S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 4 Chapter 38

Ghost Ship Murderer 04 – Emilia's Resentment

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The Emilia, as if an angry, spiteful spirit had suddenly awakened, and the people associated with her, for the first time, died in S City's territory, it was just that it was not Lin Ruo, who had direct contact with the ship and skull, who died, but Ding Yuan, who had only provided the ship – Was it some kind of coincidence? Or was there really a connection...

The stamp mark on Ding Yuan's hand that was close in shape to the Emilia and the fact that he drowned made Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang pay attention nonetheless.

"Should we tell Bao Sir?" Zhan Zhao asked Bai Yutang

"Shall we wait first?" Bai Yutang thought about it, "Let's see what Ai Hu and the others find."

Zhan Zhao nodded.

The two of them left the underground forensic room and went up to the underground parking lot, and were planning to drive straight home.

At this time, Bai Yutang caught a glimpse of a black car rushing over the speed bump in the parking lot, and he instinctively pulled Zhan Zhao – There was something wrong with this car, would you normally go over a speed bump so fast?

Zhan Zhao was pulled by Bai Yutang and felt his nervousness, and at the same time, he heard a ‘bang’. The car crashed directly into a jeep parked on the outermost side, causing heavy damage...

"Ah!" Zhan Zhao was startled and quickly tugged on Bai Yutang, "Bao Sir’s car was hit!"

Bai Yutang was also full of surprise at this moment, except when he opened his mouth, what he said was, "Brother?"

Zhan Zhao froze and turned around, only to see the door of the rampaging black car being pushed open. It got stuck halfway because it was twisted and jammed, and the person inside kicked the door open in a domineering manner.

The first thing Bai Jintang did when he got out of the car was to take off his suit, slamming it down on the hood of the car and tugging on his tie to catch his breath.

"Brother!" Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao rushed over to him.

When Bai Jintang turned around and saw the two of them, he seemed a little surprised too.

Bai Yutang went forward and pulled Bai Jintang over to examine him, and found that he was unhurt. When he looked down, he saw that the collision between the two cars was quite bad. The black car that Bai Jintang drove just now, in particular, was damaged beyond recognition.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other – What's the situation?

Zhan Zhao went over and smelled him, but he didn't smell of alcohol, so he must not have been drunk when he was driving.

Bai Yutang didn't understand either, "Brother, what's wrong with you?"

Bai Jintang looked at the two of them and calmly said, "The brakes didn't work."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang's mouths opened wide, and they heard Bai Jintang say, "The GPS led the way, and there was something wrong with the steering wheel."

"Huh?" Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang's mouths opened wide as the same thought flashed through their minds – What kind of car is this?!

The two of them also realised at this point that this car was not the one Bai Jintang usually drove.

Bai Jintang usually used two cars, one was driven by a chauffeur, which he used for work, and it was also responsible for transporting Gongsun. He usually drove a black Mercedes himself, but this one, which had been wrecked, had never been driven by him.

"I almost went into the sea." Bai Jintang seemed confused, "Have Jiang Ping take a look at this navigation."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other and were silent for a long time before asking in unison, "Have you ever touched the Emilia?"

Bai Jintang frowned, "What Emilia?"

"It's Lin Ruo’s case." Zhan Zhao reminded.

Bai Jintang faintly froze, seeming to think of something.

At that moment, Jiang Ping came down, holding a laptop, and behind him was Gongsun who had an anxious look on his face as he held two files of information.

Gongsun approached and peeled open Bai Jintang's shirt collar to examine him.

While Bai Jintang let him look at him, he stroked his head and reassured him that he was fine.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang stepped back and watched.

Zhan Zhao said to Bai Yutang, "Brother seems to have lost some weight recently but he looks stronger."

"That is, is Gongsun demanding, the thickness of the fat layer or something, the degree of muscle or something..."

"What's going on?" After examining him, Gongsun found that Bai Jintang was not injured and was relieved a little, and he asked him what happened.

It turns out that the twins were not around today. Bai Jintang had to go to a friend for some business and did not know the way, and almost drove off the bridge and into the sea from following the navigation. The brakes failed at a critical moment, and the steering wheel was not quite right. He went on a rampage for a while, but eventually found his way to the police station, slowed down with the speed bump in the parking lot and ran headlong into Bao Zheng's car before stopping. It was a scary journey.

