S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 4 Chapter 39

Ghost Ship Murderer 05 – Standpoint

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After listening to Bai Yutang's report on the case, Bao Zheng had Ai Hu and the others hand the case over to Bai Yutang, and Ding Yuan's body was sent to SCI's forensic room.

Chen Fei's body was at the funeral parlour and had already been called over.

Ma Xin, wearing a white coat and crossing her arms, circled around the corpse but didn't do anything, she just held her chin with two fingers and let out a long "hmmm".

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang didn't quite understand the meaning of her action.

Zhao Hu had always treated Ma Xin as his own sister, so he teased her, "Ai, lass, this habit is exactly the same as Gongsun's!"

"What habit?" Gongsun was putting on his gloves and looked at Zhao Hu curiously.

"Liking to pose at corpses." Zhao Hu copied her pose.

Ma Xin kicked him.

Gongsun walked over to the corpse. Old Yang had already dissected it, and the report was written clearly. Gongsun felt there wasn't really anything wrong with it, and was ready to take another look.

Gongsun raised his head to ask Ma Xin to pass the forceps, but Ma Xin was still staring at the body with her head tilted.

"Xin Xin, what are you doing?"

"Oh..." Ma Xin hurriedly put on her gloves as she said, "It just feels weird."

"What feeling?" Zhan Zhao smiled and moved closer with his hands behind his back, seemingly interested in Ma Xin's thoughts.

Ma Xin handed a pair of forceps to Gongsun as she told Zhan Zhao, "I just met him a few days ago."

Bai Yutang immediately asked, "When did you meet him?"

"It's not that I know him, it's like this." Ma Xin said, "A few days ago, there was a fashion show. Sister Jiayi and Le Le had invitations, so they took me there to open my eyes. I saw him at the fashion show, holding a beautiful model in his arms enthusiastically and surrounded by a lot of people."

The crowd glanced at each other, that’s right, Ding Yuan is in the fashion business. In fact, the people with real say in the annual fashion trends are not the fashion designers, but the fabric suppliers who provide the raw materials. It's like saying that whether a dish is good or not is not just based on the cook, but also on the raw materials themselves.

"And so?" Zhan Zhao asked Ma Xin, "What's your impression of him?"

"Hmm, it was very surprising!" Ma Xin said, "I have read articles before and thought that most of these types are frivolous playboys, but when he came over to greet Sister Jiayi, he was courteous and seemed quite easy to get along with. Jiayi even introduced us, and once he heard I was a forensic scientist, he asked me if I knew Gongsun."

Gongsun looked up in confusion, "I don't know him, does he know me?"

Ma Xin pursed her lips, as if hesitating to say the next words.

Gongsun raised one eyebrow and pointed his scalpel at Ma Xin, "Who do you hang out with?"

"You!" Ma Xin didn't even think about it, "Wise monarch!"

Gongsun nodded in satisfaction, "Speak."

Ma Xin smiled and hid behind Zhan Zhao, "When Ding Yuan heard that I was working with you, he grabbed the champagne from my hand and asked the waiter to open a bottle of good wine for me, saying that he would send me an invitation to all future fashion shows and that it would be best if I could bring you along."

Gongsun was puzzled, "What for? It's not like I'm interested in clothes."

"He said, Bai Jintang can do everything, you're a legend in the celebrity world..."

"Pfft..."

At the door, Bai Yutang spit out his coffee.

The others also covered their mouths together.

Sure enough, they saw Gongsun's face turn white as he stared at Bai Jintang, who was at the door with his arms crossed, nodding his head in silent agreement with an "I see" expression on his face.

"But..." Ma Xin put away her smile and looked at Ding Yuan lying on the autopsy table, "he actually wasn't annoying at all, I didn't expect him to die like this, I feel that if this kind of person is alive, he should have infinite possibilities in the future. He was still so young and capable, yesterday I thought he was God's favourite and today he's an abandoned son, it's a bit of a shock."

"In a way, doesn't it also give a certain balance?" Zhan Zhao asked slowly, with his hands behind his back.

"That's true." Ma Xin nodded, "At least everyone is the same, regardless of whether you are rich or poor today, there is a chance that you will not see the sun tomorrow, only fate is absolutely unfair and absolutely fair."

"Wow..."

When Ma Xin finished, the group of people from SCI at the door clapped their hands together, "So profound and philosophical!"

Ma Xin wrinkled her nose and ignored the crowd at the door, turning around to perform the autopsy with the still black-faced Gongsun.

Bai Yutang went to the bathroom to take off his shirt that was stained by the coffee and came back wearing his undershirt.

