-depth communication", he paused and slowly glanced over.

He stared at the staff member for a few seconds, and when he found that he had no intention of speaking without a bottom line, he retracted his gaze, and then looked over again with great interest because he knew what he meant, and asked expectantly: "If members have conflicts in private, the club will not care?"

Is there such a good thing?

For some reason, when the staff member looked in the rearview mirror and met the pair of red eyes that seemed to be brighter, he had an intuitive feeling that something was wrong.

He paused for a moment before answering successfully: "Yes."

"The club will not interfere in the personal relationships of its members."

Then I realized: Oh, although I don’t know which criminal this guy is, he must be a hunter since he can join the club. It’s normal for him to think that he is so powerful that he can treat others as prey when he first joins. No wonder he seems happier.

Then, then it’s normal for him to feel inexplicably uneasy...right?

Thinking of this, the staff became even more uneasy. They were clearly sitting in the driver's seat, and it was obviously not the first time they picked up new members of the club. The person in the back seat, Future, clearly did not have any weapons unarmed, but they were still on pins and needles, as if they were walking on a dark road and had an illusion that they could sense danger lurking in the darkness.

He moved uncomfortably for a few times before speaking again: "If the guests are more concerned about this issue, they can cooperate or trade with other guests through the club."

“For a small fee, the club will provide security for both parties of the transaction.”

"Really?" Ichijo Mirai replied briskly, "Okay."

The back seat was quite large, and Judy had paid special attention to the distance when she sat there, but now she had to sit closer. She still had a smile on her fair face, but her fingers touched the future, and she squeezed out a very light word from between her lips, "Calvados."

Wake up, it's more important to catch Calvados now! Don't look like, "Hmm... how do I lure the club members out to play a few times? The members are doing private transactions. Even if I play with them, the club can't say anything, hehe" or "Hmm... how do I play with the club? When I pay them, I generously give them bombs? I need to think about this carefully."
And I probably won’t have the chance to fish with people from the fishing club in the future.

When he finds Calvados...

Judging from the speed at which this guy was having fun on his first day in New York, Judy guessed that by the time he found Calvados, the club members attending the new members' meeting would have probably been fooled before, and those who didn't attend would have heard something from the rumors and would no longer trade with him privately or offer themselves to be fooled by him.

…God damn it, this guy wouldn’t not catch Calvados just for someone who can play the club in its original form!
This is a scary guess, but it's something that could be done in the future.

Judy was horrified.

There was a subtle panic in the car. A line of sight that had been on the staff moved to Judy, and his pupils narrowed in confusion, "Oh."

He looked at Judy a few more times, and asked with a look: Are you afraid of me? But we are in the same group.

Judy: "..."

I'm not afraid.

However, no matter whether you are an enemy, a companion, or a stranger to Ichijo Future, as long as you know of his existence, it would be difficult to be like a formidable enemy, right?

In particular, whether it was intuition or illusion, in the recent meetings and transactions, Judy subtly felt that Yitiao Future seemed to be paying some attention to her.

It was a kind of attention that seemed like studying and pondering something.

She was silent for a while before she replied delicately, "It's not the fear of the enemy."

It's the fear of unstable bombs.

"Really?" Ichijo Mirai looked at Judy a few more times, carefully studying the expression of this excellent FBI, and confirmed, "You are afraid of me."

No matter what fear means, it is fear.

This is nothing, it's normal. Ninety-nine percent of people will be afraid. It's abnormal not to be afraid. If Judy is like Suzuki Sonoko and not afraid of him, he could observe Judy carefully and maybe gain some experience in dealing with it. But if she is afraid of him, then...

Ichijou looked away and cut off this section as if nothing had happened, pretending that it had never happened, "Okay."

He looked out the window, sniffing the fresh air, his eyes wandering for a moment in the not-too-dense traffic behind him, and finally stopped on a car.

The car was driving in the traffic. It was not very conspicuous. Its speed was neither fast nor slow. It was particularly ordinary. It was no different from other cars and was not worth paying attention to at all.

If only the car hadn't been following them.

If the stalker wasn't Shuichi Akai.

Of course, the FBI would not let the two members go deep into the tiger's den.

As early as when the invitation letter from the club arrived, Shuichi Akai began sending disguised FBI agents to scout the area near the club and try to infiltrate.

Under the important premise of not alerting the club, these FBI agents will most likely not be able to infiltrate successfully... But when some subtle changes happen inside the club, such as a chance to ignite the club in the future, then it's time for these FBI agents to be deployed.

They can rush forward and contribute their own strength in numbers, so that those club members who are seeing Ichijou Mirai for the first time and being played for the first time, and whose anger bars are very short and will be filled up with just one poke, can calm down and withdraw rationally.

Of course, if Yi Tiao Future is willing to be merciful and let them go.

Unlike the FBI who received the schedule in advance and pretended to be calm while approaching the club, Shuichi Akai directly tracked the vehicle to avoid the accident of "the place on the invitation is the place on the invitation, but the real party is another place".

However, judging from the current route of the car, although it took several detours, it was still heading to the location on the invitation letter.

After looking for a few seconds and looking at Akai Shuichi in the driver's seat of the car from a distance, Ichijo Mirai turned his gaze away without changing his expression and asked the staff, "How long will it take to get there?"

The staff member, who had already instinctively started to pay attention, immediately replied, "About twenty minutes, sir."

