S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 4 Chapter 48

Ghost Ship Murderer 14 – Prey and Accomplices

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Guided by Zhan Zhao, Jiang Nan overcame the fear that felt like a locked door and recounted her experiences of the past few days in their original form.

For Jiang Nan, these past few days have been a complete horror movie.

Ever since she took on the role of Emilia, her life has changed in subtle ways, and everything has been gradual, starting with the feeling that there is an extra pair of eyes watching her.

Jiang Nan is a woman so brave that she lacks fear, or perhaps she has experienced so many trials and tribulations in her life, and so many people and events, which has led to her having a great deal of confidence in herself and a strong sense of control over what is around her.

But the fear that gradually emerged from her heart was indescribable, and Jiang Nan began to suspect that someone was following her.

But thinking sensibly, she was not a youth idol, so what kind of crazy fans would she have? Many of the younger kids don't know her nowadays, and since she is a low-key person with little money, she shouldn't be targeted by anyone.

Jiang Nan talked to her management company, which immediately contacted the police.

The police sent professional officers to accompany her for a few days and made sure that there was no one following or trying to harm her before the officers left. At the same time, everyone felt that Jiang Nan's mental state had been a little tense, and she was probably too tired, so she was advised to rest more.

The management company felt that there was something bizarre about the script for Emilia, and in connection with the previous uproar about Emilia's curse, many people advised her not to act in the movie.

But at this point, Jiang Nan was very interested in the role of Emilia.

A good role is a fatal lure for an actor, and Jiang Nan decided to continue studying the script and relax.

Gradually, Jiang Nan, who is very adaptable, adjusted to the feeling of being spied on and even developed an odd sense of satisfaction in enjoying her fear.

She gradually began to feel that living in fear would allow her to understand Emilia's character even further. Also, since she had little exposure to horror films, she wanted to get herself to feel what it was like to act in a horror film from the atmosphere of terror...

So, she rented a haunted villa and also found Stephen's underground garage to practise, and began what seemed to outsiders to be an extremely crazy character experience.

Generally speaking, if a person is too strong, then others will neglect to take care of them, and if a person acts too boldly, no one will worry about them being scared... This is the case with Jiang Nan. Since Jiang Nan has shown that she is no longer afraid and has adapted to these states, to be honest, even those big men in the agency are a bit afraid of her.

Who would dare to stay in a haunted house at night? So everyone left her, leaving Jiang Nan to face the darkness and fear alone...

It was at this time that Emilia appeared.

Emilia appeared at dusk one evening. That afternoon, after Jiang Nan had finished a TV talk show, she was riding home in her car, feeling tired.

As the car drove down the side road to the villa, Jiang Nan leaned against the window and slowly opened her eyes to see that the sky in the distance was red – a rare blood-coloured sunset.

"The weather is so strange." Jiang Nan muttered to herself.

At that moment, she heard a voice somewhere between a woman and a girl say, "It's going to rain."

Jiang Nan froze slightly, thinking her ears were ringing, and looked around, but there was no one around.

"Xiao Gu?"

The driver who was driving for Jiang Nan was a young man in his twenties who had been driving for her for three years. His surname was Gu, and Jiang Nan had always called him Xiao Gu.

"Miss Jiang?" Xiao Gu thought Jiang Nan wanted to go somewhere, and looked at her in the rear view mirror.

"Are you not feeling well?" Xiao Gu probably saw that Jiang Nan was slightly white and leaning against the back seat breathlessly, so he asked.

"No... did you say something to me just now?" Jiang Nan asked even though she was sure that the voice just now was a woman's voice and definitely not one that could come from Xiao Gu.

Xiao Gu shook his head, "No... was it a dream?"

"Hmm..." Jiang Nan nodded and asked, "Is it going to rain?"

"How could it, look at how nice the sky is..." Xiao Gu hadn't finished speaking when suddenly, he saw the sky cloud over.

Then, raindrops fell on top of the glass windows of the car, and the pedestrians around them were obviously caught off guard and ran wildly towards the shelter with their bags over their heads.

The sky darkened completely and thunder and lightning began to strike.

Xiao Gu slowed the car down and looked at Jiang Nan, who was dazed, in the rear view mirror with surprise and admiration, "Miss Jiang, how did you know it was going to rain? So impressive!"

Jiang Nan came back to her senses and smiled... but her heart was throbbing a little. Right at that moment, she heard a clear laugh in her ears. It was the same voice that was between a woman and a girl from just now, a laugh somewhere between naughty and evil, and inexplicably eerie.