"Wow... Head, there is no need to be so sexy in broad daylight." After messing with Ma Xin, Zhao Hu came over to mess with Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang kicked him away, "From today onwards, you guys protect Lin Ruo for me, go divide yourselves."

The SCI group ran off to divide themselves into groups, but there was no need to divide them, there were already three groups of two: Ma Han and Zhao Hu, Zhang Long and Wang Chao, and Luo Tian and Qin Ou.

Bai Chi had searched through all the news articles and reports there were about Ding Yuan and was browsing through them, along with some account books sent over from Ding Yuan's company and work records that Ai Hu and the others had collected.

Bai Yutang walked over to Zhan Zhao and saw that he was holding a coffee cup in his left hand and holding the picture of the Emilia in his right hand, seemingly lost in thought.

"Usually when you have that expression, you've found some kind of clue." Bai Yutang stood in front of him.

Zhan Zhao raised his head, reached out and squeezed Bai Yutang's arm, narrowing his eyes, "Have you gotten a bit stronger again?"

Bai Yutang looked at him with amusement, "I have been exercising."

Zhan Zhao pointed to his own head, "I exercise too."

"Yeah, yeah, when others do aerobic exercises, you do brain exercises." Bai Yutang took the picture, looked at both sides of it and asked Zhan Zhao, "What did you think of?"

"Hmm..." Zhan Zhao seemed distracted, holding his cup and looking Bai Yutang up and down while saying, "Usually, there are four criteria for judging whether a man is really handsome or not."

Bai Yutang frowned, not quite understanding what Zhan Zhao was talking about.

"What are the criteria you guys were talking about the other day?" Zhan Zhao snapped his fingers and asked Ma Xin, who had come sauntering out of the forensic room with a smile on her face.

"It was to have a beard, have a buzz cut, wear an old man's shirt, and not be afraid to get a tan." Ma Xin looked at Bai Yutang appreciatively and tsked twice, "The lines are perfectly proportioned, just a little thin, but my Uncle Tian is still the one to look at." After saying that, she happily walked away.

Zhan Zhao took a sip of his coffee and raised his eyebrows at Bai Yutang, "Xiao Bai, people think you're too thin, they also think you're not as attractive as an uncle!"

Bai Yutang couldn't laugh or cry, and handed the photo back to Zhan Zhao, "I'd better go find something to wear." After saying that, he was about to leave.

But Zhan Zhao pulled him back, "This is good, the weather is so hot and the police department is working so hard, why not give some benefits to the girls who are working on the front line."

As Zhan Zhao was speaking, there were several girls at the door who had heard the news and had already been watching for a while.

Bai Yutang shook his head and waved his hand at them. The group of female police officers who can usually kick down a wall happily ran away after taking photos for a souvenir.

Bai Yutang shook his head and looked at Zhan Zhao, "You're quite generous."

"Alas, one can see it but cannot take it away, this kind of thing is called a show-off mentality." Zhan Zhao said as he went back to SCI's office with Bai Yutang, "That's how people are, when they have something good, they are afraid that people will know about it or they are afraid that people won't know about it. If you're afraid of people knowing, it's because you're afraid of being robbed, and if you're afraid of people not knowing, it's because of vanity."

Bai Yutang nodded, "What does it have to do with the case?"

Zhan Zhao squinted at him, "I'm just saying this casually, why does it have anything to do with the case?"

Bai Yutang had a smile on his lips, "That's how people are, when they have a clue that comes to mind, they want to tell people but don't want to tell them easily. If you want to tell people, it's because it's hard to hold back what you've thought of, but if you don't want to tell people easily, it's because you want to be proud of it for a while longer."

The corners of Zhan Zhao's mouth twitched as he glared at him, "White Mouse, don't think you're powerful just because you have muscles, you'll still be that skinny no matter how much you train!"

Bai Yutang was speechless, was this a case of being angry because of embarrassment?

After sending away a few more people who came to watch from the doorway, Bai Yutang pulled Zhan Zhao into the office, and their expressions left an endless source of fantasy for the people outside.

After entering the office and turning on the air conditioning, Bai Yutang found a short sleeve shirt to put on and asked Zhan Zhao, "What did you think of?"

Zhan Zhao sat down and asked instead of answering, "Have you analysed Emilia's state of mind?"

Bai Yutang frowned and thought about it, "After all, she is a dead person or half a legend, even if we speculate, we can't prove right or wrong."

"The Emilia that needs to be speculated on is not a dead person nor a legendary figure." Zhan Zhao finished his coffee, placed his coffee cup on the table and said, "It's a ghost."

