Chapter 59 : The Detective Conan World Manga's Sit-ups and Cliffhangers
Another [Existence]?
Hearing this, Jiang Lai's heart paused, though he wasn't particularly surprised.
Since he had initially established the [Existence] identity setting and it was recognized by the world's will, this indicated it wasn't an isolated definition.
Moreover, this would explain why the Supervisory Committee's patterns could escape Six Eyes' detection, because they also had an [Existence] on their side.
He just wasn't sure about the specific situation of the Supervisory Committee's [Existence].
Did the other party choose to act because wandering the human world was too boring and they wanted to try manipulating things for fun, or was it karma created inadvertently after being deceived by someone?
However, the Supervisory Committee's [Existence] was very likely attached to an object (or at least, initially attached to an object).
This was also why when those people searched according to the prophecy, they focused on "special items" around Gojo Satoru rather than "people."
Or perhaps they initially thought there was only one [Existence] in the world, so they interpreted the [Clock] in the prophecy as a special item, for example, a derivative of [Existence].
His thoughts flowing in his mind, Jiang Lai followed up with another question: "How did you learn this information?"
"Half guessing, half speculation." Gojo Satoru raised his eyelids, saying, "Mainly from Suguru's information channels. He's now pretty much penetrated into the core member group. Quite a leap in progress compared to the first playthrough."
"Honestly, Suguru's acting skills have improved so quickly." Gojo Satoru said, "But those Supervisory Committee guys are too cautious. Getting information from them is like squeezing toothpaste. The speculation about [Existence] came from Suguru overhearing them casually mention 'another level of power' in conversation."
"No other intelligence?"
"Not for now." Gojo Satoru spread his hands, "Suguru says to dig deeper, he'd need to move up another tier in position. He's working on getting promoted."
Jiang Lai's mind wandered for a moment: Who would have thought that in the second playthrough, Suguru's script was "Workplace Advancement Manual: From Pawn to Core"!
Mentioning Geto Suguru, Jiang Lai couldn't help but ask with concern: "By the way, how is Suguru's current understanding of his path..."
"Shoko and I both made an agreement with Suguru. We'll accompany him to find a suitable path together, and before that, none of us is allowed to bail out first."
Gojo Satoru's face showed a smile, then he made a fist and placed it by his lips, "As for Suguru, his current thinking should be: what constitutes righteousness isn't determined yet, but the Supervisory Committee must die."
"Haha," Jiang Lai's eyebrows were gentle, "That's good, taking it slowly."
The air fell quiet again. Winter sunlight filtered through thin clouds like gauze, illuminating the floating dust and fine particles clearly visible in the light inside the room.
Gojo Satoru's Six Eyes swept through the room, his words seeming casual as he asked: "Speaking of which, are you adapting well to human life, Lai?"
"It's fine," Jiang Lai said lightly, "When I can't adapt, I switch to being a cursed spirit and stop being human."
Gojo Satoru: "?"
Jiang Lai: "Just kidding. If I became a cursed spirit, I'd be afraid of being exorcised. I'm not having trouble adapting to human life. After wandering the human world for so many years, I'm already familiar with it. Plus, I'm learning."
"Learning?" Gojo Satoru laughed cheerfully, using an inquiring, joking tone, "Hey, tell me honestly, when the thousand-year-old demon started cooking for the first time, did you blow up the kitchen~? You did, didn't you? You definitely did? What a pity I didn't get to take a photo of you all dusty and gray..."
"Am I really that stupid? Cooking encyclopedias have step-by-step instructions for cooking." Jiang Lai's eyes sparkled as he smiled back, "Actually, from my perspective, human life is very interesting."
"Even though it's all daily trivial matters, you can still glimpse different scenery in the mundane aspects of life. It's like the four seasons cycling through eternal change, behind the unchanging patterns lie uniquely new days with different landscapes."
"You're quite philosophical and optimistic." Gojo Satoru raised his eyebrows, paused for a second, "What about money? How do you handle that?"
As the pampered Young Master of the Gojo family and the jujutsu world's number one genius sorcerer, Gojo Satoru had never had financial problems. Money was just a number to him.
However, even though he personally had no monetary worries, he knew what money meant in ordinary society.
Many negative emotions, when traced to their roots, stemmed from the various derivative anxieties of living in the world without money.
How would an [Existence] who had been one with nature, having fallen from the clouds to the human world, adapt to life and earn money?
The high-tech skills of human society might be difficult for an [Existence] to master immediately, plus with incomplete memories and no diplomas or work experience...
He could hardly imagine how the person before him had gotten through those initial months of human life.
The strongest felt unusually regretful inside, not having given his old friend some aid earlier. Even if it hadn't reached the appointed meeting date, providing some help from afar would have been good.
