Chapter 244 Underground Maze
Chapter 245 Underground Maze

Following the housekeeper, we came to the study room on the first floor where the master used to live. As soon as we entered the study room, a scent of books hit us. Of course, there was also the smell of old dust and rust. That was the smell of the traps. Having experienced countless traps, I immediately noticed the difference here. The room wrapped in steel and the unique smell of bronze and pig iron were particularly strong in this room. Without thinking too much, this must be the room where Master Xiyi had the most traps.

"This is Mr. Xiyi's study." The butler introduced to us, "Here are exhibits of Mr. Xiyi's photos and some of his photographic works from that time."

"Everyone was browsing the room. The photographs and photos on the wall recorded Mr. Kiichi's life experiences at that time. However, after taking a general look at the photos in the whole room, my eyebrows raised. Looking through the photos one by one, I found a pattern. I wanted to continue searching along the pattern, but was interrupted by Conan's voice."

"Hey, Sister Natsumi, why is there no photo of your great-grandmother here?" Conan discovered that there was no photo of Mr. Kiichi's spouse, that is, Natsumi Kosaka's great-grandmother.

"Speaking of this... surprisingly, there is not a single photo of my great-grandmother, so I still don't know what she looked like." Natsumi Kosaka bowed and smiled at Conan shyly. And Natsumi Kosaka's words made Conan ponder.

"Hey, Bing. Is this detective boy any good?" Kaito whispered to me as he walked behind me.

"That's about right." I gently looked up at Kaito and said, "Let him look for clues, and we'll just watch. And this castle seems to have a lot of treasures. What do you think? Are you interested?"

"Not yet." Kaito smiled awkwardly. "Except for Pandora, I don't care about the treasures here. Besides, this castle is Miss Kosaka's personal property. It's not my place to take it away without any reason. What about you? Do you want to do it?"

"Hey, I actually have the same idea, but I believe that this castle has many mechanisms and treasures that even Kosaka Natsumi doesn't know about. I only take that part, which should not violate your principles, right?" I laughed. "From the key that the butler took out when he uncuffed Mr. Qian just now, at least he knows where the treasure is hidden in the castle, but as for the underground and other places..."

"Uncle. Lend me a cigarette!" Conan interrupted me again as I was speaking. He rushed straight to the cigarette in my father's hand. After intercepting the cigarette with green smoke, Conan lay on the ground and began to feel around carefully.

"It seems that our great detective has made some discovery. So I'm going to eat all the treasures from now on. Do you have any objection?" In response, Kaito didn't say anything. He just shrugged and stood up, returning to his demeanor as Officer Shiratori.

The sight refocused on Conan, and he saw that his hand holding the cigarette was still not far from the fireplace, and the green smoke that was rising was shaking irregularly. It was the wind, the wind coming from under the fireplace. That was the basement where the hide-and-seek game was.

"The wind is blowing from below. That means Mr. Kiichi, who likes to design mechanisms, must have set up a secret basement in this room." Conan said as he put out his cigarette in the ashtray handed to him by Xiaolan. He was completely unaware that Xiaolan's eyes had changed a long time ago. Instead, he was talking to himself. "And that switch should be around here." As he spoke, Conan searched around. Sure enough, in the center of the bookcase, Conan found a mini groove. After he opened it with his hands, several rows of neatly arranged buttons were revealed.

"Then, what is that?!" Dad asked in surprise.

"It's in Russian letters."

"Can this be used to open the door of the secret room?" Mr. Qian's eyes changed color.

"There should be a password." Conan analyzed. "Mr. Xilu, please enter the Russian password."

"Oh, okay." Mr. Xilu walked to the cipher mechanism.

"Memory, the password must be memory!" Dad said excitedly. But when Mr. Xilu pressed the Russian word for memory, there was no response.

"Try Kiichi Kasaka." Mr. Qian suggested, but unfortunately it was still fruitless.

"Ms. Kosaka, have you heard of this code?" Mr. Xilu looked up at Natsumi Kosaka, but Natsumi Kosaka just shook her head, indicating that he knew nothing about it.

"Barushinikukata Meka."

"Eh?" Everyone looked in Conan's direction again. "Miss Natsumi once said this sentence that left a deep impression on me. Could it be in Russian?" Conan turned around and looked at Kosaka Natsumi.

"волшебник-конца-века." Seeing that Conan had mentioned this sentence, I subconsciously said the Russian sentence.

"Huh? Boy, how did you know that?" Dad leaned over and asked me.

"Hehe, the night before yesterday when I was studying Russian with Xiao Ai, I accidentally discovered that the pronunciation of Russian letters has a lot of repetitions, so we tried to fill in the Russian letters with the Japanese words we heard recently, and this sentence happened to be filled in."

"Ai? Are you talking about the girl named Huiyuan who just transferred to your school?" Xiaolan asked me. "You two have such a good relationship?"

"Well, because we've known each other for a long time." I smiled. "Well, I'll tell you about her later, Sister Xiaolan." I interrupted Xiaolan's curiosity. "Mr. Xilu, enter the password first."

"Hmm? Oh, okay." Mr. Xilu pressed the Russian text and continued to speak as he pressed it. "волшебник-конца-века, the magician at the end of the century?"

Rumble. . . .

As he spoke, when Zi Zi pressed the last button, the whole room shook violently, the machinery started, the friction of gears could be heard, and then, with the dust billowing, the ground near the fireplace was slowly retracted under the fireplace, revealing a long and narrow staircase, which must be the passage to the basement.

