S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 3 Chapter 51

Ghost Murderer 19 - Weird Direction

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"What's the problem?" Bai Yutang noticed that Zhan Zhao seemed to have found something, so he asked, "Did you find something, Cat?"

Zhan Zhao took out a photo and handed it to Bai Yutang for him to look at. When Bai Yutang took it, he saw that it was a picture of a young man and a woman together. The young man was sitting dully on a swing, his eyes staring blankly ahead. A woman in her thirties was standing beside him, looking into the camera with him. It was Liang Yan. He was wearing an odd T-shirt; it was a black t-shirt with a number on the top left, over his heart – 870124

At first glance, it might appear to be some kind of brand, or some kind of fashionable style, but somehow, Bai Yutang felt that the shirt… felt off-putting, like it was a prisoner's number. 

"Is there something wrong with this shirt?" Qin Ou came over and asked after taking a look at it.

Zhan Zhao rubbed his nose and said, "You both are very insensitive to details."

Bai Yutang reached out and gently pinched Zhan Zhao, glaring at him, signalling for him to say it quickly and not to keep his mouth shut!

Zhan Zhao smiled and asked, "Can't you see? The number on the chest of this shirt was sewn on afterwards."

"So what?" Bai Yutang didn't quite understand.

Zhan Zhao coughed and said, "If I remember correctly, Liang Yan's date of birth is January 24, 1987."

As soon as Zhan Zhao finished his sentence, the two of them froze.

Qin Ou froze for a long moment and frowned, "Sewing his birthday on his shirt?"

Zhan Zhao shook his head gently and said, "This looks more like some sort of mark."

"Indeed." Bai Yutang remembered how sensitive he was to that string of numbers when they caught Luo Tian before… and this woman… 

“Cat… have we seen this woman somewhere?" Bai Yutang was a little puzzled.

"I also find this woman very familiar." Zhan Zhao nodded at the woman in the photo who was wearing black clothes, had extra-long curly hair, and a pair of large sunglasses, and asked Bai Yutang, "Isn't she a beauty?"

Bai Yutang smiled, "She's not bad."

Zhan Zhao thought about it and said with certainty, "I think I've seen her before. Maybe I've just brushed past her once, or looked at her from afar… anyway, I've seen her before, and not too long ago."

"This photo is at least ten years old, isn't it?" Qin Ou asked, "Could it be that there is a resemblance between two people? Women age quickly."

Zhan Zhao smiled faintly, "Well, it is true that the average woman ages quickly, but some age very slowly… some men age very slowly too… right?"

Bai Yutang let out a laugh and nodded, saying, “It's true, amazingly slow."

Qin Ou didn't quite understand what the two were saying, so he poured some tea for Bai Yutang and asked, "So, Liang Yan isn't an ordinary person?"

Zhan Zhao put down the photo album and said, "Liang Yan might be a defective product."

"A defective product?" Qin Ou found this statement somewhat harsh and asked, "This… what does it mean?"

"How should I put it?" Zhan Zhao shrugged, "There's an organisation, who, in order to achieve a certain purpose, train a lot of people and do all kinds of experiments with them, making them very strange. Most of these people have abilities that exceed those of normal people. Some have super strength, some have no sense of pain, some have super intelligence, some have strange personalities... In short, flaws and strengths coexist in them, and there's no telling what they're up to… Those defective products are pitifully removed from normal life and then returned to normal living conditions, causing many tragedies."

Qin Ou frowned upon hearing this, and asked, “... You mean that Liang Yan was just a discarded pawn? That his behavior is so extreme only because he's not normal, because someone has trained him and cultivated his abilities?”

“En!" Zhan Zhao raised an eyebrow appreciatively, "Your comprehension is good! Want to come to SCI?"

Bai Yutang glanced at Zhan Zhao – More anxious than me?

Qin Ou, on the other hand, laughed and said, "How am I qualified to be in SCI?"

“You are." Bai Yutang immediately nodded his head.

Qin Ou was stunned. Seeing Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both looking at him intently, he shook his head and laughed, "I haven't been a police officer for a long time."

