S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 1 Chapter 68

The Murderer Is Not Human 01 - The Box Corpse

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After it snowed for a few days after Christmas, the temperature suddenly picked up a bit as the sun began to rise. People on the streets took off their thick winter clothes and put on relatively light spring clothes.

On the second Sunday after Christmas, the weather was unusually sunny.

A man was standing in front of the staircase of the S City Museum. With a brick-red turtleneck sweater, black jeans, slim and tall body, fair complexion and a look that was twice as good as any average boy, he stood out in the crowd.

However, the men and women who passed by him had a look of regret in their eyes along with some amazement. It's because he was wearing a silver ring on his left middle finger. He had two tickets for the exhibition in his hand, and his eyes were staring into the distance – seemingly waiting for someone.

Pedestrians passing by wondered who would keep such a person waiting with such an anxious face.

But then, if you get closer to him, you will hear this beautiful and exceptional person grinding his teeth fiercely and muttering, "Stinky mouse, 2 minutes 37 seconds late~~38 seconds~~dead mouse! 40 seconds!"

As he reached the 45th second, he saw a gorgeous white and silver Spyker C8 sports car in the distance speeding towards him. After a sharp braking sound, the car hurled into a parking space, and the exhaust gas made an arc that caught up with an aeroplane jet.

The car door opened in a flash. The man in the driver's seat unbuckled his seatbelt and sprang from the car. He slammed the door and locked the car in one swift movement, then darted towards the steps of the museum.

A short white leather jacket, white jeans, slightly long hair fluttering gently with his movements, and sharp features~~a handsome and sunny appearance. However, as he ran, he kept muttering, "Oh, my God, I can't believe this cat isn't late today…"

With the speed of a hundred metre sprint, he ran to the bottom of the steps. He bent down and propped himself up on his knees and panted out loud, "Cat~~Cat…"

That's right! These two are none other than Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang.

That being said, ever since the case of the 'Magic Murderer' had ended, Zhan Zhao had been paying special attention to mysterious cultures involving curses and the like. The day before yesterday, Xiao Bai Chi gave him two tickets, saying that there was an exhibition of private collections at the City Museum on Sunday. The exhibition was all about ancient indigenous cultures, and one of the photographers who participated was a friend of Zhao Zhen and therefore he got a lot of tickets.

So, Zhan Zhao made an appointment with Bai Yutang that, after his class this morning, he would meet him at the entrance of the museum at 10:30 sharp.

"Three minutes!" Zhan Zhao protested~~ Bai Yutang apologised repeatedly. "I was held back by Bao Sir at the bureau just before I left the door. Sorry Cat!"

In fact, three minutes is the highest record of Bai Yutang being late for a date with Zhan Zhao. The previous record was 2 minutes and 17 seconds, three years ago. It was because most of the time, Bai Yutang is the one who waits for Zhan Zhao, and if the cat doesn't show up for more than an hour, he will just drive to pick him up. 

In the language of the twins – Cats are not to be spoiled. If you spoil them, they will climb on your head and flaunt their power!!!

Since Christmas, Bai Yutang's level of spoiling this cat has gone up another notch. Therefore, someone who was already spoiled has become even more unrestrained.

The two of them entered the museum along with the crowd.

"Cat, what's there to see here?" Bai Yutang surveyed the picture on the ticket, "African primitive tribes… Southeast Asian indigenous people…"

"This ticket is hard to get." Zhan Zhao looked at him with an expression of ‘you’re too ignorant’ written all over his face, "They are all extremely valuable private collections."

"Would someone spend this lot of money to get these pieces of rotten wood to store in their home?" Bai Yutang handed the ticket to the ticket inspector at the entrance. Because his voice was slightly louder, it drew sideways glances from the people around him.

Zhan Zhao reached out to pinch him.

At this moment, they heard someone speaking from the other ticket gate, "You're staring at dead people every day, haven't you seen enough?"

The voice sounded familiar. The two turned their faces to see that it was Bai Jintang and Gongsun that had walked in from the other doorway. Of course, it was Bai Jintang who had just spoken, attracting the same disdain from those around them.

"Brother? Gongsun?" Bai Yutang greeted the two, rather surprised, "Why are you two here too?"

Bai Jintang shrugged his shoulders and pouted at Gongsun, who was beside him.

Gongsun glared at the two brothers, pointing to a strange box printed on the ticket and said, "Do you know about the 'box corpse'? It is the most mysterious funeral ritual in human history!"

Zhan Zhao nodded, intrigued, "Yeah, I've heard of it too. It is a funeral custom of the 'Tu Xi' tribe, the indigenous people of Southeast Asia. They stack up their dead and put them into a box, which is less than half their size. "

"Hmm." Gongsun nodded, "And they also coat the corpse with a special medicine so that when it's buried for a year and then taken out, the corpse stays perfectly square and unusually hard. The nobles of the 'Tu Xi' tribe use these box corpses to make furniture."

Bai Yutang and Bai Jintang followed behind them. Listening to the two refined people in front of them discussing corpses and furniture with great interest, they shook their heads helplessly.

