The Phantom Thief of Heart! But Conan.

Chapter 1099 The Lucky One

Silver bullet?

Vermouth lifted the ends of her hair.

The golden hair reflected a silvery-white texture under the light, like a handful of moonlight flowing into the palm of your hand.

"'Silver Bullet'... We all know its meaning, Gin. I think the boss might not be truly afraid of a particular person."

Her gaze moved forward and fell on Gin's silver hair that was scattered and winding down on the seat.

Shuichi Akai's provocation must have angered Gin, and the repeated failures in his pursuit at the hands of the other party must have made Gin dissatisfied.

But Gin's strong desire to kill Shuichi Akai was definitely not just because the other party had defected.

Gin turned his head and glanced at Vodka with an extremely cold look. He closed his mouth tightly, as if trying to pretend that he didn't exist, and glanced at Vermouth in the back seat.

"Even if you rely on that master's favor, you still have to be careful with some words."

"What's wrong? I wasn't the one who called Akai Shuichi the Silver Bullet."

"Shut up, Vermouth."

The following content cannot be told to outsiders. At least, people like Vodka who have not really touched the core secrets have no right to hear it.

Vermouth tilted her head, indifferent to Gin's warning, but she did not provoke him again.

Pamper? Maybe.

Those previous presumptuous actions, those that exposed the organization's strength and resources, had already caused a lot of damage to the organization. If someone else had done the same thing, they would have been sent to hell by Gin long ago.

However, Vermouth knew very well how great the price of this "favor" was.

Just like Rum at this moment, he is extremely anxious about Curacao's disappearance, as if she is extremely important to him and is his right-hand man who cannot be given up. What is the truth?

She had no opinion of Curacao, nor did she think that Curacao would hold a grudge against her because of their past conflict, but deep down, she hoped that Curacao would not come back alive.

This is not hatred or a curse, but a blessing in Vermouth's view.

Back then, whether it was myself who decided to get rid of Curacao and pointed the gun at her, who was still a child, or Curacao who was being pointed at by the gun, at that moment, it made no difference at all.

To a certain extent, she and Curacao are both people who have no control over their own lives and futures. They are like insects and ants covered in glass. At first glance, they seem to have no obstacles and are given sunshine and rain, but in fact they are completely dependent on others.

If given a choice, she believed that rather than returning to this glass cover, Curacao would rather be like a moth to a flame, leaping into the gentle, indifferent moonlight.

I just don’t know where this annoying moonlight will shine.

----

"Well……"

After her eyelids fluttered for a while, the silver-haired woman curled up on the hospital bed finally opened her eyes.

She felt a distinct sense of weakness in her limbs, and faint pain spread from her abdomen. Her loose muscles and weak joints forced her to recall the last scene she saw before she closed her eyes.

The black-haired man standing at the head of her bed had a stern expression. Before she could even open her mouth to communicate, he grabbed her arm and jabbed her with an injection...

So, was it a sedative? Or some kind of anesthetic?

After some effort, she finally slowly climbed up from the bed and had enough energy to observe her surroundings.

The dark-haired man with green eyes was not there, and she couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief after discovering this.

The room was dark and silent, and with her eyes adjusted to the light, she could only make out the tiled grid on the ceiling and the curtains hanging around the windows and bed.

She lay in this small enclosed space.

This is a hospital, and this is a ward.

For no reason, although she didn't know why she understood this, this thought popped up in her mind the first time.

Am I sick? Or is there something wrong? Why am I in the hospital?

Who was that man I saw during the day? Why did he attack me? Or was it that I was actually a patient, and that I didn't even understand my condition, and that this was necessary for some kind of treatment?

No, that's unlikely. I'm not a mental patient...

"really?"

"Of course. My logic is clear. I...eh?"

The woman instinctively answered the voice, and belatedly realized that the words just now were not her own thoughts or questions.

Looking up, the silver-haired woman stared blankly ahead.

The environment remained unchanged, but someone was standing in front of her bed.

...When did he appear? The curtains clearly didn't move at all, and I didn't hear any sounds like footsteps or rubbing fabric.

The woman turned her head and shrank back warily.

She couldn't see the other person in the darkness, she could only catch a glimpse of a pair of golden eyes with a metallic luster.

"What's wrong? Are you wondering why you're here? Do you have some kind of illness?" The man standing at the head of the bed spoke again, his voice as flat and indifferent as before. "Of course you are ill, ma'am. Think carefully, do you remember who you are?"

