I am but a child on the shore of a vast ocean filled with the unknown Kung-Fu principles, searching for beautiful tricks and smooth, flowing forms, while honing my footwork and Iron Sand Palm.

–Isaac Newton1

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When I asked, the young elite replied in a voice sharper than before.

If it’s known that I can execute Brain Stopper, I might be misunderstood as the Phantom Fist!

Such unmitigated audacity. Accepted.

“Very well. Let’s proceed to the next question.”

No, does it hurt to listen to someone until the end? If I were the Phantom Fist, there’s no way I’d have such a big fist mark on my head—

It hurts.

“Ah, yes. Mere moments after you all rose three hours ahead of schedule, packed your belongings, and departed, the officers stationed nearby conducted a most courteous search of the premises.”

What…did you say?!

Everyone seemed to have something guilty, so there was a murmur, but I continued without care.

“There were a few pieces of evidence of minor personal deviation, but nothing was as problematic as Mr. Timothy Young’s study. Four burnt telephones were found in the fireplace. For reference, all four handsets were horribly crushed.”

As soon as I added that, the sound of chair legs scraping loudly on the hotel lobby floor was heard.

Those who realized the situation quickly began to distance themselves from Timothy Young.

“So, my question is. Why were there four telephones in Mr. Young’s fireplace?”

Th… This is a conspiracy by the Post Office!! Someone must have broken into my study!!

“The Post Office workers kindly opened the Anti Kung-Fu Lock without damaging it and placed fake evidence inside. Isn’t that quite strange? The inspectors at the scene struggled to break down the door.”

Surprisingly, no one sided with Young.

Waking people up three hours early and bringing them to Scotland Yard was to reduce the time for the culprit to destroy evidence and to proceed with the search.

Instead of burning the telephone beforehand, it was hidden in an appropriate place, indicating that the Phantom Fist thought that neither I nor the police could guess the method of the crime.

Having to leave the house earlier than planned, he seemed to hurriedly try to dispose of the telephones by throwing them into the fireplace, but everything was successfully retrieved in time.

In court, this will undoubtedly serve as solid evidence to prove his guilt.

Wait!! Me, the culprit? That’s absurd!! Everyone! This detective’s premise is entirely wrong!

At this point, one might expect him to give up, but Timothy Young, that is, the Phantom Fist, was still trying to assert his innocence.

It’s illogical to say that the culprit is hiding in this hotel from the start!

Young was passionately trying to win over the people gathered in the lobby.

Look at my wounds. And what about Sir Fawcett’s death? If the telephone was really used to commit murder, the culprit might have executed their trick in London or another city.

He was deploying a reasonable argument, having put some thought into it.

Listening to it, it makes sense.

Mr. Young is right. Without evidence that the culprit is in the hotel, accusing Mr. Young as the culprit is a bit…

Amidst the surge of people already convinced, Lestrade too remained silent, seemingly uncertain.

Just say the word, Holmes. The handcuffs are ready.

Only Watson was faithfully awaiting my instructions.

Then, it’s my job to live up to that trust.

“I do apologize for the dampening of spirits, but as you rightly pointed out, it would be impossible for a criminal in London to target Sir Fawcett, currently residing in Cambridge, over the phone.”

Again, what nonsense―

“Because all the hotel phone lines connected to the outside were cut off in advance. In other words, the call Sir Fawcett received was an internal one.”

“…!!”

A perfect silence enveloped the hotel lobby.

An irrefutable claim.

Even without seeing it directly, I could vividly imagine the expressions of the people on the other end of the phone line.

“As promised, I present the culprit, Sir Fawcett.”

I announced in a voice amplified by the loudspeaker toward the silence-dominated lobby.

-Bang!

Immediately after, the sound of a door being violently opened was heard.

Indeed, splendid work.

Then, Sir Fawcett’s voice echoed in the quiet lobby.

It seemed he had feigned death as instructed, struck down by the culprit’s trick, then hurriedly gotten up to walk over.

Postmaster General… How are you alive…!

The voice of the Phantom Fist, Timothy Young, was thinly trembling with confusion.

Regrettable. It seems even a blind person like me can see how this trial will unfold.

Detective, if it weren’t for you!!

Timothy Young, who was provoked by the Postmaster General, suddenly got angry at me.

And I had already anticipated what a cornered criminal might do and prepared a way to handle it.

Die!

-Kwaaah!

Holmes!!

Watson’s scream came with the sound of the air being shaken.

Realizing that the Phantom Fist had shot a fist bast at the receiver, I firmly grabbed it with both hands.

“Do you think I’ll fall for that?”

I immediately twisted the wrist holding the receiver.

-Bang!

So that the diaphragm was aimed diagonally above my head.

“Ugh…”

The fist blast that shot out from the receiver soared straight into the ceiling, and I heard Timothy Young’s painful groan from beyond the pierced air hole.

