Chiba's cell phone rang - it was Kiyonaga Matsumoto who called.

"Qianyu, did you find any clues?" Matsumoto Kiyocho asked. "For example, is the murderer really Kosuke Mizutani? Who will be the last person to die? ”

“…… If nothing else, the murderer should be him. Qian Yu replied after thinking for a moment. And based on what happened, I think his last target would be him. ”

"Himself?" Matsumoto Kiyoshi frowned. "You're saying that Kosuke Mizutani is planning to commit suicide?"

"Yes," Chiba replied. "The exact inference process can be complicated, so—"

"You listen to me first," Kiyocho Matsumoto interrupted. "Is there anyone else near you?"

"Near me?" Chiba glanced around. "I'm sitting on the tram home right now, and there's no one else around."

"Is there anyone within five meters?" Matsumoto Kiyocho asked again. "Is there anyone who could potentially hear what I'm saying?"

"......," Qian Yu replied after raising an eyebrow and checking the surroundings. I'm sure, and there doesn't seem to be anyone in the car, I guess it's because it's not yet time to get off work. ”

"That's good," Matsumoto Kiyoshi said after a moment of silence before speaking. "Listen to me, Icewine."

“！？” Qianyu's expression was stunned for a moment - even with the computing power of the auxiliary unit, he couldn't make Qianyu react at the first time What was going on with Matsumoto Kiyocho calling him so, so he naturally didn't have the energy to control his expression.

"Hello?" Kiyoshi Matsumoto asked again when he heard that there was no reaction from the other side. "Are you there?"

"I'm here, but ...... What is Icewine? Qianyu pretended to be stupid.

"I came to you after being introduced by Vermouth," Matsumoto Kiyocho seemed to have expected such a reaction from Chiba. "She said, if you don't trust me, tell you 'Zed 2 Thyme'" (I'll say it first...... This Zed has nothing to do with robbery...... ）

"......" After a moment of silence, Qian Yu finally spoke. Is there anything I need to do? ”

"Zed 2 Thyme", this is a sentence that does not mean much to ordinary people, but for Chiha, it has a special meaning that is not ordinary.

When Qian Yu was just a rookie who only had a first glimpse of mechanical mechanisms, the first product he made with a combination lock function was a mechanical lockbox - although the walls of the lockbox were all paper, but the door was embedded with a steel plate, so as long as the lockbox was embedded in a hole in the wall, this simple safe would have ultra-high strength that did not match its material at all.

The password input interface of this safe is a nine-square numeric keypad like a telephone, and the password is 123578951 - the trajectory on the keyboard is the starting point of drawing a Z and then connecting back to Z from the end of Z, just forming an hourglass shape representing time, and "Zed 2 Thyme" is the English "Z to Time" (from Z to time, implying this code) (Z is pronounced as zed in the English pronunciation system that Qianyu came into contact with, not zee used by children in American sounds or by alphabet songs, because the letter Z actually appeared around the 15th century and is derived from the old French zede; And zede comes from the Greek letter ζ, which is pronounced zeta. ）。

When he first made this thing, he actually interacted with Belmode - when he told his master about it, the disguised Belmode happened to be in the Orange Mansion - and she was ordering a new pistol grip from Chiba's master.

…… Go back more than 10 years.

"The password for this is zed-" Xiao Qianyu said on a small note while looking at his master as he said this. “to thyme”

"I probably understand why writing thyme is probably an allusion to time, but what is zed?" Belmode, who happened to be looking at this side, asked. “Zedekiah？ (Zedekia, the last king of Judah in the Bible)"

"Zed is zed?" Xiao Qianyu looked confused.

“zed？” Belmode blinked—as a native American, he had absolutely no idea what the word meant. "What's that?"

"Huh?" Master, who had just finished polishing, raised his head and said slowly to Belmode. "Don't worry too much, the pronunciation of z in English is zed."

"Huh?" Belmode was stunned. "Is that so?"

"Yes," Master nodded. "You haven't heard it, it's just because the end of the D doesn't usually appear in the word, so no one cares."

"Did you let this little guy learn the English pronunciation?" Belmode leaned down, keeping her at the same height as Qianyu's, and asked the master while touching his head. "It's not a good idea in Japan."

"He chose it himself," Master shook his head. "I had asked him an American tutor, but the tutor said that he had never been able to adapt to the American pronunciation, and that maybe the English pronunciation was more suitable for him – and the fact that the British tutor hired later confirmed this."

…… Back to the present.

The only person who can know "Zed to Thyme" is Chiba himself, the late master and Belmode, so this self-proclaimed Belmode introduced Matsumoto Kiyocho can know this, and he must have really received Belmode's prompt. In other words, he does represent the organization.

"Prepare yourself and go to Tokyo Tower." Matsumoto Kiyoshi said in a long and deep voice. "It's up to the two of us to find Kosuke Mizutani, the token he took from Okakura Masaaki before is a USB flash drive of a list of spies sent out in an organized manner, and we must snatch this thing back from him."

"Spy list?" Qianyu's face changed suddenly. "Wait a minute, is this Okakura Masaaki's position very high?"

"Very low," Matsumoto Kiyocho said without a good breath. "This guy is just the secretary and housekeeper of the Congressman Nagisa (doesn't you have a sense of déjà vu?). That's right.,This guy has been out of the game←← if you don't guess it, you can get the answer in the group =,=), this list is completely stolen by him. Originally, the organization planned to get rid of him and never suffer from future troubles, but unexpectedly, he was preempted, and the list was taken away. ”

"So, it's up to the two of us to get this thing back, right?" Qian Yu asked.

"Yes," Matsumoto Kiyocho replied. "And it's going to have to be fast, we've got to get these things before anyone else finds out about the two of us. By the way, for your safety, I will use text messages to contact you one-way and agree on a place to exchange information - rest assured, the chat history on my phone is automatically emptied and will not expose you. But if you reach out to me, not necessarily. ”

"There's no need for that." After Qian Yu finished speaking, he hung up the phone.

“？” Matsumoto Kiyoshi looked at the phone that had been hung up and paused for a moment. Just before he could dial it back, he received a text message.

[Just text this phone number, don't worry, you look at this number, it's obviously an empty number.] 】

“？” Matsumoto Kiyocho looked at the number with some curiosity, and then realized why Chiba said that it must be an empty number. “！！！？？？”

Phone Number: 0019330130

According to Japan's number rules, this is a landline number, but 00 does not correspond to the area code of any region - it's not even a legal phone number, of course it's empty.

But how did this kid do it?