Chapter 5: I'm so jealous—wait, no, that's just too much!

Chapter 5: So envious... ah no, how outrageous

Jiang Xia: "..."

He froze for a second, then bit the bullet and reached across the boundary, poking the ghost fetus.

...A stinging pain struck instantly; it felt as if his fingertips had been rolled in a pile of needles.

Jiang Xia’s eyelid twitched, and he quickly pulled his hand back.

...It was stronger than he had imagined.

Plan A: Forcefully snatch it away and take it home to slowly "remodel" it—he could put an "X" through that one now.

"..." It was definitely the right choice to leave Yoko Okino’s contact information earlier...

Yoko Okino was also stunned.

She couldn't see the ghost fetus, so in her eyes, Jiang Xia’s action... was somewhat offensive.

Normally, who shakes hands by grabbing someone’s wrist?

However, as an actress skilled at reading expressions, she also saw the look of resistance on Jiang Xia’s face as he pulled his hand back—he didn't seem to like it either.

"..." Yoko Okino had been reading a lot of literary scripts lately. After her moment of shock, her brain flooded with all sorts of strange inner narratives.

For example: He was trying to play the part of a "delinquent," deliberately teasing a respectable idol, but at the same time, he looked down on such behavior in his heart, which was why he pulled his hand away with such disgust...

In short, he was a wayward youth teetering on the edge of corruption.

Seeing Jiang Xia about to leave, Yoko Okino didn't have time to overthink it; she reached out and pulled him back.

To successfully grab him, Yoko Okino had to reach quite far.

Jiang Xia was pulled into a turn, and the ghost infant, which hadn't crawled far away yet, happened to cover the back of his hand.

...The sensation was like having a pot of boiling water poured on him. Jiang Xia’s ears buzzed from the pain, but he forced himself not to break his expression.

Fortunately, the ghost infant didn't like this contact either and quickly crawled away, grumbling.

The pain subsided instantly.

Yoko Okino was completely oblivious to everything that had just happened.

She rummaged through the center console, grabbed a handful of colorful crystal candies, and placed them in Jiang Xia’s palm.

Then, patting his arm like she was coaxing a younger brother, she poured out a bowl of "chicken soup for the soul," saying gently, "Go on, don't force yourself to be a delinquent anymore—detective is a good job, you’ll definitely succeed."

Jiang Xia: "...?"

He was dazed for a moment, not understanding why Miss Yoko would say such a thing.

In the end, he had to pretend that hadn't happened, clutched the candy, pulled his hand back, left behind the "evidence" disc, and took his leave.

…………

After Jiang Xia left.

The manager returned to the car, locked the doors again, and turned to look at Yoko Okino in the back seat.

Yoko Okino smiled at her with a relaxed expression and handed over the disc: "He just found an excuse to hitch a ride in a moment of desperation—this disc contains the study materials he burned."

The manager’s temple throbbed, her blood pressure spiked, and she almost crushed the disc in her hand.

However... he found an excuse.

That meant Yoko hadn't actually had an abortion, right?

The manager let out a heavy sigh of relief.

As long as there was no scandal, it was fine.

She inserted the car key, started the engine, and drove off, while tiredly complaining to Yoko Okino about Jiang Xia: "That kid really loves causing trouble for others. He gets into trouble with thugs, yet he has to drag us into it."

"People have a strong will to survive." Yoko Okino’s calm voice came from the back seat. "Just like how some people say, 'When you're kidnapped, you should go smash things belonging to passersby; that way, the passersby who suffered financial losses won't just stand by and watch'—it’s damaging the interests of innocent people, but it’s just to stay alive. It’s hard to blame them."

"...We’ve only known him for a few minutes, and you’re already making excuses for him." The manager’s temple throbbed again, and she muttered under her breath.

Yoko Okino listened carefully for a while and vaguely heard the manager angrily cursing "vixen."

She couldn't help but chuckle, said nothing more, and picked up the novel she had been reading, which was resting nearby.

The novel was given to her by the old director: *Youth That Never Returns*, a pretentious, hot-blooded, inspirational piece.

When she first started, she felt the book was childish and silly.

After reading more, she felt assimilated by it, and now she thought it was a masterpiece for the ages.

At this moment, Yoko Okino was thinking with emotion: Seventeen or eighteen is the perfect age where you dare to do anything, and it’s never too late to do anything. You only get one life.

If Jiang Xia really walked the straight and narrow in the future, she could consider herself a witness to this miraculous transformation.

...

On the other side.

After getting out of the car, Jiang Xia walked into a small alley.

Not long after, a series of footsteps followed behind him—someone had trailed him.

Jiang Xia walked to a secluded spot and turned around.

He saw that the person following him was the blonde thug who had been "chasing" him earlier.

The blonde guy walked over aggressively, holding a baseball bat.

Then, he enthusiastically threw an arm around Jiang Xia: "How was it, Boss? Did you get the autograph?"

—As a top-tier idol, Yoko Okino was popular with both men and women, young and old. She was especially popular in the male-dominated circle of delinquents.

Therefore, a few days ago, when Jiang Xia suggested "making up an excuse to ask Miss Yoko for an autograph," it immediately received an enthusiastic response.

A group of them followed Jiang Xia’s instructions and dressed up as thugs chasing him.

