S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 3 Chapter 6

Smiling Murderer 06 - Hodgepodge

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At about one in the morning, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang finally finished cleaning their room. After taking a bath, Zhan Zhao laid on the bed and fell asleep. Bai Yutang covered him with a blanket and threw the things that needed to be washed into the basket. When he left the room, he saw Lisbon lying in the hallway, and the little lion sleeping while leaning against Lisbon.

“Lisbon, how come you are sleeping at the door?” Bai Yutang walked over and saw that the door to Bai Chi and Zhao Zhen’s room was open, and that Bai Chi was cleaning the room himself.

“Chi Chi,” Bai Yutang walked in, frowning slightly, “where is Zhao Zhen, why are you alone?”

“Oh, he is in the back studio. He has an important performance tomorrow and is preparing his props… He wants to help me, but I told him to practice first since work is important.” Bai Chi said.

Bai Yutang nodded, saying in his heart that this little guy is totally focused on Zhao Zhen and is afraid that others will misunderstand him, “Why didn’t you say anything, we could have helped you.”

“I’m finished.” Bai Chi smiled, “What about Brother? Asleep?”

Bai Yutang shrugged, “He laid down after finishing unpacking.”

Bai Chi smiled, folded the last few pieces of clothing, and put them in the drawer. The room was furnished in a clean and warm style.

Bai Yutang asked Bai Chi to put the things he was going to wash in the basket, as he would take them to the laundry room downstairs.

“Go to bed early,” Bai Yutang said as he closed the door for Bai Chi, “we have to get up early tomorrow.”

“En.” Bai Chi nodded.

After coming out of Bai Chi’s room, Bai Yutang walked forward and saw that the lights in the twins’ room were also on, and he was a little puzzled. After gently pushing open the door, he saw that the two of them were watching a movie while wearing 3D glasses. Bai Yutang hurriedly closed the door and shook his head… this kind of collective lifestyle is really weird.

Going forward and making progress again, Bai Yutang came to the door of Bai Jintang’s room and saw that there was light inside. Bai Yutang pushed the door open, and saw Bai Jintang looking at documents on his desk.

Seeing Bai Yutang push the door open, Bai Jintang asked him, “You haven’t slept yet?”

“En.” Bai Yutang nodded, “I’ll sleep soon. Brother, you’re still up?”

“I’ll sleep after reading this document.” Bai Jintang said.

Bai Yutang glanced at the empty bed in the room, only to remember that Gongsun was performing an autopsy overnight. Just as he was about to leave, he heard Bai Jintang say, “By the way, Yutang.”

“Huh?” Bai Yutang looked at him.

“I forgot to tell you something. The bedrooms in this villa are soundproof.” Bai Jintang said.

Bai Yutang was stunned.

Bai Jintang smiled at him, “If you want to do anything, just close the door, don’t hold back.”

Bai Yutang looked at the sky, saying to Bai Jintang, “Go to bed early.”, then left.

By the time he put the clothes in the laundry room, it was deep into the night. Bai Yutang walked to the window and looked outside. There is a manicured garden in front of him, and their cars are parked by the door. On the high wall surrounding the courtyard, there are cameras with flashing red lights, a fingerprint reader on the big iron gate, and motion sensor alarms.

He looked around again. There are no tall buildings or any other buildings around. In the distance, the police station could be vaguely seen. The street lights on the road are especially bright, and most of the shops are open overnight. Because it is lively, a patrol officer passes by every once in a while.

Shaking his head helplessly, Bai Yutang’s rich criminal investigation experience brought him to a conclusion – the difficulty of attacking this villa is really very, very difficult.

As he was thinking, Bai Yutang suddenly got a little hungry. He walked into the kitchen, and found ingredients in the refrigerator. He quickly made a pot of spaghetti, and the aroma tempted Bai Jintang and the two white lions. Lisbon gnawed on a piece of beef, and the little lion gnawed on a small piece. Bai Yutang asked Bai Jintang, “Brother, do you want some?”

Bai Jintang thought for a while and said, “En… Why don’t I bring Ce a portion… En, that’s right, and the little girl who works with him.” After that, Bai Yutang put together two lunch boxes and set them aside.

After eating the spaghetti, Bai Yutang went upstairs. Getting under the blanket, he put his arms around a certain cat who was already asleep, and fell asleep.

In the police station, everyone who had struggled writing until the early hours of the morning finally finished writing the two 10,000 word self-reflections. Feeling a little numbness in their hands, Liu Qing and Shen Zhongyuan stacked the self-reflections togethers, and suddenly understood the meaning of Bai Yutang asking them to copy the sentence ‘unity is strength’... Sure enough, teamwork is the key, it’s just that… the two knew in their hearts that their tempers were weird and that they didn’t last long anywhere. The members of SCI were all veteran officers and influential people from all departments of the police circle, they are the kinds of people that they don’t know how to get along with.

