Jiang Xia sat in the passenger seat, his eyes still closed as he listened to the murmuring of the ghosts. The number of ghosts had grown, and while it was starting to get a little noisy, he could still make out what they were saying—there was something nearby to pick up.
He glanced out of the car window, and at the same time, he casually sent a shikigami into the trunk, skillfully condensed a little white puppet, and then skillfully punctured a tire in the trunk.
Amuro Toru had no clue what was happening in the trunk.
When he noticed the car had a flat tire, he was slightly startled and pulled over to the side of the road.
Amuro had driven this car a dozen times, and the tire had only ever blown once, but now, on an ordinary trip, driving at a normal speed, the tire blew twice in a row...
Amuro glanced at Jiang Xia sitting next to him, and suddenly felt like his earlier conclusion about Jiang Xia's luck was all wrong—Jiang Xia wasn't unlucky at all, he was just jumping between extreme good and extreme bad luck.
Otherwise, how else could the car break down halfway through the Jiangxia area?
Jiang Xia met Amuro's complicated gaze, vaguely guessing what he was thinking but maintaining his best "innocent" face: "?"
Amuro Toru sighed, "It's fine." After speaking, he got out of the car to change the flat tire.
Jiang Xia found it a bit too coincidental that the tire had popped twice in a row, but after thinking about it more, it seemed quite reasonable.
—Let's not even talk about his luck, but Conan was still in the car. When you add the two of them together, it was only natural something would go wrong.
Conan felt a chill run down his spine, lifting his head sharply to meet Jiang Xia's encouraging gaze.
Conan: "...?"
Jiang Xia withdrew his gaze from the suspicious elementary school student, got out of the car, and the others followed. No one could just sit still while the tires were being changed.
After stepping out, Mouri Ran noticed the trunk lid was open, and Jiang Xia, the "reliable" boss, had been standing there in a daze for quite a while.
Mouri Ran approached, suspicious, and saw the tire in the trunk with some jagged punctures in it.
...
Amuro Toru stared at the puncture, deep in thought.
The last time the tire had been punctured, the trunk was open, which could be explained by a wild animal sneaking in unnoticed.
But this time, the trunk had been closed tightly. So how had the tire gotten damaged?
...If not for the clueless people around him, Amuro might have drawn his gun.
Instead, he looked somehow darker than usual, opened the trunk, and rummaged through the debris with his bare hands, trying to find the mysterious creature responsible for the damage. Unfortunately, he found nothing.
This made Amuro sigh in relief, but also left him even more confused.
When he opened the trunk, he didn't see anything sneak out. So why was the tire...?
Jiang Xia walked over to Amuro's side, peered down, and asked, "Why's it broken again?"
Amuro Toru could almost hear the next sentence in his head, "I told you there are definitely rats in your car."
Amuro Toru: "...It must have been placed there by mistake before. I must have accidentally put the broken tire in the wrong spot."
He didn't actually believe he'd made such a mistake.
But if this wasn't a mistake... then it must mean something supernatural was at play.
But after comparing it to everything else, it seemed like he was just too tired from the past few days. He hadn't slept much and probably had a memory lapse.
Conan put down his phone and walked over to them: "There's no signal here, but I see a building over there that looks like an old castle. We could ask the owner for a landline to call a tow truck."
"Right." Jiang Xia also put down his phone, having been waiting for that sentence.
Amuro Toru turned his head in the direction the two were pointing and saw a towering old castle through the trees.
He couldn't quite shake the feeling that something was off about the castle. It looked unnaturally gloomy and had an eerie atmosphere.
...But there were no ghosts in this world.
So it had to be his imagination.
Besides, there was no village or store around, no other cars passing by, and no signal. If they wanted to leave quickly, they really needed a landline.
Amuro took a deep breath, closed the trunk, and said, "Let's go."
...
Jiang Xia observed the old castle ahead. The courtyard surrounding it was quite large, and he couldn't sense anything unusual for now. However, judging by the reactions of the other ghosts, there were plenty of things hidden in the castle that could be "picked up."
