The Truth

"Hmph! As long as nothing happened, that's good. I didn't expect the Professor to be out today of all days. Looks like we'll have to deal with him another time. I don't want any more accidents." Hearing Fumiyo Edogawa's answer, Mr. Lin snorted.

Conan thought, Good thing the Professor wasn't home. Otherwise, things would've gone badly. "Oh, come upstairs for a moment. I've made a discovery." Conan continued speaking in Fumiyo Edogawa's voice. He had taken care of the unconscious woman's body and called the man upstairs, planning to use the same trick as before to knock him out and capture them.

"Is that so? I'd like to see what you've discovered." The man made his way upstairs.

Hearing footsteps on the stairs, Conan quickly hid to one side.

As the footsteps drew closer, the man was clearly following his plan and came inside.

But when he reached the doorway, the man stopped and looked at the figure standing by the window. "What did you find? And what are you doing over there?" The scene before him had clearly made him suspicious.

In response, "Fumiyo Edogawa" said, "I have my reasons for standing here. What I found is right here. Come take a look for yourself."

"Hmph!" The man said nothing more and walked straight over. When he reached the woman and saw her eyes tightly shut, he knew something was wrong. Before he could react, Conan fired a Tranquilizer Dart from nearby. It quickly struck the man in the neck.

Seeing the dart hit the man's neck, Conan smiled happily. But just as he was about to emerge from hiding—

"Is this your secret weapon? What a nice little gadget! No wonder she passed out. So this is what you used." The man started toward Conan. Clearly, the Tranquilizer Dart hadn't knocked him out right away.

"H-How is that possible? You..." Seeing the man standing before him, Conan couldn't believe it. The man had been hit in the neck by a Tranquilizer Dart—how could he be fine?

"Ha ha, anything's possible. If I weren't much stronger than an ordinary person, I'd have already collapsed. Now get ready to face the consequences." The man stepped forward, grabbed Conan, and struck him on the neck with a karate chop, knocking him unconscious.

Looking at the unconscious Conan, the man muttered, "Damn, if my stats hadn't been boosted by half, I'd probably be down too." The man was Lin Maoxian. When the dart struck his neck, he had received a prompt from the dimension.

"Adventurer has been hit by a Tranquilizer Dart. Powerful tranquilizing effect activated."

"The Adventurer's body has been digitized. Willpower and stamina have taken effect, preventing the Adventurer from losing consciousness. However, for the next 30 seconds, all of the Adventurer's attributes except charisma will be reduced by 2 points. After 30 seconds, the Adventurer will also suffer a negative effect that reduces all attributes by 1 point for 1 minute."

The prompt from the dimension told him the Tranquilizer Dart was quite potent. Having his stats reduced by nearly a third for 30 seconds was no joke. If he'd been in a fight when he got hit, it could have been disastrous. Still, a digitized body was really tough. Otherwise, he couldn't be sure he would've been all right.

Lin Maoxian tied Conan up with a rope first, then planned to wake Fumiyo Edogawa.

About ten minutes later, Fumiyo Edogawa came to.

"W-What...?" Seeing Conan tied up and Lin Maoxian standing before her, Fumiyo Edogawa clearly had no idea what had happened.

Lin Maoxian said crossly, "You really outdid yourself. You got knocked out by a little boy with a Tranquilizer Dart. What am I supposed to do with you?"

"How was I supposed to know the brat was hiding nearby and had something like a Tranquilizer Dart? I was just careless for a moment." Looking at Conan, who was bound, Fumiyo Edogawa tried to defend herself.

Hearing her explanation, Lin Maoxian waved a hand and said with a smile, "All right, all right. Let's not talk about that now. We've caught the brat. What do you plan to do?"

"Heh heh. First, wake him up. Then I'll make him regret it. He dared to make me lose face. I won't let him get away with it." Fumiyo Edogawa gritted her teeth. Being taken down by a little boy had humiliated her, and she planned to give Conan a good "treatment."

After an unknown amount of time, Conan woke up to find himself tied to a chair. Just as he tried to move, he heard the woman speak. "You finally woke up, brat. Aren't you so capable? You managed to escape and even knocked me out. Go on, try escaping now."

