S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 3 Chapter 71

Lucky Murderer 02 - Lottery Ticket

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The crowd gathered around to hear Gongsun speak.

Gongsun took a sip of water and then said, "As soon as Xin Xin entered the crypt yesterday, it was said that she sensed some problems."

"What kind of problems?"

"The stench of the corpses!" Gongsun replied.

"The stench of corpses?" Zhan Zhao and the others looked at each other, "That's a thousand year old tomb, right, and there's still a corpse stench?"

“In a thousand year old tomb, it's normal to have some smell." Gongsun thought about it, "But as you know, forensic pathologists are very sensitive to the stench of corpses, the stench of a dead person is different from the general stench. Furthermore, humans are animals themselves, and animals have an instinctive fear of the smell of a corpse of their own kind."

"Are you saying that Xin Xin found that there was the stench of corpses, but it definitely wasn't coming from those ancient corpses?" Zhan Zhao asked, "There were other dead people in the ancient tomb?"

"That's right." Gongsun nodded, “Xin Xin said that she thought the stench was coming from inside one of the chambers at the back of a section of the tomb passage, so she asked the archaeological team if there were any more bodies back there. The archaeological team replied that there were statues carved from stone in the back which were scattered and arranged to look like battlefield ruins, so they deduced that the owner of this chamber could have been a general."

"A carved stone statue?" Bai Yutang was a little sceptical, "The person who attacked Xin Xin pretended to be a stone statue?"

Gongsun nodded, "When Xin Xin heard there were stone statues, she wanted to check them out. As she walked over, she became more and more certain that there must be a dead person inside,” Gongsun said, pointing to his nose, "because the smell was too obvious!"

"She had just gone down into the pit when suddenly a stone statue jumped up to attack her… Luo Tian drew his gun, and jumped down as two of them lunged towards Xin Xin with a ghostly scream. Luo Tian was in the pit, however he couldn't reach it and was probably worried about Xin Xin, so he shot them both."

Everyone raised their eyebrows, but think about it, in a dead man's grave, several stone people suddenly popped up, who would not be afraid.

"So did you find out later?" Zhan Zhao asked, "Was it someone in disguise?"

"That's for sure." Gongsun nodded, "One didn't die. The one closest to Xin Xin was shot in the head, the one far away that Luo Tian struck was on all fours, but they were covered in mud, and of course, there was another one who had been dead for a long time!"

"That's the one with the corpse stench?" Bai Yutang shook his head, "Hiding in a tomb, a tomb raider?"

Gongsun shrugged, "I don't know, if they were grave robbers, wouldn't it have been better to slip away earlier, why pretend to be a stone figure? And when they were discovered, one of them was killed, and the other jumped in front of Xin Xin without begging for mercy. At that time, several archaeological team members said that they thought it was a fraudulent corpse or that they encountered some kind of mechanism, but the stone man screamed and rushed over, and shooting its hand could not stop it."

“What's going on… really weird, huh?" Zhan Zhao asked Bai Yutang.

"You want to go see?" Bai Yutang smiled, "Ai Hu and the others took the case, right, I guess there will be results soon."

"That's true, it's not like it's a serial murder case." Zhan Zhao sighed.

"Those media outlets are speculating that it's an ancient corpse that injured someone, I guess they're also trying to generate more attention, everything is just hype nowadays." Jiang Ping clicked on the online news, "Look, it's all over the front page."

The crowd gathered to see –《Thousand-year-old corpse is fraudulent, attacks police coroner》

"Heh, the headline is creepy enough, I guess it will earn a lot of attention. If we wait, a clarification will come in ten to fifteen days, it won't be considered fraud by then, but the popularity will be fired up." Zhan Zhao tsked twice, "No fun, I thought the ancient corpse was really fraudulent."

"How is that possible?" Bai Yutang shook his head and got up to pour tea at the table, when he saw Bao Zheng walking in.

"What's wrong?" Zhan Zhao asked when he saw the odd look on Bao Zheng's face.

"Well…" Bao Zheng frowned and shook his head, waving behind him.

Not long after, they saw someone push three beds in, all of which were the kind of mobile beds used for surgery or autopsies. They placed them side by side in SCI's office, with white cloths covering the three corpses on the beds.

"They're all dead?" Bai Yutang noticed the hands of one of the corpses exposed from the white cloth, which were covered in mud.

"Is there a big case?" The crowd was sympathetic to the dead but also a little excited, finally a case!