“It was worth enduring in the basement all day.”

I placed the phone on the dirt floor, pulled out the blade of the Heavenly Demon Cane to expand the hole, and immediately leapt up to the Upper Floor.

Yes, the first-floor lobby of the hotel where Watson was staying.

“Ugh… Urgh…!”

Timothy Young, who looked neat when he walked through the hotel entrance, was now retching and grimacing in pain.

Even though the force weakened by breaking the floor, it must have been hard to recover as the blow to the abdomen was enough to shatter a skull.

“What on earth…did you do…?”

Timothy Young was struggling to squeeze his voice out.

It must have been absurd for him as the attack intended to kill me over the phone line came back to him.

“I told you, didn’t I? That all the phone lines connected to the outside had been cut. So you should have expected that I was close by while you were on the call.”

The state of the Phantom Fist was in better condition than I expected.

Judging by the fact that there wasn’t a hole in his stomach, it seemed he focused his Self Defense Essence in time to shield himself.

Yeah. If he were the kind of clumsy guy who would die from just this, he wouldn’t have been able to start the serial killings in the first place.

“Hmm.”

Then, my gaze suddenly stopped at the wound on his right arm.

“You managed to pull it off.”

Considering the circumstances, it was clear that as soon as the Phantom Fist launched his fist blast, Watson had targeted the man’s arm with Fingertips.

When she suddenly called my name, I had thought she was startled and left in a daze, but soldiers really are different.

“Excellent. Beyond expectations, truly.”

While keeping my gaze fixed on the Phantom Fist trying to widen the distance, I sent words of praise to Watson.

“Excuse me, but who might you be…?”

“…My mind must be elsewhere. I was still wearing this.”

When Watson didn’t recognize me, I wondered what was going on, but upon reflection, I realized I had forgotten that I was still wearing my disguise mask.

-Tap tap!

After removing the fake nose and chin made of clay, and releasing the acupressure, my features, which were fixed with the face-changing technique, returned to their rightful place.

Now that I was above ground, there was no reason to refrain from smoking anymore.

I immediately took out a pipe from my bosom, lit it with Buddha Fire, and took a puff.

“Now I feel alive.”

“Holmes, was it you…!”

“Disappointing, Watson. I gave you so many hints to recognize me.”

From the moment we left St. Pancras station, I had been moving busily.

The first thing I did was send a telegram to Lestrade’s subordinate, who was waiting on the way to Cambridge, to destroy the tracks.

Watson and the people involved in the lawsuit were delayed for a while, allowing me, who departed London later than them, to arrive in Cambridge first.

“Who in the world winks like that!”

“Well, since I was using the face-changing technique and a disguise, the movement of the eyelids is bound to become unnatural.”

Arriving at the destination a few hours before Watson, I immediately disguised myself as a gardener, pretending to replant trees in the hotel garden and digging a hole to hide underground.

What followed was smooth sailing.

While the group lingered at the hotel, I just had to draw out the sharp spade Essence from the shovel and diligently dig the ground.

I waited for night to come, cut off the telephone line connected to the outside, and waited for the Phantom Fist to move from the cozy burrow I had dug underground.

The rest is exactly as you just saw.

“Damn… If it weren’t for this damn malfunction!!”

Meanwhile, the Phantom Fist, Timothy Young, was cursing while clutching his abdomen and temple with both hands.

Having been hit by his own trick twice, he must not be feeling great.

Honestly, if it were me, I would have taken my life long ago.

“It seems there’s some misunderstanding.”

I pointed my index finger at the side of his head.

“Surely, you don’t think the reason the fist blast bounced back when you called to assassinate Sir Fawcett was because the phone was broken.”

“What, what would you know…!”

“I know it well. The wound on your head is my handiwork.”

“What?!”

Indeed, the clearly engraved fist mark stretching across his temple and forehead was by my arrangement.

To be precise, it’s more accurate to say that the wound was a result of turning back on him what he attempted on Sir Fawcett, so it was self-inflicted.

“It’s simple. You just hold the telephone line and reverse the flow of Essence at the moment Brain Stopper transmits through.”

I held the internal telephone line connected to the phone installed in Sir Fawcett’s room from the basement, continually waiting for the opportunity.

As expected, the Phantom Fist called to take Sir Fawcett’s life, and the Minister pretended to be dead as we had discussed beforehand while answering the call.

The wound on Timothy Young’s head occurred exactly as I mentioned earlier. At the moment he smashed his fist into the telephone, I deployed the Cogwheel Method, returning his trick to him as a result.

“Don’t speak nonsense! As if such a simple thing―”

“Why not blame your own poor imagination and knowledge at times?”

I discussed with the poor frog in the well.

“There are Kung-Fu in the martial world that you do not know.”

The unknown wideness of rivers, and deepness of lakes.

The infinite ocean.

1. TL/N: The original quote is as follows—I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. ️