Half an hour later, Qin Zhibo and Conan arrived at Dr. Ali's house.
Qin Zhibo parked the car, opened the door and got out of the car, but Conan was still sitting on the chair and didn't even unbuckle his seat belt.
"I see……"
"Ruyue Peak Water's real purpose turns out to be to make the volcano erupt..."
Conan rubbed his chin, his mind still pondering what Qin Zhibo said on the road just now, and he didn't realize that the car had stopped.
According to his original reasoning, Kisaragi Hosui was seeking revenge on the person who built the twin skyscrapers because the illegally constructed building blocked his family's view of Mount Fuji.
But after Qin Zhibo's explanation, another explanation emerged for the same case.
"But……"
Conan wanted to continue communicating with Qin Zhibo, but found that the latter was already standing in front of Dr. Ali's house and pressed the doorbell.
Conan quickly unbuckled his seat belt and nimbly climbed out of the car door.
"Hey, is there anything else you haven't told me?"
"This is not the only case that has hidden secrets, right?"
Conan stood next to Qin Zhibo and asked with a serious face.
However, Qin Zhibo doesn't have time to explain everything one by one. He is not a storyteller, and this is not a story meeting.
And some of them involve systems, and it’s really hard to explain the reasons and motivations.
"Let's wait until there is an opportunity in the future. The most important thing now is to handle the current affairs well."
Facing Qin Zhibo's answer, Conan frowned slightly. Although he felt a little reluctant, he could only accept it.
Although not all truths are worth announcing, the inner desire to pursue the truth can never be given up.
After a while, Dr. Ali unlocked the electronic lock on the gate and welcomed Qin Zhibo and Conan in.
"Conan? And Mr. Qin..."
"Do you already know?"
The two looked slightly startled and asked, "What do you know?"
Dr. A Li hesitated for half a second, then a confident and proud expression appeared on his face, and he said solemnly.
"I announce that my latest invention, the strength-enhancing gloves, is nearly complete!"
The strength-enhancing gloves are custom-made props that Qin Zhibo commissioned Dr. A Li.
"What?"
Qin Zhibo looked happy, "The Thanos Glove is finally completed!"
Thanos glove?
Dr. A Li looked puzzled for a moment, then smiled and put his hands behind his back, nodding.
"Almost, the final debugging can be completed in just these two days..."
"Debugging?" Qin Zhibo asked.
"Just adjust the output strength. The initial version may have a high voltage that ordinary people can't handle...it will eventually be adjusted to a relatively suitable range."
Qin Zhibo asked: "What is the power that can be output now?"
Dr. A Li raised his chin and thought for a moment, "Probably...it's hard to say, because I haven't tested it."
"How about comparing Conan's footwear?"
Dr. A Li turned to look at Conan's sneakers and smiled, "The peak value should be slightly higher."
"But considering the different ways of exerting force on the arms and feet, it may be about the same. After all, I haven't tested it myself..."
At this moment, Conan, who was already sitting on the sofa and looking through the case materials, interrupted the two of them.
"Can we get down to business now?"
Conan was not very interested in Dr. Agasa's new invention.
He now wants to discuss the case more.
"What's the matter?"
Dr. A Li asked doubtfully.
Conan whispered back: "It's about the organization..."
"organize!"
Dr. A Li's expression changed, his eyes widened and he shouted.
Because things have been quiet recently, I haven't had any friction with the organization for a long time.
"Sh-!"
Conan quickly made a hissing gesture towards Dr. A Li, "Don't let Haibara hear..."
"Where is she now?"
Hearing this, Dr. Ali looked back and glanced in the direction of the basement, "Xiao Ai stayed up late yesterday doing research, and is probably still sleeping now..."
sleep?
Conan looked up at the clock on the wall and drooped his eyelids helplessly.
It’s almost 11 noon. Hey...
But this is fine, as it just avoids her discussing the case.
Conan briefly explained it to the doctor, then picked up the information on the mahjong tiles with the code printed on it and looked at it.
"Now it seems that the best entry point is the code on the mahjong tiles left by the murderers next to the victims' bodies..."
As he said that, Conan glanced at Qin Zhibo's reaction.
