S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 3 Chapter 13

Smiling Murderer 12 - Case Analysis

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Relying only on the letter, Zhan Zhao accurately guessed the description of the perpetrator, even his physical features were very close to his guess, and they were able to arrest him straight away… Once the news came out, the whole police station exploded once again.

Although it is not the first time that Zhan Zhao shocked people, since SCI’s investigations are rarely done when there are no clues at all, there are not many opportunities for him to play. In this case, the other departments had originally heard that several important witnesses had died and that it would most likely become an unsolved case, so they all had the mentality of simply watching the show. However, they did not expect that Zhan Zhao would give them such a shocking surprise.

When Bao Zheng heard the news, he unconsciously patted his chest, saying in his heart… the person I value is showing his face. (Angel: Showing face refers to being honored or praised because of achievements, with brilliance on the face.)

When they returned to the SCI office, everyone felt comfortable. Liu Qing and Shen Zhongyuan had always heard others saying that Zhan Zhao is a monster, one that can’t shoot straight but can catch a thief, and they finally saw it today.

Liu Qing is a relatively straight forward person who admires those who are capable. Today, Zhan Zhao convinced him thoroughly. He went over to Zhan Zhao and asked, “Dr. Zhan, what is the mystery of this? How did you guess it? Incredible.”

Zhan Zhao smiled, “It’s just a coincidence, this time I was lucky.”

“How can it be a coincidence?” Shen Zhongyuan said, “There must be a mystery.”

Bai Chi has always been in the stage of humbly learning. He pulled a stool over and waited next to them.

“It just so happens that the person’s belongings need to be examined and tested, and his identity should also be verified.” Bai Yutang sat down on the sofa, “Gongsun’s autopsy results will also take a while before they come out. Cat, explain how you guessed it.”

Zhan Zhao looked at him helplessly – Are you making trouble?

Bai Yutang smiled and raised his eyebrows – No way, I’m so impressed I could die!

Zhan Zhao glared at him, and Bai Yutang pulled him to sit down.

“Let’s talk about the physical characteristics of that person first.” Liu Qing said, “Why were they all correct?”

“Well… in fact, the physical characteristics are not speculated first, it’s actually the opposite. Physical appearance, features, clothes, and such, are all guessed at the end. The first speculation is something else.”

“Can you elaborate,” Bai Chi asked, “what was the first thing you speculated?”

“Hmm.” Zhan Zhao thought for a while, then said, “I have used this technique many times before, the speculation is built on the basis of assumptions.”

“En.” Everyone nodded.

“First of all, based on some of the clues, I inferred one of the most critical assumptions, which is that this person may have a split personality, and the accuracy of this assumption is about 50%.” Zhan Zhao said.

“En.” Everyone nodded. They all knew about split personalities, and knowing how Zhan Zhao speculates, the possibility is absolutely over 50%.

“Knowing about their split personality, I can vaguely create a preliminary image of that person in my mind.” Zhan Zhao said, “Every type of patient will have the same characteristics. For example, if you have a cold, you will sneeze, your throat will be sore, your temperature will rise, and so on… For patients with mental illness, there are in fact some obvious symptoms.”

Everyone nodded, as everyone could understand this.

“Let’s look at that person’s different personalities.” Zhan Zhao said, “Between those personalities, there are obvious strengths and weaknesses.”

After listening, everyone thought about it and nodded.

“The formation of split personalities can actually be caused by multiple reasons,” Zhan Zhao said, “but at the end of the day, it’s for self-protection. Who needs self-protection?”

“A relatively incompetent person who is often bullied and who is too weak, who is unable to change themselves or their environment.” Bai Chi said.

Zhan Zhao nodded, “Correct.”

Zhao Hu looked at Bai Chi, and Bai Chi embarrassedly said, “This is normal. When I was bullied as a child, I often thought about how I could become stronger, dreaming at night that I could become another person.”

“This is a very good way of having it develop.” Zhan Zhao said, “One of the symptoms of a split personality is that they are very disgusted with their current self, and they create a new self which is different from their original self. After creating the new self, there is the presence of the two in the body. The two will communicate with each other internally, it’s just that you, the container, may not know.”

When everyone heard this, they were a little at a loss, saying in their hearts… To put it bluntly, the only thing in the body that can think is the brain, and thinking exists because of our consciousness… In other words, if there’s no consciousness, that person is just an empty shell.

“When you have created a new personality, your previous personality will become a little more at peace with itself.” Zhan Zhao said, “Take a cowardly person for example, once they create a stronger personality, the original one will be more cowardly, and will settle for cowardice. Or an incompetent person, once they have developed a particularly capable personality, they will often be content with their incompetence.”

After listening, everyone nodded and felt a little emotional… This split personality, sometimes it is also a kind of helplessness, and of course, there are occasional abnormalities.

