S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 4 Chapter 41

Ghost Ship Murderer 07 – Poisoned Rose

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Ryan's death turned the rose garden, which had been full of romance, into a place of horror, and all those present lost their sanity, except for Ma Xin and the few girls who often went out and about with SCI.

Lin Ruo was still relatively calm and followed Bai Yutang's instructions to gather the crowd into the open space under the tent, forbidding anyone to leave as there was no telling what the situation was now.

Zhan Zhao and the others were in the greenhouse dealing with the corpses.

Bai Jintang reached out and gently tapped Zhao Zhen.

Zhao Zhen turned back.

"Did you hear that just now..." Bai Jintang asked him.

"Emilia?" Zhao Zhen nodded, he had indeed heard it too.

"Then it's not that I'm hallucinating." Bai Jintang asked Zhao Zhen very calmly, "This kind of trick can fool others, but it shouldn't fool you, right?"

Zhao Zhen raised one corner of his mouth, seemingly smiling, and leaned over to Bai Jintang's ear, whispering, "Of course."

"Where did the voice come from? That's what I'm more curious about." Bai Jintang didn't seem to quite understand, "Why can't we discern the direction?"

Zhao Zhen reached out and pointed lightly to his ear, "What is meant by surround sound, do you know the principle?"

Lan Xi and Lan Qi, who were standing in front of them, both looked back at Zhao Zhen, "Stereo?" (Angel: Surround sound directly translates to surround stereo, hence why the Lan brothers replied stereo.)

It seemed that everyone was curious about the same question.

Zhao Zhen asked, "What is the best way to get air conditioning when you don't want to feel the direction of the air?"

Lan Xi and Lan Qi looked at each other and asked, "Surrounding wind?"

Zhao Zhen smiled, "As long as there are several air vents set on all sides, blowing in different directions, the wind passing over obstacles will have reduced force and will change directions, making people feel cool without being made uncomfortable by the air blowing in a fixed direction."

"You want to say that sound works on the same principle?" Bai Jintang frowned, "There are multiple points where the sound is coming from?"

"Where are they installed?" Lan Xi looked around.

Zhao Zhen smiled lightly, "What's the most abundant here?"

The crowd froze slightly and raised an eyebrow at the same time – roses!

Saying that, all three of them looked around at the dense rose garden. If the devices that made the sound were installed in some parts of this rose garden, it would be really difficult to find them.

"These roses are thorny, they are expensive wild roses." Lan Qi observed and looked up at Zhao Zhen.

Zhao Zhen reached out to pick up a spoon from the table and lifted his hand to throw it into the rose bush while observing the reactions of the people around him, all of whom were focused on Ryan's body in the flower room and none of them noticed. He raised an eyebrow at the trio, "The basic principle of magic, distraction."

"Everyone's attention was on Stephen and Lily's proposal just now, so no one noticed that someone had thrown the device that played the sound into the garden, is that what you're getting at?" Bai Jintang looked at Zhao Zhen, "Still, even if no one noticed, there's no reason you shouldn't have noticed..."

Zhao Zhen shrugged, "I didn't notice."

Everyone frowned at him.

Zhao Zhen smiled, "But just because I didn't notice it, doesn't mean others didn't notice it."

Lan Xi was a little curious, "The most proficient trickster here is you, if you didn't notice, who did?"

Zhao Zhen smiled, "There's more than one. It's normal for me not to notice, because I'm normal and not a scanner. I can remember everything I see, and even if I don't notice it I can still search backwards. But there are indeed two live scanners and storage devices here, once they see it, they won't forget it, they can rewind and do a search and they'll find it."

Being reminded of this by Zhao Zhen, everyone suddenly realised and together they looked in the direction of the greenhouse.

They saw that Zhan Zhao was standing at the entrance of the greenhouse, talking to Bai Chi about something.

Bai Chi closed his eyes and thought carefully, while Zhan Zhao was looking towards a white tent at the entrance of the garden not far away.

Bai Yutang walked up and stood beside Zhan Zhao, who reached his hand out and pointed at the tent, whispering a few words to him.

At this time, Bai Chi also raised his head and nodded to Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang turned around and whispered a few words to Ma Han, Zhao Hu and Luo Tian, and the three of them followed him and surrounded the area around the tent.

