Chapter 14 Chapter Four

Time was delayed due to traffic jams on the way. When everyone arrived at the Sun Hall in Ueno, it was already past one o'clock, and Mitch Magawa's performance was coming to an end. Because it was during the summer vacation, there were so many children who came to see the performance, and the spacious hall seemed very chaotic.There was no place in the front row, so Qumu and his wife had to squat at the front of the central aisle.Junhei and Shoko were standing close to the side of the stage, Gohara was a little further away, and the detectives were also scattered in the auditorium. The performance seemed to be reaching its climax.In the center of the stage, illuminated by the white lights emerging from the dark auditorium, there was a table with a glass box on it.Mitch Magawa was wearing a black tuxedo, and a white dove appeared out of nowhere and put it in a glass box.

The magician, who seems to be able to turn decay into magic, waved his graceful fingers and covered the glass box with a white cloth.With the yelling of one, two, three, the white cloth was lifted, and there was nothing in the glass box, and the white dove also disappeared.Repeat the action of closing and lifting again, and several white pigeons that should have disappeared have increased.Mitch lifted the lid of the box and let all the white pigeons fly into the field. The applause was sparse. "Always the same trick!" yawned a child sitting near Junping.Perhaps because of the loud Hungarian dance music whirling around the stage, Mitch, who seemed puzzled by the audience's reaction, said with a dazed expression:

"Thank you for your warm support... Next, let's start the show of disappearing into nothingness! Any audience raise your hand, I can make everything you want to disappear It's missing, how? Who would like to come up?" With Mitch's hawking voice, there were eagerly raising hands everywhere, but before these people, Qu Mu's wife had already rushed to the stage and handed out a big paper bag. "Oh! It's a paper bag from the supermarket? Something so heavy must be cabbage! Cabbage is quite expensive these days. My wife will be very happy if I make it disappear and bring it home. She has been worrying about the price recently. ! Then, I'm going to start changing!"

He put the paper bag into a glass box, covered it with a white cloth, one, two, three—just like the white dove disappeared, the whole paper bag disappeared.No matter how carefully you look, there is still only air left.Junping naturally ran to the side of the stage, leaning against the stage to watch. "Mr. with glasses, if you're so mistrustful, you can come up on stage and put your hand in there to see if it feels weird to touch the disappearing kale?" Junping really followed his words and climbed onto the stage to visit.I put my hand in the box, but I didn't touch anything.But he didn't expect the feeling of being in contact with nothing but air to be so unpleasant. He felt as if his hand was going to be sucked into a different world, so he immediately pulled it out.

"Next, change it back." The magician covered and lifted the white cloth in front of the military plane, and the paper bag reappeared intact again.There was another burst of applause. Mitch peeked at the contents of the paper bag half-jokingly. "It's kale, as it should be. Or two—the lady is rich!" Mitch took the kale out of the paper bag and held it up for the audience to see.There was roaring laughter from the auditorium.Indeed—it really is kale.Junping thought the magic would continue, but Mitch seemed to have no other actions. "Has the trick been done?"

"Yes! What else should I do?" Junping snatched the paper bag from Mitch's hand, grabbed the bottom of the bag by mistake in a panic, another kale slipped out of the paper bag and rolled down the stage, leaving only a pile of rolled newspapers—— "How... how did you turn 30 million yen into cabbage? Just now it contained 30 million yen!" "Young man, don't be joking. Deceiving a magician will bring disaster to three generations!" Mitch, who was laughing loudly, fell silent suddenly, because the detectives ran onto the stage, and one of them showed his ID.

"Ah!" Mitch glared at him.Five minutes later, the backstage full of rare treasures caused a commotion. "No matter what, I can't tell you the secret of that magic." Mitch kept shaking his head.There seems to be a stubborn personality under his amiable appearance. "I think he is an accomplice in the kidnapping and will not tell us the truth." "It's not that simple, is it?" Junping said worriedly. "I don't think there was any money in the paper bag in the first place... Is that so, Mr. Qumu? You'll excuse yourself for forgetting something and come back home once we've walked out of your house. At that time, you were going to take out the money, Let’s put in kale instead? The real deal is at your place where there’s no police and we’re not there, isn’t it?”

Qu Mu, with his head in his hands, finally said, "I'm sorry!" He took out the envelope that Junping had glanced at this morning from his pocket. "This is what the prisoner sent this morning." There is a photo in the envelope.The photo is strangely elongated, with a man in an ugly mask holding a girl, with a gun pointed at her temple.The bottom half of the photo appears to be cut off.Only the chest of the man is seen, and only the upper body of the girl is visible.The background is empty. "There is also this note." The note reads: The call at noon was a play for the police.Although the call indicated that the ransom money should be taken to the Sun Hall in Ueno, in fact, in order to deceive the police, magazines had to be stuffed into the paper bag, and the ransom money was put in the same paper bag and left at your home.The house must not be locked.Violate this order and kill your daughter immediately.

A bunch of emotionless stereotyped words lined up. "Why don't you show us this letter? If we know this letter, we can also take contingency measures!" "But, if you imitate it like this, A Ling may..." Qumu held the photo tightly.Nahara peered carefully behind him as if trying to eat the photo.A Ling in the photo does not look like Qu Mu Zhuangzao. "Hurry back to Qumu's house!" "That's ridiculous. If thirty million yen can be turned into cabbage, then I can turn the bank into a vegetable stand." Mitch's voice came from behind.Walking out of the backstage, an hour later, everyone returned to Qumu's apartment.After entering the room, Qu Mu's eyes glazed over and stopped.The paper bag was still placed next to the telephone, and the 30 million yuan bundles of banknotes inside were still intact, lying there quietly.

The high-pitched ringing of the telephone stopped the white turban who was about to speak. It was the call from the prisoner—I don't know if everyone's intuition is so, everyone immediately put on the same posture as at noon. Qu Mu slowly picked up the microphone with nervous hands.