S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 4 Chapter 64

Ghost Ship Murderer 28 – Blood Ship 

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Zhao Zhen moved around the interior of the Emilia.

After carefully observing the ship for a while, he started to work on it, breaking off some fasteners and so on.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang looked at each other – Was Zhao Zhen dismantling the ship?

"Do you need tools?" Luo Tian asked, walking up to him.

Zhao Zhen shook his head with a smile, "How can I use tools, a good carpenter never uses nails."

The crowd didn't know what he meant by that, but it looked like he was having fun, so they let him get on with it.

Zhao Jue went to the steps next to Ma Xin and sat down.

He saw Ma Xin holding her chin up and looking at Luo Tian, still pursing her lips with a contented expression.

Zhao Jue's eyes twitched slightly, and a sly smile appeared at the corner of his mouth as he moved over and called out to Ma Xin, "Ai, the sniper's sister."

Ma Xin turned around. Zhao Jue seemed to always prefer to call people by code names, for example, he called Ma Han the sniper, Zhao Hu the fool, Jiang Ping the computer guy... and always called her the sniper's sister, or the little follower of a certain forensic scientist.

As Ma Xin was puzzled, she heard Zhan Zhao slowly say, "Calling people by code names demonstrates his childishness."

Everyone looked aside – The game between Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue was always an infinite cycle of provocation → counterattack → provocation again → counterattack again.

Zhao Jue cast a sideways glance at Zhan Zhao and continued to ask Ma Xin, "Do you believe there are ghosts in the world?"

Ma Xin blinked, "Well, I won't rule out all possibilities."

Zhao Jue smiled, "Then if one day, you are walking alone in the dark corridor in front of the forensic room and you see a woman dressed in white standing in front of you when she was supposed to be lying on the autopsy table, what would be your first reaction?"

Ma Xin tilted her face and thought very carefully, "This... I might find it a bit spooky, but the first thing that would come to mind would not be a ghost, but wondering if the one who was sent here was still alive."

Zhao Jue raised his eyebrows, "I see."

"However," Ma Xin did not forget to add, "it's even more likely that someone is pretending to be something else."

Zhao Jue narrowed his eyes and smiled, but did not go on to say anything else.

Zhan Zhao was standing not far away, so he could hear what Zhao Jue said clearly and looked back at him.

Zhao Jue suddenly jumped up and ran to Zhao Zhen's side, "What did you find?"

Only then did Zhan Zhao notice that almost everyone had gathered around Zhao Zhen to watch.

Zhao Zhen turned a few valves and put together a few steel plates, as if he was doing magic or playing with building blocks, and soon, a large part of the floor was dismantled.

Underneath the floor, something appeared. Underneath the lifted plate, a layer of worn steel plates appeared, which were white with patches of rust.

Zhao Zhen reached out and knocked on it, making a 'clang clang' sound.

"Hmm." Zhao Zhen rubbed his chin and began to look around.

"Is this the old ship that was converted into a new one?" Bai Yutang asked.

"I don't think so, perhaps I didn't look in the right place." Zhao Zhen muttered to himself, stood up, looked around, and finally found another set of cabinets, with interlocking pipes, squatted down, and started moving them around again.

Zhan Zhao asked Bai Yutang, "Looking for something?"

Bai Yutang spread his hands.

Zhao Jue gloomily came over and asked Bai Yutang in a whisper, "Do you feel a gust of gloomy wind?"

Bai Yutang looked at him, and Zhan Zhao reached out and pressed his hand on Zhao Jue's forehead, pushing it away, "It's only right that gloomy spirits don't disperse..."

"It's the soul that refuses to leave!" Zhao Jue smoothly took Zhan Zhao's arm and moved over to rest his chin on his shoulder, "Lonely souls and wild ghosts are so scary..."

No sooner had Zhao Jue's words fallen than suddenly, a scream could be heard...

This scream came out of nowhere and was very sharp. The voice could not be distinguished between male and female, but it was alarmingly mournful.

This darkness without light, like a murderous scream, made Ma Xin directly jump up, throwing herself into Luo Tian's arms and experiencing what it means to be a little bird clinging to a person, and the faces of those few SWAT members also went white.

Zhao Jue reached out and grabbed Zhan Zhao's neck at the same time as the scream rang out.

Zhan Zhao was so shocked that he jumped and scurried away, rubbing his neck and looking at him.

Zhao Jue looked like a child who had succeeded in his mischief, and he was happy.

The only person at the scene who was calm and unchanged was Bai Yutang, looking at Zhao Zhen who was covering his ears in front of him.