“There are three basic personalities in this person… The first is the original. The second is capable, very careful and steady, doing things in an orderly manner while leaving no clues. The third one is cruel and paranoid. People with obsessive compulsive disorder are generally not always competent, let alone cowardly, but most of them are paranoid.”

Everyone nodded.

“According to these two derived personalities, I can make further assumptions.” Zhan Zhao said, “This series of cases would have been quite complete, but there were always little traces left. It felt like things were not done well, especially when we were putting pressure on them. This time, Guo Cheng’s case is the best proof that unnecessary actions were taken.”

Everyone nodded, and Bai Chi asked, “Then… when we caught this person just now, was the good-for-nothing he was scolding the original? The self that keeps holding them back?”

“No,” Zhan Zhao waved his hand, “it should be the paranoid one.”

Everyone was taken aback, and some of them didn’t understand, so they waited for Zhan Zhao to explain in detail.

“Incompetence and bullying usually produces two general emotions.” Zhan Zhao said, “One is helplessness and the other is hatred.”

Everyone nodded, this is indeed the case.

“The personality that is created by helplessness is an almost omnipotent character who can solve all of the things that the original cannot solve. The personality created by hatred is a ferocious character who can strike those who have hurt the original with unrelenting vengeance.” Zhan Zhao said, “But these personalities have one thing in common.”

“What do they have in common?” Everyone asked.

“Protecting the original.” Zhan Zhao said, “Generally, with split personality disorder, if there are two personalities, the basic traits of both will be the same; splitting the strong one to protect the otherwise weaker one, similar to a cry for help and the rescue sent for them. However, once multiple personalities split, such as seven or eight, or even more than ten or twenty, then it’s really abnormal. At that time, some personalities will have a sense of crisis, feeling that they get to use the body less and less, and will grow a hatred for the original. Those who are more ambitious will want to extend the time that they are in control of the body, thus devouring similar personalities, and finally sealing the original away to permanently monopolize the body.”

Everyone began to recall certain movies about split personalities.

“In fact, the shaper of the split personality is the original, and the existence of multiple personalities originally served the original. In other words, the original is kind to the split personalities, and the split personalities are responsible for the original. The personality that attacks the original in turn shows his ingratitude and irresponsibility. Standing out among many personalities indicates his excellence, and the brutal strangulation of the original indicates his ferocity.” Zhan Zhao summed it up, “So, with multiple abnormal personalities, the end result is often self confusion, or complete devilry.”

“In other words, is the perverted killer in the movie real?” Zhao Hu asked with his eyes wide open.

Zhan Zhao smiled and said, “Don’t worry too much, splitting personalities is a technical task, it’s not like you can split if you want to split. Most people use normal ways to relieve their stress, only a very small number of individuals will be driven to develop split personalities themselves. There is also some research that proves that similar to physical illnesses, many mental illnesses can be inherited.”

Everyone sighed helplessly. The most tragic part of this tragedy lies in the perpetuity of it, which can be considered a kind of Matthew effect. (Angel: The Matthew effect is the idea that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.)

“These three personalities are chaotic when committing murder,” Zhan Zhao said, “so while they are elusive, there are still clues left behind.”

Everyone felt that this was reasonable.

“But the case changed when it came to dealing with the aftermath, especially when it was discovered that the three people began to appear in segments, and the way things were handled became very different – Regarding the point of causing Guo Cheng’s death and decisively cutting off any clues, it can be seen that the murderer is very clean, rigorous, and has a very high IQ. With the method he used to kill Guo Cheng, which we still do not understand, it can be seen that this time it was the second personality.” Zhan Zhao said, “But on the matter of gathering a third body and sending us a letter, he was stupid, arrogant and, of course, extremely paranoid, thus revealing his third personality.”

Everyone understood. Now that they have thought about it, it is indeed the same as what Zhan Zhao said.

“With the understanding of these two created personalities, I began to infer about the original personality.” Zhan Zhao said, “This person will be the opposite of competent, rigorous, paranoid, cruel, and arrogant.”

Everyone was taken aback and thought about it for a while – That’s right!

“In other words, he is incompetent, careless, kind, easy-going, and inferior.” Zhan Zhao said.

“Mhmm,” Bai Chi said, “so that’s how it was speculated.”

“But people with such qualities do not have much in common in terms of appearance, right?” Shen Zhongyuan asked.

Zhan Zhao nodded, Shen Zhongyuan is worthy of being a Little Zhuge, very smart and quick thinking, “Indeed, but there is the caveat that the original personality is aware of what the two created personalities have done! First of all, they did bad things, and the bad things were done using his body because he raised them. Therefore, he is very guilty and worried, and that’s why he’s afraid.” (Angel: Little Zhuge, or 小诸葛, I believe refers to Zhuge Liang, Liu Bei's principle advisor during the Three Kingdoms period in China.)

