S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 1 Chapter 100

Shadow Murderer 08 – Black and White

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As soon as Eugene's words left his mouth, several people were a little unconvinced, and the big man even looked Bai Yutang up and down with a disdainful look on his face.

Bai Yutang's body was indeed outstanding, but because he always wore white, he always looked clean and elegant, and with his good looks, he gave people the impression that he was a rich young master. The fighters here were all big, strong men, and even the small guys sparring looked strong and solid, so at first no one took Bai Yutang seriously, but rather thought he was so handsome that it would be a shame to break his face.

The big man, however, was angered by Eugene's words. He was already a rude man, and with the effect of the strange scent, he became even more aggressive. He reached out and threw the gloves to the ground, then raised his fist and swung it at Bai Yutang.

Zhan Zhao stood back and watched, and saw that Bai Yutang did not move a muscle, and when the big man's fist was close to his nose, he slightly inclined his head... The crowd saw this inclination of his head and drew a cold breath as they all realised that this man was at a professional level...

Boxing is all about the freedom of movement and the need to retract the punches that are thrown out. The big man is an amateur who relied on his strength and used ten percent of his strength for this punch. Once he saw that he had missed, he hurriedly tried to retract his fist, but his body was big and heavy, and he could not retract just by pulling back, so he rushed forward. Bai Yutang moved the top half of his body to the side, and before he could land on his supporting foot, he slammed his shoulder and lifted his left hand, landing a vicious punch on the big man's stomach.

The punch barely made a sound, but the crowd could clearly see the big man's body bounce upwards. He opened his mouth, spat out a mouthful of blood and froze in place.

Bai Yutang moved to the side, and the big man fell to the ground in the same position as before, his body twitching slightly, unable to get up again.

Zhan Zhao looked down at him and said to himself - it was lucky that Bai had used his left hand, if it had been his right hand, he might have been crippled.

There was a few seconds of silence from the crowd before they heard another whistle from Eugene upstairs and the crowd murmured, all sounds of awe.

"Hey!" At that moment, a tattooed bald man in the boxing ring not far away called out, raised his hand and threw a pair of gloves to Bai Yutang, then stepped over the guardrail, got out of the ring and walked over to Bai Yutang. He thumped his fists together a few times and tilted his chin at Bai Yutang, meaning, he'll take the fight!

Bai Yutang took the gloves and looked at the bald man, and heard someone say, "He's the best boxer we have here, pretty boy, be careful.”

Zhan Zhao raised his eyebrows when he heard this from behind, thinking that even if he was good, he wasn't as good as Xiao Bai. He stepped forward to put on Bai Yutang's boxing gloves and said in a low voice, "Go for it, Xiao Bai!"

Bai Yutang looked at Zhan Zhao helplessly and shook his head, thinking, ‘this cat is really afraid that the world will not be in chaos', then turned back around and nodded to the bald man.

The bald man took a few steps backwards, saw the right moment and threw a straight punch. He threw his punch quickly, his body was not as bulky as that of the big man just now and swung a punch at Bai Yutang's face. Bai Yutang did not swerve his head this time, but sidestepped and moved his feet. The bald man looked at Bai Yutang, who had come around to his side, and saw that he was nimble on his feet. With this stance, could it be that he really was a professional? As he was pondering, he heard Bai Yutang laugh lightly, "Hey, pay attention."

When he looked up, he felt a strong wind coming towards his face, and Bai Yutang's fist had already reached his face. The bald man was so shocked that he took a step back, only to find that Bai Yutang's fist had stopped just in front of his eyes and did not hit him with a real punch. He raised the corner of his mouth and smiled at him, "I told you to pay attention."

The bald man felt some humiliation, after all, he was the best at boxing here, so he roared in anger and threw a hook at Bai Yutang's jaw once more, however, while he was quick to throw a punch, Bai Yutang was even quicker to dodge! He dodged to the inside, stepped forward, waved his left hand, distracting the bald head's line of sight, saw an opening and punched the bald head directly on the bridge of his nose with his right hand...

Zhan Zhao crossed his heart and thought - God bless, luckily he was wearing gloves, I wonder if he got a concussion.

