S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 3 Chapter 30

Smiling Murderer 29 - Decrypt

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A cat is a funny animal. You tell them to come and they prefer to go, you tell them to go and they prefer to come. The big difference between having a dog and having a cat is that one is a positive thinker and the other is a reverse thinker.

To call your dog over, the best way is to crouch down, hold out your hand, wiggle your finger, and call them… Of course, if you have a smile on your face, your dog will surely come bounding over.

But if you have a cat, then the best way to lure him over is not to meet his eyes, but to sit on the sofa and play with a piece of his favourite cat grass… then he will definitely come over.

In Bai Yutang's opinion, Zhan Zhao had a great deal of cat traits in him; he focuses when others can’t, and is unusually lazy when others are focused.

Bai Yutang knew that Zhan Zhao was angry. To be precise, the cat's very high self-esteem that has been built since childhood had been so slightly defeated every time he met Zhao Jue. However, today's frustration was probably more than Zhan Zhao could bear. Being saved by Zhao Jue, that in itself was already irritating to Zhan Zhao. It was not good for Bai Yutang either, and he had some regrets. He was too anxious just now and just blurted it out, it was inevitable that this cat would be in a bad mood after hearing it.

Bai Yutang followed Zhan Zhao into the prison and saw him tapping his chin with one hand while standing outside the meeting room, looking at Deng Che's corpse lying on top of the table, as well as the crowd of people busy beside the corpse.

Bai Yutang went to stand beside him and, of course, would wait for ten minutes without disturbing Zhan Zhao, besides… Bai Yutang absolutely believes that Zhan Zhao can think of the clues to crack this case within ten minutes. He still has confidence in Zhan Zhao, the fact that Zhao Jue can think of it in no way proves that Zhao Jue is smarter than Zhan Zhao, just that Zhao Jue should know some other clues.

Zhan Zhao stood quietly at the entrance of the room for a while, then he frowned slightly and turned his face to look at Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang also turned to meet his eyes.

Zhan Zhao looked at Bai Yutang for a moment, and Bai Yutang looked at him with wide eyes.

Suddenly, Zhan Zhao stretched his hand out, pressed Bai Yutang's nose with one finger, and leaned over to look into his eyes.

Bai Yutang frowned slightly, looking at Zhan Zhao with some confusion.

“Hmph.” Zhan Zhao suddenly laughed.

Bai Yutang saw Zhan Zhao's smile and already had an indication that this cat understood, and he had worked it faster than he thought he would.

“Done thinking?” Bai Yutang asked.

Zhan Zhao nodded.

Bai Yutang coughed, pointed to a place nearby where no one was, and said, “Let's speak over there.”

Zhan Zhao didn't quite understand. As he was pulled aside by Bai Yutang, he asked in confusion, “What for?”

“Ahem.” Bai Yutang raised his eyes to Zhan Zhao’s and waited a long time before speaking, “That… Cat, you know I didn't mean that just now.”

Zhan Zhao was stunned for a moment, then, with a smile, he turned his face away, not looking at Bai Yutang, and pretended to be angry.

Bai Yutang was really anxious, the cat is not really that angry, is he? The two of them have been together for a very long time, since they were young, and they often quarreled, but this was the first time that one of them had ever been so angry.

For a while, Bai Yutang didn’t know how to apologize to Zhan Zhao. It’s weird to say sorry, he didn't want to apologize… but what if the cat was really angry?

When Zhan Zhao looked back at him and saw Bai Yutang's embarrassed face, he couldn't help but smile.

Seeing Zhan Zhao’s smile, Bai Yutang was relieved, “Cat… you are not angry anymore?”

“What anger? Who is angry?” Zhan Zhao asked him.

Bai Yutang was a little embarrassed and said, “It’s good that you're not angry.”

“Who said I'm not angry?” Zhan Zhao moved closer and said, “How dare you say that I'm not as smart as Zhao Jue? How will you calm my anger?”

“I didn't mean that.” Bai Yutang hurriedly shook his head, “Tell me whatever you want me to do to calm your anger, I’ll do it.”

“Seriously?” He looked Bai Yutang up and down, wondering what to ask him to do.

Bai Yutang nodded, “En.”

