S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 1 Chapter 88

The Murderer Is Not Human 20 – Bright and Dark Lines

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Gongsun took the skin tissue given by Zhan Zhao to have its composition identified, and then tried to find the channel of production through the analysis of the technical team.

The rest of SCI split up to take the foot soldiers who had broken into the police station into the interrogation room for questioning.

After sitting on the sofa with a frown and thinking for a while, Zhan Zhao said to Bai Yutang, "Xiao Bai, we need to get Lu Fang here, I need some help from him, also, you better contact..."

"Contact Han Zhang, right?" Bai Yutang didn't wait for Zhan Zhao to finish before he answered with a smile.

"Smart." Zhan Zhao patted him on the shoulder.

Not long after, Lu Fang rushed over.

Zhan Zhao had asked him to contact a big media magazine to see if Shang Luo had booked an interview or appearance for tomorrow on the subject of his collection of Tu Xi civilizational artefacts.

Lu Fang was a bit confused, but called the major newspapers and TV stations one by one, and the answer was - surprisingly - that there really was one.

“Xiao Zhan, how did you know about this?" Lu Fang asked in amazement, "Shang Luo had contacted a few TV stations and newspapers in S City yesterday to do a special programme on the Tu Xi civilisation to promote his collection, but they said he had just called and cancelled it."

Zhan Zhao nodded, "Then there's no mistaking it."

"Cat." Bai Yutang also ran in, "News just came from Han Zhang that there was a big secret deal recently, the seller is Shang Luo, and what was sold were all dried corpses. It was originally scheduled for half a month from now, but for some reason, the time was suddenly changed to tomorrow, the location uncertain."

"Shang Luo seems to be panicking!" Zhan Zhao sneered, "He originally wanted to put a plan in place, but he didn't expect it to be a failed attempt to steal a chicken, losing his wife and losing his army."

"Xiao Zhan, speak clearly." Bao Zheng, who had been silent, could not help but interrupt him.

"In fact, this time Shang Luo had expected that I would take the opportunity to test him, so he wanted to take the opportunity to lure Yutang and the others out, and then sent someone to sneak into SCI to steal the box corpse. What he didn't expect was that by such a coincidence, Brother happened to come over and he was caught alive as a result."

Bai Yutang nodded, "Cat made a point of telling Shang Luo before he left that we had captured the men alive, and he panicked, knowing that he couldn't keep the matter under wraps for long, so he made preparations to get rid of the goods in his hands as soon as possible and prepare to escape."

"What about the media?" Lu Fang interjected, "I don't see what the connection is!"

"Don't you all think this operation has gone too smoothly?" Zhan Zhao asked rhetorically, "Given Shang Luo's situation, he should be very reluctant to have the police come to his house, yet he took the initiative to invite me, this shows that it would be to his advantage for me to go."

"I see!" Xiao Bai Chi, who had been listening attentively at the side, suddenly said, "Shang Luo is deliberately pretending to be a ghost in order to increase the mystery of Tu Xi civilization. When he asks the media to do a show tomorrow, he can just use this incident as evidence when the time comes to perform this trick. Besides, SCI's Dr. Zhan is also a witness of this incident, so it is undoubtedly more worthy of hype and more credible. "

"It does fit Shang Luo's character of gambling with bigness." Bai Yutang smiled coldly, "Setting up a scam and using the police to make an appearance at the beginning in order to make a name for himself, if Brother hadn't come today and he had succeeded, it would have been a double whammy."

"This is called man is better than God.” Zhan Zhao raised his eyebrows, "The so-called man has a thousand calculations, but it's hard to go against the will of heaven."

As he was talking, Zhao Hu suddenly came in and said sharply, "Chief, it's an emergency, your brother is about to kill those little minions, Ma Han and I can't stop him."

Bai Yutang was startled, "Why is he so angry?"

"Those ungrateful men said that Shang Luo had instructed them to not only steal the box corpse, but also to take Gongsun back with them."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other in understanding – No wonder~~

Bai Yutang beckoned to Zhao Zhen, who was watching the show with his legs up on the sofa, "Let's go... I'm not enough by myself."

Zhao Zhen happily got up and went with Bai Yutang to pull them apart.

..................

When Zhan Zhao took Gongsun to the entrance of the interrogation room, he saw Bai Yutang and Zhao Zhen on one side, holding Bai Jintang's arm and dragging him out.

Zhan Zhao took two steps forward, looked inside, and frowned – He saw that the men had been beaten and bruised with blue noses and swollen faces, but Bai Jintang was not yet relieved as he was dragged out, and tried to break free ~ ~ Zhao Zhen grabbed him with all his strength, while shouting at Bai Yutang: "My God, he's stronger than Lisbon. "

Gongsun took three or two steps forward and kicked Bai Jintang in the calf, "What's wrong with you?!"