"I, I am..." The silver-haired woman opened her mouth and reflexively wanted to spit out the name that was on the tip of her tongue. She made some mouth shapes, but no sound came out.

Who am I? I should have a name.

Ku... I am... No, that's not right...

Frowning tightly, she tried her best to mobilize her brain and think hard.

After a while, she finally finished the second half of the sentence in a daze.

"I am, Sonya..."

"Yes. You are Sonya. Do you remember why you were in the hospital?"

"No, I don't remember. So this is really a hospital? Am I sick?"

"Of course. Why would someone who's not sick be in a hospital?"

Faced with this question that seemed so obvious that it sounded a bit stupid, Sonya pursed her lips and shook her head instinctively.

"Of course healthy people would be in the hospital." Meeting those golden eyes, Sonya asked in confusion, "Why else would you be here? Aren't we all the lucky ones who have been chosen?"

----

"Her memory has regressed to many years ago?"

Tang Ze, who was waiting in Hondou Eisuke's ward, looked at Hoshikawa Teru who emerged from the shadows. He got this unexpected answer and his brows suddenly frowned.

Curacao's amnesia is a plot inertia, but it is also the shock caused by the mask with potential that makes him come into contact with the cognitive world for the first time.

Considering the heavy bombing of the Pramya Palace at the time, which was not at all like a state in the human world, Curacao's brain naturally crashed.

However, what was printed out in the end was not memory clearing, but data rollback, which was a bit unexpected.

"About how many years ago? Before joining the organization, or just after joining?"

"When I first joined the organization, I guess." Hoshikawa Teru sat down on the empty hospital bed and put his glasses back on. "She said her name was Sonya, and she assumed that I, who was there, was also the 'lucky one chosen.'"

In order not to alert the FBI, he used his abilities to shuttle back and forth between the two wards, so he used the form of a phantom thief.

Now that he had turned back into his normal self, he put his glasses back on without even thinking, his movements even looking anxious and a little embarrassed.

Of course Tang Ze couldn't miss his move.

"Does her appearance remind you of the past?" Tang Ze didn't ask about Curacao's condition, but instead followed up on his question, "Curacao's situation in the past should have been similar to yours."

Curacao's problems are not difficult to solve.

It would be easy to gain her trust if she didn't recover her memory. If she recovered her memory, she would only understand more deeply that Tang Ze was in the same camp as herself, and it would be even less likely for her to do anything confrontational.

He asked Teru Hoshikawa to bypass the FBI to find out about the situation in Curacao, just to avoid any problems tomorrow, so as to prevent her from interfering and affecting the big show on Shuichi Akai's side.

So compared to her, Tang Ze is now more concerned about Xingchuan Hui, who seems to be touched and emotionally unstable.

The hand holding the frame stiffened for a moment. Knowing that his disguise skills could not hide it from Tang Ze's insight, Xingchuan Hui gave up and let go of his hand and sighed.

He understood why Tang Ze asked so many questions, and he also understood that even if he resisted answering, Tang Ze had plenty of ways to get the words out of him.

The fact that he still shows concern for others even when they are unwilling to do so is a rare quality in Tang Ze that Hoshikawa Teru is extremely resistant to.

"It's pretty much the same, I think." Hoshikawa Teru replied slowly and reluctantly, "When I was first taken away, I also thought I was 'lucky'."

The first eighteen years of his life were quite dark.

Needless to say, Tunkou Shigehiko never treated him as his own child. Not only did he have no love for his child, he even hated him so much that he wished he would die.

But before being discovered by Shigehiko Tōguchi, his life wasn't necessarily that good.

"My mother wasn't bad to me, but that was just how my life was before I was ten." Perhaps because he had made a good start, when faced with Tang Ze's further questioning, Xingchuan Teru shrugged and spoke more fluently, "She came here illegally and doesn't speak Japanese. I was just an accident."

To Teru Hoshikawa, his mother was not a bad person, but just a poor woman who sold herself out of necessity.

He didn't know why she had traveled across the ocean to this place to be the lover of a man with a wife and children, but seeing that she was not adapted to the life here and couldn't speak the language, it was not difficult to guess what had happened behind the scenes.

"Human trafficking, underground transactions... The black market in Eastern Europe is indeed very developed in this area." Tang Ze was well aware of the amount of information behind this short sentence, but he only mentioned it briefly.

