Chapter 139: The Interview
Haibara sighed and turned her head to look at Conan. "You can't demand that everyone be as unbothered by these things as you are, Kudo — everyone is selfish in their own way. Miss Ningguang never set out to harm anyone, and for a businesswoman, that alone is saying something. And while she pursued her own goals, she still did her best to save the others. In the end, no one came to harm. That should be enough..."
Conan's gaze grew complicated. He had never expected to hear such words from Haibara.
"Maybe you're right. But I still believe there's nothing in this world more important than a human life."
The Mouri Detective Agency.
Nearly a week had passed since the launch event for the game Cocoon, yet the ripples from that affair had yet to settle. The newspapers still carried occasional debates over artificial intelligence, along with reports on Ningguang's movements since taking over the Sindora Group, and the reporters from every television station were burning with curiosity about her next move, all eager to land an interview and get their hands on first-hand material.
And at that very moment, the television in the detective agency was about to broadcast the interview a Nichiuri TV reporter had conducted with Ningguang just the day before.
Mouri Kogoro sat in the chair behind his desk with his feet propped up on the table. Bored, he set down the newspaper he had just finished reading, glanced at Conan's figure riveted to the screen, and curled his lip. "Good grief, I'll never understand how a kid can stand watching this corporate-news drivel. If Miss Yoko's show weren't off the air today, there's no way I'd hand the TV over to a little brat like you for this kind of thing."
"If Conan wants to watch it, just let him. It's better than a certain someone using the TV to drool over beautiful women, isn't it?"
Mouri Ran strode up to her father and set down the freshly brewed tea in her hands with a decisive clack — a touch too decisive, in fact; tea sloshed over the rim and spattered the desktop.
"And another thing, Dad — just look at the state of you! Get your feet off the table! Conan is still a little boy. The least you could do is mind how you behave in front of him. You mustn't go setting a bad example for Conan."
Conan: "......"
Doesn't Ran realize it's a bit late to be saying that now? Between the smoking and the drinking, the old man's already plenty unreliable as it is.
Sensing that Ran was genuinely annoyed, Kogoro hastily did as he was told — feet off the desk, a quick wipe of the spilled tea, chair scooted forward, newspaper snatched back up and held in both hands as he feigned the deepest concentration on the articles.
"That brat's picked up far too much he shouldn't know from television. No wonder he's so cheeky all the time."
Conan's mouth twitched. Nothing he knew came from watching TV. Every last bit of it had been taught to him by his old man on those trips to Hawaii.
Just then, the Nichiuri TV interview formally began, and the figures of the recently famous anchor Mizunashi Rena and Ningguang appeared on screen one after the other.
"Ah!"
Before Conan could even get a clear look at the two women, Kogoro's body plowed into him and shoved him bodily aside on the sofa.
Startled, he turned his head toward the old man —
— only to find that the Kogoro who had been sitting behind the desk mere seconds ago had, in the blink of an eye, migrated to the sofa, planted himself dead center in the best seat in the house, and was now staring unblinkingly at the television. Conan, meanwhile, had been squeezed into the far corner of the cushions.
Strange. Didn't the old man just say he wasn't interested in this kind of report? Why did he come charging over all of a sudden — and watch so intently, no less? Could it be that after that last case, he noticed something off about Miss Ningguang too, and is trying to learn more about her? Since when did the old man get smart?
"Would you look at that — the Nichiuri TV anchor is a real beauty. And her interviewee is Miss Ningguang herself? What luck! A feast for the eyes today, hahaha." Kogoro chuckled with his eyes narrowed to slits, so absorbed that he didn't even register Ran's displeasure beside him over his shoving Conan aside.
At that muttered soliloquy, Conan lurched sideways, the corner of his mouth twitching. Figures. He should have known Mouri-san couldn't possibly be that sharp — the only thing in that head of his was pretty women. Ha. So he really had been overthinking it just now.
Meanwhile, at Ningguang's residence.
Ningguang herself sat on her sofa, watching the same broadcast of the Nichiuri TV interview.
To tell the truth, when she had learned the day before that the interviewer coming for her would be Nichiuri TV's Mizunashi Rena, she had felt a flicker of surprise as well.
But since the woman had come, Ningguang had simply cooperated in good faith and seen the interview through to the end.
What she couldn't know was whether Rena had come purely at Nichiuri TV's request — or on a mission from the Black Organization.
The clock wound back to the previous day, at Nichiuri TV.
Mizunashi Rena was thinking about the email the Organization had sent her a few days prior: secure, by any means necessary, an interview with the new head of the Sindora Group, and then probe whether that artificial intelligence, Noah's Ark, had truly destroyed itself.
"Miss Mizunashi, it's almost time. We need to head over to Miss Ningguang's company for the interview."
"Ah — coming." Roused by the staff member at her side, Mizunashi Rena set the thought aside, gathered her belongings, and hurried to catch up with the others.
When they arrived at the company, it was Miss Ganyu, assistant to their interview subject Ningguang herself, who received them. Once introductions were exchanged, Ganyu led the Nichiuri TV staff to a conference room to wait.
"I'm terribly sorry — there have been rather a lot of interview requests lately, and Miss Ningguang is at this moment with reporter Charlotte of the Beika Daily. That interview will be concluding shortly, so please, do make yourselves comfortable here for a little while. I will come to inform you the moment it is finished." Ganyu said to Mizunashi Rena and her party, a faint apology in her voice.
"Not at all. The trip here was a little tiring anyway, so a chance to rest suits us just fine."
Ganyu then served them each a glass of water before withdrawing from the conference room.
With Ganyu gone and no outsiders left in the room, Rena's colleagues loosened up somewhat and drifted into small talk about this and that.
Rena took no part in the chatter. Instead, she mentally combed through the questions she would ask when her turn came. Even so, her attention kept snagging on the conversation around her — they were discussing the very reporter from the Beika Daily who was interviewing Miss Ningguang at that moment.
According to them, this reporter Charlotte had made quite a name for herself recently by publishing truths that certain parties would rather have kept buried, and as a result had received a number of threatening letters. Whether the matter had been dealt with, no one could say. But seeing her still trotting out to interviews as if nothing were the matter, it had probably been resolved well enough by now.
In truth, nothing could have been further from what they imagined. Charlotte had indeed received the threatening letters — and the matter was very much not resolved.
Charlotte herself hadn't given those letters a moment's thought. She went out whenever she pleased, haunting the streets and alleys of Beika as always, tirelessly digging for "the truth."
It was only because the letters kept multiplying — and because he genuinely feared for her safety — that the newspaper's editor-in-chief had finally thrown up his hands and shunted her onto the celebrity-interview desk. At least famous interviewees came with no danger attached.
And that was why Charlotte had turned up at Ningguang's company.