Chapter 66: The Second-in-Command is a Top-Tier Chef

"Mr. Kido!"

In the living room.

Just as Gao Mo finished handing out some candies to the children, he heard Wakita Kanenori calling out from the kitchen.

Ignoring Professor Agasa, who was enthusiastically posing riddles, Gao Mo braced himself and responded as he walked into the kitchen.

By now, he was already a Level 2 actor. While his disguise skills were hard to gauge, his acting was definitely much better than an amateur like Rum—whose acting was just as awkward as Conan's.

Accustomed to being high and mighty for a long time, Rum almost entirely relied on playing the fool to conceal his true self.

"Could you help me find where the sugar is?" Wakita Kanenori said while busily chopping vegetables. "My left eye was injured the other day, and my right eye's vision has also deteriorated severely..."

"I'll take a look."

Gao Mo inwardly scoffed.

Bringing up his eyesight...

Yet he hadn't cut his fingers while chopping; instead, he had even shown off a few fancy knife tricks.

He practically exuded the aura of a star-rated chef.

This guy wasn't just posing as a chef; he genuinely possessed culinary skills...

Just how much free time did the Number Two of the Organization have? To actually go out of his way to study cooking.

Sure enough, no matter where it was, the higher-ups always lived in luxury, leaving the working stiffs at the bottom to sweat and toil to death.

"As for the sugar..."

Gao Mo first opened the upper wall cabinet. Finding only bowls and tableware, he squatted down to rummage through the lower cabinets instead.

No sugar in sight, but there were several bags of salt.

"Hmph!"

Wakita Kanenori lifted the kitchen knife in his hand, his single eye sweeping over the people outside to make sure everyone was distracted by Professor Agasa's terrible dad joke. With his hands behind his back, he walked up behind Gao Mo, a dangerous smile crossing his face as he gripped the knife handle tightly.

"Well? Did you find it?"

"Seems like no..."

Gao Mo's brow twitched violently. His hawk-like vision caught the faint reflection on the cabinet door, vaguely revealing Wakita Kanenori's distorted shadow holding the blade.

The tip of the knife inched closer toward his back, right over his heart, yet it failed to trigger his Danger Perception.

What is this guy trying to do?

Gao Mo shifted his full attention to the inside of the cabinet, preventing his body from making any instinctive counter-reactions.

Acting skills and rapid immersion capability were pushed to their absolute limits.

"This is no good. Do we really need sugar? It's not a great time to go out and buy some right now..."

"Never mind if you can't find it."

Wakita Kanenori narrowed his single eye. Just as Gao Mo was about to stand up and turn around, he quickly withdrew the knife, his face instantly shifting back into a comical grin.

"I saw the ingredients were fully stocked and thought about making some pastries... Then how about you help me take out some plates instead?"

"Alright..."

"Thud!"

Just as Gao Mo stood up, he slammed hard against the edge of the wall cabinet door. A sharp corner scraped a gash across his forehead, instantly seeping a bright red line of blood.

Hiss!

He had spent too much energy keeping an eye on Wakita Kanenori and hadn't paid attention to what was above his head...

"Are you alright, Mr. Kido?" Wakita Kanenori's expression stiffened for a moment before he blankly put down the kitchen knife and helped Gao Mo up.

"What's going on?"

Sonoko and Ran had changed their clothes and come downstairs just in time to hear the commotion from the kitchen.

"Kido-bro!"

"Kido?"

Mogorou Kogoro broke free from Seiji's gorilla-like grip and hurried into the kitchen after them.

"Quick! Get some clean gauze!"

"I know where the gauze is." Ran hurriedly went to fetch the first aid kit.

"Hurry up and stop the bleeding!"

"It's fine, the wound isn't deep. How could you be so careless?"

The room descended into a flurry of chaos, though fortunately, the bleeding was stopped quickly.

After disinfecting with iodine, Sonoko helped apply a bandage, finally bringing the farce to an end.

Haibara Ai upstairs had been scared out of her wits, thinking Rum had made a move, and had rushed to the top of the stairs with a pale face to check the situation.

"I'm fine."

Gao Mo went to the restroom to wash the blood off his hands, leaving Ran and the others in the kitchen to help.

Wakita Kanenori had already returned to his normal, harmless persona, as if his previous out-of-character behavior had just been an illusion.

Still, thankfully Bodyguards No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 were all present; this guy posed no immediate threat for now.

The real trouble was the Black Organization standing behind him.

He needed to fool this guy into leaving as soon as possible.

While he could ensure his own acting showed no flaws, he couldn't guarantee the others—Conan's personality doomed him to never keep a low profile for long.

None of the main protagonists in Japanese manga were ever good at keeping their heads down.

The reason Conan was being so obedient right now was mainly due to the lessons he had been taught a few times previously.

"Are you hiding something from me?"

