The Split-Actress in Conan's World

No one knew that in the basement under the stage, an old pocket watch was ticking competently.

When the second hand pointed to the Roman numeral representing "12" for the seventh time, a barely perceptible burning sound was heard.

This was followed by a violent explosion and dazzling flames.

"What happened?!" The audience in the opera house panicked, feeling the exaggerated tremor and fear in their hearts.

Irene could no longer stand steadily on the stage and the performance was forced to be interrupted.

The huge light tubes on the ceiling of the opera house were shaken by the vibration and fell from the ceiling, about to hit Irene who was sitting on the ground.

"Ms. Irene!" Conan shouted loudly and ran over from behind the curtain, wanting to rescue her, but how could he cross a distance of more than ten meters in such a short moment?

Fortunately, when the light tube was about to fall on Irene, a silver hook flew over and deflected its falling trajectory.

Conan immediately pulled Irene backstage.

Chiyoko silently took off her wristband.

Just this one use broke the cable.

"It should be Jack the Ripper who did it!" Conan's face didn't look very good.

They all thought he would hide in the dark, waiting for Irene to finish her performance and let her guard down before taking action.

Who would have thought that Jack the Ripper, with such a reputation, would use explosives in such an unethical way? !

"We must leave here quickly, the theater is about to collapse!" Chiyoko reminded, kicked away a few red bricks that had just fallen, and cleared a path ahead.

Several people followed closely behind him.

However, on the way to the backstage, a beam on the theater's dome suddenly loosened and fell down with a violent roar.

Conan, who was right below, didn't notice this at all. Judging from the speed he was running, he would be crushed under the pillar!

"Danger!"

Haibara Ai shouted at him loudly, and threw herself towards him with all her might, pushing him away, but she was hit hard on the back.

The pillar hit the ground with a heavy thud, and Conan then realized the danger.

"Haiyuan?!"

"You must never give up, Kudo." A rainbow-colored light effect began to appear on Haibara Ai's body. She smiled bitterly and turned her gaze to Conan.

“If you can’t find a character to help us, then you’re Sherlock Holmes to us.”

"No case is too difficult for Sherlock Holmes."

As soon as she finished her words, she turned into pieces and disappeared into the air.

Conan's throat choked and he couldn't speak, and his heart became heavier.

"Don't just stand there, the troublemaker is coming!" Chiyoko pulled him and looked towards the exit vigilantly.

The tall and thin black shadow stood there, his black robe fluttering in the wind. He gave a cruel sneer, lowered his body, and rushed towards them suddenly, the blade in his hand reflecting a cold light.

"I'll stop him!"

Mao Lilan clenched her fists, gathered her strength and kicked forward, attacking Jack the Ripper.

Jack the Ripper raised his free hand to block the attack. Although he successfully blocked the attack, all his previous momentum was gone. He immediately swung the blade in his hand and slashed at Mao Lilan's leg.

Then how could Mao Lilan stand there and let him chop her?

She quickly used the force to jump into the air, avoiding the knife, and chopped down with her other leg, aiming straight at Jack the Ripper's head.

Jack the Ripper tilted his head slightly, and the kick only hit his shoulder, failing to achieve the effect that Mao Lilan had expected.

By the time she landed and was ready to attack again, Jack the Ripper had already distanced himself and turned and ran without hesitation.

"Don't run!" Mao Lilan chased after him without thinking.

"Hey, Sister Xiaolan!" Conan called out hurriedly, but Maori Ran had already run far away and could not hear him at all.

Chiyoko looked up at Big Ben and saw that the hands had gone back to the "4" minute position.

"There are only a few of us left in this game." He looked deeply at Conan without saying anything more, but his words made Conan feel more stressed than any extra words.

"Let's go, it's time for the final battle."

......

"After checking the testimonies of all the staff at the venue, we found that Chairman Sindora was last seen in the control room. He seemed to be checking the loading of scene resources in the game."

After thanking the police officer in charge of collecting testimony, Kudo Yusaku nodded.

He walked down along the staff passage to the bottom, where was the room where the game server port was located, which was also Kenmura Tadaki's studio.

Kudo Yusaku knocked on the door politely, and a short "Come in" came from inside.

He pushed open the door.

The huge server body took up one-third of the room. The blue and green indicator lights were flashing, creating a different starry sky in the dim room.

Because these indicator lights are very important, once they turn red it means there is a malfunction, so the lights are not turned on in the room to prevent the indicator lights from changing color and being unclear.

Tadaki Kenmura sat in front of the console, watching attentively the scene of Conan and others escaping in the opera house.

"It's really hard work. The maintenance of the entire server depends on you alone." Kudo Yusaku sighed, standing behind him and also looking at the screen.

"To be honest, with the help of Noah's Ark, it's not that hard."

Jiancun Zhongbin's expression was a little bitter. "Although Sindora doesn't know that Noah's Ark is here with me, she just wants to embarrass me."