Then the other person wouldn't have had to stumble through such hardship.
At this moment, Gojo Satoru wanted to directly give Jiang Lai a card and let him use it freely.
But on second thought, he felt that having the person before him shop in iris flower-filled malls using a card tied to his own identity might attract the Supervisory Committee's attention.
Maybe he should bring more cash and stuff it to Lai. Gojo Satoru thought. Next time he'd bring a suitcase stuffed with money.
Before he could voice this suggestion, Jiang Lai replied: "Money problems? Don't worry, I write novels."
This was the truth, but not the complete truth.
Jiang Lai's main source of income was using hacking skills honed in the Detective Conan world to take dark web jobs, but explaining this would make the skill origin inconvenient to explain.
So Jiang Lai only mentioned novel writing as one income source.
"...Novels?" This answer was obviously somewhat unexpected. Gojo Satoru's eyebrows furrowed slightly, then he smiled broadly, "Eh? The thousand-year-old demon also writes novels? It's not that tedious classical Chinese, is it? Come, come, let me critique it for you."
"Are your novels serialized in newspapers and magazines, or on online platforms?"
"Online serialization." Jiang Lai took out his phone. Phone-kun looked brand new as always, like newly bought equipment.
He found his online novel serialization platform and showed it to the curious white-haired big cat before him: "This one."
"Hmm... Detective Conan fanfiction?" Gojo Satoru's tone rose slightly at the end, "Didn't expect you to have read that too. Your life is really quite rich."
Jiang Lai internally: Not only have I read it, I've experienced it. Real people, real events.
"Of course." He nodded on the surface, "Human life is really interesting. I love human culture."
While speaking, he posted a [busy] leave notice on his work page.
After all, although nominally only a day had passed here, Jiang Lai's consciousness had been wandering through the first playthrough for a long time, and there were many things to do after returning. He needed to take a few days off.
【Eh eh? Just got to the exciting part, why take leave now QAQ…】
【Seeing the leave notice broke my heart…】
【Author-sama, what's wrong! (shaking.jpg) Unless it's saving the world, no leave allowed hey!】
Saving the world... Jiang Lai's eyebrows curved as he coughed inwardly. Well, in a sense, what he was taking leave to do was indeed the big business of saving the world.
Before he exited, he suddenly glimpsed a sudden string of tips!
A new user with the ID [Strongest Desserts to the Nth Power] was screen-spamming with a pile of endless tips.
Jiang Lai was stunned for a second, then looked up in shock.
Before him, the white-haired youth held his phone casually, randomly tapping the screen with one hand:
"Since that's the case, the perfect teacher will support your career, Lai~ Don't be too moved, saying thanks a hundred times is enough~~"
"...Thanks, Satoru." Jiang Lai had a half-moon eye expression, "But I'll only say thanks once."
Gojo Satoru's support was very practical and substantial. He didn't care about spending money and was always generous with friends and students he cared about.
To avoid unnecessary attention, he also donated quite a bit to other works nearby.
After the brief interlude, Gojo Satoru put away his phone, his blue eyes looking at Jiang Lai, his expression focusing again, his words slightly heavy:
"So, what do you plan to do, Lai? I mean, your life going forward."
Going forward? Jiang Lai blinked, not immediately understanding what Gojo Satoru meant.
"The prophecy made them circle around me searching," Gojo Satoru showed some annoyance in his expression, then swept it away, his demeanor arrogant, "Back then they found you. This time, it won't be so easy."
"Leave the Supervisory Committee overall to Suguru and me." The white-haired youth said, "Although you're no longer [Existence]... you're still somewhat different from others."
"Back at the Zenin family, although you wore a mask, if your figure appears around me again in the future, they might recall the past and make connections. So for safety, I don't recommend you have direct contact with me."
Mentioning this, Jiang Lai's thoughts paused: Too bad disguises have no meaning in the jujutsu world, since everyone identifies each other by cursed energy.
Although he had the feather necklace, this item was too obvious, and the degree of blurring was difficult to precisely maintain at the same ratio each time. It wasn't suitable for creating fixed identity disguises.
It would be great if there was another identity-switching method that fit the jujutsu world. Jiang Lai thought whimsically. Logically speaking, disguise techniques should also undergo Detective Conan skill jujutsu-ization upgrades, right?
Before him, Gojo Satoru continued speaking, raising his head slightly, his beautiful blue eyes sweeping over. He raised one finger and waved it:
"If Lai wants to live quietly and stay away from disputes, I have many secret properties. The helpful and handsome Gojo can provide free housing~~"
What to do in the future... Jiang Lai's thoughts flowed. He had always known that escaping was useless.