When they walked into the exhibition hall, they saw a square "corpse" in the centre cabinet. Its joints were misaligned, its limbs and even its head were severely twisted. The expression on its face was extremely distorted and painful.

Bai Yutang stared at it for half a day before suddenly asking Gongsun, "Was the person alive or dead before being placed in the box?"

"He was alive." A voice behind him answered him.

The crowd turned around and saw a man with blonde hair and blue eyes standing behind them. Listening to his fluent Chinese, it was really hard to picture him as a foreigner.

Suddenly, he took a few steps up to Zhan Zhao and took a closer look: "Can you let me take a picture, your eyes are simply a work of art."

Bai Jintang then heard Bai Yutang's knuckles cracking next to him and was about to make fun of him another time, when unexpectedly the foreigner came up to Gongsun: "What a standard oriental beauty! Can you take off your glasses and let me have a look…"

Before he could finish his sentence, he was thrown off with his collar by Bai Jintang.

He rubbed his neck and got up from the ground to protest when he heard someone stop him, "Morris, they are the friends I told you about."

The person who spoke was none other than Zhao Zhen.

"Where's Bai Chi?" Zhan Zhao looked behind Zhao Zhen. He hadn't fully recovered from his hand injury, therefore, Bai Chi had been asked to stay with him to ‘look after’ him.

"He said he was scared and didn't dare to come." Zhao Zhen said a little helplessly.

"Oh, a friend of Zhen." The anger on Morris's face narrowed and was replaced with a smile, "Welcome, welcome." He then approached the crowd and said, "This is just a fake. The real one is inside. There is an auction today, and it will be sold."

Bai Jintang frowned, "Who would want this thing?" After saying that, he turned his face to look at Gongsun and saw the other’s eyes shining and sparkling as if he was saying, 'I want it so badly~~'

He immediately turned his head and asked Morris, "How much is it?"

Morris was slightly stunned, "Uh… something around three million..."

"Cheque or cash?" Bai Jintang asked again. After that, he called and instructed the twins to bring money over to buy the corpse ~~

"Ahem~~" behind him, Bai Yutang almost choked on his saliva.

Gongsun pulled Bai Jintang and asked, "What are you buying it for?"

Bai Jintang said in a slightly doting manner, "I'll take it back for you to decorate the forensic room~~"

Zhan Zhao made a "ye!" gesture to Bai Yutang and whispered, "You can take it back to scare Zhao Hu!" (Turtle: ye is in English in the raws.)

……

Everyone, with Morris leading the way, walked up to the ‘Special Display Room’ in the inner part of the museum.

Two security guard-like figures stood at the door.

Morris smiled at them, "Where's Boss Carlos? There's a buyer."

One of the security guards said, "Mr. Carlos hadn't been here. Please wait in the lounge. The rest of the guests are there too."

The crowd was about to head for the lounge when they heard the other security guard suddenly call out, "Captain~~"

Stopping in their tracks, the crowd looked at him and saw him take off his sunglasses and say to Bai Yutang, "Captain, it's me, Qu Yanming."

"Ah~~" Bai Yutang seemed to suddenly recall something. He stepped forward and patted the man's shoulder, "You brat."

Curious, Zhan Zhao came forward, "You know him?"

"Yes." Bai Yutang introduced him, "Qu Yanming, one of the pilots in Flying Tiger with me when I was in the army."

Qu Yanming seemed very happy, and after exchanging a word of farewell with his companion, he said to the crowd, "Let me take you there." With that, he led the way towards the lounge.

"Captain, you guys want to buy the box corpse, huh?" Qu Yanming asked, rather curiously.

"Hm~~" Bai Yutang nodded, seeing that there seemed to be quite a few people waiting in the lounge at a distance, he asked curiously, "There are many people who want to buy it?"

"Oh..." Qu Yanming laughed and shook his head, "They were all invited to do the authentication." He said, softly introducing the crowd, "That lady standing at the door on the phone is Lu Yan. She is Mr Carlos's secretary and has been on the phone for a long time because she couldn't locate him." Another gesture was made for everyone to look in the lounge, to see four people sitting inside.

"The middle-aged man is called Tian Zhong." Qu Yanming introduced, "He's the photographer."

"He's a colleague of mine." Morris suddenly interjected, "We were recently doing a series of albums about box corpses for Geographic magazine. That's why we were invited."

"The old lady," Qu Yanming continued his introduction, "the one sitting on the sofa, she's a famous painter, Mo Ning, and the two girls around her are her students."

"I've seen her paintings." Gongsun suddenly said, "The one that painted 'Burning Rage' right~~"

As they spoke, the group had arrived at the entrance to the lounge, and after introducing the people to Lu Yan, Qu Yanming departed.

"Ah… I'm really sorry. Boss Carlos hasn't been answering his phone for some reason." Lu Yan was somewhat apologetic as she guided the group into the room and sat down.

"I've been waiting for an hour." Tian Zhong looked at the crowd, rather dissatisfied

Lu Yan apologised and dialled a few more times, but still, no one answered.

"Why don't you let us see the box corpse first?" Morris suggested.

"I agree," Mo Ning nodded and said in a slightly aged voice, "it'll be less boring while we watch and wait."