“Hey.” At this time, they saw Gongsun at the door not far away, pointing at his watch and saying to Zhan Zhao, “Xiao Zhan, ten minutes are up. After we finish the serious business, you two can study the matter of raising cats back home, alright?”

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other with a smile and walked over.

“Well?” Gonsun asked Zhan Zhao, “Any clues yet?”

“En.” Zhan Zhao nodded and said, “Gongsun, for the death smile poison, does one need to follow a strict measurement to administer the poison in order to achieve the effect of a punctual and accurate death?”

Gongsun thought for a moment, sighed softly, and said, “This is also something I have been researching. It is reasonable that you can use the amount of poison to control the time of a person's death, but this is a fact that exists only in theory.”

“Why do you say that?” Bai Yutang asked.

“Think about it, everyone’s body is different. For example, in the case of gas poisoning, some people will be poisoned after inhaling a certain amount of gas for ten minutes, while others will only be poisoned after eleven minutes of inhaling the same amount… It varies from person to person, people are living things and the hardest thing to do is to control the time of death of a living thing. A perfect murder can be committed once, but to do it one after another is a little unreliable.”

The group nodded, thinking that Gongusn had a point.

“Actually, there is a way to control the exact and effective timing of death.” Zhan Zhao smiled, “It can be done by remote controlled death.”

“Remote controlled death? What is that?” Bai Yutang and Gongsun asked at the same time.

“Hypnosis.” Zhan Zhao replied simply.

The two men froze, getting a bit of a headache from hearing about hypnosis.

“For example, giving someone a suggestion to kill himself when a certain word is mentioned, when he meets a certain person, or when a certain situation occurs, is a perfect remote control killing method and a time bomb to keep a person's secret. Once it is leaked, he will definitely die.”

“So… the one who caused Deng Che’s death, do you mean Zhao Jue?” Bai Yutang couldn't help but ask.

“Most likely.” Zhan Zhao nodded, “Remember during the investigation into that murder case at He Lan’s clinic, what the little ruffian, Ah Jing, said about that odd-eyed man?”

Gongsun nodded, “Yes, he said that the man's eyes were oddly white, but I gave him a lot of clinical pictures about cataracts to show him, and he said they weren't like that.”

“En.” Zhan Zhao nodded and said, “If I'm right, that wasn't cataracts, but a kind of electronic contact lens.”

“There's that kind of thing?” Bai Yutang asked curiously.

“Someone once proposed it.” Zhan Zhao said, “In general, hypnosis has to attract a person's attention. The most common tactic we see, the one performed on TV where a pocket watch chain is used to put a person into a hypnotic state, is basically to illustrate this point, but that one is a complete lie.”

Bai Chi's eyes widened as he asked, “Is it really a lie? It's a shame I kept believing it.”

“How is that possible?” Zhan Zhao smiled and said, “That was merely to illustrate a point to you, which is that hypnosis must put a person into some sort of hypnotically suitable, defenceless state… The example of the pocket watch chain is to tell people to enter a defenseless state by making the eyes tired and causing the brain to become tired. However, hypnosis is tied to a person's consciousness, and once a person loses consciousness and goes to sleep, it's much harder to hypnotize them that way!”

“People perceive visual fatigue, which then causes brain fatigue. This takes a long time to process” Zhan Zhao said, “When you feel fatigued and then fall asleep, it means that your body remains within your control!”

“That’s true!” Gongsun nodded, “I haven't heard of anyone being hypnotized while asleep.”

The group nodded their heads.

“And the real fatigue that comes suddenly is outside your perception.” Zhan Zhao said.

“Real fatigue?” The group was puzzled, “Sudden onset?”

“Some scientists have done such an experiment.” Zhan Zhao said, “After having a person stare at a small spinning pinwheel for about five minutes, that person's eyes feel tired, after ten minutes, they feel fatigued and want to rest, and after fifteen minutes, they develop adverse reactions such as nausea and headaches.”

The group nodded and waited for Zhan Zhao to continue.

“Yet another experiment demonstrated what happens when you make that pinwheel pocket-sized, very, very, very small, so small that we could barely see it, and then in a minute's time, in front of a person's eyes, quickly play all the images of that pinwheel spinning around for fifteen minutes. How do you think that person would react?”

