N-A-A Chapter 54 The End of the Museum Incident
Chapter 54 The End of the Museum Incident
The train sped from Qibao City to Feiyun City. Amidst the slight swaying, Detective Hugo was curled up in a spacious seat in the first-class carriage, catching up on sleep, with a large pile of cultural relics and souvenirs he had obtained from the Qibao Museum beside him.
"I have an older sister who really likes these things," the detective explained at the museum's souvenir shop...
Suddenly, the detective, who was catching up on sleep, frowned, then raised his hand to rub his neck and painfully opened his eyes.
"I really shouldn't have slept on public transport..."
Hugo grimaced and looked around. He noticed that Azure, sitting opposite him, was silently closing her eyes, deep in thought and seemingly lost in thought.
The girl didn't notice Hugo getting up; instead, Eevee, half-asleep beside her, gently wagged its tail and greeted the detective on behalf of its owner.
"Good morning, Eevee! Have you decided which form you want to evolve into?" Hugo was very welcoming, yawning as he chatted with Eevee face to face.
“Buyi…”
Upon hearing the detective mention this, Eevee looked conflicted, and its cries became hesitant. After thinking for a long time, the little guy finally gave up and pointed with its tiny paw at the blue creature beside it.
“That won’t do, little Eevee. How can you let others decide your life?” Hugo, acting like a life coach, took the initiative to enlighten Eevee. “What truly controls your life is not others, but your own heart.”
"By the way, you probably don't understand the differences between the various evolutionary forms, right? I have a documentary here that studies the mystery of Eevee's evolution..." The detective fiddled with his smartphone, pulled up the video file, and placed the phone in front of Eevee.
Unfortunately, Eevee wasn't interested in Professor Yamanashi, who had a big beard, in the video. After glancing at him twice, it turned its head away, curled up its tail, and continued sleeping.
Instead, Hugo's Piplup in his Poké Ball moved, jumped out of the ball, turned the phone in front of Eevee around, and started watching a documentary with great interest.
.
"Hugo." Sometime later, Azure finished her endless contemplation, opened her eyes, and cast her clear gaze upon the detective.
"Oh? Is there something you need?"
“I’ve figured it out.” The girl pressed her ten fingers together, standing like a model of an iron tower on the small table in front of her seat. “I understand what that lingering sense of unease was during the Qibao Museum incident.”
"I'd like to hear more details." The detective rubbed his shoulder with one hand and gestured with the other, indicating that he was willing to listen attentively.
"You and King Lantana are actually in cahoots. He deliberately sided with Team Plasma to cooperate with your plan."
The girl's tone was firm. Meanwhile, despite the excellent soundproofing of the first-class carriage and the lack of concern about eavesdropping, Bilan still kept her voice very low.
Hugo neither confirmed nor denied this, but simply shrugged as if instructing a student, and asked the question that would be obvious to any criminal investigator: "So, what about the evidence? Is the information you have sufficient to support the entire logical chain of deductions?"
"The call inviting you to the Qibao Museum was made by Yueju. The information you gave me from the beginning is enough to explain everything," the girl said to Hugo with a wry smile. "You didn't hide anything from me from the beginning, and I only found out this fact just now after I boarded the train!"
"Although the evidence is a bit weak, you don't need to blame yourself for it, Azure."
Hugo, in a very mentor-like manner, comforted his assistant: "The defection of a top-tier trainer is big news in itself, and everyone will be surprised. It is a common phenomenon that the brain temporarily stops working due to shock."
“What I didn’t expect was that you could actually convince a Champion Trainer to do something like that!” Azure said. “To become an undercover agent, infiltrate the enemy, lie low, and save everything at the crucial moment! Just like a character in a spy movie.”
“If it were Touko who wrote the script, Yueju would definitely have made a heroic sacrifice in the penultimate act.” The detective said sarcastically. “All I did was give him a push when he made his decision. Whether he was misunderstood or ultimately gained honor, it was all his own choice.”
The detective, with an expression that suggested he had "done something insignificant," asked Azure again, "I'm more interested in how you used logical reasoning to arrive at this conclusion."
Without hesitation, the assistant explained clearly: "If Lantachi really intends to betray us, she can simply use her status to get Director Kidate to entrust the stone to her for safekeeping. In this way, Team Plasma can obtain the target without paying any price, and Lantachi can easily find an excuse to fool everyone by saying something like being attacked."
But he agreed to your plan, and even induced most of the Plasma Team members to act according to the original plan. This shows that he is not on the side of Plasma Team, but rather colluded with you, Hugo, who devised the plan.