Although they didn't quite understand what "chasing the boss" had to do with "getting an autograph from Miss Yoko"... but whatever the boss said was definitely right! Just follow the plan.

Sure enough, it wasn't long before they saw Jiang Xia get into Yoko Okino’s car.

...All one could say was, as expected of the boss!

After asking about the autograph, before Jiang Xia could speak, the blonde guy looked around sneakily and couldn't help but share his joy with his boss in a low voice

"When I passed by you earlier, I took a peek through the window gap. Haha, Miss Yoko is even more... hmm?"

Halfway through his sentence, he accidentally looked down and saw a hideous patch of blue on the back of Jiang Xia’s right hand, and he was startled.

A moment later, a strange look of envy appeared in the blonde guy’s eyes: "...Did Miss Yoko hit you? Did she do it herself?"

Jiang Xia: "..."

Two seconds later, the blonde guy came to his senses under Jiang Xia’s eerie stare. He cleared his throat guiltily: "I mean, that... that’s too outrageous! If she wasn't going to give an autograph, she shouldn't have hit you!"

The other "people hired by rival paparazzi" had been trailing Yoko Okino’s car from a distance. Now that Jiang Xia had gotten out, they had all gathered around.

Hearing the blonde guy’s shout from afar, the group excitedly surrounded them, looking eager to act.

—The boss was cornered in a car and beaten by two beautiful women?

Could they tolerate this?

No!

They had to get justice for the boss!

Facing their burning gazes, Jiang Xia felt that this group of lackeys was very wrong.

He sighed tiredly: "No one hit me. I bumped into something a few days ago." He raised his hand and shook it, revealing the mark left by the ghost fetus, "You wouldn't get this color from a fresh hit."

Jiang Xia really didn't want to see strange headlines like "Shocking! Delinquents swarm entertainment company to cause trouble" the next day.

The lackeys were quite disappointed when they heard his explanation: "Oh, that makes sense."

Their memories were generally not very good, and they didn't have the habit of staring at other people's hands, so they couldn't remember what Jiang Xia’s hand looked like a few days ago and were easily fooled.

...Crisis averted.

The lackeys happily returned to the previous topic: "Miss Yoko is so cute!...By the way, Boss, what fake news did you use to get into the car?"...They wanted to learn too.

Jiang Xia casually brushed them off: "I Photoshopped a report card of hers with all zeros and threatened to expose her low intelligence if she didn't give me an autograph. Then she called me into the car and lectured me the whole way about being honest."

As he spoke, Jiang Xia reached into his pocket and took out the candy Yoko Okino had given him: "She’s too cute in person. I was so busy looking at her that I forgot to ask for the autograph. She gave me some candy before I got off; you guys can split it."

"Oh!" The delinquents were very happy. To them, a formulaic autograph and sweet candy—of course, the candy was more memorable.

The large handful of candy disappeared in an instant.

Only one piece remained in Jiang Xia’s pocket.

However, he didn't intend to eat it. This candy had Yoko Okino’s scent on it; he could keep it as a souvenir to coax that ghost fetus later. The principle was probably similar to preparing cat toys before getting a cat.

...

Jiang Xia had originally gone for the ghost fetus today.

But judging from the contact earlier, the little ghost infant had a very deep obsession and couldn't be easily snatched away.

However, it wasn't a total loss.

—The moment he touched it, Jiang Xia discovered that the little ghost infant’s obsession was quite naive: it wanted to see its biological father and mother living together harmoniously.

...It probably followed Yoko Okino around all the time and watched too many "silly, sweet" scripts.

Jiang Xia didn't know Yoko Okino’s ex-boyfriend, but he didn't intend to play matchmaker.

To snatch away this kind of ghost fetus, he had to make their obsessions less intense.

Besides helping them fulfill their wishes, there was actually another way to achieve this—letting the ghost fetus face the "cruel beating of reality" and realize that what it expected was impossible.

Thinking of this, Jiang Xia activated his fake "precognition," recalled the plot, and soon had a rough plan.

...However, he couldn't go right away; he had to make some preparations.

...

The next day, while Jiang Xia was washing up in front of the mirror, he found that the back of his hand had turned completely blue, though fortunately, it wasn't swollen.

This kind of small ghost fetus couldn't harm his spirit, but it could torture his body... mainly because this body had never been in contact with a real ghost fetus before, so it was a bit allergic to the first touch.

However, the damage a ghost fetus could cause to Jiang Xia was at most this much.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have dared to poke it right away.

Jiang Xia shook his wrist twice and found that it didn't hurt and didn't affect his movement, so he didn't worry about it anymore and packed up to go to school.

...

Jiang Xia usually only attended school when there were quizzes; the rest of the time, he was on sick leave.

However, thanks to his excellent memory and comprehension, his grades were very good.

Although there was a Shinichi Kudo in his class, many details were different from the anime. Jiang Xia couldn't be sure if Shinichi Kudo would become Conan, nor did he know if the future time would be "one year longer than twenty." So, taking exams was actually part of his life plan.

Anyway, studying wasn't difficult for him; he remembered everything with a glance.

If time wasn't stretched, then getting into a good university in the future and sneaking into the Organization’s research lab would definitely be more comfortable than being a peripheral member who just fought and killed.

(End of chapter)