S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 3 Chapter 61

Ghost Murderer 29 - Simple Deception

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Throughout human history, there have been many theories about why ghosts exist. One of the most common explanations is that ghosts are an illusion due to man's fear of death and darkness. Ghosts, like the saying that good and evil will come to an end, have bound human beings to their selfish nature since ancient times.

As a conscious being with no physical evidence, ghosts carry multiple messages, such as mystery, fear, retribution, evil, and omnipotence…

As two people who fall asleep watching horror movies, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang have different opinions on ghosts.

Zhan Zhao has nerves of steel and believes that there is no scientific basis for ghosts to exist, so even if he sees a real ghost in front of him, he will rationally tell the ghost – you don't exist.

Bai Yutang's view is perhaps a little more popular, he uses reverse thinking. For example, if you can become a ghost when you die, then I can also become a ghost when I die, so who's afraid of who?

In the case of the ghost killer, it is clear that someone has used the ghost to commit a crime. In short, it's a hoax.

If it's a hoax, there must be a reason for it; why it's a hoax, what's the purpose, and what's the goal?

According to the previous clues provided by Qin Ou, the "ghost" was acting strangely; in addition to killing the taxi driver, he also caused people to set themselves on fire.

These people were just ordinary workers, good people who worked hard to support their families, but just because of the ghostly figure of the apparition, they became mentally disturbed or had their families destroyed.

This kind of indiscriminate crime can only mean that the murderer is a vicious psychopath, or that he has some extreme reason to kill this group of ordinary people.

……

"The murderer's method relies entirely on this device, but what I used was real magic." Zhao Zhen was excited when he talked about magic.

The SCI members followed him and went to the parking lot underneath the police station, where a large space had been vacated, with a taxi right in the middle of it.

Zhao Zhen thought about it and pointed to Zhao Hu, "Hu Zi, get in the car, you play the driver."

"Huh?" Zhao Hu grimaced, "It's me again, huh?"

Bai Yutang patted him, signalling him – go on!

Reluctantly, Zhao Hu got into the car.

Zhao Zhen greeted the people from his team. When Zhan Zhao and the others looked curiously, they saw that there were really a lot of people, both Chinese and foreigners, all wearing work uniforms, very professional and cool.

There was also a traffic police motorcycle parked behind the taxi, and a little further away, a small truck.

The SCI members all found separate places to stand and things lean against, ready to watch the action.

Zhao Zhen explained to the group, "This magic trick, once it is revealed, you will know who the murderer is."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other and both frowned as they watched.

“First," Zhao Zhen said, “let's reenact what happened that night.

So, Zhao Hu drove his car like a normal driver and was stopped by Zhao Zhen.

Before Zhao Zhen could get into the car, a traffic cop came up behind him and told the driver to get out of the car so he could check his ID or something. The driver had to get out of the car to cooperate, and in the midst of this process, Zhao Zhen pretended to speak for Zhao Hu and, intentionally or unintentionally, gently touched his arm…

"Oh…" Ma Xin raised an eyebrow, “so that's how the fingerprints on that driver's hand got there!"

"No wonder there were fingerprints on the arm despite the shield blocking on all sides." Bai Yutang muttered to himself.

"Indeed.” Zhan Zhao said, "Is the traffic police officer pretending to be someone else? Or were they paid off, or were they simply one of them?"

"This is just something to do along the way." Zhao Zhen handed the gloves to the assistant at the side, "It saves doing it all over again later, just so everyone understands."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang nodded their heads.

Then, they saw Zhao Zhen open the back door to get in, and at the same time, they heard a horn sounding behind them, which belonged to the small truck.

The taxi then started up and drove on.

The traffic cop's motorcycle passed by the taxi again, and the traffic cop waved at the taxi driver from a short distance away, which meant that he should hurry up and go.

The truck that drove up at the back suddenly turned on strong lights. The parking lot was underground and dimly lit, and they didn't know if this car had been modified or what, but the headlights were like searchlights, and the driver was blinded.

Zhao Hu's car moved to the side a bit, and the big truck drove straight through.

