allendalepharm Page 131
Page 131
"Okay." Xiaolan nodded, and finally, guided by Yuanzi, picked up the rightmost playing card.
"Um!?"
However, when Xiaolan turned over the playing card she had chosen, everyone around who could see the card instantly changed their expressions.
Even the magician himself, Kazumi Sanada, who performed the magic trick, showed an expression of shock and incomprehension.
Because this card was not the Ace of Hearts that he had predicted.
Instead, it was a playing card with a message card pasted on its surface.
[I've arrived at your side like Xisha, bewitched by the Queen of Egypt. Phantom Thief Kid has arrived.]
Chapter 155 Chaos
"Kidd, it's Kidd!"
"Kidd has appeared!"
……
The appearance of this card suddenly caused chaos in the venue.
Sanada Ichizo, who prided himself on being no less skilled in magic than Kaito Kid, fell into deep self-doubt.
He simply couldn't fathom how Phantom Thief Kid had managed to slip that card into his deck of cards.
"Could it be one of the guests who just came into contact with the playing cards?!" The thought made his nerves tense up.
But who could it be?
How did he do that?
I had been watching every guest who touched the playing cards the whole time, and I didn’t see them do anything suspicious.
At this moment, Officer Chaki and his team began moving among the crowd, calming everyone down: "Everyone, please be quiet! Quiet, don't panic! Please confirm the code with your partner!"
However, it was obvious that Officer Chaki himself was also a little flustered in this situation, so he asked Officer Nakamori beside him, "Officer Nakamori, that dark star hasn't been stolen, has it?"
However, before Inspector Nakamori could answer, Conan preemptively replied, "No, that guy didn't steal anything, nor did he escape this place!"
"Huh?" Officer Chaki and Officer Nakamori looked towards Conan, who was standing to the side, upon hearing the voice.
But all we saw was this elementary school student, who was also the first to discover that Kaito Kid was disguised as Suzuki Shiro, saying confidently, "He's just trying to make us waver and fall into his trap! Don't worry, I'll find him. He can't do any magic at all; he's just an ordinary person who can do magic tricks."
Officer Chaki and Officer Nakamori blinked, looking completely bewildered at the elementary school student whose face seemed to say, "I'm coming clean, I'm not pretending anymore."
Then the two of them looked at each other, completely unable to understand what Conan was saying.
"Young man Aragaki, what did you and Mrs. Suzuki whisper when Mr. Sanada was performing magic?" Akemi Miyano leaned close to Yu Aragaki's ear and asked softly.
Although she had just gone to the front of the stage to watch Mr. Sanada's magic performance, she still noticed Aragaki Yu's actions.
"It's nothing, I'm just curious about some things and wanted to confirm them again," Aragaki Yu explained casually.
Upon hearing Yuu Aragaki's perfunctory reply, Akemi Miyano couldn't help but frown slightly.
After hesitating for a moment, and seeing that no one was paying attention, she couldn't help but remind him, "Little brother Aragaki, I think you... shouldn't have... too many thoughts about Mrs. Suzuki. Um... if you really want to find someone, I can introduce you to someone better..."
"..."
Aragaki Yu turned his head in surprise and glanced blankly at Miyano Akemi, whose face was slightly flushed.
(?oo?)??
However, what Miyano Akemi didn't notice was that Aragaki Yu had clearly pinned his pearl to Miyano Akemi's body, while Miyano Akemi's own pearl remained safely in her handbag.
But at some point, Aragaki also began wearing a black pearl on her chest, though its dull luster went unnoticed by most.
……
As the guests used coded signals to confirm their identities, Inspector Nakamori's subordinate ran up to him from outside the banquet hall and reported, "Officer, this ship will be entering Tokyo Bay in less than thirty minutes!"
"Alright!" Officer Nakamori's expression grew even more wary. "Have men guard all the entrances and exits of this venue, and absolutely do not allow anyone to enter or leave from here!"
"Yes, officer." Upon receiving the order, the subordinate immediately jogged out and began to deploy according to Officer Nakamori's instructions.
"Hmph, it's time you showed your true colors, Phantom Thief Kid!" Conan, who had been watching the scene closely, sneered inwardly after hearing the police's conversation. "Even if you have a plan, you can only do it when the guests are trying to escape!"
……
"Wait, Ran, where did the pearl on your chest go?" Sonoko suddenly noticed that the black pearl on Ran's chest was nowhere to be seen.
"Huh? No way..." Xiaolan looked down in surprise and found that her chest was now completely empty.
She anxiously began searching around, and only when she found a black pearl falling to the ground and rolling away into the distance did Xiaolan breathe a sigh of relief, thinking that her pearl had simply fallen to the ground.
"Um...excuse me, could you please pick this up for me?" Xiaolan asked the guest in the direction the pearl was rolling.