It turned out that after Zhao Zhen had put together some iron plates and pipes, an iron door controlled by an air valve appeared, and as soon as he opened the door... the sound of 'screaming' was emitted. In fact, it was an illusion caused by metal friction and air currents, not really someone screaming, human screams should not be able to hit this decibel.

Luo Tian reached out to help Zhao Zhen move the heavy iron door out of the way, and Zhao Jue asked Bai Yutang curiously, "Why aren't you afraid?"

Bai Yutang gave him a puzzled look, "Afraid of what?"

"There's people screaming!" Zhao Jue reminded.

"Someone screaming isn't someone eating people, what's there to be afraid of?" Bai Yutang found it baffling and didn't pay much attention to it, walking up to see what Zhao Zhen and the others had found.

"Tsk." Zhao Jue shook his head in dissatisfaction, looking over at the equally dissatisfied Zhan Zhao beside him, "Lack of fear."

Zhan Zhao nodded, while not forgetting to give Zhao Jue a cross look, having just been startled by him.

"Steel plates again?" Bai Yutang crouched in front of one of the air valves that Zhao Zhen had opened. Since the door was lying on the floor, when it was opened, there was a space underneath the floor that was a little wider than it had been earlier, but it was the same white, rusty iron plates underneath.

"It's different this time."

Zhao Zhen pulled out a set of keys from his pocket.

The crowd was a little confused, what was he doing with the keys? Then they saw Zhao Zhen pull out a thin piece of something like a piece of iron and stuck it along the gap in the white iron, then pried...

With a click, the piece of white iron was pried open. Luo Tian reached out to help Zhao Zhen move it away, and it turned out to be a hatch.

A rusty staircase appeared beneath the hatch. This kind of spiral iron staircase could be found everywhere on the ship.

Everyone glanced at each other.

Zhan Zhao was surprised, "Does it mean that there is a ship hidden inside the ship?"

Zhao Zhen smiled slightly, "It's more interesting than I thought."

After saying that, he was about to go down.

"Wait." Bai Yutang reached out and pulled Zhao Zhen, "I'll go down first."

Zhao Zhen looked at him, "There might be a secret mechanism, are you sure you'll go first?"

Bai Yutang pulled out his gun, "There might be a murderer, are you sure you'll go down first?"

......

Zhao Zhen immediately made a 'go ahead' gesture, not forgetting to remind him, "Try not to touch anything."

Bai Yutang nodded and went down the hatch first. Zhao Zhen followed closely behind, followed by Zhan Zhao and Zhao Jue, and Luo Tian leading Ma Xin, followed by a few heavily armed SWAT team members.

When they got down to the cabin, it was pitch black inside, but the sense of the space was still present. Bai Yutang took a flashlight and shone it in all directions, and found that they had entered a room inside the cabin.

The layout of the room was simple, rudimentary even, with a wire bed topped with old-fashioned blankets, a wooden ship's rudder decorating the wall, a table, a candlestick, red but blackened carpeting on the floor, a football-sized porthole, and a very narrow iron door with cobwebs hanging from all four sides.

"Yah-ah!"

Ma Xin suddenly shouted, reaching out and pointing at the porthole as she proceeded to pounce on Luo Tian.

Everyone shook their heads. Who didn't know that Ma Xin was known as Daring Ma? This was Gongsun's disciple, even if a child ghost stood in front of her, her first reaction would be to capture it alive and return to pay her respects to her master. But this girl is deeply obsessed with this kind of young woman's feelings of flinging herself into the arms of her beloved...

Luo Tian used a flashlight to illuminate it... and frowned.

Bai Yutang walked to the front of the porthole frowned and stared at the glass, and saw that on the glass of the porthole, there was a complete bloody handprint, which had dried up, but the fingerprints and palm prints were well preserved, even though they were on the outside of the porthole.

Zhan Zhao rubbed his chin and exchanged a glance with Bai Yutang.

Zhao Zhen walked over and opened the door in the room... The door was unlocked and the area beyond was still dark. There was a long corridor with identical rooms lined up on either side in sequence.

Bai Yutang walked to the middle of the corridor and, with the light of his flashlight, found a mechanism on the wall that resembled an electric switch. Zhao Zhen inspected it and reached out to pull down the switch.

A few moments later.

It was quiet outside and still dark.

Zhao Zhen spread his hands at Bai Yutang, which meant – I guess there is no electricity...

But halfway through his gesture, he suddenly made a 'shh' gesture and listened to his side.

Zhao Zhen's action to silence the crowd elicited a smile from Zhao Jue.

