Bai Yexiu had just turned a corner when he saw Conan and Nakajima sitting on the ground.
Wait a minute, Nakajima, why are you sitting on the ground too? Wasn't only Conan knocked down?
Just as he finished mentally complaining, Tequila, who had already walked up to Bai Yexiu, gave him a scrutinizing look and then walked straight past him.
Bai Yexiu silently retreated back into the corner to keep Conan and Nakajima from discovering he was following them.
He had only come this time to confirm whether the transaction went smoothly. Since he had altered a node in the timeline, it was hard to guarantee whether a butterfly effect might occur further down the line.
Thinking this, Bai Yexiu quietly followed Tequila. What he needed to do next was check whether Tequila's claim check was number 98, the one containing the bomb. If it was, he would have no choice but to warn Gin first, especially since the only gear he had on him right now was an empty syringe and a scalpel.
Besides, Gin and the Boss had both talked about the specificity of his identity; he wasn't allowed to expose his codename to other members, aside from a few special individuals. Walking right up to Tequila and blowing his own cover was out of the question.
Along the way, Tequila didn't notice anyone tailing him—even Bai Yexiu couldn't help shaking his head, marveling at how oblivious Tequila was to such obvious surveillance.
Inside the lobby, Bai Yexiu habitually leaned against a pillar, pretending to wait for someone. In reality, he was waiting for the receptionist to call out Tequila's number.
"Guest with number 98, this is yours."
Damn it.
The moment he heard the receptionist speak, Bai Yexiu cursed under his breath. When on earth did Takeshita Yuuya switch them? Clearly, that node where the claim check was swapped had already been altered by him.
Perhaps because that node was changed, it had given rise to a brand-new node...
Bai Yexiu fell into thought.
If Tequila died, he figured Gin would start picking on him again, accusing him of scheming against Organization members.
Previously abroad, a sheer coincidence had led to Gin and Vodka being framed as the prime suspects in a murder case—a murder case that Bai Yexiu had orchestrated to wipe out someone on the Organization's blacklist. As a result, Gin concluded that Bai Yexiu had deliberately plotted the murder with the two of them included in the scheme.
Bai Yexiu maintained that the whole affair was pure coincidence, completely the result of Gin and Vodka overthinking things and painting him in their heads as some scheming mastermind who loved backstabbing people.
I am seriously wronged here...
If Tequila died this time, there was no telling what kind of scenario Gin would cook up in his head. He would undoubtedly twist it into something utterly outrageous!
Bai Yexiu avoided Conan and made a call to Gin.
"Hey, Gin, we've got a major problem." Bai Yexiu's tone was flat.
On the other end, Gin frowned: "Did something go wrong with the trade?"
"Here's the thing..."
Bai Yexiu laid the whole situation out for Gin, leaving out only the fact that he knew the script for the entire affair. He tried to use the shortest and simplest language possible, but it all boiled down to one point: don't let Tequila open the case, there's a bomb inside.
Yet when he checked his watch, he realized that even with such a concise explanation, two whole minutes had already passed.
Well... this seemed a bit too late... Oh well, if anyone's to blame, blame Tequila for opening his case so damn fast.
Without a single word, Gin hung up the phone the moment he finished listening. But simultaneously, a massive explosion boomed across the line right as the call disconnected.
...
Bai Yexiu decided to just lie flat. Whatever Gin had to say afterwards, he wouldn't care—he had already said everything he needed to say.
Time to slack off.
However, since Tequila was dead, he now had work to do; he still needed to get his hands on that list.
At that moment, he wasn't far from the blast site. Not far from the restroom that had been blown to ruins, he spotted the culprit: Takeshita Yuuya.
Stealing through the faint smoke lingering in the surroundings, Bai Yexiu moved like a phantom, brushing past Takeshita Yuuya's shoulder and flashing right by him.
He had only swapped the claim checks, not actually taken Takeshita's ticket, and Bai Yexiu wanted to see the look on his face when he discovered his claim check had been switched.
Just for the fun of it.
Besides, he still needed to tie up loose ends. Even Gin wouldn't let a guy like Takeshita Yuuya live.
...
Bai Yexiu seized the opportunity to head to the lobby and retrieve the list of top-tier programmers. Then, wandering down a corridor, he found someone holding a briefcase, delivered a swift chop to the back of the neck, and swapped his own case with the man's.
Because the briefcase bore the Mantendo logo, if Takeshita Yuuya's claim check had been switched while he happened to be carrying a case with the Mantendo logo... wouldn't that just be blowing his own cover?
"What a pain," Bai Yexiu muttered to himself as he dragged the unconscious man into the restroom.