“Hey,” The takeout Jiang Ping ordered arrived, and as he was nibbling on his pizza, he said to everyone, “I’ll play games all night, you guys can go to sleep, I will keep watch. Tomorrow you might have to go out for work, but I can make up the sleep.”

Liu Qing and Shen Zhongyuan were a little surprised and asked, “Isn’t night duty a shift, we should be off tomorrow morning, right?”

“Oh… Generally, if Boss says we will analyze a case in the morning, we all get together. After the analysis, we can rest in shifts, but we generally don’t want to go back, so we wait and rest together at night.”

“So take the opportunity to rest for a while.” Wang Chao said as he pointed to the lounge, “There are beds, sofas, and blankets.”

Liu Qing and Shen Zhongyuan looked at each other. Shen Zhongyuan patted Liu Qing and said, “Go to sleep, I will play games with Jiang Ping all night.”

“Really?” Jiang Ping was surprised.

Shen Zhongyuan took off his jacket and sat down with him to play games. An hour later, Jiang Ping was so excited that someone was finally playing games with him!

In the forensic room, Ma Xin and Gongsun were performing the autopsy. Seeing so many corpses, Ma Xin sighed as she worked, “Ugh, people are dying more and more nowadays, it's just the beginning of the case and yet so many people are dead, seriously.”

Gongsun smiled, “The one in your hands is a girl, right?”

“En.” Ma Xin nodded,  “The body has been too badly destroyed, I’m looking for the cause of death… huh?”

“What’s wrong?” Gongsun looked at Ma Xin.

“Sir, look at the face of the deceased.” Ma Xin pointed to the corpse being examined. It was extremely decomposed, with protruding eyes and mutilated lips.

Gongsun walked over, took a look, and frowned slightly. He pulled over the extendible magnifying glass mounted above the autopsy table and looked at the corpse’s face… The enlarged face had a slightly strange, stiff smile.

Gongsun raised his eyes and looked at Ma Xin…Without saying anything, the two arranged the other corpses, bringing them together, looked at them one by one, and saw… that the commonality of these corpses is… that there is a weird smile on each face.

“It’s the same as the student who died.” Gongsun frowned, “It seems that this is the cause of death!”

While they were talking, they heard two knocks on the door of the forensic room.

Ma Xin was startled. Gongsun smiled, “Do you still get surprised by that?”

Ma Xin clutched her chest, “Brother has been teaching me how to be delicate and charming. I can’t stand the slightest fright, I must cry when I feel wronged, and yell when I am afraid. Basically, I have to act weak, otherwise I won’t be able to get married!”

Gongsun smiled and shook his head, then went to open the door, and sure enough, he saw Bai Jintang standing at the door, holding two lunch boxes in his hand.

Gongsun had guessed that it was Bai Jintang, and he would usually appear nearby whenever he suddenly thought of him.

“Ah!” Ma Xin was pleased and asked, “Is it a midnight snack?”

Bai Jintang nodded, “It’s spaghetti made by Yutang.”

“We are blessed with good food!” Ma Xin ran over, took a box with a smile, and said thank you to Bai Jintang. Opening the box, she ran over to the corpse while eating, and expressed her admiration, “Captain’s craftsmanship is really bragworthy, he is a good man, both handsome and good at cooking!”

Gongsun looked at Ma Xin helplessly, “Xin Xin, if you want to marry, don’t stare at corpses when you eat, no man can stand it.”

Ma Xin looked depressed, “I really won’t be able to marry… fortunately, I am cute, hehe, he has a poker face and a strong tolerance.”

Bai Jintang moved a chair over and let Gongsun sit down to eat. Glancing around the forensic room, he frowned, “What are you investigating? A massacre? So many corpses?”

“En, there are more than a dozen people, plus there may be some we haven’t found yet.” Gongsun shook his head, “It’s really a massacre… This kind of murderer will definitely be included in the history of criminal investigation.”

Bai Jintang seemed to be a little interested, and asked, “How did so many people die, why is it so bad?”

Gongsun looked at him with a smile, “It’s rare that you are interested in corpses.”

Bai Jintang stretched his fingers out, gently wiped sauce from Gongsun’s mouth, put his finger in his mouth, and said, “I understand you through the corpses.”

Ma Xin nodded while holding the lunch box, “En, that’s normal.”

“That’s right,” Gongsun ate a few more bites and asked Bai Jintang, “were you in Italy in your younger years?”

“En.” Bai Jintang nodded.

