S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 1 Chapter 71

The Murderer Is Not Human 04 – Tu Xi

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Quickly coming back to their senses, Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao soon rushed to the city museum with the S.C.I team.

The first thing to do was to disperse the swarming media, and the police officers drew up a cordon to secure the scene.

The S.C.I team quickly made their way into the lounge.

Looking at the scene, the gruesome feeling of the body was slightly reduced. Perhaps it was affected by the photos, the feeling of looking through the lens makes people associate it with the eyes in the photos at first glance. Zhan Zhao was slightly grateful, if the first time was not looking through the lens but directly at the corpse, it might not have been linked to those photos.

Gongsun put on his gloves and went up to examine the corpse, observing the body while saying, "Male, around forty years old, no signs of poisoning…" looking over at his pupils, "Sudden death!"

"Something like a disease?!" Bai Yutang asked.

"It looks…" Zhan Zhao hesitated for a moment, "like he died of fright."

Gongsun nodded, "Yes… it does look like he died of fright."

Bai Yutang turned to ask Morris, who was standing to the side, "You were with him the whole time?"

Morris shook his head, "He just said he didn't feel too well. I went to get him a glass of water… and when I came back he looked like this."

"Does he have any illnesses?" Zhan Zhao asked, "Like, heart disease, high blood pressure or something like that?"

"… I've worked with him for many years and as far as I know there is none." Morris shook his head.

"One more question." Zhan Zhao said, "Mr. Tian Zhong has a collection of photos of eyes… do you know?"

"Oh…" Morris nodded, "I know, it's the collection called 'Fear'. I suppose it's Tian Zhong's masterpiece."

"How did you guys get the model to show that expression?!" Bai Yutang trailed off.

"Uh…" Morris was a bit indecisive and hesitated for a moment, "This, is a secret…"

Zhan Zhao smiled, "Do you think that Tian Zhong's eyes are very similar to the one in the photo?"

Morris froze and sighed, "It's very similar…"

"Then can you say it?" Bai Yutang pressed.

"None of those people are models." Morris said softly, "Tian Zhong hired people to first scare the subject half to death before grabbing the shot."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other and neither said anything else.

At that very moment, there was chaos at the entrance and a man barged in, ignoring the police officers.

The crowd turned around and recognized him, it was Shang Luo who had just appeared earlier in the news on TV.

The young police officer who was blocking the way gave Bai Yutang a troubled look, Bai Yutang nodded to him and the officer left.

Shang Luo, with his hands in his trouser pockets, scanned around with an air of calmness. His eyes flickered slightly when they fell on Zhan Zhao, then he smiled politely before withdrawing his eyes and saying to Bai Yutang, "This must be Captain Bai, right. I've heard a lot about you, my name is Shang Luo."

Bai Yutang smiled and reached out to shake his hand back, "I know, I've seen you on the news just now."

"Really..." Shang Luo nodded, "I'm here to ask you all to do me a favour."

"A favour?" Bai Yutang turned back and exchanged a look with Zhan Zhao, "A favour for what?"

"I will leave the real box corpse in the museum until the mystery and curse of the Box Corpse is cleared up." Shang Luo pointed to the back of the exhibition hall, "I hope the police will find someone to protect it."

Bai Yutang smiled and nodded, "This is the scene of a murder, so we will naturally find someone to protect it."

"Also, I hope Captain Bai can solve the case as soon as possible. Many people are waiting for an answer to their questions." After saying that, he smiled again and turned to leave.

"What's he doing here?" Zhan Zhao walked over to Bai Yutang, "Mysterious."

Bai Yutang frowned and thought for half a day, "Cat, have we ever offended him when we were working on a case before?"

Zhan Zhao shrugged, "No I suppose…"

When the evidence gathering was finished, it was almost evening. After sending Zhan Zhao home, Bai Yutang drove alone and went to a place.

The car stopped in front of a nightclub and Bai Yutang got out. He turned into the alleyway and entered the back door of the nightclub.

A young punk at the door who was smoking froze slightly when he saw him, and then opened a door behind him.

Behind the door was a long, dimly lit flight of steps,, which led down to the ground floor.

Bai Yutang entered through the door and walked down to the bottom of the steps, where another door appeared.

Reaching out, he lightly knocked twice on the door, which opened a small window, revealing the pair of eyes of the person inside.

Seeing that it was Bai Yutang, the man closed the window, and a moment later, with a click, the door was opened.

