S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 4 Chapter 101

The Murderer Who Returned From Hell 01 – Wheel of Caleb

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July 13, 1993.

A small town in the mountains of north-eastern Romania, on the border with Ukraine, was cut off from the outside world when a tunnel collapsed.

Rescuers and the town's police made contact by radio telegram.

The first telegram from the police officer – Food reserves are very abundant, but, something is not right.

As to what was wrong, the police officer did not say explicitly.

On the first day of being stranded, the outside world received a second telegram from that police officer, which read – Many people are missing.

The second day of being stranded, a third telegram was sent – Hurry up and save us, he's about to be resurrected.

Third day of being stranded, the fourth and final telegram came – Hurry up and help us, he's climbing out...

After that, there was no more news.

Three days later, the rescuers finally entered that small mountain village, however... there was no sound in the village, not a single person, not even a dog or a cat was present... there were neither birds flying, nor insects chirping, it was deathly silent.

Rescuers searched the village, but found nothing. It was only when they found a church in the north-west of the village that they discovered something strange.

Behind the church was a cemetery.

Rescuers found that one of the graves had been dug up, and there was a hole in the coffin. The coffin was full of mud and sand, and all around there were traces of fingers or sharp claws grasping and scratching. And the most bizarre thing of all was that... there were footprints on the muddy ground near the grave... rather a series of footprints that walked out of the grave. According to the length and size, it is inferred that the footprints should belong to a man with a thin figure, or a woman with big feet, or... a teenager who has not reached adulthood.

The headstone in front of the grave was just a snow-white cross, without the name of the owner or an epitaph.

Once again, the entire village and the surrounding mountains were searched, and still not a single sign of a living creature was seen.

Afterwards, the police conducted a series of investigations, but ultimately failed to solve the case.

This mysterious disappearance became known as the ‘Four Telegrams’ case.

......

Twenty years later, a team of scientists and archaeologists once again went deep into this mountainous region to find the truth of that year.

After a week of investigation, the group found a cave halfway up a mountain, nearly five kilometres away from the village.

Inside the cave, there were the corpses of all the villagers. After twenty years, they had all turned into skeletons.

Among the white, dried bones, there was one thing that caught the attention of the archaeologists.

Those white bones were not randomly scattered, but were regularly arranged in the shape of a cross, and in the exact middle of the cross, there was a curled up corpse.

It was the corpse of a teenager who looked to be sixteen or seventeen years old.

The strange thing was that all the other corpses had turned into white bones, except for his body, which was just air-dried and charred.

The body was in a posture where his head was buried between his legs, while his hands were wrapped around his knees in an arched position. The bones were completely twisted with the posture, forming a wheel shape.

One of the archaeologists, who was studying the customs of Eastern Europe, took one look at the scene and cried out in surprise, "The Wheel of Caleb!"

2013, early March.

Several staff members look helplessly at a luggage trolley in the gift-packing area of Terminal 3 at London's Heathrow Airport.

The luggage trolley was piled high with large and small bags of gifts that needed to be packed, and on top of the luggage, sat a young man.

He was an Asian man with short black hair and fair skin, appearing to be in his mid-twenties, with delicate, three-dimensional features and a slender figure. He was wearing a blue cashmere coat with white trousers and a camel-coloured chequered scarf with a rather distinctly British style. Anyone passing by would give him a second glance, the young man was as pretty as a porcelain figure. Travelling souvenirs? So extravagant.

But unlike the other passengers who were so excited, the young man on the luggage trolley had a bored look on his face. He was yawning, lazily leaning on the pile of gifts, and looking at a book written in an unknown language.

Who was this? It was none other than Zhan Zhao, who had finished recharging his batteries after ending his long holiday.

However, in the opinion of Zhan Zhao, the one who was recharged was Bai Yutang... he himself had not relaxed his body at all apart from relaxing his mind, but instead had increased the amount of excessive exercise thus leading to muscle aches and pains.

Zhan Zhao yawned again and cursed – that indulgent rat!

"Sir, please make way."

At this time, a somewhat oddly accented English came from behind Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao turned around and saw a young woman, who was also Asian, with a doll face and short hair and glasses, wearing a black slip dress with a black coat, looking somewhat conservative...

Behind her there were many people, who seemed to be escorting a large box. The box was presumably some special item, which was why a staff member took them through a special passageway to the side, and Zhan Zhao's luggage car happened to be blocking the way.

The two sides looked at each other, and Zhan Zhao froze – this girl looked very familiar!

"Ah! Dr Zhan!" That girl became excited, clapping her hands together, "It's been a long time!"

Zhan Zhao stroked his chin, searched through his memory bank for about three seconds, and remembered that he had seen her at a certain academic exchange conference, and that this woman should be a graduate student in archaeology named Song Jiajia, though he didn't know if she had graduated yet.

