S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 4 Chapter 89

Toothless Murderer 12 – Details in the Basement

---

Zhao Hu and Ma Han asked Wang Yue's neighbours, and several of them said that they had seen an unfamiliar man hanging around Wang Yue's house a few days ago. Wang Yue was almost always away during the day, so she didn't come across him.

The uncle who lived across the street from Wang Yue said, "That man is in his thirties, very recognisable, and has a blue birthmark from his chin to his neck."

"Birthmark?" Zhao Hu looked at Ma Han – Such an obvious feature, does it ring any bells?

Ma Han thought about it and shook his head – I don't remember such a person, could it be a make–up disguise?

"That person looks eerie and overall rather suspicious, but not like a thief. He was dressed quite well, clean, but was just sneaky." That uncle recalled, "About 175–176 centimetres, very white skin. My wife even spoke to him that day." With that, he turned back to call an aunt who was washing clothes to come out.

According to that aunt, she thought the man was a bit suspicious and asked, "Who are you looking for?"

Then the man pointed to Wang Yue's courtyard and asked, "Where's the man who lives here?"

Zhao Hu and Ma Han glanced at each other, and at that moment, in the courtyard, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang walked out.

The aunt continued, "He was probably looking for Xu Qiang, the one who used to live here, and I told him that he died in a car accident a year ago. Then he seemed taken aback and turned around to leave quickly."

"Are you guys familiar with the Xu Qiang who lived here before?" Zhan Zhao asked.

"Oh, Xu Qiang ah... this person was silent, he never interacted with outsiders, and he left early and returned late, sometimes I didn't even know if he was in the house or not."

"Xu Qiang..." Bai Yutang called and asked Jiang Ping to check this person's information, and then asked the forensic department to come and collect the evidence in the basement.

Zhan Zhao's request was to restore the entire basement as it was in an empty conference room at the SCI office, so a group of obsessive–compulsive detail controllers in the forensic department began to take photos to collect evidence, and also brought in a machine that looked particularly advanced and was said to be a three–dimensional scanner.

"When did we buy this?" Zhan Zhao was very interested in that scanner.

Bai Yutang reminded him, "It was probably one of those devices donated by Brother before."

The corner of Zhan Zhao's mouth twitched, "Bao Sir must love Gongsun so much, hiring a forensic pathologist is the same as installing a bank in the police station."

Bai Yutang nodded with a smile.

......

"Ha–ah~"

Leaving Wang Yue's residence, Zhan Zhao yawned.

"It's been confirmed that Wang Yue has an alibi for the several times the cases occurred." After receiving a phone call, Bai Yutang ruled out Wang Yue's suspicions. But after all, this girl had lived here for such a long time and was considered involved in the case, so for the time being, she still couldn't be allowed to leave the country.

Zhan Zhao and the others left the village and got in the car to go back to the SCI office.

On the way, Bai Yutang received a call from Jiang Ping, and Zhan Zhao put it on speakerphone...

Jiang Ping's voice was a little frustrated, "Head, Xu Qiang is a fake."

Bai Yutang frowned slightly, "What do you mean?"

"That tenant used Xu Qiang's ID to rent the room. The police found his family based on the information on his ID, and unexpectedly, the real Xu Qiang is still alive and well."

Bai Yutang frowned, "An impostor?"

"He rented the house through an agent, and they didn't carefully check the authenticity of his ID card. In addition, he paid his rent on time every time, so he never aroused any suspicion." Jiang Ping went on to say, "In the end, the identity of the deceased was not found. The police issued a photo but the body was left in the funeral parlour for a period of time without anyone claiming it, and it has been burned into ashes for storage."

"Already burnt into ashes?" Zhan Zhao was surprised.

"It can't be helped, the cause of death was a traffic accident." Jiang Ping said, "The photo of the deceased was sent to you."

After saying that, Jiang Ping hung up the phone, and Zhan Zhao clicked on the photo to look at it – It was the most ordinary middle–aged man, and there was absolutely no impression of him, so they should not have seen him before.

"If he's been following us for a long time, there's no reason why we shouldn't have any impression at all." Bai Yutang asked Zhan Zhao, "Have you ever seen him? Even just brushing shoulders or something."

"Absolutely not!" Zhan Zhao, however, firmly shook his head.

Bai Yutang asked Bai Chi to dig out the information of all the people involved in the previous cases, and then check those people's relevant contacts or networks to see if there were any clues about this fake "Xu Qiang".

This whole day, the SCI members were busy searching for information.

The two human computers, Zhan Zhao and Bai Chi, had read all the texts they could, but they couldn't find this mysterious stalker.