Conan looked toward the voice. The speaker was the woman called Fumiyo Edogawa. She was standing to one side, looking fierce, and her eyes were full of smug delight.

"Hmph. If not for that man, I would've caught you by now. You wouldn't be standing here talking to me." Conan was contemptuous of the woman's remark.

His words clearly provoked the woman before him. She roared, "You little brat! You still dare bring that up? Because of you, my neck still hurts!"

Hearing the woman call herself his mother, Conan snorted. "You're not my mom! My mom doesn't look like you, Auntie!"

"Auntie? How dare you call me Auntie! Do I really look that old? I'll make you call me Mom willingly!" Conan's last remark had infuriated the woman. She had always thought she looked young and beautiful, and the word "Auntie" had no business being applied to her.

Conan replied irritably, "As if! I'll never call you Mom. You can count on that."

"Oh? Is that so? And what will you do if you willingly call me Mom?" The woman smiled strangely at Conan's words.

Conan answered casually, "If I call you Mom of my own free will, you can do whatever you want with me. But that's never going to happen."

"Oh, really? Just wait and see." The woman turned and went into a room nearby.

Lin Maoxian had heard the whole conversation and knew exactly what was going on. He had arranged this himself. Looking at Conan with pity, he said, "Conan, you're far too confident. You'll see in a moment just how badly you've lost."

"Hmph!" Conan dismissed Lin Maoxian's words with a snort and ignored him, turning his attention to the rope around his body. He wondered how he could untie it without being noticed and find a chance to escape.

"Now, do I still look like an auntie to you?"

A familiar voice interrupted Conan's thoughts. He looked toward it and was instantly stunned. "Mom, y-you... Why are you here? Does that mean the person just now...?"

The newcomer was Yukiko. She'd found Lin Maoxian's idea interesting, so she had disguised herself as Fumiyo Edogawa. But in the end, Conan had knocked her out and even called her an auntie, which had left her quite unhappy. "That's right. I was that auntie just now. Isn't that right, Shinichi?" Yukiko asked, gritting her teeth as she said "auntie."

Seeing the frightening expression on his mother's face, Conan hurriedly changed the subject. "Mom, what's going on? When did you get back? And how did you end up with this man?" He looked toward Lin Maoxian as he asked Yukiko.

Lin Maoxian cut off Yukiko before she could speak. "Yukiko, shouldn't we untie your son first?"

"Go ahead and untie him. I'd been thinking of keeping him tied up a little longer, after all the nerve of him to call me Auntie." Yukiko's words made Lin Maoxian reflect that women really shouldn't be offended, especially clever, beautiful women who were a little sensitive. It was just one "Auntie," yet she was even punishing her own son. He'd better be careful and not offend her.

He couldn't help asking, "Yukiko, is he really your biological son? Could you have picked him up somewhere?"

Yukiko shot Lin Maoxian a look and replied irritably, "You're the one who was picked up! I carried him for ten months and went through so much to give birth to him. What do you think?"

Lin Maoxian shrugged. "From the way you talk, I'd say it doesn't seem like it."

Yukiko ignored him, stepped forward, and untied Conan.

Now free, Conan stretched a little and asked Yukiko angrily, "Mom, you'd better explain what's going on."

Looking at her angry son, Yukiko smiled and explained, "Shinichi, don't be angry. This had nothing to do with Mom. Lin brought me back from America through your Aunt Eri. Once I got to Japan, he told me you'd had an accident and turned into a child. At first, Mom didn't really believe it. He arranged all of this, so it has nothing to do with me."

"Even if you didn't arrange it, you shouldn't just do whatever someone tells you." Yukiko's explanation clearly wasn't enough to satisfy Kudo Shinichi. From the way he spoke, it was obvious he was still angry.

"Well, Mom didn't have a choice. Lin made me do it, even though I really didn't want to. He said this was the only way I'd believe you'd turned into Conan and were staying with Ran for the time being, so I had to go along with it." Seeing that her son was still angry and knowing she'd gone too far earlier, Yukiko could only play sweet and blame everything on Lin Maoxian.