Zhan Zhao nodded, and was about to get down from the luggage cart... At this time, a white figure ran over from the side, pushing Zhan Zhao together with the luggage cart forward, making way.

The person who came was dressed in a white trench coat, with short hair and sunglasses. He had a handsome appearance as well as... an eye-catching figure.

Bai Yutang pushed the luggage trolley with one hand and held a bag in his other, handing it to Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao took a glance, there were two meat rolls and two cups of coffee inside.

Holding the coffee in one hand and the meat rolls in the other, Zhan Zhao opened his mouth – chomp.

Originally, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were returning to S City from their holiday today, but because of the weather, their flight was delayed by four hours. Thus, the two who had nothing to do experienced a long wait. Zhan Zhao bought an odd book from the bookstore, sat on the luggage cart lazily, and refused to walk. Bai Yutang had to push him around, those who could enjoy the same treatment were generally children less than ten years old... However, Zhan Zhao's appearance was really too pleasing to the eye, and the laziness appeared to be like that of a cat, so there was no sense of incongruity when he was leaning on the luggage cart. It didn't draw any sideways glances, but it did draw a few whistles from travellers from passionate and spirited countries.

But the wait was a bit long, and that lazy cat said he was hungry again, so Bai Yutang ran to get him some food.

Zhan Zhao curiously looked at the huge wooden box that Song Jiajia and the others were pushing and asked, "What is this?"

Song Jiajia said slightly mysteriously, "A corpse!"

The corners of Zhan Zhao's mouth twitched and he looked at the sky. Gongsun should love this, but unfortunately, he and Brother should be on Bai Jintang's private jet at this time, rushing back to S City, he didn't know what Gongsun had been up to lately. Zhan Zhao remembered that Gongsun was still dissatisfied when he spoke to him on the phone a few days ago, saying, "What kind of holiday ah, it's even more tiring than overtime work."

Because the shipment required a lot of formalities, while the staff was busy, Song Jiajia was chatting with Zhan Zhao on the side.

"What kind of corpse?" Zhan Zhao was curious, "A mummy or an ancient corpse that's going for research?"

"Neither, the corpse is only twenty years old." Song Jiajia raised an eyebrow at Zhan Zhao.

Zhan Zhao was confused, "What research value does a twenty year old corpse have?"

Song Jiajia mysteriously asked Zhan Zhao, “Dr. Zhan, have you heard of the Wheel of Caleb?"

Zhan Zhao was startled, and then remembered a report on the ‘Four Telegrams’ case that he had read a few days ago, so he looked at Song Jiajia, "Oh... that archaeologist on that report wouldn't be you, would it? "

Song Jiajia smiled proudly, "We received a lot of scientific research funds, and we're going to bring a corpse to China to do a fluoroscopy this time!"

"What Wheel of Caleb?" Bai Yutang put away his things and waited on the side, and hearing the dialogue between the two, he asked curiously.

"The Wheel of Caleb is a form of witchcraft." Song Jiajia had long heard of Bai Yutang's great reputation. She had only met Zhan Zhao before and had never seen this legendary handsome man, but now that she had a look, he was really extraordinary. Seeing a beautiful man in a good mood, she began to introduce Bai Yutang to some history and folklore, "If a person's grudge is too heavy after being buried in the ground, their body will gradually bend in their coffin and take the form of a wheel, this process is called the Wheel of Caleb Formation Ceremony. When the ceremony is completed, the body will awaken and peel open the grave to take revenge, and when this is finished, they will return to the wheel shape they were in before they came out of the coffin and fall into a deep sleep. In many Eastern European folklore, there are descriptions of demons who dig open graves to raise the dead, which is one of the origins of vampire legends. And in the first case of raising the dead, the one who raised the dead was called Caleb, so it was named the Wheel of Caleb."

Bai Yutang didn't think it sounded logical, so he asked, "That means they were already dead when they were buried in the ground?"

"Yes!" Song Jiajia nodded.

"And then rose from the dead and crawled out?" Bai Yutang then asked.

"Yes." Song Jiajia nodded again.

"And then fell asleep after taking revenge?" Bai Yutang wondered.

"Yes!" Song Jiajia said seriously, "The Wheel of Caleb is not a human being, it is already a demonic creature. Its purpose is to take revenge, and after it has done so, it will fall asleep. But it must be very careful during its slumber, and it especially can't be allowed to get close to people with too many grievances or too much evil... otherwise, it will wake up once again. And when it wakes up this time, it won't be a person who is taking revenge, but a downright evil demon."

Zhan Zhao stroked his chin, invariably interested in such mysterious events, "So linking back to the four telegrams incident back then, this teenaged dry corpse is the person who resurrected as mentioned in the telegrams that crawled out of the grave back then, and he was the one who killed all the villagers to avenge the deaths, and then fell asleep?"

