The Phantom Thief of Heart! But Conan.

Chapter 1143 Curacao: What a Hell

"It was Taku Itakura himself who brought it up. He said he'd recently developed an algorithm that improved computers' ability to understand complex calculations or something... I don't know what he was referring to specifically, but the demo he presented was certainly very compelling."

"What about you guys? Did you also see his demo?"

"Yes……"

After inquiring about Itakura Taku's personal information, Maori Kogoro thought for a moment and did not reply to them immediately.

It’s not that the commission itself is complicated. Looking for people, no matter for what the purpose, is something that Kogoro Mouri has come across many times since he started working as a private detective. It is a very common commission.

The main reason is that the situation of the client this time is not ordinary, which makes Kogoro Mori somewhat wary.

Although the three of them are looking for the same person, there is an implicit competitive relationship between them. Judging from the content they provided, the missing target named Itakura Taku has relatively irreplaceable special technology in his hands.

This situation is much more troublesome than a simple business relationship. Even if you want to accept it, you must consider the method and be well prepared.

"I have a general understanding of the situation. I'm confident I can find Mr. Itakura, but the three of you..." Maori Kogoro raised his head, looked at them one by one, and gave a polite explanation, "The relationship between you two is not a simple partnership. He and you have committed contract fraud in a similar business agreement."

The three clients looked at each other, and their expressions were not relaxed. It was obvious that the problem that Kogoro Mouri mentioned did exist.

"Due to some cases, my reputation may be higher than many of my peers, which could easily lead to misunderstandings. I must state that I have always been a private investigator. Due to the need to protect client confidentiality and certain protocol issues, I cannot handle a single client with three different individuals representing different companies. How about this? The three of you discuss a suitable method of cooperation, then contact me as a unified body to ensure I can synchronize the information with you without any problems. How do you think?"

Kogoro Mouri's suggestion was subtle enough. Fortunately, the three people who came to see him were all old office workers who were obedient and understood what he said immediately.

Simply put, either he only accepts individual contact from one of the three of them, or they discuss how to cooperate among themselves and find someone to connect with him, so that they don’t have to ask anyone for payment when the work is done again.

He works for free but it's for a criminal case. It's his job and he should take it. It's not shameful.

Seeing that the three of them seemed to understand, Maori Kogoro nodded in relief and added, "I understand your urgent need to find someone, so I will start preparing today. Then I will wait for your good news?"

This means there is nothing more to talk about.

The three people were very tactful and stood up to say goodbye, and did not forget to leave their business cards and contact information.

It seems that the three of them will have to continue fighting for the ownership of this Itakura Taku.

"Sounds like it's really tough." After the three people left, Mao Lilan cleared the teacups and tea sets on the table, picked up the three business cards one by one, and put them into the box on the desk. She sighed, "As a manager of this kind of project, you have to deal with a lot of similar situations, right?"

"They're not stupid. They're so obsessed with Itakura Taku's stuff. It must be that the demo is attractive enough." Maori Kogoro put away his notebook without a care in the world, tore off the page and used it as a note, clipping it to the work page on his desk. He didn't care about his daughter's feelings. "There must be something good here to motivate them to come to me for help."

If it's just a simple search for someone, there's really no need to ask Kogoro Mouri for help.

The fact that they are willing to spend this much money to hire a famous detective shows that they are determined to succeed.

"It seems like Mr. Itakura is quite capable. He's a very good engineer. Just like Shinichi's father."

Conan, whose thoughts were following the clues of the artificial intelligence, was stunned for a moment and instinctively raised his head: "Huh?"

"What's wrong with his father? Aren't writers very profitable and respected?" Kogoro Mouri didn't understand his daughter's feelings.

Mao Lilan shrugged. "He's often chased around the world by editors to submit manuscripts, forcing him to secretly hide even his flight information from others. He's more concerned about the privacy of his itinerary than many celebrities. Even with such an exaggerated situation, so many editors are willing to chase him. Is it because he really is a great writer? I've heard of Mr. Itakura before. He's very good at CG production and is very famous in the film industry. I didn't expect that as an engineer, he could also be so talented..."

