S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 3 Chapter 96

Lucky Murderer 25 – Big Fish Small Fish

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They have a plan, but plans never change fast enough, as a deeper conspiracy emerges once again. As a result of their speculations and the clues provided by Bai Jintang, they were able to link the case to the mysterious organisation that had been hiding behind it.

In order to successfully implement the plan of catching a big fish with a long line, they need to set a trap, and tonight is the key.

According to the conservative speculation of the group, Qian Jiarang would send someone to retrieve the body.

With little time left to prepare, Bai Yutang was already planning an ambush, pretending to be out on police business on the one hand, and sneaking back in secret on the other.

And while everyone was busy preparing, Zhan Zhao was sitting on the sofa, holding his chin in one hand, seemingly stumped by something. His brows were slightly furrowed, and at first glance, he had something on his mind.

"Cat, what's wrong?" Bai Yutang walked over and sat next to him, and Zhan Zhao let out a soft ‘tsk', "Is there still a flaw in our previous consideration?"

Bai Yutang faintly stared, and also pondered.

Bai Chi was probably hungry or nervous because he had a big task ahead of him, so he sat aside to drink coffee and eat a biscuit. Jiang Ping, who was overworked and therefore consumed a lot, also came over to him to eat. He heard Bai Chi mutter in a low voice, "I don't often see that."

"What?" Jiang Ping didn't quite understand and asked Bai Chi.

"Oh." Bai Chi said to Jiang Ping beside him with an emotional expression, "Look, Brother seems to be in a state of worry."

Jiang Ping followed Bai Chi's line of sight, nodded, and whispered, "Oh, I guess we've had a change of mission tonight."

"Huh?" Bai Chi froze, "Has Brother Zhan found out something again?"

"That's right, look at the look on Dr. Zhan's face, he might have figured something out again." Jiang Ping tsked twice.

"By the way..." Bai Chi suddenly asked Jiang Ping, "do you think reading mystery novels is really useful for solving cases?"

"Haha." Jiang Ping was amused by Bai Chi, "Forget it, there is no such thing as an easy way to solve a crime like what is written in those novels. Most of the novels are written about tricks, secret room murders, secret rooms equipped with mechanisms, and the murderer has to dig a hole near the mechanism to hide and observe, or he has to return to the scene of the murder wearing a disguise... There are very few killers in real life who are this stupid. The murderer in the novel is definitely a person who has appeared in the author's pen, as going in a circle around the reader is not enjoyable. In real life, there are no real-life criminal cases where you are told that there are only a few murderers. A lot of them are random cases, where a madman runs into a house, kills a man, and escapes into a metropolis of tens of millions of people, leaving no clues, where can you find them in a sea of people?"

"That's true." Bai Chi nodded, "The culprit is nearby... Indeed, we rarely come across the murderer being someone close to us." With that, he looked at the few SCI members around him.

"That kind of novel ah, all made up!" Zhao Hu moved a stool over, "But then again, don't say fiction is bizarre, reality is sometimes more bizarre than fiction."

"That's true." Bai Chi nodded his head.

At that moment, he saw Zhan Zhao suddenly look up and say, "No, Qian Jiarang has to be arrested! "

"Huh?" The crowd was surprised.

Bai Chi asked, "Brother... you're not afraid of alerting the snake?"

After pondering carefully for a while, Bai Yutang also nodded slightly, "Indeed, we are afraid of alerting the snake, but there is also the possibility of making a mistake!"

"What do you mean?" The crowd gathered around, wondering what was missing in such a perfect plan to lure the snake out of its hole.

"I thought about it, we can't pretend to be too stupid, after all, we're speculating about the yacht, we don't have very complete proof yet! What if we make a hasty decision and guess wrong? Besides, if we prepare a fake body to catch a big fish, we run the risk of being discovered. If we release a real body, we may lose more than we gain. Instead of alerting the snake and letting people prepare early, it's better to have one and catch one." Zhan Zhao seriously said, "SCI is supposed to be smart, not stupid. The other party should also know something about us if they have been dealing with us for a long time. Wouldn’t it going too smooth... make them suspicious?"

"Cat, you mean... we follow the plan we set before, wait for them to steal the body, then catch a big fish, the biggest one being Wei Ziqiang?" Bai Yutang asked.