"The military and the police are one family, and you were a firefighter for so long." Zhan Zhao smiled and said, "You don't have to answer right away, take your time to think about it."

Qin Ou nodded and lowered his head as he continued to drink his tea.

Zhan Zhao flipped through the diary of Yang Fan’s family. Yang Fan's family was amusing enough to keep a diary for their entire lives, through N generations.

"This is quite interesting." Zhan Zhao flipped through Yang Fan's grandfather's diary and said, "To know about your grandfather and father's childhood, and to know how your father pursued your mother, it’s quite romantic."

“En.” Qin Ou nodded, “Yang Fan keeps a diary every day. It’s said to be a habit that he has cultivated since childhood, so he can look up almost every detail of his life."

Zhan Zhao dug out a few more diaries from Yang Fan's childhood. He looked around and saw that no one was paying attention, so he smiled and flipped through them without making a sound.

Bai Yutang and Qin Ou were still sitting on the sofa drinking tea and chatting about the case back then.

Zhan Zhao originally just wanted to look at Yang Fan's childhood diary to see if there was any record about Zhao Jue, but as he looked through them, he unexpectedly found a secret.

"Oh…" Zhan Zhao suddenly realized something and nodded, "So that's what happened!"

"What's wrong?" Bai Yutang asked him in confusion.

“Well… nothing." Zhan Zhao smiled and shook his head. Putting the diary away, he looked at Qin Ou and asked, "By the way, you were on the swimming team when you were a kid?"

Qin Ou froze and nodded, "How did you know?"

Zhan Zhao smiled, "That's great, SCI is poor when it comes to swimming."

"I even won the city competition back then. If I didn't have otitis media, I might have made it into the provincial team… and maybe even participated in the Olympics or something.” Qin Ou joked. (Angel: otitis media is inflammation or an infection located in the middle ear.)

Zhan Zhao looked at him and asked, "Have you ever gone swimming in the river?"

“Yes.” Qin Ou nodded, "I go swimming in the reservoir every year."

"The reservoir is a dangerous place." Zhan Zhao inexplicably gossiped with Qin Ou. Bai Yutang felt puzzled, but did not say anything and continued to listen to Zhan Zhao.

"The reservoir is indeed very dangerous.” Qin Ou nodded, "I even saved a child who lost his footing and fell into the water, about the same age as me."

"How old was he?" Zhan Zhao asked.

Qin Ou thought for a moment and said, "Thirteen or fourteen, I think."

"Oh." Zhan Zhao nodded with uncertainty and asked again, "Do you still remember what that child looked like?"

Qin Ou leaned back on the sofa and recalled, saying, "Well, I remember, they looked quite like a girl, white and pure…"

When he said this, Qin Ou suddenly frowned, as if he thought of something.

"What did you say to that child, do you still remember?" Zhan Zhao asked. Seeing Qin Ou's dumbfounded expression, he was sure that he hadn't remembered and said, "You may have forgotten, but they remembered, and left evidence in black and white."

Qin Ou let out a long sigh and reached out to hold his forehead, unable to say anything.

Bai Yutang looked at Zhan Zhao with some confusion, but Zhan Zhao winked at him, flipped the diary to a certain page, and handed it to Bai Yutang to read.

Bai Yutang took it and saw that it was a diary with rather childish language:

August 3rd, sunny, deadly hot.

Went swimming today and almost drowned. I was rescued by someone. After rescuing me, he said, "Don't come swimming in the reservoir next time, little sister."

My leg was cut open and he said I would not be able to get married if I had a scar on my leg.

I said, "What should I do then?

He said, "Then he will suffer a loss and marry me."

I said, "I'm a boy."

He said, "It doesn't matter, I'm a boy too.

Then he carried me back on his back. When I grow up, I will marry him!

Also, he had big eyes and was so cute. Oh, by the way, he said his name was Qin Ou, which means water bird.

Bai Yutang put the diary down and turned to look at Qin Ou. He saw Qin Ou reach out and take the diary, and after reading it for a long time, the corners of his mouth picked up and he smiled helplessly.

At this time, Bai Yutang's phone rang.