"Well… that's fine." Lu Yan nodded and guided the group back towards the special display room.

As they walked, she kept calling the number.

"Shhh~~" Bai Yutang suddenly signalled for everyone to be silent.

He walked quickly to the door of the special display room and put his ear to the door as Qu Yanming and the other security guard stared at him in horror. He said to the secretary, "Try calling once more."

Lu Yan nodded and dialled the number.

Bai Yutang listened for a moment, turned back to the group and said, "There's the sound of a phone ringing inside."

Qu Yanming and the other security guard were both startled. They had been standing here and hadn't heard any phone ringing, "Mr. Carlos left after he put the safe inside this morning. We have been guarding the place the whole time, and no one has gone in!”

"Could it be that he forgot his phone inside?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"Let's go inside and take a look." Lu Yan hastily took out the key and opened the door.

The crowd entered the room, but there was no one inside.

The room has no windows, it is fully closed, and there is only a safe the size of half a human body on the table… The crowd searched around and didn't find any phone.

Except for Zhan Zhao and a few others, everyone else looked at Bai Yutang with some suspicion.

"You try calling again." Bai Yutang said to Lu Yan.

Lu Yan dialled the phone, and not long after, the crowd heard a faint ringing of a mobile phone…

The sound was muffled like it was separated by something thick. It was so faint that it was no wonder the crowd could not hear it from the doorway.

But no one had the mind to pursue this now, because the sound of the mobile phone was coming from the safe on the table.

Bai Jintang smiled, "Are you guys sure that this box corpse didn't come with a mobile phone in it?"

The crowd looked at each other, but none of them could say anything.

Gongsun glanced at Bai Yutang, walked over to the safe, reached out and tapped it. He put his ear to it and listened for a moment, then asked Lu Yan, "Can you open it?"

Lu Yan nodded and took the key out.

Bai Yutang took the key, paired it with the code Lu Yan said and unlocked the safe… Just as they heard a click, the crowd instinctively came forward and gazed into the box.

Slowly, Bai Yutang opened the door of the safe, and immediately the smell of blood hit his nose. As the door opened, a large amount of blood gushed out from inside, and inside was a twisted corpse – except that it was clearly not some dried corpse but a fresh, contemporary human body. From the body's distorted face, it was still possible to identify the deceased as a white male in his forties.

"Ah~~Mr. Carlos~~" Lu Yan screamed, and the other two girls also shrieked in terror.

Zhan Zhao pointed to the corpse's mouth and said, "There seems to be something inside."

Gongsun grabbed the rubber gloves for identification provided by the museum from the table and put them on. Reaching out, he gently opened the dead man's mouth, reached in with his other hand, pinched something and pulled it outwards.

As he did so, Morris and the others began to dry heave.

With a slight force, Gongsun pulled out a tiny, bloody mobile phone out of the corpse's mouth, flipping it open and displaying a row of missed calls on the screen.

Gongsun looked back at Bai Yutang and the others, signalling what to do.

Bai Yutang took out his phone to call the police.

Zhao Zhen suddenly had a few moments of admiration and said, "That~~what method was used to put a person into a sealed safe completely intact like that. Not a single person noticed and not a single drop of blood was spilt… The magic is so creative if one lives at last…"

……

"One more question." Bai Jintang, who had been silent, suddenly asked, "That real box corpse, where did it go?"

……

Hanging up the phone, Bai Yutang said to the crowd, "Everyone go out first. This is the scene of a murder…"

Before he could finish his sentence, he heard someone laughing eerily at the door. The sound was as frightening as an old aged woman howling.

Looking back, they saw a dried-up old woman standing in the doorway at some point. She was wearing a big black scarf on her neck and a black cloak with a very odd appearance.

Zhan Zhao suddenly said to Bai Yutang, "Xiao Bai, I think I've seen her somewhere before~~"

"Akasha." Zhao Zhen whispered to the two, "You should have seen her on a spiritual show on TV. A prophetic fortune-teller with supernatural powers."

"A fortune-teller?" Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao looked at Zhao Zhen at the same time. (Turtle: The word used for fortune teller is 占卜 which also translates to divination or a diviner)

Blinking, Zhao Zhen laughed, "Basically they are the same as us magicians," pausing for a moment to conclude, "they're all liars."

The uncomfortable laughter continued for a long time before hearing Akasha, in a hoarse voice, slowly say, "This is the curse of… box corpse~~who can do such things–-is definitely not human!"

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Hello! As I wrote on the main SCI table of contents, this novel has been worked on by two other translators, but has never been finished; Lilies are Flowers made it up to Chapter 43 but hasn't posted since June 2021, and Nighthawk Work Translations made it up to Chapter 67, but hasn't updated since July 2020. That being said, a translator has reached out to me in March 2022 about working on cases 4 and 5, and they will be working with me to post them on this site. We respect the work of the other two translators and have reached out to Lilies, but since the novel hasn't been touched in over eight months, we are tentatively pushing ahead with the posting.

A big thanks to Turtle for reaching out to me and for agreeing to post this on my site. I hope everyone enjoys their work!

Translated: February 22, 2022 by Turtle

Edited: March 21, 2022 by Angel