"Not bad!" Zhan Zhao nodded, "If Qian Jiarang is arrested, there's no way he won't give Wei Ziqiang up!"

"After lurking in the police station for so many years, he must be an important pawn!" Bai Yutang sneered, "If he doesn't fall into the trap, we would have suspicion that the other side must have cut him off. But when a dog is anxious, it's time for a person to break through, you also said they are in a hurry now, and restraint is a dead end, the result of desperate measures is exposure."

"That's right!" Zhan Zhao seemed happy that Bai Yutang agreed with him, "If Qian Jiarang and Wei Ziqiang both fall into the trap, that's even better! Having unearthed such a big tumour in one operation, the atmosphere within the police station must be extremely busy and tense! Surely the SCI crowd will be celebrating after taking great credit."

"It just so happens that this is the perfect time to commit a crime!" Bai Yutang smiled coldly, "Cat, I also advocate catching a porcelain one tonight!"

Zhan Zhao looked at the crowd, several people here have long been displeased with Qian Jiarang. Not to mention making things difficult, this kind of spy is a black sheep… and must be eliminated!

After thinking about it, Bai Yutang asked Jiang Ping to organize the evidence, while the others put their plans into action, still using fake corpses as bait.

Everyone pretended to drive away and prepare for action, but in fact they had already changed cars and snuck back through the underground passages, splitting up and ambushing the SCI area.

Jiang Ping had re-programmed the surveillance cameras to be ready to capture at any time. Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were in the surveillance car, waiting outside the police station, directing the arrest operation.

Little by little, time passed, and the crowd was waiting with all their might to catch the culprit

Zhan Zhao briefly reported to Bao Zheng, who, upon hearing this, was surprisingly not surprised, but simply said, "Well, it's better to be careful, if you need the help of the SWOT team, you can go and mobilize the men, I won't appear."

Zhan Zhao raised an eyebrow at Bai Yutang and smiled... It seems that ginger is still old and spicy, Bao Zheng had already guessed that there must be an inside mole in this incident and is ready to eradicate Wei Ziqiang, the black sheep.

In the early hours of the morning, there was silence all around.

Zhao Hu quietly went to scout and came back to whisper to Bai Yutang, "There is a chance, Qian Jiarang and Wei Ziqiang have not left yet!"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both nodded.

"He stayed behind, probably to help the other party control the camera so that someone can move around unnoticed." Jiang Ping pointed at the computer, "I'm keeping an eye on him, I set up an ambush to surround him a long time ago!"

Bai Yutang nodded and beckoned to Zhao Hu, Ma Han, Wang Chao, and Zhang Long, saying, "You four be smart, split up and keep an eye on Qian Jiarang and Wei Ziqiang, don't let any of them get away! If I tell you to arrest them, arrest them immediately."

"Yes." The four men had long since chosen a place to ambush and were all waiting.

At this time, the phone rang, and it was Lu Fang calling, "The men have arrived, they're downstairs, do you want to conduct a detailed inspection?"

"Yes, everything will follow the normal procedure!" Bai Yutang took the intercom and looked out of the car window. He saw a cleaning company car with four workers in blue uniforms getting out, and a few renovators carrying glass.

Soon, those workers went upstairs through the security check.

At the same time, Jiang Ping shouted, "Head! There's action!"

Both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang lowered their heads and came over to look.

They saw that Jiang Ping had already hacked Qian Jiarang and Wei Ziqiang's computers, tracking their every step, in addition, all the surveillance systems were operating through secret lines.

"Won't their side find out?" Bai Yutang asked Jiang Ping curiously, not knowing what Jiang Ping was doing while tapping on the computer with an excited look on his face.

"Don't worry!" Jiang Ping smiled, "In fact, I designed two paths, their side is just an illusion. My program is a counter-program, that is, if their side wants something, I will give it to them, but in fact, they think they have done something, but their side has done nothing, but they still see what they should see. So, we captured what they were doing on both sides, and I recorded his program, as well as the camera recordings of his computer screen and all angles of his face. So ah, this is the man stolen and caught ah!

After listening, Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao looked at each other for a while - they didn't understand anything except "what he is doing"!

"The trap has been set, look!" Jiang Ping pointed at the monitor.

They saw the workers in blue enter the police station and call Qian Jiarang first, signalling - They're here!