Bai Yutang looked at Zhan Zhao, "You've never believed in ghosts and gods, you're a psychologist."

"You said before that Emilia is still resentful, what kind of standpoint are you thinking from? You must have a position on Emilia, is it as a dead person, a legendary figure, or a wisp of a boundless ghost?"

Bai Yutang poured over the question seriously and eventually nodded, "Speaking of which… it seems to be the case."

Zhan Zhao stood up and went to the window to look at the passersby running and wiping their sweat in the hot summer sun, "People usually have many standpoints, other people's standpoints, their own standpoints, and often because they have different standpoints, they think differently."

Bai Yutang looked at the coffee cup on the table, "And so?"

"Who do you think killed Ding Yuan?" Zhan Zhao asked, "And the explorers?"

"In short, ghosts shouldn't be able to manipulate computers to hack GPS or anything like that." Bai Yutang, who had always been very good at understanding what Zhan Zhao meant, continued, "What you're saying is that there must be a murderer, and that everyone kills for a reason, especially in a well-thought-out and well-arranged serial murder case like this. If we want to know the motive, we need to know the standpoint of the killer's thinking, why exactly did he or she want to carry out this crime? In other words, whoever he or she really is, at the moment of the killing, they are the ghost of Emilia."

Zhan Zhao nodded in satisfaction and tapped his fingers twice on the glass that was hot on the outside and cool and silky on the inside, "If Emilia's actions are real, which aspect of her is the most incomprehensible to you?"

Bai Yutang froze, returning from his earlier speculation about the murderer, and said, "Hmm... I don't understand why she wants to kill everyone."

Zhan Zhao waited for him to continue.

"Whether she was more or less resentful may have something to do with the humiliation she suffered. She hated her lover and love rival who betrayed her, the villagers who had laughed at her, the earl who took away her happiness through his power, and even her father, all of which I can understand... I just don't understand, on this small island, it's impossible that none of them sympathise with her, right?"

Zhan Zhao looked at Bai Yutang, "Do you think that anyone would sympathise with Emilia?"

"Of course." Bai Yutang nodded, confident, "Emilia is the most innocent victim, even if the world has moved forward one or two thousand years, even if it is the barbaric period, people's hearts are not as bad as they are good, and differences always exist. I think that not only are there people who sympathise with Emilia, there should be quite a few of them. Even if they didn't express it due to the Earl's power, there would be one or two who would comfort Emilia, right?"

Zhan Zhao nodded, "So you think that Emilia had suffered other, deeper irritations that made her reaction so violent? A resentment that lingered for a long time?"

Bai Yutang shrugged slightly, "We have another important clue, that phrase, which seems to have nothing to do with the legend."

"How much weight can the human heart carry?" Zhan Zhao pondered the phrase carefully, "The human heart really can't carry much weight… what kind of weight?"

Two people were lost in thought when the door was suddenly pushed open.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both turned around to look.

They saw Gongsun with a disappointed face make a ‘cut’ action at the door.

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao looked at each other and saw several other people looking curiously through the doorway, so they were a little embarrassed.

Gongsun walked in with a document, "There's another discovery."

Bai Yutang frowned slightly, "A discovery?"

"Chen Fei's corpse has just been delivered." Gongsun took out a photo and said, "I just turned the corpse over and saw this thing."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were somewhat puzzled as they moved over to look, and they saw that Gongsun had taken a picture of the back of the corpse and found two clear handprints on the back of the neck.

Bai Yutang then frowned, "How could this be?"

"He didn't commit suicide, someone pinned him down in the water and that caused him to drown." Gongsun said, pulling out a small tape measure and comparing the size to Bai Yutang, "But the size of the hand is a bit weird."

"I also think the handprints seem to be a bit small!" Zhan Zhao looked at the handprints on the photo of the corpse.

The two felt that it wasn't very intuitive and went with Gongsun to the forensic room, where quite a few people were already looking at it.

Sure enough, looking directly, they found that the two handprints on the shoulders were very small.

Ma Xin reached over and compared, "They're smaller than mine, ah, it should be a very petite woman or a small child."

"A small child..." Zhao Hu frowned, "it's not that scary, is it?"

"Take a look at the back of his hand." Bai Yutang suddenly spoke.

Zhan Zhao remembered the washed out ink mark on Ding Yuan's corpse. Ma Xin took the UV light to Chen Fei's right hand, found nothing, and then went to his left hand...

A clear stamp-shaped ink mark appeared in front of everyone's eyes, but what was strange was that the mark was not of the Emilia.

‿︵‿︵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: April 2, 2023 by Angel

Edited: April 15, 2023 by Angel