However, just as the surrounding guests bent down to pick up the pearl...
The pearls on the ground suddenly exploded. Although the explosion was not very powerful, it emitted a thick cloud of smoke.
"Wha...what?!"
Everyone was startled by the sudden commotion.
Officer Nakamori rushed over anxiously and asked the person involved, "What just happened!?"
The guest who had tried to help Xiaolan retrieve the pearl cried out in alarm, "It's a pearl! The pearl just exploded!"
"Ah!?" Upon hearing this, the surrounding guests all turned around to look in this direction.
"Has Kidd already found the real Dark Star?"
At the same time, more black pearls suddenly appeared on the floor, and then they all exploded one by one.
"Are you kidding me!"
In an instant, the entire venue was thrown into turmoil.
"We don't want to wear these exploding pearls!" Many guests, worried that the explosion might affect them, tore off the pearls from their chests and dropped them on the ground.
Many more guests, due to the commotion in the venue, swarmed towards the exit of the banquet hall, trying to escape this horrible place.
"Calm down! Calm down!" The police, who had realized that this was all the work of Phantom Thief Kid, quickly spoke up to try to calm the guests at the scene.
However, due to the sheer number of panicked guests, the police, with their limited numbers, were unable to control the situation.
Amidst the chaos at the scene.
Suddenly, Tomoko Suzuki's scream drew everyone's attention: "Ah! Kid! Kid stole my Dark Star!"
Suzuki Tomoko was accidentally bumped into by guests who were trying to rush out of the banquet hall in a panic. After Ran and Sonoko ran over to help her up, she discovered that the pearl on her chest had disappeared in the chaos.
"What?!" Inspector Nakamori was shocked upon hearing this. He quickly went to Tomoko Suzuki's side, looked at her empty chest, and asked in astonishment, "So, Mrs. Suzuki, the pearl you're wearing is the real Dark Star!?"
"No, that's right!"
Suzuki Tomoko's face showed a panicked expression, and her eyes revealed an unconcealable anxiety.
Chapter 156 Detective vs. Phantom Thief
"Officer Nakamori! The gate is out of control!"
At this point, the police could no longer control the panicked crowd. The guests who had been crowding at the exit of the banquet hall finally broke through the police-guarded gate and fled in a rush.
"Officer Nakamori, I estimate that thirty or forty guests have already rushed out the door!" Officer Nakamori's subordinate reported in a panic.
"Damn it!" Inspector Nakamori's face showed an angry expression. He waved his hand and led his subordinates to chase after the guests who had run out of the hall. "Kid must be mixed in with this group of people. Go after them!"
Upon seeing this, Conan unconsciously narrowed his eyes, a look of realization flashing in them.
Then, he grabbed Xiaolan's hand and shouted anxiously, "Sister Xiaolan, hurry! Let's go catch Kid together!"
"Hey? Wait a minute! Conan! Where are you going?"
"I now know exactly who Phantom Thief Kid is!"
"Huh!?" Upon hearing Conan's words, Ran, who was being pulled along, showed a surprised expression. Then, she was half-pushed and half-pulled by Conan as they ran out of the banquet hall.
Watching Ran's figure gradually disappear into the distance, Tomoko Suzuki's face no longer showed any trace of anxiety; instead, it displayed the same composure and confidence as when the banquet had just begun.
Of course, when she turned her head and met Aragaki Yu's gaze, she couldn't help but reveal a hint of admiration.
……
More than ten minutes later.
Ran looked around the empty cabin with curiosity: "Huh? Conan, this is the engine room! How could that Phantom Thief Kid be hiding in this place?"
Conan, juggling a soccer ball that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, turned his back to Ran and asked, "Ran-neechan, do you know what pearls represent?"
"The significance of pearls?" Xiaolan seemed a little puzzled.
"The meaning of pearls is the moon and women. When Mr. Sanada was performing magic, I asked Uncle Mori for the guest list for this banquet. And guess what? I discovered that the only woman on this ship with the character 'moon' in her name was Mrs. Suzuki Tomoko." Conan juggled the soccer ball over his head, using his forehead to maintain its balance, as he explained confidently, "So, the real Dark Star is the one she's wearing!"
"Oh, I see!" Ran looked at Conan's retreating figure with a look of sudden realization. "But Conan, how do you know who Kid is just from this?"
"Rely on those cards! Sister Xiaolan, didn't the card you drew have a message that Kid had stuck on it?"
"Okay!" Xiaolan nodded.
Conan continued kicking the ball, appearing nonchalant: "That trick is simply to insert the card while Mr. Sanada is conjuring a dove in his right hand to attract everyone's attention. It's a basic magic trick! So no matter how others shuffle the cards beforehand, the card that is drawn in the end will always be the one Mr. Sanada wants."