At this moment, both Stephen and Lin Ruo noticed the situation.

"That should be the makeshift kitchen over there." Zhao Zhen hooked a finger at Bai Chi.

Bai Chi then ran over.

"Who is it?" Zhao Zhen asked him.

"It's the blonde waiter." Bai Chi replied, "In his twenties, freckles on his face, slightly crooked nose, very thin, and about five foot seven."

Bai Chi's description was very detailed, and as the crowd thought about it, it appeared that such a waiter had really passed in front of them.

By this time, Bai Yutang and the others had reached the kitchen doorway and were looking towards the kitchen.

The kitchen was almost isolated from the outside, as it was relatively far from the garden, and the French chef hired this time was very particular about keeping the kitchen environment quiet, hygienic and smooth.

In addition, when Stephen was proposing, none of the waiters were allowed to disturb them, so everyone was busy in the kitchen tidying up and preparing for the main meal afterwards.

Zhan Zhao stood at the entrance to the greenhouse watching the situation.

Behind him, Gongsun and Ma Xin were still examining the body.

Ma Xin reached out and took out a set of keys with a pocket-sized ultraviolet light keychain hanging from it, like the kind of small flashlight normally used for examining money. This was a habit of Ma Xin's, and something that Gongsun admired about her, the attentiveness.

Gongsun understood what she meant, and the two of them shone the UV light on the back of Ryan's corpse's hand, but there was no stamp. After a slight hesitation, they turned his hand over again to look at the palm of his hand. However, once the hand was turned over, the two were surprised... because there was a clear blue ink stain on Ryan's hand, which seemed to be a recently stamped palm marking that hadn't washed off, and certainly didn't need to be illuminated by the UV light.

And the pattern inside this stamp was not the Emilia nor the guillotine, but a rose.

Ma Xin quickly took a photo with her cell phone and ran to the door to show it to Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao was originally staring nervously at Bai Yutang and the others' actions, but after being called on by Ma Xin, he looked down at the phone she handed to him...

After looking at it, Zhan Zhao tapped his chin with one hand, as if he couldn't figure something out, frowning slightly in concentration.

At this time, a 'bang' was heard, as if the cupboard in the kitchen had been pushed over, and the clatter of bowls and pots falling to the ground was clearly discernible.

Immediately afterwards, a man burst out of the side of the tent and fled as fast as he could.

Zhao Hu followed behind him and kicked the man in the knee. The man stumbled and fell, but didn't stop, he rolled and crawled forward, scurrying into the rose bushes.

Ma Han followed behind Zhao Hu, and the two of them chased after him together.

Bai Yutang and Luo Tian came out from the other direction, ready to circle around to the front of the bush to flank them.

At that moment, they heard Zhan Zhao suddenly shout out, "Don't go near the bush!"

But by this time, Ma Han and Zhao Hu were already rushing towards the bush at a fast pace, forget about whether they could stop at this moment, they probably didn't even hear Zhan Zhao's words.

"Stop!" Zhan Zhao shouted, anxious.

Bai Yutang and Luo Tian both stood still and turned back in disbelief, but Ma Han and Zhao Hu were about to step into the flowers, so they couldn't stop. Just then, the two suddenly felt a strong force behind them yanking them by the shoulders and lifting them upwards.

"I..." Zhao Hu almost cursed, he felt his feet flying into the air as he was dragged up, flying high like he was on a swing.

Ma Han also leaned back, almost falling, and looked back...

Bai Jintang grabbed the two with both hands and slightly raised his chin... signalling them both to look into the flowers.

"Turn on the lights!" Stephen shouted at the waiter who was in a mess at the door.

But just then, a heart-breaking scream could be heard from among the flowers.

The spotlights on all sides of the garden were switched on, and in an instant the whole garden was lit up like daylight, and everyone saw the blond waiter, dressed in white, rolling around in agony among the roses, struggling and tearing at his clothes, his face twitching and twisting as his hands and arms were covered in blood from the rose thorns.

Lan Qi frowned and squatted down to have a look in the bush, "He... looks like he's been neurotoxically poisoned." As he spoke, he pointed to the leaves of the rose and said, "There are some reflective spots on the leaves, and some parts are discoloured."