When Zhao Zhao glanced at him, Zhao Jue mouthed a word to him, as if to say – Heredity!

At this point, the crowd seemed to hear a soft buzzing sound.

Then, there was a flash of light.

"The generator is still functional." As Zhao Zhen spoke, the zapping sound of a fluorescent light being powered up began to come from overhead. Bai Yutang looked up, these old jump-bulb fluorescent lights have almost all been replaced by energy-saving lights now, so it was clear that... the ship was somewhat old.

As the voltage gradually stabilised, the incandescent glow of the fluorescent lights illuminated the entire corridor, yet... the light did not bring any warmth, but rather sent shivers down one's spine.

The crowd couldn't help but frown.

The walls on either side of the corridor were white, yet the white walls were covered with patches of dried black and red blood, long scratches, clear palm prints, bloodstains of indistinguishable shapes, droplets of blood sprayed up and splattered everywhere... There were even larger patches of black and red blood on the floor, staining the grey floor leaving only a few patches of white. Although there were no bodies, the air still smelled uncomfortably of blood or rust.

"It's so bloody." The two SWAT team members couldn't help but speak up, "What is this place?"

"What's your guess?" Zhao Jue asked Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao did not say anything, instead gazing at Bai Yutang in front of him.

He saw Bai Yutang lowering his head, taking a few steps forward and crouching down, seemingly looking at something.

Everyone followed Bai Yutang's line of sight and saw that on the ground, there was a long, clear trail of bloody footprints.

The footprints were only about the length of an adult's hand, and should have belonged to a petite woman or a half-grown child.

The problem was that the trail of footprints was very regular, seemingly stepping all the way through the blood, not covered by any blood stains, and not as messy as the blood stains around the area.

It felt as if the murder scene was a mess and a child had walked over the blood stains with bare feet.

"Look next to the footprints." Ma Xin alerted with a frown, her forensic instincts leading her to spot some clues.

When the crowd looked closely, they saw that next to each bloodstain, there were some circular blood droplets that followed the bloody footprints all the way to the front.

"This is..." Zhan Zhao frowned, "dripping blood splatters..."

The crowd thought about it reasonably, when that child was walking, they were holding something that was dripping blood drop by drop...

Thinking about it, they subconsciously gulped – The murder weapon? Or was this child injured?

Zhan Zhao frowned slightly, and subconsciously thought of the small handprints that appeared on the body of the deceased previously.

Bai Yutang stood up and continued to walk down the corridor.

Zhao Zhen followed behind.

The corridor was quite long, and as they walked, the crowd began to calculate the size of the ship... Although it was hidden inside the huge cruise ship Emilia… the ship was not small.

"Wait a minute." They heard Zhan Zhao suddenly speak.

Bai Yutang stopped in his tracks.

Zhan Zhao reached out and pointed at a corner, "Is there a piece of paper there?"

Wearing gloves, Ma Xin took out tweezers and walked over to pick up the blood-stained piece of paper, and took a look at it, "It's a boat ticket."

"A boat ticket?" Zhao Zhen also took a look and opened his mouth slightly, "It's only half a ticket, but the ship number is complete – PT1001."

As soon as Zhao Zhen's words fell, everyone's eyes widened a notch.

"The Emilia!" Ma Xin exclaimed in a low voice, "The real Emilia!"

Zhao Jue picked up both corners of his mouth and smiled, while gently nudging Zhan Zhao with his arm, "Is it fun?"

Zhan Zhao frowned, "Stephen and the others are going to use the fake Emilia to take the real Emilia out to sea? What exactly..."

Before Zhan Zhao finished his sentence, the crowd saw Bai Yutang suddenly reach out and gently wave his hand.

Everyone's attention was drawn to him and they looked at him together.

They saw Bai Yutang with a gun in one hand, frowning slightly at the end of the corridor. The crowd was now positioned in a T-shaped corridor, with another corridor crossing in front of them to their left and right.

Bai Yutang looked for a moment before speaking, "Someone's there."

Zhao Zhen let out a sigh of relief, "I thought I was seeing things."

A few SWAT team members looked at each other – They didn't see it at all.

"They were short." Bai Yutang said, "White clothes, long hair, no visible face."

Everyone had no doubt in Bai Yutang's eyesight, although it sounded incredibly bizarre now.

White clothes, long black hair, a petite figure... on the dusty Emilia – Could it be the ghost of Emilia? Or was it, as Zhao Jue put it, Blue Doll?

‿︵‿︵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: June 20, 2023 by Angel

Edited: July 6, 2023 by Angel