According to Lin Xinyi's instructions, Mao Lilan took Conan to the outside of the villa to conduct a scene review of the murderer's footprints left on the snow.

"Stand still, don't move."

Mao Lilan subconsciously instructed Conan twice, and then leaned down to himself, engrossed in observing the trail of footprints.

Conan was speechless.

He has also discovered these days that Xiaolan is unconsciously treating him more and more like a child.

Just like Lin Xinyi treated Gray Yuan Wai.

"What do you mean not to move..."

"I'm not really a schoolboy."

Conan rolled his eyes.

And in addition, what he also cares about is:

Xiao Lan's style of casually leaving him behind and focusing on investigating the case is so skilled that some habits have become natural.

It's like not realizing that there is a childhood sweetheart around me at all.。

Lin Xinyi sent Conan to help her.

But after these days, she has become independent and capable, and she does not need the help of the great detective at all.

"Ahh

This feeling of being forgotten is terrible.

So, Conan held back his strength and subconsciously set his eyes on the string of snow footprints.

Something had to be seen.

You have to catch up with Xiaolan.

Otherwise, slowly, the heroic image he has created in Xiaolan's mind over the years will collapse sooner or later.

He will gradually become a useless follower behind Xiaolan, a home-based child keeper who can only wash dishes, sweep the floor and brush the toilet...

Ordinary life will dim passion, and Xiaolan will gradually lose her favor for him who is so unpopular.

Maybe he won't be able to wait for him to grow up, so I'll find him a "brother-in-law" from the outside.

"It's absolutely not going to work!"

Conan shivered subconsciously.

His gaze on the scene became more focused and dignified, as if he was battling wits against a terrible fate.

And as soon as he tried so hard, he really quickly discovered something:

"There it is!"

A flash of inspiration flashed in the back of Conan's head.

His gaze also quietly became solemn.

"Xiaolan." Conan's voice suddenly became low and confident: "I noticed-"

"There's something wrong with this trail!"

"Oh?" Mao Lilan raised her head curiously and set her eyes on the little boyfriend who had been subconsciously forgotten by herself.

"Just now you were concentrating on a specific footprint."

"And when I took a closer look at the whole of the trails, I quickly found a very important problem:"

Conan gradually regained that feeling of being a detective:

"That is, the step size of this trail is too short."

"Step length? No, I don't..."

Mao Lilan looked at the trail of footprints, and took out a tape measure to measure it:

"The footprint owner walks evenly, and the step length is about... It is around 75cm. ”

"That's the average stride size of an adult with a normal gait, isn't it short?"

"Wait..."

Without Conan's continued reminder, Mao Lilan himself reacted instantly:

"Normal gait... How can it be a normal gait? ”

"The murderer was blocked in the room by us at that time, and we had to jump out of the window to escape."

"In that kind of situation where the murderer was smashed on the spot and there were chasing soldiers behind him, how could he still use this normal gait with even walking around the villa unhurriedly?"

"The footprints he left behind should be very messy!"

"That's right!"

Conan nodded approvingly:

"The murderer was being chased by you and Belmode at that time, and it was too late for him to 'run', how could he use 'go'?"

"In the running state, the cadence is fast and the step length is long, mostly above 110cm."

"The footprints are incomplete, the forefoot pressure of the landing is heavy, and the heel pressure is light."

"Especially when running in this fluffy snow, the positive gait of kicking, digging and lifting should be more obvious. A quick start? It is also inevitable that a large amount of snow chips will be raised. ”

"But what about the footprints?"

"It's so smooth, so clear, so complete."

"This doesn't look like the footprints of a panicked escaper at all? It's more like the footprints left by a person who often walks in a calm environment. ”

Conan methodically spoke his reasoning.

At the same time, he unconsciously raised his confident head? Looking forward to being like before? Harvest the adoring and adoring eyes of childhood sweethearts.

Maolilan was really looking at him.

It's just that the look is not worship? It's different:

"Aren't these all traces of knowledge..."

"Conan, didn't you say you didn't want to learn from Mr. Lin?"

"I—" Conan blushed.

Heiji Hattori, who is also a detective? Already shattered by family factors and dreams? and changed the court to become Lin Xinyi's apprentice.

But he, Kudo, a Kanto region, has always been stubborn and unwilling to embrace the modernization of criminal investigation and insist on being a traditional Sherlock Holmes-style detective.

To describe it in the style of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' overseas propaganda department, this is called the spirit of craftsmanship.

Of course? Conan wasn't such a stubborn person.

He just vaguely felt... What if you give up being a detective and become a police detective? It's as if he completely lost to Lin Xinyi.

And because of a series of experiences in the past, and some kind of hidden worry that has not been completely dispelled even now, the last thing Conan wants is to admit defeat to Lin Xinyi.

