Chapter 10: A New Deceptive Trap
“Ow! That hurts!” Conan clutched the shiny bump on his head, crying out in pain, while Ritsuki Ryomei looked at him coldly and sneered, “Serves you right.”
“I didn’t mean to trick you, Brother Ryomei. Please help me!” Conan pleaded.
Ritsuki Ryomei didn’t answer immediately but asked curiously, “But I heard from Ran that Shinichi Kudo has come back several times. Doesn’t that mean you have a way to fix this?”
“Well, it’s like this...” Conan sighed and briefly recounted the events after he shrank and met Ai Haibara.
Ritsuki Ryomei’s eyes widened after hearing the story. “A medicine that can shrink a person? That’s quite fascinating.”
Conan looked at him expectantly. “So, Brother Ryomei, you…”
“Give me your hand. Let me check your current physical condition first.”
Obediently, Conan rolled up his sleeve and stretched out his right hand. Ritsuki Ryomei placed his fingers on his pulse and channeled a strand of spiritual energy swiftly through his meridians.
After a moment, he withdrew his hand in surprise.
Conan quickly asked, “Brother Ryomei, how is it?”
“Well, your body’s functions have indeed reverted to those of a child, and there are no aftereffects. However...”
The prolonged pause made Conan nervous. “What is it?”
Ritsuki Ryomei said frankly, “Your soul hasn’t shrunk with your body.”
“Soul?” Conan struggled to grasp the meaning, confusion clouding his face. “Keeping my memories isn’t a good thing?”
“Good? Not necessarily.”
Ritsuki Ryomei shook his head. “Any object kept long-term in an unsuitable vessel will deteriorate, let alone something as subtle as the soul.”
“Brother Ryomei, do you mean...?”
Ritsuki Ryomei instinctively wanted to pat his head for comfort, but recalling his age, he patted his shoulder instead. “It’s not a big deal. At worst, you’d live thirty or forty years less.”
“Not a big deal? Living thirty or forty years less is terrifying!” Conan gasped, nearly choking. “This is way too unscientific!”
Ritsuki Ryomei retorted coldly, “You think taking a drug to shrink yourself is scientific?”
“...”
Fair enough.
“Brother Ryomei, can you cure me?”
Ritsuki Ryomei frowned slightly, looking troubled. “I can cure you, but...”
Conan anxiously grabbed his hand. “Brother Ryomei, as long as you help me restore my body, I’ll repay you! Whatever you ask, I’ll help you achieve it!”
“I’m not asking for repayment. It’s just...” Ritsuki Ryomei shrugged helplessly and voiced his concern, “I’ve only studied alchemy. Although I can diagnose your condition, I can’t guarantee I’ll produce the perfect elixir to cure you on the first try. Strictly speaking, I’m not a medical cultivator. If you’re willing to take the risk of testing the medicine, then I can help.”
“So, what do you think?”
Conan fell into deep thought.
He now faced two choices: first, refuse Ritsuki Ryomei’s help and wait for Ai Haibara, the developer of the A-drug, to reverse-engineer an antidote.
But now, knowing the terrifying harm caused by the soul and body mismatch, even if unlicensed medical cultivator Ritsuki Ryomei seemed unreliable, Conan had to take the risk—he truly didn’t want to die young!
“It seems you’ve made your choice.” Having observed Conan’s expression throughout, Ritsuki Ryomei said, “Then you can start preparing these materials.”
Ritsuki Ryomei pulled a sheet of paper from Kogoro Mouri’s desk. After passing through his hands, the blank page was filled with the names of herbs.
Witnessing this miraculous method firsthand, Conan’s nervousness eased, and he gained some confidence in his recovery.
---
However, when he took a closer look at the paper, Conan grimaced. “Polygonum multiflorum that’s a hundred years old? Ginseng that’s a thousand years old?” He’d heard of those, but the rest were completely unfamiliar: “Tianzhu dew, golden brocade cup, ice flower in the flames? What on earth are these?”
“Hmm, I forgot this isn’t the cultivation world. Let me mark them for you.”
Conan looked closely. Next to those unfamiliar herbs were annotations:
Dew collected from plants growing above 6,000 meters altitude; rootstocks of plants that accompany large gold deposits; a small blue-and-white flower living atop volcanoes...
He could understand the notes but felt utterly hopeless. These were hardly things money could buy.
His hand holding the paper trembled uncontrollably.
Just as Conan was about to ask if there were substitutes, Ritsuki Ryomei sighed helplessly. “There’s no way. These are the best materials Earth can offer. Using inferior ones won’t cure you—at best you won’t die from the medicine itself.”
With that said, Conan could only nod tearfully. “I understand, Brother Ryomei. I’ll find all these materials as soon as possible!”
“Good.”
With the matter of the herbs temporarily settled, Ritsuki Ryomei glanced at the clock on the wall. “Ah, it’s already very late.”
Conan immediately asked eagerly, “Brother Ryomei, are you going to sleep? I’ll prepare a bed for you.”
He had completely forgotten their earlier confrontation at the door.
“No need.”
Ritsuki Ryomei declined Conan’s kindness—not out of embarrassment, but because cultivation was more important than sleep. Of course, if Shinji were there to keep him company, that would be different.
Leaving the words “I’m going to cultivate now,” Ritsuki Ryomei went to the rooftop on the fourth floor. After setting up a simple spiritual energy gathering array, he bathed in the cool moonlight and began his cultivation.
