Chapter 25: The Mature Medium

—One of the most frequent commissions received by the detective agency was "finding lost pets."

These cats were all caught and brought back only after the commissions were received.

Since Jiang Xia's arrival, the number of clients at the Amuro Detective Agency had indeed increased compared to before.

However, the work he received remained the same: finding cats and dogs, or tailing unfaithful spouses.

...

Jiang Xia did not hand the cases over to others as Amuro Tooru had instructed.

He wanted to keep them to build his reputation and connections.

Therefore, the pet-finding commissions were all outsourced to his group of delinquent friends.

At first glance, these delinquent youths looked very cool and busy. In reality, however, they were often bored out of their minds.

Racing motorcycles and playing video games every day got old quickly, so many of their group activities actually consisted of a bunch of people gathering together, looking menacing while spacing out for a while just to maintain appearances.

When the time was up, they would each head home.

But now, with the novel task of finding cats and dogs, their once-boring wandering through the streets and alleys had suddenly become exciting.

Not to mention the substantial pay.

No one turns down money; even delinquents have lives to live.

—Motorcycles needed repairs, hair needed styling, and the arcade owners weren't going to let them play for free... In short, they worked with exceptional enthusiasm.

...

However, Jiang Xia did not set the delivery location for the pets at the detective agency.

He still remembered the fabricated background story he had made up when he first came to Amuro Tooru to ask for a job.

Something about how thugs would come to his workplace to smash things up...

If one day, some innocent delinquents came to deliver a cat only to be misunderstood by Amuro Tooru as being there to vandalize the shop... that would be very bad.

...

Thus, the recovered cats and dogs were delivered directly to Jiang Xia's home, and then Jiang Xia would bring them to the agency.

Pet commissions were easy to resolve.

But cases involving tailing unfaithful spouses involved client privacy, so Jiang Xia could not outsource them; he had to do them himself.

Fortunately, he had been quite idle lately.

Besides, if he spent more time patrolling the streets, he might just stumble upon a murder case.

...

Carrying a cat, Jiang Xia entered the agency and called the client to come and pick it up.

After sending off several cats, Jiang Xia sat waiting for a client to bring a "ghost" to his door.

Unfortunately, the commissions he received were still mostly for finding pets.

Staring at a newly received stack of cute cat and dog photos, Jiang Xia sighed: Perhaps because the delinquents' efficiency in finding pets was too high, word of mouth among clients had started to spread...

...

Failing to secure any effective cases, Jiang Xia flipped through the commission list, planning to go out in the afternoon to take surreptitious photos of unfaithful spouses.

However, before he could leave, Amuro Tooru suddenly sent him a message.

Opening it, Jiang Xia found that the "Part-time Emperor" had something urgent to attend to, so he asked Jiang Xia to cover his part-time shift for the day—delivering parcels.

One must accept the work given by the boss.

Only through give-and-take could a harmonious and stable "tool person" relationship be established.

...

Jiang Xia stood up and headed out.

As he closed the agency door, he hung an appointment book on it and looked at it expectantly

"You are already a mature book; you must learn to attract clients with murderous intent on your own."

A gust of wind blew past, causing the book to flip open slightly before closing again.

Jiang Xia took it as a nod.

...

Following the address provided by Amuro Tooru, Jiang Xia found the logistics company, collected a map, a manifest, and a vehicle.

With a truckload of goods, the deliveries lasted for several hours.

The part-time job wasn't difficult.

But throughout the process, Jiang Xia's mood continued to sink.

—Every customer who came to sign for a package was extremely ordinary: no murderous intent, no ghosts, and no signs of their lives being threatened.

By evening, after delivering the last parcel, Jiang Xia returned to the vehicle dejectedly.

He was just about to head back to the company to finish his shift.

But at that moment, the ghost infant sleeping dizzily on his shoulder suddenly woke up and poked him excitedly.

Jiang Xia froze.

He listened to the ghost infant's murmurs, then got out of the car and followed the infant's direction, turning several corners.

After passing through a gloomy alleyway, he stopped in front of a somber Western-style house on the right.

The house had several floors and a large yard.

