Chapter 449: Surrounding the Corpse and Attacking the Reinforcements
Chapter 450: Surrounding the Corpse and Attacking the Reinforcements
"Hello, Ai-chan, I'm Teacher Judy. Oh... I can't be called a teacher anymore."

"Teacher Judy? What's the matter?" One morning, I suddenly received a call. The person on the other end of the phone was Judy Stelling. Shiho looked at me who came to pick her up in the morning and put the phone in speaker mode.

"Oh, it looks like you're okay now," Judy recognized Shiho's tone.

"Yeah. I'm fine, but you, teacher."

"Oh~ Thanks to you, I have successfully completed the operation and am waiting to be discharged from the hospital." From Judy's tone, Conan's explanation to the FBI must have worked. Or maybe Judy didn't ask too many questions.

"Well, I wish you a speedy recovery." Shiho said politely. "So, what do you want from me?"

"Then I'll get straight to the point." After a brief greeting, Judy's tone became serious.

"Well, we'd like you to join our witness protection program."

"Huh?" Shiho was slightly surprised.

"Yes, the witness protection program." Judy confirmed again. "I believe you must have heard something about the witness protection program in movies or novels. The specific content is to change your name, experience, address. All of them are written into the identity of another person. In this way, you can be protected from the enemy's attack. This is purely a judicial system. Of course, if you are willing, we can also help you with your appearance. In this way, you can have enough income and a normal life on the basis of state protection, so that you can also get your own happiness."

"Of course, it's up to you whether you want to accept it or not. Once you accept it, you will never be able to contact or even meet up with your relatives and friends again."

"Yes, I have read the relevant content." Shiho responded softly on the other end of the phone.

"That's good." Judy replied on the other end. "As a member of the Judgment Organization, you must have mastered a very important piece of information, which may be very detrimental to the organization, so you are being hunted endlessly by that woman. If you don't want to be retaliated by her, or don't want to implicate your friends, I look forward to hearing good news from you."

"It's okay. I can answer this question right now." Shiho said calmly. "I refuse."

"..." Shiho's refusal made Judy on the other end of the phone stunned. "Can you tell me the reason?"

"My life in the organization was very difficult. Now I have friends, and I don't want to give up just like that. Besides, the so-called witness protection program is nothing more than changing your identity and living in another place. With the organization's capabilities, they will find me sooner or later, and then keep repeating what happened before until I am killed by them, and it may even be detrimental to the friends I know now. Such a short period of peace is not what I want." Shiho's voice was soft, but it was very weighty.

"Instead of repeating the nightmare again and again, it is better to face it now. You can't win by running away."

"...I respect your idea, but I suggest you think about it." After a long while, Judy said this. "By the way, is Gold kid by your side?"

"Eh?" Shiho was slightly stunned. "Yes, he's here."

"Can I give him the phone?"

What the hell is Judy doing? I pretended to walk to the phone and answered it. Even though I had just been listening, I still had to pretend to be serious.

"Teacher Judy, you're looking for me?"

"Who are you? Gold kid?"

"What?" I raised my eyebrows. "What are you talking about?"

"Hehe~ To be honest, Xun-chan, I'm really becoming more and more interested in you." As Judy spoke, her laughter turned into a playful one.

"Regarding our plan, I hope you can persuade Ai-chan to join our protection plan later. Of course, if Ai-chan wants her friends to participate as well, we have no objection."

"What protection plan? Teacher Judy, I don't understand anything you said."

"Oh? Really?" Judy obviously didn't believe that I didn't hear the phone call just now.

"It's okay, I'll let Ai-chan tell you later."

"What? Teacher Judy, what are you talking about? I don't understand anything." I continued to play dumb, but I believed that the FBI's suspicion of me had reached an extreme level.

"Anyway, Gold kid, please tell Ai-chan a good news later. Regarding the woman who arrested her, according to the latest news from our FBI, the woman was caught by our companions while escaping, just yesterday."

"The criminal who abducted Ai was caught? That's great! Teacher, I will pass on your words to Ai." My voice was full of joy, without any abnormal fluctuations, but my heartbeat had already quickened.

"So, Sensei, anything else?"

"No, I hope you can consider our plan carefully. I look forward to your good news." After that, Judy hung up the phone.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. . .

I was still thinking about the busy tone, but I was already stunned in front of the phone.

Vermouth was arrested? Isn't this too much? Even if Vermouth was injured, judging from the distance we drove, it would be basically impossible for the FBI to catch her. Is Judy trying to trick me?
"Kaoru..." Shiho hung up the phone and looked at me seriously. "Judy means that the FBI has caught Vermouth?"

