S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 4 Chapter 11

A Requiem for a Murderer 11 – Three Generations

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The next morning, Bai Yutang opened his eyes and saw Zhan Zhao sitting by the window, surrounded by a circle of big cats and small cats, holding a thick stack of papers in his hands, and looking intently at the stack of information.

Bai Yutang reached out and rubbed his eyebrows, and was just about to get up when someone asked him "Awake?"

Bai Yutang was startled and sat up sleepily to see Zhao Jue sitting cross-legged on the carpet next to his bed, with the little lion on his lap, looking at him with a smile on his face.

Bai Yutang frowned, "Why are you here?"

Zhao Jue raised his foot and waved his slipper at him, "Your cat asked me to come."

Bai Yutang sighed and got up to go to the washroom to brush his teeth, while asking, "What are you guys studying this early in the morning?"

Zhao Jue wandered over, "You guys are going to school today!"

Bai Yutang froze slightly and turned his eyes to look at him, "School?"

"Mm-hmm." Zhao Jue nodded, "You and Xiao Bai Chi will be the transfer students, and your family's cat and Gongsun will be the teachers. Oh yeah, that silly one called Zhao Hu is fit to be a gym teacher, then what..."

"Wait a minute." Bai Yutang very calmly finished rinsing his mouth and put down his cup, then stepped out and interrupted Zhao Jue, "I'm a student?"

"Mm-hmm." Zhao Jue nodded and tsked twice, "Always ah, this type of boy is the most annoying, good at sports, good at studies, good looking, good grades, and likes men..."

"Ahem..." Zhan Zhao was drinking his coffee and coughed violently when he heard this, while looking up at Zhao Jue, "University?"

Zhao Jue nodded his head.

"I disagree." Bai Yutang shook his head.

Zhao Jue looked him up and down, "Many high school students look much older than you let alone university, so it won't be noticed."

"It's not really about that." Bai Yutang shook his head, "That university is so weird, I can't let him run around alone." As he said that, he reached out and pointed at Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao was chewing on a cupcake, and his cheeks were puffed out.

Zhan Jue glanced at him, shaking his head and bristling, seemingly quite displeased, "What's with the show of affection, smug."

"Otherwise, he and I both pretend to be students, so that we can take care of each other and Bai Chi, otherwise Zhao Zhen would be uneasy."

Zhao Jue seemed to be in a difficult position, rubbing his chin, "Well... that's one less pretending to be a teacher!"

"Let Ma Han come, he can take care of Gongsun along the way, otherwise Brother should be nervous." Zhan Zhao also felt that the student side was more of a mixed bag, and the teachers here had limited clues that they could find.

Zhao Jue sat aside and muttered in a small voice, “Hmm, that sniper?… is not bad, maybe he can find something."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other and together they asked Zhao Jue, "What about you?"

Zhao Jue narrowed his eyes and raised the corners of his mouth, "I'm the parent!"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang's eyelids both twitched.

"That's right." Zhan Zhao was full of questions, "Why can you arrange teachers and transfer students to enter the school at will like this, do you know the president?"

Zhao Jue held his chin, "Because Jintang bought the school, ah, it's private anyway, of course the school president has the say!"

The corners of Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang's mouths twitched one, and finally, Zhan Zhao sighed, "Brother is actually willing to be the president..."

"Tsk, who said he was going to?" Zhao Jue seemed dissatisfied.

"Then who is it?" The two spoke in unison, and Zhao Jue pointed at his own nose, "Of course it's me, hey! Headmaster Zhao!"

After finishing his sentence, Zhao Jue sauntered out to eat his breakfast. Zhan Zhao looked at Bai Yutang suspiciously, "Do you feel..."

“En." Bai Yutang nodded with understanding - why was Bai Jintang seemingly working with Zhao Jue on the surface? What exactly was the relationship between the two of them?

Zhan Zhao could only shrug "Why not just ask Brother directly?"

"I actually wanted to ask him yesterday, but I was interrupted by the clue given by Zhao Jue." Bai Yutang changed his clothes, "Lurking in the school... Why do I have a feeling that we're looking for a needle in a haystack? Who specifically do we want to catch?"

"Not necessarily." Zhan Zhao handed the information to Bai Yutang, "This school is quite messy."

Bai Yutang opened the large stack of files, only to find that they were all surprisingly the relevant student and teacher profiles from the school.

"The student population is that diverse?" Bai Yutang found it unbelievable, "The school is expensive too, what exactly does this private school teach?"

"As mentioned before, it seems that the students' family backgrounds are quite substantial, and after training here in various aspects such as language, socialisation, etiquette, survival skills and so on, they are sent directly to prestigious schools abroad and referred to study there."

Bai Yutang raised his eyebrows slightly, "Does this count as stealing social resources to some extent?"

"This world isn't fair in the first place." Zhan Zhao flipped through the information, "But those three people that Zhao Jue showed us yesterday are all at this school."

Bai Yutang froze, "Are you kidding? Those three are all murderers!"

"They're all teachers. The white haired one whose name is now Anthony is a Russian language teacher. The murderer Xueyan's name is Zhao Xueyan and she's transformed into a maths teacher. The image fits well, huh?" Zhan Zhao was quite intrigued, "This scar face is now named Wang Xu and is a security guard in the school's communication room.

Bai Yutang frowned, "These few people, what are they all gathering at the school for?"

"Those guys have a reason for doing what they do." Zhan Zhao sneered, "If they've been hiding in the school for so long, they must have an ulterior motive. This school was built not long ago, so there shouldn't be any underground treasures or anything like that, right? What could there be in the school? The students!"

"You mean, they want to get at the students... for what? Money?"

"Kidnapping for money does occur a lot in this area, but the targets are mostly younger students and are, to put it mildly, at a controllable level." Zhan Zhao shook his head, "Accidental deaths or injuries at universities are also very rare!"

"And why is that? Are the three of them looking to hide in the same place to escape the world?" Bai Yutang wanted to laugh a little.

"Zhao Jue asked us to come this time to catch a ghost, and these guys..."

"They are too?" Bai Yutang was reminded by Zhan Zhao and understood, "It is similar to Zhao Jue's purpose. He has the support of Brother and uses a lot of financial resources to find the ghost, while the other side can only use people? The three who remain are all ruthless characters, will they have a tendency to kill people rather than capture them?"

Zhan Zhao smiled and stroked the back of Bai Yutang's neck, "Yutang, your ability to draw inferences from one thing to the next is still this amazing."

"What exactly is that ghost?" Bai Yutang muttered to himself, "Is it the legendary assassin who killed Elven, or is it some vital figure?"

"Only Zhao Jue knows this, but he's been keeping his mouth shut and won't say anything." Zhan Zhao was dissatisfied.

"Why don't you ask him?"

"He definitely won't say, why don't we ask Brother?"

The two of them were discussing when they heard Zhao Jue's cool, silky voice coming from the doorway, "Who said I won't say anything?"

The two men turned around together and looked at him in surprise, "You're willing to say it?"

The corners of Zhao Jue's mouth twitched, "You two dead kids, would it kill you to just directly ask me what you want? You're still beating around the bush."

Bai Yutang looked at the sky as Zhan Zhao hurriedly pulled Zhao Jue in, "Who exactly is the ghost? That killer?"

"He is indeed a killer, but not an ordinary killer, a unique one!"

Zhan Zhao did not understand, "Why is he unique?"

"Childish face..."

"Cough cough..." Bai Yutang choked on his water and looked at Zhao Jue with a look of admiration.

The corners of Zhan Zhao's mouth twitched and he also frowned as he glanced at Zhao Jue.

"I'm serious!"

"It's a woman?!" Zhan Zhao was surprised.

"A girl, to be exact." Zhao Jue clasped his hands together and bowed gently to the distance, "A super cute little girl."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both sighed, Zhao Jue was never serious.

"You said it's a girl, how old is she this year?"

"Eighteen or nineteen?" Zhao Jue touched his finger to his chin, "But she looks like she might be sixteen or seventeen? Anyway, she looks like a youthful beauty queen."

"You're saying an eighteen or nineteen year old girl killed the strongest sniper, are you kidding?"

At this time, Ma Han, who had come to call the crowd for breakfast, leaned against the wall at the entrance, and Zhao Hu beside him was astonished, "Really? Then wouldn't she have been only a few years old when she started killing people? Could it be a surprise attack?!"

