After becoming a chaotic daughter

The calendar on the desk had been flipped to October.

Standing on her short legs, Nanako was pulling the edge of the table, her dark eyes staring unblinkingly at the desk calendar that had just been flipped to [October], her small face showed no emotion, After a long time, he blinked once, and the heels of the small leather shoes fell back to the tiled floor.

It has been almost a year since she was picked up by Luanbu.

Luanpo has been (fishing) as a detective social worker for at least a year.

Turning her head to look at the cheap dad who was comfortably nestled in the office chair, playing small games on his mobile phone, with half a piece of sea salt biscuit in his mouth, Nanako couldn't help but fell into deep thought.

She frowned, and thought about it for a while, but in the end she couldn't come up with an answer, so she walked around the desk, ran to the edge of the office chair, and ripped at the corners of her clothes. .

"dad."

"Huh?"

Busy with controlling the constantly moving little snake on the screen to eat the shiny target point, Luan Bu responded without raising his head, his tone was extremely perfunctory, and his long and narrow eyes were fixed on the small screen of the phone , the fingertips pressing on the arrow keys tense.

Nanako poked her head and took a look, only to see a mass of folded white strips that occupied almost three-quarters of the screen and were still moving at a constant speed. On the childish face, with a flat tone, he asked sternly:

"Why haven't you been 'fired' by the detective agency yet?"

The Japanese of [Fired Squid] was learned by her and Miwa, which is very unlucky, and the Japanese expression has the same meaning as "beheading".

BOOM!

The twisted little snake bumped into the forbidden area on the edge, and a big "gameover" bright red prompt popped up in the center of the screen.

Accompanied by the depressed bgm of the game failure, holding the mobile phone, he lowered his head in random steps, stared at Nana with half-closed eyes for a while, and then corrected her seriously: "Dad will not be fired."

Nanako looked at the mobile phone with the game interface on in his hand without any fluctuations in expression, then turned his little head again, and looked at another desk not far away, buried in work, typing on the keyboard. of Kunikida.

If she were Kunikida, she might already want to pour laxatives into Ranpo's tea.

After all, working with a colleague who is always playing fish and being lazy at work, but still earns the same salary as myself in 996, it is really hard not to be murderous.

Nanako, who was said by Ranpo, "How could Dad be fired" while pinching her cheek, silently sent a golden good person card to the generous president and Kunikida each, thanking them for not letting her The useless and stupid father was severely beaten by the society, and he could still get his salary on time while fishing.

"Did you hear that - this is the 'Armed Detective Agency', Dad is a detective, so Dad will not be fired! If Dad is fired, the president will have to go back to his old job and start a security company! "

Kneading Nanako's soft face like kneading dough, Ranpo swore to Nanako, "Even if you fire everyone else, Dad won't be fired!"

Nanako, whose cheeks were crushed, spat out an out-of-tune "Oh" from her mouth, which sounded like the mooing of a calf. She felt that the president really deserves to be the man who will be printed on ten thousand yuan bills in the future. It must be because he topped the "Boss Most Desired to Have in the Heisei Era" list.

"What are you doing?" Yosano, who was carrying tea and snacks, passed by Ranpo's desk, and looked at Ranpo with a serious face pinching Nanako's little face, and Ranpo with a cold face. Nanako pinching her cheeks.

"It's nothing!" Luanbu turned his head to cover up, and answered her loudly, "Nothing!"

Nanako raised her small head and stared at the tray in Yosano's hand. On it was a cup of tea and a small dish of matcha Daifuku. The tea cup was the one used by the president. It was a very simple and simple style. The hot tea was still sipping There is steam coming out, and the saucer that holds the Daifuku is also the style that matches the teacup.

"?"

Yosano noticed Nanako's gaze, she slightly raised the wooden plate in her hand, and asked with a smile: "Want to eat some snacks? This one is for the president. There are so many great blessings, go and ask Gogol to eat together."

Nanako pulled Ranbu's hand pinching her cheek from her little cheek, then shook her little furry head, ran from behind the table to the front, stood beside Yosano, and held her up high. He folded his hands and looked up at her with his small face: "...I'll take it."