However, it had not been well-maintained; the entire building felt eerie, the yard was overgrown with weeds, and the walls were covered in oppressive, sprawling ivy.

Combined with today's gloomy weather, only one word could aptly describe it at first glance.

—A haunted house.

...

Jiang Xia walked to the front gate and peered inside through the rusted iron bars.

Then, to his surprise, he discovered two people lying in the messy weeds of the yard.

They were two children, about six or seven years old. Both had their eyes closed, but their chests rose and fell slightly, suggesting they weren't dead, just unconscious.

The builds of these two children were somewhat peculiar: one was as round as a triangular rice ball, and the other was as thin as a stick.

This gave Jiang Xia a strong sense of déjà vu. He immediately thought of two people—Conan's classmates, Genta Kojima and Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya.

These two, along with the little girl Ayumi Yoshida and the mastermind Conan, formed the "Detective Boys" of Teitan Elementary School.

Jiang Xia: "..." Since Genta and Mitsuhiko were lying here, then today was likely the Detective Boys' first group activity

A haunted house adventure.

...

Jiang Xia shifted his gaze from the two children and looked up at the cloud-covered mansion.

This "haunted house" had been vacant for several years.

It was said that a brutal murder had once occurred here, and since then, the house was famous in the surrounding area for the wind sounds that often drifted from within, sounding like the roars of wild beasts.

...

But in reality, Jiang Xia's false "precognition" told him: there were actually no ghosts here, only a mother and son hiding inside.

—Five years ago, the male master of this house had yelled at his son, only to be struck in the head and killed by the boy.

Upon discovering this, the mother disguised the crime scene as a "robbery-homicide" and then hid in a secret underground chamber with her son, intending to wait out the statute of limitations before returning to society.

Later, the son gradually became unable to endure this rat-like existence and wanted to turn himself in, but the mother refused. She locked her son in the dungeon, insisting on waiting until the statute of limitations expired.

The "wind sounds that sounded like roars" heard by locals were actually the sorrowful, angry bellows of the son from beneath the ground.

...

And today, the four first-grade elementary students of the "Detective Boys," unaware of the truth, had broken in without permission to conduct a "haunted house adventure."

Thinking of this, Jiang Xia looked at the two children in the yard through the gate.

As it stood, the Detective Boys' adventure was nearing its end.

—Genta and Mitsuhiko had been K.O.'d, knocked unconscious and tossed into the yard.

As for Conan and Ayumi, they were likely still inside the haunted house, struggling to survive.

Jiang Xia thought for a moment, took out his phone, and skillfully called the police.

Then, he lightly vaulted over the railing, landed in the yard, and quickly circled around to the side door of the mansion.

...

Jiang Xia remembered that the Detective Boys had sneaked into the haunted house through here.

However, when he reached out to turn the handle, the door was locked from the inside.

"..." It seemed that after the mistress of the house threw out the two unruly brats who trespassed, she had taken some defensive measures and locked the breach.

As a member of an organization, Jiang Xia felt that he should now take out his tools and skillfully pick the lock with a few clicks.

However, lock-picking was not his specialty.

Moreover, a medium should act like a medium...

Jiang Xia withdrew his hand and stepped back half a step.

Two paper-like Shikigami flew out from beneath his feet, manifesting from nothingness, and silently slipped through the crack in the door into the house.

...

Soon, behind the door, the two Shikigami overlapped, gradually expanding and merging into a puppet that looked like a "white clay man."

This type of puppet had no consciousness; it was entirely controlled by the medium.

If a ghost fetus were thrown into the puppet, it could be molded into an exquisite puppet with a human-like appearance.

But for now, they were just opening a door; there was no need to be that meticulous.

Through the door, Jiang Xia sensed the position of the clay puppet.

A moment later, the "Little White" inside the house slowly stood upright, groped around, and reached its hand toward the door. *Click*, it turned the lock.

Having completed the task, the small puppet silently collapsed, reverting from clay back into paper Shikigami invisible to the naked eye.

The paper Shikigami instantly returned to the tattoo space at Jiang Xia's heart.

Jiang Xia reached out again.

This time, he successfully opened the door.

(End of Chapter)