Suddenly, a sharp braking was heard, and Zhao Hu's car came to a stop sideways, obviously having slammed on the brakes.

The group was stunned to see the car door open and Zhao Hu coming out in horror, gasping, "Damn… there’s really… there’s really a ghost!"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other and walked over, and saw that the car was empty… Zhao Zhen was gone.

"Eh?" Bai Chi opened the car door, "Where is he?" At that moment, Zhao Zhen was seen walking out from behind a pillar in the parking lot.

"Wow…"

His group of assistants all kept clapping their hands in the distance.

Zhan Zhao felt as if they were similar to the team staff who were watching an F1 race from the sidelines, so professional, and that it was actually quite a cool job.

"What just happened?" Bai Yutang asked Zhao Zhen.

"Magic." Zhao Zhen smiled, "I actually didn't get into Hu Zi's car."

"Didn't get in?" The group looked at each other with blank faces.

"I merely made a show of… ordinary magic tricks, and you guys were so distracted by this constant stream of distractions that you didn't see me slip away."

"The traffic police and the truck did come at just the right time, they should have cooperated with each other…" Zhan Zhao said, pondering for a moment, "I should know who the real culprit is."

“Cat," Bai Yutang gently patted him, “can you stop thinking like that?"

The group looked at him with bated breath, “We want the truth!"

Zhan Zhao smiled, "I think we've all been tricked. This isn't a magic serial murder case at all, it's an outright scandalous hoax! A premeditated murder case where the victims were not chosen at random, they were deliberately arranged"

Zhao Zhen clapped his hands, "I thought so too!"

Bai Yutang rubbed his chin as if he understood too, and called Jiang Ping, saying, "Go and investigate the circumstances of these drivers when they were with the taxi company, did they have any altercations with anyone, or have a grudge against someone, preferably a superior in the company."

Jiang Ping ran off to make the call, and the group went upstairs.

"Hu Zi, what did you just see that scared you like that?" Luo Tian and the others all went over and asked.

Zhao Hu said, "I saw Zhao Zhen get in, then that traffic police officer told me to leave quickly. I thought, ah, taxi drivers must be most afraid of traffic police, so I hurried away. I wanted to ask him where to go and turned to look back, then I saw a strong beam of light… my eyes blurred and I heard Zhao Zhen tell me to go to the stadium. "

"Then I drove to the stadium. When the truck passed, I adjusted my rearview mirror to see Zhao Zhen behind me… he was sitting there properly."

"This place is so small, where can I drive to, so I wanted to look in the rearview mirror and ask him what to do next… I did not expect a ghost to lunge at me… damn, fortunately I reacted quickly. If I had seen it in the middle of the night, I would have been scared to death! No wonder those drivers had an accident!"

The group looked at each other, how was this done?

"The mystery is all in here." Zhao Zhen said, shaking the rear view mirror he had just removed, "There's a thermosensitive video player here, that sound was recorded in the video. I made this one myself, it's a bit more professional."

"Zhen, what's the mystery?" Bai Chi felt that he was probably too stupid to understand it at all.

Zhao Zhen gestured for the group to take it easy and wait until Jiang Ping came back with clues so he could tell them all together.

After the group returned to SCI's office, Jiang Ping had just hung up the phone and he came over to say, "Boss, it turns out that these drivers involved in the accidents had reported to the company more than once that a manager surnamed Chen from the taxi company had embezzled huge sums of money, and one of them had been beaten up because of this incident. By the way, there's a lawyer, Wang De, ever heard of him?"

“Oh," Zhan Zhao nodded, “that retired barrister who does free legal aid for workers with little legal awareness? I know him."

“En, he's very nice." Bai Chi also nodded, "Weren't there several victims before that he helped with their lawsuits for free."

"One of the drivers who died, the colleagues in the digital forensics team looked at all the calls in his phone one by one, and one of them was lawyer Wang's phone number."

"Oh, give me the phone number, I will go to ask about it." Lu Fang took the phone number and walked away.