"I feel like they're trying to trick me." I said with a serious expression. "But there's no reason. If they just wanted to trick me out with this message, that would be too stupid?" "What happened that day?" Shiho asked.

"Vermouth and I drove very far away. If we were caught by the FBI, we would never have been able to get that far away. But if it was a follow-up search, how many hands and eyes would the FBI have to have to catch Vermouth from such a far place? Moreover, Judy just said that she hoped you could join the witness protection program, and then she told me that Vermouth was captured. Something is wrong, very wrong!"

"If, I mean if." Shiho continued. "If they really caught Vermouth, it doesn't seem like a bad thing for us."

"It's definitely not a bad thing for us." I narrowed my eyes, and a hint of murderous intent unconsciously appeared. "But for Ling, it is definitely a huge bad thing!"

"Ling?"

"Ah." I nodded. "As another gold medal of the organization. If Gin is only the governor to eliminate all traitors and executioners, then Ling, who is a close personal friend, will definitely be tasked with saving Vermouth. In this way..."

"Surround the corpse and attack the reinforcements?" Shiho also realized the seriousness of the problem.

"That's right. If Judy's words were just to deceive my identity, then we can just pretend nothing happened. But after talking to you about the witness protection program, the FBI still has to bring up such a lame lie. The FBI is really stupid."

"So, you think what the FBI said is true?"

"Yeah. But we still need to confirm it."

"..Mary?"

"Ah, at this time, the only person I can contact is her, although it's a bit risky." I frowned and took out my phone to write a message to Mary, which contained a financial advertisement for Rice Flower Bank. As long as Mary saw my number, she would naturally know that I was confirming whether she could safely receive your message.

About three minutes later, Mary replied to my message.

[Not needed at the moment, will contact you if needed. 】

Judging from the reply to the message, Mary has no chance to talk to us for the time being, so this matter will have to be put on hold for the time being.

"Mary can't reply for now, so let's just listen to half of what Judy said." Helplessly, I gave up on the matter of Vermouth for the time being.

If what Judy said was true, Vermouth was arrested yesterday, and it would take about a week to transfer and arrange personnel. But if the FBI wanted to get anything out of Vermouth, it would be almost impossible.

As both Vermouth and I have received professional anti-torture training, I know that if I want to ask something from her, unless she is willing to say it, no matter what kind of torture, I will never get anything out of her.

In serious cases, Vermouth would even consider suicide to keep the secret.

Therefore, for the FBI, surrounding the body and beating the accomplices is more meaningful than torture. And from the perspective of the accomplices being beaten, no matter who they are, it is beneficial to the FBI. They just need to wait, and after a week, when they are ready, they will naturally leak the news themselves.

"Let's leave it at that. For now, you are under FBI protection. This is good for us. As for the FBI's subsequent situation, we still need to consider it."

"Okay." Shiho didn't refute, just nodded. Then she carried her schoolbag and followed me to school. But we didn't talk much along the way. Shiho also knew that most of my thoughts were now on Vermouth's matter. Or rather, on Ling who was about to show up.

"Xiao Xun, why are you here so late?" When we arrived at school, Shiho and I rushed into the classroom almost as the bell sounded. Ayumi, our good friend, asked us the first thing after we sat down.

"Oh, I had a stomachache this morning so I was a little delayed. Sorry." I recovered from what happened just now and said to Ayumi embarrassedly.

"Is that so? Are you feeling better now?"

"Well, it's fine now." I nodded and took out my textbook to prepare for class.

"Hey, Xun, didn't something happen?" Conan, who was sitting in front of me, turned around and looked at me. "Could it be that the organization has come back to attack again?"

"No, I was just late." I shrugged and didn't tell Conan about the morning call.

"Is that so?" Conan tilted his head and gave up further questioning. "By the way, this weekend, uncle said he would take us to Kyoto. Do you want to go?"

"Going to Kyoto?" I raised my eyebrows. "Why did you suddenly think of going there?"

"Lan was frightened by that incident a while ago, so uncle wanted to take her out to relax. It just so happened that there seemed to be a big case in Kyoto, and uncle was going to work there, so he took us with him."

"Haha, is this considered a public-funded trip?" I twitched my lips, narrowed my eyes and complained to my dad. "Okay, let's go and have some fun. I'll go too."

"Oh? It's rare to see you take the initiative to participate in family activities like this."

"I need to relax now. Really."

"...Huh?"

(End of this chapter)