Jiang Nan felt a layer of goosebumps rising all the way up from the base of her neck.

Jiang Nan was completely awake by this time, she looked around, there was no one else and Xiao Gu didn't say anything, so whose voice was it?

"Is the radio on?" Jiang Nan's last hope was placed with the radio.

Xiao Gu shook his head, "No, I saw you were sleeping just now, so I didn't turn it on... Do you want to turn it on?"

"No need." Jiang Nan thought for a moment, "Xiao Gu ah, are you going to pick up your girlfriend later?"

"Yes, does Miss Jiang want to go somewhere else?" Xiao Gu asked, "I can ask her to take a taxi home by herself."

"Oh, no... you go ahead and drive..." Jiang Nan shook her head and the car drove into the deserted villa area.

Every time Xiao Gu came here to drop her off and pick her up, he came and went in a hurry, presumably fearful of hanging around.

It was the same this time, as soon as Jiang Nan got out of the car, Xiao Gu drove away as if he was fleeing.

At this time, the wind and rain gradually stopped... Jiang Nan opened the door of the villa, and it was dark.

"Hiss..."

Hearing this, Bai Chi began to rub his arms, there is a song that goes like, "The wind blows cold and freezes the hair, goose bumps have risen all over the place."

"What happened next?" Zhan Zhao was listening with great interest.

"Then I went inside, still doing my own thing, and as I was washing my face and looked in the mirror, a young girl..." Jiang Nan pointed to the scary version of Emilia's face in Zhan Zhao's hand, "appeared behind me. ."

"Yaaah!"

Just then, Bai Chi cried out miserably.

As soon as the crowd turned around, they saw Bao Zheng standing awkwardly behind Bai Chi, who was so shocked that he flung himself headlong at Zhao Zhen beside him.

It turned out that as Jiang Nan was talking about Emilia's face appearing behind her just now, Bai Chi felt the presence of something behind him and turned around to see... a dark face with a pair of white eyes.

So, after the last encounter with a walking wooden sculpture in the SCI office, Bai Chi let out one of the loudest scream of misery.

Bao Zheng looked at Bai Chi awkwardly, and he was also taken aback. Originally, when he walked to the door and felt the silence around him, he wondered what the hell these youngsters were up to. As soon as he entered, he was startled by Bai Chi.

Zhan Zhao pulled Jiang Nan's attention back, telling her not to care about the other situation, and continued, "What happened afterwards? Emilia kept following you?"

"No." Jiang Nan shook her head, "When she appeared, I screamed in terror, rushed out of the villa and called for someone to come and get me. After that I stayed at a friend's house first and didn't see Emilia that night, and the next day I stayed at a hotel and there was no Emilia either, so I wondered if I'd been mistaken and scared myself, so the day after that, during the day... I went back to the villa."

"And then? You saw her again?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"Yes, she was sitting like that on the sofa, leaning back quietly, holding a white skull in her hand and gently stroking it, and then she smiled at me."

"She smiled at you?" Zhan Zhao pursued, "Did she say anything?"

"She spoke English." Jiang Nan said, "And said quite a lot."

"The more details the better!"

"At first she said she was a bit hungry and wanted to eat, then she said she wanted to go out for a walk. I didn't dare to talk to her the whole time, so I ran out of the villa again and looked for Master Jin."

"Which Master Jin?" The crowd cocked their heads and asked her curiously.

“Is it Jin Liang?" Zhao Zhen suddenly asked.

The crowd turned back to look at him.

Jiang Nan nodded, "I don't know any exorcists or psychics, this master or that master, but this time I really got hit right myself, so it was impossible to not believe it. If I reported it to the police, I was afraid that those police would send me to the hospital as a psychopath, and then things would be even more unexplainable. There are not many people I can trust, and my agent introduced me to this Master Jin, so I went and talked to him."

"Jin Liang... male or female?" Zhan Zhao asked Zhao Zhen curiously.

"It's a man, in his forties." Zhao Zhen said, "I ran into him when I was appearing on a show." Saying that, he looked at Jiang Nan, "What's the use of you going to him, he's just a half-assed magician and a con man, that's all."

Jiang Nan laughed helplessly, "Sure enough..."

"This Jin Liang, doesn't he have a show, as well as his own website and studio, something about a psychic Master Jin?" Bai Chi frowned, "Didn't we just flip through Stephan and their ghost ship cruise plan? There was mention of him in it, he is in charge of a program of events that allows people to communicate with Emilia through psychic means."