Not long after, he came back with a frown and said, "Lawyer Wang said that the drivers had approached him for some legal advice, it seemed that their manager had a personal vendetta and they wanted to sue him for embezzlement…  They originally had an appointment to talk about it in detail, but those drivers never went, and Lawyer Wang remembered that they had mentioned that they had evidence in their hands."

"Murder to silence!" Zhao Hu said, "This is a fully motivated murder case!"

Zhan Zhao asked Bai Jintang, "Brother, where did you attend the technology exhibition where you saw that mirror?"

"A technology exhibition in Copenhagen, I was going to see the new surveillance equipment for hotels." Bai Jintang said, "Then it just so happened that I saw this gadget and it was said that the designer was a university student from China, so I bought it."

"College student…” Qin Ou frowned and thought about it, “Speaking of which, the one that had a fire break out before was a faculty member working at M University, and a few others that had fires seemed to be teachers..."

Everyone raised an eyebrow as Bai Yutang asked Jiang Ping, "Check what the relationship is between that student and the general manager of the taxi company.

Jiang Ping checked and looked up, "Father and son."

……

"Boss!" Jiang Ping said to Bai Yutang and the others, "This is the video that Zhao Zhen retrieved from the rear view mirror of the taxi that day. Because the battery has run out, the mirror can no longer display the video below, but I can play the video inside."

Saying that, he played the video for the group to see.

The group came over to take a look… and saw that it was a female high school student, getting into a car… disappearing… and becoming a ghost…

"Remember last time when I said this video was flawed?" Zhao Zhen said to the crowd, "It's basically a movie."

"A movie?” The group's eyes widened.

"That's right." Zhao Zhen called over a particularly punk-looking assistant of his called Xiao Gui. He was said to be a horror movie enthusiast, he had seen almost every horror movie in the world and had spent his life watching horror movies for fun.

"This is a restricted horror movie, as you can't see Japanese movies in China. It’s about ten years old, and it's about a female high school student who is bullied by her classmates and harassed by her teacher at school. Finally, after being run over by a taxi on a rainy night, she turns into a powerful ghost to take revenge. It’s quite well made."

"So the resemblance between this female ghost and Wang Zhenning is just a coincidence?" Bai Yutang frowned slightly, "Oh… it's because of the resemblance that this video was chosen!"

"That's right!" Zhan Zhao nodded, "Wang Zhenning also died in a traffic accident. She was hit by a taxi driver, and therefore the company needed to pay compensation. The manager in charge of this area, Manager Chen, most likely remembered her appearance and that's why he staged the case to make it look more like a ghost haunting."

"Wang Zhenning's parents promised to meet us but suddenly the whole family left… they most likely got hush money." Bai Yutang rubbed his chin, "Father and son collaborated to kill a lot of people, and we went around and around for so long investigating ghosts, arson, and explosions… It turned out to be just a simple case of murder and extermination case."

"Not only that." Zhan Zhao said coldly, "Have you noticed that the video captured by the cameras installed by the police is almost identical to the video in the rearview mirror… which is completely impossible!"

"So someone within the police has been bribed." Bai Yutang smiled faintly, "The people from the traffic division are highly suspicious... Also, where did they get Wang Zhenning's fingerprints?"

"Here's where it gets tricky.” Zhan Zhao smiled, "The ghost murderer's technique may work at night, but the truck lights and such are not good during the day."

The group was stunned to hear this.

Zhao Zhen nodded and smiled, "So there's no daytime video either, is there?”

"And there were only two people hit during the day." Gongsun pointed at Zhan Zhao and the others, "You guys, and Chi Chi."

"The time Brother was hit was also at night, and… Wang Zhenning's fingerprints were found." Bai Yutang said, "Maybe the father and son found you from the order and thought they might be discovered so they wanted to silence you... but why do the taxis hit so accurately?!"

“Well..." Zhan Zhao listened on the side and said, “we peeled off the first layer and left a few doubts, so let's see if we can find the answers when we off peel the second layer"

The group looked at each other. Ma Xin went to the front of the whiteboard to jot down a detailed diagram of the clues, while the others returned to the table to listen to Zhan Zhao as he continued to peel back the case.

‿︵‿︵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: February 3, 2022