Turning his face to see Gongsun, Bai Jintang only slightly eased his face, and Ma Han hurriedly closed the interrogation room door behind him.

Bai Yutang and Zhao Zhen released their hands with a sigh of relief.

After straightening his clothes, Bai Jintang turned around and tried to leave, when Gongsun took a step sideways to block his way, "Where are you going?"

"......" Bai Jintang raised an eyebrow, "I'm going to Shang Luo..."

“Go to him my ass." Gongsun glared and said, reaching out to tug on Bai Jintang's tie and pulling the man into the forensic room.

Bai Yutang breathed a sigh of relief and asked Zhao Hu, "How come Brother was in the interrogation room?"

Zhao Hu was embarrassed, "I thought that if he was here, the men would be scared and would say whatever they were asked, but I didn't expect that they would actually answer whatever they were asked, and just after they said one sentence, they were beaten and couldn't say anything."

Bai Yutang frowned, "There are two more that Wang Chao is interrogating, right?"

"Nothing could be found after half a day of questioning." Ma Han was a bit demoralised, "They're all old timers, that's why I came up with this idea, Chief, I'm at fault, you can punish me, it has nothing to do with Hu Zi."

"Forget it..." Bai Yutang waved his hand, "Take them to treat their wounds first..."

"Wait~~" Zhan Zhao suddenly interrupted, "Don't waste it."

The crowd looked at him in confusion, "What waste?"

Zhan Zhao stared at the two men whose faces were swollen to a size bigger than a pig's head, and approached Ma Han and Zhao Hu to say a few words.

The two men nodded as they held back their laughter.

In the other interrogation room, Wang Chao and Zhang Long were having a headache, as the two injured guys in front of them were both veterans of interrogations. After asking for a long time, they didn’t get anything. Dead pigs are not afraid of boiling water.

At this moment, the door was suddenly opened and Ma Han and Zhao Hu entered with two men who could not walk anymore. They looked at them, and asked Wang Chao and Zhang Long, "You're not finished yet? Give them to us, and take these two to the hospital."

Wang Chao and Zhang Long were so shocked that their mouths were wide open, but the most shocked were the two men, who saw the miserable condition of their companions and said, "Oh boy, no wonder SCI is not to be messed with, they really beat them to death~~"

Afterwards, the two of them obediently confessed, saying everything they should and should not say.

After asking them a few questions, Zhan Zhao went out and saw Bao Zheng at the other end of the hallway lecturing Bai Yutang, while Ma Han and Zhao Hu stood there, anxious.

"What's wrong?" Zhan Zhao asked the two men in confusion.

"Head helped take the blame, saying that he was the one who told us to find Bai Jintang to go to the interrogation room, and Bai Jintang was irritated before he lost control of himself~~" Zhao Hu asked Zhan Zhao, "What should we do?"

Zhan Zhao turned his face and saw Bai Yutang, who was standing with his back to him, waving at him with his hands behind his back – jianghu to the rescue!

Shaking his head helplessly, Zhan Zhao whispered a few words to Zhao Hu and Ma Han, and they nodded and slipped away.

Bao Zheng was in the middle of his lecture, when to his surprise, all the people from SCI appeared in front of him, saying "It was my idea~~"

Bao Zheng's face turned blue as he looked around at the crowd and yelled, "What are you doing? Rebellion?"

He glared at Bai Yutang, "You're protecting your brother and your men are protecting you? You're cops, knowing the law and breaking the law, ah?"

Everyone stopped talking.

At this point, Zhao Zhen, who was idly wandering around with his hands in his pockets, suddenly interjected, "Speaking of which, nothing happened tonight, thanks to Bai Jintang, right~~"

Bao Zheng was stunned.

Zhan Zhao looked to the sky and muttered to himself, "Right, no wonder people say that police officers will tear down bridges once they cross the river~~"

Bao Zheng couldn't answer, and finally sighed and gave Bai Yutang a fierce glare, "There are three days left in the week, if you can solve the case, forget it, if you can't..."

"Collectively cleaning the toilets?" The crowd replied together, "We understand."

Bao Zheng opened his mouth for half a day before closing it. He shook his head and turned around, unable to laugh or cry, and left~~

The crowd breathed a sigh of relief as Bai Yutang reached out, pointed to the conference room and said, "Go and pack up the materials on hand, we will meet when Gongsun's forensic report comes out and solve the case within three days!"

When they saw that everyone was happily dispersed to do their own thing, Zhan Zhao glanced at Bai Yutang: "It's rare that Captain Bai still shows favouritism. "

Bai Yutang picked up the corners of his mouth in a smile and came forward to say, "This time there was a good reason for it~~ If it was you they wanted to capture, I would have beaten them up until they didn't even know their mothers!"