So he stubbornly clings to his detective dream.

Merely...

He said no, but his body was honest.

In the face of these new knowledge and new methods that are obviously of great help to criminal investigation and reasoning? As a reasoning freak, Conan still can't hold back? Sneakily followed behind Maolilan and learned.

Now he's showing it so casually.

Maolilan was immediately keenly aware of something:

"Conan, did you peek at the professional book I kept at home?"

"No, no," Conan said weakly, "This is all my past?" Uh..."

"I learned it from my dad when I was on vacation in Hawaii."

"Really..."

Maolilan smiled noncommittally:

"Conan? You understand that by now, right? ”

"The kind of detective who relies too much on personal ingenuity to solve crimes? It's outdated now. ”

"You're going to study forensic science and technology with me in the future? Preferably, come with me to work at the Metropolitan Police Department. ”

She is looking forward to the days when she will work in the police with her childhood sweetheart.

But Conan's child shook his head stubbornly:

"Don't!"

He won't be a police officer in the future!

You must know that Maolilan is now working in the Metropolitan Police Department, and he has become an officer of the forensic department in the actual sense of the word.

In the future, if he also goes to be a policeman, he may have to salute when he sees his girlfriend.

Especially, if the antidote is not researched, he will wait for more than ten years before he joins the work...

When the time comes, it will not be as simple as saluting.

Mao Lilan is estimated to have become his top boss, and he has to bow when he is sent to her, and he can only stand in front of her to report work.

And if he marries Mao Lilan, he will definitely be misunderstood by his colleagues as a young white face who betrays his color to seduce his boss.

"No... Absolutely not! ”

Conan's face turned pale with fright from his own brain supplement.

He suddenly understood Kogoro Maori.

With such a strong and domineering strong woman's wife, how can a man still have face on his face?

"Ahem... Anyway, that's more on that later. ”

Of course, Mao Lilan didn't know that Conan had already relied on his detective-level imagination to imagine his future humble posture of nodding and bowing down in front of his wife in just a few seconds.

She just saw that Conan couldn't wait to change the subject:

"The most important thing now is to judge the owner of this trail."

"Just said:"

"This trail was not left by someone who was busy running away."

"So here's the problem... And what about the murderer? ”

"There is only such a trail of footprints outside the villa, if it wasn't left by him when he escaped, then what about his footprints?"

"There was a vast expanse of snow outside, and he couldn't have disappeared out of the window without leaving a trace."

"Unless..."

Conan was able to lure him back to his attention.

She thoughtfully picked up Conan's conjecture:

"Unless, the killer didn't leave the room at all, but hid in the room?"

"Otherwise, he would have been chased by us and jumped out of the window to escape, leaving a footprint that would not have been so stable."

"But it doesn't seem to make sense."

Mao Lilan's brows furrowed slightly:

"That room is so big, the only place to hide people is under the bed."

"But when we arrived at the scene, there were people staying at the scene all the time."

"I checked under the bed, and there was only a corpse underneath, and there was no hidden murderer at all."

"And if the murderer didn't run through the window, and didn't hide in the corner of the room."

"How the hell did the murderer disappear?!"

She seemed to be in trouble.

"Actually, you can guess it, Xiaolan."

"It's just that you are too familiar with that person and too respectful, so you subconsciously don't want to doubt her."

Conan sighed softly, his expression a little gloomy.

He knew that person well, too.

After all, that is the common teacher of him, Xiaolan, and Yuanzi.

"You mean..."

Maolilan bit her lip tightly.

She instinctively didn't want to say that name.

Conan, on the other hand, continued to increase the size and said in a solemn tone:

"Xiaolan, we have all confirmed through trace science that this footprint was not left by the murderer when he escaped."

"It was stepped on in advance by someone before the crime, for some purpose."

"What did that guy do with such strange footprints?"

"To confuse the public, of course."

"In order to let people subconsciously believe that the murderer was knocked through the scene of the murder by someone, and escaped through the window in a hurry."

"With the evidence he hid in Mr. Nakamura's clothes in advance, this murderer can push the boat down the river and detain the black pot on Mr. Nakamura's head."

"But actually—" Conan paused slightly:

"The real murderer didn't escape the room at all."

"That's why you, and a tracking master like Belmode, will be dumped by that murderer so easily."

"Because you're chasing air from beginning to end."

"The murderer has misled you."

"She stayed in the room and acted in front of all of us."

Conan replaced the imaginary "he" with "she".

Apparently, he had been able to identify the murderer.

Maolilan also thought of the name, but she instinctively didn't want to admit it:

"Yonehara-sensei..."

"This murderer, could it be you?"