The group frowned slightly and thought for a long time before Bai Chi said, “If it spins too fast, it shouldn't be noticeable, right?”

“Right.” The group imagined it for a moment and all nodded their heads as well, indicating that there shouldn't be too much discomfort, as they generally didn't feel discomfort when they saw something that was spinning too fast.

“It actually does have an effect on people.” Zhan Zhao laughed, “It's just that only our brains feel tired, our eyes don't.”

“Can you really feel it?” The group wondered.

“This is also one of the reasons why a blowing fan in the summer is more uncomfortable than a blowing air conditioner.” Zhan Zhao smiled, “Of course, because many people do not put the fan in their field of vision, not too many people would be affected.”

Everyone nodded, and Bai Yutang asked, “What does that have to do with his eyes?”

“I remember a long time ago, someone advertised an electronic contact lens in a psychology magazine.” Zhan Zhao said, “It's been mentioned before, I read it in a short scientific paper. It was some psychologist's hypothesis, and that kind of thing was called hypnotic white eyes.”

“White eyes?” Bai Yutang frowned.

“That’s right. This kind of electronic eye is controlled by a chip inside. In the middle of the white eyeball, there is a gray vertical line that is one twenty-fourth of the width of a pupil, rotating at a speed of 1,440 rotations per minute.”

To an ordinary person, this would look as if it were a white eye with a gray pupil in the middle.

The group thought about it again, and Bai Yutang nodded, “It would be the same as watching a movie, wouldn't it? At 1,440 revolutions per minute, that would be twenty-four revolutions per second, and that would create a visual lull and a regular circular motion, so it would be hard for a person to tell if it was moving continuously, or a stopped image.”

“That’s right.” Zhan Zhao nodded, “But your brain is going to get tired… and you will stare into that person's eyes when you talk to them, not to mention that if it's someone you fear and who has a pair of scary white eyes, you will unknowingly get trapped.”

“Indeed.” Bai Yutang frowned and said, “Has that kind of contact lens been developed since then, it should be quite sensational, right?”

Zhan Zhao shrugged his shoulders, “It didn't even make a splash in the psychology community, many people ignored his theory. Frankly, creating something like that would only meet the needs of a very small percentage of people, yet the investment cost was too great, it didn’t make much sense.”

Bai Yutang nodded, “That's true, if you can't hypnotize, there's no use in wanting that thing.”

“But once you have that thing, then hypnosis will become relatively easy.” Zhan Zhao said.

“Can you describe it specifically?” Gongsun asked, “How easy is it?”

“The number of people who can make someone kill themselves would at least double.” Zhan Zhao said briefly, “Through improvements in equipment, even a half-wit can evolve into an expert, and having the ability of an expert but not having the knowledge of one is very dangerous.”

“Just like there are people who have a gun but don't understand how it should be used?” Bai Yutang asked.

“Correct.” Zhan Zhao nodded his head.

“That’s quite a problem then.” Gongsun nodded and asked, “So how are you sure these people weren't poisoned? They all had symptoms of death smile poisoning.”

“Well,” Zhan Zhao smiled, “hypnosis can also cause this symptom, and it comes on schedule.”

The group looked at each other, and Gongsun asked, “What causes it?”

Zhan Zhao smiled, “Yan!”

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Turns out that potential hole was actually a previous retinal detachment that went undetected and already started to heal. I underwent a laser procedure on Tuesday to fix it, so I should be all good now! Though I do have holes in my right retina as well, which are not as severe, and will be treated a few weeks from now. Apart from the slight blurriness I am still experiencing, it shouldn't affect my school work or this translation. Yay! 

However, you probably noticed that I didn't upload this chapter yesterday. That's because I felt something kind of pop in my eye when I was in class, then saw that my eye got more red, so I panicked and went to the ER. I waited around and saw doctors for 6 hours only to be told that it was a burst blood vessel from all the pressure the doctor put on my eye when she did the laser (which is normal and basically a bruise on my eye). While it looks scary and scared the hell out of me, I am perfectly fine! I left the hospital tired, cold, and hungry, since I rushed there before lunch and I didn't bring a jacket or sweater with me, so I decided to just rest and not upload.

I appreciate the messages of support I received last time! You guys are the best! ❤❤

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

Translated: September 15, 2021