"He was famous before?"

"Yes, that's right. Later, it was said that he had some eye disease. Anyway, his eyesight deteriorated very seriously. In order to seek treatment, he gave up related work..."

CG production, software engineer, film special visuals, game development...

Conan narrowed his eyes.

In other words, his past work had nothing to do with artificial intelligence. Instead, he has always been better at content creation and has never been good at algorithms?

----

Curacao slowly opened his eyes from the darkness and was in a daze for a long time before slowly realizing where he was.

Her lungs were still filled with the salty, bitter smell of sea water, and the icy coldness seemed to penetrate her wounds and pierce her soul, as if it had filled every gap in her bones.

When her consciousness was hazy, she had thought more than once about questions like, "Is this the world after death?"

It has to be admitted that Kumail's methods were not gentle at all, but he did keep his promise.

——If you can't let her survive, at least don't drag your feet and don't let her feel too much pain.

"You're awake, Miss Sonya."

A gentle voice came from the side. Curacao looked in the direction of the voice and saw the face of the woman sitting next to him.

"...It's you. No wonder you almost never let me see your face clearly. If that were the case, you might have been exposed as soon as I regained my memory."

Curacao quickly relaxed and continued to sink into the soft mattress, a smile unconsciously appearing on his face.

If she had realized that the "mei" beside her was actually Miyano Akemi the moment her memory returned, she would have instantly realized that Kumail was not as scary as his tone said.

Yes, as long as Miyano Akemi is still alive, Miyano Shiho will certainly do her best to work hard for Kumail.

"We two are not exceptions, right? He really is not simple." After figuring this out, Curacao couldn't help but sigh.

If I hadn't experienced it myself, it would be hard to believe, just by imagination, that there was someone in the world who could hide it from Gin's eyes and save such a life-threatening person.

But looking at myself who is intact, it is not so difficult to guess what happened to Miyano Akemi.

Miyano Akemi, who was holding the warm water, paused and looked a little strange.

Yes, not only that, he even saved Kumail himself, didn’t he?

"Have some hot water." Miyano Akemi didn't answer her question directly, but helped her sit up and gently handed her a glass. "There are some oral medications over there, prepared by Shiho. She may also collect some samples from you later. I hope you don't mind."

"Oh, Shirley is still doing research... well, using her as just a doctor would be a waste of talent."

Curacao answered his own question, took the glass of water, and smiled self-deprecatingly.

If she can't play her role, for no reason, Kumail is not a kind person. Look at what she is saying.

"Don't worry, I won't hurt you. As for the rest... there will be a chance." Miyano Akemi answered as gently as possible, "Whenever you're hungry, go down and eat. There's nothing I'm afraid to show you now."

The question now is whether you dare to look at it.

Curacao knew nothing about the Phantom Thieves and had never come into contact with the identity of Tang Ze.

She will definitely face more shocks than surprises next.

Soon, Curacao, who didn't understand what he was facing, followed Miyano Akemi's request and left the bedroom with her.

She officially left the room where she had stayed for several days and walked into the base of the Phantom Thieves, which she had no chance to even take a look at, and faced her first wave of attack.

"Scotland?!"

"Hey, don't be like that."

Zhu Fujingguang, who was still biting a sandwich in his mouth, quickly caught the glass of Curacao that fell out of his hand, saving it from being shattered.

"I understand how you feel, but this cup is Miss Mingmei's favorite. If it's broken, there will be one missing piece in the set."

He didn't want to give Curacao such a strenuous task right away, as he was mainly responsible for cooking dinner today.

The Phantom Thieves have their own tough jobs in technology and magic, but no matter how tough the job is, they still have to eat. Such a large group of people will certainly not starve to death if they find food for themselves, but someone has to be responsible for cooking.

According to everyone's schedule and work status, this task is basically done on a shift basis. Yesterday, Shimabukuro Kimie made all the hand rolls by himself, so it was his turn to make dinner tonight.