Song Jiajia laughed and patted Zhan Zhao, "Theoretically that's what happened, but if you tell it to the general public like that, it would be a detective mystery novel not archaeology. It's probably some sort of custom, or a more bizarre event happened, but no one believes in things like raising the dead."

Zhan Zhao laughed and nodded..

At this time, the X-ray inspection charts from before the body was packed came out, and Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang curiously followed Song Jiajia to have a look.

Sure enough, in the box, there was a body that was hugging its knees and bowing its head, curled up in a complete circle.

Bai Yutang frowned slightly, "A person can stretch themselves to such an angle?"

"With difficulty, they were probably forced into this position." Song Jiajia said.

Bai Yutang suddenly remembered that there was a case about ‘box corpses’ a long time ago. Why do living people like to bend dead people's corpses so much?

After the Ministry of Rites and Ceremonies finished packing, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang ate their meat rolls and took a stroll for a while to digest, and finally... could ascend to the throne.

Coincidentally, Song Jiajia, along with a few foreign learners, took the same flight to S City with Zhan Zhao and the others.

Zhan Zhao was curious, "Sent to S City to study?"

"Yes, the university in S City has a very advanced set of fluoroscopic scanning equipment that can help us scan the interior of the corpse."

Zhan Zhao nodded and asked, "Can Gongsun pay a visit?"

“Dr. Gongsun is an excellent anthropologist, if he's interested then of course he's welcome. It just so happens that with his forensic science expertise, he can help us analyse the cause of this young man's death."

As she spoke, the plane took off smoothly.

Zhan Zhao spent the long flight in a deep sleep, it was just the right time to catch up on his sleep.

Bai Yutang flipped through the strange book he had been reading... The unknown text on it, Bai Yutang couldn't understand a single word, only understanding that the illustrations were all different kinds of bloody

Zhan Zhao wore an eye mask and covered himself with a blanket as he slept.

Bai Yutang looked at him and reflected to himself, was it caused by overindulging during the holiday period? He didn't know if Zhan Zhao's mental state was suitable for work. Anyway, yesterday he called and asked Bao Sir, there were no new tricky cases recently, so he would simply let Zhan Zhao sleep for two more days.

In the early hours of the morning, the plane landed smoothly at the S City airport.

Bai Yutang pulled the still dazed Zhan Zhao up, and the two of them got off the plane to get their luggage amidst the gentle and somewhat mechanical farewells of the flight attendants.

"Ha-ah~" Zhan Zhao sat on a suitcase and watched the conveyor belt slowly revolve. Bai Yutang stood next to him and waited for all the luggage to arrive while he called the twins and asked them to find someone to drive to the airport to pick them up.

As he was talking, he heard a scream in the distance.

The twins have not yet woken up, but heard the screams through the phone. Da Ding was calling the driver, and Xiao Ding was wearing a sleeping cap and holding Luban as he yelled into the phone, "Wow... what kind of constitution do you guys have? You just got off the plane and there's a miserable scream, sure enough it's not the boss's problem, it's the two of you."

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao tilted their faces up to look... The screams were coming from a special passageway upstairs.

Bai Yutang fetched the last few pieces of travelling gifts and noticed that there was a constant stream of airport security rushing over, the situation seemed a bit strange.

Just then, someone could be seen stumbling out of the special passageway, looking towards the luggage area from the catwalk, and catching a glimpse of Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang, they immediately waved, "Captain Bai, Dr. Zhan!"

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang took a look and realised that it was Song Jiajia – she had been prepared to exit through the special passageway with the staff after picking up the Wheel of Caleb so she had already said her goodbyes earlier, why was she chasing after them again?

Song Jiajia looked panicked as she waved at Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang.

The two of them temporarily stored their travelling gifts and ran upstairs.

At this moment, there were quite a few people gathered upstairs, mostly the airport's security and staff. Several foreign scholars were speaking in various accents of English and broken Chinese, dealing with the airport staff. From their expressions, the emotions of the group of scholars could be summarised as – disappointed, dissatisfied, panicked and confused.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang followed Song Jiajia to the exit. Song Jiajia pointed to the box that had been X-rayed before getting loaded onto the plane earlier and had been packed and reinforced layer by layer in front of Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang's eyes to seal the Wheel of Caleb, and surprisingly, it was broken.

Zhan Zhao squatted down to take a look. A large hole had been broken in the box, and judging from the condition of the outer packaging, the hole had been dug from the inside out, and there was nothing inside the box at this time!

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang glanced at each other.

Zhan Zhao asked, "Where's the Wheel of Caleb?"

Song Jiajia spread her hands, "It's gone! Gone!"

Zhan Zhao slightly tilted his head and looked at the box that was in a weird state – could it be that that Wheel of Caleb had come to life and escaped?

‿︵‿︵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: October 28, 2023 by Angel

Edited: November 16, 2023 by Angel