Shigehiko Tsuchiguchi is a man full of bad habits, so it is not surprising that he is greedy for money and sex.

But he also has a sensitive identity. He is not only a politician, but also a politician who relies on his wife's family to climb up the ladder. He cannot satisfy his desires through simple means.

At this time, a girl from abroad who couldn't even speak Japanese, was young and beautiful, had no other means of making a living, and had no channels to reveal his secrets to anyone. She was like a bird in a cage for him to admire. She was undoubtedly a perfect choice.

"Yeah, I think so. She didn't tell me that." Without saying anything more, Hoshikawa Teru shook his head. "Her willingness to keep me is the most daring risk she could take."

The reasons behind this are hard to pin down.

Perhaps after escaping from Tōguchi Shigehiko, she lacked the means to make a living and had no money to do so. Or perhaps the Eastern European girl was also an Orthodox Christian and could not easily terminate the pregnancy...

In short, Hoshikawa Teru was born in an environment that was not suitable for raising children.

Even if he didn't elaborate, Tang Ze could roughly imagine what he looked like during that time.

His mother had no means of making a living, couldn't speak the language, and only knew a few daily conversations. It was difficult for her to support herself and him. It might have exhausted her energy to help him find a school and learn the basics of listening, speaking, reading and writing. We can no longer expect her to spend time and effort educating her children.

"When Tsuchiguchi Shigehiko found me and took me away, his attitude was very rude. It wasn't until he threw me into the organization's base that I realized he was my father. At first, I thought my mother had gotten into some trouble and I was taken away to pay off a debt or something..." Hoshikawa Teru laughed at himself. "So when I was first sent to the organization, I really thought I was lucky."

The organization is certainly a den of wolves and tigers, but his purpose in the past was to undergo experiments, so naturally, basic food and clothing must be guaranteed.

To have enough food to eat, a clean bed to sleep peacefully...

Compared to these things, not having the opportunity to continue going to school is really insignificant for a child who has a hard time surviving.

"Curacao's situation might be even more exaggerated than mine." Thinking of Curacao's expression in the darkness just now, Xingchuan Hui couldn't even force out the hint of mockery on his face. "She said her name was 'Sonia', and she didn't use the English pronunciation. She might have been a child taken from somewhere else."

"Yeah." Tang Ze nodded. "In other words, she encountered a similar situation as you and underwent many experiments. However, she showed some abilities during this period and was promoted by the organization."

But Xingchuan Hui did not, and became a completely expendable cannon fodder.

He is probably in a similar position to the now-hardened Kusuda Rikumichi next door.

"I think I know why she lost her memory." Xingchuan Hui did not refute Tang Ze's statement, but just curled his lips, "She has been taking KA for too long. In fact, her situation is a bit similar to when you first saw me."

"What do you mean?" Tang Ze frowned, and the image of Shigehiko Tsunobu in the hall of Tsunokuchi flashed through his mind in a very hellish way.

"The KA series of drugs suppresses emotions. You know its effects better than I do." Hoshikawa Teru gave Tang Ze a pointed look. "In order to ensure the user's stability, it's often necessary to deliberately create a negative environment to maintain that inhumane emotional state. For example, a completely silent dark environment, a closed space, cold, and noise..."

"Oh, that's what I mean." Tang Ze nodded suddenly.

When I first met Teru Hoshikawa, he discovered an intruder in his room. Instead of turning on the light, his first reaction was to raise his gun and shoot. It seems that this is not entirely an abnormality caused by long-term mental control.

This may be the most normal state for those who are being controlled.

"So, strong sound and light stimulation can easily cause problems for the user. She experienced high-intensity physical activity, collisions, explosions, sound and light stimulation, plus, you know..." Xingchuan Teru tilted his head. "The part I was most uncomfortable with wasn't being taken away from there, but seeing that hall."

Tang Ze, who suddenly appeared at Tunkou's house, did not appear out of thin air, but took a shortcut to get there.

Naturally, that shortcut belonged to Shigehiko Tsuchiguchi.

Since it is essentially a high-end nightclub and a place of debauchery, the hall of Shigehiko Tsuchiguchi is very light-polluted.

Gorgeous neon lights, bright environment, loud music...

"I wasn't describing how I felt at the time. I was really about to vomit," concluded Teru Hoshikawa.

“…That’s what happened.”

"Ok?"

"I suddenly understand why some people can lose their memory just by looking at a shiny Ferris wheel..."