The room behind the door was furnished as if it was a business office, and Bai Yutang froze, an instant expression of disgust on his face, "Your taste is getting worse and worse."

The man sitting at his desk smoking a cigarette raised his head and rolled his eyes in contempt at Bai Yutang, "It's called aesthetics!"

This was a man in his thirties, ordinary looking and dressed like an office worker, except that below his eyes, a shallow scar ran across almost his entire face.

"Well? What's so important that you, Captain Bai, have come up to this little temple of mine personally?" The man put out his cigarette and asked casually.

"I want to check the background of this Shang Luo guy." Bai Yutang got to the point.

"This… is a bit tricky~~" he frowned in embarrassment.

"He was born in the underworld." Bai Yutang moved a chair and sat down, "For matters of the underworld, it should be right to ask you, Zi Hua."

"Ugh~~" sighing, Zi Hua nodded, "What, this guy is looking for trouble with you? Or looking for trouble with that precious cat of yours?!"

Bai Yutang faintly froze, and saw that Zi Hua was staring intently at the ring on his left hand.

"I just don't get what he is after, that's why I came to ask you." Turning the ring gently, "You know where he came from?"

Zi Hua spoke with slight mystery, "All I can say is that… it might be a big problem this time."

"What do you mean?" Bai Yutang puzzled.

"The issue is not about you." Zi Hua coughed, "Shang Luo had originally been in Italy, and had started off with drugs and firearms… Then, in a dispute over status, he offended the head of the mafia and was thrown out."

"Then came to the country to open a security company?" Seeing Zi Hua nod, Bai Yutang asked again, "What does that have to do with me?"

"Nothing to do with you." Zi Hua shook his head, "I'm not sure about the details, ask your big brother and you'll understand… I only know that Shang Luo being purged has a lot to do with your big brother."

"My brother?!" Bai Yutang frowned more intensely, and after a moment, asked, "What did my brother… do when he was in Italy?!"

"Hehehe~~~" Zi Hua laughed, "That I do not know. You are brothers, ask him yourself… It's just that this Shang Luo has big ambitions, recently the underworld is all stirred up. A mountain of rain is coming. I guess it's also him making waves~~~Ugh, I'm ready to go out to escape the storm too."

Bai Yutang stood up, said "thank you" and then prepared to leave. Before leaving through the door, he heard Zi Hua add behind him, "Be careful~~"

Leaving the nightclub and getting in the car, it was already dark. Bai Yutang suddenly remembered that Zhan Zhao probably hadn't eaten yet at home, so he hurriedly bought a pizza and rushed back.

When he opened the door and went inside, he suddenly smelled a strange mushy smell, like something was on fire.

"Cat… Cat…" startled almost out of his soul, following the smell to the kitchen, Bai Yutang froze.

He saw Zhan Zhao wearing an apron, holding a spatula in one hand and a bottle of soy sauce in the other, staring intently at the pan on the gas stove. His mouth was muttering, but what he was saying was unknown.

Bai Yutang was relieved to see that he was alright, and when he walked into the kitchen, he heard Zhan Zhao saying to an egg in the pan, "Hurry up~~come on!"

He was just about to say something when he saw the pan crackling and popping, probably because the oil was hot.

The oil was hot and crackling, but it seemed to be almost ready. Zhan Zhao looked at the pot and raised his hand to pour soy sauce into it…

"Wait a minute!" Even before Bai Yutang's words left his mouth, the soy sauce had already been poured into the pot - "hiss", a black and yellow smoke rose up ~~

Zhan Zhao raised his hand and threw the rice from the bowl next to him into it, picking up a spatula and stirring it~~

"Oh my god… Cat~~" Bai Yutang quickly turned on the hood, turned off the gas and pushed open the window.

Zhan Zhao looked at him in confusion, "Why?!"

"I should be asking you, right?!" Bai Yutang grabbed the spatula out of his hand, "What are you doing? A chemistry experiment?"

Zhan Zhao was slightly smug, "Cooking!"

Looking back at the pile of yellow and black ‘objects’ in the pot, Bai Yutang asked Zhan Zhao, "What did you originally intend to make?!"

"Originally I wanted to make omelette rice...then decided to make egg fried rice."

Bai Yutang nodded and pointed to the pot and asked again, "Then what is this?!"

"…Egg… egg fried rice." Zhan Zhao replied, somewhat lacking in confidence.

Look at the messy kitchen, the black food, and then look at the smiling, clean Zhan Zhao in front of him, Bai Yutang rubbed his brow somewhat helplessly, "I say, Cat, the rice you made… is very masculine~~"

Zhan Zhao glared at him, "Only rice?"