Bao Zheng looked at the crowd, his face so pale that no one knew how to describe it. Behind him was also an old man in a white coat, whom the crowd was familiar with; the old forensic pathologist of the police station, Old Yang.

When Gongsun saw Old Yang's even more odd expression, he asked, "What's wrong?"

"These were delivered from the ancient tomb, two were killed by Luo Tian, and one was long dead." Bao Zheng said.

"Didn't Luo Tian injure the other one?" Gongsun was puzzled, "How come he died too?"

"Oh, he was too weak, even if he wasn't beaten to death, he probably wouldn't have survived." Forensic pathologist Yang raised his eyebrows at Gongsun, "Starved to death."

The crowd looked at each other with blank faces.

Zhan Zhao could see that something was strange and asked, "Doctor Yang, is there something wrong with the corpses?"

"Well… I rinsed the mud off their bodies, so you guys can take a look." Forensic pathologist Yang seemed somewhat speechless, he reached out and lifted up the white cloth covering one of the bodies.

The crowd moved over to take a look and was startled.

They saw that the man had a beard, a long braid and, strangest of all, a long ragged tunic.

"This is…" Zhan Zhao looked around for a long time, "Qing Dynasty clothes?"

"And these two." Forensic pathologist Yang removed the white cloth covering their bodies, and they saw that all of them were wearing Qing Dynasty clothing.

"Ha…" Zhan Zhao laughed, "What does this mean?"

"Someone pretending to be a ghost, right?" Zhao Hu asked.

"That… Gongsun." Old Yang beckoned to Gongsun and gave him a few x-rays, "I measured the bone age for all three of them, and guess what?"

Gongsun looked at the X-rays and raised his eyebrows, "It wouldn't…"

Old Yang nodded and pointed to the three, "Around one hundred and twenty years old, late Qing dynasty."

"Heh…" The crowd all drew in a sharp breath…

"But these guys look like they're only twenty or thirty years old!" Bai Chi called out.

"Zombies?!" Zhao Hu clapped his hands together, "Wow, this is great.” (Angel: The particular type of ‘zombie’ used here is jiangshi, 僵尸, also known as ‘jumping corpses’ or ‘moving corpses’.)

Zhan Zhao laughed, this was even more unreliable than the ancient corpse attacking people, and he said, "Old Yang, could it be a wrong measurement?"

"Well, that's why I brought it in for Gongsun to test it again, maybe I'm old and confused!" Old Yang was obviously irritated by something.

Bai Chi hurriedly poured him a cup of tea. Old Yang was an old forensic pathologist who was rehired after retirement. Many forensic pathologists such as Gongsun were actually his favourite students, but Gongsun was particularly outstanding and had become a master of his craft.

"It's not very difficult to measure bone age." Gongsun shook his head and looked at Bai Yutang, "It won't be measured incorrectly, but it's not that miraculous, it could be an abnormal bone age. Many causes can lead to abnormal bone age, such as radiation or orthopaedic diseases."

“It’s such a coincidence?" Zhan Zhao frowned, "Bone age of one hundred and two, and dressed in Qing Dynasty clothes."

"Let's do some more detailed identification on them, and if that's not possible, we'll do a carbon-14 dating." Gongsun said, asking someone to push the bodies into the forensic room and went off with Old Yang for the identification.

When Gongsun and the others had left, Zhao Hu asked Zhan Zhao, "What's carbon-14 dating?"

"Oh, the carbon in organic matter in living organisms is divided into the stable carbon-12 and a part of the radioactive isotope carbon-14. Once the organism dies, carbon-14 decays, but carbon-12 remains unchanged, so by using the degree of carbon-14 decay, we can calculate the age of the organism. It's mostly used in palaeontology to identify fossils. If those people are really zombies, then they should be able to measure them." (Angel: Here is more reading on carbon-14 dating if you are interested.)

Bao Zheng shook his head, "There are really strange things every year, but this year is especially strange."

"What other strange things?" Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang asked him simultaneously.

“Ai… don't mention it." Bao Zheng waved his hand seemingly quite annoyed, then turned and walked away while saying, "By the way, I'm very busy these days, don't give me any trouble!"

Bao Zheng walked away, leaving the SCI crowd looking at each other. Bai Yutang made a face at Zhan Zhao; Bao Sir hadn't been that annoyed in a long time.

