The Department Store
Two weeks later, at the department store.
“Not this one, not this one either... ah, there it is—Dandelion Wine, they really do carry it!” Xia Yu had been digging through the liquor shelf for ages, checking bottle after bottle, before she finally found the one she was looking for.
Yes, her eyes were not deceiving her. It was Dandelion Wine.
Conan had been dropping by to see Xia Yu constantly these past few days, usually with the Junior Detective League in tow, and through all that time together she had gotten well acquainted with the Mouri household as well. With so much contact, her odds of running into a case had shot way up. As expected, there was rarely a peaceful day to be had around the shinigami elementary schooler. In just one week, the Primogems from her daily commissions had already added up to another ten-pull.
Before this round of wishes, Xia Yu had washed her hands extra carefully, hoping to pull a character skilled at running a business. That way, the Maple Leaf Coins she'd intercepted from Conan a while back would finally have a use instead of gathering dust in her backpack—although, technically, no dust ever accumulated in there.
It would also mean actual cash flow, which made it easier to set up a relatively inconspicuous base of operations. Her own home wasn't really convenient, what with Conan and the others coming over so often. If they kept gathering at her place, who knew when Conan might stumble across some telltale clue.
Perhaps the hand-washing genuinely worked, because this time she pulled two characters, and both fit her current needs perfectly.
One of them was Master Diluc. Yes, that Master Diluc—Mondstadt's wealthiest man and owner of the Dawn Winery.
In this world, his identity was also that of a noble: a viscount of Country H, who likewise possessed a winery—the Dawn Winery.
When Xia Yu first found out, she was green with envy. This character wasn't just nobility—he came with his own business bundled in.
Then she learned that although Diluc technically owned the Dawn Winery, it was really just an empty shell with no wine products actually for sale. Most people only knew that Viscount Diluc of Country H had a winery; as for the details, nobody had a clue. In other words, actually getting the winery up and running and turning a profit would take Diluc's own hard work—and with that, Xia Yu's envy evaporated entirely.
As it happened, the Maple Leaf Coins in her backpack finally had a purpose. Xia Yu handed every last coin over to Diluc so he could return to Country H to buy raw materials and develop his products. She knew Diluc was a magnate and surely had formidable talent for management, but she hadn't expected him to produce an actual finished product in so short a time. (Look, it's not realistic that fast in the real world—just chalk it up to Detective Conan's wonky timeline.) To be fair, the product already had a prototype and only needed its formula tweaked, but getting it to market that quickly and all the way to Beika, no less—Xia Yu had nothing but admiration for the man.
The other was Noelle, currently working as a maid for a certain household. Her contract with them still had some time left on it, but it had already been arranged that once it expired, she would stop working for them and come help out at Xiangling's restaurant instead. That way the restaurant wouldn't even need to hire outside help. Perfect!
Both new arrivals were Mondstadt characters. Xia Yu felt a little disappointed not to unlock a new element, but pulling exactly the people she needed at exactly this stage more than made up for it.
She even secretly asked Paimon whether she'd rigged the odds behind her back. Paimon denied it—which meant this was pure, honest luck. Xia Yu was delighted all over again.
When she spotted the Dandelion Wine from the Dawn Winery, she bought it on the spot. She'd always been curious what wine brewed from dandelions actually tasted like. Back when it was just a game, she could never drink the real thing—but now it was right here in her hands. At long last, she could try it.
And if it turned out to be good, she could have Diluc supply it to Xiangling's restaurant. That way Mr. Mouri wouldn't have to grumble about there being no wine to drink every single time he came over.
With her shopping done, Xia Yu made to leave.
On her way down to the first floor, she noticed an event being held in the plaza outside the store—a Masked Yaiba show. One look was all it took to spot Genta, sitting among the crowd of children like a sore thumb, and sure enough, the rest of the Junior Detective League was right there around him.
Watching Conan cheer “Go, go! Masked Yaiba, go!” surrounded by elementary schoolers, looking not the least bit out of place—Conan really was becoming more and more like an actual elementary schooler.
But if Conan was here, it meant this department store was about to have a case on its hands.
And there was Masked Yaiba on top of that...
Oh! Xia Yu remembered. It was the department store hostage incident, wasn't it? If she recalled correctly, a gang of robbers had disguised themselves as Masked Yaiba to steal the store's valuables, and one of the employees was an inside man. Hmm, though which employee it was, or exactly how many robbers there were—those details had gotten a little fuzzy.
Since she'd stumbled into it this conveniently, there was no way Xia Yu was passing up the chance to farm some Primogems.
She glanced at the wine in her hands and decided to head home first and put it away. No sense shattering the bottle the moment things got physical—she fully intended to savor her first taste of Dandelion Wine today. Besides, she remembered the robbers wouldn't make their move until after dark, so there was plenty of time to drop her things off and come back.
Xia Yu didn't stop to say hello to the Junior Detective League. She simply skirted around the event and slipped away.
Huh? Was that a trick of the light? She could've sworn she just saw Xia Yu. Wasn't she out shopping today? No commissions?
Conan had noticed long ago that Xia Yu seemed to have commissions nearly every day—even if they were all trivial little things like finding cats or delivering letters. But she didn't have an office, and he'd hardly ever seen anyone come to her for help. So how was she getting all these jobs?
Conan knew nothing about the System's existence, so naturally he had no idea that these commissions were all issued through it. All Xia Yu had to do was follow the System's directions to the right client, strike up a conversation, and the job was hers.
Just then Ayumi spoke to him, cutting off his train of thought.
By nightfall, Xia Yu was back in front of the department store.
She looked up—and there, on one of the upper floors, the letters “SOS” painted in crude strokes across a window. That had to be the distress signal Conan and the others had left for the outside world.
Xia Yu found a window and rapped it with her knuckles a few times—yep, thick as expected. She tried resonating her Geo energy with the glass, and suddenly, with a splintering crash, the entire window pane shattered to pieces. So it really did work!
No more hesitation. Xia Yu slipped straight through the broken window into the department store. She'd memorized the building's layout during the day and knew the security office was in the basement's second sublevel—where the robbers were presumably controlling the surveillance feeds.
She crept up to the security room door and peered carefully inside. Only one robber—a lone guard at the monitors. The others must have gone off hunting for Conan and the kids. The remaining security guards and the elevator girl she'd seen that day were all bound hand and foot, blindfolded, and left slumped against the wall.
With barely anyone to worry about, Xia Yu charged straight in, and before the robber knew what was happening, she knocked him out cold from behind as he watched the monitors. With the man dealt with, she walked over to the bound department store staff and studied them one by one. She still remembered there was an inside man in this robbery—the only question was, which one of them was it?