But how exactly to arrange the plan still needed careful consideration. Jiang Lai planned to first browse through his phone intelligence, then decide on his future whereabouts.
So he showed a hesitant expression on his face, smiling gently: "I want to think about it, Satoru. Give me a day's time. Can we meet tomorrow?"
"Wait, why is it 'see you tomorrow' again?" Gojo Satoru drew out his tone, "Last time you used that phrase to trick me for over ten years. Doing it again, are you testing my temper?" His blue eyes showed barely perceptible wariness, staring intently at the person before him.
"Don't worry, this time I won't suddenly disappear." Jiang Lai coughed, his face completely sincere, "I really need to think about it, then see you tomorrow. It's not word play."
The white-haired youth didn't respond. His face wore a casual smile similar to usual, but his Six Eyes flickered with inquiry to judge truth from falsehood.
Jiang Lai sighed quietly and said: "Fine, I won't say 'see you tomorrow.' Then... see you tomorrow?"
Gojo Satoru: "?"
In the end, Jiang Lai and Gojo Satoru agreed to meet again the next day. At that time, Jiang Lai would tell the other party his thoughts.
When Gojo Satoru left, he deliberately cleaned up the cursed energy residue again, then with graceful movements, silently disappeared in an instant. Such caution was to avoid the Supervisory Committee noticing this place.
After Gojo Satoru left, Jiang Lai had time to continue looking at his phone.
When he had opened his phone earlier to find his online novel serialization platform, Jiang Lai had first reported safety in the group, letting his anxious Detective Conan friends stop worrying.
Now he returned to the group chat to see messages had reached 99+.
Jiang Lai typed replies to his Detective Conan friends' concerns, comforting and reassuring them so everyone would stop worrying.
The Detective Conan friends in the group were vigorously complaining about the new series' inhumane manga cliffhangers.
Kuroda Akira, not sure if he was serious or joking, said "if not for the world consciousness preventing informed people from meeting, he would directly go find the author to lock them in a small dark room for on-site drawing."
Matsuda Jinpei seemed deeply moved, posting a series of his mental journey:
[It really drives you crazy with cliffhangers!! You don't know, the first time it cut off at you getting stabbed in the neck, it scared us to death! Luckily I had just gotten off work then, otherwise my mind would have been in chaos and I couldn't have handled paperwork at all. Then the next chapter showed you were fine, and we finally relaxed a bit.]
[Then, not long after relaxing, it cut off again at you getting your heart dug out, and I had cardiac arrest too! Honestly, it must have hurt a lot, right?! The next chapter had dialogue where you said you'd be fine, and we relaxed again.]
[Then it cut off again at December 25, 2017 when you didn't appear, and in the manga they looked like they'd never see you again. We really thought you were pulling another self-sacrifice! We were really going crazy! The next chapter you reappeared, and we finally relaxed.]
Morofushi Hiromitsu added: [Although we hoped you were fine, in case you really... sorry, anyway, we didn't want you to have a bad time in the afterlife either. So we seriously offered incense for you at the time.]
Jiang Lai: ?
Kuroda Akira supplemented: [With those sit-up cliffhangers, I removed and set up the shrine at the research institute several times.]
Hagiwara Kenji chimed in: [Oh~ so that's how it was. No wonder once when I went to your research institute, a researcher tentatively asked me if you had a repeatedly deceased relative or friend.]
Jiang Lai: ??
[#Good Luck Lai Coming#: ...Thank you everyone, I'm very moved, extremely moved, but really no need for incense wuwu! (little cat rolling into a croissant.gif)]
After finally relaxing, the Detective Conan friends were particularly lively in the group, then after a joke ended, the topic returned to serious matters.
[#Big Cat's Whiskers#: By the way, Jiang Lai, are your memories complete now? Do you still remember yesterday's and past stories? That is, the story of young Gojo Satoru?]
Jiang Lai paused slightly, somewhat surprised by the other's question. He replied: [? Why suddenly ask this? Of course I remember.]
[#Big Cat's Whiskers#: That's good. Hmm... because we saw the manga first. The scenes depicted in the manga seemed like after the world restart, you lost your previous memories...]
Eh? Jiang Lai blinked, thinking.
Generally speaking, manga used certain narrative techniques and wouldn't depict every detail for story and dramatic effect.
It seemed this time they used some narrative technique, capturing misleading fragments for depiction?
Most likely they stopped at the joke where he pretended not to recognize anyone during this reunion.
Jiang Lai's mind flashed with speculation. Very good, the sinister filter could continue to be equipped, convenient for future operations.
He replied in the group, then exited the family chat, planning to see how the manga presented this major incident.