"Brother Bai, your navigation system has been hacked!" Jiang Ping tilted his face up to look at Bai Jintang.

Bai Jintang frowned – Sure enough.

"Hacked?" Bai Yutang tensed up.

"Someone is trying to hurt you?" Gongsun wondered.

"Are you sure it's hacked, not broken?" Zhan Zhao asked Jiang Ping.

"Absolutely." Jiang Ping pointed at the navigator, "And someone is still operating it in real time."

"What does that mean?" Zhan Zhao did not understand.

"It means that after the system is activated, the other party can change the route of travel based on the road conditions." Jiang Ping said as he raised his head, "Who have you offended recently, Big Brother?"

Bai Yutang asked Bai Jintang, "Is it someone in business? Or an old enemy?"

Bai Jintang was silent for a moment and shook his head, "It shouldn't be aimed at me."

Everyone looked at each other, "What do you mean?"

"This car is Lin Ruo's."

Bai Jintang’s words stunned everyone.

"That’s right, at the ball game the other day, he seemed to be driving this car." Gongsun also recognised the car.

"Lin Ruo's car has been sitting at the stadium. I was supposed to be at the stadium today to talk business, and I got an unexpected call from a friend to go talk about something." Bai Jintang frowned.

Gongsun was a little embarrassed, "Your driver sent me to the police station to get the information, figuring that it would be just in time to pick you up after I got it."

Bai Jintang nodded, "I remembered that Lin Ruo's car was at the stadium, so I was able to borrow it..."

"Does Lin Ruo drive this car often?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"It's frequently used." Bai Jintang nodded.

Bai Yutang frowned, "In that case, is someone trying to kill Lin Ruo?"

Bai Jintang thought seriously, "I guess so, no one has tried to kill me for a long time, it's been peaceful for me lately, except when it comes to love rivals." Saying that, he looked at Gongsun, "Has there been a pervert with a crush on you lately?"

Gongsun kicked him, and then helped Bai Jintang straighten his collar. Sure enough, his vertical blue shirt really suited him.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both felt that the direction of these two's relationship development and the way they expressed their feelings belonged to the weird path.

......

"Got the location." At this point, Jiang Ping raised his head and told the crowd, "The hacker's address."

Without delay, everyone moved together and prepared to pay this hacker a visit.

Following the address, they found a shanty town behind the vegetable market, and just as they reached the door of a small rental house indicated by the address, they heard the noise of heavy metal music coming from the inside of the room.

Bai Yutang reached out and knocked on the door... The door creaked open and there was an unpleasant smell coming from the room, as if some food had gone rancid or something had gone mouldy.

This rental house was quite simple, there was only one room, a bed and a computer desk with a computer on it, and there was no one in the room.

Zhan Zhao walked over to look at the computer and found that it was turned on. The screensaver caught everyone's attention – It was a screenshot of a newspaper photo of the Emilia, which was not particularly clear, but the outline was discernible.

There were a number of photos and news reports taped to the room's musty walls, all about Lin Ruo.

"Is he spying on Lin Ruo?" Gongsun couldn't help but frown when he saw the photos all over the wall.

"Head, this is the computer that hacked the navigation system." Jiang Ping looked up and told Bai Yutang, "The computer has quite a lot of information about Lin Ruo, and some information about the Emilia."

Bai Yutang looked around for a moment, "Where are they?"

"Could they have known that they attacked the wrong person, so they fled?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"He was monitoring the car as it drove into the police station." Jiang Ping looked up, "He just left not long ago, but he shouldn't have noticed me tracking him."

"Who are you looking for?"

At that moment, an old lady passed by at the entrance to the room and peered inside.

Bai Yutang took out his ID and asked if she knew who was living in the room.

The old lady nodded and told the crowd that she was the landlord of this shanty town, and that the person living in this room was a young man in his twenties, called Chen Fei. He played games all day, and was very noisy, he was never seen going to work or school, and he was very withdrawn and never greeted anyone.

"Any idea where he's gone?" Bai Yutang asked.

The old lady looked at the crowd in the room in confusion, "Aren't you the police?"

Bai Yutang was slightly taken aback, "Yes."

"How come you guys aren't here to investigate the cause of his death?" The old lady also seemed a little confused.

The crowd was silent for a moment, surprised, "You're saying he's dead?"

