pdf-ebookys Chapter 222 Children should act like children and study hard!
Chapter 222 Children should act like children and study hard!
"Infirmary, infirmary... Ah! We've arrived at the infirmary!"
Upon seeing the sign for the infirmary, Yuan Tai disregarded whether his teammates were following behind and immediately pried open the door.
The pure white sheets gleamed, and even in the dim light of a flashlight, Conan could see his reflection in the glass of the cabinet. As night fell and the temperature gradually dropped, Conan instinctively felt something was amiss as soon as he entered the room, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
"Huh? Where is the mannequin? Could it have really run away?" Genta curiously examined the locked cabinet, scratching his pointed head.
"Genta, don't say things like that..."
The thought of a living anatomical model sent chills down Ayumi's spine. She instinctively moved away from the corridor and into the inner part of the room, casually pulling back a "sheet" in front of her:
"what!!!"
A child's terrified scream echoed through the school building. Ayumi released the flashlight, turned, and ran out. By the time Conan and the others came to their senses and looked, only a pink skirt had flashed past the doorway and disappeared into the endless darkness.
"Ayumi! Wait a minute, Ayumi!" With no other choice, the group had to hurry after her.
A cold laugh echoed in the dimly lit infirmary. A slender hand picked up a flashlight and shone it on the corner where Ayumi had just been investigating.
The bulging muscles and blood vessels twisted together, faintly revealing a dark crimson hue, giving the illusion of a constant pulse when the light flickered.
'What? Isn't this the anatomical model we've been looking for?'
She could still hear Edogawa's high-decibel shouts in her ears. Ai Haibara snorted softly and shook her head helplessly.
'And it's a mannequin with incorrect muscle structure; recent versions should have been corrected long ago. Oh well, looks like this school's facilities are pretty old...'
Looking around, the members of the Detective Boys had already gone far away. Ai Haibara, who considered herself the most mature and reliable member of the group, was sometimes quite surprised by Shinichi Kudo. She was often surprised by how his mental maturity seemed to be inexplicably lowered when he was with children, and amazed by his superhuman logical reasoning ability.
'But he's still just a child; he gets so flustered when things happen.'
Judging that it was about time to catch up with the group, Ai Haibara, carrying a flashlight, strolled leisurely towards the corridor on the other side of the classroom. Her lonely footsteps were especially noticeable in the darkness, sounding particularly heavy even though she was just a little girl...?
Ai Haibara abruptly stopped, a chill running down her spine from her toes. Behind her, endless darkness spread, and a large, malevolent hand emerged, covering her mouth!
"Hmm! m..."
Unable to resist like a mayfly trying to shake a tree, the frail girl kicked her legs violently and was forcibly dragged into the darkness, where she remained silent.
Meanwhile, Conan finally caught up with Ayumi, who had bumped into something.
"Are you alright, Ayumi?" Mitsuhiko helped Ayumi up after she fell and looked at the small items scattered all over the ground.
The brand-new corrugated cardboard box was bulging with dozens of hand puppet dolls, some of them clean and some worn, and some were scattered on the floor because of Ayumi's earlier collision.
Conan raised an eyebrow, a sense of unease creeping into his mind: Strange? Everything should have been put back in its place after the big clean, so why is it here?
"Wow! Look!" With her upper body buried in a cardboard box, Ayumi rummaged around for a while and then held up a stuffed animal shaped like Tang Sanzang: "Look, the surname on this is the same as mine!"
Mitsuhiko excitedly pulled out two at once: "Mine is Sha Wujing! This white dragon horse is Haibara, and Sun Wukong is Edogawa!"
"Tch." Yuan Tai pouted and rolled his eyes in dissatisfaction: "Why is my surname 'Zhu Bajie' (Pigsy)?"
As soon as the words were spoken, the last stitch on the puppet's neck snapped with a "bang," and dusty cotton burst out of the opening. The pig's head fell to the ground and rolled several meters away.
"Eek!" Genta was so frightened that his legs went weak, and he collapsed to the ground with a shudder, his teeth chattering: "This, this must be a voodoo doll used to curse us! All the students who asked for leave from school must have been eliminated by witchcraft!"
Mitsuhiko quickly waved his hand to reassure Genta: "That's just a legend, we should believe in science! Right, Haibara-kun..."
The corridor was empty, with no one else in sight except the four of them; the entire school was deathly silent.
The four little ones: !!!
"Hey, where's Haibara? I can't see her." Ayumi nervously clutched her skirt and kept looking around.
Conan clenched his fists, a bad thought flashing through his mind: Oh no! Is Ai Haibara's aphasia going to flare up again?!
"Let's go back the way we came to find her, everyone follow!"
A figure in azure blue ran in front, followed closely by three others. The chaotic footsteps gradually shifted, broadcasting their location to those hiding in the school.
"Haibara! Are you here?!"
Conan opened the closed door; the infirmary was empty. Genta, panting, gripped his shoulder. The others weren't much better off; Conan's stamina was sometimes frighteningly abundant, and keeping up with him was already their limit!
Ring, ring...
A chilling, eerie bell rang out from not far away, drifting like a ghost overhead. The sound, like a bucket of cold water, instantly put them at ease. The children shuffled along, looking up to see the bell ringing from the second-floor staircase...
"What, what was that sound?" Ayumi asked timidly, shrinking her head back.
"I don't know, maybe someone's cat's bell is ringing..."
Ring, ring, ring!
As if to prove that it was not a hallucination, the bell pressed against its ear rang louder and louder, incessantly, wailing mournfully.
Conan was equally uneasy, but he was more inclined to believe someone was playing a trick. In this situation, it was clear the other party didn't want him to discover anything, but Ai Haibara was nowhere to be found. How could he be sure...?
A flash of lightning struck the back of his head: "Right, I can try the Detective Club badge!"
He took out the badge and started dialing. Under the anxious and worried gazes of the others, after a few seconds of silence, a faint voice actually came from the other end of the badge!
"...When will the cage...be ready..."
"Ai, what did you say?" Ayumi excitedly gripped the badge and pressed her ear against it.
call--
A sudden gust of cold wind swept down the stairs, and darkness fell overhead. Conan looked up, and thin, white flakes landed right on the tip of his nose.
This is... His pupils suddenly contracted, and a chill ran from the top of his head to his tailbone. He staggered backward as if he had been set on fire.
"Huh, what are these pieces of paper? They're round, and there's a square cut out in the middle." Ayumi squatted down curiously and picked them up.
"This is paper money." Conan's face turned pale. "It's a sacrificial item in ancient Chinese culture, said to be money used only by the dead in the underworld!"
Yuan Tai, who had secretly shoved a bag of paper money into his pocket, was startled and hurriedly pulled the bag out!
Just then, the voice from the badge gradually amplified, and in the deathly silence, the plaintive female voice was exceptionally clear:
"Bamboo cage eye, bamboo cage eye"
The little bird in the cage,
When will it be released?
At dawn,
The crane and the tortoise slipped and fell.
A warm breath accompanied by a barely perceptible laugh: "Who is that person behind you?"