Dark Rules of the Detective World

At that, Inoue Ryoko jerked her chin toward her office and her busy coworkers, signaling Jiang Xia to look.

"You can see it too—we're very busy, and we work overtime a lot. That little bit of time at night isn't even enough to rest; we simply don't have time to care about other people's lives. It was only when Sanae still hadn't come to work the next day that we gradually realized something was wrong. We never expected her to remain missing until now..."

She sighed.

After Conan listened carefully to the clues, Inoue Ryoko pinched his cheek again.

He came back to his senses and only then realized, belatedly, that he seemed to have accidentally traded on his looks.

...But it was just an adult's affection for a child. Such a healthy feeling, beneficial to society's development—so what if he did?

Conan felt no burden whatsoever. He immediately began acting cute and helped Jiang Xia press for more information. "By the way, sis, was there anything unusual about how Sanae was that day? Like being emotionally unstable, or having cried?"

Inoue Ryoko interacted with clients all the time and was a clever person. She vaguely understood what they were getting at.

"You're asking whether Sanae might have committed suicide, or left home of her own accord?" She looked at Jiang Xia. "I don't think so. That day, a new variety of Cosmos I ordered online arrived. She even asked for some seeds, saying she wanted to try growing them when she got home—someone planning to kill herself or run away wouldn't have time for things like that."

Haibara Ai also had her cheek lightly pinched. She raised a hand and touched her cheek with mixed feelings. It felt as though Inoue Ryoko had become much easier to talk to