S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 4 Chapter 28

A Requiem for a Murderer 28 – Choose the Best

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Zhan Zhao's story aroused the curiosity of all the students present.

After he snapped his fingers, the crowd's scattered attention returned to the elegantly seated Zhan Zhao on stage. Not knowing if it was an illusion, it seemed as if there was another person sitting behind the couch he was on with their back to him, but how did that person get up there? Or was it just a projected effect?

A few people noticed this detail, including Bai Jintang and Luo Tian, but most people didn't notice anything different at all.

Zhan Zhao's voice echoed at the right time, "In this world, what animal's world is the closest to that of humans, do you know?"

Another quiz question?

The students looked at each other, some guessed orangutans and some guessed monkeys, but there were a few more resourceful ones who raised their hands and said, "Ants!"

Zhan Zhao nodded, "En, the social structure of ants is indeed very similar to that of humans, in fact, humans are not separated from animals. Basically, the weak are subservient to the rule of the strong, no matter what form of biological group, it cannot be separated from this golden pyramidal structure from strong to weak, which is tight and solid."

Everyone nodded.

"So there are some things that are congealed in our blood." Zhan Zhao said nonchalantly, "Just like how genetics and evolution works, there is meritocracy in the reproduction of living things. Do you think that the next generation of killers will be a little different from you?"

Everyone nodded, thinking that it should play a role, right? Just like in martial arts novels, the next generation of martial arts masters are always more enlightened than ordinary people.

"I'll ask you guys another question." Zhan Zhao was obviously guiding the crowd step by step to understand his winding thoughts, "Have you seen Rise of the Planet of the Apes?"

The students were amused, how come it was all movies, but some of them nodded their heads. The story was that the mother gorilla was used in an experiment and was injected with a drug to cure Alzheimer's disease, so she had a high IQ but was violent, and was eventually euthanized, leaving behind a baby gorilla. Because of genetics, that baby gorilla had an amazing IQ and was more evolved than the mother gorilla.

"This can also happen to people." As Zhan Zhao's eyes swept across the stage, Luo Tian frowned slightly – That's what Luo Yang was! Without the rejection reaction that his own generation had experienced, the talent felt like it was innate.

As an academic expert in this area, Gongsun naturally understood Zhan Zhao's meaning even better; it was not just Luo Yang, but also Bai Jintang, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang and even Xiao Bai Chi who had incredible talent in them, all of which seemed to be the result of this meritocratic inheritance.

Human beings are a miraculous existence, especially in terms of human reproduction.

A talent that the previous generation could not bear, becomes an innate talent after a single instance of reproduction, a single birth, a facet of evolution. The nurturing of the mother is like a fermenting vessel that can hold everything, from the quantitative change of the previous generation to the qualitative change of the next.

Zhan Zhao's guidance to the students was moderate, and those who did not understand the reason and could not understand the meaning of the words treated it as a suspense novel plot.

However, a certain number of people in the audience, including all members of the SCI, a certain number of people who knew the inside story from back then, as well as Zhao Jue and Bai Ye, all understood what Zhan Zhao was referring to.

The beauty of a wise man's speech is that the same words can be understood by different people in different ways.

Zhan Zhao's hypothesis delivered an answer to the crowd, who had been full of doubts, and was the most crucial aspect of this case – Why was such a small, remote place in T City entangled in so many mysteries? Why has this place never been transformed, and why has it become the stormy centre of the killers' entanglement?

If those assassins who escaped twenty years ago were trained by the organisation, or even experimented on, just like Luo Tian and the others, then it was inevitable that there would not be an existence like Luo Yang in their next generation.

It was linked to the main purpose of their visit here – Ghost!

As Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue had mentioned before, this ghost was the only successful product of the third generation of PTW. The mysterious creator of PTW, whether the acronym stands for a person or an organisation, it is undeniable that if there is really an existence like Luo Yang here, then the children of the entire abandoned district will be a real 'treasure' for an organisation that is on the decline!

Zhao Jue smiled faintly. Bai Yutang was no longer by his side, Zhao Zhen's technique was amazingly quick. It was child's play to fool a bunch of students, and the clues were found by Zhan Zhao. With a beginning, the end could be smoothly deduced. Then the next move will depend on Bai Yutang's talent, will he strike faster than Bai Ye? The so-called evolution...

