S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 4 Chapter 10

A Requiem for a Murderer 10 – Windfall

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Bai Yutang is very conscious, he does not want to ask Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue, two people with excessive brain activity, what the so-called ‘subtle' was referring to. He was more concerned with the details... history is made up of details, cases too, and reasoning even more! After arriving in T City, a lot of things happened on the first day, and among them, Bai Yutang found several puzzling and disturbing details which needed further investigation.

Upon returning to the station, the first person Bai Yutang approached was Jiang Ping.

"How's the clue gathering going?" Bai Yutang asked him.

"Oh, I hacked into the police station in T City this afternoon, and it's pretty much everything that Zhao Jue said about the kidnapping of the kid called Chen Xin." Jiang Ping handed over a thin piece of paper and gave it to Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang was stunned and frowned, "There's only one phone call to the police, and a few notes?"

“En." Jiang Ping nodded, seemingly quite angry, "And it's not even in the materials of pending cases, nor is it in the files, nor is it even being investigated by specialised personnel. It's just that the police station has to make a note of every call." As he spoke, he bristled, "It's been three days since the crime was committed, it's almost the fourth day, and no one is handling this case at all! The golden rescue time has long passed. According to child abduction cases, the success rate of rescue within twenty-four hours reaches more than 80%, forty-two hours drops directly to less than 50%, and the survival rate on the third day would be less than 30%."

"What's wrong with the local police department?" Zhao Hu was also dissatisfied, "The child abduction case was amazingly not taken seriously."

"It's been said before," Zhao Jue walked over, “the family this child is from is very poor, and the kidnapper's phone call was definitely not recorded. In other words, even if her mother goes to the police, no police officer may believe it."

Bai Yutang frowned and asked, "Do you have the address of Chen Xin's home?"

Jiang Ping turned the piece of paper over, "It's already been printed."

Bai Yutang took the address and looked at it, then suddenly lifted his head and looked at Zhao Jue who was beside him.

Zhao Jue met his gaze and immediately looked up at the sky, looking elsewhere.

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao glanced at each other, and Zhan Zhao poked the back of Zhao Jue's head, “You brat, you're up to something, aren't you!"

“So rude!" Zhao Jue rubbed the back of his head, "You're the brat!"

The crowd was puzzled and Bai Chi asked Zhan Zhao, "What's going on?"

Off to the side, Gongsun was feeding Luban with a stick of cat food as he asked, "Why does Zhao Jue have a picture of that kid?"

The crowd also froze… That’s right! If it was just an ordinary kid and the police department didn't pay attention to it, how could Zhao Jue have a picture?

"And it's obvious that one is a photo of everyday life!” Zhan Zhao crossed his arms and glared at him.

Zhao Jue was pursing his lips as he thought of a countermeasure, when Bai Jintang took the newspaper and slowly and deliberately said, "I told you that you couldn't hide it."

The group turned their heads to look at Bai Jintang, and Bai Yutang frowned, "Brother, what are you two up to?"

Bai Jintang put down the newspaper and looked up, "I'm just helping, he's the mastermind." Saying that, he pointed at Zhao Jue and pushed the matter aside.

Zhao Jue bristled and sat down, glaring at Bai Jintang, "Traitor!"

Bai Jintang continued to read the newspaper.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang narrowed their eyes at him.

“Ai." Zhao Jue sighed, "As for this matter, it's like this. Doesn't that idiot come to visit the grave every year?"

Zhan Zhao was confused, "Which idiot?"

Zhao Jue blinked, "Skip this part."

The corners of the crowd's mouth twitched.

"I wanted to figure something out, so I came here." Zhao Jue said, cracking his fingers, "I started working on this matter about a little over half a year ago."

"Which matter?" Zhan Zhao frowned.

Zhao Jue stared at him for a moment and said, "Skip again!"

Zhan Zhao then had the urge to lift the table, but Bai Yutang held him down and signalled for Zhao Jue to hurry up and continue.

"After arranging this equipment, I went on a little homework field trip, and then... I bumped into a kidnapping case." Zhao Jue said, flattened his mouth and hailed a servant, "Go see if Chen Xin is awake."

The crowd was stunned.

Zhan Zhao was surprised, "He's here with you?!"

Zhao Jue looked at the sky, "He and his mother are both here with me."

The crowd looked at him with contempt, and then pointed at him - liar!

Zhao Jue hurriedly shook his head, "No way!"

At that moment, a door opened at the back of the carriage, and a cute child carrying a teddy bear came running over. His face was flushed, and when everyone looked, it was the Chen Xin in the photo! Bai Jintang was sitting at the door. The child came up and smiled up at him, "Uncle Bai."

Bai Jintang stroked his head and looked up to see Gongsun narrowing his eyes at him.

Bai Jintang was embarrassed and spread his hands, "I'm really just an accomplice."

That child, seeing so many people, was a little shy, so he trotted behind Zhao Jue and hid, whispering, "Uncle Zhao."

