S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 3 Chapter 47

Ghost Murderer 15 - On Love and Hate

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Bai Yutang remembered that he had been very puzzled when Zhan Zhao had become obsessed with psychology before. Zhan Zhao has a very high IQ, and he would have accomplished a lot had he pursued other disciplines, yet he had a soft spot for psychology.

He once asked, "Cat, what is so interesting about psychology?"

Zhan Zhao's answer was: "The changes in a person's heart are more interesting than the evolution of any species, especially when it comes to abnormal psychology."

Later, Bai Yutang would often be able to listen to Zhan Zhao telling him stories, and then gradually, he found that the human heart was both lovely and terrifying. Of course, most of Zhan Zhao's stories were horrifying to the point of being outrageous.

The story that Qin Ou told everyone today, on the other hand, was incomprehensible and unbelievable, especially the power of love that has been demonized as more terrible than hate.

That day, eight years ago in July, was about as hot as it is now.

There was a long queue at a bank in S City. It was a Sunday, so there were many people coming to the bank to do business.

On this day, Qin Ou's baby was born, a boy, and he was very cute.

When Qin Ou arrived at the hospital, he kept taking pictures of the baby.

Just after lunch, in front of the bank, a white minivan appeared. The three men in it, one of them holding a black plastic bag with a bulge in it, and the other two, carrying black canvas bags, walked into the bank.

There was a queue of people in the bank. No one paid any attention to the three men until a shot was heard… followed by someone shouting, robbery!

This sudden outrage scared the bank staff and customers to the ground with their heads in their hands, and one of the bank employees secretly rang the alarm…

The robbers, two of whom handed canvas bags to the bank employees, had guns in their hands and told the employees to put money inside.

The employees did so one by one.

It wasn't long before the sound of a police car was heard outside. The robbers seemed to be prepared and didn't panic. One threatened the crowd with a gun, while the other reached out and pulled up a male student wearing glasses who was squatting next to him.

The male student was frightened out of his mind when he saw that the robbers had taken out a life jacket-like piece of clothing from inside the black plastic bag that had lots of wires on it and some odd equipment.

The male student realised… that this should be a bomb…

After the jacket was put on and the wires were attached, the man with the black hood and mask said to him, "Don't move, or you're dead."

Afterwards, the police surrounded the bank, and the robbers escorted the boy out with several large bags of money.

The one who arrived with the police officers was none other than Bao Zheng.

The robbers pushed the male student with the bomb strapped to him out, which was something the crowd was not expecting.

"We have a remote control in our hands, let us go or we'll detonate it, this bomb can blow up this bank!" The robbers said.

Bao Zheng frowned.

Finally, the robbers left, leaving behind the boy with the bomb on his back, and there was no way to know… if one of those robbers would get upset and push the button to detonate the bomb.

Bao Zheng was helpless and took out the phone.

As Qin Ou was leaving the hospital, his phone rang. He had skipped work to go see the baby. Seeing that the caller was Bao Zheng, he was a little helpless, it seemed that something had happened somewhere again.

He picked up the phone, "Bao Sir?"

"Qin Ou… there's a situation…"

After listening to the situation, Qin Ou called his team and drove to the bank.

The police officers present had evacuated all the people and inside the large bank, there was only the one boy.

When Qin Ou arrived with his men, he saw the student from afar.

"The kidnappers said it is a time bomb." Bao Zheng said.

Qin Ou frowned, put on his explosion-proof clothing, and walked inside.

The male student, drenched in sweat and sitting blankly in the middle of the room, heard the sound of footsteps. He raised his gaze and saw a man in heavy clothes walking in.

The boy was holding a red envelope in his hand and when he saw Qin Ou come in, he raised his eyes to look at him.

Qin Ou crouched down and took a look at the bomb. Reaching out, he took his helmet off and gave a thumbs up to the outside, signalling – it isn't timed!

Everyone outside heaved a sigh of relief as a police officer brought in a toolbox for Qin Ou. Qin Ou took off his bulky explosion-proof suit and crouched down in front of the boy to look at the bomb.

The boy stared at him blankly. Qin Ou was young and baby-faced, about the same age as him.

"Are you…" The boy wanted to ask if he was a police officer.

Qin Ou looked up at him with some surprise and smiled, "Yo, still able to talk, huh? You have a bit of courage."

The boy instantly felt that his impending nervous breakdown was much better and asked, "You're a police officer?"

"En, bomb disposal." Qin Ou said, using a screwdriver to unscrew the lid of the black box on the bomb suit.

"Can you take it off?” The boy asked. 

Qin Ou nodded, "It shouldn't be a problem, it's not very complicated."

"I don't want to die." The boy said, showing Qin Ou the red envelope.

