Chapter 6: Kudo Shinichi and His Blame — Please Vote for Me
As Jiang Xia entered the classroom, the noisy environment suddenly quieted down.
It wasn't because they were afraid of the school bully. The main reason for the quiet was the female students in the class.
Most of them were looking at Jiang Xia's face.
A smaller, more perceptive group was looking at his hand.
The quiet only lasted for a moment, then the whispering people grew in number again, only the topic of their conversation was clearly different from before.
Soon, the teacher entered the classroom with a stack of test papers.
...
Jiang Xia found his seat, sat down, and quietly took a test.
During the break, he went out to buy a can of cola.
When he returned, he found his drawer stuffed with many wound medicines.
On the outer few bottles, there were perfumed notes with messages of concern or confessions.
The ones further inside had no notes, but the bottles showed traces of tape.
Jiang Xia watched silently for a while, suspecting that they had also had notes attached, but they had been removed by latercomers... Tsk tsk tsk, this wicked world that judges by appearance.
Fortunately, he had always been handsome, in both his past and present lives.
This habit must be passed down.
...
Jiang Xia didn't touch the medicines or the notes.
It wasn't good to take them home, and it wasn't good to throw them away.
Later he thought about it, since he wouldn't be using the desk drawer anyway, he might as well leave them there for now.
This way, the next person who wanted to give a gift might give up on their own because they couldn't find an empty spot.
And if he acted rashly and handled it improperly... given the characteristics of this world, Jiang Xia worried that it wouldn't be long before someone poisoned his water cup.
Then the student behind him, Kudo, would be able to, with a sad expression, conduct a "three-suspect choice for poisoning a secret crush" and use him to boost his performance...
...
Kudo Shinichi was also late today, arriving only after two tests had finished.
However, he had a legitimate reason—on his way, he encountered a murder case at a breakfast shop and came over only after solving it.
The invigilator nodded as usual, letting him in.
Kudo Shinichi's seat was directly behind Jiang Xia.
As he passed Jiang Xia, his gaze inadvertently swept over Jiang Xia's hand holding the pen, then snapped back, staring thoughtfully for a long time.
As soon as the papers were collected, Jiang Xia's back shoulder was poked by a pen.
He turned his head to see Kudo Shinichi staring at his hand, asking with a probing curiosity:
"What caused this injury? The bruise is too large and very uniform. If it's not an impact injury, then there might be a problem with a vital organ. You'd best..."
Jiang Xia interrupted him without changing his expression: "Yesterday afternoon, I was hit by the soccer ball you kicked flying."
Mouri Ran and Suzuki Sonoko happened to be passing by, and upon hearing this, they were shocked.
They both turned to Kudo Shinichi simultaneously, their voices filled with reproach: "Can't you just kick it towards the goal?!"
"??" Kudo Shinichi was also surprised, "Soccer is a team sport that emphasizes cooperation! How can you just kick it towards the goal...?" Hmm?
...No, wait.
This doesn't seem to be the main point.
...The point is that he didn't play soccer at all yesterday; he was at the Police station giving supplementary statements!
However, at this point, it was clearly too late to grasp the main point.
Kudo Shinichi found that Mouri Ran and Suzuki Sonoko's gazes had clearly turned into those of looking at "a scumbag who kicked someone, didn't apologize, and then nonchalantly came to ask the victim how they felt the next day."
Kudo Shinichi was stunned for a moment, then forcefully retorted: "You can't just listen to one side of the story—such a uniform bruise, with no swelling at all, couldn't possibly be caused by a soccer ball, you..." He turned to Jiang Xia, wanting to ask him what was going on.
However, the person at the front desk had already slumped onto his desk, concentrating on catching up on sleep.
Yesterday, Jiang Xia finally touched a ghost and was a bit excited, unable to sleep. So he got up in the middle of the night, rolled ghost mint all night, and didn't sleep until dawn, feeling quite tired.
"...Hey!" Kudo Shinichi couldn't accept this behavior of passing the buck and leaving. He leaned over, wanting to shake him awake.
But before he could touch Jiang Xia, he was pressed onto the desk by Mouri Ran's hand, who warned in a low voice: "Don't disturb him while he's resting."
Kudo Shinichi: "..."
He was about to defend himself, but suddenly, he felt a strong surge of killing intent.
Kudo Shinichi vigilantly raised his head, looking around for the source of the killing intent. He saw that most of the girls in the class were silently staring at him, and there were even a few from other classes standing by the window.
Kudo Shinichi: "..."
...Something's not right.
This direction is very wrong.
He, Kudo Shinichi, was clearly Teitan Middle School's most popular handsome Detective; just a few days ago, many beautiful girls were writing love letters to him... How did the world change so much as soon as Jiang Xia started school?
Although he felt indignant, there were simply too many people glaring at him...
Kudo Shinichi weighed his combat strength and silently closed his mouth.
Forget it, he wouldn't argue with his emotionally fragile neighbor.
Perhaps Jiang Xia said that not because he was deliberately trying to extort him, but because he saw a hallucination...
...
Kudo Shinichi stopped being a walking encyclopedia.
Jiang Xia gratefully spent a quiet day.
After school, back home, he began preparing the tools needed to help Kinoshita Yoko deal with the stalker.
Jiang Xia's house was quite large, with several floors and a basement.
The layout was similar to Dr. Agasa's house next door.
Dr. Agasa, true to his name, was an eccentric inventor, and also Conan's golden finger provider—things like the voice-changing bow tie, the tranquilizer watch, the satellite sneakers, the soccer belt... all were made by him.
Next to Dr. Agasa's house was Kudo Shinichi's family.
Every time Jiang Xia passed by there and saw the nameplate inscribed with "Kudo," he felt that Jiang Xia's parents' luck was actually quite good.
Kudo Shinichi's father, Kudo Yusaku, was the intelligence ceiling of this world.
And Jiang Xia's parents, a pair of Black-clothed men in the organization, had lived next to him for so many years without their identities being exposed...
...
Now, Jiang Xia's parents had passed away, and the Kudo couple had moved to the United States, so Jiang Xia no longer had to worry about this problem.
However, there was still Kudo Shinichi nearby, who was also a master at uncovering identities.
Fortunately, currently, Kudo Shinichi hadn't discovered that Jiang Xia was working for a strange organization.
This might also be due to a similar reason—Kudo Shinichi didn't have much contact with Jiang Xia.
Jiang Xia Tongzhi was one year older than Kudo Shinichi. When he was promoted, he was held back a grade for various reasons, and only became classmates in high school.
And both Jiang Xia and Jiang Xia Tongzhi were very skilled at skipping class... Thinking of this, Jiang Xia decided to maintain the excellent tradition of skipping class.
...
Jiang Xia entered the laboratory at home, found a few useful tools, and changed into light, comfortable clothes.
Then he put on a mask to cover his face, went to the area between Kinoshita Yoko's company and home, secretly siphoned a bit of electricity from the streetlights, and installed several surveillance cameras.
After that, the situation on those road sections began to be streamed live 24/7 in his house.
...
Three days later, in the evening.
As Jiang Xia trimmed his potted plants, the surveillance system emitted "beep" "beep" alert sounds.
It had detected a specific image.
Jiang Xia put down his scissors, brought up the playback, and saw a uniquely colored car passing through the surveillance footage.
He zoomed in to look at the license plate and found that this was his target.
So he put down his scissors, packed his things, and prepared to start work.