[Conan Doujin] The Mystery of Theseus

Puzzle16's transfer student's name is □□□.

Close your eyes and you can't see anything.In that lightless darkness, nothing was hidden.

Then, when the eyes are blindfolded and the vision is blocked, is the reality that can still be heard and touched still the same as it was seen before?

Can't prove it, can't prove it, even if you quietly open your right eye and take a peek.When the light reflected from reality passes through the pupil, the optic nerve receives the electrical signal and transmits it to the brain. The light and sound are perfectly synchronized, making everything within reach more real than the self-existence felt by holding hands tightly. Thousands of possibilities were killed at the same time at that moment, leaving only the "reality" like leftovers in broad daylight.

But the only reality that can be touched, like the words written on the side of the page, is the most real only at the moment of writing.After the tip of the pen leaves the paper, the pages of the book are opened and closed repeatedly, even from any angle, the original words can still be recognized clearly, and those strokes cut into pieces by the insignificant thickness of the paper can no longer be as they were when they were first written. Strictly aligned.

Still, we have to say -

"this is the truth."

Peace of mind...?

Edogawa, who couldn't stop observing and thinking once he doubted the reality, fell into self-doubt because he couldn't convince himself for a long time.

If you really feel at ease, you should be able to live a normal life without trouble.

If you think too much before falling asleep because the environment is too quiet or the feet exposed outside the bedding feel the chill, etc., then it is the same when you just wake up.The suddenly interrupted dream continued to play in the brain like a persistence of vision, and the power was cut off at the moment when the mind tried to grasp those wandering pictures.People who are sleepy and dizzy and can't distinguish between dreams and reality will always perform system self-examination consciously or unconsciously after waking up, so as to reposition themselves.

Ah, yes, if you must find a word that is opposite to "reality", "dream" has always been a popular candidate answer.

Sitting on the bed in a daze for a long time, Edogawa recalled for a long time, and couldn't remember what he had dreamed in the past few hours.Are those really dreams, or memories of the day that have been sorted out in a mess?Rubbing his sleep-disturbed hair, he took the glasses from the bedside table.Open the frame, put it on, and the whole set of movements is extremely smooth without any pause.

Speaking of which, did I have a dream last night... The clear field of vision that was not troubled by myopia was still as clear even though the lenses with no diopter were separated.Edogawa, who used to push the frame, was stunned by his actions.

It turns out that I am already very used to the action of "putting on glasses".

Obviously at the beginning, he wished to find a solution to shrink his body immediately, so that he could leave the role of "Conan Edogawa" at any time.But now, this formed setting has been deeply rooted in reality, and even the owner who planted it cannot easily pull it out.

The air smelled of breakfast, like fried eggs and toast.Xiaolan's voice came from not far away.

"Aren't you up yet, Conan-kun?" With the stimulation of the smell of food, the hunger in his belly suddenly became stronger. "If you don't come for breakfast again, it will be too late for school?"

"I'm coming--"

The voice that did not switch to Edogawa Conan mode due to the sluggish morning seemed a bit lazy.

I have to witness "Daily life after Kudo Shinichi's disappearance" so closely every day, every day.Lan's mood didn't change much from before, as if he just took a personal leave for a short absence.

After washing, Edogawa sat at the table, clapped his hands and took the toast in hand.

It's here, but it can't be seen...

"Kacha", the toast that has been roasted and has a little hardness makes a crisp and comfortable sound between the teeth.

But for them, "Kudo Shinichi" is there - no one knows exactly where it is "somewhere".

The fried egg was punctured, and the semi-solidified egg yolk slowly flowed out.

That's because something happened, even though it wasn't intuitive, to convince them of the fact that Shinichi Kudo exists.Calls that can only hear voices, text messages made of pixels, and "proof of presence" created by someone who is not Kudo Shinichi...

You don’t need to see it directly, this information is enough to prove, “Kudo Shinichi exists”.

Understanding something in an instant, Edogawa finished the breakfast in front of him as quickly as possible, and then threw away his schoolbag.

"I am leaving!"

Unsurprisingly, when he was about to arrive at the school, he ran into Hui Yuan who was walking with the real boy detective trio on the way.

"We..." After saying good morning, Edogawa lifted the frame of his glasses casually, "Have you made an appointment to meet this morning?"

"...Aren't you awake yet?" With some disgust, Huiyuan ignored his question and continued to move forward, "If you must ask, I don't remember making such an agreement. And... She turned her head slightly, "If it's a classmate studying in the same school, as long as you don't miss it, you will meet anyway, right?"

