S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 1 Chapter 90

The Murderer Is Not Human 22 – The Mantis Catches The Cicada

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"Come out, Shang Luo!"

At Bai Yutang's words, all those present stopped talking and stared intently at the situation inside the container. There was silence in the truck, with only the piles of corpses with twisted shapes and hideous faces emitting an eerie smell. After a few moments of waiting, there was a ‘clicking' sound at the bottom of the pile, similar to the cracking of a wooden plank... and then a square plank was pushed up and opened on the floor of the truck.

It was only then that the crowd noticed that the container had been camouflaged and that the floor was double-layered. As the plank opened, a hand first stretched out from inside, and then a person slowly crawled out. The crowd fixed their eyes on them – it was none other than Shang Luo.

"Ha!" Outside the car, Taber couldn't help but laugh, "What a surprise, it turns out that this kid is trying to use us to escape." 

Zhan Zhao nodded, "Transferring the money to an overseas account beforehand, it is unlikely that you will move around after receiving the goods, you will inevitably go straight to a smuggling ship and sail back to Colombia. By then, he will have many opportunities to escape.

Taber thought for a moment and said, "But what I'm more curious about is, how did you guys know about this?"

Zhan Zhao smiled faintly and said nothing as he looked up and continued to look inside the container.

The current Shang Luo, with a face full of scruff, looked very downcast and far from the scenery of the day. Looking at Bai Yutang in front of him, Shang Luo nodded, "You're really good, how did you know I was here?"

"Things came to light, you had to escape in the shortest possible time." Bai Yutang replied nonchalantly, "Why are you so eager to sell the box corpses? Not simply for the money, but more importantly to escape… What is the fastest and safest way to escape? Naturally, it is together with the goods."

Shang Luo laughed strangely twice, "You Bai family members are born to defeat me, right? You two brothers have forced me into a corner, my surname Shang is an enemy of you, ah?"

"What nonsense are you talking about?" Bai Yutang frowned, "You were arrested because you broke the law, what do I care what your surname is?"

"Heh..." Taber suddenly laughed, "That's funny."

Zhan Zhao was surprised, "You can understand Chinese?!"

Taber shook his head, "I can only understand a few words, but I seem to be able to understand all of the Bai family's Chinese."

"What does that mean?" Zhan Zhao looked at him with cold eyes.

"What I don't understand is all nonsense." Taber said indifferently, "There is no nonsense in the Chinese spoken by these brothers."

Zhan Zhao frowned and turned back to continue to focus on the situation in the container, but his heart was vaguely twisted – This Taber, it seemed, had some connection with Bai Jintang, and the connection was quite deep, so deep that he would be interested in anyone with the surname Bai.

"I did plant it." In the container, Shang Luo smiled a bit miserably, "Someone wanted to kill me, but I didn't kill those people."

Bai Yutang smiled coldly, "You didn't kill those people, but what about these?" He pointed to the boxes of corpses on the ground, "How do you account for these?"

"These are the ones who let Tanaka scare them to death!” Shang Luo was a little agitated, "I just used the waste! I haven't killed a single person since the beginning! These bodies will only rot and stink, but I made them into legends that will live on forever."

"You can save those words for the court!" Bai Yutang interrupted him in a cold voice.

Zhang Long and Wang Chao wanted to get into the car to handcuff the man, but they saw Shang Luo snapping out his gun and pointing it at the crowd, "Don't come any closer!" Outside the car, the police officers drew their guns and aimed at Shang Luo. Bai Yutang shook his head, "You only have one gun, if you don't surrender, you'll be shot to pieces, Shang Luo, it's not worth it!"

Shang Luo smiled as he looked Bai Yutang up and down, "Oh, do you guys not believe it? Tu Xi really exists."

Zhan Zhao, who was under the truck, faintly froze when he heard this and took a few steps over to ask, "You've seen Tu Xi?"

“I’ve seen it! It really exists! It can foretell life and death and manipulate people's will!" Shang Luo gasped a little nervously as he said, "You will be condemned by the heavens if you don't believe in Tu Xi~~"

Bai Yutang looked at Shang Luo, who looked a bit odd. He saw that his face was abnormally flushed and excited, and his breathing was very uneven...

Zhan Zhao stared at him for a while, and then suddenly spoke without thinking, "You're right, there's not much time left."

Shang Luo and everyone present were stunned, only Bai Yutang took a single step forward, lifted his foot, and kicked away the gun in Shang Luo's hand. Then he yanked Shang Luo and put his hands behind his back. Ignoring Shang Luo's desperate resistance, Bai Yutang looked up and asked Zhan Zhao, "Cat, what should we do?"