Zhan Zhao reached out and tugged on the collar of his trench coat, "You two brothers are both passionate lovers, all right~~ Let's go, let's go to the meeting!"

Bai Yutang was dragged away with a smile.

Half an hour later, Gongsun's analysis report came out, and everyone gathered in the conference room.

"How is it?" Zhan Zhao asked Gongsun somewhat eagerly, “Is the composition of the dried corpse the same as that of the box corpse?"

Gongsun nodded, "It's exactly the same."

There was a look of excitement on everyone's faces.

"There is one more thing for you to see." With that, Gongsun took out a few photos and put them in front of the crowd, "This is the recovered face of the box corpse… Does it look familiar?"

Zhan Zhao stared at one of them for a while, and took out the set of photos about fear that Tanaka had found in Carlos' house last time to compare.

Everyone was shocked - although the eyes were closed, it was indeed the same face!

Bai Yutang frowned and said, "These fresh dried corpses are Tanaka's models?"

Gongsun nodded, "The ingredients of digitalis were detected in all these corpses."

"It seems Tanaka did more than simply scare them." Zhao Hu sneered and looked at the photos, "The models were given digitalis first, then frightened, which prompted them to have heart attacks and be scared to death, and then they were photographed with their abnormal expressions of fear before they died."

Ma Han shook his head, “A photographic genius, that’s simply a pervert."

"That should be the general process." Gongsun nodded in agreement.

"Huh?" Bai Chi suddenly exclaimed softly, nodding at the photos and asking Gongsun, "Why does the colour of the corpses seem to have changed?"

Zhan Zhao chimed in, “That's right, the colour of those boxes of corpses seems to have yellowed and darkened a bit compared to when they were first brought back."

Gongsun nodded, "That's because the hard shell coating on the outside of the corpses contains mercury, and the slow oxidation will cause the corpses to turn black. Usually after a few months, they will become the same colour as real box corpses and dried corpses, and will also wax up, making it hard to tell the real from the fake.

"These should be disposed products." Bai Yutang said, "Because Tanaka's photos had been seen by quite a few people, it was inevitable that we wouldn't find out."

The crowd nodded - the intention should have been to burn them along with Tanaka's studio.

"Can we find out where they were made or stored?" Zhan Zhao asked Gongsun, "After all, box corpses are a pain in the ass to transport, and Shang Luo is likely to be selling them directly from where they are hidden."

Gongsun smiled and said, "Luckily, I found some pansy pollen."

"Pansies are a decorative flower found everywhere..." Zhang Long frowned, "They're all over the streets~~"

"There aren't many around the scrapyard though..." Zhan Zhao said.

"Smart!" Gongsun laughed, "The folding of these box corpses is done with mechanical force, and the only way to get the corpses square is to use the squeezing machines that are used when recycling junk cars."

"I've just checked the city planning map." Jiang Ping, who had rushed back from home, took out the map, on which the locations had been marked out with circles, "There are a total of four recycling stations for scrap cars in S City, all of them are in the suburbs, and the location of K Recycling Station is right next to the highway. Six months ago, the city construction team built a new large flower bed there, in which pansies are planted."

"That should be the place." Bai Yutang nodded and asked, "Who owns this yard?"

Jiang Ping smiled, “Chief asked the righ question - it's owned by Carlos."

Everyone was stunned.

"So that's how it is..." Zhan Zhao laughed, "It seems that Carlos is responsible for disposing of the bodies in addition to collecting and promoting them... In that case, he also died from his own harmful methods."

"Shang Luo and the others teamed up to forge the box corpses, and the evidence of their crime of murdering people for money plus fraud is conclusive." Wang Chao looked at Zhan Zhan and Bai Yutang with some confusion, "But, so many murders... and that legendary Tu Xi... I still don't understand it no matter how I think about it."

The others also nodded.

Bai Yutang raised his eyebrows and looked at Zhan Zhao, "Cat, do you already have a number?"

Zhan Zhao smiled and nodded, "Shang Luo and the others only committed these crimes, no more and no less ~~ they walked a bright line."

"Bright line?" The crowd mulled over these two words.

"You mean, there are also dark lines?" Gongsun rubbed his chin, "There are other people who murdered people, not Shang Luo and the others?!"

Zhan Zhao nodded, "First draw out the bright line, then the dark line is right at our fingertips~~" After finishing, he looked at Bai Yutang and said, "Don't forget, we still have a set down there."

Bai Yutang nodded, put down the information in his hand, and said to the crowd, "Contact the other auxiliary departments, ambush the car factory tonight. All of SCI will be deployed, we will draw out the bright line of Shang Luo first, and give him a clean sweep!!!"

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Translated: August 12, 2022 by Angel

Edited: August 12, 2022 by Angel