The bald head swayed in place twice, seemingly dazed by the blow, and fell to the ground weakly.

Zhan Zhao secretly helped him count: “One~ two~ three…… ten~~ Win!!!"

Several people in the room looked at each other in disbelief, somewhat unable to believe that Bai Yutang had so easily won over the best boxer here.

Eugene, who was watching with great interest from above, said to one of the boxing athletes on the side, "I don't think his best skill is boxing."

Bai Yutang looked up at Eugene and smiled faintly, "Do you want to come down and try?"

Eugene raised an eyebrow and turned back to speak to someone, then turned back to shrug and say with some regret, "I'd like to, but the boss won't let me, I can't help it."

"I'll trade a few blows with you." A foreigner in black leather trousers came up. Zhan Zhao looked at his bare upper body rubbed with bronzing oil, which made his muscles so obvious, and thought to himself - One day I'll have Xiao Bai rub it on too, it should be more interesting than him.

When Bai Yutang saw that the man was in a sparring stance, he walked back to Zhan Zhao's side. Zhan Zhao helped him untie his boxing gloves and said in a low voice, "One more fight and you're nearly done, someone in management already came in just now."

With a slight nod, Bai Yutang took off his gloves, moved his muscles and walked towards the foreigner.

Zhan Zhao said to himself - Foreigner ah foreigner, you are looking for bad luck, don't fight with Xiao Bai in anything but casual sparring, he is a champion!

The foreigner nodded to Bai Yutang and then unceremoniously jumped up and kicked him. Bai Yutang raised his hand to block it and then hit his shin with his elbow. The foreigner frowned in pain, he didn't expect Bai Yutang to do this and he didn't know where he was hit, but he was in so much pain that he had the chills.

Only Zhan Zhao understood that the reason why Bai Yutang was so powerful in sparring was because he was ruthless and specialised in hitting acupuncture points. It usually takes a lot of time to make a person bleed out by hitting them or to deplete their strength until they are unable to resist, and this is the case for ordinary people, let alone professionally trained people. Bai Yutang practised sparring not only for pleasure, but also to subdue criminals, so he required ruthlessness, accuracy and speed. He had also studied acupuncture points for this purpose, knowing where to hit to make people lose their ability to react to pain and subdue their opponents at the fastest speed.

What Bai Yutang had just hit with his elbow was the inner part of the foreigner's shin bone, where it hurt even if he pressed a bit, not to mention hitting hard. Although he didn't use too much strength, it was enough for the foreigner to be kicked out of the ring and land in the crowd, knocking over a group of people.

Zhan Zhao gave him a sympathetic look and thought to himself - look, all the experts in the police station have approached Bai Yutang for a one-on-one fight, within three moves, they were all definitively down.

At that moment, the crisp sound of high heels rang out from the iron staircase on the second floor. A woman clapped her hands as she walked down, smiling and saying, "Amazing, you really live up to your reputation, come upstairs and have a seat if you want to."

The woman who came down was dressed in a short black dress, with a very nice figure. She was in her thirties and her looks weren't really pretty, but she had a cold elegance.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were both a little surprised, because this was none other than the boss of the Eastern District, Chen Jie.

Bai Yutang turned around and exchanged a glance with Zhan Zhao before following Chen Jie up to the second floor.

“Hu~~" Seeing the two follow Chen Jie into the office on the second floor, Eugene exhaled and retreated back into the room, turning back and saying, "Luckily I didn't go down there just now, otherwise I would have been humiliated. How did you know I couldn't beat him?"

The other man sitting on the inside of the room ignored him and put one hand on his chin as if in a daze, before saying to himself, "Because his name is Bai."

"What's wrong with Bai? " Eugene asked with a smile as he stepped forward with interest, "Do you know anyone else with the surname Bai?"

The man smiled slightly, the faint lines of his smile deepening a little more, and he turned his face to stare into Eugene's eyes as he said slowly, "Black and white are mutually exclusive; if you are black, don't mess with white, or you will die a horrible death."

"What do you mean?" Eugene smiled shyly and leaned closer, smelling the faint scent of lilies in the man's hair.