Curacao didn't care about anything else and could only point at his face tremblingly and opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Others may not know much personal information of the code-named members, but Curacao, who has played the role of Rum for several years, knows a lot.

Curacao knew a lot about this undercover public security agent who died three years ago and his past traces in the organization.

The difference between her and Shuichi Akai is that she also knew very well what the status of Kumail, who was then named Hayato Tsuchiguchi, was in the organization.

Let alone organizing a proper rescue, Kumail was already working very hard to have enough food to eat at that time, so how could he possibly get his hands on the relatively popular Scottish whisky?

Following this logic... No, I can't think any further, because no matter how I think about it, it's terrifying.

"Mr. Jing used to be so cruel. Look how scared the girl was." Matsuda Jinpei, who was sitting at the dining table reading a newspaper, couldn't help but tease.

"To those who know him, his face is scarier than he is," Hagiwara Kenji commented objectively.

"You two..."

Zhu Fujingguang narrowed his eyes, turned around with the plate in his hand, and was just about to give these two friends who were so talkative a hard time when the door of the restaurant was pushed open again.

"Forget about the programming project, why do I even have to see the movie special effects?" Hoshikawa Teru staggered in in his slippers, muttering to himself, "I strongly suspect that the leader doesn't want me to do the research at all, he's just looking for an opportunity to mess with me."

"Maybe they took into consideration that you haven't seen many movies, so they wanted to let you have more entertainment and relax." Zhu Fujingguang excused Tang Ze.

"Does watching a horror movie make people relax?" Hoshikawa Teru looked over dimly, took off his glasses, and pinched his nose wearily. "After doing so much special effects CG in a year, it's only right that Itakura Taku goes blind."

Miyano Akemi curled her lips, agreeing that Tang Ze might be taking the opportunity to mess with Hoshikawa Teru again. Just as she was about to speak, Curacao beside her almost fell to the ground.

Curacao felt his legs go weak, his eyes widened, and his expression was almost out of control.

Scotland smiled and put his arm around Kumail, joking around and so on, and this scene was even more frightening than the warm interaction between Shirley and Kumail that he had seen before.

At this moment, Curacao suddenly had a doubt.

—Could it be possible that I have actually arrived in the realm of the dead and am currently watching some surrealistic, magical masterpiece?

It wasn't until he saw Miyano Akemi reaching out to help that Hoshikawa Teru noticed Curacao standing outside the kitchen with a devastated expression.

He curled the corners of his mouth and nodded, barely conveying his harmless emotion.

As for more things, such as the organization, Tang Ze, the substitution, the transplantation, and the magical resurrection magic trick, he was not interested in explaining them one by one.

The leader has brought trouble upon himself, so he should solve it himself.

Anyway, there will be many more shocks to deal with in the future, so this little bit doesn’t matter. It’s better to adapt to it sooner or later.

So, when the sunset completely took back all the light and night fell, Curacao stood in the hotel room, looking at the familiar yet unfamiliar man in front of him, pursed his lips, and for a moment he didn't know what to say or where to start.

…If she said she did nothing all day and just saw ghosts, would anyone believe it?

Ireland, which also did not receive any advance notice, responded: "..."

When Kumail asked him to come over to deliver something, he didn't tell him this...

The two men looked at each other for a while. They had gradually become desensitized to their current boss and were no longer surprised by anything he did. Ireland, who was considered a half-emotionless task machine, was the first to recover.

He handed the bag he had been holding to Curacao and said in a very flat tone, "This is what the boss prepared for you. The visa isn't legal, but no one will check it. The passport is a real one and can be used when necessary. However, you should at least take care of your eyes."

His appearance is recognizable, but not so recognizable that he has any memorable features. However, Curacao, with his white hair and white eyes, is much more noticeable.

After saying this, Ireland, feeling that his tone was a little stiff, smacked his lips, thought for a moment, summoned up some emotions, and tried his best to be friendly to his new colleague.

"You are welcome to join us."

Looking at this familiar face, and hearing the even more familiar name "boss," Curacao's expression froze for a moment: "..."