The call didn't go through, and after just a moment's thought, Qian Jiarang hung up.

The timing of the phone dialing and Qian Jiarang's phone ringing was almost simultaneous. Jiang Ping then began a quick search of the records of the phone calls received by Qian Jiarang's phone.

Qian Jiarang stood up and walked out while deleting the records... He was walking stealthily in the corridor, of course, it looked normal on the screen, but SCI are veterans of criminal investigation who have ghosts in their hearts, they can see it in their faces and eyes.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both came closer to look, and saw Qian Jiarang quickly arrive near Wei Ziqiang's office on the upper floor of the police station, knock on the door and then directly open it and go in, "Coming!"

Wei Ziqiang looked up at him and gave a quiet "Hmm".

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were startled and looked at Jiang Ping, "There's a bug?"

Jiang Ping smiled, "The monitoring devices are actually attached to the surveillance system, I was asked to install them before, but I usually don't turn them on!"

"Really?" Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang secretly sighed, "Bao Sir has long suspected him of having problems?"

"I don't know, I just do whatever Bao Sir tells me to do." Jiang Ping smiled.

Bai Yutang reached out and tapped him on the shoulder, "Say, what other secrets do you know that we don't know about Bao Sir?"

Jiang Ping hemmed and hawed, saying no, there were not that many secrets.

At this time, they saw Wei Ziqiang walk to the windowsill to smoke, Qian Jiarang went to his computer and began to work.

"Qian Jiarang let that boy start tampering with the footage! I almost forgot he was in charge of the technical section and had some tricks up his sleeve. Boy, it's exactly the same approach as before!" Jiang Ping got excited.

Zhan Zhao tilted his head as he watched Jiang Ping from the sidelines, wondering how a man could be so excited and happy about tapping on a keyboard at a computer.

"All his actions were recorded?" Bai Yutang asked.

"That's right!" Jiang Ping nodded, "This kid is dead!"

Zhan Zhao, who had been standing next to him, whispered, "This old fox Wei Ziqiang."

"Mmm!" Bai Yutang nodded, "He has been standing by without speaking and looking out, never looking at the computer monitor. Even if he was filmed, he could say that he was unaware that Qian Jiarang deliberately tricked him and used his computer under false pretenses to do bad things."

"Indeed, he could easily brush off the guilt," Jiang Ping shrugged loosely, "if he never looks at the computer and doesn't talk to Qian Jiarang."

"Cat..." Bai Yutang suddenly said, "do you know why Bao Sir didn't appear?"

"Haha." Zhan Zhao laughed, "Wei Ziqiang and Bao Sir seem to be mindful of each other, we are fortunate that we did not trust our heads this time, otherwise, once they easily took the body... that will really be suspicious!"

"They went into the forensic room!"

Bai Chi pointed to the screen of another surveillance monitor, and sure enough, several blue-clad staff members were seen entering.

Zhan Zhao suddenly took the intercom and said, "Luo Tian, Qin Ou, you two go back, just pretend that you are going to get some information, and then stay in the forensic room for a while longer, asking questions to stall for time."

Luo Tian and Qin Ou were waiting on the main road outside the police station, somewhat inexplicably.

"Remember," Zhan Zhao instructed, "drive into the police station through the side underpass! Don't let the people upstairs at the front get a good look."

Qin Ou immediately understood the situation and drove back.

Bai Yutang looked at Zhan Zhao, "Cat?"

Zhan Zhao smiled faintly, "We can't let Wei Ziqiang off the hook, it's too bad if Qian Jiarang lets one person take the blame, this fish isn't big enough to be worth staying up all night on such a cold day!"

Bai Yutang smiled, "... You want to disrupt their plans in the end. Finding someone suddenly back, Wei Ziqiang can't see them clearly, and will definitely have Qian Jiarang pull up the monitoring of the garage, and that side has already started to do it. Wei Ziqiang wants to pretend that he doesn't know. With Qian Jiarang's wisdom and ability, he can not handle this situation, so he can only ask Wei Ziqiang."

"Smart." Zhan Zhao coldly looked at Wei Ziqiang, who was standing at the window smoking a cigarette, "You are smart, but others are not necessarily stupid!"

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

The next Book 1 chapter will be posted on Thursday instead of Tuesday this week. 

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

Translated: June 2, 2022 by Angel