He hesitated for a moment, not wanting to speak, but vaguely afraid that the car would be silent, so he added, "I'll do it as soon as possible."

Next, he did not take a detour, carried out basic anti-tracking measures, and tried to take the shortest route to return to the club quickly.

The club is located on a street.

The street was clean and there were not many people coming and going. There were also some coffee shops and other stores around with a few people sitting inside. There was also a park not far away. The club was surrounded by some public facilities on both sides. The car stopped at the back door of the club. The decoration was relatively unremarkable and almost perfectly integrated into the entire street. It looked very simple and harmless.

Ichijo Future opened the door and got out of the car. He glanced around and waited for Judy to get out with no expression on his face.

The first thing Judy did after getting off the car was to look around. In addition to taking a look at the nearby situation, she also secretly looked for Shuichi Akai who was following her. Then she found that he had withdrawn when he was about to reach his destination to look for other FBI agents who had lurked there in advance.

She didn't find Shuichi Akai, but she found one or two club staff members who were suspected to be disguised as passers-by guarding the coffee shop. So she frowned and lowered her head, continuing to lag behind like a subordinate.

The staff led them through the back door of the club, to a place they were familiar with. He was more relaxed than before, with a smile on his face. "There are always some blind bugs who dare to target the club, so the area around the club is more strict. You two should have noticed that there seems to be a guy stalking outside."

"Please don't get me wrong, that's the bait the club has set up."

Please don't misunderstand the club's strength. The club is not the police and will not send such obvious guys as eyes. They are just used as the first layer of bait to lure those police and opponents who think they have found the eyes and therefore only guard against the eyes but not others.

Ichijo Mirai didn't pay much attention to it, nor did he say that he had just taken a quick glance and spotted seven or eight guys from the club, "Yeah."

Anyway, those guys can't have much impact on Shuichi Akai. It's okay as long as those FBI guys who are trying to gather numbers don't come together to get killed.

He casually followed the staff into the club.

The club is very large, but there are very few staff members. There are only two receptionists in the lobby. When they saw a colleague coming in, they both realized that a guest had arrived. One of the receptionists immediately pressed a few buttons on the phone, while the other quickly walked to the elevator, swiped the card, and pressed the floor button in advance.

"Sir, Madam, please," the staff member leading the way stopped in front of the elevator, "Your Excellency is already on the second floor."

grown ups?

Future raised an eyebrow and walked into the elevator.

In the elevator, he warned Judy in advance, "Wait a minute, I might do something a little out of line. Don't be too surprised, and don't stop me. Don't worry, it's all part of the plan. I have my own rhythm."

Judy: “?”

Her alarm bells rang, "What are you doing?!"

"It's necessary to do some slightly out-of-the-ordinary things," Ichijou stared at the red numbers jumping on the elevator screen and spoke faster. "I don't want to wake up at midnight today, so don't worry, it's just a little out-of-the-ordinary."

The elevator has arrived.

As he stepped out of the elevator, he added, "Oh, if it goes too far, then I'll just go too far."

Outside the TV is a red and white corridor. The red carpet is and the white walls are. Like the first floor, the entire second floor is shrouded in silence, so quiet that you can even hear breathing.

The source of the breathing sound is at the end of the corridor.

There were tables and chairs and two people there, a young man standing with his head down, facing a future, an old man in a suit sitting quietly on a chair, silently facing the oil painting on the wall at the corner of the corridor, with his back to a future.

The old man's breathing was light but rapid, his head lowered, and his black gentleman's hat covered most of his gray hair. The few hairs that were not covered shook out from under the brim of the hat.

There was a gun on the table to the right of the old man.

Hearing the footsteps, the old man took a deep breath and slowly stood up, "I have heard a lot about you, sir."

He turned around and put a wet handkerchief into his pocket. His pupils were still trembling, but his tone was calm and unhurried. "I thought you would come alone."

"...But you're the only one who would actually bring a partner with you like you're attending a normal dinner party, right?"

It was the elderly gentleman who made the call.

One future didn't speak.

His gaze began with the old gentleman's hair trembling in the air and slowly moved downwards, sweeping over the lucky man's still trembling pupils, the collar and shoulders that were darker than other parts of the body, the clenched hands, and the loose but slightly shaking trouser legs.

As he watched, he smiled and greeted her a little late, "Ah, hello."

The hands of the elderly are different from those of the young. The skin hangs loosely on the hand bones, looking like scalded chicken skin. When the hands are clenched, the creepy and uncomfortable feeling becomes even stronger.

Facing the enthusiastic smile, the old gentleman did not speak. The young man beside him looked over strangely, took a step forward, and said respectfully: "Sir, are you sure that the partner you are carrying is the lady beside you, right?"

From the moment she got to the second floor, Judy was keenly aware of a certain subtlety in the air, which made her swallow all of her anxious "Wait! Serious business! Don't play around!" and her rebuttal and clarification "I'm just a subordinate."

She stood silently behind a future like a puppet, glancing at the oil painting at the end of the corridor.

It was probably a portrait painting.

The reason why I say "probably" is because the focus of the painting is a completely black upper body of a human being. The black color covers his entire image, and Judy can only barely make out that it is a man with short hair.

Yitiao Future is also looking at oil paintings.

He didn't even look at the lucky young man, but looked up and down at the lucky old man and the painting, and asked casually in a very leisurely manner: "To be sure, what happened?"

"Please say."

(End of this chapter)