S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 4 Chapter 26

A Requiem for a Murderer 26 – The Stage and the Grave

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The lights in the auditorium went out once again, and the background music slowly played. The students were slightly puzzled – because it was agreed earlier that all the girls would go up together to create the backdrop, and for this reason they all wore uniform costumes and rehearsed for half a day, so how come they weren't being used this time?

Liu Meng and Chen Xi awkwardly ran out to present the show, "Enjoy the stage play."

The students waited in puzzlement as they heard the background music become clearer; it was an odd whistling wind and the soft sound of chiming bells, which seemed very depressing.

The sound of the chiming bells seemed to carry a certain rhythm, similar to the ringing of old church bells.

Everyone in the crowd froze slightly. Several of the students lived in the area and had lived here for a long time, so there was a sense of déjà vu surrounding the sound of the bells.

At that moment, the spotlight fell and someone was already standing there on the dark stage.

When the crowd could see clearly, several girls covered their mouths to stifle their screams. However, the sound of whispers still rang out... Even many of the boys were praising, that person on stage, was really beautiful.

At this time, there was only a light blue spotlight on the stage, an iron street lamp post. Zhan Zhao was wearing a close-fitting black suit, looking very slender. He was casually leaning against the side of the lamp post, his hands in his trouser pockets, very casually. Zhan Zhao already had a gentle air about him, and he handled black formal wear best, giving people an unusually comfortable feeling.

Below the stage, Bai Chi watched with wide eyes, and Ma Xin excitedly grabbed his arm and shook it around, "So handsome so handsome!"

In a corner not far away, Bai Jintang, who had snuck in at some point, crossed his legs and asked Gongsun, who was watching with great interest, "What is this play?"

Gongsun, however, did not seem to be thinking about this, nor was he looking at Zhan Zhao on the stage, rather he was looking up, tilting his head slightly and frowning in thought.

"What's wrong?" Bai Jintang looked at him.

"Well... I think the sound of the bell is very familiar...." Gongsun frowned, "Where have I heard it before?"

Bai Jintang suddenly laughed softly.

"What are you laughing at?" Gongsun looked at him in confusion.

Bai Jintang reached into his pocket and fished out a lighter, showing it to Gongsun.

Gongsun frowned, not understanding what he was trying to illustrate.

Bai Jintang stretched out a finger and flicked the metal surface of the lighter with his nail cap, making a slight 'clang' sound.

Gongsun blinked, still not understanding what he was trying to explain.

Bai Jintang put away the lighter, with only his fingers remaining in the air, and made the same motion he had just made, looking at Gongsun, "What did you hear?"

Gongsun knew he hadn't heard anything, but he also understood what Bai Jintang was trying to say – The so-called inferring three from one, although Gongsun usually didn't like to show off his high IQ and wouldn't remember basic dictionaries in one go like Bai Chi did, just because he didn't do it didn't mean he couldn't do it. Among the three major monsters in the police department, Gongsun had a reputation.

It only took about three seconds to string together, Gongsun looked up at Bai Jintang, "Earlier, Zhao Jue used suggestion on us?"

Bai Jintang curled up the corners of his mouth and reached out to gently hold the back of Gongsun's head, moving over to place a kiss on his forehead, and saying in a low voice, "Even your brain cells are sexy!"

Gongsun smiled but did not say anything. He understood the mystery of the bell, and he was sure that Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang must have understood it too, which was why Zhan Zhao appeared on stage in such a style; he was cooperating with Zhao Jue to perform this play.

Below the stage, Zhao Jue squinted his eyes slightly, and what was revealed in his eyes was a sly light.

On the side, Bai Yutang walked over in his cloak and stood right beside him, ready to go on stage. Unlike the previous rehearsal, he did not come from the back of the stage, but directly from the side.

With one hand on his chin, Zhao Jue gazed intently at Zhan Zhao on the stage and whispered to Bai Yutang beside him, "Have you ever planted flowers?"

Bai Yutang did not make a sound.

"The most wonderful thing in this world is to watch a small sapling that you have nurtured with your own hands grow into a huge tree."

Bai Yutang laughed dryly.

"Got a problem with that?" Zhao Jue turned his face to look at him.

"Saplings don't need to be nurtured, they will grow into huge trees." Bai Yutang's expression was unchanged as he glanced at Zhao Jue, "The variety of the tree itself is more important. What you're really proud of is that the tree grew faster and better than you thought it would, right?"

Zhao Jue leaned over the table and smothered a laugh, pointing his finger at Bai Yutang's cheek, "It seems like it!"

Bai Yutang shook his head to avoid his finger, and in the midst of the pitch blackness, looked into the densely packed grandstand... Was this what Bai Ye had said, the bloodline? At this time, he himself became unusually sharp, even able to hear the different breathing sounds, the direction of the danger lurking, it was as if he had reopened his five senses once again. Did it come from this magical suggestion?

