MM Racing Chapter 188 Solution - Method of Identifying Identity
Chapter 188 Solution - Method of Identifying Identity
Chapter 198 Solution - Methods of Identifying Identity
Naza thought that after experiencing the double shock of the Feather Residence and Miss Touko, she would no longer be surprised by any unexpected events in this house.
However, the detective sitting behind the desk in the reception room easily shattered her composure.
Generally speaking, the figures depicted in paintings are always more beautified than the originals, but the young detective in the white coat looks exactly like the figure in the painting at the door.
It neither enhanced nor dulled the color; it felt like pouring one glass of water into another glass of the same size…
Speaking of water, as soon as Sabrina found a suitable seat in the reception room, green vines served fresh tea to everyone present. Following the vines, one could see a Turtle with a tender shoot on its head casting a spell, located halfway through the living room.
Is that one of the detective's Pokémon? What kind of acrobatic performance is this? Why use a move from so far away?
Sabrina's gaze was drawn to the Grass Turtle, completely oblivious to Azure's actions beside her—the detective's assistant routinely took the second teacup from the "vine whip" and passed it to the detective. Everything moved with effortless grace…
That being said, there are indeed differences between the detective in person and the artwork.
Turning her gaze away from the grass turtle, Sabrina suddenly had a flash of inspiration and remembered that the detective's real black hair had a slightly different sheen than in the painting, the latter having a hint of dark gold.
But this was probably just an artistic consideration by the painter to depict sunlight... truly a useless inspiration.
As the young lady from Kanto was lost in thought, the detective spoke up—
“Nice to meet you, Miss Naz. It seems you recently disembarked from the Royal Union and, through the introduction of retired mathematics professor Fischer, came here to investigate the truth behind the King of Blueberries' wins and losses on the gambling ship—am I right?”
Is this some new kind of predictive ability?
Startled, Naz turned around instantly and looked suspiciously at Azure, who had followed her into the reception room.
“I didn’t inform the detective beforehand,” the assistant sighed, seemingly unsurprised. “Besides, you didn’t tell me any of this information, did you? What is the Royal Union? And what is its connection to Mr. Blueberry?”
Out of a strange sense of pride, Touko deliberately chose to communicate with N while Bilan was out. Therefore, she was unaware of the casino incident.
Let me explain!
Fortunately, my friend, junior colleague, and landlady didn't have to abide by the confidentiality rules of detective work, and proudly shared the information she possessed—
"The Royal United States is a casino located on the sea, where Mr. Blueberry nearly wiped out Team Plasma..."
From the moment Yueju built the casino to N winning the roulette game, Touko narrated the entire event with remarkable fluency, like a film director instructing a scene. Of course, he also added embellishments, including many plot points not mentioned in N's account, but which made the transitions and connections in the story more logical.
“Yes, these are things I witnessed firsthand on the Royal United Ship.” Naz nodded respectfully, thanking Douzi, who was drinking water as he spoke until his throat was dry.
"But what I'm more curious about is why you were able to tell my identity and purpose at a glance, Detective? Did Blueberry or Fischer inform you in advance?"
Detective Hugo shook his head: "No, Mr. Lanju must have a lot of cleanup work to do recently, and that old scholar Fischer isn't that considerate. I figured out your purpose through other means. As for your identity, Miss Naz is a well-known figure in Kanto and Unova. Even if I can't know you as well as Touko, I'm not so bad as not recognizing you to your face."
"Please explain in detail the purpose of your visit. How did you figure out that my visit is related to that professor?" The curator pressed on relentlessly. "I came to Feiyun City to clear up my doubts, and I don't want any questions to multiply before any doubts are answered."
"It seems Miss Naz is the type who, even when watching magic shows, will carefully study the techniques behind them," Hugo commented, stroking his chin.
"In a world where superpowers truly exist, magic is a form of deception disguised as magic. It can't be left unexposed."
Sabrina activated her superpowers, causing the business card she was still holding to spin and leap like a ballerina, and declared with unusual seriousness.
The detective nodded and then shook his head: "Tricks can't compare to real magic, but until their true nature is revealed, they are genuine miracles."