That's it, the reason.

To be able to see each other, to be able to immediately confirm each other's existence without any supporting evidence, an irrefutable reason.

An abstract and grand conjecture slowly took shape in my heart.Edogawa, who couldn't bear to verify all this, hardly listened to any class that morning.During the lunch break that day, he sent a text message to Kuroba, who seemed to have nothing to do with this conjecture, and seemed to constitute a large part of this conjecture.

The newsletter included the exact time and the exact location, so specific.

"Let me tell you, detective," Kuroba looked at the ice cream in front of him with some shame in the coffee shop that had been agreed in advance, "If you have anything to say, you can just send a text message or make a phone call." He tapped the rim of the ice cream cup with the small spoon in his hand, "Why so much fanfare...?"

"If you don't do this," Edogawa held his share of tea, "I don't want to make another trip in vain."

"I won't run in vain, I usually go to school seriously..." Even though the person sitting opposite (seemed) was only a primary school student, Kuroba only felt that he was so nervous at the moment that he needed to sit up straight and tighten his nerves.I shouldn't have committed anything recently, didn't I send out a warning letter without informing the little detective in advance?It can be said that it has been very peaceful recently. I haven't received any challenge letters from upstarts, and I haven't been involved in any strange incidents. This detective who is so idle every day and relies on finding faults to cause incidents has no reason to trouble himself...

Like a child whose full name was harshly called by a parent, but who didn't know what was wrong with him, Kuroba scooped up a scoop of ice cream and put it into his mouth in fear.

Vanilla, not that much my favorite, but not too bad.

But the famous detective obviously ordered the chocolate flavor last time...

Edogawa put down the teacup in his hand and let out a short breath.He always felt that the other party was waiting for him to say something, and Kuroba instinctively felt that the visitor was not kind.

Could it be... that the last time I went to Akihabara to buy a maid outfit as Kudo Shinichi was revealed?

"I guess... you're running wild guessing right now, why I called you here?"

It's safer to ask the other party to give the answer than not calling yourself... Kuroba, whose mind was seen through, didn't intend to struggle, and nodded honestly.

"Then I'll tell you the truth," the plain glasses of the seven-year-old boy sitting across from him turned to a certain angle, and the light flashed for a moment, "There is no reason."

No... any reason?

Seeing the doubt in Kuroba's eyes, Edogawa's mouth curved slyly. "That's right, there's no reason." He pointed to the half-eaten ice cream in front of Kuroba, "It's just a whim to call you here, that's all." He picked up his tea again, "So now you It wasn't supposed to be here."

"What 'shouldn't be here'," Kuroba mumbled indistinctly with a spoon in his mouth, "I really don't understand what you detectives are thinking..."

For an uncertain goal, you can do your best, even if you don't know what lies ahead, you still have to move forward.If they hadn't been dubbed "detectives" just because of their good minds, they might have destroyed the world long ago.

Edogawa raised his eyes, "I wanted to ask that before," he raised his eyebrows, "Why do you use the phrase 'you detectives'? Have you met many detectives?"

That's how much data summarization it takes to come to such a conclusion...

"Isn't there a lot?" Kuroba counted with his fingers, "You don't need to mention it, Uncle Mori is more or less a detective, and if a high school student is a detective, there is Hattori," his voice paused, "and the one with the white horse asshole……"

"Wait," Edogawa interrupted him, "Who is the white horse?"

"Hey, don't you guys know him?" Hei Yu seemed a little surprised. "The news of his return to China was published in the newspaper a while ago, and he hasn't been making trouble recently." He gave a low "tsk", "That day He was there when you came to our school, didn't you see?"

Edogawa tried his best to recall, but he couldn't remember that among the students who walked out of Ekoda's campus that day, there was someone who looked like a "high school student detective".If it's a character of the same kind or with a similar temperament, there's no reason why he can't notice it.

"The white horse you mentioned...what does it look like?"

"Huh?" Hei Yu stretched out his hand and gestured, "He is very tall, and his hair is very light..." He put down his hand, with a little disbelief written in his eyes, "He walked next to us that day, you really Didn't you see it?"

But as far as I saw that day, only Kaito Kuroba and Aoko Nakamori walked out of the school at that moment.I didn't see the guy who looked like a male publicist that Kuroba described.

Frequent extreme discrepancies between cognition and reality are enough to make the parties fall into bottomless self-doubt.But through the non-prescription plain mirror, one can see the excited and dangerous light in Edogawa's eyes at this moment.

Maybe it was far from the truth, and he didn't mind.