At that moment, Gongsun and Zhan Zhao also came over.

"Someone has put a neurotoxin on the roses?" Gongsun said, "As long as someone runs into the flowers, they will definitely be cut by the flower thorns, and after their blood comes into contact with the venom, the poison will kill them."

"Poisoning such a large area..." Bai Jintang frowned, "Did they mix the poison into the watering can when they watered the flowers?"

Lan Xi nodded, "It's possible."

"Wow..." Zhao Hu patted his chest as his heart palpitated. Fortunately Bai Jintang was godly enough to actually lift both him and Ma Han with one hand, otherwise he would be dead by now and he would have died in a very ugly way.

"Big brother!" Zhao Hu held Bai Jintang's hand behind him and shook it, "Thank you for your miraculous hand, I thank you on behalf of my family...."

Bai Jintang didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Ma Han also felt scared, thinking about who would go to such lengths to kill someone, instead of saying that the poisoner was plotting and scheming, it is better to say that he had evil intentions.

"When was the last time you watered the flowers?" Bai Yutang asked Stephen, whose face was white.

"Er, it seems to be this afternoon, I just saw someone watering..." Stephen looked back as if remembering something and asked, "Where's the butler? Where's Kevin?"

Everyone recalled the old man with the white beard who had passed before their eyes a few moments before, greeting guests amiably and ushering the waiters to serve food and wine, a very English-style butler.

"Yah-ah!"

Just as the crowd was looking around for the butler, they heard Qi Le, Chen Yu and a few of the girls shout out.

These girls were all the girlfriends of certain people in SCI, and although they usually had nothing serious to fight about, the sound of their screams made Luo Tian's hair stand on end and Zhao Hu jumped up, "What's wrong?"

"Who's that on the second floor?" Jia Yi was the boldest and calmest, reaching out and pointing to the second floor.

When the crowd looked up, they saw a woman standing on the second floor of the beautiful garden house, behind a floor-to-ceiling window.

Originally, it was not strange to see someone standing on the second floor watching the action, but this woman gave off an eerie feeling. Hidden in the darkness, no one could see what she looked like, except that she had big black curly hair down to her chest and seemed to be wearing a white dress, which was slightly too big and looked like one of those big dresses worn by mediaeval women...

She had one hand pressed against the window and seemed to be watching the situation outside, her demeanour revealing an eeriness.

"She has small hands." Zhan Zhao alerted, and Bai Yutang frowned.

Many of the guests could not stand the stimulation anymore and screamed in shock, and most of the female guests were no longer steady on their feet.

Zhan Zhao whispered to Bai Chi who was also looking stunned at the side, "Chi Chi, remember the expressions of every single person right now."

Bai Chi faintly froze before immediately coming back to his senses and started to look around. His eyes passed over each and every person's face, as if scanning and storing, using his amazing memory to preserve this moment, to preserve these many faces and the secrets that might be hidden behind them.

"Go up." Bai Yutang said to the SCI crowd.

Ma Han and the others ran towards the townhouse and, with the cooperation of a few security guards, opened the door and headed upstairs.

Bai Yutang walked to the ground floor without following them, but instead stared at the woman inside the window.

He visually measured the height of the second floor balcony, took a few steps backwards and sprinted a few strides straight up to the second floor.

This action was something that the people present had probably only seen in movies, and Lin Ruo, standing beside Zhan Zhao, could not help but praise, "What amazing balance and explosive power.

Zhan Zhao's mind suddenly flashed back to what Zhao Jue used to call Bai Yutang from time to time – your family's little tiger.

Indeed, that God-given athletic talent allowed Bai Yutang to perform many actions that defied common sense.

When he reached the window, Bai Yutang locked eyes with the woman inside the window, who surprisingly didn't run, and the two just stood there, staring at each other through the thin glass door.

Zhan Zhao knew Bai Yutang too well, he could read his mind and emotions with just a slight change in his expression. In Zhan Zhao's opinion, at this moment, Bai Yutang's face was full of confusion.

‿︵‿︵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 6, 2023 by Angel

Edited: May 4, 2023 by Angel