Zhao Hu rubbed his eyes, "I'm getting double vision when I look out, I've never looked at so many photos in my life."

Jiang Ping was even more tired, his task was to quickly check the footage of people entering and exiting the police data room, and watching it made him a little nauseous.

Early the next morning, the people who had stayed up all night went to take a shower and change their clothes, and returned to the SCI office for breakfast. The day of checking amounted to nothing, and there were still no clues.

At this time, Old Wang, who also stayed up all night in the forensics department, walked in.

"Yo, Old Wang, your smoky make–up is edgy!" Zhao Pu pointed to the black circles under Old Wang's eyes and joked.

Old Wang slapped him on the head with a file bag, while saying to Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, "That room has been reproduced for you. According to the requirements, the position and angle of the pieces of paper are not the slightest bit off."

"So fast?" Bai Yutang praised, the efficiency of the forensics section was top notch.

"That's right, we have advanced technology!" Old Wang said, looking at Jiang Ping, "We've restored the scene with a three–dimensional scanner, and we've also sent you a three–dimensional spatial model." Saying that, Old Wang tsked, "If we could have a three–dimensional projector, it would save manpower, just directly scan in there, and cast it here." As he said this, he wobbled out the door.

Exiting the office, he happened to bump into Bai Jintang, who came to look for Gongsun...

When Old Wang left, Bai Jintang asked the twins, "What did he say just now?"

The twins' mouth corners twitched, "That?..."

"Buy one." Bai Jintang raised an eyebrow and went into the office to find Gongsun.

The twins had no choice but to go order high–tech products.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang happened to be going to the room that the forensics department had recreated, and the others happened to be going to take a closer look as well.

Pushing open the door of the room, the crowd once again lamented that the forensic department was really full of detail controllers and obsessive–compulsive patients, even the lighting was simulated to be very similar.

The twins took a glance, "Talented! Any interest in going to the crew to work on scenes?"

Zhan Zhao stood in the room, glancing around.

Bai Jintang was a little dissatisfied when he found a lot of sneak photos, "What kind of person is so perverted?" As he said this, he pointed to a few pictures of Gongsun from different angles, "Give me these after you finish the case."

The twins looked at the sky as Gongsun drank from his cup of soy milk.

"The legendary stalker." Xiao Bai Chi was unhappy when he saw that he had even been photographed while sunbathing with Lisbon, "Could it be that the target of the attack also includes Lisbon?"

Zhao Zhen frowned, "What kind of person is so godlike that we didn't notice after being photographed for so long."

Bai Chi asked Zhao Zhen, "Did you not notice it either?"

Zhao Zhen shrugged, "I'm considered a star, being photographed is a regular thing."

"But none of them were taken at home." Bai Jintang was still relatively satisfied with the location of his home.

Bai Yutang saw Zhan Zhao stroking his chin and frowning while looking around, so he asked, "What's the problem?"

"There's a big problem!" Zhan Zhao pointed to some post–it notes stuck on the wall, mostly recording their whereabouts, "They're all printed by a computer!"

The crowd nodded – What's the problem?

"The contents of the notebook are handwritten." Zhan Zhao picked up the notebook, but then pointed to the other items, "Other than the contents of this notebook, the others are all printed by a computer! There isn't any human handwriting."

"What does that mean?" Bai Chi asked Zhan Zhao.

"Don't you think it's weird?" Zhan Zhao asked, "The sticky notes are printed! Are printed ones still called sticky notes?"

These details were indeed puzzling, but since there was too much information in the room and too much to investigate, the crowd did not make hasty inferences.

"How are we going to investigate?" Zhan Zhao looked at Bai Yutang.

"It's going to be a technical investigation this time!" Bai Yutang stroked Zhan Zhao's head, "Use crowd tactics and expert tacticians!"

Therefore, Bai Yutang asked all of them to recall the approximate time when they were photographed, and the exact location based on the clothing and location in the photos taken.

Among them, Bai Chi, Zhan Zhao and Gongsun had the clearest memories and gave detailed information.

Bai Yutang also asked Lu Fang to hire a few consultants... These consultants were experts in camera equipment, and based on the clarity of the photographs and the texture of the images, they deduced the several possible types of photographic equipment, and then deduced the possible range of the shots, and then pulled up as many images from traffic cameras as possible to see if they could catch something.

At this moment, the busiest person was Xiao Bai Chi. The human scanner was scanning ten screens at the same time, and Jiang Ping, who was helping him change the video on the side, was a bit dizzy.

Not to mention, this needle in a haystack pure technical search method, apart from the cost of eye drops, it is really effective.

