novelhk Page 175
Page 175
Watching Ai Haibara's figure disappear into the Black Tower, she muttered to herself with a strange expression, "But... but didn't you also prepare bread for Aragaki-nii-san?"
……
"1, 2, 3, 4..."
"..."
"197, 198... 298, 299, 3, 300!"
After nervously counting the numbers that Ai Haibara had asked for, Ayumi emerged nervously from the bushes.
She looked at the silent, hidden door of the tower, then glanced at the woods in the distance. After a fierce internal struggle, she swallowed hard and walked into the tower.
"No, I don't think I can escape alone! I can't escape. I still need to give this bread to Conan and Aragaki-nii-san. I can't let Ai go on an adventure alone!"
……
"Haibara-san! Where are you? Answer me!"
Using the faint light from her watch-shaped flashlight, Ayumi wandered aimlessly inside the tower. Although she was fighting, she didn't forget the Boys' Goofy Style and shouted loudly inside the tower.
However, what she didn't notice was that after she turned a corner, a partition suddenly rose up from the ground behind her, and a figure silently poked its head out from underground, staring intently at her departing figure.
"Haibara-san?"
Ayumi suddenly walked into a small room, and after closing the door behind her, she realized that it was actually a toilet.
Just as Ayumi was about to leave the restroom, the doorknob suddenly turned, as if someone was trying to open the restroom door from the outside.
However, for some reason, the toilet door seemed to be locked the moment it closed, and no matter how hard people outside tried, they could not unlock it.
"Haibara, classmate?" Ayumi, who noticed this scene, thought that it was Ai Haibara who heard her voice and came looking for her. Just as she was about to happily unlock the door, she found that the guy outside the door suddenly started banging on the toilet door.
boom!
boom!
"No, no! This is definitely not Haibara-san!" Ayumi Yoshida immediately realized this, her eyes widening in horror as she backed away until her back was pressed against the wall.
Bang, bang!
The person outside pounded on the wooden door more and more violently, and the entire wooden door of the toilet began to shake precariously.
Ayumi was so frightened that she trembled all over.
boom!
Just before the wooden door was smashed open, Ai Haibara appeared out of nowhere, grabbed Ayumi Yoshida, and hid behind the broken door, while quickly turning off the flashlight in Ayumi's hand.
The figure outside rushed into the toilet as the wooden door was kicked open.
Seemingly because she was afraid of being recognized, she did not carry any lighting tools.
Therefore, he could only vaguely see some shadows in the room with his eyes, which had become accustomed to darkness over the years.
Just as she discovered the bathroom was empty and was about to close the door and search thoroughly, Ai Haibara took the opportunity to throw a pebble out the door.
Outside the toilet door, pebbles fell to the ground with a "plop" sound.
The figure whose attention was drawn by the commotion outside the door quickly ran towards the direction from which the noise came.
After all, no matter how accustomed you are to the dark, here, your ears are much more reliable than your eyes.
Chapter 221 Mamiya Masuyo
After the figure was drawn outside by the commotion caused by Ai Haibara, Ai Haibara quickly pulled Ayumi along and tiptoed into a hidden door in the corner to hide.
"It seems he's left..."
She didn't know how much time had passed, but Ayumi Yoshida peeked out from the corner and found that the commotion outside had gradually faded into the distance.
"How could you be so obedient?!" Unlike Ayumi, who looked relaxed after surviving the ordeal, Ai Haibara suddenly frowned and said angrily to Ayumi, "Didn't I tell you to run away quickly? If I hadn't happened to hide in this secret door and saved you this time, you would have been captured like Conan, Mitsuhiko, and Genta, do you know that?!"
"But, but..." Ayumi seemed a little flustered and scared when she saw that Ai Haibara's tone was completely different from usual. "But knowing that everyone is in danger, how can I run away by myself!"
"Sigh..." Looking at Ayumi Yoshida with tears in her eyes, Ai Haibara understood that although this little girl was indeed giving away things for free and even causing trouble for others, her actions were indeed brave attempts to help everyone.
For a moment, her heart softened, and her tone became less stern: "Really, I really lost to you. Wipe away your tears, you need to go find everyone!"
Ai Haibara didn't look at Ayumi anymore, turned around, and carefully walked outside.
"You'd better be careful. If anything else happens, I might not be able to save you!"
"Yes!" Ayumi Yoshida wiped away her tears and responded excitedly.
Immediately, she realized that her answer was a bit loud, so she quickly covered her mouth and, without caring whether Ai turned around to look at her, nodded her head like a chick.
"Where are Mitsuhiko and Genta?" Ayumi Yoshida tiptoed after Ai Haibara and asked her softly.
"I don't know." Ai Haibara shook her head at Ayumi. "If they also entered this tower through that secret door, they might have already been captured by that guy."
"What……!?"
Ayumi followed Ai Haibara down a ladder to a hidden door below. Upon hearing Ai Haibara's words, she couldn't help but gasp softly, her expression immediately tense, her heart filled with worry for Mitsuhiko and Genta's current situation.