Bai Ye was quietly lying in ambush on the second floor, sensing the aura.

To the side, Zhao Hu suddenly poked Ma Han, "Ai, Xiao Ma Ge, I seem to have understood."

Ma Han looked at him but didn't say anything.

"I thought it was weird before, why was Zhao Jue, such a big boss, lured out by a few kidnapped kids? He went to such great lengths to investigate the whole of T City, but I bet that the children in this place are really gifted. The kidnapping of a poor kid to extort money from the rich, and then the kid disappearing, was it just a ruse? In fact, the real target at the beginning was those missing children!" Zhao Hu frowned, "Think about it, those children are in primary school, so if they are taken away and sold at an older age, they will always be found dead, right? What if they're like Luo Tian and the others, taken away from their childhood and trained to be the new generation of killers?"

Bai Ye picked the corner of his mouth, and thought that Zhao Hu was not stupid when it mattered.

Ma Han looked at Zhao Hu and asked him, "What do you think Luo Tian would do if he knew that Yang Yang had fallen into the hands of those people who took him back then?"

"Wow..." Zhao Hu raised an eyebrow, "How could it be okay, it would be a volcanic eruption, a fight..."

When he said this, he saw Ma Han look at him in understanding.

Zhao Hu gently tapped his head, "This is the reason why the killers gathered this time to catch Ghost? No wonder they've gotten excited, could it be that they've come to save the children?"

Ma Han nodded, and suddenly looked at Bai Ye as if he thought of something.

Bai Ye also smiled, "Quite a quick reaction."

"What?" Zhao Hu asked Ma Han curiously, what hadn't he thought of?

"When I flashed the flashlight just now, all I saw were students." Ma Han lowered his voice a few notches, "I just thought, why are there so many orphans in the abandoned district?"

Zhao Hu blinked, then felt goosebumps forming all over his body, "Could it be..."

Bai Ye raised his gun and spoke faintly, "Fifteen or sixteen yet never gets old, soon their children will be older than they are, how ridiculous is that?"

......

Gongsun shook his head gently and looked at Bai Jintang, "If they are all sixteen or seventeen years old, then the symptoms seem to be the same as Ghost!"

"Ghost is from PTW, in other words, these killers are also from PTW. If PTW is one person, then he is the one who captured the kids, and the one who did it is most likely Ghost, that's why everyone made such an effort to catch Ghost. The reason why Ghost infiltrated the school is because when you do the math, the next generation of those killers may have reached that age. In other words... Liu Ying who was killed that day may not have been just a mere child.

"Do the parents and children go to school together?" Gongsun sighed, "It's likely that Ghost also had a mission to eradicate those experimental leftovers, so..."

.....

Bai Chi frowned as he looked at Zhao Zhen, "The killers have to find Ghost for the sake of their children, and Ghost has a mission to kill those killers and at the same time to distinguish which are the potential students, that's why this school is made like a training camp. The group of high school students we met before, and even the primary school students before that, all underwent training in this aspect. Not so much training, but rather selection."

Zhao Zhen nodded, "There are quite a few people selecting talents from this abandoned area, so Zhao Jue has to monitor the whole area. In that case... Bai Ye and Ma Han should have taken care of those killers, and those who are present now, besides the killers, there is also Ghost, and that mysterious PTW."

Ma Xin gently clapped her hands, "Did Dr. Zhan tell a story in front of the large audience to solve the case? Then do he and Captain already know who the killer is?"

Luo Tian nodded, "Captain's murderous aura is very strong."

Zhao Zhen and Bai Chi both laughed and looked at Luo Tian, "The murderous aura is leaking out, huh?"

Luo Tian smiled awkwardly, "I feel as if Zhao Jue has done something, I feel it more keenly than usual."

Zhao Zhen just smiled, "So, it's that phrase they repeatedly said before: 'We won't know who is the prey and who is the hunter until the end.'"

......

"Oh no!" Bai Chi was suddenly startled, "If Ghost is sitting in ambush down there, then wouldn't Brother be a big target sitting like that!"

"Can't you see who's sitting behind Zhan Zhao?" Zhao Zhen smiled faintly and reminded him, "I put a lot of effort into getting him up there... that's not a shadow."