Qin Ou glanced at it and smiled, "Yo, an acceptance letter from S University, huh?"

“En." The boy nodded.

Qin Ou smiled, "If I can't dismantle it, we'll both die."

The boy couldn't laugh or cry, and he asked, "Then why do you do such a high-risk job?'

Qin Ou wanted to cry but couldn't, "That's why you have to study hard when you are young. If I could have studied at S University, I would have gone to build atomic bombs and I wouldn't be here defusing bombs."

The boy thought the police officer was so funny, so he laughed, "You're not too old… you don't want to die either, do you?"

Qin Ou smiled, "My wife just gave me a son, how can I give in to death!"

The boy looked at Qin Ou, "You have a son? You look so young."

Qin Ou laughed, "That's right, you have to have a child before it's too late, otherwise you won't be able to beat him when he grows up."

The boy laughed again.

While talking and laughing with the boy, Qin Ou's hands didn't stop, and his movements were surprisingly fast… When the boy had finished laughing and wanted to ask him what his name was, Qin Ou reached out and undid his jacket, taking it off.

The boy was stunned. A police officer from outside came in with a metal box. Qin Ou took two black tubular objects from his jacket and put them into the box, saying, "Give the clothes to the Bao Sir. There is no longer any danger, you can release the security."

"Yes sir." The officer carried the box out.

The boy tilted his face up to look and realised that Qin Ou was quite tall, with a long and delightful figure.

When Qin Ou saw that he was still sitting on the ground, he smiled, "It's okay, you can go home. "

The boy took a long time to say, "My legs are weak, I can't get up. Officer, what's your name?"

Qin Ou squatted down, looked at him. Seeing that the boy was pale, he said to the police officer who came in from the outside, "Hey, is there an ambulance outside? Get the boy checked out!"

The officer nodded and went out to call an ambulance.

"My name is Liang Yan, and you?" The boy asked Qin Ou.

Qin Ou smiled and heard a buddy from the forensics unit shout, "Qin Ou, don't withdraw yet, we're collecting evidence. Bao Sir said he wants you to help analyse the evidence!"

"Oh." Qin Ou nodded his head.

Turning back, he saw the boy sigh, "I'm so useless, I'm so scared that my legs went weak."

Seeing him dumbfounded, Qin Ou reached out and patted his shoulder, saying, "Alright, you're very brave, good job!"

The boy slowly raised his head. Behind his rimless glasses, there was a pair of dark eyes which showed a flash of strange emotions.

Qin Ou saw his eyes and froze.

Finding that he and Qin Ou were looking at each other, the boy suddenly said slyly, "Qin Ou… I have a goose, you have a gull, we match well."

Qin Ou felt that the boy did not seem normal, but it is possible that he was scared silly, so he smiled, turned around, and went out. Within three seconds, he forgot all about it, then thought about going back to the police station to analyze the bomb for Bao Zheng, before running to the hospital to see the baby.

With the help of Qin Ou's professional analysis, Bao Zheng soon caught the three robbers through clues.

Three days later, Qin Ou received a bouquet of flowers… blue irises and a card with a number written on it: 1095

Qin Ou held the card for a long, long time, but never quite figured out what the number meant – was it a code, or a time, or some kind of password?

His colleagues, on the other hand, joke around with him, saying that he is flooded with peach blossoms again.

Qin Ou was indeed a man with a great deal of luck.

In addition to his handsome looks, his key feature is his cheerful personality. The people who are around him are all very happy… The combination of various features make him attractive. His colleagues like him, women like him, children like him, and sometimes he even attracts some men to like him.

Qin Ou only thought that he had provoked someone irrelevant again at some point, so he didn't take it seriously, and it didn't happen again after that.

For the next six months, Qin Ou was happy. The baby had grown a little and was cute as hell, and he carried it in and out every day.

If there was one thing that made him uncomfortable, it was that he occasionally had nightmares. Qin Ou is engaged in a high-risk profession, arguably the world's most high-risk profession, yet he has nerves of steel, he is calm even at the last second before the bomb explodes. However, this is the kind of Qin Ou who has nightmares. And the content of the nightmares leaves him speechless… it was the student's eyes… he saw the student's eyes staring at him.

Qin Ou had this dream for three days in a row, then he gradually stopped having it, so he began to live at ease again.

After another six months, he received another bunch of irises and saw a number written on it: 730

Qin Ou had almost forgotten about this matter, so he had to throw the flowers in the trash.

The following year, Qin Ou had a rough time. That year, his wife divorced him because of his occupation, which put a great psychological burden on the frightened woman and led to nervous breakdowns and anxiety. In the end, she chose to leave, even though she had fought off many love rivals back then and had gone through a lot of trouble to marry this man. Qin Ou was understanding and chose to accept it. He left the house and everything he had to his wife. Of course, he visits the baby every day. The baby is over one year old, lively and cute as hell, just like Qin Ou.