“Have you heard of the death smile?” Gongsun asked.

Bai Jintang was taken aback, “That’s the custom of the people on the island, right?”

“En.” Ma Xin nodded, taking the mask pendant from the evidence bag and showing it to Bai Jintang, “Phoenician.”

Bai Jintang took the pendant and glanced at it, before saying, “I seem to have seen it before.”

“Have you traveled to that island?” Gongsun asked curiously.

“En.” Bai Jintang shook his head and said, “This pendant… I seem to have seen someone wearing it,”

……

After hearing Bai Jintang’s words, Ma Xin and Gongsun both stopped eating at the same time. Ma Xin came over and said, “This pendant is very special, I have not seen the same one on Taobao. I also asked a lot of my friends who like jewelry, and they said that they have never seen it.”

Bai Jintang frowned slightly, lowered his head for a moment, then asked Gongsun, “Were those corpses… smiling before they died?”

“Yes!” Gongsun and Ma Xin were a little surprised, how does Bai Jintang know the details relating to the case?

Seeing the two of them looking at him expectantly, Bai Jintang waved his hand and said, “I don’t know anything special, it’s just that… a similar case happened in Italy.”

“Oh,” Gongsun was curious, “similar?”

“En.” Bai Jintang nodded, “I heard my godfather mention it to me.”

“Godfather… Old Leonard?” Gongsun asked.

Bai Jintang nodded.

Ma Xin chewed on the spaghetti, saying in her heart – it’s unreasonable; handsome and mature, the adopted son of a mafia family… Bai Jintang is simply the kind of killer hero in novels written for girls.

“There are still many neo-Nazis in the European continent.” Bai Jintang returned the pendant to Ma Xin, “They often do some incredible and brutal things. Such militants are a headache for the underworld.”

Gongsun nodded. Indeed, the underworld is no better than the Nazis.

“At that time, it seemed that a special group was formed. It was composed entirely of young people, all neo-Nazis. They called their organization Death Smile, and each member had a pendant like this.” Bai Jintang said, “There were also several cases of killing people with death smile poison that year… but the cases later proved to be reckless .”

“Reckless?” Ma Xin and Gongsun were curious, “The dead are still reckless?”

“En.” Bai Jintang nodded, “Those young people experienced some kind of hallucination after taking drugs… It is said that some people feel that they are Hitler’s reincarnation after taking drugs… but they overdosed on the drugs and died bizarrely with a smile on their face. At that time, the police discovered that so many people had died suddenly, and they thought that it was a change in the mafia. Later, they found out that it was a group of ignorant young people who were making a radical move. As a result, the case was closed, and no one died because of the death smile.”

“Neo-Nazis?” Gongsun asked, holding the pendant for a long time, “This… seems to be far away from us.”

Bai Jintang shrugged, “I just saw it once.”

“Asian people rarely have the opportunity to access these, right?” Gongsun frowned slightly.

“Not necessarily.” Ma Xin said, “Now that the internet is united, where can’t you go?”

“At that time, were there any physical disabilities in the dead? And, were they forced to swallow fingers?” Gongsun asked.

“Swallow fingers, swallow their own?” Bai Jintang asked.

“No, someone else’s.” Gongsun said.

Bai Jintang frowned, “That’s the mafia’s method to deal with betrayers, but most of them swallow their own.”

“What do you mean?” Gongsun asked, puzzled.

“After finding the traitor, they cut off their fingers and toes, then forced them to swallow them as a way of representing that he injured his brothers.”

“What about cutting the ears, nose, and eyes?” Gongsun asked.

Bai Jintang frowned, “Why are there so many things… this kind of situation is lynching, right?”

“Will they be eaten by a mouse?” Gongsun asked.

“Oh, this one happens often, it is the best way to destroy the corpse.” Bai Jintang nodded, “There are still some who get eaten alive.”

Ma Xin swallowed the last bite and said, “Sir, why do I feel that the killer we encountered is a hodgepodge?”

“Hodgepodge?” Gongsun laughed, “This name is new.”

“Look at him, he is a neo-Nazi and a gangster, he abuses lynching and destroys his corpses,” Ma Xin said, “They simply just do bad things.”

Gongsun nodded, “Say no more, this is indeed a clue… a hodgepodge!”

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

I got to fly back home this week and I am excited to be back with my family for the next two weeks. It's been so long since I have flown home, I had to drive last time, though I'm not complaining, I enjoyed to 16 hour road trip.

Apart from seeing my family again, I was also able to get the second dose of the covid vaccine! The first does gave me no side effects, but this time I am SUPER tired and have a pretty bad headache, but at least I can relax all day and work on the novel 😊

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: June 28/29, 2021