As soon as Zhao Zhen's words fell, they suddenly saw that Zhan Zhao was pressed to the side by a force and fell down on the sofa, while a black piece of silk was thrown into the air, which just happened to cover Zhan Zhao.

Behind the sofa, a man stood up… He lifted a gun from underneath the black silk, moving so quickly that even Zhao Zhen and Bai Jintang frowned.

Zhao Jue opened his mouth slightly in surprise – The evolution was even faster than expected.

Zhao Zhen hurriedly raised his hand and pressed the button. Just as the spotlight on the stage suddenly wavered, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both disappeared.

"Eh?" Bai Chi was startled, and the students let out a "Wow".

At the same time, a clear gunshot was heard...

When they looked again, the spot light was back, the sofa was still there, and Zhan Zhao was sitting gracefully sipping his coffee, as if nothing had just happened.

Unhurriedly, Zhan Zhao raised his hand and snapped his fingers... The students who were just dumbfounded and confused about the situation all looked at each other. Were they dazzled or were they hallucinating? It seems that their minds were a little unclear.

Bai Chi noticed that Bai Yutang had disappeared from behind Zhan Zhao.

Zhao Zhen reached out and poked Luo Tian, "Do you know where the bullet flew to?"

Luo Tian nodded, "There were two gunshots. I probably know the direction, but I'm not sure where they landed."

Zhao Zhen reached out, and pointed to the second floor.

Luo Tian looked up, and saw Ma Han hiding behind a billboard, gently waving his hand at him. His flashlight swung into the distance, at a corner not far away.

Luo Tian and Zhao Zhen exchanged a glance and left their seats.

On the second floor, Ma Han put away his flashlight to look at Bai Ye who was packing his things on the side with his head down.

Zhao Hu looked at him slightly smugly, "Captain moves faster than you!"

Ma Han nodded back, "His range is bigger than yours and his gun went off earlier than you."

Bai Ye glanced at them and didn't say anything, he carried his case and walked away, but his back made it seem like he was smiling.

Ma Han and Zhao Hu looked at each other and hurried to follow. After Bai Yutang shot, he went through the passage Zhao Zhen had set up, and just now, another figure escaped while it was dark... Two people, one dead, and one running away!

Zhao Zhen and Luo Tian quickly went to the position indicated by Ma Han, and saw that at the back of the last row of seats, there was a girl lying down, wearing a school uniform, looking young and cute, but the long rifle in her hand was not cute. She was lying in an alcove behind the seats like this, seemingly hidden from view earlier, with a bullet hole in the middle of her forehead.

Zhao Zhen frowned slightly – Bai Yutang's shot was precise. However, if he had been even a little bit slower with his shot and had made the slightest mistake in coordinating with that spotlight, then chances were that the person who had been shot would have been the one on stage. Of course, Bai Yutang's action of pressing Zhan Zhao down was even faster than that of raising the gun, which meant that Bai Yutang's sequence of executing this desperate shot was like this – first protect Zhan Zhao, second kill Ghost, and finally dodge the bullet... Although it might have just been Bai Yutang's instinctive action, the details of it, but the details of it shows a strong, deep love.

No wonder Zhan Zhao's expression on the stage just now was a little bit softer.

Zhao Zhen took out a reflective cloth to cover the body and hid it in the alcove, and silently took Luo Tian away… After the show ended, he could take his time to clean up the corpse.

On the stage, Zhan Zhao put down his coffee cup, the shadow behind him no longer there. Bai Yutang had taken out Ghost, and the next step should be to find PTW.

"What happened after that?" A few students, still feeling unfulfilled, asked curiously, "What was the result?"

"The result?" Zhan Zhao stood up, while the spotlight went out and the dark auditorium lit up.

Zhan Zhao smiled slightly, "The result is that the killers will be forgotten forever, just like the graves behind the church in the abandoned district."

"Won't killers get punished for killing people?"

"That's right, you have to pay for killing people."

"But it's also quite pitiful!"

"That's right, it's the people who make the killers who deserve to be punished."

……

The students in the audience were somewhat divided in their opinions.

Zhan Zhao shook his head with a smile, reached out and slowly picked up the microphone left by Zhao Jue on the table, coughed and said, "For the next program, let your headmaster sing a song for you."