————————————Detective Conan The Movie: The Magician of the End of the Century——————————

"I have entered the love of my life, and I have forgotten to dance with the lights on~" In the tunnel, the children's singing resounded throughout the corridor. Yes, it was the children. Dad had strictly forbidden the children to follow us into the castle, but what we didn't expect was that when we walked into this underground maze, Conan heard the movement at a fork in the road not far away. He walked over and found that it was the children. The reason was that the children, in the name of looking for treasure, accidentally set out for the mechanism in an abandoned lighthouse not far from the castle, which made the children fall into this maze. After that, the children, led by Shiho, sang all the way and walked forward until they met Conan, and then they moved forward with us.

"I say, these kids are so brave. Fortunately, the mechanisms made by Kiichi are not very aggressive, otherwise these kids would still be alive?" I complained to Shiho as I walked.

"It was a coincidence. I just happened to walk to that tower. Who knew that the doctor accidentally triggered the mechanism there, and we fell all the way down. Fortunately, no one was injured." Shiho followed me with her hands behind her back. "As for you, it seems that you and your sister mentioned me? Just now, the way she looked at me seemed to be..."

"Huh? What?" I asked, turning my head.

"...Nothing, but Kudo-kun, it seems your sister cares about him a lot."

"Ah, that idiot, I can't even complain about him anymore." I sighed slightly. "Once he gets into the mood of solving a case, he doesn't care about anything else. I'm really worried about what Xiaolan will do after marrying this idiot detective."

"Hey... are you so sure that Xiaolan will marry him?" Shiho raised the corner of her mouth with a playful look. "Aren't you worried that Xiaolan will be in Kudo-kun's childhood..." The words stopped abruptly. Shiho suddenly realized that she was also involved in this matter.

"It's okay. One day we will defeat the organization and get the formula for the antidote." I gave Shiho a comforting look. "And don't blame yourself. If it weren't for the drug you made, maybe you, me, and Kudo would no longer be alive. Think about it from another perspective. This is a good thing for us."

"..I'll find a way to get the antidote." Shiho said softly. "As for the organization, Kaoru, do we really have to fight against the organization? Can't we go to Elcatras together?"

"Hiding is not a solution after all, and there is no impenetrable wall in this world. You can hide for a while, but not forever." I frowned slightly. "I know you want to live a peaceful life, and I want to give you that kind of life, but after all, the organization is a wall blocking us. If we don't break it, we will never get real peace." Walking behind the crowd, I reached out and pinched Shiho's hair. "Don't worry, Shiho, before our power is established, I will not easily expose myself, nor will I take the initiative to provoke the organization."

"Okay, I believe you can make the decision." After thinking for a while, Shiho nodded. "I will work hard on the antidote, and I will also do my best with the finances..."

"You should sleep a little longer if you have the time." I interrupted Shiho. "Although I don't mind spending money on high-end cosmetics for you, I don't like you to use the eye makeup I bought for you to cover your dark circles."

"Eh?" Shiho's cheeks turned red, and she explained in a low voice. "It's just that I didn't sleep well last night. I don't stay up late every day."

"Do you still want to stay up late every day?" I gave Shiho an EXM look. "Occasionally it's okay, but don't be like the author, sleeping past 1 a.m. every day. If you do that for a long time, something bad will happen."

"Hey, hey... I don't know who the person was who used to stay up late every day to complete missions." Shiho was speechless and had to change the subject.

"Uh... I can't help it."

"I understand, Mr. Butler."

"Hello..."

Following the crowd, Shiho and I chatted all the way. The adults certainly didn't pay attention to what we were saying. The children were also thinking about the treasure. This gave Shiho and I a chance to chat, but while we were chatting, the crowd in front of us suddenly stopped. When we looked over, we saw that the road had come to an end.

"There is no road. Did we take the wrong path?" Mr. Xilu asked in confusion.

"Impossible, there should be only one way." Shiratori, also known as Kaito, said to everyone. "I think there should be a mechanism here." As he said that, Kaito pointed the flashlight at the wall in front of us that blocked our way. I saw that the wall was covered with totems, which were birds.

"There are so many birds." Ayumi said as she looked at the scene in front of her.

"Eh? The big bird in the middle has two heads." Mitsuhiko discovered the uniqueness of the totem.

"The two-headed eagle is the symbol of the emperor." Shiho explained while looking at the totem. Shiho also came into contact with a lot of this kind of foreign history when he was studying in the United States, especially Russia, which had a constant confrontation with the United States, and Germany, the origin of Nazi black technology.

"The sun is painted behind the crown. The sun... light. The magic mirror... could it be?!" Thinking of the key to the problem, Conan immediately ran towards Shiratori who was standing in the front. "Officer Shiratori, please focus all the light of the flashlight on that crown!"

"Uh, oh." Kaito didn't understand what Conan meant, but he still did it. When he turned the flashlight to focus on the crown, a miracle happened. At the moment the light gathered, the crown on the two-headed eagle's head emitted a dazzling light. Then, the ground began to tremble. I clearly heard the creaking sound of the gears turning. Soon, the ground where Conan was began to sink. Another mechanism was unlocked, and the door to the next level appeared in front of us.

"A photometer is a device that uses spectrophotometry to perform quantitative analysis on substances. It produces different reactions based on the absorption of different wavelengths. I never thought that it was already mastered by the royal family a century ago." I couldn't help but sigh.

"Well, I have to say, Mr. Kiichi can really be called the magician of the end of the century. It's a pity that such instruments are only used in mechanisms. If they were used on weapons..." Shiho said fearfully.

"Fortunately, it was not widely used in optical bombs, otherwise it would be hard to say what the outcome of World War I would be. But such a difficult thing... could it be Germany's black technology?"

"Who knows?" Shiho shook her head regretfully. "May the world be at peace."

(End of this chapter)