Bai Yexiu felt deeply regretful, as it was impossible to go observe the "little kid" over the next few days—he was getting busy again.
First, he had assassinated a company president last night, then early in the morning he went to threaten an underground arms dealer who had been withholding weapons from the Organization. In the morning, Gin forcibly dragged him to the base for training, and now he had to carry out another assassination mission. Furthermore, this mission could not be done with a sniper rifle; Gin had explicitly emphasized that the target had to look like he died in an accidental death.
Tasks like this were the most troublesome. Unlike missions where targets could be directly eliminated with a sniper rifle, these required prior investigation and the formulation of a meticulous plan to make the target's death look accidental.
The target was a politician, and Bai Yexiu knew that in 25 minutes, the man would undergo an appendectomy. At that moment, the politician was in the hospital lobby, and clearly, now was not a good time.
Bai Yexiu quickly checked the roster of surgeons for this operation and successfully knocked one of them out in the restroom.
The unconscious doctor was dragged by Bai Yexiu into one of the stalls, and his white coat was skillfully stripped off...
A moment later, Bai Yexiu, disguised as the doctor, walked out of the restroom and headed straight toward the operating room.
...
"The surgery was successful, patient shows no adverse reactions." The chief surgeon laid down his instruments and instructed the nurse to wheel the patient out.
Bai Yexiu walked out of the operating room and called Gin.
"The surgery was a complete success, the patient is beyond saving."
During the operation just now, he had applied a toxin to the scalpel. Within the next dozen minutes or so, the patient would develop symptoms of wound infection and drop dead within a day.
As expected.
Gin chuckled and hung up the phone.
Bai Yexiu tucked his phone into his pocket, walked back into that restroom, peeled the disguise off his face, and tossed it into the trash can. Looking at the doctor still sleeping soundly in the corner, Bai Yexiu couldn't help muttering to himself that he might have used a bit too much sedative.
Throwing the white coat over the doctor's head, Bai Yexiu slipped back into the black trench coat he had worn earlier and strode away.
However, just as he intended to leave the hospital, Bai Yexiu spotted a familiar figure in the corridor: Kudo Shinichi, whom he had met a few days ago.
Shinichi had shrunk into the form of a little kid, accompanied by a female high school student, behind whom walked a middle-aged man. Ahead of them was a doctor, talking to them about something.
Bai Yexiu was pleasantly surprised. He had thought he wouldn't be seeing him for a while, yet here they were, running into each other out of the blue.
As he walked past them, Bai Yexiu never expected that a mere casual glance would lead to direct eye contact with Kudo Shinichi!
How could it be such a coincidence?
Bai Yexiu suppressed the urge to turn back for a second look, pulled the brim of his baseball cap lower, and quickened his pace slightly.
Kudo Shinichi, who had just locked eyes with the mysterious black-clad youth, had not yet recovered from the shock. In that instant of eye contact, he had frozen in place.
That gaze... it was identical to the man in black, right down to the black attire, yet he looked like nothing more than a middle school student!
"Conan? Conan? What are you daydreaming about?" The female high school student waved a hand in front of his face, snapping Kudo Shinichi back to reality. He awkwardly stammered in response, "Ah, it's nothing~"
But when Shinichi finished brushing her off and turned back around, the figure of the black-clad youth had already vanished.
By this time, Bai Yexiu had reached another restroom. He took out some cosmetics and prosthetics for disguise from the inner pocket of his trench coat, along with a wig for his alter ego "Ryuzawa Ryuya," kept ready for emergencies.
Whenever Bai Yexiu carried out missions using his true identity, he would store disguise cosmetics, prosthetics, and a "Ryuzawa Ryuya" wig inside his trench coat, alongside a stash of firearms and weapons—he was thoroughly prepared.
Before coming to Japan, he would never have done such a thing. But having his bank accounts frozen by an undercover agent had taught him a valuable lesson.
Having changed into his alter ego, Bai Yexiu decided to steal a moment of leisure from his busy schedule to check in on this experimental subject.
"Oh my, aren't you that little boy from the other day?"
Feigning a chance encounter, Bai Yexiu wore a look of surprise.
Kudo Shinichi immediately offered a polite and awkward smile: "Hello, mister!" Following that came a surge of panic. Because that very night, he had told this exact person his real name was Kudo Shinichi—if this guy were to tell Ran, it would be a disaster!
Shinichi was too busy panicking to notice that the two groups had already begun exchanging self-introductions.
"Little buddy, are you listening? My name is Ryuzawa Ryuya, and you? Come to think of it, I forgot to ask your name the other day."
As if waking from a dream, Shinichi stammered that his name was Edogawa Conan. Looking at the amiable Ryuzawa Ryuya before him, the phrase *"Unless you want a few extra holes in your body"* inexplicably popped into his head.
At that thought, little Conan instinctively shrank back behind the female high school student, Ran Mouri.
Bai Yexiu drifted off for a second—had his true nature on that night really scared the kid that badly? It seemed he would have to be more careful in the future; he mustn't scare children by letting his real personality slip out.
Just then, Bai Yexiu's phone rang at the most inopportune moment. He picked it up to find it was none other than Gin. Bai Yexiu gritted his teeth: That damned Gin.
"New mission. Kill that arms dealer you warned yesterday."
Right in front of them, Bai Yexiu answered Gin's call without the slightest panic.
"Got it, got it." Highly impatient, Bai Yexiu hung up the phone, bid farewell to Conan and the others, and hurried away.
Sigh, what a half-workaholic running himself ragged just to make a living.
Bai Yexiu felt like crying. But thinking of how Gin was even busier than him, his sadness instantly evaporated.
Right now, Gin was probably just finishing a mission and eating a sandwich.
As he hurried along, Bai Yexiu silently guessed to himself.
Meanwhile, Gin rolled down the car window, watched Vodka return with two sandwiches, and suddenly sneezed.
Vodka, who was about to get into the car, froze and fell silent.
He didn't say his usual line: "Boss, here are your sandwiches." For some reason, he didn't want to say those words today, and a strong intuition told him that the Boss didn't want to hear them either.
Gin shot a slightly surprised glance at the silent Vodka. He said nothing either; for some reason, he suddenly felt like staying quiet as well.
The two of them silently munched on their sandwiches, and the atmosphere inside the car plunged into an eerie silence.
Silence was the sandwich of the night (?)