Only then did the crowd wake up. It turned out that Zhan Zhao's words just now were not to Shang Luo, but to Bai Yutang. His original meaning should have been – you were right, Shang Luo's condition is not normal, and there is not much time left, act fast!

With just one sentence, he not only answered Bai Yutang's doubts but also confused Shang Luo – the crowd couldn't help but feel some goose bumps on their bodies, it was really scary to stay with someone who could almost read minds.

Zhan Zhao asked Zhao Hu to call for an ambulance. Shang Luo, who was restrained by Bai Yutang, however, was getting more and more agitated and his panting was getting louder and louder, and by now, everyone present could see that he was not normal.

Just then, Taber, who had been silent, reminded Zhan Zhao in a low voice: “You can cool him down first..."

Zhan Zhao snapped out of it, he was too flustered and didn't think about it. Shang Luo's current situation is, nine times out of ten, digitalis poisoning. This drug can greatly accelerate the blood supply to the heart so that normal people have heart attacks and die. Cooling can play a role, maybe he can last until the ambulance comes. He quickly opened a police car and turned on the air conditioning so that the temperature dropped to the coldest, then beckoned Bai Yutang to bring Shang Luo over.

Shang Luo's current condition was not good, his face was so red that it looked like it was filling with blood and he was panting heavily.

The crowd helped him out of the truck, and just as he got down to the ground, Shang Luo looked up and suddenly froze. He seemed to have seen something, his eyes were wide and full of horror.

Just then, they heard Ma Han's voice coming over the intercom; he had not received orders from Bai Yutang to evacuate, so he had been still staking out the high ground, and they heard him shouting, "The door! The door!"

Several of the officers had their walkie-talkies on and Ma Han's voice was clearly discernible – The door?

Glancing furiously in the direction of the gate, they saw a man standing in the entrance wearing a grey robe, like the kind worn by clergy, and most frightening of all, his face... was not human, but – the Eagle King.

"Catch him!" Bai Yutang shouted, and the few officers standing at the front of the crowd all understood and rushed towards the man fiercely.

Strangely, the man seemed to be a bit overwhelmed and took a few steps backwards before he was caught red-handed and had the mask that he was wearing ripped off his face....

"Isn't that Uncle Zhang, the gatekeeper of the depot?" Jiang Ping called out.

That Uncle Zhang was also surprised, "You guys, why are you arresting me?"

At that moment, they heard Shang Luo, who had already reached the outside of the container, let out a few gurgles from his throat, then… he gasped violently, his eyes widened, and his face took on that expression of extreme fear that everyone was familiar with, and he stopped breathing.

“Shang Luo? Shang Luo!" Bai Yutang shook him a few times. He was completely unresponsive, and had already died.

Zhan Zhao jolted and rushed towards the escort car. Bai Yutang rushed over with him, and when he ran to the car, he heard a commotion inside. He opened the door only to see Fu Yishan also showing a terrified expression, frozen upright in the car seat.

Bai Yutang reached out to feel his carotid artery, then shook his head at Zhan Zhao, who sighed.

Zhao Hu grabbed Uncle Zhang, the gatekeeper, "Are you sick, old man, pretending to be a ghost in the middle of the night?"

"What are you doing? Didn't you tell me to do this?" The old man was quite aggrieved, "You police officers still beat people up, I'm already an old man."

"Let him go first." Zhan Zhao came up and asked the old man, "What did you just say about us telling you to do this?"

The old man rubbed his shoulder, which was sore from being pressed, and said, "I got off work at twelve o’clock. I've seen that man before, and he asked me how this door was closed." With that, the old man pointed at Jiang Ping.

Bai Yutang turned around to glare at him.

Jiang Ping was so shocked that he almost jumped up and waved his hands, "I said I was a new mechanic, I didn't say I was a police officer!"

The old man raised his eyebrows, "It's not him that said it, it was another police officer, wearing a police uniform, one of those black ones... er..." The old man said as he looked around. After looking around, he was a bit puzzled, “No, ah... strange!"

As soon as the crowd heard it, they knew it must be a fake. The black police uniform was more familiar to everyone, and at a glance, they knew it was a police officer, but it was a civilian police uniform. This time out, the operation was all plain clothed and special officers.

"What did that police officer say to you?” Zhan Zhao asked.

"He gave me this outfit and this mask and told me to hide at the door, and when you guys help a person out of the container, to find a way to make that person see me. He said this is the police asking us citizens to cooperate to solve a terrorist problem.” The old man patted his chest, "The old man is not high in anything else, but high in awareness!"