Upstairs, Ma Han switched off the light and leaned against the back of the billboard to wipe his sweat, with his eyes looking at the ceiling as he gently adjusted his breathing.

Zhao Hu was nervous, thinking that Ma Han was more tired from playing with the flashlight than shooting.

Bai Ye sat behind the billboard, accompanied by the melodious sound of bells, disassembling his sniper rifle and reassembling it.

Ma Han suddenly lowered his head, looked at the gun in his hand and asked calmly, "You're going to kill someone?"

"To be precise, I'm going to capture someone, but of course, I'll kill if necessary." Bai Ye took a deep breath, "The smell of tobacco."

Zhao Hu frowned and sniffed, "Does it smell?"

Bai Ye just smiled, a smile somewhere between that of Bai Jintang and Bai Yutang's, with a touch of the vicissitudes of age that neither of them had.

"There's that....." Ma Han nodded, "and the sound of the lighter and the colour of the fire."

Zhao Hu listened in confusion, thinking that Xiao Ma Ge was overstressed and hallucinating or something.

Bai Ye looked at Ma Han, "You are really gifted, no wonder Eleven said you are the successor."

Ma Han frowned, "I don't care."

Bai Ye smiled and moved over to him, "However, there are still things you lack."

Ma Han looked at him.

"Just seeing colours isn't enough." Bai Ye said something strange and pointed to his nose, "You also have to inquire about the smell, to be able to distinguish the smell of decay of a corpse, and that exciting aura of murder."

……

In the audience, Bai Chi watched as Zhan Zhao gently raised his hand and took out a bullet from his trouser pocket. The surface of the brass cartridge case was extremely smooth, reflecting patches of light under the bright light.

Bai Chi inexplicably smelled the smell of gunpowder and scratched his head... before his hand was gently held down.

Bai Chi looked up and Zhao Zhen, who had just suddenly disappeared, had returned at some point.

"Where have you been?" Bai Chi asked him.

"I worked as a human background for a bit." Zhao Zhen smiled faintly and when he saw Bai Chi frowning, he asked, "What? Not feeling well?"

"It's not that." Bai Chi pointed to his nose, "I smell something weird, like gunpowder."

Zhao Zhen gave him a mint candy, "Be careful, Zhan Zhao's magic is no worse than mine, and your surname is Bai, so it more or less has an effect."

"Huh?" Bai Chi blinked.

"Not to mention there's still Zhao Jue." Zhao Zhen gestured helplessly, "If I can bewitch people's eyes, then the two of them can bewitch people's hearts, especially the hearts of people with the surname Bai."

Bai Chi frowned as the strong stimulating smell of mint dispelled the smell of gunpowder, could it be... some kind of suggestion?

At this time, he noticed that everyone around him had suddenly fallen silent. The auditorium was silent, leaving only that humming wind and the familiar sound of bells.

Gongsun reached out, gently stroked Bai Jintang's neck, and pulled him over to rest on his shoulder, asking in a low voice, "Not feeling well?"

Bai Jintang smiled lightly, "There's some nausea."

"There is?" Gongsun teased him, "How many months has it been?"

Bai Jintang laughed, pushing down that sickening smell – The smell of rotting corpses and the exciting intent to kill, today's auditorium could be described as a swarm of demons, and it was really uncomfortable.

On the stage, Zhan Zhao fiddled gently with the one bullet in his hand and slowly spoke, "This is a story about a bullet."

The crowd stared at Zhan Zhao on the stage, seemingly waiting for him to tell this story.

Zhan Zhao suddenly and slowly stretched out his hands, and in the audience, Bai Chi heard Zhao Zhen gently snap his fingers... With a snap, a huge, radiant cross appeared on the backdrop of the stage.

The darkness suddenly brightened with a golden hue, like the glow of the sun, while the cross had a sense of indescribable sacredness to its shape, the glow resembling shifting sunlight, stretching diagonally until a golden reflection of the cross appeared over the entire audience.

The crowd of students simply could not understand how this cross background was formed, it was so three-dimensional and so real, as if so many holes had suddenly been opened in the stage background and the sunlight shone in... However, everyone knew that this was impossible because it was night.

Bai Chi whispered and asked Zhao Zhen, "You did this, huh? It looks like a 3D effect."

Zhao Zhen slightly raised the corners of his mouth, "Zhao Jue ordered, needing sunlight, so I gave it to him."

Bai Chi looked at him with admiration, "That's amazing!"

Zhao Zhen was very pleased, rubbing his hair lovingly and slipping another mint candy into his mouth to avoid any discomfort.

With his hands behind his back, Zhan Zhao walked up to the cross and asked, "What do you guys think of when you see the cross?"

Zhan Zhao wasn't shy about being in front of a large crowd, he had been a university lecturer and was at ease at a psychology event with thousands of the world's top psychologists, not to mention such a small number of students.