Yosano was slightly taken aback, squatted down, with a smile on his face, put the tray in Nanako's hand, waited for Nanako to hold it carefully, then let go, and touched her Little head: "Then thank you for your hard work."

"Wait a minute with Ms. Xie Ye and my great blessing!" Luanbu, who was sitting on the office chair, asked.

"Yes, go and bring it to our famous detective now." Yosano smiled helplessly.

Luanbu let out a "huh", got up and said, "Forget it, I'll go with you." Before leaving, he did not forget to tell Nanako who was carrying a large tray: "Go slowly, if you fall, you will be caught." The tea is hot!"

He walked briskly and went to the opposite tea room with Xie Ye one after the other.

Holding hot tea and snacks, with the help of kind Kunikida, Nanako managed to get into the president's office.

Sitting behind the desk, Fukuzawa Yukichi is writing to reply to the letters from the client, which is full of tricky and troublesome communication. If he was asked to face these letters and reply to them four or five years ago, it would probably be Something that made his nerves ache.

But after the establishment of the detective agency, he has gradually started to get used to this kind of social interaction that is not considered "necessary" but "unavoidable". This can probably be regarded as the so-called "practice makes perfect".

Seeing Nanako coming in with a tray of tea and snacks, he put down the pen in his hand, put the documents on the table aside, got up and reached out to help Nanako put the hot tea and snacks on the table.

"Thank you for your hard work." He said to Nanako, after thinking for a few seconds, he picked up a big blessing from the plate and put it in Nanako's hand as a reward for her running errands.

Today's "bribing" the president's grandfather's task is completed, Nanako holds the Daifuku, runs to sit on the sofa by herself, finishes eating the round ball of Daifuku in her hand, shakes her calf again, and watches for a while as the president teaches her how to read The books he used, he ran out of the president's office alone.

She first ran to the tea room to get the snack Yosano had left for her, but before entering the door, she heard Kunikida's serious voice from the tea room.

Nanako cautiously grabbed the edge of the wall, poked her fluffy head through the crack of the door, and stared intently at the situation in the tea room with her dark pupils.

There were only two people in the tea room, with their backs to Kunikida standing by the table, Nanako could only see his back with yellow braids hanging down, and in front of Kunikida was Gogol standing in the corner.

Nanako eavesdropped for a while. It seems that Gogol was caught stealing snacks in the tea room, so Kunikida was educating him seriously that even if he sneaked snacks, he couldn’t “take a bite out of every Daifuku”. , If you want to eat snacks, you must "ask the adults first".

——Although I don’t know why, Nanako still thinks that Gogol probably doesn’t want to “eat snacks”, he may just simply want to “take a bite” of every Daifuku.

The young man with a mature and stable face is like a little adult, teaching the boy in front of him who is only five or six years younger than him: "...Listen, even if you want to practice abilities, you don't need to get a big blessing to bite Put it back—”

"But if you don't take a bite, you won't be able to tell whether you have taken this dumpling before~" the boy with golden eyes said innocently to Kunikida.

"So in the end, don't use everyone's dim sum to practice next time—and, that's Daifuku, not Dango! Daifuku!" Kunikida felt as if something was throbbing on his forehead, "...and—— You are also not allowed to eat snacks on Dr. Yosano's hospital bed!"

"Eh~~~~"

Not really wanting to eat Daifuku who was bitten by Gogol, but only casually listening to their conversation, Nanako ran back to the office area of ​​the detective agency looking for chaos.

Kunikida was teaching Gogol a lesson, and Yosano was in the infirmary. The huge office area was empty, and there was only Luanbo sitting behind his desk, holding a comic book and biting the dried squid in his hand.

As soon as Nanako ran over, he was picked up by him, squeezed into an office chair, and read the manga in his hand together with him.

"Father." Nanako called out to him after reading about ten pages of manga following Ranpo.

"What are you doing?" The squid was hard and crunchy from being bitten by Ranpo. He casually responded to Nanako, and flipped another page of manga in his hand, as if he knew what Nanako wanted to say, before she could speak. , and then said: "—Dad will never be fired, so don't even think about it in the future!"

"...Oh." Nanako scratched her little head, was quiet for a while, and then called again: "Father."