"Still up?"

“En, watching cartoons." The child said, staring curiously at Lisbon and the lion cub, "Mommy's asleep."

Zhao Jue nodded and told the crowd, "Three days ago, a little less than four days to be specific, I bumped into someone trying to kidnap him."

The crowd frowned - it seemed that the whole thing about the kid almost being kidnapped wasn't a lie.

"So I rescued him."

The crowd looked at Chen Xin, only to see him nodding as he hugged the bear and hid behind Zhao Jue.

"Then why did you keep him?" Zhan Zhao wondered.

"I actually sent him home, but by then his mother had already received the blackmail call." Zhao Jue said, gently pointing to his head, "The kidnapper didn't really fight against me, and when he saw me blocking him, he quickly gave up and fled."

Bai Yutang frowned slightly, "So, the other party called first and didn't even confirm if the kidnapping of the child was successful when he called?"

“En." Zhao Jue nodded.

"This is so unconventional, isn't it?" Bai Chi expressed disbelief, "It's like the goal wasn't kidnapping and ransom at all."

"Correct." Zhao Jue smiled slightly, "When I sent the kid home, his mother said that she had already called the police, and after she calmed down, she wanted to call to have the alarm cancelled, so I asked her if she would not cancel it."

The crowd was surprised, was there any reason to do that?

"I asked Chen Xin what his wish was and he said he wanted to leave that school, leave the city and have a better life with his mother. So I got the mother and son here and let them stay here temporarily for a while, and after contacting schools and such, I will take care of transferring them to S City and settling them in." Saying that, he pointed at Bai Jintang, "To be precise, he's the one who paid for it."

Bai Jintang raised an eyebrow, signalling - he was still an accessory, and the idea had come from Zhao Jue.

"You would do such a thing, is there anything special about Chen Xin?" Zhan Zhao wondered.

"I've been spying on this place for so long, it was originally to find the ghost, yet there were some incidental clues." Zhao Jue said, taking out some information, "This is also the reason why Bao Zheng was willing to lend you guys to me."

Zhan Zhao took the information and looked at it, frowning slightly.

The photos were pictures of three people, two men and one woman.

One man had short white hair, he looked like a foreigner and seemed to be of Slavic ethnicity, his expression was serious and he was probably around forty years old.

The other man had dark hair, dark skin, and a rather fierce look, with a very conspicuous scar on the left side of his face.

The woman was somewhat bookish, with short neck-length hair, features that could only be considered ordinary and clean, a pair of glasses and a serious expression. She was somewhat like one of those unsmiling high school maths teachers, the kind the students feared the most.

"Who are these three?" Bai Yutang was puzzled.

Visually, all three seemed to be profile photos, and they were old black and white photos on film, which should be some years old.

"These two are both wanted criminals."

Just then, Bai Chi reached out and pointed to the man with the scar on his face and the woman.

"Wanted criminals?" The crowd looked at him in surprise.

Bai Chi nodded with certainty, "But, both are from twenty years ago and have been missing for many, many years!"

"You remember the wanted criminals from twenty years ago?" Bai Jintang raised his head all the way and looked at Bai Chi in surprise.

Bai Chi rubbed his head in embarrassment and said in a small voice, "Because it seems like you guys care a lot about things from twenty years ago, I took the time to read all the files, information, and news from the ten years between fifteen years ago and twenty-five years ago."

The crowd's mouths opened wide.

Zhan Zhao frowned slightly, no wonder Bai Chi always ran to the library or was holding thick files to read, it turns out... that he did so all for their sake, he could have spent more time on his own affairs.

Bai Yutang reached out and touched Bai Chi's head, "Use your brain carefully! Don't get too tired."

Bai Chi smiled coyly, "It's fine, I read books in my spare time anyway."

"What are they both wanted for?" Zhao Hu wondered.

Ma Han suddenly reached out and pointed at the woman, "An assassin!"

The crowd looked at him in surprise.

Bai Chi nodded, “That’s right, this woman is called Xueyan. Although her name is quite literary, she's actually a ruthless killer, she's killed many people! She is an internationally wanted criminal, I suspect that Xueyan is just a pseudonym she has chosen for herself."

The crowd all nodded, so that was it.

"How did you know that, you did your homework too?" Zhan Zhao looked at Ma Han curiously.

Ma Han shook his head and waved his hand, "Snipers all know her."

"Oh?" The crowd was surprised, "Is she that famous?"

"No, she's a case!" Ma Han said, "When snipers are learning, our instructors will give us some classic cases to help develop our experience against the enemy, and will show us some information and videos. This woman is a connoisseur of counter-sniping, and she has a classic case of double counter-sniping."

"What's double counter-sniping?" Gongsun didn't understand.

"Sniping, counter-sniping, and then counter-sniping." Bai Yutang helped explain, "I also thought the photo looked a bit familiar, is this the same person as Suspect X on the instructor's slide?"

