Chapter 224: Number Sequence, Take Me With You

Jiangxia Tongzhi paused to think for a moment, then decided to give it a shot.

If luck was on his side and his operation was smooth enough, he just might be able to pull this off.

He recalled that, in the original timeline, the first intersection between Kazuyoshi Asahi and Kogoro Mouri happened because Kogoro helped Asahi look for a lost cat.

Jiangxia shut off his computer, strolled over to Amuro Toru's detective agency, and examined the "cat diary" and appointment book hanging near the entrance.

But under the client section, Kazuyoshi Asahi's name was nowhere to be found. No one else surnamed Kazuyoshi either—not even Kazuyoshi Asahi's wife.

…Maybe the cat wasn't lost yet.

Or maybe it was already missing, but Kazuyoshi Asahi hadn't come to Amuro. Instead, he might've been pulled by the gravitational force of fate straight to Kogoro Mouri.

Even if young detectives were now stealing all the juicy murders from Kogoro like they didn't believe in martial arts anymore, the Mouri Detective Agency was still famous for finding stuff.

Since he had time to kill anyway, Jiangxia gathered a few of Yoko Kinoshita's limited-edition knickknacks and headed over to the Mouri Detective Agency under the guise of delivering them—to sniff out some info on the side.

Sure enough, Kogoro Mouri's desk was a mess as always, with commissions scattered all over. Jiangxia scanned the stack and spotted a request from Kazuyoshi Asahi to find a cat.

The attached photo showed a plump cat with a distinctive heart-shaped patch of white fur on its side. Very recognizable coat.

Looking at the photo, Jiangxia felt he'd found a solid entry point into Kogoro's latest case.

Judging from the incomplete remarks on the form, Mouri hadn't found the cat yet.

And when it came to finding cats… Jiangxia had an elite team of cat-tracking younger brothers.

If he could locate the cat first and deliver it to Kogoro Mouri, then when Kogoro later encountered "Kazuyoshi Asahi" (with the number nine in his name), he might also remember "Jiangxia" (which includes a two).

Boom. Logical entry into the plot secured.

With that in mind, Jiangxia grabbed the photo just as Kogoro was happily tearing into Yoko's "not-for-sale" merch.

He hesitated. "This cat… I feel like I've seen it somewhere before."

Kogoro paused, halfway through peeling some bubble wrap. Despite his usual messiness, he still cared about clients. "You remember where?"

Jiangxia furrowed his brow. "I think it was… near the Metropolitan Police Department?"

Lie.

He'd only laid eyes on this cat ten seconds ago, in this very room. That photo was the first time he'd ever "met" it.

But Jiangxia needed to set the stage. If he said he'd seen the cat before, it made sense later when he magically "found" it and gave it back. Nice and reasonable.

If he didn't find it? No big deal. It's a cat. They bolt the second you open a door. Seeing one and not catching it was perfectly normal.

But if he did find it—and handed it over with no pretext—and then a few days later, the cat's owner turned up murdered...

Yeah. That'd be suspicious as hell.

Jiangxia evaluated himself objectively: he was not a squeaky-clean, law-abiding citizen.

Suspicious coincidences were like toxins—they built up. One or two didn't matter, but pile on enough and one day… boom, down goes the vest of a Good Citizen™.

And once that happened, no more case ghost-spotting for fun. The Red Side™ (a.k.a. the do-gooders) would be watching him like a hawk.

Kogoro Mouri, of course, didn't overthink it. He just scribbled Jiangxia's intel down for future use.

…

After successfully "clocking in" at the Mouri office and grabbing the intel he needed, Jiangxia left.

On his way out, he group-texted his younger brothers and asked them to keep an eye out for the distinctive heart-cat.

He also dropped by Dr. Agasa's house, just in case someone had already snatched the cat and brought it over.

Unfortunately, no luck on the feline front.

But on the plus side, there were dishes he wanted to eat.

So Jiangxia mooched a meal from Haibara Ai and kept pushing the cat-hunt forward.

Meanwhile, he headed back to his detective office to clear out the leftover commissions stacked up during his Mermaid Island trip. Later, he needed to research upcoming cases too—there was a name on Gin's hit list that gave him déjà vu.

…

Two days later, while Jiangxia was going through case files at home, he got a message from Yellow-Haired Brother.

—He said he spotted the cat on the balcony of an apartment building.

Jiangxia rushed over and looked up.

Six-story building. The cat was lounging on the balcony railing of the fourth floor, totally passed out in blissful slumber.

He wasn't sure whether it had been adopted or climbed up there on its own.

Still, most people wouldn't leave a cat unattended on a half-open balcony. So odds were, it had climbed up solo.

But fourth-floor balconies were a little too high for casual cat-catching. Tricky for humans.

Jiangxia scanned the area. It was quiet. No pedestrians in sight.

He was just about to send Yellow-Haired Brother away and squeeze a giant clay bird to grab the cat—

—when the ghosts reacted.

There was a murderous aura in that apartment.

Not a strong one. But definitely there.

Jiangxia paused in mid-squeeze.

After thinking it over, he put away the puppet clay and entered the building.

There wasn't a security door at the front.

Jiangxia glanced at the mailboxes, matched the unit number with the balcony, and found the name of the resident: Naoki Uemura.

That name rang a bell.

Naoki Uemura—semi-famous soccer player. Not long ago, during training, he got his calf fractured by a teammate named Akagi Hideo.

Uemura was convinced Akagi had done it on purpose, scared he'd get outshined.

So Uemura hatched a plan: he lured Akagi's younger brother to his home under the guise of a friendly visit, faked a kidnapping scene, and anonymously mailed a threat to Akagi Hideo, demanding he throw the game.

Classic Detective Conan Universe nonsense.

Jiangxia sent the ghosts upstairs to check things out.

In Unit 402, there were two people: one big, one small.

The kid was glued to a video game. The adult sat beside him, right leg in a cast, gloomily watching a soccer match on TV.

*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 31 - 90 days by POWER STONES.

Progress: 53/60(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS

Goal #2: One BONUS CHAPTER per review for the first 10 REVIEWS.

Progress:2/10*