"Wow!" The students who were arguing earlier immediately turned their faces in unison to look at Zhao Jue, who was holding his chin and yawning by the side of the stage.

With his mouth still open, Zhao Jue stared at Zhan Zhao with wide eyes – What?

Zhan Zhao clapped his hands in an extremely elegant pose, "Everyone welcome him!"

The students immediately started clapping.

Zhao Jue stood awkwardly as Chen Lu and Liu Meng in the background flipped through the programme, "How come this programme is included?"

Chen Xi no longer wanted to announce the show and sat on the stage shaking his head, "This headmaster is not very reliable!"

Zhan Zhao dragged Zhao Jue onto the stage. Zhao Jue looked up, Bai Ye and the others on the second floor had long since gone after Bai Yutang.

The students were all delighted to see Zhao Jue standing on the stage. Just now, Zhan Zhao was extremely handsome, but this time, Zhao Jue had a different flavour. With such a devilish look, he must have a heavenly voice!

The students were full of anticipation. Gongsun stretched his neck while asking Bai Jintang, "It's the first time I've heard Zhao Jue sing! I wonder how his singing voice is?"

Bai Jintang crossed his legs, stretched out his hands and said to Gongsun, "Do this pose with me."

Gongsun was confused and stretched out his hands to look at Bai Jintang, "What pose?"

Bai Jintang lifted his hands up and pressed them against his ears, "Like this!"

Gongsun looked dumbfounded – covering his ears?

At that moment, they saw Zhao Jue cough, accept the microphone handed over by Zhan Zhao, and with an extremely arrogant air, he sang 'Xiao Ming Goes to Guangzhou' to the students.

The beautiful headmaster who looked particularly artistic was actually astonishingly inept. The children's song was like a demonic voice filling their ears, shaking those killers who had just been hypnotised to wake up, yawning and looking at the stage with bewildered faces.

After the song was finished, the audience all acted the same way as Bai Jintang, covering their ears.

Looking at Zhan Zhao, he was lying on the sofa and hitting the coffee table, so happy that he couldn't even stand up.

After a graceful bow and a "thank you", Zhao Jue threw down the microphone and pounced at Zhan Zhao's neck.

The backstage crew scurried up to break up the fight and take a bow...

Liu Meng followed and announced, "Classmates, don't laugh, next is the chorus! The chorus!"

Gongsun uncovered his ears and curiously asked Bai Jintang, "How did you know that Zhao Jue sings badly?"

Bai Jintang put down his hands and was slightly lost in thought, "When I was a kid, I often heard..."

"Huh?" Gongsun was surprised, "When you were a kid?"

Bai Jintang reached out and touched him behind the ear, seemingly a little nostalgic, "Well, he, Bao Sir, my dad, Uncle Zhan, and that guy, all five lined up, singing Two Tigers together, one is more inept than the others."

Gongsun stared at Bai Jintang, "Five people… were they teasing you when you were a kid?"

Bai Jintang smiled and nodded, "Mhmm, they were all very happy at that time."

When Gongsun saw his expression darkening, he asked, "Did they stop being happy later?"

Bai Jintang shrugged, "Didn't you hear what Zhan Zhao said just now?"

Gongsun tilted his head.

Bai Jintang raised his head to look towards Zhao Jue, who was being dragged off the stage while still struggling with Zhan Zhao, "The road to happiness was cut off."

......

In the dark church, a dark figure was fumbling to load his gun.

There was a 'creak' and the church door was opened slowly...

The moonlight was cold, tracing a silvery white box on the dark church floor. A man stood in the doorway, his perfect figure reduced to a black silhouette, the gun in his hand casting a shadow that imprinted on the ground, dark and familiar in some way.

"Bai... Bai Ye?!"

In the darkness, the man's voice carried an emotion of panic, "You… was it you just now? Why did you spoil my good deed and kill my doll? I have no enmity with you, right? I wasn't the one who harmed you back then."

The person at the door slowly walked down the steps. The moonlight seems to be pervasive, casting in through the cross-shaped hole in the wall on the other side, and the person's face could be vaguely seen.

The person in front of him was clearly younger and more perfect than Bai Ye.

‿︵‿︵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 19, 2023 by Angel

Edited: March 13, 2023 by Angel