S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 4 Chapter 4

A Requiem for a Murderer 04 – Early Morning

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Everyone wanted to ask about the details, but Zhao Jue didn't seem to be in any hurry and told everyone to sleep for the night and adjust, and that they could talk about anything tomorrow.

Zhan Zhao and the others were arranged to stay in the luxurious guest rooms of the train, which was still an unprecedented experience.

Zhan Zhao opened the door of the carriage and entered the room, and at a glance, he saw a large circular sofa, with a rather pocket-sized table, TV, computer and so on.

"This is nice!” Zhan Zhao put the little lion and a large group of big cats and kittens onto the carpet.

Opening the bathroom door and finding that there was even a cat litter box, Bai Yutang immediately raised his eyebrows, "Really nice."

After changing into their pyjamas, the two of them brushed their teeth in the bathroom.

"Do you think that Zhao Jue will install a miniature camera in the room?" Zhan Zhao suddenly asked, and Bai Yutang spat out a mouthful of toothpaste foam.

Zhan Zhao smiled as he carried Luban, who had jumped onto the sink, over to him and grabbed a comb to brush his fur.

Bai Yutang walked out and went to the bedroom. He found that the bed was very large and in an “工" shape, which was indeed a very user-friendly design, so that they could sleep together or separately.

He walked over to the bed and found a remote control on the bedside table, and reached up to look at the various modes.

Bai Yutang studied it with interest and found that the modes had interesting names too – Orient Express, Eurostar, Qinghai-Tibet... all well-known train routes.

As Zhan Zhao finished washing up and followed a group of felines back to the bedroom, he heard a faint sound similar to that of a train in motion.

When he looked up, he saw the snow-capped mountains outside his window, still clearly visible in the darkness, with towering pines lined up behind them, and the characteristic wispy snow, giving the illusion that it was cold outside. With such vast rolling hills and a sky that carried a certain special heavy feeling and was clean, Zhan Zhao was somewhat unable to think of what location this was. Besides, it was clear to him that the two trains were parked and could not possibly be moving.

Bai Yutang lay on the bed, leaning on the pillow to look at the snowy scenery outside the window, and shook the remote control in his hand, "Very interesting mode."

Zhan Zhao closed the door and immediately... the feeling of being in a travelling train became more apparent.

"Which train did you use?"

"Zagreb to Sarajevo." Bai Yutang smiled faintly, "It happens to be cold there at this time of year. It fits your aesthetic, right?"

Zhan Zhao smiled and ran over to get under the covers, experiencing a sense of comfort, softness and warmth.

At the same time, a line of cats popped up at the end of the bed, all lying on the other end of the "工" shaped bed, licking their fur and washing their faces.

Zhan Zhao looked at the row and couldn't help but laugh, reaching out and pointing at the little lion who was licking his paws and washing his face in the group of cats, "Performance art!"

Bai Yutang dimmed the light at the head of the bed, and together with Zhan Zhao, they leaned back on their pillows and watched the heavy snowfall outside the window, and before long, they fell asleep.

……

The next day at noon, Zhan Zhao woke up to the sound of meowing and realised that it had been a long time since he had had a good night's rest like this.

"Ha ah~" Zhan Zhao yawned, sat up and stretched, and looked around him.

Bai Yutang had long since woken up and was leaning back against his pillow, reading from his laptop.

"Morning."

Zhan Zhao leaned over and gave him a good morning kiss.

"Good morning." Bai Yutang responded gently, a must-have scene every morning, even if it was already noon.

It was at this point that another voice came, "Morning, I want a kiss too!"

Zhan Zhao was slightly stunned. The voice was Zhao Jue's, where did it come from?

"That guy is really monitoring?!" Zhan Zhao was so anxious that his literary language popped out. Bai Yutang laughed helplessly, reaching out to poke him in the shoulder and pointing at the laptop screen.

Zhan Zhao looked at it.

It turned out that Zhao Jue was in the middle of a video call with Bai Yutang, while sending some files over.

Zhan Zhao pouted and broke out in a cold sweat.

He got out of bed and changed his clothes, while Bai Yutang continued to receive the files.

"Where are we going today?" Zhan Zhao asked, poking out of the bathroom with his toothbrush in his mouth, and in the process placing a small white cat that had climbed onto his shoulder onto Luban's back.

"Free-time today." Zhao Jue answered for Bai Yutang.

"Free time?" Zhan Zhao was dissatisfied, "Then what did you rush to get us to T City for? I thought we were late for something."

"It's just that I couldn't wait."

As they spoke, there was a knock at the door. Zhan Zhao ran to open the door, and saw that Zhao Jue was at the door, holding a mobile phone in his hand while he was on a video call with them.