"Yeah, he died three days ago. There were a lot of policemen here, he drowned, he seemed to have fallen into the river!" The old lady answered, while looking at the computer that was still playing music, "I was shocked when I heard the noise at first, I thought he had returned to life, so I came to check."

"He drowned three days ago?" Zhan Zhao found it unbelievable, "No one has come into this room since?"

"How is that possible?" The old lady shook her head, "I locked the door, I was waiting for you police to notify me before I dared to pack his things, and I couldn't contact his family."

"He fell in the river, was it suicide or murder?" Gongsun asked afterwards.

The old lady sighed and shook her head, "Maybe he couldn't think of anything but suicide."

"Why do you say that?" Bai Yutang asked.

"Oh... young people nowadays are not the same as they were in our time, they are not innocent, but it's not their fault, the world is not the same as it was in our time." The old lady said slowly, "When we were young, we were all in the same situation, if we were poor, we were poor together, if we were suffering, we were suffering together. Now it's different. Some people are rich and prosperous, while others are miserable and have no way out. Young people are conceited and arrogant, if they think they have no future and they can't figure it out, they usually commit suicide. Most of the people who live in rented houses like mine can't make it, but some of them have gotten better by gritting their teeth, that's how most of them are."

Bai Yutang looked at Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao shrugged, he was not curious about the situation or psychological state of the dead youth, he was more curious about who was controlling the computer given that the owner of the room had died three days ago.

The landlord left after a few words of small talk, and Bai Yutang stepped out of the house and called back to the police station to ask about the results of the investigation into Chen Fei.

Bai Jintang was smoking in the alleyway and didn't seem to like the smell of the room very much, while Gongsun was by his side watching him.

Jiang Ping studied the contents of Chen Fei's computer and his past internet history.

"Hmm..." Zhan Zhao rubbed his chin after circling the room and surveying those newspaper clippings and Chen Fei's collection about Lin Ruo and the Emilia, "Chen Fei's collection doesn't seem to be intended to get Lin Ruo killed. "

"What does that mean?"

Bai Yutang walked in just in time to hear this.

"I think this Chen Fei seems to admire Lin Ruo, or perhaps secretly has a crush on him." Zhan Zhao removed a few newspaper clippings and magazine photos of Lin Ruo that were taped to the wall, "It's a little more appropriate to say that his behaviour is more like star-hunting than spying."

"What about investigating the Emilia? Catering to another's interests?" Bai Yutang asked.

"It's possible..." Zhan Zhao was about to say something else, but he heard Jiang Ping call out, "Captain."

Bai Yutang turned around and Jiang Ping waved at the two of them.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang walked behind him together and looked at where Jiang Ping's hand was pointing on the screen.

They saw Jiang Ping retrieve a photo from his computer, it was a photo of a young man standing on a boat, seemingly preparing to go to sea.

"This is Chen Fei." Bai Yutang opened the information on Chen Fei that the police department had sent to his phone and pulled up the photo to compare.

"What's wrong with this photo?" Zhan Zhao was curious.

"There are a few ships behind him that are sailing out of the port, see?" Jiang Ping pointed to one of them and said, "I thought it looked familiar, this is the same ship that was used by Ding Yuan who died this morning, the same one that followed Lin Ruo and the others out to sea in search of the Emilia. That small fleet of ships behind it should be Lin Ruo's fleet."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other – Another connection to Lin Ruo's voyage?

"Also, there is an email in his mailbox. The computer recorded that after he checked this email three days ago, the computer was turned off and was only turned on again this morning." Jiang Ping said and clicked on the email to show Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang.

The last email Chen Fei opened before he died contained only one sentence, which read – How much weight can the human heart carry?

Both Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang froze for a moment.

"The name of the sender." Jiang Ping scrolled to the end and there was a signature – Emilia

After reading the email, Jiang Ping reached up and rubbed the goose bumps that had risen on his arms.

Zhan Zhao said to Bai Yutang, "It seems that Ding Yuan's death was not an accident or coincidence."

Bai Yutang took out his cell phone, ready to call Bao Zheng, and as he pressed the number, he said, "I have a feeling that more people will die."

"Oh?" Zhan Zhao asked with great interest, "Why do you have this feeling?"

Bai Yutang gave a shrug, "I can't say, I just feel that this Emilia, even after all these years, is still holding a grudge."

‿︵‿︵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: March 30, 2023 by Angel

Edited: April 14, 2023 by Angel