Bai Yutang frowned, "What a mess."

"He's always been so deceitful." Zhao Zhen said, "I was performing at TV City the other day and ran into him just as he was recording the show, he's definitely a fraud."

"Head."

Jiang Ping quickly pulled up Jin Liang's profile and gave it to Bai Yutang.

Bai Yutang took the photo and looked at it, then gave it to Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao glanced at it, he was a middle aged man in his forties, with long hair and a look that was very much like a trickster. Zhan Zhao raised his eyebrows slightly and gestured for Jiang Nan to continue, "Did you tell him about Emilia?"

"No." Jiang Nan shook her head, "I was still a little wary of him, I only said that a friend had bought a new mansion, and that the mansion seemed unclean."

Zhan Zhao stroked his chin, feeling that the development was becoming more and more interesting.

"Jin Liang gave me a piece of advice, he said that no matter what I saw, I should not talk to her and she would not be able to do anything to me." Jiang Nan shrugged, "I originally thought he was going to give me some kind of talisman, but I didn't expect anything, he just said to tell that friend of mine to move quickly."

"Oh?" Zhan Zhao nodded silently, taking Jin Liang's picture again and looking at it.

"What?" Bai Yutang keenly noticed that Zhan Zhao seemed to have some interest in this Jin Liang.

"Well..." Zhan Zhao was silent for a moment before saying, “what an ugly haircut!"

Bai Yutang was speechless.

"You went back to the villa after that?" Bai Jintang asked Jiang Nan, "Why didn't you listen to him and leave?"

"I don't know." Jiang Nan didn't seem to understand either, "I just felt that the longer it went on, the less I was afraid of her, and anyway, as long as I ignored her, she just rambled on and on about things in my ear, and seemed unable to do me any harm."

"Did she say something different to you?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"Yes!" Jiang Nan nodded, "At first she was just telling me some nonsense, but when I entered the villa for the second time, she started telling me her stories, the reason why I used these props in the garage to imitate her was because of what she told me. However, at this time she only told me about her cutting off their heads, but not about her relationships, until..."

"Until you talked to her?" Zhan Zhao understood, "That is, after you met me in the garage, you went back and started talking to her?"

Jiang Nan nodded, "That's right, she kept saying that she loved that person very much and that person betrayed her, they all betrayed her."

"That person..." Zhan Zhao rubbed his chin and suddenly asked, “do you have any unusual patterns on you?"

Jiang Nan froze, "What?"

"Well... can I take a look at your arm?" Zhan Zhao said, "If it's inconvenient, you can have Ma Xin…"

"There's nothing inconvenient." Jiang Nan raised her sleeves and showed the crowd her arms.

Jiang Nan's arms were bare, there was nothing there.

Bai Yutang looked at Zhan Zhao, which meant – Looking for a stamp?

Zhan Zhao nodded.

Jiang Nan asked Zhan Zhao with some confusion, "What do you think I could have on me?"

"Well..." Zhan Zhao said, “a stamp."

Jiang Nan stood up, waved to Ma Xin and walked into the lounge.

Not long after, Ma Xin came out.

Jiang Nan also walked out, with her back to the crowd, and Ma Xin reached out to gently help her open a little bit of her collar... Everyone saw that where Jiang Nan's shoulder blade was, there really was a stamp.

And inside the stamp circle, there was a bullet.

Bai Yutang frowned when he saw it, "When did you get it?"

Jiang Nan herself wasn't sure, "Is there a stamp on her back?"

Bai Yutang looked at Zhan Zhao, "Is it a sign of the next manner of death? Who's going to die?"

Zhan Zhao pointed to Jin Liang's picture.

Bai Yutang was slightly surprised, "Him?"

Zhan Zhao nodded, "Every one of them was Emilia's prey and also Emilia's accomplice, assisting Emilia to kill and then immediately committing suicide, cleanly. That's why we haven't been able to find any clues for so long, the clue, is the last victim."

"But there was a little mishap, wasn't there?" Bai Yutang suddenly asked, "The stamp mark has appeared in a very prominent place every time, but not this time, it feels like it was made up in a hurry... Moreover, according to the previous pattern, Jiang Nan should have died in front of Jin Liang, right?"

Zhan Zhao picked up the corner of his mouth in satisfaction, "Clever."

‿︵‿︵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 27, 2023 by Angel

Edited: May 13, 2023 by Angel