The group approached the castle gates, and through the towering iron gate, they could see a gardener trimming plants in the yard. The yard was vast, with massive chess piece sculptures scattered across the lawn. A young man was squatting beside one of the sculptures, lost in thought.
It seemed that few people visited this place deep in the mountains, as the two people in the courtyard hadn't noticed the visitors outside.
Just then, a car approached from behind and stopped near the group.
A middle-aged man with a part in his hair got out of the car. He opened the courtyard gate and looked at them suspiciously: "Who are you?"
He glanced at the others, and when his eyes landed on Jiang Xia's face, he paused slightly.
Jiang Xia had seen that look before. It was the same one people had been giving him lately.
He quickly realized the man probably recognized him as a detective.
The variety show Perspective Detective Agency and the subsequent live broadcasts of solving cases had apparently made Jiang Xia more famous than he'd thought.
He wondered when he'd receive an invitation for a serial murder case from far away...
The man who recognized Jiang Xia was called Takahito Mamiya, one of the owners of the castle.
Takahito Mamiya eagerly welcomed them into the castle after hearing their request to borrow a phone.
Amuro Toru let out a sigh of relief, but when he picked up the phone in the hallway and dialed the number, he realized the line was dead.
He froze, and once again, the strange tooth marks from the punctured tire flashed in his mind. After a while, Amuro silently observed Takahito Mamiya, his gaze darkening slightly.
Takahito Mamiya had initially wanted to keep his motives hidden, but when Amuro stared at him like that, he felt an unsettling chill run down his spine, as though his life were in danger.
In a hurry, Takahito Mamiya started speaking faster: "It's like this! The earthquake yesterday affected the phone line. When I came back, I checked, and I found out it wouldn't be fixed until tomorrow. There's no other reason for you to come in, I just want you to have a place to rest. By the way... cough... I have something to ask you."
It sounded like a reasonable explanation.
Amuro Toru was a little taken aback. Since the external line was broken, there was nothing to be done. He certainly couldn't ask two girls and a primary school student to walk down the mountain.
He looked at Takahito Mamiya, requesting further details.
Jiang Xia, meanwhile, looked out the window while listening to Takahito Mamiya's story.
When he had seen the chess piece sculptures in the yard earlier, Jiang Xia had known immediately which case this was.
This castle had a minaret, and the view from the tower was excellent. Takahito Mamiya's father-in-law had considered it a "treasure" and arranged a series of puzzles throughout the castle, with the answers leading up to the top of the minaret.
After this playful old man's death, the treasure legend had grown more and more out of hand, and everyone believed it was a great wealth.
Four years ago, a maid had a change of heart. She burned everyone who knew about the treasure, killed them all, and disguised herself as the lady of the house to take her place. She planned to stay in the castle until the treasure was found.
Takahito Mamiya had never noticed that his mother-in-law had switched identities. He was too focused on finding the treasure and suddenly realized he could use an external force—like the detectives who had appeared at his doorstep.
Conan was immediately excited when he heard about the puzzles. Amuro Toru was also a little intrigued, as he had a bit of detective spirit in him as well.
Mouri Ran and Suzuki Sonoko weren't great at solving puzzles, but the beautifully manicured courtyard caught their attention, and they quickly gathered by the window to admire the "chessboard lawn" that supposedly held many clues.
Jiang Xia glanced at the backs of the group and then at Xiaobai, who had just emerged from the wall, tugging at the cuff of his trousers in complaint, before walking gently into the next room.
According to the ghosts' preliminary investigations, there were indeed many shikigami in this castle.
But these had been burned to death in a fire. They didn't know who to pick up, so they had to collect the scorched ashes, which still carried a faint trace of life. It was enough to give them a sense of security.
These shikigami had strong obsessions, and there were so many souls that Xiaobai couldn't collect them all quickly.
So, Jiang Xia planned to enter the secret passage. This passage led to the tower on the other side that had burned down four years ago. He intended to check on the shikigami situation.
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 30 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 18/50(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS*