S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 4 Chapter 13

A Requiem for a Murderer 13 – Good Student, Odd Student, Bad Student

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As soon as Zhao Jue announced that he was Zhan Zhao, the classroom was in an uproar.

Zhan Zhao was held down by Bai Yutang so that he didn't jump up, and the girls around him screamed, "Too handsome!"

Zhan Zhao glared at Bai Yutang, "I'm more handsome than him!"

Bai Yutang nodded and nodded, "Yes, you and your father are both more handsome than him."

Zhan Zhao was struggling with anger, Zhao Jue would definitely ruin his reputation by talking nonsense!

Bai Chi was so shocked by the screams of the girls around him that he covered his ears.

With a gentle tap on his desk, Zhao Jue said slowly, "Who wants to learn hypnosis?"

"Pfft..."

Bai Yutang had managed to steady Zhan Zhao and tried to take a sip of water, but with one word from Zhao Jue, the mineral water he had just swallowed spurted out of his mouth.

The girl in front of him shrieked and turned back to glare angrily.

Bai Yutang hurriedly apologised.

The two girls who had been sprayed at first had their faces scrunched up, but when they saw who had sprayed the water, they instantly regained their smiling faces and said, "It's okay", as if they were telling Bai Yutang to keep spraying, and not to be polite!

Bai Yutang wiped his mouth and looked at Zhan Zhao beside him, and sure enough, the cat's face was all black.

Zhao Jue spoke, and swiftly, the whole class raised their hands. In addition, cell phone communication worked quickly… In the blink of an eye, everyone in the school knew that the most handsome psychology lecturer ever had appeared!

"You can learn hypnosis if you want to." Zhao Jue took out a stack of paper and threw it to a few students in the front row, "One copy each, write whatever I ask you."

Soon, the test papers were distributed to each person.

Zhan Zhao picked it up and looked at it, it was just A4 paper that needed their names and classes filled in. What was this demon up to again?

Bai Yutang held his chin up and observed the students in his class. University students were really diverse, looking back, because of skipping grades all the way and going to the army too early, he still rather lacked this feeling of being a real university student.

Seeing that everyone had their test papers, Zhao Jue started asking questions, "First question, write down the name of your favourite person and the reason why you like her or him the most."

When he finished, a student raised his hand to ask a question, "Is the so-called ‘like' a good feeling, love or admiration or something..."

Zhao Jue smiled, "Don't worry about that, let your brain decide what you think, write the name of whoever you immediately think of when you see the word 'favourite'! For the reasons, wait until after you write down the name!"

The students all lowered their heads to write.

Bai Yutang asked Zhan Zhao in a low voice, "What the hell is he up to?"

"It's a cliché, collective psychological induction." Zhan Zhao held his chin and grimaced, "A trick usually used by con artists or fortune tellers."

Bai Yutang raised his eyebrows slightly, "For example?"

"If you were directly asked which person you thought was the most suspicious, it would definitely arouse your suspicion. But if you ask this question among many other questions, it will be logical. Also, some questions have different effects after thinking and instinctively answering. Getting someone to answer instinctively takes a long time to produce inertia, and this is a childish trick that Zhao Jue handles with ease."

Bai Yutang smiled faintly, "You're complimenting him, huh?"

Zhan Zhao's nose wrinkled, "Che, how? Basically, it’s like this..."

"The two handsome guys sitting in the middle of the third row from the back."

At this time, Zhao Jue abruptly spoke, and the crowd spun back. Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang subconsciously looked back, and there were two rows behind them...

Turning around, they found that everyone was paying attention to the two of them.

Zhao Jue smiled, "No whispering!"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang awkwardly looked down and filled in their words, glancing at each other – that guy Zhao Jue!

"Second question." Zhao Jue then asked, "Which person do you hate the most? Why?"

It was the first time the students had taken such a class, and they were quite excited to fill it out carefully.

"The third question, if you had to kill one person, who would you choose to kill?"

The excitement on the students' faces became even more obvious - this was already stepping into unfamiliar territory that they normally don't venture into.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, on the other hand, looked at each other and could probably guess Zhao Jue's next question.

Sure enough, Zhao Jue slowly and methodically continued to ask, "Among the people you know, which one do you think has the potential to kill someone?"

For the next series of questions, Zhao Jue asked them in a structured manner, but the answers given were expected to be varied, and at the same time... might need to be summarised by Bai Chi, and would be the first clues that Zhan Zhao and the others would get.

This class soon ended under Zhao Jue's questioning.

"Teacher, what about teaching us hypnosis as you said?" A few bold girls took the initiative to ask Zhao Jue.

Zhao Jue smiled at them, "Learning hypnosis requires a certain amount of talent." Saying that, he shook the examination paper in his hand, "I'll get to know you guys first before picking out the ones who can learn hypnosis."

The students whispered as Zhao Jue collected the test papers, "Class is about to end, it's time to assign the homework."

“Ah?!" These students were used to not having homework most of the time, and once they heard that there was homework, they all frowned.

"It's not a difficult topic, on the contrary, it's rather interesting." Saying that, Zhao Jue wrote a website address on the blackboard, "At this address, there is a small game. You all have computers, right? If you don't, it's okay to go to the internet café."

"A game?" Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other.

"It's a simple escape game. Your homework is that everyone plays it once. It doesn't matter if you win or lose or whatever." Zhao Jue said, smiling, “Remember to log in and enter your names and student ID numbers. Play once and it's done. By the way, this is a game that tests IQ rather than whether you studied hard, so don't get someone else to take the test for you. Dismissed" After saying that, he picked up the stack of papers and wandered back.

Leaving the crowd after class to enthusiastically discuss today's interesting lesson, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other. There was basically nothing to gain, so they could only wait to go back and review their assignments.

"What's the next class?" Zhan Zhao asked Bai Chi.

"Oh, it's a shooting class."

"You guys are also taking a shooting class?"

At this point, the two girls in front who Bai Yutang had just sprayed with water turned around and asked enthusiastically, "Are you guys transfer students? I haven't even seen you before."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang nodded.

The two girls inexplicably had a strange smile on their faces, seemingly feeling schadenfreude and happily whispering something.

Zhan Zhao asked the two in confusion, "What's the problem?"

"Nothing..." The two girls answered with obvious reservations.

Zhan Zhao nodded at Bai Chi, signalling - up!

Bai Chi looked at Zhan Zhao with a puzzled tilt of his head, what does that mean - up where?

The two girls, however, adored Bai Chi's head tilt, and exchanged whispers - Bai Chi looked so cute and small!

"What's wrong?" Bai Chi asked curiously, his big eyes widening and twinkling.

The two girls couldn't stand it anymore, so they told Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, "The next shooting class is going to be a good show!"

"What kind of good show?" Both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were puzzled.

One of the girls reached out and pointed to a male student sitting at a table in front of her who was talking to some boys, "See? That guy's name is Zhou Yi!"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked over, and saw that he was a good-looking boy, with black hair, wearing glasses, wearing a light blue shirt and black trousers, and his face was... how to describe it? Not bad, but seemed very arrogant.

"Zhou Yi?" Bai Yutang asked the two girls, "What does he have to do with the shooting class?"

"You guys don't know, Zhou Yi is the champion of the National University Group Shooting Competition and is known as a marksman in the academic world! He's not that easy to get rid of, he's driven away several shooting teachers at school, and there's a new one this time, so he's probably going to have his work cut out for him!"

"He drove the teachers away?" Zhan Zhao was puzzled, "He has the ability to do that?"

"It's not so much through his family background or anything, although his family is indeed very rich. The teachers, although they can't teach him, they can teach ordinary students! It's just that this guy..."

As they were talking, they saw a boy pass by Zhou Yi and suddenly trip over Zhou Yi's foot.

The boy didn't pay attention and fell over. This was a large classroom, the desks are in the form of steps. If the boy had not been caught by his friends, he would probably have fallen and been injured.

"Zhou Yi, you're sick!" The boy's friend was very annoyed, "Such a prank, you can't tell the difference between light and heavy?"

Zhou Yi raised both eyebrows and sneered, "He's the one who's too useless."

"You..."

"I what, ah?" Zhou Yi tilted his face up and spoke nonchalantly, "The weak are destined to be bullied, isn't it better to adapt to society in advance?"

"Why are you so uneducated..."

"You talk to me about upbringing?" Zhou Yi lifted his foot and kicked him over, "Are you worthy?"

Bai Yutang could see that this Zhou Yi seemed to have some physical skills. The boy fell over and was eventually shooed away by Zhou Yi's followers.

By this time, everyone in the classroom had basically packed up their things and prepared for the next class.

Zhou Yi leapt off his chair and waved his hand at the group of followers, "Come on, let's go and meet the new teacher."

“Ai, he's definitely not good enough!"

"If he can't handle it, let's use him as a target, haha..."

The girls whispered to Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, "This man is arrogant, haughty and unforgiving, most of the shooting teachers were humiliated by him.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both subconsciously said "Oh?”, but to Bai Chi's ears, the ‘oh' was not one of concern at all, but more of excitement for a good show.

As everyone left the classroom and headed towards the firing range, Bai Chi asked Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, "Brother, will the students give Xiao Ma Ge a hard time?"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang smiled, "The next class will definitely be more interesting than the last one!"

In the open space of the shooting range, Ma Han was looking at the so-called 'teaching materials' which were a bit strange. This semester's shooting course was full and detailed, did ordinary students need to learn such things? The curriculum was left over from before, so who had made it? He had just arrived and found that he was the only shooting instructor, and the only department head was from the sports department, so there wasn't a lot of attention given to him.

As he was reading, his phone rang and he picked it up to answer it, discovering the number was not displayed, "Hello?"

No one spoke on the other end of the line, but he could still feel that someone was on the other end.

"Who is it?” Ma Han frowned slightly.

"Me."

Ma Han froze, then he refocused his mind and looked up with a frown, slightly surprised, “Eleven?"

"Why are you here?"

"How did you know I was here?"

"Huh."

"Aren't you dead?"

"Do you remember what I taught you?"

"You have taught me many things, which one do you mean?"

"How many guns do the best killers carry on them?"

"Three."

"Which one is the most dangerous?"

At this time, the bell rang for class and students were already gathering in the distance.

"I won't bother you."

Ma Han opened his mouth, but the other end had already hung up, so he could only sigh and hung up the phone to walk out. His ears seemed to recall the words that Eleven used to say when he was taught to draw his gun - the most dangerous one is the fourth gun, the enemy always has one more gun on him than you think.

Walking towards the edge of the firing range, most of the students were gathered there. Because of the firing range, the shooting class was divided into many sections, with only thirty students in each section.

Here, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang ran into Liu Meng, the pretty girl they had met in the cafeteria at breakfast, Chen Xi, the student president who had a crush on her, and Chen Xi's sister, the seemingly well-behaved Chen Lu.

"Hi!" Liu Meng enthusiastically came over to greet Zhan Zhao and the others, while Chen Xi grimaced.

Ma Han walked up to the crowd of students, and when he saw Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, he hesitated a little - should he say something about Eleven?

Zhan Zhao suddenly narrowed his eyes and whispered to Bai Yutang, "Xiao Ma Ge seems to have something on his mind."

Bai Yutang looked at him with admiration, "He is known as the number one vigilant face, yet you can still tell if he has something on his mind?"

Zhan Zhao raised an eyebrow, "Oh? Is it Xiao Ma Ge? I always thought it was Bao Sir!"

Bai Yutang laughed, “Bao Sir's mood swings are so extreme, how can he be facially paralyzed?"

"Then he's so dark that you can't see his facial muscles clearly!” Zhan Zhao said confidently, “What Gongsun said is that if the muscles are the same colour as the skin, then peeling back Bao Sir's skin would definitely reveal Metal Gear Solid!"

Bai Yutang then felt a little dizzy, his head unconsciously flashed to Bao Zheng's dark, fully muscled appearance, and hurriedly patted his head.

"Hey, the new teacher is not bad!"

"So serious!"

"I like this one!"

The students were still enthusiastically discussing the new teacher.

.....

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang subconsciously walked to Zhou Yi's side, waiting to see what was going on.

Bai Chi followed behind the two, sweating for Xiao Ma Ge. When he was in the police academy, he often encountered such students, they were very capable and made things difficult for the teachers, and the teachers were so embarrassed at the time.

When Ma Han saw Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao arrive, he looked at the crowd. He had taught the sniper team cadets before, so it should be similar, right?

“Ai, new teacher."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang narrowed their eyes at Zhou Yi who suddenly spoke up.

Ma Han looked at him, this student was so unruly.

"Do you know who I am?" Zhou Yi was not accustomed to this, usually before or during class, the instructors would come and greet him.

Ma Han frowned at him, thinking to himself, I don't care who you are, but soon noticed that Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang's expressions seemed to be full of schadenfreude... Ma Han then felt that something was odd.

"You're not an official member of the shooting association, are you?" Zhou Yi asked Ma Han with a smile, "This school is weird, finding an amateur to be a teacher."

Zhan Zhao made a face at Bai Yutang - Wow! He called Ma Han an amateur!

Bai Yutang touched his nose, is this the legendary fearlessness of the ignorant?

Ma Han probably understood what this person was doing, he was probably provoking or displeasing him, which was normal, as there was no first place in literature and no second place in martial arts. He had encountered such annoying students when he was teaching.

"I don't think you're qualified to teach me." Zhou Yi, who was probably a very flamboyant person, said to the many students behind him, "It would be better for me to teach you directly!"

The students looked at each other and thought, 'Here we go again!' Some sympathised with the new teacher, while others were watching the show.

Bai Yutang saw Zhou Yi's face tilted up to the sky and shook his head.

Ma Han looked at Zhou Yi, reached out, took out a training gun and gave it to him, saying, "That Coke can fifty metres away, knock it off."

"It's too easy, isn't it?" Zhou Yi raised the gun.

"Wait." Ma Han stopped him with a flick of his hand, then reached out to a boy standing behind him with a backpack, "Let me borrow your backpack."

The boy, unsure of what to do, handed the bag to Ma Han.

Ma Han picked up five bricks from the ground and put them in his bag, stuffing it full and hung it on Zhou Yi's hand.

"Hey!" Zhou Yi was startled and his hand could not be raised, but he heard Ma Han say, "Let's begin."

"Are you crazy, do you know how valuable my hands are..."

"Do you think you are playing the piano?” Ma Han glanced at him, "You can't even stand five bricks, what are you trying to do?"

"You..." Zhou Yi was annoyed, "Who can do it? Can you do it?"

Ma Han took the gun, reached out and hooked the backpack, then raised his hand and fired three shots in quick succession, knocking off three Coke cans.

The crowd of students looked at each other in disbelief, and some covered their mouths in shock.

Zhou Yi flattened his mouth. Although he was still very unconvinced, he had to return to the group, otherwise he would be too humiliated.

"Who told you to go back?" Ma Han said in a cold voice.

Zhou Yi looked back at him.

"You're delaying the lesson, go and pick up the can."

Zhan Zhao tugged on Bai Yutang's arm and shook it - Xiao Ma Ge is so strict!

Bai Yutang couldn't laugh or cry. This was considered light, Ma Han was the most famous demon trainer of the sniper team, and could even make a big special forces officer cry, let alone a few students.

Zhou Yi had no choice but to go over.

"Squat jump."

"You... don't go too far!"

"The shooting association can't even do this much?"

"I..."

"You failed this semester, get out."

"You, do you know who I am?"

"I don't care who you are."

"You, who do you think you are?!"

"I don't care who you are."

......

"Pfft..." Many students laughed, it was the first time they saw Zhou Yi defeated like this.

Zhou Yi opened his mouth for half a day, so angry that his face turned green.

Bai Chi asked Zhan Zhao in a surprised whisper, "Didn't Hu Zi say that Xiao Ma Ge isn’t good at speaking?"

Bai Yutang crossed his arms, "Usually the ones with the sharpest mouths can't outdo the clumsiest ones."

Bai Chi flattened his mouth, inexplicably a little envious, everyone in SCI is so capable! They won't be at a disadvantage when they go out, but he's not very eye-catching and he's not tall enough...

Zhou Yi had met his match this time, but it was too humiliating for him to fail as a shooting champion, so he had to squat and jump to pick up the cans and be punished. He was used to being arrogant, so the students were happy to see him make a fool of himself. But before the students could finish laughing, they heard Ma Han's displeasure, "Why are you happy that your teammate was punished? Run around the field twenty times."

Bai Yutang subconsciously looked at Zhan Zhao beside him, and sure enough... this cat's eyes were saying – Twenty laps?! I want to skip class!

‿︵‿︵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 5, 2023 by Angel

Edited: January 23, 2023 by Angel