"Hello?" Bai Yutang saw that it was Bao Zheng calling and was a little puzzled, asking, "Bao Sir?"

"Is Zhan Zhao with you?" Bao Zheng asked.

"Yes." Bai Yutang turned on speakerphone.

"Xiao Zhan, you're wanted as a negotiator!" Bao Zheng's voice sounded a little anxious as he spoke.

"What's wrong?" Zhan Zhao could hear that something was wrong with Bao Zheng.

"You guys listen, we just received a call about a bomb inside a shop in the east of the city." Bao Zheng said.

Qin Ou frowned.

"But Chen Mi, the leader of the bomb disposal team, didn't show up for work and couldn't be contacted!" Bao Zheng said.

"How is that possible…" Qin Ou was a little puzzled.

"You're there too?" Bao Zheng let out a sigh of relief, "Saves me another phone call, you all listen carefully!"

The three didn't say anything and listened as Bao Zheng went on to say:

"I'm outside that shop now. When we arrived, here's what we saw – the shop's rolling shutters were closed… and there were two people inside. One was a young man, about twenty years old, with an explosive device in his hand, and the other… was Chen Mi."

"Huh?" Both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were stunned.

"Let me finish." Bao Zheng sighed and said, "Chen Mi has at least fifteen kilograms of explosives strapped to his body."

“Heh…" Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both drew in a breath of cold air.

"Evacuate everything that's alive within a five hundred meter radius!” Qin Ou said.

"I'd like to!" Bao Zheng sighed, "But that student said no, he wants all the people here to be buried with him!"

"Why?" Zhan Zhao wondered, "There's always a reason. Do they want money?"

"No, he failed his entrance exams!" Bao Zheng said a reason that made the group spit out their tea.

"I don't think a high school student who failed the entrance exam can get fifteen kilograms of explosives." Bai Yutang said.

"I just asked him about it, and he said he was just passing by this morning and someone gave him this controller, and that the controller had been turned on. Once he releases it, it's game over for everyone! And he's in a very unstable mood right now!"

"What do you have in mind?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"Chen Mi isn't scared of death yet. He’s seen the bomb, all he said was to call Qin Ou, as only he can disarm it!" Bao Zheng said, "It's simple now. Xiao Zhan, you keep that student steady for me so he doesn't let go, then Qin Ou defuses the bomb in the shortest possible time. If you succeed, all of us will be saved, if you fail, everyone plus the people here will be killed." After finishing, Bao Zheng gave a series of addresses and told them to arrive within three minutes or else he would throw them into the toilet! 

“... So grumpy!" Bai Yutang turned off his phone to look at the group.

Zhan Zhao stood up, and the two men looked at Qin Ou. Qin Ou frowned but did not say anything else, then stood up… and rushed to that shop with the two men.

At this time, at the door of the shop, there was a sweaty and excited student sitting, and inside the shop, there was a black-faced Chen Mi.

When Bai Yutang arrived, he found that there was not much of a police force around, mainly because Bao Zheng was afraid that everyone would panic and run away, and that the student would get excited and do something stupid.

"Aren't these peaceful times, where did you get so many explosives?" Bai Yutang asked as he walked up to Bao Zheng's side.

Bao Zheng gave Bai Yutang a vicious glare, "Don't mess with me! I want to retire early!"

Bai Yutang obediently shut up and looked at Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao walked a short distance away, looked at the student, and suddenly laughed.

Bao Zheng looked at him and got a little excited, "You laughed. You did laugh, didn't you?"

Zhan Zhao nodded.

"Then are you telling me there's no danger?" The way Bao Zheng looked now, his heart rate was at least around one hundred and five.

Zhan Zhao nodded and said, "The recent case is really interesting.”

……

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

For the rest of December, I am going to reduce the uploads to once a week. I barely had a chance to do any translating this weekend as I felt quite sick and it's the busy season at work right now.  The upcoming chapters are starting to get really long, so this reduced schedule should help me get ahead on chapters, hopefully. Come the new year, my upload schedule will go back to being two chapters of SCI a week, though the days may change depending on my school schedule.

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

Translated: December 13/15, 2021, 2021