"Well?"

"Then when did you start writing mystery novels?"

Edogawa paused for a while while biting the dried squid. He lowered his head and squinted at Nanako with his long and narrow eyes. The little radish-headed face was still expressionless, staring at the comic book in his hand. , as if the question just popped up in my mind, so I just asked it casually.

"...Writing novels is too troublesome, and my father is too lazy to write." After a few seconds of pause, Luanbu finally replied in a free-spirited tone, "And if the author draws a conclusion based on the words extracted and expressed intentionally , That kind of thing is not considered [reasoning] at all, a detective is to see the truth from the messy reality at a glance, reasoning novels or something-it is simply a puzzle game as simple as a novice teaching level, dad, I am a detective , so I won’t write that kind of boring stuff.”

He said several words, but there were only three words in Nanako's mind:

too lazy to write.

Nanako was thinking hard about a question.

Has it ever been said that "Edogawa Ranpo" is a writer who likes to be lazy or procrastinates?

She racked her brains for a while, and she just remembered that it was written in someone's memoir that when "Edogawa Ranpo" was forced by the deadline, it would hide in a small black room and be quiet and closed. In his room, he closed all the windows, turned on the lights, and buried himself in writing alone.

...Is that probably what "Edogawa Ranpo is really lazy" means?

Nanako thought.

After all, I was forced to close my own little black room by the deadline.

But looking at it this way, probably only when she was fired from the detective agency, lost her livelihood and was on the verge of starving to death on the street, would her cheap father start writing mystery novels because he had no other way.

"All in all, Dad doesn't write mystery novels. It's really tiring to sit there and write something for a day! But if you want to hear a story, Dad can tell you about the great achievements of a detective!"

Luanbu said in a rhythmic manner, and after talking about it, he seemed to be very satisfied with his proposal, and his tone became more and more high-spirited.

"For example, as a famous detective, Dad, who has never been seen before or since, is the first time in heaven and earth! Although it is said that there is no chance to see it with your own eyes, but as the daughter of the famous detective, you can still hear it from the famous detective himself. I heard how this incident was resolved!"

Nanako: "..."

Maybe bragging is an innate skill engraved in every boy's genes, but all in all, Nanako doesn't intend to hear how her idiot father "made history", so she shook her little head.

"...I want to read novels." She said to Luanbu dryly, her tone so flat that she couldn't hear a trace of "want" expectation.

The idiot daughter is not interested in his father's "great achievements", which made Ranbu curl his lips unhappily, but he still put down the manga in his hand, got up and put Nanako in his arms on the ground, grabbed himself messily Standing in the middle of the office area, he frowned and thought for a while, then rummaged through boxes and chests and threw away most of the books on the shelf, and finally found a hardcover hardcover book from the top of the bookcase.

On the dark blue cover is printed a string of golden cursive English letters——

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue"

There is a dark mark on the lower right corner of the hardcover book cover, which seems to be the water stain left after it was wetted by something like overturned tea and left there to dry naturally.

Nanako opened the book and looked at it. The pages in the book also left the same marks in almost the same position. The pages became a little crumpled, and even the letters in some places were completely blurred by the water and could not be recognized.

I don't know why I didn't see the author's name, only the three letters [E·A·P] are printed on the spine, which seems to be the abbreviation of some phrase.

"If you want to read mystery novels, this one can pass the time." Ranpo said without interest, selectively ignoring the question of whether Nanako could understand the original English novel.

Nanako: "..."

Nanako, whose native language is Chinese but was stuffed with an original English novel by a Japanese, suddenly felt a little confused.

"...Daddy," she called a third time.

"Huh?" Ranbu, who had just sat back in his luxurious and comfortable office chair, responded to her with a tone particle.

"When will you be an interpreter?"

Nanako, who was holding the original English novel, asked her stupid father who was proficient in seven languages ​​with a blank face.

Ranbu: "..."

"Nanako, stop reading novels and go do your homework."

"……Oh."

The author has something to say:

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue"

Murders in the Rue Morgue, a novel by Poe

E·A·P→Edgar Allan Poe

acronym for Edgar Allan Poe