Zhao Hu asked, “Then, Uncle, do you remember what the man looked like? Come back with us and make a sketch."

"I don't remember, it was dark and he was wearing a police cap, who could see it?!" The old man even glared at Zhao Hu, "A sketch? I'm too old and my eyes are failing, so I can't play with the things you kids play with."

Some of the police officers in the room were all amused by him, and Bai Yutang looked at Zhan Zhao, gesturing, "What should we do now?"

Zhan Zhao shrugged his shoulders, but his face didn't look particularly chagrined, so he pulled Bai Yutang aside and whispered a few words to him. Bai Yutang nodded and told everyone to call it a day and wrap it up.

The officers let out a long sigh of relief, it had been a long night, but at last there was something to be gained, but unfortunately Shang Luo was dead.

Taber, who had been watching with great interest, suddenly asked Zhan Zhao, "What Shang Luo used against me was abandoning his pawn to protect his commander, and what you used against me was soldiers never tire of deception, so what was the trick you were hit with this time?"

Zhan Zhao smiled faintly and said, "This move is called the praying mantis catching the cicada."

"The praying mantis catches the cicada, but the yellow bird is behind it." Seeing Taber's puzzled face, Zhan Zhao smiled again and whispered "It's just that it's not certain who is actually caught in the trick."

"I'm very interested in watching the end of your performance here." Taber said smilingly in English, but the moment the car door closed, he suddenly said something to Bai Yutang, however, it was not English, and not like the Spanish Zhan Zhao had just used.

When the car drove away, a bewildered Bai Yutang asked Zhan Zhao, "What did that whale just say?"

Zhan Zhao seemed to have something on his mind, "He wants to see us finish the performance..."

"Not the English one," Bai Yutang started the car, "the one after that, the gibberish, what was it?"

"Uh... no, just a line about seeing you later or something..." Zhan Zhao said evasively while urging Bai Yutang to drive.

Bai Yutang didn't ask any further questions, but had a feeling in his heart that this cat would do everything but lie in front of him. After so many years, when could he ever hide from him? This time, seeing him panic like this, there must be something wrong.

Zhan Zhao's face was a little red, and Bai Yutang beside him didn't say a word as he drove the car. He wasn't angry, was he?

When the car stopped at a red light, Zhan Zhao was feeling panicky and finally pulled on Bai Yutang's shirt and said, "Xiao Bai, I..."

Bai Yutang reached out, cupped his chin, and kissed him, whispering "It's okay, I don't care what the whale says, I only care what Cat says." The signal light turned green and Bai Yutang continued to drive forward, but Zhan Zhao was sitting next to him making steam~~

He really didn't want to say what he had just said. What Taber said was an Italian sentence that meant, "Say hello to your brother for me, sweet little leopard." Out of some intuition, Zhan Zhao smelled danger and instinctively wanted to protect Bai Yutang from such things, besides, the rat belonged to him alone only ~ what leopard ~ that damned whale!

When the police car returned to the police station, it was almost dawn. Bao Zheng did not quite dare to believe who the one locked up in the interrogation room was, as well as the large amount of arms seized…The net was exhausted, yet none of his own people were even injured. The old man was so shocked that he could not speak, and gasped for breath straight away.

"This battle is so beautiful!" Lu Fang congratulated the people one after another and was so excited that he could not find his way out.

But the SCI people were all in a daze.

"What's the matter?" Gongsun brought them a snack, "What's wrong with your faces?"

"It's a pity that the work was lost." Zhao Hu was still angry about the old man from earlier.

"Who said it was a loss of effort?!" Zhan Zhao asked rhetorically, "I should say that everything was as expected."

The group all looked up in shock, looking at Zhan Zhao and then at Bai Yutang with eyes full of expectation.

"Go and get a good night's sleep later." Bai Yutang instructed, "When the night comes, there's a big performance to be played."

Looking at the two team leaders' mysterious faces, the group's dejection was immediately swept away and their sleepiness came on, so they all yawned and went off to find a place to sleep.

Zhan Zhao wrote a note and handed it to Lu Fang, asking him to read out the points above at the police press conference after dawn. Lu Fang took the note and asked Zhan Zhao with a bitter smile, "Xiao Zhan, what are you guys playing at again?

Bai Yutang smiled, "We'll see tonight, isn't that right Cat?"

"That's right!" Zhan Zhao nodded, "Let's see who is the praying mantis and who is the yellow bird!"

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Translated: August 31, 2022 by Angel

Edited: September 1, 2022 by Angel