"Don't you hate modern technology? Since when did you become tech-savvy?" Zhan Zhao said, suddenly reaching out to pinch Zhao Jue's cheek with a fierce hand, "Let me see if you're a fake!"

"Ah!" Zhao Jue let Zhan Zhao pinch him to the point of raw pain, and when Zhan Zhao had finished pinching and let go to hide in the washroom, Zhao Jue's cheeks were red.

"Stay inside if you have the guts!" Zhao Jue pulled the door a few times and failed to open it, becoming annoyed.

Zhan Zhao was content to continue brushing his teeth.

Zhao Jue picked up a pillow and smashed it at Bai Yutang, who had just woken up.

Bai Yutang dodged it with a tilt of his head.

Zhao Jue picked up another pillow and threw it...

"What does this have to do with me?" Bai Yutang did not understand.

"Joint liability!" Zhao Jue grabbed another one casually. Why did it feel so heavy when he tried to throw it? He also heard a ‘meow'.

Bai Yutang didn't duck this time, reaching out to catch it in one hand. Luban was so scared that he buried his big head into his armpit, his big fluffy tail sticking up to shield himself.

Zhao Jue patted the cat fur from his hand, and his mood seemed bad, "I'll wait for you in the dining room, after you've finished eating, I'll show you around." After saying that, he closed the door.

Once the door closed, Zhan Zhao hurriedly peered out, "Gone?"

Bai Yutang nodded and put on his jacket.

"I've heard that there are a few old churches in T City that are all built in Russian style, I've never been to one of those churches with onion heads, isn't the Orthodox way of delineating the cross the opposite of Christianity?" Zhan Zhao was in a good mood, however. (Angel: Onion headed church refers to the style of churches that have a bulbous feature at the top.)

Bai Yutang shrugged his shoulders, indicating that he didn't know much about it either. Zhan Zhao opened the door to his room, "Let's go to the Grand Canyon one day..."

Before he could finish his sentence, he saw something flash in front of him.

While Zhan Zhao was stunned, he was already instinctively pulled into the room by Bai Yutang and pulled behind him to hide. He blocked Zhan Zhao behind him while reaching out to block it, and a rush of water came pouring over his face.

Just to see Zhao Jue holding a large water gun and saying, "Dead cat!"

But Bai Yutang moved too quickly, so Zhan Zhao escaped and Bai Yutang was sprayed with water.

Zhan Zhao peeked out from behind Bai Yutang. He looked and found that the mouse's face and hair were all wet, turning him into a water mouse!

Bai Yutang reached out and touched his face with a complicated expression.

The corners of Zhao Jue's mouth twitched in embarrassment, and after a long time, he opened his mouth, "Joint liability... pfft."

Just as the words left his mouth, Zhan Zhao grabbed a pillow with a small chibi black cat printed on it from behind and slapped Zhao Jue in the face.

... After a moment of silence, the others, who had also just gotten up, heard Zhao Jue shout, "Damn cat, you're finished!"

So, when Bai Jintang and the others came out of their bedrooms, they saw that in the not-so-spacious hallway, Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue, one holding a water gun and the other holding a pillow, were facing off with Bai Yutang in the middle. Bai Yutang was soaked to the skin by the water gun and was also accidentally hit by Zhan Zhao with the pillow a few times.

The SCI crowd was dumbfounded to see Bai Yutang with his head down and his brow furrowed, his eyes closed as if he was enduring... enduring...

Finally, a roar could be heard, "Enough! Put down your weapons and go to the dining room to eat!"

......

Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue both flattened their mouths, but finally put down their weapons obediently and went to the dining room to eat breakfast. Bai Yutang looked at the sky and went back to take a shower and change his clothes.

When he came out again, everyone was awake and eating. Bai Chi opened a large map, noting the terrain following his usual habit, while lamenting, "The layout of the streets in T City is so complicated."

Bai Yutang sat down next to Zhan Zhao, who offered him a prepared sandwich. It was only thanks to Bai Yutang's ‘bravery' that he had gained the upper hand in the battle with Zhao Jue. Therefore, Zhan Zhao had prepared a sandwich to suit Bai Yutang's taste and rewarded him.

Bai Yutang took a bite of the sandwich... and heard a ‘dang’ sound. Thanks to his good teeth, he didn't chip off his entire front tooth.

The people in the room who had been chatting enthusiastically subconsciously stopped to look at him, wondering if he had bitten into iron or something, so loud?

Bai Yutang pulled the sandwich out of his mouth, lifted the bread and pulled out a thin knife, and looked at Zhan Zhao with admiration.

Zhan Zhao's mouth opened wide in surprise and his eyes widened – he had forgotten to take it out when he was smearing the mayonnaise earlier!