"Black and white are innate and can't be changed." The smile on his face grew a little more intense, but his eyes were cold, "Where there is white, there is no room for black; where there is black, there is no room for white - everyone aspires to be white and abhors black. This world, it's just so unfair!"

......

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao walked into the office on the first floor with Chen Jie, who politely invited the two to sit down, lit a cigarette herself and said, "If I'm not mistaken, it's Captain Bai and Dr. Zhan, right?..."

The two men looked at each other, and Zhan Zhao nodded to Chen Jie, "Let's get right to the point, we want to see the surveillance footage from this place."

Chen Jie was slightly stunned, then laughed, "Dr. Zhan is fiery-eyed, how do you know I have surveillance here? I'm using pinhole cameras mounted inside the walls ah."

Bai Yutang smiled, "Anywhere there is gambling there is surveillance."

“Ai..." Chen Jie extinguished her cigarette and sighed slightly, "Just because the two of you came in person, this is a favour I can't afford not to give." After saying that, she nodded to one of her men next to her.

The henchman walked over to the wall with a remote control and pulled open the heavy curtains. They saw that behind the curtains was not a window, but a huge screen, divided into many smaller screens, monitoring all corners of the underground fight club in Dark Night Kingdom in real time.

"Put the tapes in reverse." Chen Jie instructed her men as she turned her face to ask Bai Yutang, "I heard that this case has been handed over to Lan Chenglin to handle, why is Captain Bai still interested?"

Bai Yutang shook his head, "We are not working on that case."

"Oh~" Chen Jie nodded and didn't ask any more questions.

The image on the screen automatically rewound. Bai Yutang pointed at Little Loach who appeared in the image and asked, "This kid, what is his background?"

"Hmm?" Chen Jie shook her head to indicate that she wasn't sure, and looked at her men, "Go and get Wei Yong."

The henchman left, and not long after, a middle-aged man in a suit walked in, "Boss, you're looking for me?"

Chen Jie nodded and introduced him to Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao, "His name is Wei Yong, he essentially looks after this venue, you can ask him if you have anything."

Wei Yong nodded hastily, looking very attentive, "Yes, yes, do you two have anything you want to ask?"

"Who is that kid?" Bai Yutang asked again, pointing at Little Loach.

"Oh, he's the one who serves the plates here." Wei Yong replied with a smile, "His name is Luo Yang, nicknamed Yang Yang, he is the son of one of our brothers, and since his old man died and his mother ran away, he has no one to take care of him. We, a group of brothers, help raise him, and usually he serves plates and stuff."

Bai Yutang nodded, "I'd like to have a chat with him."

"Sure, he lives right outside." Wei Yong said, "The first house in that alley behind the club is his house, I'll take you there."

"Wait a moment." Zhan Zhao suddenly called out to Wei Yong, who was about to leave, and pointed at the surveillance screen and asked, "Xiao Bai, does this man look familiar?"

Bai Yutang took a closer look and froze. In the screen that had been paused by Zhan Zhao, there was a group of people watching the fight. All of them had a look of excitement on their faces, but there was a man hidden behind the crowd who looked very different from the others. Compared to the others' heat, he looked icy cold and... he was dressed in black with a full beard - the very same man who had bumped into Bai Yutang outside the concert venue that day.

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

When Gongsun returned home, he saw that the living room light was off and the door to the study was ajar, with light faintly filtering through the crack. Gongsun turned on the living room light and took off his jacket. In the past, if Bai Jintang was there, he would come out to take a look if he heard him moving around. What happened today?

A friend had just given him a bottle of fine red wine. Gongsun took the wine, took out two glasses from the cupboard and walked towards the study.

He pushed the door open, and when he looked up...

The wine glasses and bottles in his hands fell to the floor with a clang - he saw Bai Jintang leaning back in his chair, the lamp on the table was on, and a silhouette on the wall behind him.

When he heard the sound, Bai Jintang, who had wanted to play a prank, opened his eyes and saw Gongsun leaning against the door with his eyes wide open, and immediately realised that... he had taken his joke too far.

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Translated: November 3, 2022 by Angel

Edited: November 10, 2022 by Angel