"After all is said and done, is there still no case?" Zhao Hu was disappointed, "Three dead ghosts from the Qing Dynasty were brought in. I think they are fakes, ai, a waste of time.” (Angel: Zhao Hu calls them si gui, 死鬼, which can be used to speak of the dead or can be used to curse people.)

Ma Han patted him on the shoulder, "Come on, isn't world peace good?"

"Brother Ma!" Zhao Hu tugged at Ma Han, "Go shopping with me! Let's go out to the streets and see if there are any bank robberies or drug sales or anything like that!"

Ma Han kicked him several times without getting rid of him, and Zhao Hu smirked.

The crowd remained idle at the SCI office.

By the time work finished for the evening, Gongsun came out from his examination and said, "Liar! It's not that old at all!"

The crowd felt even more uninterested, and were happy for nothing. It would have been better if they were from the Qing Dynasty, they could have investigated.

"These people are in their twenties and thirties, and are definitely modern, but then again, they seem to have been starving for a long time, and there are multiple traces of electric shocks on their bodies." Gongsun said, winking.

Zhan Zhao frowned, "Multiple electric shocks… Were they severely mentally ill? They can use electrotherapy."

"Well, there happens to be a psychiatric hospital nearby, I just called and asked." Gongsun smiled and said, "Indeed there were three psychiatric patients running around a while ago, with severe delusions and mania. The funniest thing was that they all said they were from the Qing Dynasty and dressed up in Qing Dynasty clothes all day to perform there. It is said that they were originally from an opera troupe, and it is customary to get an opera troupe to sing at red and white ceremonies in that area, for 500 yuan a piece. Funerals also come with three loud aunties to help with the crying." (Angel: Red and white ceremonies, 红白喜事, refer to weddings and funerals, with red referring to marriage and longevity and white referring to funerals.)

The crowd couldn't laugh or cry, and Jiang Ping asked glumly, "Gongsun, why are you robbing me of my work?"

"Because I'm bored." Gongsun stuck his hands in his pockets, "The one who died first was killed by someone hitting him on the head with a blunt object, probably done by the other two patients."

Bai Yutang nodded, thinking that this was indeed not a big case, and said, "Send the body to the criminal police, let Ai Hu and the others investigate it."

“Cough cough…" Zhan Zhao coughed and muttered, "If you think about it carefully, there are still a lot of suspicions."

“That's right." Gongsun suddenly fished something out of his pocket and handed it to Zhan Zhao to show them, "I found this in the pocket of one of their clothes."

Bai Yutang reached out to take it and looked at it, and saw that it was a welfare lottery ticket.

"A lottery ticket?" Bai Chi was curious and looked at the date, "Yo, it's still recent."

"I'll call the lottery centre and ask." Thinking that he had finally found something to do, Jiang Ping went to get the phone, but saw Gongsun waving his hand and laughing, "I just went to ask, the lottery centre said that this is the top prize ticket of a certain issue a month ago. They have been waiting for the winner to come and claim the prize, but the person never showed up, and it has nearly rolled over to the next issue since then."

"The first prize?" The crowd's eyes widened and Zhao Hu asked with a smile, "How much money?"

Gongsun picked up the corner of his mouth and pushed his glasses up, "Probably ten million after tax."

"Well that's a big prize." Zhan Zhao shook his head, "These patients bought a lottery ticket with a ten million dollar jackpot and then died in an ancient tomb… just a coincidence?"

"If it wasn't a coincidence and someone was trying to kill them for money, then there's no reason to kill them without taking the lottery ticket." Bai Yutang shook his head gently, "But if they went to buy a lottery ticket wearing Qing Dynasty clothes, would someone sell it to them?"

"There is another point that is also strange." Zhan Zhao rubbed his chin, "What do you think, that ancient tomb has been open for so long and is open on all sides, why didn't they run out even though they were starving to death?”

The crowd glanced at each other and nodded, "That's also true."

Zhan Zhao smiled faintly and nudged Bai Yutang with his elbow, "Ai, Captain Bai, do you think this case will become a major case if we dig into it?"

Bai Yutang pointed to his ears, "Didn't you hear what Bao Sir said just now, don't cause any trouble."

Zhan Zhao his eyebrows, “Let's just take a quiet look and file a case if we find anything."

When Bai Yutang looked at the crowd, he saw that everyone was looking up at him like baby birds, with the words – so bored – written on their heads.

"… Okay." Bai Yutang nodded in agreement and waved the lottery ticket, "Go take a look."

‿︵‿︵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: March 8/10, 2022 by Angel