In the third year, Qin Ou continued to live his life, dismantling bombs and endlessly doting on the baby in the home of his divorced wife, who never remarried and only told him that if he retired, they would get remarried.

Qin Ou was tempted to resign or switch careers immediately so that he could be with his baby every day, but it was a pity that the police department tried its best to retain him because he was the best bomb disposal expert. At that time… the profession of bomb disposal expert was almost a zero field, and a good bomb disposal expert was a treasure that belonged to the world. (Angel: A zero field is a field in which there are hardly any people working.)

This year, a lot of strange things happened. Qin Ou began to notice that someone was following him, but had no clues. Then, a bouquet of purple iris came every month, and the numbers on them were in order: 365, 335, 305, 275… until the last month, when it became 30, and then, it started 29, 28, 27, 26… as a bouquet came every day.

Qin Ou could notice, even if he was confused, that it was someone who was counting down, and that this person's countdown lasted for three years.

Bao Zheng knew about this matter as well. He found it bizarre and took it very seriously. Qin Ou began to be careful everywhere, he began to spend a lot of time protecting his child and his wife. Bao Zheng also brought in a certain number of police officers to help.

But nothing happened until the last day of the countdown.

On that day, Qin Ou did not receive irises with a card saying 0, so he was relieved.

However, when he returned to his apartment, he found that the door had been pried open.

Frowning slightly, Qin Ou pulled out his gun and as he entered the house carefully, he was met with a scene that left his jaw hanging open.

Inside his apartment, there was a huge bouquet of roses, his dresser had been opened and, to his shame and dismay, all his underwear had been taken away. On top of the bouquet of roses, there was a card that read – You are mine now.

At that moment, Qin Ou thought that if he could catch this prankster, he would beat him up.

However, just as he was thinking about this, a call came from Bao Zheng. He told him that they had received a tip-off that there was a bomb inside a certain subway station and that Qin Ou's good friend had been ambushed and killed when he went to defuse it.

Qin Ou was dumbfounded. He went to see the scene and immediately realized that it was not an accident, but someone deliberately trying to kill him… so the entire police department was immersed in feelings of grief and revenge.

Qin Ou was devastated too, however, before he could catch his breath, the next day he received news that his elderly mother was travelling on a bus when the bus exploded, killing all eleven people on board. The third day, Qin Ou's sister was killed, the fourth day, another of his close friends was killed in an explosion, and the next day…

In those few short days, it was as if half of the people around Qin Ou were cursed to die one by one, and all Qin Ou could do was hold his son in his arms without moving an inch while receiving the news that his wife had also been blown up… The most unacceptable thing was that there was no clue as to who the killer really was. They thoroughly investigated everyone who might have had a grudge against Qin Ou, but there were never any clues.

In the end, Qin Ou handed the child to Bao Zheng, the person he trusted the most, and started to track down the murderer alone. Bao Zheng was even more desperate. In order to protect Qin Ou's child, he stayed inside the witness protection room with the little child in his arms, while a wall of police officers surrounded the outside.

Qin Ou eventually found a clue among the many traces. When he found the building and saw the murderer who wanted to die with him, Qin Ou was completely dumbfounded. That person turned out to be Liang Yan from back then, a student whom he had only met once.

When Qin Ou asked him why, he just told him that it was because of love…

After that, the man died, shot by his own hand. When he was dying, his eyes were open and the look in them was the same as it was back then, perverted and loving.

Qin Ou returned to the police station, and just when everyone thought it was all over, the last bomb left by the man exploded.

As everyone heard the end of the story, they all had a feeling of breathlessness; they all remembered that there had been a big explosion at the police station once before, a package sent by courier…

"What about… the child?" Zhao Hu couldn't help but ask even though he had heard that his son was dead, and was kicked hard by Ma Han. Zhao Hu felt depressed – he just hoped there were still some miracles.

"The child is not dead." Yang Fan suddenly spoke.

The group froze and looked at him with wide eyes.

"He was picked up by his grandparents and taken to Canada. He’s eight years old this year and writes to him often." Saying that, he reached out and pointed at Qin Ou, "He was able to survive all those years because of the letters, not me."

The group glanced at each other. Eight years old would make him as old as Yang Yang.

"Phew…" Zhao Hu let out a long sigh, “At last, I finally feel that there is some hope in life."

Ma Han kicked him again. At that time, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang had grim expressions… The two of them looked at each other and simultaneously thought the same thing – those letters Zhao Zhen received also had countdown numbers on them...

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

I feel so bad for Qin Ou 😭

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

Translated: November 22/25, 2021