At that moment, the figure groping not far away suddenly twitched its ears and turned its body in a certain direction, gritting its teeth and staring at that place, as if it had heard something.
"Why can't I find Conan and the others?"
After climbing the escalator to a new location, Ai Haibara and Ayumi, upon confirming that there was no movement around them, turned on their flashlights and began to look around.
"Haibara-san, look over there, there seems to be someone there!" Ayumi was pleasantly surprised to find that, under the beam of her flashlight, there seemed to be a figure sitting in a corner not far away.
"Look, it's over there!" Ayumi excitedly ran towards the figure after noticing that Ai Haibara was also looking over.
"what……!?"
However, just as Ayumi ran up to the figure and saw his face clearly, she suddenly let out a scream.
There was a ragged, white-haired skeleton sitting against the wall in the corner.
It looked extremely terrifying under the beam of the flashlight.
"Yes, yes... a skeleton!" Ayumi's voice trembled, and her face turned deathly pale.
Ai Haibara quickly walked in front of Ayumi and began to examine the skeleton in front of her.
Having once been a research member of the Dark Organization, she wasn't afraid of even corpses, let alone a decaying skeleton.
"This is... all turned to bones." Ai Haibara examined it carefully for a while before analyzing, "This means this person has been dead for a long time. Also, judging from the dust piled on top, it shouldn't have been here for very long..."
"Perhaps she was the one who carved those words on those steps. I think it must be because Conan Edogawa discovered her back then that the murderer moved her to this place."
"But who exactly is this person?" Ai Haibara shone the flashlight beam on the skeleton's leg. "This person's leg bone seems much thinner compared to the other bones."
"And all the teeth have fallen out. Judging from this hair, this should be a woman..."
"Wait, could it be..." Ai Haibara suddenly realized, "The person who switched identities with her is the murderer!"
"..."
Just then, a voice came from the darkness: "Little sisters, what's wrong with you?"
Ai Haibara and Ayumi turned around in surprise and doubt to look behind them. In the light of the flashlight, they saw the face of Masaki Mamiya, the first wife of the castle, suddenly appear behind them.
Startled by the figure that suddenly appeared behind them, the two women couldn't help but exclaim, "Ah...!?"
"I heard some noise, so I came here to check," Masaki Mamiya explained to the two of them, squinting her eyes.
"Grandma, this is really serious!" Upon seeing the adult appear, Ayumi breathed a sigh of relief but quickly stood up and said, "Big brother Aragaki, the professor, and my friends have all been kidnapped by bad guys... Ah!?"
Before Ayumi could finish speaking, and before Masaki Mamiya could react, Ayumi Yoshida was grabbed by the arm by Ai Haibara and started running wildly.
"Haibara-san...!?" As Yoshida Ayumi ran, she couldn't help but look at Haibara Ai with confusion, but she didn't notice that Masaki Mamiya's eyes behind them had suddenly turned gloomy.
"Wait a minute, Ai Haibara!" Ayumi asked Ai Haibara, who was still pulling her along, with some confusion. "If we don't take the old lady with us, she'll be in danger. She'll definitely be attacked by that murderer."
However, Ai Haibara showed no intention of slowing down. Instead, she turned and glared at Ayumi: "What nonsense are you talking about! That old lady was the one who attacked you just now!"
"..."
Dragged along at breakneck speed, Ayumi Yoshida blinked in bewilderment, then gaped in shock, exclaiming, "Wh...what!?"
Chapter 222 Your current figure is already quite good!
"Judging from the leg bones of that skeleton, she must have not walked for a long time before she died!" Ai Haibara explained breathlessly as she pulled Ayumi along. "And judging from the gender and age, it should be the body of the first wife who lives here."
"Then, who was that person just now..." Ayumi was also feeling lingering fear at this moment.
“She must have killed the first wife before taking her place,” Ai Haibara continued. “Then she had plastic surgery to make her face look exactly like the first wife’s. As for other details, she pretended to have a bad memory to cover it up, which is why she never revealed her true identity.”
Ai Haibara pulled Ayumi Yoshida along and ran around a corner.
“That’s right. I think she killed people in that fire four years ago. And that fire must have been set because she realized that no matter how she disguised herself, she couldn’t fool the first wife’s daughter. So she set the fire and burned everyone to death.”
Ai Haibara, relying on her memory of the way they came, led Ayumi Yoshida on a continued escape through the secret passage: "Once you know about this underground passage, anyone can commit murder and arson while being noticed, and then sneak out."
Just then, Ai Haibara and Ayumi emerged from the secret passage and appeared in the castle's main hall.
The two of them collapsed onto the ground, panting heavily from the intense exertion.
"I think her purpose in doing this is probably the treasure hidden in this castle... Ah!?"
Just then, a withered hand suddenly reached out from the tunnel and grabbed Ai Haibara's ankle.