"It certainly is lively here."
A woman dressed in a crimson trench coat approached the group, her gait possessing an air of refined grace.
This was the woman they had been discussing—Ushiro Ruri. At thirty-seven years old, she was a renowned singer who had remained famously single.
"A pleasure to meet you! I am Mouri Kogoro. I look forward to working with you, and I must thank you for recommending me for this series!" The Sleeping Detective was always the pinnacle of chivalry when faced with a beautiful, single woman; his face was practically radiant with misplaced charm.
"Oh my, it's not exactly our first time meeting, is it?" Ushiro Ruri let out a soft chuckle, her expression tinged with a playful surprise.
"Have we met somewhere before...?"
Mouri scratched his head, his mental archives coming up blank.
"Take a look at this mole just below my lip. Does it really not ring a single bell, Kogoro-chan?" She punctuated the question with a flirtatious wink.
"That mole..."
Hearing that overly familiar nickname, Mouri's mind raced, frantically searching for any female acquaintance with a distinctive beauty mark near her mouth.
"Doi... Doigaki Ruri?!"
"Bingo!"
"No way! It's been ages!" The Ruri in Mouri's memory had always worn thick, bottle-lens glasses. He never imagined she would transform into a stunning beauty.
It was living proof: one should always be kind to their female classmates.
"We haven't seen each other since junior high. So, tell me—have I grown up to be a beauty or what?" Ruri asked, removing her hat to reveal her full face as she smiled warmly.
"That goes without saying! But... how is it that you're still unmarried?" Mouri nodded fervently, actually blushing despite the fact that she was an old friend.
"Well, I've been nurturing a one-sided crush on you all this time, so naturally, no other man could ever measure up." Whether she was joking or dead serious was anyone's guess, but it was more than enough to leave the muddled detective completely spellbound.
"I must be trapped in one of Mouri-sensei's dream sequences," Tsuneo muttered, reaching down to give Conan's head a sharp thwack.
"Ow, ow, ow!" Conan glared up, rubbing his scalp. "If you want to test reality, hit yourself! Why do I have to be the reaction-test dummy?"
"You shouldn't tease him like that; he'll take it literally," Ran said, standing behind her father and offering a helpless smile. Her father was, after all, dangerously easy to deceive.
"And who is this?" Ruri asked, looking at Ran with curiosity.
"Oh, her? She's just a... a girl who lives near my house..." Mouri said, already attempting to sever his parental ties for the sake of a better impression.
"Pfft!"
Tsuneo and Conan both burst into laughter simultaneously.
Impressive, Mouri-san. You're actually willing to disown your daughter for this.
"!!!"
"I am his daughter, Mouri Ran!" Ran introduced herself, her voice tight with a forced politeness.
"Oh! So you're Eri's daughter!" Ruri didn't seem surprised at all.
"You know my mother?"
"Mhm. Eri and I were in the same class from kindergarten all the way through junior high."
Ruri paused, an expression of deep contemplation crossing her face. "Though, to be honest, I'm still baffled by it. Back then, Eri was known as the school's top genius. I never understood how she ended up falling for the school's biggest slacker, Mouri Kogoro, let alone marrying him..."
"She probably just had a momentary lapse in judgment..." Conan muttered under his breath. Who in their right mind would marry this old man?
"It was a complete lack of rationality," Tsuneo agreed, nodding.
The idea that the Queen of the Legal World could be so blinded by love was truly a terrifying thought. Tsuneo had recently witnessed her in a high-intensity verbal sparring match with Prosecutor Kujo, and 'terrifyingly powerful' was the only way to describe her.
"Did they start dating when they were really young?" Ran asked, her interest piqued by her parents' history.
"That's right. Eri always had a very cool, composed personality. But whenever Kogoro was involved, she'd turn into a completely different person. Everyone around us used to say that those two 'quarreling lovers' were just flirting in their own special way."
As Ruri reminisced about the past, she led the group into the villa.
The filming was about to begin. The villa leased by the crew was no mere set; its luxury perfectly matched the "wealthy widow" character Ruri was playing. Inside the dining room by the fireplace, the crew had already set up the lights and cameras.
"Let's do a rehearsal!" the director shouted, wanting to gauge the actors' chemistry.
The first to speak was Kazami Yoshiki, playing the detective. He walked over to a "corpse" lying by the fireplace and began his monologue.
"The body before the hearth was covered with a grey tablecloth. However, the black suit the deceased wore in life is draped over this nearby chair."
"Furthermore, the golf club with the white headcover, discarded by the killer near the body, is undoubtedly the murder weapon."
"Well, the mystery is essentially solved."
Despite his unpleasant personality, Kazami was a competent actor. His facial expressions and vocal inflections were spot on.
"Don't keep us in suspense," Namihara Kasumi, playing the daughter, chimed in.
In this scene, Nagumo Nobuharu (the son-in-law) was the body by the fireplace and had no lines.
"Please, tell us the truth!"
"Who exactly is the killer?"
The old butler (Nagumo Akira) and the lady of the house (Ushiro Ruri) both asked in unison.
"Heh. Under normal circumstances, I should reveal the answer now. But," Kazami stopped, shoving his hands into his pockets and turning his gaze toward Mouri Kogoro and Tsuneo. "We have two famous detectives visiting us tonight, don't we?"
"Why don't you two explain why the killer bothered to cover the victim with a grey tablecloth?"
The look on his face was pure malice. He was clearly trying to put them on the spot, confident that the reasoning written by the screenwriter was too convoluted for anyone to guess on a whim.
Conan gave Tsuneo a subtle nudge, pushing him forward. It was clear Conan found the actor insufferable and didn't want the "Old Man" to lose face in front of the entire crew.
"This level of deduction is child's play," Tsuneo began, his voice calm. "You just mentioned a black suit, a grey tablecloth, and a white golf club. By emphasizing these three colors in your lines, you've essentially pointed out that the answer lies within them."
"Why didn't the killer simply use the nearby black suit to cover the body? Why go all the way to the dining table for a grey cloth?"
"Because the killer did not want a color they associated with themselves to be near the victim."
Tsuneo gestured toward the props. "Exactly. We can see that in the golf bag, the club with the black headcover has been partially pulled out. For psychological reasons, the killer couldn't bring themselves to use their favorite club, choosing the one with the white cover as the weapon instead."
"The killer is you—the mistress of this villa, who has a stated preference for the color black in this script: Ms. Ushiro Ruri!"
It was a taxing performance for Tsuneo, as he had to deliver the entire deduction under the silent guidance of the "Great Detective" Conan. However, the payoff was immediate.
Kazami Yoshiki's face soured as he stood there, speechless.
A round of applause broke out on set, confirming that Tsuneo's deduction was exactly what was in the script.
"Truly worthy of being my disciple!"
Mouri-san praised him shamelessly, without a hint of a blush. In reality, he had been privately theorizing that the killer just thought a tablecloth was warmer than a suit jacket.
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