"You look posh when you're cooking, too." Bai Yutang leaned over the sink and laughed out loud, the gloom he had just felt swept away.

Zhan Zhao walked up to him and rubbed his hair, "So, are you in a better mood?"

Bai Yutang froze, and then, reaching out to lift Zhan Zhao's chin, he kissed him on the corner of his lips: "Cat, thank you~~"

Out of the kitchen, the two of them chatted as they nibbled on the pizza, Bai Yutang told Zhan Zhao everything he had just learned at Zi Hua's place.

"Hmmm~~" Zhan Zhao thought about it, "Xiao Bai, do you think Shang Luo is not just taking advantage of the opportunity to look for trouble this time?"

"In the first case…" Bai Yutang fiddled with the coffee cup on the table, "the person in charge of security was from Shang Luo's company, and the first thing Shang Luo did after Carlos died was to buy the Box Corpse..."

"That's right." Zhan Zhao took a chopstick and stuck it into a small piece of pizza, "Shang Luo did gain a lot of benefits...but to say that he killed someone and made up some kind of curse just for that little financial benefit~~feels weird altogether."

"This case is really fishy." Bai Yutang handed a cup of hot milk to Zhan Zhao, "Cat, after eating, let's go back to the police station. Gongsun's autopsy results should be out."

"Mm." Zhan Zhao nodded his head, held up the milk and drank it.

At 7pm, the two of them returned to S.C.I., and Gongsun was already waiting in the office with the autopsy report. At this moment, he was leaning next to Jiang Ping, staring at the computer screen with a very serious expression.

"What is it?" Bai Yutang approached, "What have you found?"

"Chief." Jiang Ping looked up at the two men, "Look, the internet is now full of reports about the Box Corpse and Tu Xi culture. There are also people who have set up some kind of Tu Xi religion… to worship that box corpse like a god."

Zhan Zhao suddenly asked, "How many researchers of the Tu Xi culture… are there roughly?"

"Well~~" said Jiang Ping as he clicked on a webpage, "There really aren't many records about the Tu Xi tribe~~ but there are two people on the internet who are famous."

"Which two people?"

"One is the painter Mo Ning, and the other is the fortune-teller Akasha." Jiang Ping searched for information on the two men, "Mo Ning's famous painting, 'Burning Rage', depicts the execution by fire of the ancient Tu Xi culture – hanging the guilty and burning them to death."

When the crowd looked at the painting, they saw a picture of a twisted and struggling man, hanging from a rope and beneath him, a blue flame. The strangest thing was that the hanged man was tugging on the other end of the rope by himself… It looked creepy as hell.

"Why is he holding onto the rope himself?" Bai Yutang wondered.

"That's because in Tu Xi custom, death by fire is the worst punishment, and the soul will suffer from the fire forever. So he would rather hang himself first…" Zhan Zhao explained, and saw the crowd staring at him curiously.

"Cat, how do you know?" Bai Yutang wondered.

"......" Zhan Zhao's eyes widened as he looked back at the crowd, "Why are you looking at me like that? I'm at the very least a scholar. it is not right for me to know more?"

"Ahem~~" Bai Yutang turned back and asked Jiang Ping, "What about the other one?"

"It's the one we were just looking at." Gongsun suddenly said, "Akasha's live streaming video."

"Live streaming what?" Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao approached curiously.

"She said she knows who the sinner is… The God of Tu Xi told her." Jiang Ping shrugged his shoulders and clicked on the live video, "It's been half a day of tossing and turning, and the broadcasting car has gone to the location she pointed out."

"Going to find what?" Zhan Zhao looked at the live feed, a small villa.

"Akasha said that sinners will be punished by the God of Tu Xi… she knows the next sinner…" Gongsun stopped before he could finish his words~~only to see the camera showing the villa in flames with black smoke rolling above.

"Ah!" The cameraman suddenly called out, "There seems to be something in the room!" Said the camera, moving forward.

There was a blazing fire in the first floor window and blue flames spitting upwards from the open window.

In the midst of the flames, a person was hanging from the beam, a rope running over the beam with the other end being tightly held in his own hand.And it was the painter, Mo Ning…

The crowd in front of the screen watched all this with their mouths open, unable to speak.

A few moments later, the crowd looked at each other and spoke in unison, "Evil~~~”

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Translated: February 26, 2022 by Turtle

Edited: April 5, 2022 by Angel