Bai Yutang rubbed his tooth, thankful that it was not loose or broken, otherwise his grand speech as Captain Bai of SCI would have leaked out. Zhan Zhao shyly checked the top and bottom layers of the sandwich, held it up and handed it back to Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang took the sandwich and finished it, then seriously told Zhan Zhao, "Cat, not everything that's yellow is mayonnaise."

Zhan Zhao blinked, and saw that Zhao Jue, who was sitting across from him, was burying his head and smiling sullenly as he pulled up a bottle of mayonnaise from under the table.

Zhan Zhao was slightly stunned, what had he just used? He reached out and took a look at the jar on the table – yellow mustard.

Zhan Zhao turned his face in horror, only to see Bai Yutang elegantly holding a cup and drinking a third cup.

Bai Chi whispered to Zhao Zhen, "Brother seems to be the victim of a struggle between two sides early in the morning."

With one hand, Zhao Zhen juggled and peeled a raw egg wrapped in thin skin and fed it to Lisbon. Next to him, Zhao Hu clumsily peeled a hard-boiled egg as if it had been chewed by a dog.

Beside him, Ma Han ate a poached egg and mourned for the hard-boiled one beside him.

Gongsun poked at the bloodied poached egg stained with tomato sauce and asked Zhao Jue, "That valley you mentioned in your letter that time, does it really exist?"

"Ah!" Zhao Jue clapped his hands together and pointed at Gongsun, “You have taste! Want to go see it?"

Gongsun nodded.

"But I want to take this cat to church, so why don't I give you the address and you go yourselves?" Zhao Jue reached out, handed something like an electronic screen over and put it in Gongsun's hand.

"What is this?" Gongsun saw that the gadget was somewhat similar to an ipad, but the size was only as big as the palm of his hand, and it was also a touch screen.

"A new gadget." Jiang Ping explained, "It's an electronic map of T City."

Zhao Jue had a blonde girl in a maid's outfit bring out a box and handed out an electronic map to each person. In addition, each person was given a special rivet-style cuff, "This is a positioning system, you can use the electronic map in your hands to find your companions, and also find every corner of T City."

Bai Yutang took it and looked at it, frowning... Zhao Jue had gone to such great lengths for this operation, did it also prove that the other side of the operation was dangerous?

"Don't misunderstand." Zhao Jue waved his hand at Bai Yutang, seemingly guessing what he was thinking, "This is a new product that your brother's company is preparing to mass produce, I'm just a test user."

Da Ding and Xiao Ding nodded, "The program is thanks to Jiang Ping."

The crowd narrowed their eyes at Jiang Ping. No wonder this guy had recently replaced his car with a very flashy one, he had probably earned a lot of money.

The device was obviously used to facilitate trips, it was more complete and beautiful than a GPS, and if the price was right, it would be a big seller.

Once Gongsun found the location of the canyon, the screen clearly showed the location and the driving path, so they could take transportation or drive there themselves. There were also some photos of the local scenery attached...

After casually swiping through a few of them, Gongsun found the scenery extremely beautiful. Bai Chi had a camera with him, so he decided to join them with Zhao Zhen and go take photos.

Zhan Zhao looked a little swayed and said, "Then why don't we go to the canyon together? We'll go to the church another day..."

"No way."

Unexpectedly, Zhao Jue was adamantly against it. Seeing that Zhan Zhao seemed to have an opinion, Zhao Jue came out with an imposing aura that would not allow him to resist and glared at him, "Go to church!"

“Have to go to church,” Zhan Zhao wondered if Zhao Jue had any plans, “why?"

"That still needs to be asked?" Zhao Jue smiled faintly, "Going to church is to clear your sins, of course."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both froze.

With a piece of jam-coated toast in his mouth, Zhao Jue asked Ma Han nonchalantly, "Are you coming too?"

Ma Han was surprised and seemed a little confused.

Zhao Hu felt as if Zhao Jue was implying that Ma Han was deeply sinful and was offended, "What do you mean?"

Zhan Zhao reached out and patted him on the shoulder, "He means no harm."

Bai Yutang and Zhao Jue both froze. Zhao Jue pursed his lips, and the corners of his mouth turned up on both sides, "Good cat..."

The word "cat" had just left his mouth when he heard Zhan Zhao change his tone, reaching out to point at Zhao Jue and tell Zhao Hu, "But his mouth is too cheap." When he finished, he gave a fork to Ma Han, "Xiao Ma Ge, hit him!"

A few moments later, the battle between Zhao Jue and Zhan Zhao resumed, only this time the battlefield became the dining table and the weapons became ketchup and mayonnaise.

Bai Yutang had the good sense to take his sandwich and hide behind the bar to eat it, he didn't want to be covered in sauce and have to take another shower.

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

I absolutely adore this chapter, Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue's little war is so adorable. Poor Bai Yutang and his 'joint liability'. 😂

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

Translated: November 24, 2022 by Angel

Edited: December 27, 2022 by Angel