"God."

"Hospital."

"Red Cross."

"Chevrolet."

……

The answers were varied and the students were excited, their emotions seemingly roused by Zhan Zhao.

"If you ask me, it's a grave." Zhan Zhao smiled. His skin was already white, and under the golden sunlight, the contours of his face became unusually soft, with only his bright eyes and slightly curved mouth capturing the eyes of everyone.

"Wow..." Ma Xin pressed her heart and said to Luo Tian, "Dr. Zhan looks like he's going to sprout wings."

"Huh?" Luo Tian didn't understand.

"Well... don't you think he has very kind features and has the feeling that he has never hurt anyone?" Ma Xin didn't know what she was talking about either.

Luo Tian really didn't understand, however – his and Zhan Zhao's thinking were unusually unified. As soon as that golden cross appeared just now, sweeping across the audience, the elongated slanting sun outlined a beautiful scene yet it could not make him think of anything so-called sacred, instead, the first thought that flashed through his head was – death, grave!

"This place," Zhan Zhao continued to hold out his hand and gently pointed to the ground beneath his feet, asking all the students, "do you know what place it is?"

Everyone looked at each other with blank faces, "The school."

Zhan Zhao stretched out a finger and waved it gently, "None of you understand that twenty years ago, this was a huge, huge grave!"

There was a small commotion among the students, "A grave?"

"That's right, and not just any grave." Zhan Zhao smiled, "It was the grave of killers."

The students listened in astonishment, not knowing whether Zhan Zhao was reading out lines or if he was serious, but, curiosity being what it is, everyone listened down carefully.

In the audience, Zhou Yi closed his eyes slightly and shook his head with a bitter smile.

At that moment, a man sat on the chair beside him, "I almost didn't recognise you during the day, it's really better to distinguish your true face in the dark."

Zhou Yi turned his eyes, the person beside him was in a punk outfit that was quite dazzling, and he was wearing yellow glasses despite the darkness.

"No need to play it cool at this hour." Zhou Yi smiled lightly, "Or do you think having coloured glasses will help you ward off suggestion?"

"Haha." The man took off his glasses, and it was none other than the assassin they met on the stairs of Liu Ying's apartment in the afternoon – the cellist.

"I never would have thought that Zhan Zhao would reveal such old stories, he's truly amazing." He said, patting the cello case at his hand, "He's a target now, want to give it a try?"

"I advise you not to act rashly." Zhou Yi's tone was calm, "If you want to act rashly, please change your position, don't drag me into it."

"What are you afraid of?" The cellist laughed, "So you've been in the sun too long and you're not used to the night? You don't have hand tremors when you shoot now, do you?"

Zhou Yi suddenly laughed, "I know you take pleasure in killing. You are happy being a killer, and are ranked very high, you also think you are born to be a killer, and are the closest to the altar of God."

"Isn't that true?" The cellist stroked his chin gently.

"Not knowing reverence is because you are still far from the altar of God." Zhou Yi said to himself, "It's not your turn to get carried away here, be careful, one wrong step and you'll never be able to shoot."

The cellist seemed to find it amusing, but he didn't argue and shrugged in a dismissive manner, "Anyway, the scene is completely different from what I imagined, and I'm not interested, I'll resume when I have time." With that, he reached for his cello case and prepared to leave. But the moment his fingers touched the handle of the case, there was a 'pop' and the case fell, but the handle was still in his hand.

The cellist froze, looking at the case that had fallen to the floor and the bullet hole that had gone through his trouser leg, and a rare look of surprise appeared on his face.

"Look." Zhou Yi smiled and pointed to his nose, "Someone here has a sharper sense of smell than you."

The cellist frowned, seeming to understand something, and quickly got up, leaving the venue.

Zhou Yi turned back and looked in the direction of the dark backstage walkway – those who truly stood at the altar of God never felt like gods, and called for envy and awe.

In the walkway, Zhao Jue looked at Bai Yutang who seemed to have fired a shot 'indiscriminately', "What are you doing?"

Bai Yutang looked at him, "I smelled something."

"What smell?"

"The smell of danger." Bai Yutang replied calmly, looking up at the stage after he finished, but not in the direction of Zhan Zhao, instead in the direction of the second floor.

Bai Ye, who was leaning against the back of the billboard, smiled inexplicably, "Worthy of the surname Bai, the strongest bloodline!"

Ma Han and Zhao Hu looked at each other and frowned – things seemed to have gone beyond what they could understand, and the two suddenly thought of a statement that Zhan Zhao often made – The difference in levels directly leads to the inability to communicate and understand. The so-called three stooges beating Zhuge Liang was merely nonsense used to comfort stupid people. In fact, three hundred stooges would not be able to understand what Zhuge Liang was actually thinking.

‿︵‿︵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: February 12, 2023 by Angel

Edited: March 6, 2023 by Angel