After everyone listened, their hearts moved slightly… It’s really not a magical skill, it’s just reasoning, and it’s very simple if done step by step. It’s human nature, it just needs to be connected and sorted out clearly, though the difficulty of skipping the process and directly coming up with the results is too high!

“The actions of good people after they have done bad things have common characteristics.” Zhan Zhao said, “Therefore, I have three characteristics that I used to speculate about the appearance of this person.”

“What are they?” Zhao Hu can understand a lot of what Zhan Zhao just said when the sentences are separate, but when they are connected, he feels like he is listening to a foreign language.

“First, split personality, second, cowardly and incompetent, and third, a good person who has done bad things.” Zhan Zhao smiled and said, “With these three characteristics, as well as my knowledge from experience in psychology and the circumstances of this case, I can make some inferences… Although there is a possibility that half of them will be inaccurate, at least half of them are accurate. As long as the number of clues used for the speculation increases, the number of clues that align with the speculations will also increase. If a person has six characteristics and we are able to guess three correctly, then it will be clear enough to be able to distinguish him!”

After listening to Zhan Zhao’s words, everyone had the sudden realization that it was really exquisite reasoning.

“I assumed that he has a beard because when a good person has done bad things, they must feel afraid, so they will want to cover up as much of their face as possible. He walks close to the side because he has been an honest man for too long, and honest people are disciplined, but often bullied by people, making them insecure, so while walking, they like to stick to the side and stay near the wall. He did something bad and he saw that the police posted a warrant for his arrest, causing him to become flustered and want to run away, so his walking must be fast. He is inexperienced, and not confident or rigorous enough, so he doesn’t know how to conceal himself. He lowered his head to hide his appearance, but that made him even more suspicious…” Zhan Zhao explained, “and so on. Everything that I speculated was based on those three characteristics, and with enough imagination, you can come up with more. The reason I would say it’s a coincidence is because the general premise is right – he has split personalities. In other words, if he does not have split personalities, then all of the speculations this time are wrong.”

Everyone looked at each other, and Liu Qing sighed, “It’s amazing.”

“Dr. Zhan, there’s one thing I still don’t understand.” Shen Zhongyuan said.

“En,” Bai Chi nodded, “there’s a bit I don’t understand as well.”

Zhan Zhao smiled, Shen Zhongyuan and Bai Chi are really smart.

Because Bai Yutang has been with him for so many years, he can probably guess the meaning of his words. Moreover, Bai Yutang is smart and his thought process doesn’t necessarily follow the logical steps. When faced with some problems, he usually does not need to think about it too much to be able to understand it, which is something that is usually attributed to one’s sixth sense. His sixth sense is incredibly strong, basically above everyone else’s .

Luo Tian, Ma Han, as well as Wang Chao, and Zhang Long… are all logical and understand his method well enough.

Zhao Hu and Liu Qing are the kind of people who have very good receptive capabilities, but they have relatively poor memory and inertia. These people tend to understand when listening, but as soon as they are done, they will forget and will be unable to do it to themselves.

Shen Zhongyuan and Bai Chi are good at learning. They are clearly organized, and after they mostly understand, they can immediately ask about the parts that they do not fully understand, which is enough to prove that they truly understand.

Zhan Zhao glanced at Bai Chi subconsciously… and couldn’t help feeling a little emotional in his heart. Bai Chi’s IQ and talents were not shown because of his unfortunate childhood and lack of self-confidence. If he could have had good opportunities for development when he was younger, his capabilities would be limitless. At least he is able to be as capable as he is today. No wonder Zhao Zhen always says – ‘Chi Chi is a wasted genius, a bullied child’. Of course, he is also the one responsible for the bullying. Fortunately, he is now responsible for taking over and slowly developing Bai Chi’s self-confidence.

“Are you guys wondering why I speculated that he had a bag, and that … the bag contained a bomb?” Zhan Zhao asked.

“That’s right!” Bai Chi clapped his hands, “That’s it!”

Shen Zhongyuan also nodded, and he couldn’t help feeling that Bai Yutang’s inseparability from Zhan Zhao is really impressive. Staying around a person like Zhan Zhao for a while makes people get goosebumps.

“This has nothing to do with psychological reasoning,” Zhan Zhao said, “its…”

Before he could finish speaking, the phone in his pocket suddenly vibrated. Zhan Zhao took it out and saw that it was a text message, and that the sender was – Zhao Jue.

Zhan Zhao narrowed his eyes slightly, saying in his heart, no, this case has nothing to do with Zhao Jue.

Bai Yutang glanced at it and asked, “What’s wrong with Zhao Jue? Didn’t he say that he would be very busy during this time and would not contact us for a long time?”

Zhan Zhao helplessly opened the message and he saw that it only contained a few words – Zhao Jue sent him a congratulatory message.

“Ahem…” Bai Yutang choked on his sip of coffee. Zhan Zhao tightened his grip on his phone and gritted his teeth, “He’s crazy, how old is he?!”

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

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

Translated: July 28/29, 2021