"Isn't it just another trick like predicting someone's mood by listening to their footsteps or analyzing their origin by observing their clothes?"
Azure, oblivious to the detective's rambling, interrupted his long-winded speech, suggesting that the hierarchical structure of this detective agency wasn't particularly strict.
“Miss Naz, are you wearing any special accessories that can only be purchased on that gambling ship? Or have you changed any habitual movements based on the advice of Blueberry or that professor? This detective especially likes to play tricks by spying on other people’s entire bodies.”
Upon hearing this, the owner looked herself up and down, then recalled the conversation on the gambling ship, and immediately shook her head in denial.
"No, none of that happened. The clothes I'm wearing are new clothes I bought in Raven City after disembarking, and the sunglasses are a style I brought from Kanto. They have nothing to do with the Royal Union. I won't change my habits based on other people's opinions."
"There's no need to examine the entire body; just look at the most conspicuous areas, and you'll understand." The detective, not wanting to continue the discussion, directly revealed the answer—
He pointed to the object swirling between Naz's fingers.
“By observing the business card Miss Naz was holding, I realized that it was Mr. Fischer who gave you my address in Flying Cloud City, and not long ago, I introduced this unemployed scholar to a well-paid job.”
"Hugo, did you already know about Mr. Blueberry's entire plan all along?" Touko was taken aback, his eyes widening as he stared at the detective.
If Hugo already knew the truth about the casino, or even that he himself was an accomplice in the plan, then wasn't she completely fooled by Hugo before? Those deductions weren't detective solutions; they were practically confessions of a criminal.
“No, no, the fewer people who know about a scam, the better.” Hugo gave a sarcastic smile. “No matter how confident that gambling king is, how could he possibly reveal his most precious casino tricks to an outsider like me? I just happened to learn that Yueju was building the Royal Union, so I recommended a talent to Mr. Yueju.”
Since mathematicians can use mathematical analysis to find loopholes in casinos and use foolproof probability algorithms to win every game,
Casinos could also do the opposite: hire more sophisticated mathematicians to preemptively patch the casino's vulnerabilities and find flaws in the seemingly foolproof game-playing algorithm.
Just like Ghost and Dragon type Pokémon, they can also counter each other within the same species.
“Fischer is the mathematician I know who is best at studying the quantitative laws of random phenomena. When I first came to United States, I had dealings with this retired CUHK mathematician while investigating a case of a missing college student—that’s when I gave Fischer my business card.”
“I see. Once you know about the connection between Fischer and me, you can confirm my purpose.” Naz understands Hugo’s reasoning, but she is not satisfied yet.
She then asked, "But how did you recognize that this originally belonged to Professor Fischer from such a small business card?"
“In cases I’ve handled outside of United States, there have been instances of tricks involving switching victims’ business cards to confuse the public. Although I successfully uncovered the perpetrator’s method back then, it wasted a lot of effort. So later, when printing business cards for my own firm, I wondered if I could leave some kind of mark on the cards to identify their origin.”
"You can't design different business cards for everyone, can you?" Bilan was a little dumbfounded. In her impression, detective business cards were like ready-made food samples in a supermarket; anyone you had ever interacted with would basically get one.
“A detective’s time is incredibly valuable; it can’t be wasted on such inefficient work.” Hugo said, opening his business card case and taking out a stack of business cards about five centimeters thick.
"In fact, you only need to memorize one index."
He gripped one end of the stack of business cards and flipped through them as quickly as if turning the pages of a book.
"What did you see?" Hugo asked with a smile.
The three girls saw the same thing—
In the lower right corner of the business card, where the detective's name is printed, the two characters "Hugo" moved slowly and leisurely, like a spiky insect crawling through the grass, changing the terrain strangely several times along the way.
“What does this mean?” Naz asked.
"It's the principle behind film projection," Toko commented with interest. "Persistence of vision stitches together consecutive scenes into a continuous animation."
Only Azure showed a look of sudden realization.
“I see!” she said. “The position of the name and the font of the name have been changed, so that a table can be built to record the intersection of the two indexes! It’s no wonder that the origin can be identified instantly!”
Hugo snapped his fingers crisply—
"That's right. The position of the name can be left or right to represent the initials of twenty-four different names; the different fonts represent different types of people. I have prepared twelve different fonts to cover common professions and specific groups of people in life. For example, the business card in Ms. Nazi's hand looks to me as 'F, scientist'."
It could be said that from the moment he designed this set of business cards, Hugo was hoping that some criminal who was at odds with him would try to frame him by discarding the detective's business card at the crime scene—if such a criminal appeared, Hugo could grasp enough key clues to lock down the suspect the moment he saw the business card.
"Ah, that really narrows it down to just a few people, it's quite interesting," the landlady, who aspires to be a director, said admiringly. "Make one for me sometime."
“These business cards are quite troublesome to manufacture,” the detective frowned, offering his advice. “And when distributing them, you have to strictly follow the classification rules, otherwise preparing them all would be pointless. I’m a little worried about whether you, Douzi, can remember the double index on the business cards.”
So Douzi decisively gave up: "Ah, that's really troublesome. Never mind then."
"But it's quite a coincidence. I remember during the incident at Qibao Museum, you enthusiastically handed out your business cards to all the researchers working there. If there had been a Mr. or Ms. F among them, you wouldn't have been able to guess the truth so cleverly today."
Azure picked up her teacup, took a sip, and said with a relaxed expression.
"No, this time it's not a coincidence."
The detective showed the business card in his hand again, and then asked Naz to show hers as well.
The difference is obvious when comparing the two.
The business cards initially distributed to mathematics professors were blank on the left side, without any indication of the detective agency's address. However, the detective's current business card openly displays "Feiyun City Center, Yuxi Residence," along with the street name and house number.
“When I met Fischl, I didn’t have a fixed office in the United States, so there was no address information on it. It wasn’t until I moved into the Feather Residence that I printed a batch of business cards with the detailed address. And in that year, the only F scholar I met was Fischl.”
The assistant suddenly recalled something from deep within her memory: "Oh dear, no wonder back then..."
"What?" Douzi looked curiously at Bilan, who seemed to want to say something but hesitated.
"It's not relevant to the current topic, but when I first moved into Yuxi Residence and was preparing to share the apartment, didn't Hugo say that he was particularly worried about having to reprint the business cards, changing 'Yuxi Residence' to 'Yuxi Residence First Floor'? It turns out that it was because printing these special business cards was very troublesome."
“Right…” Douzi pondered for a moment, then looked at the detective. “Speaking of which, Xiaolan and I should both have Hugo’s business card. Mine is a limited edition without an address. So what do the words on our business cards represent in terms of profession?”
The two girls had long since forgotten where they had left their business cards, so it was up to Hugo to answer the question himself.
Where has this conversation gone off to...? The detective started to get a headache, looking at Natsumi with an inquiring gaze, hoping that his client wouldn't get impatient with this endless chatter.
The superpowered girl didn't seem to care at all; instead, she looked the detective and his assistant up and down with amusement.
"Hugo, quickly tell me what our occupational classification is? I should be an artist, right? Azure is like a Pokémon trainer or something."
“No,” Hugo said reluctantly. “I don’t have a trainer category in my classification, after all, that’s too broad a requirement. As for you, Douzi, you should make a few movies that can be released first before calling yourself an artist.”
"So what are we in your eyes?"
Douzi waved his arms and shouted some embarrassing lines, but no one would find it strange in this context.
“They’re all unemployed,” Hugo confessed in despair. “The handwriting is a somewhat childish, rounded style.”
"So you're already doing something so rude the moment we meet?"
Azure let out a dry, cold laugh, its gaze as if it were staring at a real Wurmple—please don't discriminate against Bug-type Pokémon.
"Hmm, it seems I should reconsider raising the rent this month."
Douzi seized the opportunity to kick someone when they were down, completely forgetting that the rent for Yuxi Residence was not currently being managed by her, but by her mother.
"I'm just stating the objective facts... Don't project your disappointment in yourself onto those who brought this up."
Amidst the farce, Ms. Naz, the client, secretly covered her mouth and chuckled.
It's unclear what part of the conversation triggered the laughter of this superpowered gym owner.