Ma Han nodded.

Zhan Zhao wondered - had Bai Yutang even gone to the sniper course?

"I've also heard Eleven mention her.” Ma Han continued, "She was on a sniping mission when she encountered a counter-sniper, so she used it against the cop who sniped her. Eleven used to say that there was a distinctive resentment in a female shooter, as opposed to the coldness of a male shooter, which could be distinguished by sniping habits."

"Is Eleven from the same era as her?" Zhan Zhao counted the years, this woman should be in her fifties now.

"What about this scar face?" Bai Yutang asked Bai Chi.

"Serial killer." Bai Chi pointed, "He's very perverted and is an extremely dangerous felon, but the reason for the killings is very paradoxical!"

"How so?"

"He was originally a police officer, and one night while on night duty, he played chess with one of his colleagues at the station. When he lost the game, he drew his gun and killed his colleague and wounded some other officers, then started to run for his life. He was notorious for his crimes along the way, but then he suddenly disappeared too."

The crowd shook their heads, what a vicious man.

Zhao Hu suddenly asked Zhan Zhao, "Dr. Zhan, why are some people born more ferocious, and with a level of ferocity that is outrageous and beyond the bottom line of humanity? Is it due to mental distortion?"

Zhan Zhao smiled, "There are many reasons for human temperament to be irritable, pathological phenomena, physiological phenomena, mental phenomena, external influences, or even just constipation, all of which may cause a person to be disordered. There are also some genetic defects."

"Genetic defects?" It was the first time the crowd had heard of it.

"As the saying goes, people have five senses, but in fact there are more than just five senses in humans." Zhan Zhao pointed to his head, "Where there are some certain sensations, it can result in ferocity."

"Such as?" The crowd was curious.

“Pain, fear, morality, empathy, and many, many more." Zhan Zhao spread his hands, "In fact, sometimes people are not consciously ferocious, they just have a lack of senses or paralysis. Usually after we see a certain image, we will feel the same for a while before we can physically feel it. For example, if a hammer falls and hits a toe, a normal person would imagine that he or she has been cut or bruised, and then remember or imagine the pain and think, 'That hurts!' Thus, the person would think that the person being hit is also in pain, and would react in a variety of ways, such as sympathy, concern, and so on. But a person who is pain-deprived will feel no pain at all! They don't feel uncomfortable when they see it, so when they hit someone with a hammer, they don't think that person will be in pain either. This is the reason for violence in children. Because children have very little life experience, for example, it is common for a child to tear a bird apart. He has not experienced pain at all and has no moral discipline, so he does not know that it hurts to tear a bird apart or that it is wrong to do so. This is why many children who did cruel things as children grow up to be kind and gentle. Experience determines our behaviour; humans are animals, and without the control of thinking, morality, law, feeling, and so on which combine internal and external factors, there is no difference between humans and beasts, and in the world of beasts there is no good or evil."

The crowd all nodded, this time Zhan Zhao's explanation was a little longer, but it was spoken in Mandarin and could be understood.

Bai Yutang looked back at Zhao Jue, "What about the white-haired man?"

Zhao Jue smiled faintly, "Compared to who they are... I think these will be of more interest to you." Saying that, he took out three more photos, "These are the ones I took by chance when I was monitoring T City in the past six months, they are my windfall!"

The crowd took a look at the photos and froze.

The three photos were also taken of three people, exactly the same as the three people in the profile photos they had just looked at. Although the clothing had changed, the faces were the same.

Zhan Zhao looked at the date, "Two months ago?"

"It's a coincidence..." Bai Chi said to himself.

"One is possible, but three at the same time would be too much of a coincidence." Zhao Zhen had a different opinion.

"There are many more taken at other angles." Zhao Jue opened a drawer and lifted out three thick stacks of photos, "I've double-checked them with the face recognition system, it's absolutely accurate!"

"Why did they appear here?" The crowd was puzzled.

Gongsun looked at the photos and then at the crowd, "Hey, hey, this shouldn't be the focus of your attention, right?"

The crowd all nodded in understanding, there were other things in front of them that were even more unbelievable - that is, after all these years, the appearance of these three people hadn't changed at all! In other words, they hadn't aged at all!

"A facelift?" Zhao Hu asked.

"No way!" Gongsun shook his head with certainty, "There is no way that plastic surgery techniques can set a person's appearance forever! There is nothing that can hide the marks that twenty years of age leave on a person's face!"

"So..." Bai Yutang shook the photo and looked at Zhao Jue, "That's why Bao Sir let us come."

Zhao Jue smiled faintly and looked at Zhan Zhao who could no longer suppress his excitement next to him, "Energised, right?"

All of them were a little excited.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other, really didn't expect it – this time, it might be the first time they directly investigated the ultimate taboo-like secret that had been hidden for twenty years!

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

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

Translated: December 29, 2022 by Angel

Edited: January 16, 2023 by Angel