A faint glow clung to his body, enhancing the ethereal aura of the young cultivator.
Quietly following, Conan was shocked to see this scene and felt a surge of confidence about restoring his body. “Once I’m back to normal, I can be with Ran... hehe!”
After wiping the drool from the corner of his mouth, Conan turned to the list again and sank into despair.
“I have no idea where to even start!”
Ruffling his once-stylish hair into a mess, Conan suddenly had an idea: “When in doubt, ask Mom and Dad!”
Five minutes later, halfway across the ocean, Yusaku Kudo stared blankly at the list Conan had sent. “Shinichi, are you trying to write a fantasy novel?”
Yukiko, without hesitation, applauded. “As expected of Shinichi, your imagination is amazing. Just reading the descriptions, I can tell how rare these things are! So you want your novel’s protagonist to find the medicine? That would be quite an exciting adventure!”
Conan took a deep breath. “It’s not a novel.”
“Ha ha, if it’s not a novel, then are you really going to look for these?” Yukiko said without thinking. “Don’t tease your mother; April Fool’s Day is still six months away.”
“...”
Yukiko’s smile gradually faded in Conan’s strange silence.
“Washing machine?”
Yusaku asked solemnly, “Shinichi, what exactly is going on?”
So Conan relayed Ritsuki Ryomei’s diagnosis to his parents.
“...”
Conan despaired. “That’s the situation, Dad, Mom. You have to help me. Dad, Mom? Why aren’t you saying anything?”
Yusaku: “...”
Yukiko: “...”
Realizing their son wasn’t lying, the couple fell silent.
After a long moment, Yusaku, the more resilient one, finally responded, “I understand. I’ll get back to you later.”
After hanging up, Yusaku looked at Yukiko, who met his gaze with perfect understanding.
---
Yusaku Kudo: “I’ll try to gather these materials.”
Yukiko: “I’ll pack immediately and fly to Japan to meet that boy!”
Unaware of Conan’s troublesome antics, Ritsuki Ryomei had no idea what was going on.
---
A night passed in the blink of an eye.
The sun rose in the eastern sky, and Ritsuki Ryomei opened his eyes. After a night of cultivation, he felt no discomfort, only vitality.
He released his divine sense to sense changes within his body: “The soul’s nurturing hasn’t made much progress, but the spiritual energy has noticeably increased. Still, it can’t compare to the cultivation world, but it’s better than nothing.”
Satisfied, Ritsuki Ryomei shifted his attention.
“Ah, it’s already seven o’clock. Time to make breakfast.”
With that thought, he went downstairs to the third floor where the living room was. Opening the door, he found Conan asleep on the sofa—eyes still uncovered, clothes unchanged. Scattered around him were drafts filled with notes, showing he hadn’t slept all night trying to gather the herbs.
If Conan were truly a seven-year-old child, Ritsuki Ryomei might have felt pity. But as a high school student, Shinichi Kudo, he could only offer a perfunctory “good luck.”
Ritsuki Ryomei made a simple breakfast, of course leaving a portion for Conan.
“Conan said yesterday that Mouri-san and Ran will return today...” He mused as he carried the sandwich down to the second floor. The sword named Echizen Yuzuki, which he had brought back yesterday, lay quietly on the office’s reception table.
Ritsuki Ryomei grasped the sword’s hilt—not to wield it, but to envelop the blade in spiritual energy, using it as a medium to communicate with the heavens and earth and sense the location of another Echizen Yuzuki — this was why he had gone to such lengths to bring a sword.
Through the inseparable bond between the paired swords, he could learn at any time where Shinji was.
This technique worked very well. After a quick comparison with a rough map of Tokyo, he pinpointed Shinji’s current location:
Tokyo XX Racecourse.
Ritsuki Ryomei twitched his mouth, his expression calm. “Should I say, that’s just like Shinji—off to gamble so early in the morning. Wait—”
Suddenly, he realized that if Shinji was at the racetrack, where was Kei?
Whether she was left alone at home or taken along, either scenario made Ritsuki Ryomei furious!
The half-eaten sandwich in his hand suddenly lost all appeal. Gripping the sword tightly, he even felt like venting his anger on Shinji. But at that moment, the office door was suddenly slammed open.
“Who’s there?”
“Kudo!”
Ritsuki Ryomei turned his head and saw a dark-skinned boy in a tracksuit burst in, carrying a bag. When he saw the Echizen Yuzuki sword in Ritsuki’s hand, his anxious expression instantly darkened.
“What did you do to Kudo?”
“Kudo?” The name sounded strangely familiar, but before Ritsuki Ryomei could figure it out, the dark-skinned boy attacked him.
“You bastard!” he shouted.
The boy threw the bag at Ritsuki’s sword hand, trying to wrest the weapon away, while his other hand struck toward his neck.
It was a killing move.
Coldness flashed in Ritsuki Ryomei’s eyes. With a turn of his sword hand, the Echizen Yuzuki blade slashed straight toward the boy’s left shoulder—
“I’ll avenge Kudo!”
Screech.
“Brother Ryomei, you’re awake...”
Conan had just pushed open the detective agency’s door and was stunned to see the scene before him, his breath catching in panic. In the critical moment, he shouted loudly, “Brother Ryomei, he’s my friend, Heiji Hattori! He’s not a bad guy!”
“Conan?”
Ritsuki Ryomei flipped his palm. At the last second, the back of Echizen Yuzuki stopped half a centimeter above Hattori Heiji’s left shoulder.