Bai Chi accurately found a few people holding cameras and standing by the roadside shooting in the rapidly moving screens, and deduced that they were the ones taking pictures at that time based on their posture and location.

Drinking the eye–protecting soup made by Ma Xin, the SCI crowd, who had been busy for another day, gathered in the conference room, where the images of the suspects of the case were printed out and spread on the table.

At this point, the crowd was confused – because it was not just one suspect!

Coincidentally, because of the fake seat belt scandal a while ago, a number of roads in S City had been equipped with high–definition cameras, so several of the photos were very clear.

Among them, there were at least five individuals, both male and female, who could be more clearly distinguished by their outlines and external features, who were all wearing masks and holding up their cameras, taking photos from a very far distance.

"Were different people hired to film? Or is it a gang?" Zhao Hu flipped through the photos.

At this moment, Ma Xin, who had gone to the forensics department to get the results of the fingerprint search, ran up, "Captain, the fingerprint results are out."

"Any clues?" Bai Yutang hurriedly asked.

Ma Xin's expression was rather confused, "A very strange phenomenon has appeared!"

Everyone frowned – What kind of strange phenomenon was there with fingerprints?

The corner of Zhao Hu's mouth twitched, "It can't be... non–human, right?"

After asking, Zhao Hu was kicked by Ma Han.

......

"They're definitely human, but the prints are incomplete, they've obviously been cleaned." Ma Xin said, "There are only fragments."

"The basement is so large and there are so many photos, there should be quite a few fragments, right?" Zhan Zhao asked, "Aren't Old Wang and the others fond of doing jigsaw puzzles? Have they put together a complete one?"

"That's the problem." Ma Xin spread her hands, "The pieces don't even match up!"

Everyone froze.

Gongsun was surprised, "Meaning, they belong to different fingerprints?"

"Yes! There are so many fragments, and they're all different!" Ma Xin took an iPad and clicked on a video call.

The nerdy little sister downstairs in the forensic department reached out and pointed to the large screen behind her, and they saw bits and pieces of fingerprints in the outlines of different hands. There were at least ten hands, which meant there were at least five people.

"Oh!" Jiang Ping propped up his geek glasses and moved over to look, "Has the forensics department entered the sci–fi era from the previous modernisation? The equipment is strong!"

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao exchanged a glance. It was only natural, all of the advanced equipment donated by Bai Jintang, except for that in the forensic examination room, most of it was being used by the forensic science department.

"Hey!"

Just as Ma Xin was about to turn off the video call, Old Wang cheerfully came over, "The prototype of the three–dimensional projector will be sent to us for trial tomorrow, and the new machine will arrive in a week, ah–ha!"

The corners of the crowd's mouths twitched – Big Brother Bai was so fast.

Old Wang cheerfully stretched out two fingers and made a peace sign to the crowd, then hung up the video call.

"At least five people." Bai Yutang frowned, "Are the fingerprint fragments distributed on the walls, or are they on the photos?"

"The photos are all over the walls, but someone has carefully scrubbed them." Ma Xin said.

"That means the fingerprints weren't left by the previous tenants, at least five people have been in the basement and touched the photos."

"That many people have been in and out of the basement?" Ma Han frowned.

"It's quite a few, a tour group?"

Zhao Hu casually joked, and Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang suddenly stared at him.

"Wh–what?" Zhao Hu touched his face.

"With so many people going in and out, why didn't the neighbours notice?" Bai Yutang asked.

"Is there another entrance?"

Luo Tian shook his head, "I didn't find one."

"There are a lot of unreasonable things." Gongsun said, "Since they were careful to clean all the photos, why didn't they wear gloves or something from the start."

"These people who took the photos are also strange." Zhan Zhao pointed to the few people who took the photos secretly, "Like private detectives."

"So it's also the same as before?" Bai Yutang asked, "The other party gives the commission to the private detective via email, and then the detective hands over the photos taken as well as the post–it notes to the commissioner, collecting the money in the meantime... That's why even the post–it notes are printed."

The crowd nodded, that was the only reason.

"The fingerprints were accidentally left behind when the private detectives left the photos, so the other party cleaned them up..." Zhao Hu said with a slight frown, "But why are there fingerprints on the wall as well?"

"There are indeed many parts of this case that don't make sense." Bai Yutang saw that it was almost dark. After staying up for two days, the crowd should be tired, so he told everyone to take a break first. Jiang Ping passed the photos of those suspected private detectives to Ai Hu and the others. First, they would catch the ones who took the photos, and then they would look for clues.

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

Previous Chapter | TOC | Next Chapter

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: September 3, 2023 by Angel

Edited: September 28, 2023 by Angel