Kudo Yusaku shook his head slightly: "Even without the help of Noah's Ark, I believe you can handle this job by yourself."

"You have such talent."

"Can this be called talent?" Jiancun Zhongbin operated on the keyboard for a while, and the screen switched to another perspective, showing the entrance of the opera house.

"Server maintenance is just a job that requires time and effort. Just like scene resources, we just make models of things in reality and then move them into the game."

"Like you, Yusaku-san, turning your rich imagination into reality is the real talent."

"Perseverance is already a rare talent," Kudo Yusaku said without following his self-mockery. "In the two years since Hiroki passed away, he insisted on working in this company while secretly commissioning detectives to investigate, and at the same time he was able to hide Noah's Ark."

"Jiancun, it's amazing."

"wrong."

Jiancun Zhongbin said expressionlessly, "This is not perseverance."

"It's just a father's unwillingness."

Kudo Yusaku was silent for a while.

He suddenly said, "By the way, I remember there was a scene in the pirate dungeon that always had a bug during testing. Has it been fixed?"

Jiancun Zhongbin opened the operation log and saw nothing unusual. He said casually, "Oh, I fixed it not long ago."

However, it was these words that froze the atmosphere.

Kudo Yusaku took two steps back, closed his eyes, let out a long breath, and looked a little sad.

Jiancun Zhongbin sensed that something was wrong and looked back at him, quickly reviewing the conversation in his mind, trying to find out where he had answered incorrectly that aroused his suspicion.

However, I never found anything wrong.

"What are you thinking about that made me suspicious?" Kudo Yusaku had seen many expressions on the programmer's face, including his grief when he asked him to investigate Hiroki's death, his seriousness when designing games, and his joy at parties.

No matter which expression he had, there was a deep sadness in it. Hiroki's death was a pain that he would never be able to let go of.

But the only thing he had never seen was the cunning and hesitation that unconsciously appeared on Kenmura Tadaki's face at this moment.

He had seen this expression on too many murderers' faces, but it shouldn't appear on Jiancun's face.

It shouldn't.

"Jiancun, is Noah's Ark too powerful, like an omnipotent god in the cyber world, making you too dependent on it to the point of forgetting about yourself?"

"You believe it has the ability to solve all problems, so a small bug is inevitable."

"But in fact, the bug was not discovered by Noah's Ark."

"Because from a programming point of view, it's not a bug, it's just a wrong texture."

"An overly luxurious treasure chest."

"I mentioned several times that a treasure chest that was too clean was not suitable for that scene, and it should be more shabby, but you just said you understood and then forgot about it."

"Because you know, if there is a bug, Noah's Ark will help you solve it."

"You've long been accustomed to leaving everything to Noah's Ark and using the remaining time to investigate Sindor. So you wouldn't have thought that Noah's Ark didn't change the map. It was Sindor that found fault with it a few hours ago, and the colleagues in the control room temporarily replaced it."

"You didn't change that. You were doing something else at that time."

Kudo Yusaku paused and looked sharply at Kenmura Tadaki, who was silent at the moment.

"You are preparing to kill Sindorah."

"In fact, you didn't expect that Sindorah was also planning to kill you!"

"He went to the control room temporarily, not because he was really worried about the game problems, but because he used this as an excuse to come to your studio and attack you."

The door was opened, and Rin Chihaba came in with Inspector Megure and others and surrounded Kenmura Tadaki.

"After I guessed the real cause of death, I began to suspect you. As Hiroki's biological father and the person in charge of the crucial 'Cocoon' game, you have both the motive and the conditions for murder."

Rin Shakuha took over what Kudo Yusaku had said and continued in that calm tone: "So I realized that there might be some mistakes in the time when the deceased was last seen."

"Because as the last person to see the deceased, you lied."

"From other people's testimonies, the deceased was last seen in the control room and then disappeared. Where is he most likely to go?"

"That piece of letter has already told us the answer."

"He went to kill you, and you... were the last person to see him."

"You are the murderer."

"But all of this is just my speculation. There is no evidence to prove it, so I invited Mr. Yusaku. He keenly discovered the scene bug and all the entry points, and agreed to come alone to trick you."

"You already know the result."

"There is a serious discrepancy between your testimony and your actual actions. The police will follow the law enforcement procedures, keep you under strict surveillance, and conduct a thorough search of your private space."

"Because Sindorah's killing was planned ahead of schedule, have you really cleaned up everything? The equipment you used to hypnotize him is not a small thing."

Jiancun Zhongbin leaned back in his chair, rubbed his temples with relief, and smiled with emotion.

"That's amazing..." He looked at Kudo Yusaku and Rin Shakuha, and his expression suddenly relaxed.

"There's no need to search thoroughly. If they break any machine, all the children's efforts will be in vain. Isn't that why you didn't dare to search extensively?"

"I plead guilty."