"No, this only shows that Blueberry is not entirely on Team Plasma's side, and it does not rule out the possibility that he is an opportunistic gambler who changes sides with the wind."
Despite being the person in the world who knew the details of the case best, Hugo calmly questioned it logically.
"Ha! If he is that kind of person, then his act of revealing his identity at the end is inexplicable."
The assistant astutely pointed out the flaw: "If Blueberry wasn't entirely on Team Plasma's side and was just a fence-sitter, then his decision to deliberately charge into the police encirclement to seize the Dark Stone wouldn't make sense. There's a significant contradiction here, and the only explanation is the phone call Blueberry made to you on the way here!"
"So it really is that matter?" Hugo clicked his tongue unhappily, referring to Lantana's unauthorized appearance and the ensuing brawl with the police. "Unauthorized collaborators are a real headache. Hopefully, Team Plasma hasn't noticed this problem yet."
On the day of the museum operation, Blueberry's attack from the sky ultimately failed. The police formed a human wall to separate Hugo from Blueberry's Bisharp, and the two sides later engaged in a fierce Pokémon battle.
In the end, the Dark-type Elite Four member of the Unova region fought his way out and escaped unscathed. According to Azure's assessment, Cranberry's command skills during the final breakout surpassed the level of most Elite Four-level trainers.
It's easy to imagine that after this battle, this gambler king who betrayed the alliance will be forced to flee into the underworld. Even if the United Alliance might temporarily refrain from stripping Yueju of his title to preserve its reputation, there will be no turning back between him and the alliance. Apart from a handful of people who know the inside story, Yueju will become a thorn in the side of all his righteous comrades; it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that he has been betrayed and abandoned by everyone.
"To me, the most suspicious thing about the whole incident is actually the media coverage of it today."
Hugo tapped the newspaper beside him with his fingertip and continued, "Given the efficiency of United Media, last night's police operation should have been a front-page story in today's morning paper, but..."
Hugo turned the newspaper to the front, where the headline read, “President of the German company Zvocchi visits United States and has cordial talks with the president of the alliance”, and below it was a photo of the gray-haired old man walking down from the cabin of the giant cruise ship.
"This kind of transactional news usually only gets squeezed into the corner of the second page, but now it has taken up the front page. Moreover, the newspaper inside doesn't mention anything about what happened at Qibao Museum. Not only that, even the robbery that caused a huge commotion yesterday morning has become much less popular online."
"Is it because of the negative impact of the Heavenly King's betrayal?" Azure asked, speculating.
"That's a possibility, after all, this news would make the league look foolish. In fact, there are quite a few forces in the media who want to see the league make a fool of itself. In this incident, the league and their opponents have maintained a strikingly consistent stance."
“I see.” With the detective’s hint, the assistant quickly found the answer. “Those opponents of the Alliance are colluding with Team Plasma. They don’t want information about Blueberry’s betrayal to be leaked.”
Hugo smiled knowingly. "That's true, but that's no longer something a private detective like me needs to concern myself with."
The train was running smoothly, Ibu was sleeping peacefully, and Bogarman was still watching a documentary, wearing the small headphones Hugo had given him.
"Hugo, wouldn't it be inappropriate for the museum to hand over the Dark Stone directly to the police?" Azure suddenly remembered this and asked with a chill.
After the incident, Aloe and Mu Li, the deputy curator whom they contacted by phone, agreed that it was not safe to keep the Founding Stone on display at the Qibao Museum, so they officially handed the stone over to the Qibao City Police.
"The Plasma Cluster could very well and has the capability to infiltrate the Alliance. Wouldn't it be unsafe to blindly trust the police like this?"
“It’s not that it’s not very safe.” Hugo was still rubbing his neck, it seemed that his stiff neck was really serious. “It’s that it’s absolutely not safe, otherwise Mr. Blueberry wouldn’t have bothered to be an undercover agent.”
"Isn't the situation terrible now?" The assistant couldn't hold back any longer and asked loudly.
"Keep your voice down, Azure." Hugo gestured for silence.
"What was handed over to the police was actually the same fake item that had been stolen before. After recovering the stolen item, I used black clay to cover up the text on the bottom of the fake item and gave it to Officer Jenny as the real thing. The police didn't even notice."
"Then...then really?"
Hugo reached into a pile of souvenirs and rummaged through them, finally finding a dark, oddly shaped stone: "I'm going to give this to my sister in Sinnoh as a souvenir. After all, the first principle is to surprise her."
The girl opened her mouth wide, remained silent for a long while, and then said in a very unnatural manner.
“Um… I have a friend who lives in the snow-capped mountains, and his house is quite big… I suddenly wanted to give him a souvenir that can also be used as a decorative item.”