Zhao Jue faintly raised the corner of his mouth, “She’s an eternally beautiful girl."

The crowd froze.

"A long time ago, she looked sixteen or seventeen, and a long time later, she still looks, well, only sixteen or seventeen." Zhao Jue said, unable to stop himself from tsking twice, "All that make-up and maintenance is just a floating cloud! Beneath the appearance of a teenager is an old face, an old demon woman living inside the body of an angel, a sixteen year old girl with the heart of a thirty or forty year old, oh yeah.” (Angel: Floating cloud is an internet buzzword that is a metaphor for something you can see but can’t get.)

"That killer doesn't get old, so she keeps looking young and youthful, just like those three?" Zhan Zhao had gone from a lack of interest early this morning when he found out he was going to school, to being excited about it now.

"Just like them?” Zhao Jue, however, suddenly smiled, "I did say that before, didn't I, that she is a unique existence."

"What do you mean?" Bai Yutang didn't understand.

"She's the only one that still exists so far, the third generation test subject." Zhao Jue raised an eyebrow slightly at Zhan Zhao, "Did you read the information I left you?"

Zhan Zhao's face at this moment, on the other hand, was more complicated than ever.

Three generations! Amongst the many research materials that Zhao Jue had given him, some of the contents had indeed been deciphered by him, and one of the more important pieces of information was a report that was looking into the issue of the third generation of test subjects.

Previously, Zhan Zhao and the others had found out that there was a very mysterious organisation that was secretly doing human experiments. From the clues obtained from several previous cases, the history of this organisation could be traced back to the World War II era, and it was a well-organised and rather mysterious organisation.

Just like Luo Tian, over the years, they have conducted countless experiments, the purpose of which has been unknown, but the result has been the creation of all kinds of gifted and even mutated people. From all the clues gathered so far, it seems that many of the experiments have to do with slowing down human growth and making time 'stop' as it were. Of course, there were others, such as Luo Tian's, which were purely for the purpose of improving attacking abilities, or some bizarre incidents involving vampires. All in all, the information was so disorganised that Zhan Zhao was still in the process of sorting it out.

However, the term 'three generations' did touch a nerve with Zhan Zhao. There were both real and fake biological experiments, successes and failures, and of course, there were also some variations and accidents. The earlier the experiment, the more likely it was to go awry. The biggest accident happened to the third batch of subjects, the group of people who were known as the third generation... with the letters PTW3 at the beginning, a total of seven subjects, of all ages. PTW seemed to be the abbreviation of a scientist or a special experimental team of some kind. Zhan Zhao found out that this person was in charge of many experiments, and most of them were very crazy.

Three generations of experiments, according to the report, resulted in mutations and finally the decision to blow themselves up! The so-called self-destruction was a way to make the group disappear without anyone noticing. The third generation was said to be quite frightening and extremely uncontrollable, which was the most deadly of all! As for how far the mutation had gone, it was not clearly stated in the information.

Zhan Zhao was puzzled and asked Zhao Jue, "Didn't it say that they all self-destructed?"

"Self-destructing?" Bai Yutang frowned, what kind of jargon was that?

"That was just PTW tampering with information to trick his master." Zhao Jue smiled faintly, "That boy kept his hand and left a way back for himself, it’s the ghost, ghost!"

"Who is PTW?" Bai Yutang was curious, "Frankenstein or something?"

Zhao Jue smiled faintly, "He is a person who knows too many secrets, so... this time, we want him alive, and the other side, they want him dead!"

Both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang nodded, "The key to finding PTW is to find the ghost first. If she will always look like a beautiful girl, are you sure that she is in this university, lurking among the students disguised as an ordinary person?"

Zhao Jue nodded, "What you have to do is to find the ghost before these three, and of course prevent all kinds of unexpected situations. In short, find PTW first. In addition... pay more attention to that beautiful girl, but be careful writing. There is almost zero information about her, that is, no one knows what she looks like or what her features are, the legend is only that she is a cute young girl. However, she is a walking deadly weapon and the danger level is at the highest level."

‿︵‿︵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: January 1, 2023 by Angel

Edited: January 16, 2023 by Angel