Because deciphering passwords is Qin Zhibo's strength, no matter how complex the password is, he can see through it at a glance.
However, this time Qin Zhibo just smiled and said nothing.
Conan immediately understood. It seemed that Qin Zhibo had already deciphered the meaning of the code and was just testing his code reasoning ability.
In response to this, Conan's eyes calmed down for a moment, then he turned around and began to reason about the code.
"Judging from the points on the mahjong tiles, the murderer may have targeted seven people in total..."
"However, the mahjong tiles found on the first victim were 'one tube', so there may be eight people."
"There are also English letters on the back of the mahjong tiles, which may be clues related to the location where the victim's body was found. After all, the murderer always chooses another place to dump the body after killing. There must be a meaning to this."
"So we have to go to these locations to investigate in person..."
Conan thought of the strange man he met in the library when he was a child, claiming to be his younger brother, and gave him a series of secret codes.
The clues of those codes are related to the markers near some places, and you must visit those places in person to unlock them.
But after many years, he realized that those secret codes were just a joke made by his uncle.
Nowadays, these codes may also have these meanings.
"As for the dividing line above... I don't know what it means yet."
After saying that, Conan put down the code paper and looked up at Qin Zhibo, meaning to ask if his judgment was correct.
"What you said makes some sense, but you haven't seen the most critical point yet..."
Qin Zhibo took the code paper and asked Dr. Ali to borrow a map around Tokyo.
"If you want to unravel the meaning of this code, you really need to think about it in relation to the place where the body was found."
"But it doesn't have to be so complicated to go to these locations to check. The reason is that the location where the sixth deceased was killed is not completely controlled by the murderer."
"This person named 'Lyuzaki' lost control of his vehicle and hit a toll booth on the road because the brake fluid leaked out, causing the brakes to malfunction."
"The place of death is not fixed at all. He might have had an accident in front of the toll station. The murderer cannot be sure about this."
"This also shows that the murderer only needs to control the location of the body within a rough range."
"In this case, we only need to follow the murderer's ideas and mark the murder locations of all the deceased on the map..."
Qin Zhibo picked up the marker and marked six points on the map.
These six points form a long snake, from Shizuoka Prefecture at the bottom to Gunma Prefecture at the top.
"this……"
Dr. A Li and Conan put their faces directly above the map, frowning and thinking, but they were stunned for a long time and couldn't say anything.
Conan was still thinking, but Dr. Ali couldn't help but asked: "Mr. Qin, is there any special meaning between these locations?"
Qin Zhibo smiled slightly, looked at Conan and said, "Have you forgotten what the Hades case in London was about?"
After such a reminder, Conan's eyes instantly lit up.
Could it be that some graphics can be pieced together from these points?
Conan pointed his finger on the ground and slid it back and forth across several points, but the results of each gesture made him shake his head.
With just these six points, there are too many shapes that can be pieced together.
With Conan's imagination, he thought of more than a dozen possible graphic styles in a short time, but each one felt a bit far-fetched.
So, Qin Zhibo continued: "At this time, we have to contact the mahjong tiles on the corpse to see..."
"There are two types of mahjong tiles on the corpse, one tube and seven tubes, so we'd better treat the points on the map as two types."
As he spoke, Qin Zhibo marked the map point of the first corpse scene with a marker pen.
"Next, we can look at the letters on the back of the mahjong tiles. What letters do you think these are?"
Conan took the code paper, with photos of the mahjong tiles on site clearly printed on it.
All the letters are A,E,A,Γ,H,Z.
Although the police have been calling these letters "English letters" during the search meeting, it is obvious that one of the letters is not English.
The letter looks like an upside-down L or an F with a horizontal bar missing.
But the murderer could not have written it wrong, nor could he have written the English L like this on purpose.
Suddenly, Conan's eyes froze, and he pulled out an ordinary alphabet from the complicated ocean of knowledge in his mind.
"These are Greek letters!"
Greek letters are also case-sensitive, and many of the uppercase letters are very similar to English letters, so they are often confused.
But this Γ is absolutely unmistakable.
"Are these Greek letters?"
Dr. A Li also lowered his head and took a closer look, then nodded, "It does look like..."
