Arriving at the villa, the group of children cheerfully started the treasure hunt game.
"Let Feichi join too!" Mitsuhiko suggested. "We can share a portion of the treasure we find with him."
"Okay, okay!" Feichi poked his head out eagerly. "Free toys are always good, right, Master?"
"Go if you want to play." Chi Feichi put Feichi down.
"Mn... let me see, there's Professor Agasa's scent," Feichi immediately flicked his tongue, capturing Professor Agasa's scent, and slithered around twice. "This... isn't it in that room?"
Chi Feichi: "..."
Taking Feichi treasure hunting means there's no need to decipher codes at all...
"Forget it, better leave them some challenge!" Feichi lay down nearby again, following the three children and watching them rummage through things.
Professor Agasa told Chi Feichi about the situation of the villa.
This was a villa left by a wealthy uncle of Professor Agasa, but it was going to be demolished next month. Before the demolition, he wanted to let the Detective Boys come over for an adventure game.
As Professor Agasa spoke, he turned his head and saw the group of children rummaging around. He reminded them, "You can't just rummage aimlessly like that!"
"But..."
Genta wanted to refute but was interrupted by Professor Agasa acting mysteriously.
"As long as you pay more attention to the surroundings, you should be able to find important clues."
"Yeah, yeah," Conan, bored, gave a hint directly, taking two steps forward. "Like this string of characters deliberately carved under my feet..."
The three children immediately gathered around with Feichi.
Haibara Ai took a look, yawned, and turned to Chi Feichi. "This code, one look and you can tell the Professor came up with it himself. You didn't participate, right?"
"Ai, what do you mean by that..." Professor Agasa was speechless. He suspected Haibara Ai was roasting him but had no evidence.
"If Brother Feichi participated, it wouldn't be this simple." Haibara Ai said bluntly.
"S-Simple?" Professor Agasa felt hit hard. Turning around, he found Conan missing. Before he could find him, he saw Conan coming out of a room deep in thought. He breathed a sigh of relief. "How about it? You're stumped by me this time, right? No wonder, after all, I thought about this for three days and three nights!"
"If you're talking about that treasure chest, I already found it under the bed in the bedroom. I was afraid they would find it too easily, so I even covered it with a cloth for you and pushed it a bit further under the bed." Conan told the truth without giving any face.
"Then thank you!" Professor Agasa laughed dryly, speechless in his heart. Was his code really that simple?
Chi Feichi also figured out the meaning of the code. Actually, solving word codes was nothing more than a combination of pronunciation, conversion, character splitting, and restructuring. If one knew Japanese, that code was indeed not difficult.
"However, what I find strange is that the villa seems to have left another puzzle," Conan took out a coin from his pocket. "I found this in the corner of the room floor. A one-yen coin. When I found it, there was already thick dust on it, and no trace of the coin rolling nearby..."
"Fake," Chi Feichi glanced at it. "Excellent craftsmanship."
"F-Fake?" Professor Agasa was puzzled.
"Professor, you'll know if you compare it with a one-yen coin on you," Conan handed the coin to Professor Agasa. "Thinner than a normal one-yen coin, and a size smaller. Should be a replica carved by someone."
"During the years when no one lived in the villa, someone came in and stayed for a while," Chi Feichi looked at the books in the corner. "Didn't stay long in the living room, but moved books from the living room to read. The character 'country' (国) carved on the coin is from coins used many years ago. It was an elderly person who had been hiding here without contact with the outside world."
Conan immediately went to flip through those books. "Mn, there are white hairs in the books, and aluminum shavings from carving coins. Perhaps while reading, he carved coins to pass the time. Moreover, it's impossible to carve such a realistic coin in a short time, which means he indeed lived here for a long time..."
Professor Agasa scratched his head. "But no one should have lived here..."
"The problem now is, was this old man the only one living here?" Conan pondered. It was indeed strange that signs of habitation suddenly appeared in an ownerless house.
"I think there should be a child too," Mitsuhiko walked over holding a vase, turning the base for Conan to see. "This is what I just found. Strange patterns of stars, suns, and moons were drawn on the bottom of the vase. Should be done by a child."
Conan took it and looked, instantly stunned. This regular pattern...
"That kind of pattern, I found it just now too," Genta said, going to get the candlestick by the fireplace. "Look, it's drawn under the candlestick too!"
"I found it too," Ayumi ran to get a plate from the cupboard. "There's one under the plate too. Must be a naughty child!"
"Never mind these," Mitsuhiko said. "Let's continue to solve the code on the floor!"
The three children left, and Professor Agasa was puzzled. "This is strange. My uncle didn't have children..."
"Not left by a child," Chi Feichi said. "A child wouldn't draw so regularly and neatly. Like dancing men."
"Dancing men?" Professor Agasa was puzzled.
Haibara Ai gave Chi Feichi half-moon eyes. "You aren't a Sherlock Holmes fan too, are you?"
"I've read it." Chi Feichi could only say this. He wasn't a fan of anyone, but flipping through such books had its benefits.
"Yes, 'The Adventure of the Dancing Men' mentioned in Sherlock Holmes stories is a code intended to look like children's scribbles!" Conan compared the patterns under the vase, candlestick, and plate, his gaze obsessed. "Comparing the arrangement of the three patterns, you can find that the patterns in the right three rows of each arrangement are the same. In other words, this is indeed a code with some kind of regularity!"
Haibara Ai saw Conan's state, and the corner of her mouth twitched slightly. Looking aside, Chi Feichi silently took out his phone. Before she could remind Conan, Conan over there had already started twitching.
"Yes! This is undoubtedly a code!" Conan looked excited, his glasses reflecting light, shoulders shaking with excitement as he laughed 'Hehehe...', as if the whole person had broken down.
Chi Feichi recorded silently.
"You seem quite happy," Professor Agasa asked Conan. "Have you cracked the code?"
"That, not yet," Conan's tone still carried a weird excitement. "I'm still clueless. The coin and the old man are still a mystery. But Professor Agasa, I'm just so excited!"
"Uh, before you get excited..." Professor Agasa pointed to Chi Feichi over there.
Conan turned his head and saw a familiar phone camera pointed at him. He immediately ran up. "Hey hey, why are you secretly filming me again?"
Chi Feichi had stopped recording, sent the entire video file to an email address, and showed it to Conan.
A bad premonition surged in Conan's heart. "You didn't send it to Dr. Fukuyama, did you?"
"Mn, providing him with a bit of evidence of your abnormality." Chi Feichi picked up the phone, looking at Conan's manic expression in the video, feeling like he was looking at a mental patient.
"I was just excited!" Conan hurriedly explained. "The more I don't know what's going on, the more I feel that uncontrollable curiosity jumping in my heart!"
"I've already sent it." Chi Feichi reminded.
Conan instantly had black lines on his forehead. He understood. Chi Feichi meant that if he wanted to explain, he should go explain to Dr. Fukuyama, right?
What a bastard!