Job done, Bai Yexiu clutched the list and walked back to the lobby with a sense of satisfaction, ready to catch a deduction show.
Clearly, Bai Yexiu had arrived a little late; the deduction show was already nearing its conclusion, and Takeshita Yuuya was blurting out the truth: "Th-the truth is, my claim check was switched!"
"Huh?"
Nakajima stared at him in astonishment, and even Conan, hiding in the background, looked a bit incredulous.
"I discovered it just now when I went to exchange the suitcases," Takeshita Yuuya added.
Based on the previous deductions, the case containing the list ought to have corresponded to Takeshita's claim check, but now Takeshita was claiming his check had been swapped by someone else.
A terrifying thought popped into Conan's head.
Could it be that besides Tequila, there was an accomplice here?
"By the way, Nakajima, who on earth was that tall man in black you were doing business with?"
Hiding behind the crowd, Bai Yexiu watched Kogoro Mouri sitting on the ground. Mouri's mouth wasn't moving at all, yet he was speaking.
He wasn't particularly surprised by this spectacle; this probably counted as witnessing firsthand the bizarre scenes that had appeared in his mind back when he was reading the newspaper.
He pulled out his phone and sent an email to Gin.
[The list is in hand. —— Cointreau]
At the cost of losing an Organization member, though.
The Organization was already a bit short-handed, and now it seemed even more so. Not to mention that a while ago, the "slack-off master plus undercover plus trash cleanup" sweep had already wiped out over thirty people, including peripheral members and several codenamed members.
In the time it took him to snap back to reality and send the email, Kogoro Mouri had already woken up, and Conan had sprinted out in a frantic rush.
Hiding behind the crowd, Bai Yexiu stealthily pulled out his scalpel and slipped on his gloves. He deliberately positioned himself in a surveillance blind spot to make his move convenient.
At that exact moment, Takeshita Yuuya, who was being subdued by the police, was suddenly pierced in the left eye by a scalpel that came flying from nowhere. The incoming scalpel was so fast it was reduced to a mere blur, leaving everyone with no time to react at all.
Blood splattered instantly. After a brief, dead silence in the crowd, several screams rang out one after another. Regaining their senses, the police officers stared around in high alert and hurriedly called for the area to be sealed off to hunt down the person who threw the blade.
Yet they were not as fast as Bai Yexiu. The moment he threw the scalpel, Bai Yexiu slipped away quietly while avoiding the security cameras, without a single person noticing him.
Takagi stepped forward to check Takeshita Yuuya's breathing and shook his head at Inspector Megure. The scalpel had entered through the left eye, burying almost its entire length inside Takeshita Yuuya's skull, leaving only a tiny sliver of the handle exposed.
Special Technique: Kill and Run.
Developer: Gin
...
Inside the Porsche, Vodka was driving with intense focus while Gin took the briefcase handed over by Bai Yexiu, opened it for a quick glance, and confirmed everything was correct.
"Tequila..."
Before Gin could finish, Bai Yexiu quickly cut in: "You can't blame me for this. I helped out wherever I could; although I have no idea how Takeshita Yuuya managed to swap those claim checks, I already tried to stop him, and I certainly didn't foresee any of this on my end either."
Pausing for a moment, Bai Yexiu flashed a smile at Gin: "Still, I've already taken care of Takeshita Yuuya, which should lighten your workload a bit. But as for that Nakajima Hideaki, I don't have any spare weapons on me, so I'm afraid I'll have to trouble you with him."
"If Tequila's dead, he's dead. He was just trash anyway, no need to keep him around in this world," Gin remarked coldly.
Gin wasn't going to accuse him of scheming against a comrade?
Bai Yexiu was just starting to feel pleased when a single remark from Gin plunged him right back into silence: "Try to pull fewer stunts like scheming against people in the future. Even if he is trash."
"Hey, come on, are you seriously going to hold just that one incident against me forever?" He had already said that affair abroad was a pure coincidence.
Bai Yexiu straightened up and snapped back sharply, while simultaneously feeling a deep sense of helplessness.
What was he supposed to do when Gin constantly suspected him of scheming against his comrades? Asking for advice online!
"Not just that one," Gin said coolly.
"......I'm getting out of the car." He couldn't stay in a place with Gin for another second.
Camilla, coiled around Bai Yexiu's wrist, seemed to sense her master's erratic emotions and poked her head out of his sleeve, immediately locking eyes with Bai Yexiu.
Man and snake stared at each other for a moment before Bai Yexiu spoke first.
"What are you looking at?" He was in a terrible mood right now.
Camilla instantly pulled her head back, not daring to move a muscle.
Master is so terrifying today...