"However, the main application field of Greek letters now is science, especially mathematics. What did the murderer want to express with these letters?"
Qin Zhibo continued to point out, "Actually, many capital letters in Greek letters are the same as or very similar to Latin letters, so these capital letters are rarely used."
"But the murderer deliberately used so many capital letters that are similar to English letters, probably to confuse the meaning."
"Then let's convert these uppercase letters into lowercase letters and see if we find anything new..."
Conan's eyes moved slightly, and he immediately took a pen and wrote the lowercase versions of these capital letters on the paper.
They are α, ε, α, γ, η, ζ respectively.
Looking at these seven letters, Conan held his chin and fell into deep thought again.
Although the reasoning has reached this stage, it is still not easy to figure out what it means based on just these few letters.
So Qin Zhibo further reminded, "Don't forget to distinguish the letters according to the different colors of mahjong..."
"Also, don't forget the general areas of application of the Greek alphabet."
After Qin Zhibo's two prompts, Conan's brain suddenly had an idea, and he suddenly thought of something.
Could it be...
Conan quickly picked up the marker and scribbled between several points on the map, quickly sketching out an incomplete shape.
"Eh?"
Dr. A Li bent down and looked at this familiar shape, and said doubtfully: "This is..."
Just when Conan was about to open his mouth to answer confidently, a faint voice suddenly came from beside him.
"It's the Big Dipper."
Conan and Dr. Ali turned around and saw that Haibara Ai was standing next to them at some point.
At this time, Haiyuan Ai was wearing a long white pajamas dress, her eyelids drooping listlessly, and she glanced at the map on the table.
"Hui, Huiyuan..." Conan was startled by the sudden appearance of Huiyuan Ai, "Why are you awake?"
"What? Can't I wake up?"
Haihara Ai cast a scrutinizing look at Conan, "Or are you doing something sinister behind my back?"
"Where is it?!"
"Haha~"
Conan smiled and scratched his head, but this suspicious attitude made Haihara Ai even more suspicious.
Haiyuan Ai glanced at the other objects on the table and saw the code paper with the mahjong tiles printed on it. He raised his finger and asked lightly.
"What's that?"
"That's...a homework puzzle left by the school teacher!"
As soon as Conan blurted out his words, he regretted them in his heart.
Haibara Ai is in the same class as herself, how can she not know what homework the school teacher leaves?
And which teacher gives mahjong homework to primary school students?
Haibara Ai also immediately saw through Conan's lies, raised her hand to grab the code paper, and naturally saw the victim's information marked on it.
"Is this case information?" Haiyuan Ai shook the piece of paper in his hand.
"Yes, yes!" Conan scratched his head and explained with a silly smile: "Uncle Qin got the information about a serial murder case from the police, so he came to me to discuss it~"
"Discuss?" Hui Yuan Ai glanced at Qin Zhibo, "Does he need to discuss with you?"
This is quite hurtful.
Because the implication of this sentence is that with Qin Zhibo's ability, there is no need to discuss the case with him, Conan.
The next second, Conan also understood this meaning and suddenly grinned.
"You take care of me!"
"I don't care about you, I just came to see what there is to eat..."
After saying that, the nosy Haihara Ai walked to the bar and skillfully prepared various simple breakfast ingredients.
Since Haibara Ai usually makes breakfast, she doesn't need Dr. Ali's help. She can do it by herself.
At this time, Dr. A Li also lowered his head and whispered to Conan's head: "Shinichi, is it okay not to tell Xiao Ai about this?"
"Well...this is also for her own good."
After saying that, Conan turned to look at Qin Zhibo and confidently reasoned: "This pattern should be the Big Dipper, right?"
"According to Bayer's stellar nomenclature, stars will be named according to their constellation + Greek alphabet."
"The five letters on the seven-tube mahjong tiles are ε Ursa Major, Ursa Major, γ Ursa Major, eta Ursa Major, and ζ Ursa Major, which are the five stars of the Big Dipper."
"And the letter corresponding to the cylinder is Polaris, which is Alpha Ursa Minor."
"This means that the locations of all the victims' deaths should form a complete map of the Big Dipper and Polaris."
"There are currently six victims, two short of a complete figure..."