Ran said with some frustration, "A perfectly good afternoon, ruined by him."
"It's not the first time..."
As her biological father, Kogoro Mouri's words were incisive: "That guy stood you up before, didn't he? Made you wait from day to night... And you, you silly girl, you actually waited foolishly in the same spot..."
"If it were me, if my date was more than half an hour late, I'd never see them again in this lifetime... Someone who doesn't even have basic time management isn't worth associating with!"
After Kogoro Mouri reopened her wound, Ran couldn't help but recall her experiences with Shinichi.
Over the years, she and Shinichi had created many memories, some happy, some unhappy.
As she thought it over carefully, she realized that the unhappy ones accounted for the vast majority.
The main reason for her unhappiness was that every time Shinichi encountered a murder case, he would always get involved, disrupting the date plans she had meticulously prepared beforehand.
For a date, Ran would always put a lot of effort into arranging the time, researching online, and so on.
All that careful preparation, only for it to be useless, broke Ran's heart.
If it had only happened once or twice, that would be one thing, but it was a regular occurrence.
This made Ran very unhappy; she always felt that in Shinichi's heart, murder cases were far more important than her, and every time a murder occurred, he would cast her aside.
In the past, she hadn't felt much about it.
But after this afternoon, Lin Yi's actions suddenly made Ran realize something.
She actually didn't like it that way; compared to Shinichi's behavior of getting involved in murder investigations, she preferred Lin Yi's approach—doing what you needed to do, then leaving the rest to the police.
They were just ordinary people; murder cases should be left to the police. They just needed to live their own lives, and that was fine.
Suddenly, Ran had an inexplicable thought.
If she were to marry Shinichi in the future... would Shinichi still be like this, diving headfirst into a murder case the moment he encountered one?
Based on Ran's understanding of Shinichi, she quickly got the answer—yes.
Upon thinking of this future, Ran suddenly felt a wave of fear, a sense of dread.
She subconsciously glanced at Kogoro Mouri, thinking to herself:
As a detective, he can't even guess his wife's thoughts.
So useless.
This made Ran suddenly dislike the profession of a detective.
After this train of thought, Ran fell into doubt about her feelings for Shinichi.
Before this afternoon, Sonoko had asked her if she had a crush, and Ran's answer at the time was yes.
But now, if she had to answer, Ran could only say she didn't know.
Friendship? Love?
Ran couldn't figure it out. She irritably scratched her head and cried out in frustration, "I don't get it~~~~"
Kogoro Mouri was startled and looked at his daughter, asking worriedly, "Ran, are you okay?"
"I! Am! Fine!"
Ran, in a bad mood, yelled at Kogoro Mouri, then got up from the sofa, threw out a "I'm going to take a bath," and headed up to the third floor.
Kogoro Mouri watched Ran walk away with some surprise, muttering, "She clearly isn't fine, is she? Why would she say she is?"
Recalling how Eri used to be the same, Kogoro Mouri said discontentedly, "Why is this child becoming more and more like her mother... Or is it that all women are like this?"
Looking at the vibrant Yoko Okino on TV, Kogoro Mouri showed a relieved smile: "Miss Yoko is so cute, she's not like them at all."
On the third floor, after Ran finished her bath, she collapsed onto the soft bed.
"Ah... So annoying. I should talk to Sonoko."
Ran felt her thoughts were too muddled; she needed someone to confide in.
She sent Sonoko a text message, asking if she was free, but there was no reply for a long time.
Ran felt greatly disappointed. However, just then, Shinichi called.
Ran was already annoyed; how could she be in the mood to answer the phone? She just hung up directly.
Shinichi called two or three times, but Ran hung up each time.
Finally, Shinichi sent a text message, asking Ran if she wanted to go to the amusement park tomorrow, to fulfill his previous promise to her.
Ran replied: [Do you know where you went wrong?]
Shinichi replied: [I shouldn't have talked about the murder case at the dinner table.]
Ran saw this, and her anger, which had mostly subsided, flared up again: [When you know where you truly went wrong, then I'll go to the amusement park with you!]
After saying that, Ran ignored Shinichi.
She watched for Sonoko's text message, which was still delayed, and muttered, "Reply quickly... Sonoko..."
— — — — — — — — — —
Using the excuse of going for a walk, I asked Sonoko to come out of the shop alone.
There was no need to worry about Shinichi; with his straightforward personality, he knew I wasn't going after Ran. Once the crisis was over, he would return to his old self.
Of course, it wasn't that Lin Yi knew him inside and out, but rather that for so many years, Shinichi had habitually interacted with Ran in this way, and it wasn't something that could be changed just like that.
It's the same principle as 'a leopard cannot change its spots.'
Chapter 35
After coming out of the shop, the air immediately felt much fresher.
Of course, the most important thing was that Shinichi's endless recounting of his thought process during the case was no longer in her ears.
Sonoko felt her ears were remarkably clear.
She comfortably took a deep breath of the refreshing air, couldn't help but stretch, and said, "Finally, I don't have to listen to that detective talk about his case-solving process!"
Lin Yi nodded and said, "Although it might sound a bit unfair to Kudo-kun, it's true... If possible, I never want to deal with corpses in my life."
"Yeah, yeah... That's what normal people would think, right? Only Shinichi, that detective, would be willing to deal with corpses... Never mind, let's not talk about him. Just talking about him makes me angry."
--+--
T/N: Although I'm an inexperienced Editor, I do have a Patreon account! Although it seems like I don't have many supporters right now, my webnovel will be released in full every day, and the advanced chapters will be uploaded to Patreon.
It may not be worth it now, but who knows, it might be different in the future. Who knows!
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