Conan was always exceptionally sharp in these matters. After quietly slipping away from the living room, he stealthily approached Gao Mo.

"Just looking after Ayumi and the others is enough for you. Act like a normal elementary schooler and behave yourself for a while... I'm not joking."

Gao Mo looked in the mirror and touched the band-aid on his forehead; the little rabbit pattern on it looked quite surreal.

The stinging sensation at the wound had faded away rapidly, already beginning to itch faintly.

Curious, he peeled back the edge of the band-aid to take a look. The wound that had been clearly visible just moments ago was already closed and scabbed over, as if rapidly healing under the influence of some mysterious force.

What is going on here?

Gao Mo's fingers tightened slightly as he pressed the band-aid back down.

Conan was still deep in thought beside him, oblivious to anything else: "Is it because of those guys? It's not like I don't know my limits... The one who really needs to worry here is me."

"Then hurry back and watch TV."

Gao Mo calmly dismissed Conan.

His forehead was itching like it had a swarm of ants crawling over it, and the recovery speed of the wound felt several times faster than that of a normal human.

This was the first time he had discovered an abnormality in his own body.

"Vigorous in Old Age" shouldn't have this kind of effect. Was it because of that notebook?

Come to think of it, even when he had been drained and as weak as the living dead before, he had never gotten sick, and after following Seiji until he collapsed from exhaustion, his muscles hadn't even been sore the next day...

"Kido-bro!"

Ran called out from the front.

"Dinner is ready. Should we go call Ai down?"

"No need, I'll take some up for her later."

Gao Mo temporarily pushed the matter of his wound's recovery to the back of his mind, thoroughly washed the blood off his hands, and returned to the front hall.

By now, Ran and the others were already helping to set the dishes on the table.

The meal looked quite lavish, matching the Western-style mansion atmosphere of the Kudo residence and instantly elevating the ambiance.

Although he didn't think Wakita Kanenori would pull any tricks in a place like this, Gao Mo still carefully investigated the situation.

"Whoosh!"

Taking advantage of Wakita Kanenori's absence in the kitchen, Gao Mo turned on his Hawk-Eye Vision behind everyone's backs, sweeping his supernatural perception across the dining table.

No anomalies detected.

Nor was there any malice emanating from the kitchen—no matter how well hidden it was, it should have been amplified under his vision.

What on earth is up with this guy?

Is he genuinely playing the role of a chef?

Yet his probing in the kitchen earlier hadn't felt like a joke.

"Sorry to keep you waiting." After serving the last pot of soup, Wakita Kanenori stood aside wearing a chef's hat, looking like he was hosting guests at a high-end restaurant. "Please enjoy the meal, everyone. If you need anything, don't hesitate to call me."

From his face, Gao Mo vaguely caught a sense of accomplishment, as if he genuinely enjoyed the moment of serving his culinary creations.

Was this really Rum, the Number Two of that organization?

...

"Boom—!"

The rain outdoors had eased slightly, but it showed no signs of stopping.

As Gao Mo and the others began their feast, on the other side of Beika Town, an entire intersection was locked in a massive traffic jam.

Toru Amuro's sports car was stuck right in the middle, unable to budge an inch, rendering his top-tier driving skills entirely useless.

Seeing that traffic wouldn't be recovering anytime soon, Toru Amuro abandoned hesitation, leaped straight onto the roof of his car through the rain, and started sprinting across the hoods of jammed sedans, gritting his teeth.

Hurry!

His light golden hair, drenched and plastered by the rain, clung tightly to his cheeks.

His memory seemed to drag him back to that agonizing night.

Just a moment's delay had led to his close friend dying under Akai Shuichi's gun...

He could not let his neighbor-boy fall into Rum's hands because of him.

No matter what had happened before, once the evaluation officially began, Gao Mo had no way out. Either he became a pawn controlled by Rum, or else he could only...

"Hah! Hah!"

Toru Amuro took a large stride across the street, spotting a black sedan driving away in the distance.

Could it be?

Ignoring the black sedan entirely, Toru Amuro panted heavily as he rushed into the open Kudo residence. Seeing the lively scene in the dining room near the foyer, he froze in place like a drowned rat.

"Buzz!"

An email landed on his phone.

"Don't be too hasty, Bourbon. As for the candidate... observe him a little longer.—Rum."

Inside the luxury black sedan driving through the rain, Rum pulled off his eyepatch and fake buckteeth with a cold expression, revealing the fierce-looking, bald-headed middle-aged man beneath.

Apart from the email sent to Toru Amuro, there was another reprimand email from the Boss.

"Are we just leaving like this?" the driver asked.

"No real threat. Looks like our intelligence was flawed. Bourbon could never take a liking to a fellow like that," Rum glanced sideways at the hazy villa behind them through the rainy screen. "Even if Bourbon really has some designs, wasting time on trash like that is still a good thing."